Aphrodite said, “Helen is unique.”

  Bile rose into my throat. I had become immune.

  Aphrodite looked startled.

  But Helen didn’t notice. “No one will start a war for you. I pity and forgive you.”

  “This one is wise.” Aphrodite touched Helen’s satin cheek. “Anger mottles the skin.”

  I told Eurus I wanted to go home. In the air, I wept into his back. I’d done everything wrong.

  He landed us in a field of grass and boulders. “I started a squall in the sea. You rattled my bones by sobbing.”

  “I’m sorry.” I sat on the grass.

  He lowered himself next to me. “How did we succeed and then fail?”

  “You’ll hate me.”

  He frowned. “You killed one of my sacred birds?”

  “What is your sacred bird?”

  “The greylag goose. They never recite annoying verses.”

  “I didn’t kill a goose.”

  “You chopped down one of my sacred trees?” He saw the question on my face. “The hazel.” His arms flew up. “Why don’t you know which tree is sacred to me?” His arms came down. “Because I’m a minor god. Did you chop down a hazel tree?”

  I tossed back my head. “No.”

  “Then why would I hate you?”

  “If I murdered someone but didn’t hurt your bird and tree, you’d still think well of me?”

  “I don’t know. Did you murder anyone?”

  “I tried to ruin Helen’s life, and being burned hurts. You may not know that.” Not looking at him, I said what I’d done.

  “For a few minutes, you saved many lives.”

  “But now they’ll die again. All that’s really changed is in the past, where I scalded Helen on purpose.”

  “Would you do it again if you thought it would succeed?”

  I nodded, feeling sick. “Apollo sees the past and the future. At his altar, when he first spoke to me, he knew what I’d do today. Do you think he cursed my gift to punish me in advance?”

  Eurus rose a few inches and came down hard. “If he had left you alone, you wouldn’t know about Helen until your brother brought her to Troy.”

  “I might fear that war would come and throw broth at her then, to make Paris send her back to Menelaus. In every future I might do it.”

  Eurus stood on his knees and gripped my shoulders in both hands. “Then in every single future”—he brought his face close to mine—“you’d be a heroine. Brave Cassandra.” He sat back.

  A brave failure.

  “You don’t believe me. If I were a great god, you would.”

  I started laughing. “I’d believe it if my mother said it.” Not everything was about being a greater or lesser god.

  He smiled uncertainly.

  I lay back, exhausted. “Helen suspects they’ll start a war over her. She’s proud of herself for it.”

  “I’d like to fly back there and scald her again.”

  “Aphrodite would be angry.”

  “Yes, she would. Sleep!” he commanded, as if he were Hypnos, the god of sleep.

  Birdsong woke me. The notes were as bright as if tragedy didn’t exist.

  Eurus was standing next to me. A blade of grass pointed sideways from his beard. I smiled at it and him. My hair must be wild again.

  Smiling too, he asked if he could take me somewhere other than Troy. “There are wonders . . . You don’t have to be enslaved and murdered.”

  I sat up. “Would brave Cassandra desert her city?”

  He shrugged. “A true friend would stay alive to continue being my friend.”

  “Wherever I am when Troy burns, I’ll be too sad to be an enjoyable friend.” I held up my hand to stop him from arguing, though his mouth was already opening. “Menelaus will be slow, gathering warriors and ships.” I must have been thinking while I slept. “Before then, six weeks from now, Paris and Helen will arrive in Troy. If my father doesn’t let them stay, we’ll all be saved.” I jumped up. “We need a plan.”

  “We’ll make one. You’re good at plans.”

  Not successful ones. “It will be our last chance.” The final rung. “If we fail, everything will be in motion, unstoppable.”

  He leaped into the air with me, a lesser god sparrow and a girl sparrow, piercing the sky.

  16

  During the first day of flying, I regretted everything that had happened in Sparta. I plagued myself by asking endlessly, What if?

