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“I worry about you here in Alexandria, surrounded by snakes.” He scanned the chamber as though he expected to spot one slithering across the onyx floor.

“But my dear Dio, I won’t be in Alexandria. I’ll soon sail with Pieton up the Nile to Thebes, to be worshipped by the adoring throngs.”

She followed Dio’s gaze to Nereus, old and drunk and crooning at the side of some young creature on the lute. From time to time, his hand crept higher up her leg, but the player paid his improprieties no mind. And then he turned his glance to Dryton, young and handsome and silent, watching every detail from his seat. He looked as though he had not touched a drop of wine.

“You trust these men to rule in your name, in your absence?”

“No, I don’t trust them, nor that stammering Thais either, though I can’t imagine he would have the balls to defy me.” Berenice looked back at the man at her side. “But what other choice do I have?”

“Let me put off my voyage to Rome. Your father remains in Rhodes. For all we know, we have ample time to reach the Latium shore before he does. I can hold the palace in line until you return from the Upper Lands. And I can hound Dryton for all he knows about the Piper’s plans.”

A fervor reached his eyes, gleaming with the lamp’s flame. She’d not seen that look before. There was an intensity to it that made her shiver. “Very well.” She smiled. “Delay your voyage for two weeks. When my royal entourage passes through the city gates, you’ll set sail.”

As he stood, he clasped her hand and pressed it to his lips. An unfamiliar feeling stirred in her gut. Perhaps this is what her eunuch feared most of all: that Dio might offer something that he never could.
Nonsense,
she chided herself.
The man is as old as your father, and twice as fat.

Younger

A
rsinoe slithered across grass and sand. She saw not with her eyes but with her tongue. A wolf, a hulking monster from a forgotten age, stalked ahead. He, too, hunted for blood. Her belly smoothed the prints left by his paws. A quail darted through the stalks, a fawn lingered at the shore, a peahen cocked her head. Everywhere she looked flashed lush and ample game. But the wolf ignored these delicacies. Hunger seized her, fang to tail. And then the blades opened to reveal his prey: a pair of foxes, one red and strong, the other white and withered.

Tail wagging, the wolf approached. He circled first his red cousin and then his white, round and round, the dance of fools. With each turn her hunger swelled, and her tongue tasted lies. Why was he toying with his food? And then the wolf’s aspect changed: teeth bared, the fiend returned. He tore the fire fox’s throat. Its mouth dripped with blood as the creature twisted in the yellow grass. In death, the creature’s snout flattened into a human face—the red-crowned head of a familiar man. Her attention turned; her tongue caught another whiff of fear. Limping, the white fox fled—he fled toward her, and she hissed in pleasure. But at once the wolf was on him too, snapping his neck and tearing into his flesh. And then he turned his bloodshot eyes on her.

Dawn’s rosy fingers stole her dream. Only cobwebs remained and soon those, too, were scraped away as Myrrine’s deft hands plaited her locks for the new day. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure lurking in the doorway. No, it wasn’t possible. Arsinoe sprang from her stool; she could scarcely believe it. But there he was: her tutor with his narrow eyes and cracked nose.

“Ganymedes!” She ran across the chamber and threw her arms around the eunuch’s neck. He remained—he hadn’t abandoned her. She wanted suddenly, desperately, to be held.

“Calm yourself.” He pried away her hands. “There’s no need for such messy sentiment.”

Hurt, she stepped back. Even here, he rejected her. This wasn’t how their reunion was supposed to begin. The eunuch should have beamed with pride, and praised her for her wit, and wondered at her resolve. “The cleverest Ptolemy of all,” he should have named her. She’d imagined it a thousand times: how he would lift her up and spin her around, as her father used to do with Cleopatra. One picture had lodged itself in Arsinoe’s mind: their father, still clad in the trappings of the Upper Lands, the double crown perched upon his head, and her sister a blur of swirling crimson. Cleopatra had dressed herself as Isis, her eyes rimmed with kohl and her flowing garment knotted at the front. Arsinoe had thought it foolish, but when she saw the two together, the New Dionysus and his Isis, she’d changed her mind. They looked for all the world like a pair of gods, exalted in their twirling heaven. And this meeting was to mark her own triumph, her reward for all those quaking nights. The eunuch had spoiled it.

“Embrace her, Ganymedes. The girl’s earned your approval.” Myrrine prodded the tutor, breaking a dark hair from the comb’s teeth.

“I don’t seek anyone’s approval. And I don’t need my nursemaid to beg favors for me. Hold your tongue, Myrrine.”

The servant frowned and looked away. Arsinoe wanted to unsay her own words, but she stayed quiet. She’d learned that skill.

“Come, my child,” Ganymedes commanded, and she obeyed, trailing her tutor through the Sisters’ Courtyard. The name itself stung; there were no sisters now. Or rather, it was the wrong two sisters: her and Berenice. But she brightened to see the water gushing from Arsinoe’s fountain. It wasn’t named for her, of course, but for one of her illustrious namesakes. Full-cheeked and full-bodied, the erstwhile queen stood between two columns, a half smile on her lips.

But Ganymedes was in no mood to stall. He tramped onward, his hulking form dwarfed by the soaring marble archways of the porticoes. The ancients, her tutor had told her once, had built their tombs this way to mimic the towering heavens. She felt small beneath, though she suspected that her father and her forefathers had emulated this style because they felt so very large. The scores of guards that flanked the columned walkways felt large as well. She could tell by their heavy steps, their hands resting on their hilts. She counted twenty, twenty-five, thirty guards before she tired of the task. And here and there, she caught a glimpse of spattered streaks, the dark end of the New Dionysus’s rule.

