Page 58 of This Divine Revelry

‘Well, I’m not sure it was worth all you went through for it, but, yes, the plan seems to be working. I can feel more power trickling in every moment that the tale of our marriage spreads. So what did you have in mind?’

‘Can you curse me?’

‘I do, several times a day. Would you care to be more specific?’

‘Like Hera did.’

He stares at me, lips thinning into a pale line. ‘Excuse me?’

‘If we think I have some sort of power, I’d rather experiment with someone I trust rather than wait for the next god to strike me down.’

Dionysus climbs to his feet, urgent and fevered. ‘No more gods are going to be striking you down!’

‘I’d prefer not to take that risk.’

‘It’s not a risk. It never would have happened in the first place if I’d just thought for two fucking seconds about why Artemis would suddenly appear at our wedding – what, like she’d care so much about our shorn hair?’

‘That was not your fault.’

‘Yes, it was! I can’t lead a group and then put them all in danger like that! No one is going to curse you again! I promise.’

‘False.’

We turn – no creaking floorboards to warn of his approach because he flutters above the deck, winged sandals hovering. Just as I’m about to comment on their apparent recalibration, they suddenly halt and Hermes falls to the floor, skimming his knee across the boards and scrambling to his feet.

‘If you don’t curse her, I will,’ he says smoothly, like his landing was utterly seamless.

Dionysus jolts forward, jaw tense as he glowers at his brother.

Hermes glares right back. ‘It’s an excellent idea. I don’t know if it’s bravado or wishful thinking but there are plenty of gods who might want to punish your new wife. She’s going up against Theseus, which won’t please Poseidon. Hera’s bound to discover her curse didn’t work, and then what – she’ll send a monster if you’re lucky and if you’re not she’ll shift the curse in a way that gets past whatever discrepancy is at play here. And that’s not mentioning the fact that if Ariadne does have some sort of power, that would be awfully convenient against Theseus, Perseus and who knows what other upstart bastards covet your place on Olympus. Don’t be an idiot. If you love her, help her.’

Dionysus glances between us both, as though searching for a way out. Finally his eyes land on me.

‘Please don’t make me hurt you.’

I turn to Hermes, who shrugs. ‘My offer stands.’

‘Alright,’ I say, pushing my shoulders back and trying to pretend this doesn’t terrify me. ‘How would you like to torment me first?’

I’d spent a week on Theseus’s ship and only made it halfway to Athens before we wound up on Naxos. This is, Dionysus insists, because Theseus is an appalling sailor who relies too much on his father’s affiliation with the sea and doesn’t know how to actually hoist a sail.

He says all this while waving his dolphins on, not a sail in sight.

At any rate, he expects we’ll arrive tonight. Which gives us a full day with little else to do but experiment.

We set up at the bow, Hermes circling me, waving his hands as though warming up his powers, and Myrto sitting on the floor with a wax tablet clutched in her hand to document our findings. Dionysus grips the rail at the edge of the ship, watching us with an already displeased scowl though we haven’t even begun.

At once, Hermes shoots his hands out and whispers something I don’t catch.

My hands itch. Is that it? Or am I just imagining some effect?

‘Well? Did it work?’ I ask.

Hermes frowns, tilting his head this way and that. ‘Touch something.’

How ominous. I look around for something unimportant, just in case my touch turns it to stone or sets it on fire. I settle on the spoon resting in my empty soup bowl.

It blazes hot beneath my touch. I flinch back, watching as the molten heat solidifies into smooth, shining metal. Gold.