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and her mother had not yet forgotten her. But more often, she knew, her nurse had been the one who had dried her tears and kissed her bruises. What good had a mother’s love ever brought?
    “Myrrine?” Arsinoe said, testing. No soft shuffle came in answer.
    “Myrrine?” she tried again, louder this time. Quiet.
    And once more: “Myrrine?”
    The name rebounded off the stone. She clutched her knees to her chest, hands to her ears; she would shrink away to nothing. The Ptolemy who disappeared. But the ground didn’t swallow her up. Soldiers didn’t come. Only her stolen voice broke the silence: “Myrrine, Myrrine, Myrrine.”
    “Ganymedes?” she tried. But there was no sign of him either.
    She sucked back her stomach’s bile. “Better up than down,” Myrrine always said. But the nurse had been taken from her too. No one would clean away her vomit or bathe her or dress her or change her coverlets.
    Boots pounded beneath her bones. Each set kept a steady rhythm. None paused by her door. Her stomach growled angrily. Perhaps Berenice had forgotten her. After all, she’d never had much to do with her eldest sister. The daughter of Tryphaena, Berenice was already a woman grown. Too old to be her playmate, or even Cleopatra’s. Some days from now, Arsinoe would be found, her body stained and rotting beneath the bed.
    She wondered who would mourn her loss. Cleopatra would weep, of course. But would the others? Would her mother regret not stealing her away? Would that cruel guard remember barring her from her father’s ship?
    New feet shook the stone. A hand fumbled at the lock. The bolt screeched; the door swung wide to reveal a solitary guard. Her father’s man. Or so he’d been once, guarding the king’s person day and night. His beard bristled red; Arsinoe would have recognized it anywhere. Menelaus, she’d called him. She thought he’d sailed across the sea with Cleopatra and the rest. She couldn’t trust him now; her father’s men were turned or slain. Achilles’s throat split open, blood draining to the floor, his curls dashed against the onyx. She shook the image from her mind.
    The guard’s gaze roamed from her writing table, to her hanging mirror of glinting silver, to her scattered scrolls, to her golden bed. Now was the time to scream. She opened her mouth but no sound escaped. She’d learned enough of war, of Troy, of Carthage, of Thermopylae, to know the fate of girls, even young ones, who met with men drunk on battle’s haze. She held her breath until she thought her chest might burst, until her eyes and tongue bulged and begged for mercy. And then she held it longer.
    The fire-bearded man removed his helm, a red crown rimmed with redder hair. He lifted a corner of his tunic to wipe his brow. Bloodstained, the cloth returned to his side. He crouched low, balancing his elbows on his knees, and waited. She wouldn’t speak; she couldn’t scream.
    Some part of her, a crazed and agonizing part, wanted him to find her. It would be easier that way, and someday, after all, she’d have to be found. She was so weary, so very weary of hiding. And then, as though she’d spoken the words aloud, his eyes seized on her. He breathed easy now, and so did she. There was a relief in being caught. He removed a small parcel from his robes and placed it on her dressing table. Then, glancing about the room one final time, he stepped outside, and the creaking sound of iron against iron bolted her in.
    Once his footsteps ebbed, Arsinoe struggled free and raced to the table. Unwrapping the bundle revealed a loaf of bread, a pair of dates, a cluster of green grapes. Her mouth watered. How she longed to stuff herself with bread and fruit. But she didn’t dare. She’d never eaten anything that hadn’t been tasted first, except for a few berries she and Cleopatra had picked from the garden on their own. She remembered how Democrates, her father’s taster, had died, gasping and clawing at his throat. She wouldn’t