Whereas the courtyard boasts plums and oranges and hydrangeas of orange and bird-yellow, the private gardens are as bright, but not so cheerful. Of course, I could be instilling my own feelings on the plants. After all, only half the flora in existence are people or creatures turned by the gods or the remains of their blood and tears.

As I stride into the quiet place, the grass cut into a fine square and bordered by golden-leafed pillars, Circe glides beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, she keeps her distance, beside me but slightly behind. I resist the urge to shake my head. It feels so calculated, but I've grown used to catching every tic and twitch of the hand. Asking myself why someone chooses to stand when they could sit.

The sun dwells behind clouds, making the day seem later than it is. As I cross one of the ivory benches. Kora keeps pace behind us. When I sit, I catch my handmaiden's expression toward Circe.

Kora eyes her warily, but I'm surprised when she seems to soften. Or give up. Her shoulders loosen, and she turns her attention toward me, bowing and treading her sandals on the dirt path and soft grass to stand behind me. I am ever glad for her faithfulness. When I've been the mother of my people, it's refreshing to have someone act protective over you.

Over my stomach, I clasp my hands. My pulse beats steady in my throat. And Circe, too, is steady, her dark gaze constant as she waits. I wonder if the old manners elude her. Bowing looked unnatural to her; on her island, she bowed to no one.

I ask her, "Didn't you poison a woman and turn her into a monster because you two loved the same man?"

Instead of answering immediately, she looks to my side. Kora tenses, that hitch of breath, as Circe comes close. But her attention isn't on me.

Circe glimpses her thumb over a white lily, created from the breast milk of Hera herself. It holds steady above where the anemones and roses flaunt themselves, gifts from Mother. The anemones are not as dark as the roses; they are brazenly red, the mix of Mother's tears and the blood of her gentle, scarlet-cheeked lover.

The witch says to me, voice like wild honey, "She was a nymph in love with a shepherd who beat her. I changed her into a monster, so no man would dare hurt her again." And that's when her expression breaks, and she releases a peal of laughter, her canines sharp as a wolf's. "Yes, yes, the horrid witch who emasculates men. But I've never struck punishment on anyone who didn't deserve it. Man, woman or otherwise." She drinks the last of the wine and sets the glass down, giving me her full attention. "I'm not here for that, however."

"Indeed," I say, my jaw aching from tension.

Circe says lightly, "You're much too tense for one on top of the world." I don't like how she seems to know what's on my mind. "Though I'd suppose that'd give you quite a headache. I am truly grateful that my exile has been revoked."

"What did you do to make Zeus trust you?"

"I kept quiet and didn't threaten him with my power. And really, when I prostrated myself to him when he visited and mentioned that he needed a powerful witch to care for the Queen of the Mortals, how could I refuse? After all, he granted you to King Cadmus himself, so he saw your value."

"My value," I say faintly. "Yes."

"Admittedly, the beauty here is far different than Aeaea."

"Really?" I ask with an arched brow.

"Much more artificial. Some of it." She meets my eyes. "Not all. I'm surprised you still have eyes with all the gold you must stare at day in and out. Forgive me for saying so, but if I was here for thousands of years, my eyes would've gone the way of Oedipus'."

I must show her my queenly face. And there must be no cracks. Even if the walls don't speak, they listen. "This palace is a gift crafted by the gods themselves. A blessing."

"Yes. I can see Zeus' handiwork." Every syllable of the last word is punctuated with thorns, and yet, she's using restraint. I can imagine what she must want to say, that she can smell the stink of him, lilies and wine and the sweetly bitter odor of clouds.

Circe extends a hand, and I see the veins of magic thrumming under her palm. "May I ask for your hand? I want to see what I am able to do."

A tug in my chest. I want to refuse, as she unspindles those long fingers, which look too soft for a witch of the sea-wilds. I'm embarrassed that I want to know how they feel, but if I let her touch me, that means she might realize I'm hopeless. And leave. But then again, she only just arrived, so I have little to lose. "My hand isn't the part of me that needs healing." Though, bitterly, I remember every part of me is cursed.

"Yes, but there is a vein in it that goes straight to the heart. It gives me a good sense of your health, and how best we might fight this curse."

Tentatively, I show her my hand, which is smaller than hers. As she gently clasps it, she kneels, and her fingers graze against my knuckles. I swallow thickly when lightning shoots through me, as if my body is attuned to the magic in hers.

"Now," Circe says, "let me see."

"Do you need to know what happened to me?"

"Zeus regaled me with the story of what happened. Doomed Harmonia, daughter of Love and War. I'm sure there are dramas about it." There are. In some of them, I change into a snake and slither into the earth. At least, those were the stories that came before I was mantled the Queen of Earth. A false queen, left to rot in a tower because of my madness, easy to control only because I had no power at all, no cognizance of the world around me.

I say to Circe, "You don't expect me to believe Zeus let you off for free. Do you?"

A tug of her lips, the lines around them deepening. "It's an old story. Supplication. Simpering. Doing, of course, the usual things Zeus expects." Unsaid words hang heavy between us. The usual things Zeus expects from women. My heart aches. She doesn't look at me when she says it, but her eyes darken. "It was Hephaestus who laid this curse on you like the stories say, yes?"

A metallic taste fills my mouth. "Yes." A breeze flows through the rooms, rustling the trees and flowers, cooling my skin.

She clicks her tongue. "He truly is his mother's son." A note of disapproval, humor of the dark, bitter kind. That sort I let sink in my lungs, so I don't poison my words. I want to shush her, to smooth that edge to her voice, but to my shock, my stomach flutters, and my chest tights, not unpleasantly.

