The hallways and intersections were mostly lit by widely spaced torchlights. They passed a few couples rolling around in the corners, with nothing but “mmph”s, smacking mouths, and tipsy giggles to show they'd still kept some shred of modesty.

  Off to one side, one member after another spotted a courtyard. There was scarcely a simple flat surface without something carved or painted into it. Bushes in full bloom framed against the sunset oranges of autumn trees. Guests gathered for a spot in line to be painted on a near-lifesize canvas. Demand was so high that a clay sculptor was picking up business by shaping busts of the attendees.

  “This is the fifth hallway,” Arachne muttered to the crew closest to her. “Does this place come with a map! …no, I'm serious. I'm this close to asking them.”

  “Oi!” Zara called back, slowing down for them to catch up. “If you're looking for the loo, follow the signs for ‘bathroom.’ ‘Bath house’ is something pretty different!” She cackled like it brought back some brief but distinctive memory.

  “Yep! You'd know the difference if you lived here!” Medusa teased.

  “Imma let you all in on a secret,” Sisyphus added, flattening his voice to sound hushed but still needing to project. “Guys show up there mostly in the hopes there'll be girls there. There almost never is! Then we all just sit there just waist-deep in the pools, just waiting…” A chuckle rolled its way out of him as he trailed off.

  Medusa turned her head a good 45 degrees to eye him suspiciously and watch his reaction. “I'd believe that! - wait, you said ‘we.’ Who's ‘we’?”

  Sisyphus kept walking, but his face paused as if deciding how to say it. “Ehhhhhh yeah, I mean decades ago! I was young once.”

  “Sis - you were dead for decades, and I've been with you ever since.”

  Zara shrank back from him and kept walking on the other side of the group from him. “Is that a thing here? Should I be worried? Does he bite?”

  Sisyphus did something with his eyes that made them seem to glimmer in the torchlight. “Sometimes even on the first date,” he said in a tone as husky as a…husky.

  “Hah! Bathhouse jock!” Medusa gave him a full-body shove in the bicep. He staggered several feet the other way, laughing himself out of breath, and carried on.

  “Ahem!” Pari stopped at the end of the hall, at a pair of thick red curtains tied off with silky ropes. “May I present to you…the Ballroom.”

  “I shall not partake in this ball sport,” Argos quickly objected; “it would give our team an unfair advantage.”

  “It's just a big expensive room,” Arachne translated for him discreetly. “For sitting and for what rich people consider ‘dance.’”

  The Libyan sisters were already sliding the curtains aside, holding it open for the rest like chivalrous gentlemen.

  “Allow me,” Argos offered a hand, and held it wide enough for all of them.

  They slipped through, and into a space so vast it could barely be called a room.

  The ballroom was a vast circular space, one story tall at the edges, before rising in a massive dome several stories taller. Varnished mahogany wood held together the tables and furniture. The joints and rivets were polished brass that reflected anything near it. Cushions of shimmering velvet adorned every seat. But laced along the edges of everything were vines of gold. Thin tendrils of the precious metal curled and spiraled up table legs and the backs of chairs. It felt like it had been limited to such accent-marks to keep in mind how rare and precious every ounce of it was.

  And filling the space, between eight bars and at least fifty tables, hundreds of people dotted the room. She had seen, at most, one or two nobles, priests, or deities at a time dressed in colors as rich as what dozens of them wore here. It was like a wildflower field blowing in the wind. So many of them, she knew her eyes could only have done justice to one at a time and up close. She almost wished she weren't with so many party guests already so she could make the rounds now.

  That's when the first of the dryads appeared to her.

  Unlike herself, a dryad was built like any other person, but something about it all felt different. Thick, voluminous black curls cascaded from her head, tumbling over her barren shoulders, onto a pleated silvery-green evening gown trailing down to her bare ankles. Her skin was a warm burnt sienna, but it put off the glow, amber and diffused, like the look of a loved one at sunset. And her expression - she had a far-off look in her eye, like she walked in a dream, one that made someone yearn to be able to walk with her in it.

