Medusa had been pairing up with people for…she guessed the past two hours. She ddn’t have much way of tracking the time. Back then, almost no one did. Even the candles here didn’t get smaller as they burned. And with the free drinks being poured refills by any passing dyad with a pitcher, she and everyone else seemed to have so much to say.

  She turned to Echo and jotted down the latest names on the list. “Annnd…weeee are in business! That’s the 20th person tonight. Oh I missed people. See, now you’re getting to see me at my A-Game. That Baroness is gonna hit up Seriphos to sell a shipful of lumber back home, once my mom’s weather calms down; islands can use all the outside wood we can get. I told her to tell ‘em it’s from me. She is so sold on the braiding-kelp-as-rope idea. I am on a roll!”

  “((I miss people,))” Echo agreed tentatively, knowing it didn’t feel quite the same for her being the third wheel. Medusa had fully intended to take her under her wing and help her be part of conversation. But socializing herself was too exhilarating.

  Echo furrowed her brow and looked off to the side, turning as if she’d heard something behind her. She said something in a puzzling accent:

  “I am saying again - it is walking on four legs in morning, two in afternoon, and three in evening. I am giving one more minute for guessing!”

  Medusa paused. This was too random not to investigate.

  “Man, your ears are good; I didn’t hear none o’ that! Where’re you hearing it?”

  Echo lifted a finger to her lip as if waiting to see where it pointed her, a thin smile drawing up behind it. Then she led Medusa out to the balcony.

  On any other night, if Medusa had walked through a doorway and seen a lioness, she would have recoiled with her palms out on instinct. But she had…three, four servings of liquor in her, that she’d kept count of. She took a whole second to do a double-take and swagger back.

  Well - there was a sort-of lioness. Medusa wasa sort-of person in snakeskin; this thing was a woman’s head on the body of a big sand-colored cat, smooth short coat capturing the warmth of the late-afternoon sun. (Finally, the old-fashioned way to know what time it is.) She had wings tucked up on her back, as if having to keep them out of the way around people. Being an animal, she probably hadn’t needed to dress up, but thinking as a human, she chose to. On all-fours, she has sort of a veil skirt made for her waist and each of her legs, fading from blue to white with blocky, stylized runes down each side. Down the front, she’d gone with a top that was more of a stylized fishing net strung with hundreds of beads, which left her goods hanging out in the open. That was the style down in Egypt, anyway; maybe being the world’s iconic top predator meant she didn’t have to worry about anybody copping a feel, either.

  There was a small crowd of a dozen men and women around, interested but staying what they felt was a safe distance from her. They grasped for an answer to her riddle, literally, hands grasping the air at their mouths, their chins, the backs of their heads, or just wringing them in futility.

  “Hourglass is down to dregs now! Again, prize is free fortune telling. How about you, woman in lizard skin, are you having a guess?”

  “((Woman in lizard skin,))” Echo repeated under her breath, a smile raised on her cheeks. Eh, Medusa didn’t feel the need to correct this lady; people guess her race wrong all the time.

  Free fortune telling? The words prize and free-anything got her going. Ok, four legs, then two, then…back up to three? In one day? Was this some kind of workout routine?

  “It’s not an insect, I tried that,” someone in the back murmured to her.

  Medusa eyed the leg-length hourglass next to the lioness. She shuffled through a few mental images, but nothing was clicking. She gave up. “...maaan, I got nothing! Was there a hint–”

  “That’s it! You are second person ever guessing it! It is man!” Medusa felt herself suddenly on-the-spot. She turned halfway away instinctively to spare the audience their lives, before realizing she didn’t need to do that here. Instead of them losing their lives, she had just won something. She had to say something, but this had all been pretty sudden.

  “What? I mean like - it’s an island thing. We say ‘man’ just somewhere in the sentence to mean… to… mean… you know what, I dunno, man!” She laughed at herself louder than she normally, soberly would have.

