Prometheus scooted closer, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He said naught.
Maybe there was naught to be said.
Just warmth and, finally, for the first time in her life, it was enough for someone to know.
She woke whimpering, the phantom scent of lightning-charred flesh in her nostrils, the echo of thunder still ringing through her mind. For a moment, she lay there amid sweat-soaked sheets, willing her heart to calm itself.
Slowly, she slapped her head back against the headboard, eyes clenched.
It was like back then, in Tyros. The scorched air. The sickly-sweet reek of cooked human flesh when Phoenix died, just as Alkoune and Kelaino. The jarring wrongness of one who commanded the forces of the sky itself. Too much power for anyone who walked the Earth.
And Zeus was drunk on it.
After a moment more, Pandora threw off the covers and paced about, letting the breeze blow over her bare skin. Letting the wind reassure; it was clean and carried no scent save that of the sea. No sound save the chirping of birds around the Aviary.
But then, there would be no sleeping after such a dream.
She donned her stained peplos—she’d have to see about getting new clothes in the morn—then laced her sandals. A walk maybe, to cool the mind as well as the flesh.
For a while, she paced the tower, looking at the birds. Most slept now, only a few nocturnal ones still sharing their stories with her. It had to be past midnight.
When she came to ground level, intent to step outside, she caught sound of the clink of metal upon metal. That was coming from beneath the floor grate. Pandora glanced about until she found a door. It led to another staircase, this one descending into a basement. The stairs circled around the main grate above, and she could see where the fountain runoff poured into a drain.
Faint light from an adjacent room painted the basement in chiaroscuro while seeming to beckon her ever onward. Her steps felt compelled, as if she never could have taken any other path. As if she yet dreamed and followed the winding course her unwilling mind laid before her.
On the threshold she paused, gazing into a room lit by both a brazier and an oil lamp set upon a table. It was over this table that Prometheus stood bent, clinking away with a tiny artisan’s chisel at some metal object. Numerous other tools bedecked the shelves around the room, from metalworking instruments to implements she thought used for gem-cutting, and there, blacksmith’s equipment, though she saw no anvil or forge down here.
What did he work on here? Maybe she should have turned away, afforded him his privacy. Probably, she should have. Nevertheless, her feet carried her forward. “What is it?” she asked.
He turned to look at her, mopping at a sheen of sweat upon his brow. Beyond him she could see him making a metal cube set with innumerable tiny gears and the most intricate inner workings she had ever seen. “A puzzle box. A present for you, once it’s done.”
Pandora took a faltering step forward. At supper, she’d told him about the puzzle box she’d had from Tyros. And had he now spent all night working on a new one to replace it?
“Why show me such solicitude? What did I ever do to deserve your regard, Titan?” This felt … too much. It was a trick, a ploy, a manipulation. It had to be.
He set the chisel and hammer down and twisted all the way around to face her. “You have suffered so much in your life, Pandora. The story your told me of your stolen childhood wrenched my heart from my chest. Is it so hard to believe someone might simply want to make your life better?”
Yes. It was almost impossible to fathom, for when had life ever treated her thus? “Can a puzzle box change all that?” Damn it, she was again pushing him back, goading him, chiding him. Was it … fear? Was that why she rejected his benevolence?
He shrugged. “Maybe it can change everything. Maybe naught at all. Maybe just your perspective, a little.” He strode toward her, then took her hand. “If the World is cruel, and Fate is relentless, that is all the more reason we must take care of each other. It is only thus we retain any shred of humanity.”
He wasn’t human. The retort almost leapt from her mouth, but she managed to still it, barely. Tantalus had tried to beat the acerbic tongue out of her. Tried and failed.
Prometheus, though, put forth such extraordinary efforts for her. Could a woman and a Titan have a true friendship? Could they have aught at all?
A reassuring squeeze of his hands seemed to offer his answer. For whatever reason, he remained unflappable.
As if utterly determined to give her another chance at a life. The least she could do was seize that chance. Yes. Standing in his workshop beneath his Aviary, Pandora swore she would claim the occasion he offered. She would be more than she had been, more than anyone had ever thought she could be.
From the ashes of her past, she would build something new.
11
Kirke
1570 Silver Age
A shriek and a wail, and a hurled amphora that shattered against the wall of their shared laboratory, causing Kirke to cringe.
Then Kalypso was doubled over, clutching her knees, moaning, and Kirke raced to
