Cassandra's perfect memory recalled Apollo's face when she'd turned him down, the moment his charm collapsed into shocked fish. It suited him well.

  She had manifested above the Mediterranean. An angel with seventeen wings and too many eyes, singing of truth and madness. The fishermen below had fallen to their knees.

  Right, she was being exiled. Into stupid meat.

  It felt like being shoved through a keyhole. Pure thought and burning geometry slammed into the confines of a skull.

  Salt water rushed into suddenly-solid lungs.

  Fish. Everywhere. In her mouth, against her eyes, slapping her newly-made face with dead tails. She gasped, inhaling more of their brine.

  The net held her tight among the morning's catch, rope cutting blisters into fresh skin. She thrashed.

  The net burst. She spilled out with the catch, gasping like her shocked companions.

  The fishermen scrambled to their feet but kept their distance, the divine horror fading like a nightmare.

  "What..." The older one's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "What was that?"

  His younger companion remained crouched. "Don't know. Don't want to know." But he was already studying her with quick dark eyes, cataloguing unfamiliar curves.

  Cassandra tried to speak and choked on fishy seawater. Her new throat felt raw, foreign. When words came, they sounded strained and strange. "Please... the net..."

  Drowning. She'd watched countless mortals do it over the centuries, always thinking they were being rather dramatic about it. She owed them an apology.

  "Are you hurt?" the older fisherman, Damon, asked, taking a quiet step forward.

  Not quite. She felt diminished, caged. Like her true shape had been folded down into something small and breakable. She shook her head.

  "Damon." The younger man stayed low. His voice betrayed growing excitement. "Look at her hands."

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  Cassandra glanced down. Her palms were pale, unmarked by callus or darkened by sun. Soft.

  "Foreign," the younger man murmured, beginning a slow circle around her. Fish guts and stale wine rolled off him in waves. "Well-fed. Someone's missing their valuable property."

  "She's a person, Alexios." Damon stood straighter, his right hand settling near his gutting knife.

  "Is she now?" Alexios closed the distance. His breath washed over her face, sour with wine and something physically unsettling. He leaned close, his gaze lingering on the vee of her drenched tunic. "Girl like that doesn't end up floating by accident. Someone chucked her. Or she jumped." He whispered under his breath, "fuck...I needed this."

  Cassandra flinched against the net. Rope bit deep, punishing weak limbs that refused to obey. Apparently muscles required practice. A confusing heat prickled beneath her skin. Fear and something else, something that made her clench tight.

  "Easy girl," Alexios murmured, his voice dropping to an intimate croon. His calloused thumb traced the tender skin above the rope binding her wrist. Cassandra froze. Her muscles locked, her heartbeat hammering against ribs. "We'll figure out exactly what you're best suited for."

  His hand drifted downward, brushing bare skin where her tunic strained against her thigh. Cassandra's breath caught. A painful spasm twisted low in her belly, a hollow ache that had no place in this moment. Mortal betrayal.

  Damon stepped forward, voice low with disgust. "Enough. We're fishermen." He drew his knife slowly, bronze catching light. "Not rapists. Not slavers."

  Alexios straightened, eyes flicking between blade and face. "We're poor fishermen. This is silver. We can even use her first." He nodded shoreward. "Let's get paid later."

  Damon scanned the empty horizon, his mind working. "No. Someone rich is missing her. Rewards are cleaner. And Penthesilea knows how to handle valuables without damaging them."

  "Sure, plenty clean," Alexios agreed, though his jaw tightened. "We split the coin? Or..." His hand found his own knife.

  Damon's knuckles whitened on his knife handle. He glanced at Cassandra, bound and trembling, that uninvited flush still high on her throat. Knife fights were messy. "Fine. Penthesilea settles it."

  Alexios grinned. "Always liked the hag. Untie her."

  Damon turned toward Cassandra, face grim. "Sorry, girl. World's a hard place. Let's try to get you home."

  He knelt beside the net, reaching for the knots.

  Behind him, bronze glinted. Now.

  The blade slammed into Damon's back, driven upward. It struck with a thick crunch, wedging into his shoulder blade. A hard place indeed.

  Damon roared. He spun fast, wrenching the knife handle from Alexios's grip as he turned.

  "You little shit!" He clawed over his shoulder with bloody fingers, seized the hilt, and hauled the blade free. Blood poured down his back.

  Alexios stumbled backward, hands rising. "Wait!"

  Damon lunged. Alexios dodged left. His heel hit rope slick with fish slime.

  He went down hard. His skull met the bronze rudder with an unsurprisingly hollow sound.

  He hit the water face-first.

  Damon swayed, blood dripping from his fingertips. After a moment, he looked down at Cassandra with dazed eyes.

  "Well," he rasped, "that could have gone better."