  “Well, I am not understanding that either - my first language is not island, is hieroglyph!” A few audience members laughed on cue without getting the joke, because it sounded like a punchline. “Congra– gracholo– uh, good job! What are you being called?”

  Medusa found her name loaded on her tongue and ready to go, eager to feel known, but at the back of her mind she remembered to use her sister’s name here, just in case…well she couldn’t think of why right now, but some reason. “Mmmeh– Euryale,” she introduced herself.

  “Eyyy, okay! I am calling myself Sphinx. And now I can be wrapping this up here. Thank you all for playing, everyone! Better luck next time!”

  The audience groaned in an unrehearsed harmony, and mulled off to see what was going on in the next room.

  The first few minutes of Medusa getting acquainted with her went by in the flurry they often did, with the usual “how do you know the host of the party?” and “who’s that quiet girl standing behind you?” Medusa had been trying to word those a little bit different each time tonight to keep her own interest, but she was more interested in asking about each new person anyway.

  “So this riddles gig you got - it really draws in a crowd. I’d take that over a raffle or a wheel of fortune any day.”

  “Oh, yah! I am liking excuse to talk philosophy and skip past small talk. This one was a real thinker.”

  “Yeah, run it by me again?”

  “What walks on four legs in morning, two in afternoon, and three in evening?”

  “Oh. …hah! I’ve known a couple o’ guys with three legs in the evening, know what I’m sayin?” She practically shouted a cackle, then a shiver of giggles followed it out. She was embellishing the stories a bit; she couldn’t resist.

  Sphinx cocked her head, leaned back with that mental image, then coughed out a laugh in spite of herself. She swatted towards Medusa with a paw that could’ve torn out a jugular if she weren’t just playing.

  But the lioness leaned in intently to make her point. “Really, though, answer is Man, like either gender of human. I was thinking of walking stick for old man, that is third leg.”

  “...okay… you said it’s all in one day though. I don’t think anybody’s that mortal.”

  “--was that not clear? Day is meaning like whole life, is - is mephator. Was it not clear?” The Sphinx reached a paw for her own goblet by her feet, but absent-mindedly nudged it off the bench instead. She winced as she thrashed her head in agitation. “Ra dammit! I keep pushing these off of counters on instinct! Is it feline thing or is me trying to keep self sober?”

  “Oh, it’s a metaphor! Ohhhhh kay, I’m picking up what you’re putting - I mean I catch you drift - I mean I understand,” Medusa fumbled for a more translatable figure of speech.

  “I think maybe I am too into poetry,” Sphinx wondered aloud, audibly doubting herself. “These days I am getting paid by college in Athens. They are writing philosophy of nature of existence. I keep trying to bring up gender roles, but they keep changing subject. I know they talk about it when I am not there, reason being those scrolls keep piling up after the mens retreats. I keep telling em, I am literally not like other girls, you can talk to me!”

  “Right??” Medusa found herself leaning in excitedly. “I mean, not like a human girl, anyway. I feel like I can talk to you about this cause you’re not gonna be weird about it. Like, guys already make human girls feel weird about our bodies, so, being all inhuman, it’s like, either they can talk down to me and make creepily-personal comments about me, or they can treat me like I’m not a woman at all, which is a whole…I’m still working out how I’m feelin about it,” she ended abruptly. Her heart was up in her throat, swirling with the water-and-oil of bittersweetness as she opened up about this long-time taboo. For the year and the months she’d been like this, she’d been quietly taking notes on how people treated her differently since she went from beauty to beast. Not thinking about it was nice; being liked for it here and there was too; but sometimes she had to tell someone how often it wasn’t.

  Sphinx hazarded a guess. “I have never been human girl, but, they talk to me. Being monster is… easier than being human girl, I think. We do not have to feel small. We are not treated as small. We are not small! We do not need permission from men to live. We live how we want to live.” Her gaze had gotten a far-off look, as if she was finding words worthy of her next paper.

