Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters

by Emily Roberson

  * * *

  My sneakers squeak on the polished marble floors as I walk out of the elevator into the lobby, and the people in front of me waiting for the elevator step backward, like I’m an ambulance and they’re the cars on the road.

  I know what I’m supposed to be doing—getting ready for my part of the makeovers. The competitors will be getting facials and waxing and wardrobe by now, but the only thing I want to do is find Theseus.

  I hear my name shouted across the lobby, echoing off the marble and gold surfaces.

  I turn, and Theseus is jogging toward me.

  I tell my heart to slow down. It doesn’t listen. I guess he’s looking for me, too.

  Before he can get to me, my security detail is in motion.

  In theory, I know that my bodyguards are keeping track of me whenever I go into the public areas of the palace, but it’s surprising how fast they can move out of the shadows. They are tall, dark-haired, nearly interchangeable, and terribly discreet guys in suits. They have him surrounded before I take a step in his direction.

  All around us in the lobby, people scatter. Nobody wants to be in the way if there’s an incident.

  “Stop, stop,” I shout, before they have a chance to Taser him. “It’s okay.”

  In the center, Theseus is holding his hands out, looking charming, trying to defuse the situation. “Sorry, sorry, I was hoping to talk to the lady,” he says.

  My bodyguards are not charmed.

  “Guys, guys,” I say, “he’s my friend.”

  Okay, maybe that isn’t exactly what he is, but my bodyguards aren’t the type for nuance.

  They take a step back, giving Theseus some personal space, and I reach through the circle of them, holding my hand out to him.

  He takes my hand, and where we are touching, it is like I have an electrical pulse coursing through me. Theseus is in sharp focus, while everyone milling around watching us—the bodyguards, workers, and tourists—is an annoying distraction.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say, pulling him across the lobby, down one of the hallways where we aren’t so exposed.

  As we walk, Theseus lifts my hand up and looks at it, the pink skin and abraded flesh from my fall last night. “That cleaned up well,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say, not sure what else to say now. Not sure what happens next.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I ask finally.

  “Do you know where we can find some breakfast?” he asks.

  I stop walking and look at him, taking my hand back. “You chased me across the lobby for breakfast? You know, there are many, many people here who can help you find something to eat. Legions of staff. No need to find me.”

  He laughs, then looks at me seriously. “Okay, it’s not breakfast.”

  He runs his hand across his eyes, dark-rimmed from lack of sleep. “I wanted to see you.”

  Me too, I don’t say.

  “Is there anywhere we can talk … privately?”

  “Privately?” I manage, my mouth dry.

  He glances up at the ceiling to where a security camera is mounted, a microphone beside it. “Not filmed…”

  “Why?” I whisper.

  “I have some questions,” he says. “About you. About The Labyrinth Contest. About everything.”

  I’m not disappointed. What did I think he was going to say? I’m planning to kiss you? What would I even do if he said that? Okay, that’s a lie. I’m super-disappointed. Questions about me? About The Labyrinth Contest?

  I turn away. “I can’t talk about everything. Have a great day.”

  “Wait, wait, Ariadne,” he says. “I said that wrong. Can’t I talk to you, please?”

  He leans in toward me. My gaze drops to his mouth, full lips a little chapped. I have a flash of what they felt like last night, for that instant. What they felt like on my wrist.

  I find that I have questions of my own. What if he kissed me again? What if he did it for real? Like someone who actually knows how to kiss? Why is he so interested in me? Why does he affect me this way?

  Not that I’d ask him those.

  I look around nervously. What would it hurt for me to spend a tiny bit more time with him?

  I think hard, trying to come up with somewhere private. Somewhere in the palace where things are not filmed. There are only two places where the cameras aren’t running—the control room and the center of the maze—and there’s no way I’m taking Theseus to either of those places.

  I have one idea. “Do you have any running shoes?” I ask.

  He nods. “Sure.”

