Page 120 of Cathmoir's Sons

Caileán points her finger at him. “Be useful. I saw dried apricots in the pantry earlier and now I can’t find them. Sniff out the dried apricots and grab the honey. If I can’t have nightbells, I want apricots drizzled in honey.”

Law lifts his eyebrows but when Caileán continues to glare, he holds up his hands and disappears into the pantry.

While he’s rummaging, a jar of dried apricots and a pot of honey appear on the counter at Caileán’s elbow.

None of us call Law back from his quest. I circle around the island, grab a knife, and start cutting up the apricots to pile on the platter.

“Should I save questions about the Shadow Sisters until after you’ve eaten?” I ask Caileán while Teddy’s diverted by arguing with the demons about whether the artichoke hearts they want to add to the board have been marinated in garlic.

“Ask away,” Caileán says. “But if I get to eat sooner, I’ll volunteer what I think. There are a lot of shadowy figures in the same mythology that spawned Charybdis, but sisters? Not too many shadowy sisters. Shadowy sisters associated with the sea? Shadowy sea sisters who guard a resting place?”

“The Graeae,” Teddy says, breaking off from her argument with Jou. “Sea hags who shared a tooth and an eye between them.”

“I thought that was the Fates,” I say, remembering Disney.

Teddy and Caileán scoff.

“That’s the Greek myths told by Hollywood,” Luca says, strolling into the kitchen with a book in hand. He stayed in bed when we left for Torre Faro. Although I volunteered for this morning’s dive, I was a little jealous of his lazy morning. He’s looking absurdly hot in a deconstructed sweater open over his abs and dark camos slung low on his hips. I toss a dried apricot at his smug face. He snaps it out of the air with his teeth and chews contentedly.

“What else do we know about the Graeae?” I ask.

“They weren’t happy bunnies,” Teddy says, scooping soft cheese out of folds of butcher paper and piling it on the platter. She scrapes the rime of cheese left off the paper with her forefinger and pops it into her mouth, smiling blissfully. “Great Mother, why is the cheese here so good? I could eat it all day. If Dar hasn’t already bought us a house here, I’m going to make him buy one next door to the cheese shop. Anyway, the Graeaewere not friendly. They demanded something precious from anyone who tried to bargain with them. Like first-born child precious. So they could have first-born child stew.”

Law stalks out of the pantry, wraps himself around Caileán, and cups his hands over her belly. “No,” he says.

Caileán elbows him. “That wasn’t ever on the table.”

“I see you found the apricots,” Law observes, propping his chin on the top of Caileán’s head.

“Magic,” I say gravely. Luca sniggers.

“Ha-ha,” Law grumbles. “I violently object to any plan that involves human sacrifice to sea hags. How do we kill them?”

Caileán tips her head back on his shoulder. “I don’t want to kill them. Please?”

He sighs hugely. “Remind mewhywe’re not killing the cannibalistic sea hags?” he asks.

Caileán exchanges glances with Teddy.

“For every queen or princess or Helen in the ancient world,” Teddy says, “there were three hags or crones who got shafted, usually literally, by an Olympian dick-swinger. They got tossed into the wine-dark sea or the underworld or somewhere equally unpleasant to spend their days being harassed by dick-swinging heroes who wanted their wombs or apples or golden fleece. They rarely did anything to deserve their fate other than being unfortunate enough to be born with a vagina. We make it a policy not to kill other vagina-bearing individuals if vagina-ownership is their only crime.”

Law looks at Teddy, his eyebrows nearly disappearing in his hairline. “That’s, uh, an interesting mishmash of mythology and feminism. Who iswe?”

“Despite Teddy’s hyperbolized stroll through Greek and Roman myth,” Caileán says. “We includes me. I don’t want to kill ancient creatures unless they try to kill me first. The Graeae have been around for a long time if they are Charybdis’ guardians.Surely they’re bored of their gatekeeper roles? Maybe we could offer them freedom?”

Luca hums, flipping through the book he’s holding. “Mmm, that’s worth pursuing. They’re very attached to their eye and tooth in legend.”

“Tethers?” asks Teddy. “The eye and the tooth?”

Gabe leans his elbows on the counter across from his wife. “Binding them to the mortal world and the will of those more powerful?”

Teddy nods.

“What does that mean in practical terms,” Caileán asks. “Is there an unbinding ritual?”

“Maybe,” Luca says. “The Roman witch Simaetha wrote about the Graeae in response to Hesiod. There’s a poem in herFons Aquarumthat has the rhythm of a ritual. Here it is, ‘Deino, Enyo, and Pemphredo, sisters three / In caverns deep, their lair be / Ageless watchers of the western isle / Guard their sisters with unending guile’.”

To nods all around the kitchen, Luca continues:

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