Circe(41)

I picked up the old cage and stepped back. It watched me as I moved away, its head tilted with curiosity. I shut the cage door, and its ear flicked at the metallic sound. When harvest came, it would scream with rage. It would tear at the bars, trying to rip them apart.

Daedalus let out a low breath. “How did you do that?”

“It is half beast,” I said. “All the animals on Aiaia are tame.”

“Can the spell be undone?”

“Not by another.”

We locked the cage. All the while the creature watched us. It made a low noise and rubbed at a hairy cheek with one of its hands. Then we swung the wooden door of the room closed and saw no more.

“And the key?”

“I plan to throw it away. When we have to move it, I will cut the bars.”

We walked back through the twisting under-passages and up to the corridors above. In the painted hall, the breeze was blowing, and the air bright. Pretty nobles passed on every side, murmuring their secrets. Did they know what lived beneath them? They would.

“There is a feast this evening,” he said.

“I am not going,” I said. “I am finished with the court of Crete.”

“You are leaving soon, then?”

“I am at the king and queen’s mercy for that, they are the ones with the ships. But I imagine it will not be much longer. I think Minos will be glad to have one less witch on Crete. It will be good to be home.”

It was true, yet in those ornate corridors, the thought of returning to Aiaia was strange. Its hills and shore, the stone house with my garden, all seemed very distant.

“I must show my face tonight,” he said. “Yet I hope to make my excuses before the meal.” He hesitated. “Goddess, I know I presume, but will you do me the honor of dining with me?”



He had told me to come when the moon was up. His rooms were at the opposite end of the palace from my sister’s. If that was luck or design I could not say. He wore a finer cloak than I had seen him in before, but his feet were bare. He drew me to a table, poured a wine dark as mulberries. There were platters set out, heaped with fruits and a salty white cheese.

“How was the feast?”

“I am glad to be gone.” His voice was curdled. “They had a singer in, to tell the tale of the glorious bull-man’s birth. Apparently he fell from a star.”

A boy ran out from an inner room. I did not know mortal ages well then, but I think he may have been four. His black hair curled thick and wild around his ears, and his limbs were still babyishly round. He had the sweetest face I had ever seen, gods included.

“My son,” Daedalus said.

I stared. I had not even considered that Daedalus’ secret could be a child. The boy knelt, like an infant courtier.

“Noble lady,” he piped. “I welcome you to my father’s house.”

“Thank you,” I said. “And are you a good boy, for your father?”

He nodded seriously. “Oh, yes.”

Daedalus laughed. “Don’t believe a word. He looks sweet as cream, but he does what he wants.” The boy smiled at his father. It was an old joke between them.

He stayed for some time, prattling of his father’s work and how he helped. He brought out the tongs he liked to use and showed me with a practiced grip how he could hold them in the fire and not be burnt. I nodded, but it was his father I watched. Daedalus’ face had gone soft as ripe fruit, his eyes full and shining. I had never thought of having children, but looking at him, for a moment I could imagine it. As if I peered into a well and far below glimpsed a flash of water.

My sister, of course, would have seen such love in an instant.

Daedalus put his hand to his son’s shoulder. “Icarus,” he said, “it is time for bed. Go find your nurse.”

“You will come kiss me goodnight?”

“Of course.”

We watched him go, small heels brushing the hem of his too-long tunic.

“He is handsome,” I said.

“He has his mother’s face.” He answered the question before I asked it. “She passed at his birth. A good woman, though I did not know her long. Your sister arranged the marriage.”

So I had not been so wrong after all. My sister had baited the hook, but she caught the fish another way.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He bowed his head. “It is difficult, I admit. I have done my best to be father to him and mother too, but I know he feels the lack. Every woman we pass, he asks if I will marry her.”

“And will you?”

He was silent a moment. “I think not. Pasipha? has enough to scourge me with already, and I would never have married in the first place, if she had not insisted. I know what an unfit husband I make, for I am happiest when my hands are busy at my work, and then I come home late and filthy.”

“Witchcraft and invention have that in common,” I said. “I do not think I would make a fit wife either. Not that my door is battered down. Apparently the market for disgraced sorceresses is thin.”

He smiled. “Your sister I think has helped poison that well.”

It was easy to speak so openly with him. His face was like a quiet pool that would hold everything safe in its depths.

“Do you know yet how you will keep the creature when it is grown?”