  “Meet me back here in ten minutes.”

  “What about breakfast?” he asks.

  “You are a resourceful person, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  In my room, I change into exercise clothes, moving my ball of thread and my phone to the pocket of my shorts. I don’t remember the last time I shaved my legs. I consider running a razor over them, then change my mind, because number one, that would suggest that I care what Theseus thinks about my legs, and number two, it would give me a rash.

  Theseus meets me in the lobby. I spot him quickly in the crowd of elderly sightseers, middle-aged people coming to work, and my sisters’ rabid tween fans. Sleeveless T-shirt, biceps. Really good legs. I mean great legs. Gods.

  “Ready?” I ask, and together we start jogging, our feet hammering the marble floors.

  My bodyguards join up with us as soon as we leave the golden doors of the palace. Somehow they are always wearing the right clothes for whatever activity I’m up to. It’s like they know what I’m doing before I do.

  “I thought you said we’d be alone,” Theseus says, in step beside me.

  I laugh at that. “I don’t get to be alone.”

  I put on a burst of speed, wondering if he will be able to keep up with me. Running is the only way that I can ever pretend to be free. My bodyguards are in good shape, and they can always catch me eventually, but it is possible to get out ahead of them, if I work at it. In reality, I know I’m a fish on a line and I can never truly get away, but the wind comes up off the harbor, and it blows my hair back from my face, and my feet are fleet on the ground, and I feel alive, like I’m flying, and that’s something.

  For the first time in my life, there is someone running with me, matching me step for step.

  I take Theseus on my longest approved route, the farthest I’m allowed to go. We fly down the long staircases, away from the palace compound. We pass the tourists with their cameras taking pictures of the sights. They look at us once they see my bodyguards and take their pictures of our backs, in case we’re anyone important. It’s early, though, so they are there in ones and twos, and it’s easy to weave around them. Not like it will be this afternoon, when the crowds will make it impossible to move at a speed any faster than a tourist holding a camera phone up to the skyline.

  We’re running at a nice pace, fast enough to be breathing hard, but slow enough to talk.

  “You have questions?” I ask.

  “Here? Now?” he asks.

  “You wanted no cameras,” I say, “and this is the best I’ve got.” I wave at the sky. “Out here, there is no one to hear us but the birds and the gods, as long as we are faster than my bodyguards.”

  I look back at the four of them, jogging in lockstep, their eyes hidden behind their sunglasses.

  “So talk,” I say as we reach the bottom of the stairs and turn right, onto Temple Row.

  “Okay,” he says. “Why did you go into the maze last night?”

  Gods, first question and we’re already in dangerous territory.

  “You don’t know that I went into the maze,” I say.

  “You were wearing rainboots last night,” he says. “The maze is the only logical place that you might have been.”

  I imagine telling him about my brother’s rage. Telling him about the earthquakes, but I can’t. “Sometimes I have to go down there.”

  “In your pajamas?”

&n
bsp; “In my pajamas.”

  We get to the temples, tall white marble, with their gilded domes, and in front of each temple there is a statue of a god watching us with lidless eyes.

  “Why are you asking me these questions, Theseus?” I ask. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to say?”

  “I want to know what you have to do with this. I want to know what you think about it. On the glimpses I’ve had of you on the Paradoxes, you have always seemed like a nice person. Yet you are part of this atrocity. Why?”

  “Your competitors don’t think it’s an atrocity,” I say. “They’re jumping for their chance to go into the maze, ready for their shot at the Minotaur.”

  “Yeah, I know what they think—every one of them is convinced that they’re the hero who’s going to single-handedly kill the Minotaur, end the dominion of Crete over Athens, and get their name in the stars and an energy drink sponsorship. I’m not asking you that. I’m asking what you think about it.”

  We run past the Temple of Zeus and the stadium is sitting there, directly ahead of us, colossal and imposing. You can’t see them, but the tunnels of the maze are under our feet.

