taut with effort, his jaw set. It took a long time, for my sister’s immortal flesh fought back, but Daedalus cut on with utmost concentration, and at last the glistening muscles parted, and the flesh beneath gave way. The path lay bare to my sister’s womb.
“Now you,” she said, looking at me. Her voice was hoarse and torn. “Get it out.”
The couch beneath her was sopping. The room was filled with the overripe stink of her ambrosial blood. Her belly had stopped rippling when Daedalus began to cut. It was tensed now. As if it were waiting, I thought.
I looked at my sister. “What is in there?”
Her golden hair was matted. “What do you think? A baby.”
I put my hands to that gap in her flesh. The blood pulsed hot against me. Slowly, I pressed through the muscles and the wet. My sister made a strangled croak.
I searched in that slickness, and at last there it was: the soft mass of an arm.
A relief. I could not even say what I had feared. Just a baby.
“I have it,” I said. My fingers inched upwards for purchase. I remember telling myself that I must be careful to find its head. I did not want it twisted when I began to pull.
Pain burst in my fingers, so shocking I could not cry out. I thought some scrambled thing: that Daedalus must have dropped the scalpel inside of her, that a bone had broken in her labor and stabbed me. But the pain clamped harder, driving deep into my hand, grinding.
Teeth. It was teeth.
I did scream then. I tried to jerk my hand away, but it had me fast in its jaws. In a panic, I yanked. The lips of my sister’s wound parted and the thing slid forth. It thrashed like a fish on a hook, and muck flew across our faces.
My sister was shrieking. The thing was like an anchor dragging on my arm, and I felt my finger joints tearing. I screamed again, the agony white-hot, and fell on top of the creature, scrabbling for its throat with my hand. When I found it, I bore down, pinning its body beneath me. Its heels beat on the stone, its head twisted, side to side. At last I saw it clear: the nose broad and flat, shining wetly with birth fluid. The shaggy, thick face crowned with two sharp horns. Below, the froggy baby body bucked with unnatural strength. Its eyes were black and fixed on mine.
Dear gods, I thought, what is it?
The creature made a choking sound and opened its mouth. I snatched my hand away, bloody and mangled. I had lost my last two fingers and part of a third. The thing’s jaw worked, swallowing what it had taken. Its chin wrenched in my grip, trying to bite me again.
A shadow beside me. Daedalus, pale and blood-spattered. “I am here.”
“The knife,” I said.
“What are you doing? Do not hurt him, he must live!” My sister was struggling on her couch, but she could not rise with her muscles cut.
“The cord,” I said. It still ran gristle-thick between the creature and my sister’s womb. He sawed at it. My knees were wet where I knelt. My hands were a mass of broken pain and blood.
“Now a blanket,” I said. “A sack.”
He brought a thick wool coverlet, laid it on the floor beside me. With my torn fingers, I dragged the thing into its center. It fought still, moaning angrily, and twice I nearly lost it, for it seemed to have grown stronger even in those moments. But Daedalus gathered up the corners, and when he had them, I jerked my hands away. The creature thrashed in the blanket folds, unable to find purchase. I took the ends from him, lifting it off the floor.
I could hear the rasp of Daedalus’ breath. “A cage,” he said. “We need a cage.”
“Get one,” I said. “I will hold it.”
He ran. Inside its sack, the creature twisted like a snake. I saw its limbs lined against the fabric, that thick head, the points of horns.
Daedalus returned with a birdcage, the finches still fluttering inside. But it was stout, and large enough. I stuffed the blanket in, and he clanged shut the door. He threw another blanket over it, and the creature was hidden.
I looked at my sister. She was covered in blood, her belly a slaughter-yard. The drips fell wetly to the sodden rug beneath. Her eyes were wild.