Page 34 of This Divine Revelry

I’m half tempted to throw the wine over him, but something has me hesitating. I think it’s that I’m tired. And I think it’s also that I’m having a wonderful night, and the memory of Theseus is still intruding. Maybe I’ll regret it in the morning, but right now I just need somewhere to put the hurt.

Or someone to at least acknowledge it exists. ‘I ran away from home to marry a boy,’ I admit. ‘But when he got what he wanted, he abandoned me.’

His eyes widen, and I see the almost instant regret that he pushed me to confess – that whatever secrets he thought I was hiding they amounted to nothing as painful as this.

‘Fuck, Areatha, I’m so–’

A woman screams. Then another.

We startle towards the commotion.

And face the inferno, blazing across the harbour, sending the whole town up in flames.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AS EVERYONE ELSE RUNS FROM the fire, Dionysus and I, without conferring, charge towards it, drunken haze lifted and replaced with urgent clarity.

‘We can use the empty amphorae as buckets,’ he suggests. ‘Douse the flames.’

‘Buckets?’ I demand. ‘Are you a god or not?’

‘Well, darling, that is the question, isn’t it?’

The heat hits us before we’re anywhere near the houses, which are lighting quick and flaming high.

Dionysus snatches an amphora and races towards the ocean and I, with no better idea, race to do the same – but the amphora is larger and heavier than the ones I’d found in those huts and I could barely lift those when empty.

‘Let me,’ Silen says as they appear, lifting it with ease – blasted immortals and their infuriating strength. ‘I think most people are on the beach but …’

‘I’ll check.’

I dart along the harbour’s edge to the houses in the fire’s path, bursting on to a quiet street, the clamour echoing behind me and swallowed by the roaring flames. Ahead, people rush, hauling goods from homes, throwing bags out of windows.

And I am not the only one here, warning people.

‘The campfire is out of control!’ the man who accosted me shouts, knocking on doors and alerting drunken revellers. He grabs one red-haired man by the shoulders and yells: ‘The gods have forsaken us! Clear the streets. Clear the homes.’

I do not stay to hear more – whatever zealotry he’s preaching is beside the point if he’s evacuating people. So I take the next street over, bashing on doors and urging people to flee until my voice breaks and … the smell of smoke fades.

I can no longer see the flames curling over the rooftops.

I race back the way I came, dizzy from the fumes and the wine, and there, finally, is Dionysus, leaning on Silen, gasping before the charred wreckage.

The thiasus are boarding the boat behind him while he speaks to a gathering crowd.

‘We will ensure the town is rebuilt. If we all lend a hand –’

‘You did this!’ a woman snarls. ‘Look what comes of your recklessness!’

‘You are no god.’ A man spits at his feet – the red-headed man from the town, his face contorted in fury. ‘The women have angered Hestia, leaving her hearth untended. And Hera by not upholding their marital duties. And we men have outraged Zeus by not leading them in those pursuits. The gods demand order! You, Dionysus, do not walk the halls of Olympus and you do not speak for its council either.’

‘Look, I really don’t think my father has ever wanted order in his life,’ Dionysus says, raising his hands in some effort to calm them. ‘In fact I –’ He sees me and relief flickers, and he seems to lose his train of thought. He eyes the boat as subtly as he can and, getting the hint, I creep past the townspeople to its mooring. ‘That’s hardly the whole pantheon, is it? Aphrodite, for instance. She loves chaos. Definitely not much husband-serving there either. And Artemis – evidently women can worship the gods just as well by running through the woods, hunting and cosying up to one another by the campfires, bathing together, really it –’

I make it on to the boat, Myrto hauling me up on to the deck.

The crowd surges and suddenly Dionysus is beside me, Silen catching him as he stumbles.

Dionysus glances at the ocean doubtfully as ropes are hurriedly untied. He reaches out a hand, just as Theseus once did, and we lurch forward.