The name snagged on something in my memory. Abruptly I was transported back to an Iolcan courtroom, surrounded by hateful eyes. Recognition snapped into place: Alcestis was one of the daughters of Pelias.
“I know her,” I said haltingly. The silence stretched and grew, heavy with unspoken things. I’d never told Atalanta the details of Pelias’s death, only that Jason and I had been exiled from Iolcus because of it.
Atalanta was looking at me, head tilted expectantly. There had been distance enough between us, and so much lost time. It would be easy to change the subject, but I wanted there to be no secrets between her and me. Save for the most necessary ones, of course.
Hesitantly, I detailed the story of Pelias’s death. When I finished, Atalanta was staring at me in a sideways manner, her lip curled.
“You tricked his daughters into killing him?” Atalanta said, looking at me as though I were something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her sandal. “His own daughters?”
“Well, yes,” I huffed, old humiliation rising up once again. For years I’d lived under the burden of guilt, trying to make apology to Jason for my actions. It was galling to receive censure from Atalanta as well. “No need for me to wield the knife or spill a drop of Pelias’s blood and risk miasma. Quite clever, really. I thought a hunter like you would recognize that.”
“Not very clever if the court found you guilty in the end,” she pointed out.
I flinched. Atalanta never did coat her words in honey.
“Pelias was a tyrant and a murderer and a usurper,” I insisted. “He deserved his fate.”
“Yes. But his daughters didn’t.”
A sound of frustration tore from my throat. I wanted Atalantato understand me, as she always had before. “You once told me that a witch is someone who wields power she isn’t supposed to have. Why do you fault me for acting like a witch, when you always knew I was one?”
(I had not been a true witch for some time, but Atalanta didn’t need to know that.)
“This isn’t power, it’s just cruelty,” Atalanta replied. She was sitting with her hands folded, considering the flagstones once more. “Pelias might have deserved his death, but the girls didn’t deserve to be the instruments of it. It’s cruel, Medea. You always were cunning, but you were never deliberately cruel.”
Her words made me reel. “It’s no worse than anything the male heroes have done,” I pointed out.
“But it’s no better either. And do you really want to takethemas your standard?” Atalanta inquired, indicating the collective with a jerk of her head.
She chewed over her next words. After some deliberation, she said, “It’s something Hypsipyle would have done.”
Hypsipyle, the Lemnian queen who ordered the deaths of all the men and enslaved women on her island. Outrage and fear warred within me. Outrage at Atalanta’s characterization of my actions, and fear that it might drive her away.
Atalanta did not move. She looked at me, not with judgment but with tender compassion. “You aren’t in Aeetes’s house anymore, you know,” she said gently. “You don’t have to live by his rules.”
Her soft tone scalded me more than her chiding. Unwilling to consider this line of questioning any further, I announced my departure for bed.
In the morning, I came out to find Atalanta in the courtyard as usual. Before I could apologize for my comportment the nightbefore, she spoke. “I don’t want to spend time arguing,” she said, studying a patch of dirt near her knees. “I have said my part and will not speak on it further.”
So we set the conflict aside. That day, we brought a lunch out beyond the walls of the city, and I was given a glimpse of a world that might have been. Atalanta sat with me under the trees, watching Mermerus and Pheres swing sticks at each other. I laid my head on her shoulder and felt a peace I had never known.
Of course, it did not last.
One morning, a week or so after her arrival, I came into the courtyard to see that Atalanta’s few possessions had been bundled up neatly, and she wore the same dusty riding leathers as on the day of her arrival. My heart sank.
Atalanta stood next to her bundled possessions, one foot scuffing the dirt. “It is time for me to go,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “I miss my forests, and I am not meant for the city. But I have enjoyed this time with you very much.”
A mournful cry rose up in my throat, and I bit my lip to stifle it. “You won’t stay here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “This is not my home.”
But it could be,I thought fervently.You could make it your home.
Despite my disappointment, I would not beg. I already knew the futility of it; Atalanta’s stubbornness was quite literally legendary. She kept her own counsel and moved according to her own unknowable whims, and her mind could not be changed by outside forces. She had arrived unannounced like a strange breeze, and she would leave the same way. Despite my disappointment, I would not ruin what I loved most by trying to control her.
“Wait until the boys are awake, at least,” was all I asked.
The twins took Atalanta’s departure hard. Mermerus burst into tears, while Pheres stormed away into the depths of thehouse. He soon returned, though, and both boys threw their arms around Atalanta. She kissed the tops of their heads, telling them to be good and always listen to their mother.
