A hand touched my arm, and I looked up into the face of Jason. “Let me take you away from all this,” he said, “and escort you to proper chambers.”
Though he needed the help of one of Phineus’s servants, eventually Jason led me to a small but well-appointed private room, comfortable despite its thin coating of dust. He lingered, leaning against the doorframe and frowning.
“We may be here for some time,” Jason said. “I don’t know what it will take to catch or kill those beasts who descend from the sky every time Phineus tries to eat. But we have to try, if we are to earn the name of heroes.” A quirk of his mouth suggested that he was none too pleased about this obligation.
“I could help you hunt the Harpies,” I offered. “Weave some magic that might confine them. Or drug the food, so that they fall from the air like stones.” Already my mind was sifting through possibilities.
Jason’s eyes widened in alarm. “No, you must stay far away from those creatures! I want you safe, Medea. I’d never forgive myself if you were hurt.”
A bit disappointing that Jason had so little faith in my magical skills (not to mention my hard-won spear-throwing abilities), but perhaps it was best not to tangle with creatures of chthonic vengeance. Besides, it was pleasant to be treated like a prize worth protecting instead of a mere tool. The feeling of being cherished sent a flicker of warmth through my belly.
“Well,” Jason said, looking away. “I should leave you. Good night, Medea.”
The thought of being alone in this strange place was intolerable. If I had been another sort of girl, I might have invited Jason to join me under the sheets. But I had my virtue to think of, so all I did was say good night.
But it wasn’t Jason, strangely, who had become my touchstone in the darkness. Though I slept in a proper bed for the first night since leaving Colchis, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep because the comforting presence of Atalanta was not next to me.
In the morning, I went to the gardens.
Like the rest of the palace, the gardens had long ago fallen into disarray, but they were still home to all sorts of plants. Horehound, rosemary, and mint grew riotously there. Also aconite and hempflower, good for divination. No Prometheon, but that was only to be expected so far from the Caucasus Mountains.
I ran my palm over the softly scented leaves, and it felt likegreeting old friends. Using my nails, I severed the stems of a few plants and tucked them into a pouch. A little chamomile and lavender—these would be useful for making the requested sleeping potion for Heracles. And maybe a bit for myself too, I thought as I rubbed my still-sleepy eyes.
The sound of feet on the path drew my attention. I looked up to see the tall form of Atalanta come into view, and the sight of her filled me with relief. Her disappearance so soon after the shock of Procris’s death worried me, and more than that, I missed her terribly. She carried a grouse, evidence of a successful hunt, its empty eyes gazing out into space.
I gathered up my skirts and ran toward her, then slowed, not wanting to overwhelm her with my enthusiasm. “Where have you been?” I asked. “I thought you were hunting Harpies with the rest of them.”
“Last I heard, they were talking about nets.” She shook her head. “I’ve never been any good with those, so I decided to bring in some meat instead.” She indicated the grouse.
Silence stretched between us. I took in the strands of gold in Atalanta’s hair, the sharp lines of her collarbones. Her eyes that would not quite meet mine, still shadowed by grief.
“Well,” she said, turning to leave, “I should be on my way.”
“Wait!” Suddenly I was desperate to keep Atalanta with me and ease her loss—or, failing that, at least distract her from it. “Phineus is said to have a rich library, and I plan to take a look at it. You could come with me, if you have nothing better to do.”
“What is a library?”
“A house of books.”
Atalanta’s mouth twisted. “I do not belong in such a place. I never did learn how to read.”
“Really?”
“Who was there to teach me? The trees, the bears? The oldhunters who raised me never had time for a book in all their lives.” Atalanta paused, a faraway look on her face. “Procris left me a letter before she disappeared. But I couldn’t read it, so I let the wind take it. Every day, I regret this. Now those words are lost forever.”
A thoughtless thing for Procris to do, but it sparked an idea. “I could teach you. How to read and write, I mean. Here, now. It wouldn’t fix the problem of the lost letter, but at least you’d know how in the future. You taught me how to throw a spear, let me do this for you.” Feeling suddenly bashful, I added, “Maybe... maybe you and I could exchange letters after the voyage is through. The quest for the Golden Fleece is almost over, but I do not wish to go the rest of my life without ever hearing from you.”
Atalanta tilted her head in contemplation, then gave a curt nod. “I too would like that. Let me bring this”—she indicated the bird—“to the kitchens, and then I will join you in the library.”
Phineus’s library was impressive: a vast room of soaring ceilings, lined with an assortment of scrolls and clay tablets. My hands itched to sift through them and reveal their contents—poetry, history, medicine, stories from bygone times.
Atalanta craned her head to look up at the tall shelves with their honeycombed alcoves stuffed with scrolls. “I didn’t know there were so many books in the world,” she confessed. “I assumed there could not be more than three or four.”
“There are many more than this,” I said, chuckling. For all her prowess, Atalanta’s ignorance of human affairs gave her a charming air of innocence. “It is a substantial collection, but my father’s library was even larger.”
Dust motes floated in a sunbeam, and the tightly bound scrollsgave off a subtle fragrance. I breathed in the scent of papyrus, vellum, and other rarer materials, and felt more at home than I had since leaving Colchis.
I dug through stacks of scrolls until I found one in Greek, Atalanta’s language, with a suitably simple vocabulary. “Let us begin,” I said.
