Aphrodite’s eyes narrowed. Her lips pulled back from her teeth and colour appeared high on her cheeks. ‘It was always you, wasn’t it, pulling the strings from the shadows?’ she spat. ‘Ares, Hephaestus, and now my dear sweet Adonis. I will tolerate no more betrayals.’
‘Really, Mother,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
I should have known better than to lie. Despite my skill for trickery, I have never been very good at outright mistruths. Desire does not lie.
Aphrodite drew herself up to her full height. ‘I swear to you,’ she snarled in a voice like the earth shattering. ‘I will find the thing you love most in the world and destroy it.’
Nothing moved in the house, not even the smallest of the cats. Her head high, not looking at me, Aphrodite crossed to a window. White wings sprouted from her back, arching to brush the ceiling. Her body telescoped to assume the shape of a dove, and she fluttered out through the open window, though not before she defecated pointedly on my floor.
Once she was gone, I jolted into action.Psyche. I had to find Psyche. I ran from room to room, frantic with terror, wondering if I would find Psyche dangling from the rafters or dismembered on my marble floors, a parting gift from Aphrodite. But instead I found nothing at all, which was even worse.
A breeze burst through one of the open windows. It coalesced into the shape of Zephyrus, who held a tiny form cupped in his hands. A butterfly.
‘Gently, gently,’ he said to me. The butterfly’s wings beat weakly. ‘She’s exhausted herself. Fetch a glass.’
I did so. Zephyrus performed the complicated manoeuvre of transferring the contents of his hands to the upturned glass. Once he had accomplished this, both of us leaned down to peer at the tiny black-and-gold creature fluttering inside.
‘Zephyrus,’ I began. ‘I don’t suppose that’s my wife, is it?’
Zephyrus gave a sunny grin. ‘You are correct, my dear Eros. She tried a bit of the moly tincture I got from Circe, and, as you can see, it seems that the shape of her soul is a butterfly. It’s rather funny, don’t you think? A fierce thing like her, nothing but—’
‘Zephyrus.’ I was losing my patience. ‘Turn her back immediately!’
I carried the jar into the darkened bedroom, mindful of the love curse. Once we were enclosed in darkness, I felt rather than saw Zephyrus make a gesture in the air.
And then Psyche was in my arms, gasping for breath againstmy chest. She clutched at me, trying to steady herself, and I held her desperately. For all her fierceness she was impossibly delicate, her limbs like sapling trees that might be snapped in a strong wind. The curse sang in my blood, fear turning to elation. Psyche, alive and unharmed, restored to me at last.
Dimly, I heard the glass roll away to some distant corner of the room.
‘Th-that …’ The words sounded thick and heavy on Psyche’s tongue as she struggled to adjust to her human body once more. I stroked her back, hoping to calm her. What an ordeal she must have experienced! Of course she would be frightened and confused.
‘That … was amazing!’ she finally managed. ‘Incredible! Can I do it again?’
I was certain I had misheard her, but Psyche tried to sit up and swayed with the effort. I eased her back down again.
‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ I said darkly, noting that Psyche was even odder than I initially realized. ‘Transformation is taxing for a mortal. You might forget you were ever anything other than a butterfly, drifting in the wind. You need to sleep. I’ll stay with you until you do.’
Psyche’s excitement faded as physical exhaustion won out. I eased her onto the bed and carefully settled the blankets around her, stroking her hair. It was not long before her breathing slowed.
‘Perhaps I should leave?’ Zephyrus piped up from a darkened corner of the room.
I was irritated at his carelessness, but I understood how differently this evening might have gone if Aphrodite had found Psyche alone. Cold terror sluiced through me like seawater.
‘Not yet,’ I told Zephyrus. ‘Your trick with the moly, unacceptable as it was, has opened new possibilities. It seems thatPsyche and I can indeed look upon each other, so long as one of us wears a face that isn’t our own.’
‘New possibilities, and new limitations as well,’ Zephyrus remarked. ‘Such a waste that your new bride cannot look upon your handsome face. The only blessing is that she does not know, or her sadness would be unrelenting.’
I grimaced. ‘I think it is indeed time for you to leave,’ I said.
Zephyrus departed in a swirl of air that left the door swinging back and forth. I held my head in my hands and considered the situation. Psyche would never really know me, never look upon the face that so many worshipped, and I found myself strangely relieved by that fact.
But how did I make her stay? Something must give, something must change. We could not skirt the edge of this curse forever.
I loved Psyche, a fact over which I had no choice, but I did notunderstandher. Already she had proved unwieldy, willing to take unknown potions from questionable strangers. And her wild enthusiasm for monster hunting struck me as tiresome at best and bizarre at worst. Was this what all mortals were like? I knew so little of them. I needed to speak with someone who understood mortals, who could show me how to keep Psyche safe.
An idea struck me like a bolt of Zeus’s lightning. There was one god who understood mortals better than any other, who once drank ambrosia on my terrace before his long imprisonment.
Prometheus would know what to do.
