Page 133 of This Divine Revelry

‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

She smiles, but it’s sad. I can feel the sadness, like it bleeds into the air. ‘I don’t remember that. But you never seem to forget the moment of the end. The pain. The regret.’

No. I cannot let my memories slip away, one after the next until I forget who I am. I’ve fought too hard, suffered too much – and I cannot be a story so forgotten I cannot even retain it myself.

And I cannot become only that moment – Dionysus’s eyes on mine as he begged me not to go.

‘I’m going to find a way out,’ I say. I’ll make one if I have to. I’ll forge the path ahead whether it wants to unfurl for me or not. ‘For all of us.’

Enough. Enough feeling crushed and trapped at every turn. How often have I longed to bring the walls down entirely? To chip away until the whole spiral collapses?

I refuse to stop, even down here.

The woman laughs. ‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t say no.’

‘Good. I feared you might call it futile.’

Something flickers through her hazy form, some brief glimpse of who she once might have been. ‘A shadow of a life is better than none at all. But we’d all take that full vibrancy if we could – so if there’s a chance … Nothing sustains you like hope down here. It feels like the first thing the bastards want to snatch from us poor forgotten souls on the banks of the Acheron. So I never gave mine up. I hope you do find an escape – a story like that? Of a girl making her way out? That could give a few more of us something to cling to.’

Oh Fates, that’s a lot – but yes, yes! I’m doing this!

‘I’m Ariadne,’ I say – because I can. Because right now I remember it still.

‘Ariadne,’ she repeats. ‘I’ll try to remember it in case you can’t. Good luck.’

‘Thank you,’ I say – and then I turn and start walking.

There is no itch in my gut telling me which way to go, no answer it can lead me to.

But I walk anyway.

Out along the marshy banks, until the mud crumbles and grass begins spilling in earnest, and not the dry brittle type I had imagined of the Underworld but lush, verdant and green. Flowers spring up along the riverbank, small freckled specks that grow in frequency, and I’m surprised to see how well they flourish, here where nothing is supposed to live.

But of course – Persephone is its queen. The goddess of flowers and spring, spending her winters in the Underworld.

I still.

Theseus came to kidnap Persephone. He can’t have succeeded, not for the Underworld to still be in bloom like this. So maybe they caught him.

Maybe he’s still here.

I could finally stop him – bind him.

A lurch in my gut, a need to veer left. A direction.

Oh … oh, it’s tempting.

I’m supposed to be looking for a way out …

But …

I could prevent him ever returning to hurt the girls who remain.

Oh fine, very well.

If I can achieve nothing else, I will take the vengeance I am owed.

I will be the final line in his story if the Fates would rob me of my own.