Page 107 of This Divine Revelry

‘It’s a fucking labyrinth! It’s nothing!’ My outburst surprises even me. For days now I have been keeping my voice calm even when all I have wanted to do is shout.

‘Ariadne,’ she says gently – and in that moment she sounds like my mother. Patient. And empathetic. ‘The labyrinth isn’t nothing. Hecate herself is goddess of the crossroads. You’re the counterbalance to an aspect of the goddess of magic. She represents choices. You represent the roads of destiny, the certainties ahead and the obstacles lying in wait. But labyrinths are contained – they are not everything, their walls exist within a wider world and so … you also represent the way out. Find it.’

She stands and turns her face up to the sun. ‘Stop squashing down your emotions. Embrace them. Quiet women do not alter the fates of heroes – let them hear you scream.’

I gather my friends, sending Calybe after Opora and collecting Myrto myself. I’m not sure where I stand with Zosime, only that she protected me even when she did not like me very much.

So here she is too.

‘What do you need?’ Myrto asks. And isn’t that it?

That from the first moment they were drawing me into their world, checking I had all that I needed and ensuring I had shoulders to lean on and arms to fall into and hands to hold when it all felt a bit too much.

Beyond, the thiasus swarm – and, gods, it’s all of them too. Who made sure I was fed and had music to dance to, and put joy into every breath I took. Who embraced me without question.

‘I need to use whatever magic hums through my veins to help Dionysus. But when I used it in Crete it was debilitating. I can’t risk that again and … it’s stronger, Dionysus says, when people believe in you.’

It is Zosime who gets to me first – her hand on my shoulder, her eyes intent on mine. ‘We believe in you.’

My throat is thick, the words just as swollen. But looking at my friends, I manage them. ‘I guess I’m asking for help.’

I can’t do this by myself. And perhaps my mother was right – maybe it’s not all on my shoulders.

And suddenly I’m not sure whose arms are whose because I’m clutched in them all. And it’s rousing choruses of: you can do this, and we’re here for you and there’s no one we trust more.

I push into the tent and Dionysus is caught, arguing with something that isn’t there, and I take his hand, intent on helping in any way I can.

The walls shoot up, solid and unwavering and so very real that whatever else Dionysus had been seeing he turns now, seeing the corridors encasing him and the long brick road both ahead and behind.

‘Ariadne.’ He startles. He gazes up at the towering walls. The ceiling we cannot see. ‘Where are we? What is this place?’

I turn – and yes, the path behind is just as viable an option. I glance up … The ways we would not consider taking. I think Medea may have been wrong. Labyrinths are a sort of crossroads too – a singular path, yes. But always a choice. To head back. To look up. To tear down the walls entirely. This power … it is the way forward and the choices we make. It is the escape we will find, and our destiny drawing us forth, all at once.

‘It’s the way my powers manifest. A metaphorical path of the mind.’ I flash him a smile. ‘I’m sure simpler, more straightforward powers were available. But something this absurd? This dramatic? It’s very me, don’t you think?’

‘Utterly,’ he says, and he looks at me like he can see the sun itself – burning painfully bright, and lingering long after he looks away. ‘What do we do?’

It is so difficult to look past the misery – the tired lines and dark shadows. But once I do, I find the same determination fuelling me reflected back. There’s something different about him here, something almost wavering in this dim light – but it’s his eyes I rest on. Bright and sharp – and I’m not sure I’ll ever see that precise shade of green and not feel a surge of hope spike through me.

‘I’m not sure,’ I admit. ‘I’m still figuring it out. I can’t walk the path for you. But I can take your hand and I can be by your side. I can be the thread that guides you through. I think eventually we will make it out.’

Dionysus takes a breath and looks at the path ahead. He shifts his hand so that his fingers lace between mine. ‘Well then, let’s go.’

Together, we step forward.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

IDO NOT KNOW HOW long we walk, only that it is a very long time before the path veers around itself and I cannot tell if we are following its trail to the centre or out to an exit.

When I look at Dionysus, that haziness about him appears more substantial and I smell smoke, thicker with every step. Dionysus’s fingers grip mine tight until suddenly he turns, grasping my wrist and pushing me up against the wall. I think of Theseus and our escape from Crete, but Dionysus does not merely draw me out of the way, he lingers, shielding my body with his own.

Behind him, figures charge. Women wielding long, curving knives, their eyes rolling, froth spilling from their cracked lips. Their howls echo in the labyrinth, long-suffering pleas, but they do not seem to see us. They just charge onwards – then, in their wake, centaurs gallop, similarly frenzied.

‘Oh, so that’s what this is,’ he says, letting me go.

‘What is?’

He swallows, glancing along the path. ‘I think the further we go, the more we will encounter terrors from my past.’