  “...yeah,” Medusa agreed agreeably, before having truly processed most of that.

  “Oh, I got another party game,” Sphinx suddenly changed course. “We are calling it ‘Eat, Marry, Kill.’ Who would you eat? Pick anyone you are seeing here tonight!”

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  If anyone else had said it, Medusa might've been more irritated at the assumption. But at least it was from one freak-of-nature to another. “Hah! Nahhh, I don’t really eat people. Looks like it! But no.”

  Sphinx made an aggressive head-nuzzle towards her, like a pet insisting on being pet. “Come onnnn, we are all adults here! You are part-predator! Is natural. Heck, even your Minotaur eat human flesh, and he is cow!”

  Medusa was good at not being offended. Assume good intentions in everyone, and everyone will like you better. But when they wanted to kill each other, she felt like she had to turn them down gently. “I mean… I’m really trying not to be seen as a monster. If people already want my head on a platter when I’m trying to be this nice to everyone, I’d hate to see what they do if I’m not.”

  The Sphinx’s lower lip kept changing shape as she pinched it with thought before she answered. “I mean, is dog-eat-dog world. Literally, we have these leopard-dogs called hyenas who be doing that. If you do not go eating someone first, people will think you are safe to eat.”

  Medusa felt a tug on her arm from Echo, the odd human out in the monster conversation. Sure enough, her eyes were bugging out of her head, frozen stiff like a prey animal trying desperately to go unnoticed. Medusa turned halfway to her and pitter-patter patted her arm to reassure her.

  “Hey hey hey hey, it’s okay! You’re okay. Sphinx seems nice,” she said cause she was supposed to, then glanced back at Sphinx to double-check.

  “Whoah, no, I would not be eating just anyone!” Sphinx scoffed another dry laugh, as if surprised she even need to explain herself. “I have standards! Like, people with no kids, and, with enemies to frame it on, and people would not be missed if they were gone.” She seemed relieved by her own explanation, as if that set the matter to rest.

  Medusa gave the encouraging smile she'd wanted to give, but warped by the nervous scrunching of her mouth. Medusa tugged Echo’s arm, begging for an excuse to step out.

  Echo didn't hesitate. She stammered as she picked up on a voice they could hear faintly in the other room. It was a velvety, crooner’s voice, like someone who’d wear a suit in a jazz lounge someday:

  “Aaand here's your host - the Lord of Hosts - Jack of all trades and master of ceremonies - Diiiiii-oooo-ny-suuuuusss!”

  Echo caught on to what she was talking about herself, and perked up in surprise, ending in a flourishing grand hand gesture and half a bow. She smirked at herself for surprising herself.

  “He's here!” Sphinx’s voice rose an octave with glee. “To the ballroom!” She practically pounced past them to catch his opening statement. Medusa could hear the sudden drumroll of Echo's heartbeat in response. They darted down the hall after her, already ready for the next act.

  A minute’s run ahead of them, the speech began. Echo was lucky enough to be able to tune in and broadcast it to them with a few seconds’ delay. The god’s voice was deeply indulgent like his chest was swelling with every kind of pride, his tongue fresh with the zest of some priceless morsel.

  “Gooood eveniiiiiing, ladies and lords! How’s everybody feelin’ tonight? Welcome back to the uppity-est place on earth - as I

  heard somebody call it the other day, ‘Dionysus-land.’ I’d make this estate its own magic kingdom, but we came here to get away from paperwork, am I right?”

  They’d reached the curtains of the ballroom. Sphinx propped them open with her wings, which Medusa noticed she'd dressed up in star-studded sheer veils with coins sewn dangling along the fringe. She noticed those things. Medusa gave her a nod and a grin as she slipped back into the room. It was even more packed than before, with dozens of newer guests lined up standing-room-only along the rounded edges of the room. In the middle of it all, turning all eyes onto him, swaggered Olympus’ youngest star: Dionysus.