Soon Arsinoe and Ganymedes passed into the courtyards that had been built long ago, by her great-grandfather Ptolemy the Potbelly. The change was sharp. Gone were the twirling dryads and piping satyrs that her father preferred. Instead, the walls were carved with scenes from Alexander’s life: first, the magnificent general loosening his sword to cut the Gordian knot, and later, spear drawn, galloping down upon the fleeing Persian army. Arsinoe saw her own father’s face in place of Alexander’s; she wondered how he would fare if faced by such adversaries. She couldn’t be sure. The Persian king looked fierce in his chariot, whip in one hand, sword in the other. Would her father have stood and fought—or fled as he’d fled before her sister’s men?

As she followed Ganymedes toward the library, the summer breeze blew away the flimsy ghosts of those bloody days. The grounds danced with the delights of summer, nymphs spat streams against their marble basins, roses peeked out from flower beds, figs unfolded green leaves against the blue of sky and sea. The world looked as though nothing had changed, as though the goings-on in the palace were mere child’s play compared with the work of the undying gods.

“‘I’m not ashamed to sail through trouble with you, to make your troubles mine,’”
^*
Arsinoe told Ganymedes, beaming. She’d prove that she merited his approval. She’d show him that she had studied the works he sent. And profited from each one.

“You look to Ismene now for inspiration? What happened to your beloved Odysseus?”

“I thought—since you asked me to read
Antigone
—and it was…” She paused to think, to make a careful measure of her words. “The war I fight isn’t on the battlefield, but here in the palace.”

“I wouldn’t boast so loudly of your war,” her tutor chided. “Especially as it seems to be a losing one like Ismene’s. Ears linger at every bush.”

Arsinoe spun her head this way and that, but she saw no evil eyes spying from the branches. Only the thick and carefree leaves of summer.

“It would be better to speak of what lessons lie ahead,” the eunuch went on. “You’ve missed some weeks of schooling. I find you’re very much behind in your learning.”

“But I read,” she protested. “I read many plays when I was confined. I read every word you sent me.”

“I sent you nothing,” the eunuch snapped.

Arsinoe nodded slowly; she could learn this lesson too, to never speak of what had come before. To pretend that this—whatever this proved to be—had always been her life. To forget that she’d ever had a mother and a father. To act as though she’d never been abandoned. As long as she could still hold on to Cleopatra. She refused to let go of her.

“I saw those scrolls piled in your room,” said the eunuch. “What could you understand from them? Little and less, I’m afraid.”

“I understood a great deal! I learned of duty, and of fate, and of mocking love.”

“If you’d understood anything at all, I would hope it had come from Antigone.”

“From Antigone?” she asked, curious. She hadn’t expected this. She admired Antigone, admired her courage, her conviction. But the girl frightened her too. “But she’s in love with death.”

“And what attracts you to Ismene, then? Her love of life?”

Arsinoe shook her head. It wasn’t that. Her thoughts returned to Cleopatra, to how, around this time of year, they might swim together in the sea, racing along the shore, masquerading as mermaids and other strange creatures of the ocean’s depths. Girls had more freedom there beneath the waves. Once, her sister had dared her to venture out beyond the rocks, into the open sea, where the waves crashed unprotected, wild enough to swallow a child whole. But she’d done it, and without a trace of fear, because with Cleopatra at her side Arsinoe could do anything. Even die.

“No, it’s her love of her sister,” Ganymedes replied, reading her thoughts. “And where does it get her, all this loving of her sister? In the end, what is her love worth? It’s not worth enough to bury Polynices.”

It was true. Ismene had been too frightened to join Antigone, to bury their brother’s body and pour libations over his flesh when their harsh uncle had forbidden it.

“But she regrets it, Ganymedes,” Arsinoe protested. “And in the end, she understands. And she wishes that she’d helped Antigone.”

“And what good is wishing?” Her tutor sighed. “What, my dear, does Antigone tell her? ‘I have no love for a friend who loves in words alone.’
^*
And she is right. Didn’t I warn you that it was better to act? How it is always better to act than to succumb to your fate?”

“But Antigone doesn’t fight her fate—she embraces it.”

“You have me there,” Ganymedes said, laughing loud and deep. “But I’d hoped you might follow the greater point.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “One that might advise you in your present state.”

He was telling her to be brave, be bold, be Antigone. But she couldn’t. Not now, not when the world had turned in on itself. It had been easy then, with Cleopatra. But all that courage had abandoned her along with her sister, sailing across the wine-dark sea. She didn’t dare tell him that; she’d rather that Ganymedes think her dumb than spineless.

The eunuch, too, fell silent. And she hated the quiet more than his rebukes. He, too, had given up on her, she thought as she kicked each step against the stone. She stubbed her toe, hard, on an uneven bit but didn’t cry out. Instead, she savored the pain; it distracted her from her aching loneliness. By the time she looked up, Ganymedes was far ahead, and she had to race across the plaza to catch him.

The palace entrance to the library loomed even grander than the one that opened to the street. Four arches sprouted from the ground, each guarded by a separate goddess: Arete, Episteme, Ennoia, and—her favorite—Sophia, with her turquoise eyes gazing up from her scroll. Arsinoe wanted to walk through Sophia’s entry, but Ganymedes headed toward Arete’s door. The goddess of virtue had always seemed cold and unforgiving, her face a stoic slab, with love for neither learning nor wisdom, and certainly none for girls who sought their favors there.

“No one’s goddess.” That’s what she and her friends called Arete, for there were only three in Arsinoe’s closely woven set. She had chosen wisdom and Sophia; Aspasia had claimed Ennoia, goddess of intelligence; and reluctantly, Hypatia had agreed to serve as Episteme, guardian of knowledge. They all three had eschewed virtue. Arete looked too daunting then as now.