It feels good to have someone acknowledge, even curtly, how wrong this situation is. How Hephaestus was spiteful and chose to punish me, an innocent who'd done nothing but exist because of Mother's indiscretions. And to him, that marked me as a living crime. Which, naturally, gave him the right to wreak crimes on my body.

Circe, the cunning sea-witch, could poison me, hurt me, and though it may seem as if I shouldn't worry, since I'm immortal, I've discovered more than anything that immortality makes the stakes higher. If I'm sick or cursed, I must spend an eternity without relief. This necklace, the melancholy, the bitterness and hatred. Like when I walked into the courtyard after learning Semele had sneaked out to get drunk at a wedding, and when she sniped at me, I struck her across the cheek.

The offending hand itches, a feeling too deep to scratch away. It's the one Circe holds as she traces her finger from my second one, the longest, and brushes her nimble touch along my wrist and a faint, blue vein that disappears into the sallow skin of my arm. When she reaches my elbow, she momentarily cups the inside of it before pulling away and standing.

"I will teach you magic. Every goddess has the capacity for it somehow. And I will give you the power to remove the cursed, horrid thing."

I offer a small nod. "Then, you have my thanks."

"Ah. Don't thank me until it's gone. So, too, your pain."

I swallow the knot in my throat, the one that says that pain can never be rid of. All my eternal life, I was told to move on. All the gods do. They have so many siblings and children and lovers and don't give a damn about any of them. But I'm broken; I can't forget, can't let things languish in insignificance.

And as much as I want to heal, I don't want to forget. So, the pain has become a part of me. It is me. But this is the price I've paid for love.

"I'm afraid the issue is far more than skin-deep, my lady."

I don't see her logic. This cursed necklace is embedded into my flesh. Unless my definitions are fallacious, that sounds like the meaning of "skin-deep." Perhaps that's too shallow. Bone-deep, collarbone-deep.

I cannot hide the acid in my voice. "Should I simply believe in myself, and the necklace will disappear?" Immediately, I flush and straighten, trying to regain a semblance of composure. That was not exactly regal of me.

"That's the spirit. But in all seriousness, this was crafted by Hephaestus himself, so a mere spell cannot unbind it from you. What you need is something like this." She extends a palm, hands up, and traces her fingers along the sigils, the blue circles and lines that mark her body.

Shocked, I ask, "Are you saying I need a tattoo?" When I say it, I almost feel like a girl, not a queen. I recoil. Tattoos, ink or magic, are for barbarians and criminals. They represent shame and punishment. To mar the body in such a way would be like slicing off a man's foreskin. If a thief receives a mark that brands them as such, it's to dishonor them.

And yet, what shame and pain could her magic inflict on my body that hasn't already been done? Honor is forfeit in these realms of the gods.

"Oh, not at all! I'm saying you might need tattoos. They act as conduits, too. Magic can manifest in a way that feels heavy on the soul, so you give it a path." Always, my body is heavy. Tired. To do that only sounds like it'll exhaust me.

Kora cuts in. "The lady is far too noble to have anything of the like."

"Please. She's the queen of all humanity, as assigned by the gods." Because a docile, melancholic queen, reined in by the necklace and her husband, is easy to control. "If she wanted to parade naked in the banquet room, no one could say anything unless they wanted their tongue sloughed off on the marble like a pretty jewel."

"I would never have that happen. I'm no butcher."

"But you may be a witch in the making." Witch-queen. Mad witch-queen. It has an interesting ring to it, that lick of power.

"I'm not sure I want that power. It might change me." Make me vain and jealous. It's not as if my mother is known for keeping the peace. Some might see Ares as war and Aphrodite as frivolous, silly love, but she and her son Eros orchestrated the worst bloodshed. They understood that the heart is nothing if not a vessel of blood.

"Please. Men write stories about women losing their minds from too much power because they already have all of it. For them, it's a burden they sagely suggest others try not to have. And then, as the wise man cries and write his poems, and his people go off to tend to the fields, he can still feast and fight and fuck to his heart's content. 'Oh, Penelope, tend to the loom, I'll be right back'." She looks behind my shoulder at Kora again. "Isn't that right?"

Kora says, "My queen is the one who needs your assistance."

"Please," I say, shocked by the ice between them, "let's get started. I would like to be free of this curse as soon as possible."

Brushing her thick hair from her face, Circe gives a false, world-weary sigh. "All business." She gives me a serious look as she shows me her wrist. The most prominent symbol is a cross crowned by a triangle. "These sigils, should you have them, will unveil and unearth any pain, any tragedy. And of course, with those of us who have lived thousands of years, these things often come in multitudes."

"Anything for me to be free of this. To be done with the pus and blood." The infection causing the days to be nothing but headaches and sluggish apathy.

Finger under her chin, she tilts her head in thought. I'm still too aware of my handmaiden stiffly behind me, growing hard when she'd seemed to lose her edges. I must speak to Kora later.

Gesturing to my endless wound, Circe says, "There may be a way to use these. There's power in certain fluids, such as moonblood."

I hum, resisting the urge to pick at an itching scab near one of the serpent heads. "I haven't menstruated in quite a long time."

Circe straightens. "No matter. A woman's power need not stem from the womb."

My fingers hover over the leaking swell of one of the serpent heads. "Will the marks you put on me be more painful than this?"

Lines form around her eyes. "They will not be entirely pleasant. None of this will be. But I doubt it'll be even a fraction of what you seem to have gone through."

"And what do you know of that?"

Circe hums, but even when she tilts her head in curiosity, her eyes never lose that shrewd edge. As if she's using a knife to slip inside my skin.