But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

But I pressed his face into my mind, as seals are pressed in wax, so I could carry it with me.

He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means

Meanwhile every petty and useless god would go on sucking down the bright air until the stars went dark.

That was my new home: a monument to my father’s pride.

Such were my years then. I would like to say that all the while I waited to break out, but the truth is, I’m afraid I might have floated on, believing those dull miseries were all there was, until the end of days.

‘Let me tell you a truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power.

It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.

Now that Medea had named my loneliness, it hung from everything, clinging like spiderwebs, unavoidable.