offended her. When they asked after the muses, her laughter was bright and vicious.
“You wouldn’t want to step foot in the home of the muses,” she said after she’d recovered herself.
“Why not?” asked Rami.
“Muses don’t have a home; they have a well. A well of possibilities.” Iambe’s gaze darted to Hero. Her eyes were cruel and delighted. “Your sweet little book wouldn’t be quite himself.”
“This isn’t my first after-realm trip. I can take it.” Hero crossed his arms.
Iambe just looked amused. “They would eat you alive, little hero.”
“Be that as it may,” Rami cut in before Hero could think of a witty comeback. “We have questions to which we need answers. Surely there is a way to gain an audience with one of their number?”
Hero still didn’t know what he’d done to earn Iambe’s disdain, but evidently it stopped at irritating scruffy angels in overcoats. She tilted her head, then gave a graceful shrug. “You can go to their little wishing well and make a wish, if you like. If Mother’s thimble of madness wasn’t enough, I suppose you can drown in it.” She rose and began to walk through the columns and into the sunlight. Alecto the lioness padded after her, pausing just long enough to stretch and give a very feline glare at Hero before following.
Rami’s brow knit in a question, but Hero just shrugged his shoulder. “In my experience, this job is ninety percent following or waiting for inscrutable women.”
Rami nodded as they set off in Iambe’s wake. “What’s the other ten percent?”
“Oh, blind terror mostly.”
* * *
* * *
THE SUN WAS NO lower in the sky when they followed Iambe outside, along a large promenade. Plump white pillars cast long rivers of shadows across the stone. Alecto let out a low growl as they reached the end and began to descend into a garden. The large cat sat down as if offended, obviously disdaining to go any farther.
“What’s her problem?” Hero asked.
Iambe shrugged as she stepped over the cat’s tail swishing with vexation. “The Furies do not care for muse territory.”
Hero was not too proud to taunt a murder cat, especially one that had been menacing him since he landed. He’d be glad to be rid of the pet. He formed his mouth into a pitying moue. “Afraid, kitten?”
In response, the cat took a lightning-fast swipe at the back of his hand. Pain bloomed, and Hero cursed and stepped back, cradling his hand.
“Are you all right?” Rami asked.
“Do stop taunting the Furies.” Boredom laced Iambe’s voice as she gestured. “This way.”
The cat had taken a sharp rake of skin off the back of his hand. Hero dabbed the bleeding ink off with the hem of his coat. “May you host the most heroic of fleas, beast.”
Alecto didn’t even have the grace to look ill-tempered. She gave him a slow, content blink and relaxed into a sprawl in the spot of sunshine.
“Hurry up,” Iambe called before passing through a curtain of diaphanous fabrics that diffused the light of the gardens beyond. Hero gave one last reproachful glance at the cat, wondering what would shy off a literal living avatar of anger. Alecto gave away nothing else. Rami followed him out, and Hero just caught the edge of the swaying curtain before stepping into the light.
“Oh, I’m going to be ill,” Hero moaned under his breath. He stopped short enough to cause Rami to collide with him. It must have carried in his voice, because Rami grunted and rubbed sympathetic circles on Hero’s back.
When Iambe had described a well, Hero had assumed a tidy cistern, or at worst a looking pond, as Echo had used. But the marble steps led down into a terrace transformed. There was no well, or cultured pond—the terrace was the pond. Water surrounded them on all sides, as if they’d stepped into a bathysphere of mirrors. At least, Hero had to presume it was water. The substance was perfectly clear, like liquid light, and appeared simultaneously thin as a soap bubble and deep as the ocean. It went on to forever and to naught. And when Hero tried to focus his eyes to make sense of it, he found himself staring at countless reflections. He took a step across the marble, and a thousand similar Heroes took a step at a half-second delay. Rami’s arm moved at his back, and a repeating visual echo of Ramiels followed suit. Each movement sent his brain into riot trying to make sense of it.
Hero squeezed