  Medusa felt like one in the presence of an aunt, the kind who swoops in silently and takes care of you just for you being there. Her face softened, the fine patchwork of scales of her cheeks feeling like they would be soft to the touch once again.

  The dryad seemed to sense, or just know, much of that. She held out a hand loosely, as if life had never required her to be tense before. Medusa found herself taking it without much of a conscious thought. Fingertips barely brushing, the mere touch was enough to keep Medusa in tow while she guided her to an empty seat. They were long, plush lounge chairs, the red, brown, brass and gold making it seem too good to use. But the dryad led her to lay herself down. Like a child in the evening, she welcomed it.

  Somewhere from amidst this amber reverie, she looked around to find the others trailing in behind her, two other dryads drifting over to them and leading them here. Good. They were taken care of. That's all she wanted to know.

  As the minutes went by, the dryad tended to her gingerly. She hadn't been hand-fed since she'd learned how to talk, yet she sat herself up just enough to be gifted the first morsels of an orange, one segment at a time. They were ripe, succulent, and burst in her mouth; if she were to compare it to anything it would be kissing while drunk. Soon she didn't even bother to have her eyes open for it.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It was…minutes or an hour later, when Medusa slowly came back to reality in the room. Her friends slowly slid into focus, the bustling backdrop taking longer for her eyes to give them shape. A couple of them were giggling…at her, not with her. Echo included.

  “Didja have a nice honeymoon?” Sisyphus asked, leaning in for if she was too out of it to speak up.

  “Wh… nnnuh, ‘s not like that,” Medusa muttered, lips barely feeling worth separating. She'd really gone nonverbal for a while there. Words hadn't felt necessary. She wasn't sure if she'd heard this dryad speak yet or if it'd just felt like it. She hoped this is how Echo felt, when she wasn't yearning or griping for want of words.

  “Wha'd I miss?” Medusa asked, trying to ground herself back in time and space.

  “Two rounds of drinks and an appetizer. ” Sisyphus shrugged. He was turned mostly towards Zara, and seemed reluctant to face away from her for long.

  “They were playing ‘Do You Know Who My Dad Is,’ but I got beat out in the first round,” Arachne informed her quietly, seeming more disappointed in the beginning of that than in the end. “Turns out bloodlines are still winning out over ballot lines.”

  “Hereditary rule is a time-honored tradition the world over,” Argos stated as if it being common meant it was a good reason. “The women of House Danaüs here decided to divide rule of Libya by district –”

  “--so our sisters don’t end up assassinating us for the throne!” Rani chortled, like someone who had zero fear of being assassinated.

  “Oh, I could tell you some stories!” Medusa boasted, lining up at the starting line for the Suffering Olympics. “I’ve got five sisters, and two of them have got all this -” she gestured all over herself “- and are not afraid to use it!”

  “...yeesh!” one of the girls managed to say. Medusa was hoping for them to relate to the killer sisters bit, but she may’ve outdone them a bit.

  “I mean, for us it’s more about…getting us to agree on anything,” Pari picked up as if Medusa hadn’t mentioned the monster bit “Whatever we vote on, somebody’s gonna be unhappy with it!

  ‘caaause there’s like, fifty of us.”

  “How many is that actually?” Argos asked her empirically.

  “We’re literally fifty sisters,” the three sisters present said in unison.

  “Oh, your poor Mom!” Medusa lamented this forever-pregnant woman she just now heard about. “That woman’s got some brass ovaries, and probably eternal youth.” She waited to see if she’d gotten it right. How many mortals were even fertile for fifty years?

  “Whoa, no way - there’s lots of moms,” Zara popped in. “Like, at least a dozen. We bet that a couple of us don’t even have him as the dad, but they’re family now, so we’re not telling.”

  “--Psst – girls – we gotta go!” Rana hissed suddenly, ducking behind her lounge chair. She pointed to a nobleman in robes at least as heavily patterned as their own, but more boxy, like someone who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything like flower pattern. He didn’t have a problem with the feather headdress, though. He had to draw the line somewhere.

  “What’s his beef?” Medusa asked, annoyed on their behalf.

