He stood and slipped away, never looking back. Helplessly, I watched him go, feeling as though I stood on a distant shore as he drifted further and further away.
Jason had spoken to me so tenderly after Lemnos, but now he was a locked door. Without conversation there could be no connection, no more than a tree could take root in sandy soil. Jason was kind and good, a man of his word, someone who had tragically lost control of a delicate situation. But if he could not talk to me, how could there be anything true between us?
A new possibility occurred to me, a great and terrible fear: that Jason had worn the mask of the competent captain for so long he had forgotten who he was without it.
By dusk, it became obvious that theArgowould not come ashore that night, presumably to avoid risking another incident like the one with the Bebrycians. By now I knew the deprivation that came with spending the night on the ship: no fires, no hot food, and sleeping on a wooden deck that was much less comfortable than the soft earth. I was glad when Atalanta came up from the oars and joined me beneath the blankets as she had the night before.
I rolled over to face her, our noses only a few finger widths apart. “What happened earlier today,” I began, speaking softly so that the others could not hear, “on the island of the Bebrycians, it—”
“Was a travesty,” Atalanta finished, hot breath misting my face. “We could easily have told Amycus to shove it and set sail. But no, Jason had to prove his respect for foolish laws and the others wanted to vent their spleen. Now a dozen men are dead because of us. Senseless waste.”
I lifted my head, looking out at the Argonauts curled up to sleep on the deck—those who weren’t serving their shift at the oars, which churned day and night to bring us to Circe.
“It makes me angry,” I said, half surprised at my own reaction. “None of the men will ever pay for their actions, for killing in cold blood. Not like me, who killed only once and was cursed with miasma for it.”
“To be fair, none of them killed their own brother. And none is a witch.”
“Are you defending them, or criticizing me?” I replied hotly.
“Neither, merely describing the distinction. If they were witches, perhaps they would suffer as you do.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I replied morosely. “I am not a witch anymore.”
“On the contrary. I think you are more of a witch than ever. What is a witch but someone who wields power she isn’t allowed to have?”
Her answer startled me; I’d never thought of myself as particularly powerful. Yet hadn’t I defied Aeetes and held back the Colchian fleet? Even now theArgosailed toward an island in the western sea at my urging. If that wasn’t power, what was?
Atalanta was still speaking. “The men on the Calydonian boar hunt called me a witch, and I’ve never had magic like yours. You are a witch with or without it.”
Her observation warmed me, bringing a smile to my lips. It soon faded as something else occurred to me. “Am I... am I like her?” I asked, my voice small. “Hypsipyle, I mean.” After all, I’d killed my brother, just as she had killed her father.
Atalanta pondered this silently for a long time, long enough that I began to worry she’d fallen asleep. “No,” she said finally. “What you did, you did to save us all. What Hypsipyle did benefits no one in the long run except herself. Besides, that boy was already dying. You merely cut short his suffering.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Atalanta’s words echoed my thoughts: that what I had done to Absyrtos was horrible and ugly... and something I would do all over again, if it would save Jason’s life and Atalanta’s and the rest of the Argonauts. In a world where violence was common currency, sometimes such things were necessary.
I rolled over to sleep. Just as I was drifting off, Atalanta’s voice startled me awake.
“You saved us all from the Colchian fleet,” she said. “But you did it for him, really, didn’t you?”
For Jason,she did not say. Wordlessly, I nodded.
“Be careful how much you sacrifice for him,” Atalanta murmured. Her back was to mine, and I could not see her face. “Hewill take endlessly without giving anything in return. He is an abyss in which you might lose yourself.”
Her words roused my anger at first. But then I recalled the flat, masklike expression Jason’s face had taken on when I went to comfort him. How could one love a mask?
I recalled my long-ago spell in the moonlit garden to draw unconditional love, a foolish endeavor but a testament to the desperate hunger I’d felt all my life. And I knew with cold certainty that if I’d finally found that love, there was nothing I would not be willing to sacrifice for it, no part of myself I would not lose.
33
Jason
Two days after the incident with the Bebrycians, Jason is shaken from sleep by the sound of the hull jarring into rock. He feels it in his bones, as if the gods have bound the ship’s well-being to his. An ugly, teeth-grating noise.
As Jason runs up the stairs, he can hear Tiphys and Ancaeus arguing.
“Idiot!” Ancaeus shouts. “You’ve run us right into the Planctae.”
The Planctae, the Wandering Rocks. They earn their name from the way they appear to float in the water, though in truth this is an optical illusion concealing a rocky shoal. A cursory glance confirms Jason’s worst fears: TheArgois wedged in among them.
