0316382981 by Emily Holleman

for inspiration? What happened to your beloved Odysseus?”
    “I thought—since you asked me to read Antigone —and it was…” She paused to think, to make a careful measure of her words. “The war I fight isn’t on the battlefield, but here in the palace.”
    “I wouldn’t boast so loudly of your war,” her tutor chided. “Especially as it seems to be a losing one like Ismene’s. Ears linger at every bush.”
    Arsinoe spun her head this way and that, but she saw no evil eyes spying from the branches. Only the thick and carefree leaves of summer.
    “It would be better to speak of what lessons lie ahead,” the eunuch went on. “You’ve missed some weeks of schooling. I find you’re very much behind in your learning.”
    “But I read,” she protested. “I read many plays when I was confined. I read every word you sent me.”
    “I sent you nothing,” the eunuch snapped.
    Arsinoe nodded slowly; she could learn this lesson too, to never speak of what had come before. To pretend that this—whatever this proved to be—had always been her life. To forget that she’d ever had a mother and a father. To act as though she’d never been abandoned. As long as she could still hold on to Cleopatra. She refused to let go of her.
    “I saw those scrolls piled in your room,” said the eunuch. “What could you understand from them? Little and less, I’m afraid.”
    “I understood a great deal! I learned of duty, and of fate, and of mocking love.”
    “If you’d understood anything at all, I would hope it had come from Antigone.”
    “From Antigone?” she asked, curious. She hadn’t expected this. She admired Antigone, admired her courage, her conviction. But the girl frightened her too. “But she’s in love with death.”
    “And what attracts you to Ismene, then? Her love of life?”
    Arsinoe shook her head. It wasn’t that. Her thoughts returned to Cleopatra, to how, around this time of year, they might swim together in the sea, racing along the shore, masquerading as mermaids and other strange creatures of the ocean’s depths. Girls had more freedom there beneath the waves. Once, her sister had dared her to venture out beyond the rocks, into the open sea, where the waves crashed unprotected, wild enough to swallow a child whole. But she’d done it, and without a trace of fear, because with Cleopatra at her side Arsinoe could do anything. Even die.
    “No, it’s her love of her sister,” Ganymedes replied, reading her thoughts. “And where does it get her, all this loving of her sister? In the end, what is her love worth? It’s not worth enough to bury Polynices.”
    It was true. Ismene had been too frightened to join Antigone, to bury their brother’s body and pour libations over his flesh when their harsh uncle had forbidden it.
    “But she regrets it, Ganymedes,” Arsinoe protested. “And in the end, she understands. And she wishes that she’d helped Antigone.”
    “And what good is wishing?” Her tutor sighed. “What, my dear, does Antigone tell her? ‘I have no love for a friend who loves in words alone.’ * And she is right. Didn’t I warn you that it was better to act? How it is always better to act than to succumb to your fate?”
    “But Antigone doesn’t fight her fate—she embraces it.”
    “You have me there,” Ganymedes said, laughing loud and deep. “But I’d hoped you might follow the greater point.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “One that might advise you in your present state.”
    He was telling her to be brave, be bold, be Antigone. But she couldn’t. Not now, not when the world had turned in on itself. It had been easy then, with Cleopatra. But all that courage had abandoned her along with her sister, sailing across the wine-dark sea. She didn’t dare tell him that; she’d rather that Ganymedes think her dumb than spineless.
    The eunuch, too, fell silent. And she hated the quiet more than his rebukes. He, too, had given up on her, she thought as she kicked