  But over the next two days, I imagined my reunion with my parents, Hector, and Maera. I invented a story to explain what had befallen me and told it to Eurus. He called me a dreadful liar and said I should just be silent.

  I couldn’t do that! I added detail and pictured myself in the straits I described: an adder biting me while I prayed to Apollo, pain, delirium, finally awakening on the bank of the Scamander River near Mount Ida, finding my way home, walking only at night for fear of lions. When I tried again, I’d convinced myself so well that my voice broke.

  Eurus wiped his eyes with his tunic. “That will do.”

  He was so sympathetic.

  We reached Troy midmorning, fourteen days after we’d left. Eurus put me down at the west gate, and I rushed through the alleys on this side of the city, scraping by carts and donkeys and people, meaning to spare my parents more moments of grief.

  Maera met me in the plaza outside the palace. I rubbed her all over while she licked my face and wagged her whole back half.

  Indoors, I raced along the colonnade, foreseeing that Mother, Father, my brothers, and Father’s councilors would be in the living room. I just couldn’t tell if Helenus, my twin and fellow seer, would be there too.

  On the threshold, I signaled Maera to wait. Then I hesitated myself. Father must have been praying recently because I smelled his incense. Clear light slanted in from the sky above the courtyard. Everyone stood and sipped honey water from pink and blue clay cups. Servants held pitchers in case anyone wanted a refill. Deep male voices thrummed in my chest. Home. Precious.

  Mother and Father stood apart, each listening to several councilors, their expressions cordial. Why didn’t they seem sad?

  Mother’s belly was enormous. My baby brother Polydorus would come soon. When he was just ten, he was fated to die in the massacre inside Troy.

  There was Helenus, standing near Hector and watching Deiphobus.

  A councilor saw me, and it was as if a giant hand stirred the room. People turned toward me, then away, and then toward my parents.

  “Father? Mother?” I ran toward them.

  For an instant, Mother looked relieved, but then her face reddened.

  I stopped short. Was she angry at me?

  Father’s lips tightened to a straight line. He was angry! He turned his back to me. My stomach hurt, as if someone had punched me.

  Mother signaled a servant, who took my elbow and guided me up to the women’s quarters. Whining, Maera came with us. I began to weep.

  Voices and weaving hummed from above, as usual, but when we came into view, sound ceased, as if a god had snuffed it out. Through my tears, I saw that my loom was no longer near Mother’s. I stumbled past the women to my bed and threw myself down on my stomach, sobbing. Maera jumped up and licked my neck.

  Did Mother and Father hate me? Had they stopped being proud of me?

  When I finally sat up, I saw my cousins crowded in the entryway to our nook.

  Melo looked curious, Aminta pitying, and Kynthia amused.

  “Leave me alone!”

  Melo and Aminta left.

  Kynthia shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “Your brother said the shepherds would get sick of you.”

  “What shepherds?”

  She grinned. “Sly, girl. That’s what I’d ask.”

  “What did Helenus say?” It couldn’t have been any other brother.

  She was eager to tell me. At first, everyone believed that some disaster had befallen me on my way to or back from the sacred grove. Father assembled a force to find me, but Helenus met them as they left the city. He said he’d seen me frolicking with a dozen or more shepherds and shepherdesses in the fields between Troy and Mount Ida and predicted that I’d come home eventually.

  They believed that I’d do that—make them fear for me without a good reason?

  I refused to cry again until I was alone.

  Kynthia said, “I’m enjoying your disgrace, Cassandra.”

  Clever Maera barked at her.

  “Go away.”

  This time she did.

  But I didn’t cry again. I sat, stony-faced, furious as well as miserable, furious over my parents’ lack of trust.

  Looking ahead a few years, I saw myself at my loom during the war. There would be extra space between it and the looms on either side. The chatter would swirl around me and not include me. But my head would be high and my face calm.

  I decided to become that serene creature now.

  I fetched my comb from my chest and attacked my matted hair. Maera went to sleep on my bed.