  “Theseus, I can’t talk about The Labyrinth Contest,” I say. What would be the good of talking about it? “I can’t talk about any of it.”

  “It doesn’t seem right that you would need to be in the maze,” Theseus says. “That they would send you in there. That’s not normal.”

  We turn away from the stadium, onto the harbor road. We reach a high point, looking out at the whole waterfront stretched out below us. The tall buildings and the casinos, the cruise ships pulled up to the wharf.

  I wave my hand, indicating the whole city. “What about this looks normal to you?”

  Far out, at the narrow harbor mouth, a giant bronze head lays on its side, the light glinting off his bronze hair. I point at him. “Like him, he’s super-normal. Everyone’s got one, I hear.”

  “What is that?” Theseus says, laughing.

  “Giant bronze automaton head,” I say. “Talos. Daedalus built him. He used to be a hundred feet tall, but his body was destroyed. The head still sits there, watching the ships that come in and out. Keeping an eye on everything for Daddy. If you’re lucky, while you’re here, we’ll get to go down to the harbor to watch him incinerate something as a demonstration. We don’t get any unauthorized coming and going in Crete. You’re lucky we let you in, prince of Athens.”

  He looks at me. “You people are crazy … Who destroyed him?”

  “My mom’s cousin, a woman named Medea. Oh wait, you know her, right? She’s married to your dad.”

  “Medea?” he asks, incredulous. “Do I know Medea? She’s only tried to kill me about fifteen times. Lucky I’m not a bronze automaton.”

  “She tried to kill you?” I ask, pulling up short. When I first heard that Theseus was the new prince of Athens, I made a joke to Icarus that I thought it was surprising that he was still alive, but I wasn’t being serious. However, now that I think about it, Medea is famous for the many murders she’s gotten away with: She’s killed her own brother, her ex-husband’s uncle, her ex-husband’s new wife, and worst of all, her own kids. Yet somehow, she always lands on her feet—she gets the gods to forgive her and then finds a new hero to hitch her wagon to.

  “Gods, she’s a horrible person,” I say.

  “You’re telling me,” he says.

  “What did she do?” I ask.

  “First she got my dad to make me fight a bunch of dangerous beasts to prove that I was worthy, and finally, right before I left on this trip, she tried to get him to give me a toast with poisoned wine.”

  “Gods,” I say again. “Is she still married to your dad?”

  “As far as I know,” he says.

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “It’s complicated. My dad has a younger brother, and he and his sons, the Pallantides, have tried to overthrow my dad a few times, but they’re afraid of Medea.”

  “As they should be,” I say.

  “Definitely. Anyway, my dad is worried that he won’t be strong enough to fight off the Pallantides without Medea.”

  “So it’s okay that she tried to kill you, because she’s protecting your dad?”

  “Something like that,” he says. “Also, they’ve tried to assassinate me twice, and he wants to keep having Medea around because their son, Medus, would still be the prince if the Pallantides succeed in offing me.”

  “That’s messed up,” I say.

  Theseus shrugs. “You’re telling me.”

  “So it sounds to me like all you’ve gotten from this prince thing is a bunch of people trying to murder you,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “So why are you still doing it?”

  He shrugs. “Think of it this way—if I was still a nobody kid from nowhere, I wouldn’t be racing you to the decapitated automaton.” He tags me. “You’re it.”

  He takes off, and I am in step right with him.

  We are headed down toward the harbor, and the screaming gulls and smell of salt surround us. We turn toward the wharves and shipyards, leaving my bodyguards in the dust.

  He slows to a walk and together we go down the jetty, where one long ship is moored. A slim black hull with black sails furled and tied to its tall masts. It is the Parthenos, the sailing yacht that Theseus and the Athenians took to get here. It is customary to pretend that it is waiting to take home whatever Athenian defeats the Minotaur. The black sails tell a different story. It is a funeral ship, waiting to carry fourteen bodies back across the sea. If they can even find a body.

