SemperIntrepida

No one's surprised when a messenger arrives the next day to deliver an apologetic note refusing my offer. And not only that: Epagathos wants to visit my estate with Nicea on hand to meet with my orphans. The matter of his missing slavegirl must be resolved.

They come to me in ones and twos: children without family, children living on the city streets or in the forested outskirts, children who've heard stories of a wondrous palace in a valley below the great statue of Artemis, where there's always food to eat and

Autumn on Mykonos. Warm days, heavy-scented with figs and apples. Chill nights, clear and sparkling. The olive harvest has the farmhands working from dawn to dusk, and the fine weather allows the construction work around the estate to keep up a fast pace. In the mornings, I conduct household

The day the oaks on the hillsides begin to turn gold, the foreman overseeing construction declares that the villa's new roof could withstand a deluge from Poseidon himself. Though the walls inside have yet to be covered with plaster, I direct my household to move in. None of

Mykonos was a prosperous island when I left it five years ago, but judging by all the empty berths at the docks and the number of laborers standing around aimlessly, the tides of good fortune appear to have gone out. The few merchants selling wares in the agora are guarded

The stories were right about Thera: its waters are infested with pirates, their black sails prowling the seas like packs of wolves. But Captain Gelon's ship is a nimble little pentekonter, and when I ask if she's worried about being attacked, she says, "Fuck no!

Sefthas helps me bring you home, on a felucca borrowed from one of the villagers. I never made you feel welcome here, but it was your home too, in the end. I don't think you'd want to begin your journey to the Underworld among strangers.

After the incident at the bathing pool, your hands stay clean of blood—visible or otherwise. But you retreat within yourself, your shoulders hunching under an unseen burden of your own making, and outside the hut you're careful to keep your distance. You hardly speak and I don&

I don't forget the dead, but there's a shift in the currents between us. We graze the goats on the mountain, we make cheese and sell it at market, and when we're together, we banter, almost like friends.

On the morning of the longest day of summer, I take the tally stick I use to track the moon and the passing time, unwrap its thread, and wind it around the next notch in line. "It's the day of longest light," I say.