Page 154 of Styx

Pallas gave him an indulgent smile.

‘You are needed.’

‘Oh,’ the boy said sulkily,

‘I did not expect you to call upon me

at this time. I was raining down on a

village with a perfect thunderstorm.’

Now this irritable nephew of Pallas and Perses

was a child after my own heart.

‘Notus,’ Perses said to him, more impatient

than Pallas, ‘we need you to take us

to where the bright-dark feast is held.’

The boy grumbled but raised his hand,

and a small hurricane expanded into

one so large it looked terrifying.

Perhaps I was mistaken about this boy.

The idea of travelling by hurricane

did not seem all that appealing.

But as the others stepped inside,

Pallas held out his hand to me,

the last of us outside the stormy winds.

I turned to look at Atlas, who smiled at me.

‘Thank you, great one,’ I said.

And with that, I walked into

the hurricane’s swirls,

hoping that this would be

the only time I travelled this way.

A Revelation

Of the three ways we had travelled

by the winds of the Anemoi,

without a doubt, the hurricane