Even the touch of my ungainly hand makes him tremble. This is dangerous. It rebounds on everything. I’ve seen it ruin lives.

Athena held her breath, but couldn’t stop. Or she wouldn’t. Boundaries blurred as he woke beneath her hands. His fingers squeezed down on her hip. His eyes opened.

Odysseus pushed the veil of her hair back and drew her closer, nothing but the sound of his quickened breath and moving fabrics in her ears. He was practiced and she was new, the Don Juan of the Aegean and the Virgin Goddess, but it was all instinct, all sensation and response. The heat of his tongue, the firm strength of his body and the way he moved her, they might have done it all a hundred, a thousand times before.

This isn’t real, this feeling. I’m not made for this.

He rolled her onto her back, their fingers entwined. The desperation in his movements filled her with a strange sense of power, and the way he shook and sighed. In her mind an image flashed from long ago: Odysseus in the middle of an ocean, standing on the deck of a ship. He stared out over the water, his expression determined but desolate, skin bronzed by decades of sunlight far from home. He grasped onto the ship’s railing and shouted something, the same word, three times. Penelope. Penelope. Penelope. He screamed for his wife, the wife he loved and continually tried to return to. The ship’s hull had been painted with a depiction of Athena’s eyes.

“Athena,” Odysseus whispered, and kissed her neck.

It was just an image. One brief flash. She didn’t even know if she had really seen it, or if it was her own invention. Penelope was dead, she had to be, she’d used up all her devotion two thousand years ago. And besides, it didn’t matter. Athena was a goddess. She took from mortal women as she liked. Odysseus was hers. He always had been.

Stop. Stop this. Those are Aphrodite’s words, Aphrodite’s justifications. Penelope might be gone but I’m not. He and I are separate. Divided. Just because I’m dying doesn’t mean I give up what I am.

“Stop,” Athena whispered. Odysseus’ arms clenched tight around her, his fingers in her hair.

“Stop,” she said again, and when he hesitated she shoved him, harder than she wanted to. His shoulder struck the wall over the foot of the bed.

It was embarrassing. She could see the mortified expression he wore in the shadows as she pulled herself up.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what happened. We were asleep—I half thought I was dreaming!” His hands moved roughly over his face. “Look, just don’t do anything drastic, all right? Don’t turn my eyes to stone in my head or—” He glanced downward. “Or anything worse.” He leapt up and turned toward the curtain. “I’m going to go find a soda or something. I’m sorry.”

He pulled back the curtain and light cut through the sleeper.

“Odysseus,” she said, and he paused. “It’s all right. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He wouldn’t look at her. She hadn’t thought he would be so ashamed. He acted like he’d been cut open.

“Don’t feel so bad.” She tried to smile. It had been her fault. She should say something to make it right. “This is—well—it’s what you always do.”

“What I always do?” he asked, and his eyes darkened. “What I always do. Like on Circe’s island, you mean. Or dallying with Calypso.”

Athena blinked. When he was angry, his accent got thicker. Her neck stiffened as he pointed a finger at her.

“That was a bloody lifetime ago.”

“I was trying to make you feel better.”

“Feel better? By making me sound like a dog? It was thousands of years ago!”

“I found you two days ago in a naked tangle of whores!” Her mind winced at defaming the witches of The Three Sisters, but she couldn’t take it back. They were nice whores, very lovely people, but she was trying to make a point. “I suppose that was just an innocent game of Twister in between readings from Macbeth?” She held up her hands before he could explode. She used to be so good at de-escalating. But then she never would have allowed herself to be in this position. “I’m not saying that it’s wrong. I never judged you. I was never even annoyed; I was amused, mostly—”

Odysseus shook his head. It wasn’t helping.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “This is different. You’re not like them.”

Athena swallowed. Not like them. No, she wasn’t like them. She wasn’t beguiling. Enchantments and seductions were mysteries to her. They were ridiculous wastes of time. A heavy feeling built in her chest, just at the base of her throat. The image of Aphrodite’s golden apple rippled into her mind. To the Fairest, it had said.