  After a few minutes, Mother came in and took over, working gently at the knots. “Of all my children, I thought you the least likely to worry me and your father.”

  “There were no shepherds.” How could they think there were? “I’d never forget your goodness to me, and Father’s. Let me tell you what really happened.” Please!

  “Helenus saw you. Why would he lie?”

  Because he wanted me to fail in whatever I might be planning. “You see how he is with Deiphobus.”

  “He had no reason to make up a tale, and you do.” She kissed my cheek. “Your lot will be hard. Parents don’t want a flighty wife for their sons. They’ve withdrawn their offers.”

  Good. I wouldn’t have a husband and children to grieve for.

  We were silent after that. When she left, my hair was free of tangles and held in a bun by a silver grasshopper pin, one of hers.

  A few minutes later, I went to my loom and picked up my weaving. After a while, I asked Melo her opinion about the green I planned for the bottom, to go with my pale yellow cloth. She always had something to say about color.

  But she just blushed. Was she embarrassed to speak to me? Did she worry people would think ill of her if she did?

  “I don’t know,” she said at last.

  Kynthia giggled.

  Conversation was subdued throughout the women’s quarters, as if they were all required to show their disapproval of me. By noon, I was trembling with rage at being misunderstood. I asked Mother if I could visit the sacred grove, expecting her to say no and thinking I’d leave anyway.

  But she said yes. “You may go wherever you usually do.”

  My eyes smarted. “Come with me! Then you’ll see.”

  Eurus would love a visit from another worshipper. He might be able to convince her of the danger of Paris and Helen. This was a wonderful idea!

  “Dear, I can barely waddle ten steps. Just don’t spend another night away.”

  I tried for second best. “I can take my cousins. They’ll tell you where I go.”

  “Go alone. I won’t let you tempt anyone into mischief.”

  17

  In the sacred grove, Eurus was glad to see me and didn’t instantly demand his offerings. He began pacing as I told him what had happened at the palace. “Don’t the king and queen know their daughter?”

  I laughed. “I’d been about to lie to them!”

  “A heroic fib!”

  My defender.

  “Should I tell them there were no shepherds? They’ll believe any god.”

  “Would you?” I put my basket on the altar and smiled at him.

  “I won’t tell it as beautifully as you would.”

  My champion. My eyes filled.

  “I’ll blow us to the palace.”

  I went to him and then backed away, unsure. “If you tell them, Helenus will know I have a god for a friend.”

  “Good. That will stop his scheming.”

  I tossed back my head. “It may improve his scheming. He’ll have you in mind when he plans.”

  He nodded. “Too dangerous. Will your parents stay angry at you?”

  “Mother isn’t angry anymore. Father will probably forgive me.”

  “Good!”

  But I’d stay disgraced.

  He reached into my basket and drew out a honey cake. “Mm.”

  I sat on the ground and waited. After he finished eating, I said, “When Paris and Helen come, she’ll be wearing pounds of jewelry.” Rings, earrings, arm and wrist bracelets, and three gold necklaces—everything studded with precious stones.

  “Father will meet them in the colonnade. He always wants more wealth for Troy, so the jewelry will tempt him.” He’d also be taken with Helen’s beauty.

  My brothers and Father’s advisors would be there too. The men would barely see Paris. Only Helen.

  I stood up. “As soon as Paris asks, Father will say they can stay.”

  “Where do you think you’ll be?”

  “Probably on our balcony, watching with the women. Mother will almost fly down the stairs to embrace Paris. The women won’t be charmed by Helen, not even Mother. While the men smile, they’ll glare.”

  Three crows landed on Eurus’s altar.

  “The fox waves his plumy tail.

  The lioness perks her pretty ears.

  Pity Helen’s prey

  and lament beauty’s power.”

  Eurus disagreed with the crows. “Beauty is fine. Helen isn’t.” Unaccountably, he reddened.