  My bodyguards stay back, keeping their distance from a ship of ill omen.

  Theseus looks at me. His face is deadly serious.

  “Look,” he says, “I’m new here. I’m new to Crete, and new to being a prince. My dad’s wife has tried to kill me. Other people have, too. I don’t have anyone on my side, and there’s so much that I don’t understand. Ariadne, you’re the first person I’ve met since I left my hometown who seems like you are yourself. You’re the first person who feels true. I want to talk to you.”

  Gods, I want to believe him. That this could be all it is—a boy without friends talking to a girl. But there’s more here. I’m sure of it. He’s a prince of Athens, even if he has only been one for a little while. He’s the last person I should trust.

  “What about you, Theseus?” I ask. “How true are you?”

  “Pretty true, I’d say,” he says.

  “Really? Then why did you come to Crete? I feel like there has to be an ulterior motive, but I don’t know what it could be. Are you trying to help the competitors? Find out about the maze? Something else? I don’t know. We’ve never had any Athenian officials come for The Labyrinth Contest before. No princes.”

  “Technically, there haven’t been any Athenian princes before now,” he says, “unless you count Medus, and he’s a kid. Not an official.”

  He is deflecting, but I won’t let him get away with it. I look at him.

  We are almost at the end of my route. It’s now or never.

  “Why are you here, Theseus?”

  He wipes his sweaty hair off his forehead. “The truth?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “I couldn’t deal with these kids coming here year after year to die, and no one from Athens, from the royal family, recognizing it. No one trying to do something about it. I came here because I’m trying to stop it, Ariadne. It’s time for The Labyrinth Contest to end. Enough people have died.”

  His face is intense and utterly sincere. No joke. No smile.

  I imagine him traveling back to Athens in that ship with its crew, alone because the fourteen teenagers were devoured by the Minotaur. My brother.

  I shudder.

  He grabs my hand, looking at me intently, his eyes dark and serious. “I need someone to help me. I’m looking for a friend. I need to understand what is happening here.”

  The unspoken message of his han
d holding mine is clear, too. He runs his fingers across my knuckles, and the feeling ricochets through my whole body.

  He wants more than that. I do, too.

  The magnetic pull between us is so strong that I lean in toward him. Toward those lips. He’s sweaty, but so am I. The cool breeze blows across both of us, carrying away our stench.

  Theseus draws me closer, his hand moving down to my hip, and when it passes over my pocket, my ball of thread presses against my leg. And with it, the weight of my responsibilities. Of every reason why I can’t tell him anything.

  What would it mean to tell him everything? It would mean defying my father. Defying the gods. It would mean giving Athens knowledge they can’t have. Knowledge that Theseus could give to one of the competitors to help them in the maze.

  I can’t do it.

  I have a pang of regret, because in another universe, another world, with another monster, I would tell him everything. I would be a friend. I would be more than a friend.

  I pull away from him. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, Theseus, I can’t.”

  “Are you going to tell me what you were doing in the maze last night?” he asks.

  “No, I can’t tell you that, either.”

  I set off up the hill as fast as I can go. Pumping my arms and legs, forcing the air into my lungs. Making my body hurt so much that I can’t feel what I’m pushing away, and Theseus is in step with me the whole way.

  We don’t talk as we run up the hill together, putting one foot in front of the other. My four shadows trail behind us.

  * * *

  Back in my room, I’m dripping with sweat. My heart rate has returned to normal, but my body still hums with the exertion of the run. My hands tremble as I take off my shoes. I can barely manage to untie the laces.

  I lie down on the marble bathroom floor, unable to say if I feel this way because of having run harder than I have in months or because of Prince Theseus.

  My shoulders press against the cold stone of the floor, and I force myself to breathe, still feeling Theseus’s hand on mine, his words in my head—I’m looking for a friend.

  I had something so big, so real, and I pushed it away.