Page 89 of This Divine Revelry

‘Thank you,’ I say – and I wonder what it would truly be like to sit here and let my mother handle it. But that’s not who I am – and not who she made me to be either. Though maybe it doesn’t have to solely be my burden any more. ‘Will you help?’

‘Of course,’ she says without hesitation. ‘What do you need me to do?’

I am ready, waiting for Theseus in the courtyard he must pass through to reach the heart of the palace. I jump when I see him, hit with a sudden spike of fear and Zosime’s echoing words: He means to kidnap you if he must. To force you to open the labyrinth.

No specific plans that he’d shared – but that hasn’t stopped us creating a scheme of our own, drafting it and depositing it in his room for my father’s men to find. Or at least, it will be there if I can distract Theseus long enough for Hermes to plant it.

‘Ariadne!’

A great start.

‘What’s going on?’ He hurries over, his tone measured, like I am an equal, a confidante, a woman he definitely isn’t planning on kidnapping. One he definitely wouldn’t kill if it served his greater purpose. ‘There’s talk among the servants that you and I were seen together last night.’

‘I heard the same,’ I say, climbing to my feet and wringing my hands. ‘But they’re just rumours –’

‘You need to tell them that we’d never do that.’

I blink, wide innocent eyes. ‘But I thought you wanted to run off with me.’

‘I did – I do, but we have to do it carefully. You need to tell them it’s false, that –’

‘You think they’ll believe a lying little slut anyway?’ I ask, the same cold slice he’d levelled me with on the docks.

He is taken aback, but I can practically see him redouble his efforts. ‘Ariadne, you know I didn’t mean that. I just had to get you to stop. We couldn’t talk then – couldn’t agree to this. Perhaps you could ask Dionysus to declare the rumours false –’

‘And then we can make them true?’

‘We can get them to lower their guard long enough to free Daedalus,’ he snaps. ‘Use your head. We need to be practical, to strategize. Emotional volatility isn’t going to help anyone, so if you can’t calm down, can you at least trust me? You know I only want what’s best –’

‘Like you did when you left me for dead?’

‘This again?’ he huffs. ‘I explained that! You know I didn’t want to.’

‘But you planned it. Right from the start.’

He swallows. ‘Perhaps. But only for the good of my people.’

‘And did the good of your people force you to sleep with me first?’

‘I slept with you, Ariadne –’ he sneers it, a vein throbbing in his forehead – ‘because you offered. You have no one to blame but yourself.’

‘You manipulated me,’ I snap. ‘You told me you loved me, that you cared for me, that I’d be safe –’

‘I do love you! And I appreciated your help –’

‘My help? What was your plan to get out of the labyrinth?’

He puffs his chest out. ‘I conquered the beast with my own two hands.’

‘Because I drugged him! You think I don’t know he was still asleep when you killed him?’

‘Be quiet,’ he hisses, stepping forward. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I volunteered as a tribute. I walked into the labyrinth and I slayed the beast. You gave me string and opened the door. Tell me, which of those is heroic? Which of those will be made legendary? You helped.’

Door hinges whisper a groan – far, too far. I need them closer.

‘And you’re happy for me to help, right? Happy for me to plan and sing your praises and do your deeds for you just as long as you can claim the credit. Just as long as my name doesn’t eclipse yours. You lie until it gets you what you want and then you tell other men how stupid I was to believe you. Athens deserves a better king than you. It deserves someone with integrity – someone who doesn’t push their own father to suicide for the throne. You are nothing.’

His face reddens, his fists curled, but his anger twists into a sneer so that he might volley it all right back.