  We began to talk about what we might do, but we’d settled nothing by dusk. Maera greeted me at the city gate.

  I knelt and rubbed her back. “Do you remember that Hera owes me a gift?”

  She licked my face.

  “Don’t pretend! You don’t even know who Hera is.” I explained about the gift the goddess had promised me. “She might keep Helenus from ever being near Helen.” Grinning, I imagined his confusion and rage. “But that won’t save us all, and I won’t waste the gift. Do you trust me to dream up something that will help Troy?”

  She barked.

  During the next month, when I was home, I made cloth, with Maera lying at my feet. I prophesied constantly, praying that the correctness of my predictions would gather weight. I’d call out what was about to happen: that Melo would weave with blue wool; that a snake would glide across the floor; that Kynthia would yawn and five other women would follow suit.

  My loom had no visitors except Hector. The first time he came after my return, he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I don’t believe Helenus’s nonsense. You wouldn’t romp with anyone and frighten Mother and Father.”

  I touched his cheek. “Of course I wouldn’t!”

  Mother’s hands slowed at her loom. She cried, “I love all my children equally!”

  Hector and I said at the same time, “I know.”

  He visited me often. He’d pet Maera and praise my weaving. I’d ask him about his farmwork, athletic games, hunting. When those topics exhausted themselves, we’d lapse into a comfortable silence. Often, I’d inhale and exhale in time with his breaths.

  Mother gave birth to her final baby, her nineteenth, my brother Polydorus, who was born with fat cheeks and a fuzz of black hair. She lay in state in her big nook, circled by Father and my brothers and sisters, all smiling down on her and the baby.

  Father squeezed around Helenus and Deiphobus, who stood side by side, linked by dislike. He patted Laodice’s head and came to me.

  “I’m too happy to stay angry, Cassandra.” He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.

  “Father, I—”

  He put a finger over my lips. “I wasn’t sure when Helenus first told us, but he described everything. One of the shepherds picked his teeth, a shepherdess sounded like a sheep when she laughed, a shepherd had the worst bowlegs he’d ever seen. He couldn’t have made all that up.” He laughed. “Even our children aren’t that clever!”

  Helenus had probably met such shepherds and shepherdesses and wove his lie around them.

  I just said, “The baby didn’t come out old and wrinkled.”

  “What?” He remembered and laughed. “No, but I think he’ll still be wise.”

  If he lived to be old enough.

  A week later, Mother was back at her loom, with the swaddled baby in a basket cradle by her knee. Everyone came to coo at him. I went too and rocked his cradle while women (not Mother) watched uneasily, ready to save him from me.

  Mother seemed not to remember that I’d predicted the baby would be a boy.

  In the sacred grove, I proposed one way after another that Eurus could use his wind—like blowing Troy itself to the land of the fierce Amazons, who would capture Helen for her jewelry—and he explained why he couldn’t do whatever I suggested.

  He said he wasn’t powerful enough to lift an entire city. “You’d need all the winds for that, and my brothers and I never agree on anything.” He wondered if Aphrodite would continue to help Paris. “I can blow him and Helen anywhere, but not if she doesn’t want me to.”

  We agreed he shouldn’t try.

  Days went by. We turned over idea after idea, rejecting some, keeping others.

  When I was sad, Eurus made his wind perform. Without seeming to do anything—even while talking to me about something else—he caused the trees to sway in unison, creating a whispering melody. Once, his wind wove a garland of leaves and flowers of myrtle, olive, and laurel.

  “Your wind has fingers!” I cried. “It could weave at my loom!”

  “Maybe.”

  The garland landed on my head. I pushed it off my right ear. “Thank you.”

  He adjusted it with his fingers. His face was intent. My heart picked up its pace.

  “There.” He backed away. “It doesn’t disgrace you.”

  I blushed.

  His face was ruddy too. “What would my wind weave at your loom?”

  “A himation for you.” I’d never seen him wear a cloak. “Red.” The color would bring out the warmth of his brown eyes.