“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. Pasiphaë 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?”
He nodded. “I have been thinking. You see what a honeycomb the palace is beneath. There are a hundred storerooms that go unused, for all the wealth of Crete is in gold these days, not grain. I think I may make them into a sort of maze. Close it at both ends and let the creature roam. It is all dug in the bedrock, so there will be nowhere to break out.”
It was a good idea. And at least the creature would have more room than a narrow cage. “It will be a marvel,” I said. “A maze that can hold a full-grown monster. You will have to come up with a good name for it.”
“I’m sure Minos will have a suggestion, involving himself.”
“I’m sorry that I cannot stay to help.”
“You have helped more than I deserve.” His gaze lifted to touch mine.
A throat cleared. The nurse stood in the doorway. “Your son, sir.”
“Ah,” Daedalus said. “Excuse me.”
I felt too restless to sit patiently. I wandered the room. I had expected it to be filled with more of his wonders, statues and inlay in every corner, but it was simple, the furniture unadorned wood. Yet looking more closely, I saw Daedalus’ stamp. The polish glowed and the grain was rubbed soft as flower petals. When I passed my hand over a chair, I could not find its seams.
He came back. “The bedtime kiss,” he explained.
“A happy child.”
Daedalus sat, drank a swallow of wine. “For now, he is. He is too young to know himself a prisoner.” Those white scars seemed to flare on his hands. “A golden cage is still a cage.”
“And where would you go, if you might escape?”
“Wherever would have me. But if I may choose, Egypt. They are building things that make Knossos look like a mudflat. I have been learning the language from some of their traders on the docks. I think they would welcome us.”
I looked into his good face. Not good because it was handsome, but because it was itself, like fine metal, tempered and beaten for strength. Two monsters we had fought side by side, and he had not wavered. Come to Aiaia, I wanted to say. But I knew there was nothing for him there.
Instead I told him, “I hope you will get to Egypt one day.”
We finished our meal, and I walked the dark corridors back to my room. The evening had been pleasant, but I felt roiled and muddy, my mind like river-silt stirred up from its beds. I could not stop hearing Daedalus talking of his freedom. There had been such yearning in his voice, and bitterness too. At least I had earned my exile, but Daedalus was innocent, kept only as a trophy for my sister and Minos’ vanity. I thought of his eyes when he had spoken of Icarus, that pure, shining love. To my sister, it was no more than a tool, a sword to hang over his head and make him her slave. I remembered the pleasure on her face when she had ordered him to cut her open. She had had the same look when I had stepped through her door.
I had been so consumed with the Minotaur that I had not seen what a triumph this had all been for her. Not just the monster and her new fame, but everything that went with it: Daedalus forced into complicity, Minos cringing and humiliated, and all of Crete held hostage to fear. And me, I was a triumph too. She might have summoned others, but I had always been the dog she liked to whip. She had known how useful I would be, dutifully cleaning her messes, protecting Daedalus, seeing the monster safely contained. And all the while she could laugh from her golden couch. Do you like my new pet? I give her nothing but blows, yet see how she runs to my whistle!
My stomach burned. I turned away from my cell. I walked as a god, unseen, past the drowsing guards, past the night servants. I reached the door of my sister’s room and stepped through it. I stood over her bed. She was alone. My sister trusted her sleep to none but herself. I had felt the spells when I passed the threshold, but they could not stop me.