Page 147 of This Divine Revelry

The woman – not quite as I’d seen her, though it was difficult to tell, as faded as she was. But there are elements of her too – parts that must have settled as her clay turned to flesh, like a memory pulled from the depths: a decade or so older than I am, burnished copper hair, a smattering of freckles.

‘Zeus?’ she asks – without reverence or fear but with a strange sort of familiarity.

Zeus turns to her – and I’m expecting a rebuke. A demand for more respect. Or at least the same confusion with which he regarded me. But though it takes him a second, he seems to see past whatever differences Hephaestus’s modelling have caused – and to the heart of her.

His voice is taut. ‘Semele.’

Dionysus startles, a noise caught in the back of his throat. He stares at the woman – and oh, there is so much of him in her.

He swallows hard. ‘Hello, Mother.’

As a council member, Dionysus is given a house in the centre of the Olympian court, part of a grand string of homes that ring the palace.

It is cold, and hauntingly large, but it would be a very good place to host a party.

I even paint a spiralling labyrinth on the floor of the enormous reception hall. A dance floor – for when the time comes. I am halfway through a dance – still getting used to these new limbs – when something hot sparks within and then … a sort of tingling down my spine.

Ariadne. A gentle whisper. If the rumours are true and you haven’t come to find me already, then …

The whisper fades, only to jolt back: I’ll tell your new husband about the time you snorted mead across the Myrmidon prince.

A prayer – an offering. Food into a fire and a thought of me.

Charis – oh Fates, she is alive. And at the very least well enough for gentle threats.

Dionysus gets a message down to the thiasus and they leave to host a revelry in Mycenae and pick her up on the way.

‘We’ll get through this and escape back to them as soon as we can,’ Dionysus says. ‘Father is concerned about more mortals realizing our immortality can be bled out of us and taken as their own, so he’s got Hermes spreading rumours that Father awarded you your immortality because I asked him nicely.’

The only contact we’ve had with the thiasus was when Dionysus went to fetch Sterope, who he’s finally convinced to pull the chariot that will allow us to come and go as we please. But right now she’s lying across the floor and I’m resting my head on her stomach while idly stroking her soft fur.

I lift myself to face him – similarly sprawled out across the tiles, swirling wine about his cup, and it almost feels like we are in our tent again, down below, talking through the night.

‘Excuse me? How am I once again a way to bolster someone else’s story?’

‘Oh, I plan on rectifying it,’ he assures me. ‘Ariadne will be the first play we put on at the Dionysia. The second will be Semele because she’s getting the same treatment – though Father really has made her a goddess as part of his great vendetta to spite Hera. He has no idea it’s only working in her favour – everyone forgets she’s goddess of mothers too.’

I hum, pleased. I’m not quite confident enough in my ability to wreak chaos on unworthy kings to take on Zeus himself just yet – but maybe one day. Maybe with goddesses like Hera on side we might stand a chance.

‘And how is Semele?’ I ask. ‘You with her, I mean. I spend every day with her.’

He glances down, like it might be too much to admit. ‘I don’t think I knew how much I wanted it until I had it. I filled a whole labyrinth with snatched-away families. And you deliver one to me without even realizing it.’

‘I should have known she was your mother – she was hosting revelries on the banks of the Acheron. It all makes sense.’

‘And in here, apparently,’ he says – waving at a pile of discarded cups and the dregs of a feast.

‘We had Persephone over!’

‘While I was stuck in a council meeting,’ he grumbles.

‘Make better deals, then,’ I say smugly.

‘I still can’t believe you revealed yourselves to her so quickly. Hades is going to kill me – he was quite clear that we not tell her about your escapes!’

‘That you not tell her – I agreed nothing of the sort. Besides, she seemed just as intrigued by the fact it worked as he was. And she wants to improve the Underworld as much as Semele and I do. She said they’ve been trying to heal souls on the banks of the Acheron for years but the more humans who believe they need a coin to cross the river, the more that cements itself in the weave of the Underworld’s magic. But they’d never considered trying to bring the souls through the Phlegethon before – though she thinks a bridge or tunnel might be better than my little swim.’

He glowers. ‘I’m still angry about that.’