  If he were to be compared to someone, Dionysus was… Father Christmas. Father Christmas, back in college (at least his 80th non-consecutive semester), before the beard, and before he cared much for children. (Truth be told, he was doing everything he could to do what might lead to children, without it leading to children.) But his belly was full of jelly, and it swayed with his every flourish and turn. Cherries hadn't been imported to Greece yet, or people might have said they looked like his nose. And his puffed cheeks blushed with color with every emotion, for he was the man who invented every kind of liquor. As Pandora had infested the world of mortals with the deadly sins, Dionysus had introduced to them the fermentation process - and vices and alcohol were a match made in heaven.

  The “big beautiful woman” look was rarer and more popular back then than it is now. Dionysus dressed like the “big beautiful man” look was the next big thing. Pleated robes flared out from his shoulders and down his arms to his wrists, with thick braids of cotton around the joints on either end. Hand-sized tie-dye splatters of red (possibly merlot) bled around the edges of iridescent floral art trimmed with gold thread. Over one shoulder draped a silvery shawl that ended in a massive man-purse half his width. A pair of brass tapshoe sandals peeked out from the edge of his robe where it gathered on the floor. He talked with his hands so avidly that some part of this tapestry was crinkled or stretched with every move.

  “Also,” he continued, stepping in ongoing slow swivels to address all of the room in turn, “I see a few new faces in the crowd! No doubt Greece’s latest up-and-coming. Welcome to the ivory tower. So let’s show them some love and see what they have to show! We’ll see who walks outta here with who tonight,” he added with a wink and a nod. Encouraging murmurs of agreement were heard across the room, followed by the raucous laughter of people who realized he’d meant speed-dating for rich people. This is where expressions about being bedfellows had come to mean doing business.

  “Now - I’m sure you’ve all noticed the colors changing. It’s nothing new this time of year, but when Persephone moves out of her summer home, I start living for Fall!” Around the room, most of the torches subtly changed color - from the flickers of yellow-white to sunset orange and crimson red. The patrons found the Ooh’s and Aah’s came out of them as naturally as breathing.

  “But how much can you love something if you can’t eat it and drink to it, right?” Appropriately, he looked as pleased as punch to say it. That’s when he gave the littlest wave of his hand forward, and a dozen waiters with platters began trickling out from the firelight of the kitchen doors. “Good gods, it’s gourd season, isn’t it! Grown by our native dryads right on the property. Help yourself to our creamy squash bowls served right outta the squash, with just a touch of ambrosia. They’re enchanted to never go bad, so you can take it home as dishware that’s sure to impress for a lifetime. And get a handle on one o’ these - bottle gourd steins, steaming with mulled cider! Yes, of course it’s that kind of cider! What am I the god of again? Well - wine, yes, but - let’s hear some shout-outs from all of you out there. What’s that? Revelry? Oh, love that term! - Hospitality? Well, thank you kindly - it is my pleasure to serve you. And, for everyone with a drink in reach, a toast! To pleasure!”

  “TO PLEASURE!” the uproar returned like a hundred echoes across the room. Goblets and gourds thrust in the air, a dozen of them splashing their neighbors with their nectar from the gods. Medusa had left her cup behind, but found her empty hand saluting along, her own voice raised up with the rest of them.

  Dionysus wasted no time going straight to shaking hands in the crowd. He greeted most of them with the enthusiasm of an old friend, notes of his voice gleeful above the hundreds of voices in the room.

  The girls passed a few minutes of people-watching as he made the rounds. That’s when the god noticed them. The two of them were hard to miss.

  “Auntie Sphinx!” Dionysus called out to her from just a table away. “Ohhh, so glad you could join us again! You didn’t come all the way from Egypt just to see me, did you?”

  “No!” Sphinx said instantly. Then she laughed scandalously at herself so hard that she took a step back. Dionysus laughed at himself just as hard, rosy cheeks fighting fo space with the mirth in his eyes.

