Page 76 of This Divine Revelry

So we let go and I step back.

‘If we were anywhere else …’ I say. Somewhere I trusted myself more, perhaps …

‘I know,’ he says, nodding too. ‘I know.’

Does he want that too?

Or is that sadness lacing his words because if we were elsewhere, he’d have to break us apart entirely to stop the fall?

There is not all that much else to show him. The places, yes. I take him to my classroom, to the courtyard with its huge, sprawling olive tree and to the room where the women weave. Men aren’t supposed to go there, but it doesn’t even occur to me that might be a problem – Dionysus is not a man, so clearly something without such easily containable definitions – but he presents himself as one and for a moment I’m baffled when the guard holds an arm out to stop him entering.

‘Can you weave?’ I ask as we walk the smaller courtyards instead. Dionysus blurs all the lines I was taught to draw in the world and it would not surprise me if weaving illicit scenes into tapestries were a favoured pastime.

‘I know the basics. I’m more help adjusting the stone weights for someone more skilled.’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you imply you aren’t the best at everything.’

‘I’m the best stone-weight adjuster a weaver could ask for.’

I shake my head, but it’s not as irksome a response as I might have expected, and that small smile on his face as he says it makes something in my chest feel warm. That keen ache once more.

‘Why do you wear a male guise so often?’ I ask.

He shrugs. ‘I won’t pretend it’s not easier navigating the world like this. But I’m not wedded to it.’ He waves his fingers – the rings adorning him – and brushes at those shorn locks. ‘I sort of just do my own thing and everyone applies it to one box or another. I’m not sure I’ve ever thought much more about it – though, honestly, if I did think about it, it’s probably just because they let me get away with more when the costume they perceive is male. What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Womanhood.’ He gestures at me. ‘Ever thought about it?’

I blink. ‘No, not really. It just … feels right, I suppose.’

‘Yeah.’ Dionysus nods. ‘I don’t really feel anything when I’m choosing how the world perceives me – it’s the underneath, the meness of it all that makes me feel something.’

As we round the corner, I freeze.

Laughter. Two girls, giggling.

Dionysus doesn’t stop and I hurry to catch up.

‘Apologies, my lord.’ Two servants, bowing deep. They have tired lines beneath their eyes, dark shadows, and one looks a little queasy, but they’re still biting down on their laughter. It takes them a moment to notice it is Dionysus and then they fall over one another. ‘That was a wonderful party last night,’ one says, a little dreamily. ‘Thank you.’

And they scurry off.

Dionysus smirks, but I’m staring after them, feeling … I don’t know. Happy, I suppose. That we brought them that. But deeply sad too, that that’s all it took.

We spend the rest of the day with Glaucus, who shows off his wooden training sword where once he wielded a wooden horse. Icarus had one too, and they would play pretend, not only racing them but grooming them, petting them and loving them – a tenderness that I can already see fading in the brash sword strokes.

‘Icarus was better at this,’ he says dejectedly, and his glance at the ground tells me he knows his friend is down there, locked in the labyrinth.

Dionysus’s jaw sets – and I know that, even if I could, we will not be leaving without Daedalus and Icarus either.

We prepare for the banquet hurriedly.

Dionysus raids my wardrobe and drapes himself in silk the same shade as the ocean, rippling across his every ridge as readily as waves, while I settle for just touching up my make-up.

‘Are you alright?’ he asks, turning in alarm.

I arch a brow. ‘Yes?’