  “Uncle,” Pari explained, softening her voice to sound less distinctive. “We’re not supposed to talk about the whole assassinations thing–”

  Rana glared her into silence.

  “Hey, no judgment here,” Medusa was quick to reassure them, though she didn’t know what she was excusing them from. “Do you guys need backup? I mean we do mercenary gigs, but it’s mostly pro bono.”

  “Aww, that’s so sweet!” Zara gushed at her quietly. “It’s all right, he’s not gonna kill us, he’s just gonna hang out with us and make it weird. Drrramaaaaa…” she sang.

  “We should really do this again sometime!” Rana hushed herself, but reached over to intertwine fingers with Medusa for a second. (The handshake was far from standardized culturally, and this made for some interesting hand gesture fumbles when cultures clashed.) She rolled off the couch and snuck off in a crouch position. “Quick, he’s talking to Midas! Gogogogogogo!”

  And that was the night they met the daughters of Danaüs.

  Medusa felt the extravert hunger inside of her growling. Four new people in maybe an hour, and so many more prospects beckoned beyond her reach.

  Speaking of which:

  “I’ve never seen a goblet sculpted with lips before,” Argos pondered, turning a brass cup over in his hands. Sure enough, they’d forged it in the shape of a chin and a succulent pair of lips before cutting off abruptly, like someone had chopped off the top of a bust and hollowed it out. Argos held it close like a first-time lover, tense with anticipation. He tipped it, and a little stream of burgundy wine poured out from between the lips. Argos seemed…especially virgin for being nearly a thousand years old.

  “Wanna get some practice in, big guy? C’mon, I wont judge,” she told him with a smirk and a nudge. “If we meet a nice heiress around here, Sis and I will play wingman. I got chu, fam!” She felt mirth rise like a bubble in her chest. She hadn’t even had the drink in her hand - when had she picked that up? - but it already promised to let her feel weightless.

  “‘ey. Hey. Gang. Group huddle,” she waved them in close. “I know we’ve been uh, controversial characters, but, I think we’re safe here. Like, I feel like being infamous just means being famous here.”

  “Any publicity’s good publicity,” Sis got a word in; “I bet we can cash in on some social capital. We’ve kicked enough flank, so let’s uh, start takin’ names ‘round here.”

  “Oh I’m game!” Medusa said, surprising herself with how high and loud it came out. “I am a veteran schmoozer. And I am ready to bust that out again!”

  Arachne pushed herself back from the table. “Really? You kids are just gonna go play your games? We came here to…scope out the competition,” she censored herself, not wanting to say “espionage” or “sabotage” aloud in a crowded room.

  Medusa leaned in and gave the smile of someone who’s confident they knew better. “That’s what we’re doing! Y’see, networking can’t just be walking up to people, and telling ‘em what you want out of ‘em. You gotta butter ‘em up first. Just start talking and start asking! We all know what subjects to avoid, right? Right?” She looked each one of them in the eye, as if to show herself that she’d checked. No need to announce who they wanted to take down in the wars between gods and men. That reminded her to say it: “remember: small talk is mostly about what you like? If you’re gonna complain, make it something light, just annoying, & best if it’s relatable. If you’re gonna tell your trauma history….well let’s just stop thinking about that tonight, okay?” She said the last bit with each one of them in mind, including herself.

  Arachne drummed her fingers on the table impatiently. “Sounds inefficient,” she put bluntly. “But I’m not your sergeant. All right then. Stay in sight of each other; nobody leaves this room alone, not even to use the loo. And try to steer conversation to what the gods and kings are planning. Something’s funding all this. Let’s find out how this sausage gets made.”

  “Aaaaand break! Opa!” Medusa shouted, turning away from the huddle to salute the room. Ripples of people shouting back “Opa” interrupted dozens of conversations just long enough to say it. Medusa reached back to tap Echo on the shoulder, before offering her hand to guide her through the throng. There was something very sorority about modeling how to drink and meet people. She didn’t know who she’d talk to or what she’d say, but knowing she would, felt like meeting her old self again.