  He turned to Echo and Medusa, seeming to look each of them right in the eye. He tossed a soft, blushing arm behind Sphinx’s neck, and brought the newcomers up to speed. “Mother Gaia’s her grandmother, and is my great-grandmother. If there hadn’t been that whole squabble about Gods vs Titans, we might’ve grown up on Olympus together!”

  “Whoa, hold up, lemme get in on this!” Medusa found herself suddenly extremely relevant. “Gaia’s my grandma!”

  “Whooooa, we’ve got another one!” Dionysus declared excitedly, his free arm rising up as if already ready to hug this newfound family member. Medusa left him hanging and kept talking.

  “So, that makes me your…wait…yeah I really should’ve studied for this!” Medusa let out a nervous-yet-excited laugh. She began pointing and tracing an imagined family tree in the air, peering at it to keep track of the lines. “My…parents are both Gaia’s kids from while she was with Pontus, soooo they just skipped the dating game and ah, kept it in the family. So, there’s my origin story!”

  “Yeahp!” Dionysus shook Sphinx under his arm, his voice already breaking with his next guffaw. “We’re all one big happy incestuous family!”

  Aside from the second to last word, the rest of that sounded…so welcoming.

  She went back to puzzling out how she fit in here - but she felt confident she was starting to fit in here. “K, I got this! That makes Sphinx my… Sphinx, we’re cousins! Whoa! Yeeees!” Sphinx caught up with the concept just in time to be jostled into a sloppy side-hug. She raised a front paw and patted Medusa on the back, less gushy but still savoring the sentiment.

  “I think I sorted the rest, miss,” Dionysus leaned in eagerly from the Sphinx’s other side, forming a group huddle for the three of them. “That would make me your first cousin, once removed.”

  “First cousins! Once removed, like - ohhh, wait wait wait. I’m a generation older than you! You’re my little!”

  That got Dionysus to uncoil from the both of them real fast. It seemed like he hadn’t been called little in decades, and was comfortable but not that comfortable with this new girl. “Ehhhh heh heh heh! I’m just gonna call you Cousin ‘n leave it at that! Say, you’re one of Phorcys & Cetys’ kids, aren’tcha! I heard you all turned out pretty distinctive, but uh, which one are you?”

  “--Euryale,” she caught herself this time.

  “Pleasure to finally meet you, Euryale. Welcome to the family.” He slipped a smooth, tender hand into hers. It left the glossy, flexible strips of scale on her palm feeling as soft as skin again.

  He leaned in for a hug, but it gave him pause when her hair coiled back and hissed at him, glowering at him menacingly. “Are they - are they friendly? Can you–”

  “Oh, them - I haven’t figured out how to train ‘em yet. It’s somewhere on a… llllooooong to-do list,” she laughed it off uncomfortably.

  “Eh, I could say the same,” said the divine philanthropist. “An immortal’s work is never done. So much time and so much to do! Speaking of which,” he changed tone like he’d been looking for a chance to bring this up for minutes, “how would you like to slip into something a little more comfortable?”

  Medusa had to check his tone and his face to see if her new cousin was being flirty. So far, no, didn’t seem like it. “Oh, yeah, I’ve been hiking along the coast, and I keep meaning to scrub this thing out–”

  “C’mere, I’ll get you a custom tailored dress from E&E,” he offered, already starting to pull her by the hand towards a doorway. “I’ve got a deal with them where they make a free one once a night to somebody I tell ‘em is high-profile. So as long as you’re okay with some embroidered Epsilons on it, you’ll be walking out here in a designer gown! C’mon, let’s get you taken care of. Your handmaid can carry your swag for you.” He gave Echo a sideways head-nod to bring her along. “And Sphinx, ask the waitstaff about the special. Your portions were uh, too big to carry out!” He gave an indulgent laugh about whatever surprise he’d had in store for her.

  Medusa kept pace. He may’ve been more of a nephew to her technically, but she felt like she’d just discovered a rich uncle, or a fairy godmother.