Page 11 of Aïdes the Unseen
“Do you see her?” he said, nodding toward a mortal girl wrapped in violet-dyed linen, weaving through the dancers with the grace of a hunted deer. “She’s run from three suitors tonight. One was a blacksmith with hands like tree bark. Another was a poet who tried to win her with a poem he definitely stole from Hesiod. The third—ah, that one’s a mystery. She whispered his name to a tree and then bit the bark until it bled.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you know this how?”
“I’m terribly observant,” he said, grinning. “Also, the tree told me.”
The libations made me warm enough to laugh, a soft thing. The world shimmered around us: smoke from the fires curling upward in blue spirals, the nymphs gliding like mist between the dancers, and the sky above smeared with stars.
“Now, that boy,” Hermes went on, pointing with his cup, “thinks he’s descended from Poseidon. He’s not. But he’s convinced a girl from the coast he can breathe underwater. He’s never seen the sea.”
“And that one?” I asked, tipping my chin toward a reed-thin man with a crooked nose and three lovers hanging on him.
“Oh, that’s one of mine,” Hermes said smugly. “Born with his fingers crossed. He’ll sell his grandmother for a good joke and a better lie.”
Apollo’s music threaded through it all, light, aching, full of restrained beauty. It wound around the revelers like ivy, pulling them in, making their joy seem deeper than it was. I could feel his attention drifting toward me again, delicate and constant. He was playing for everyone, but his thoughts were not communal. They tickled at me like a breeze behind my ear.
Why don’t you look at me?
Because I know what you want, and I will not give it.The cup in my hand was nearly empty when I felt a shift—not in the music, not in the revelry, but in the air around us. It was the way space clears before a quiet truth enters the room.
Hephaestus came without torchlight or flourish. No ivy crown or perfume of divine roses. Just the smell of forge smoke, oil, and iron. His steps were uneven, slow, and honest. He moved through the dancers like someone used to not being seen.
But I saw him.
He glanced my way, once, and then looked away quickly. As if it had been a mistake.
I moved aside on the low stone bench without speaking, patting the space between Hermes and me. He hesitated. Then sat, careful and quiet, his broad hands resting on his knees.
“Evening,” Hermes said. “You’re late.”
“I was working,” Hephaestus said, his voice low and rough like stones settling in a riverbed. “Didn’t realize the night had started.”
“Time’s a liar,” Hermes said cheerfully. “But the mead’s still good.”
Hephaestus nodded. I poured him a cup.
We sat like that for a while—the three of us. The beautiful music carried on. The fires crackled. Laughter rose and fell like wind in wheat. Somewhere behind us, someone screamed in pleasure or madness or both.
Hephaestus sipped his honeyed drink slowly.
“You’ve been missed,” I said softly.
He didn’t look at me. “Most people don’t notice when I’m gone.”
“I do.”
The words surprised even me.
Hermes said nothing, but I could feel his smile. Not mocking. Just pleased.
The forge god gave a quiet grunt, the closest thing to gratitude I think he could manage. His shoulder brushed mine slightly. It was solid. Real. Not golden or glowing. Just comfortable and steady.
I liked it more than I expected.
The mead dulled the edges of the firelight. Or maybe the fire itself had softened, grown contemplative like the music.
Hephaestus sat beside me, not fidgeting, not trying to charm. Just being. It was a rare kind of comfort, divine, but undemanding.
“You don’t come to these often,” I said, watching the play of gold on his forearms. They were marked with burns and soot, rings of dark where the forge kissed him too closely.
