Page 137 of This Divine Revelry

He butts it with his chin but I force it back. If there is revenge to be found, this is it.

The water spills across his lips. He coughs and splutters but some of those drops certainly make it down his throat. And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway; maybe one touch is all that is needed.

‘You have monsters to face,’ I say, pushing his hair back from his face so that I might look more clearly into his eyes. ‘You will be better for it.’

I bring my hand to his forehead, focus, and the walls of the labyrinth rise before us. He is no longer tied to the rock but standing before me, facing the winding path.

Free of his bonds, he shoves me hard against the stone.

He pins me there, frantically wiping at his mouth like he would draw the Lethe back out of it. Already a scowl is forming, his rage confused, like he can’t quite grasp why he despises me so. Like I – and everything else – am already slipping from his memories.

He presses his forearm into my neck. ‘What is this place? I … I’ve been here before.’

Not quite. This isn’t the labyrinth he once faced nor the brief glimpse I once pulled him into. It is solid and unwavering – the twisting, winding route a conjuring of his own mind.

‘It is many things,’ I say, wasting my dwindling breath on these final words. ‘For you, I hope it will be a lesson.’

I pull myself out, envisioning that spiralling thread I once handed to him tied about my core, yanking me free.

I step back to the plane of the Underworld, Theseus still bound to the rock, his eyes rolled back in his head, seeing not me but the winding path. The inevitable exit. The monsters along the way.

I pull my hand back, drop the shell and walk away.

‘Ariadne.’

I look up into a labyrinth of my own – the only destination I’ve ever wanted: radiant, arresting and staring right at me.

‘Dionysus.’

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

IWANT NOTHING MORE THAN to run up and hurl myself at him.

Instead I clap my hands over my ears, screw my eyes shut and summon everything I have discovered about my power and easing myself into reality. Show me the way out of this. Lead me to the entrance, the exit, past the things that haunt me.

‘Ariadne,’ Dionysus says again, closer now. And then his hands are prising mine away from my head, refusing to allow me to block him out. He entwines our fingers, draws me close and, in surrender, I open my eyes.

If this is a conjuring of the Underworld, then very well.

But if he is something of theirs – some remnant of paradise come to guide me there or some luring temptation of Tartarus reaching out to claw me back – then why are his eyes so heavy, his cloak tattered, his hair scraped back and bound, frizzing at the edges.

I reach a shaking hand out to that face, feeling the warmth of his skin, the slight stubble at his jaw, the escaped strands of hair.

‘Tell me you’re real,’ I beg. I’m not even sure I would believe it, but I need to hear it.

He scowls.

‘I came all this way to yell at you for making me kill you – not to defend my own existence when you’re the one who’s translucent.’

I drop my hand. ‘I didn’t make you kill me!’

‘So you didn’t drag me round to face you while I unleashed my true immortal form?’

‘I … Yes, but only so you weren’t looking at the head of a gorgon. You’d just said monsters could kill gods.’

‘The ceiling was an option. The floor. You could have just told me to shut my eyes. A variety of options that weren’t killing my wife!’

‘You were in danger! My only thought was to save you.’