Chapter 6

## Events

* Circe goes to Oceanos' halls for a feast. Selene is there telling the story of how she discovered Scylla. Twelve hideous, slimy, boneless legs had burst from her belly. Her skin turned gray and her neck stretched, until five new heads tore from her body, each filled with gaping teeth. All the while, she was baying and howling, like a pack of wild dogs.
* The crowd asks Selene to tell the story again and she obliges them. They comment on how Scylla had lain with half the halls, and how she was a bitch.
* Glaucos enters the room, and they are all excited to watch his reaction to what has happened to Scylla, but Helios pulls him aside to tell him privately. Circe follows them, and hears Helios tell him that she cannot be changed back, because no god may undo what is done by the Fates or another god, but the halls are filled with a thousand other beauties. Glaucos nods and they return to the hall. It is the last time Circe ever sees him.
* Circe remembers Prometheus' words about how 'not all gods need be the same.' She hears his voice, asking her, what would they not do?
* Circe enters the throne room and kneels at her father's feet. She confesses to using *pharmaka* to make Glaucos a god and to making Scylla a monster. Helios is unbothered, saying that he and Zeus made sure that those flowers had no powers. She tries to convince him, but others chime in, telling her that she is wrong.

> “My face was flushing. “No.” I shook off Nereus’ seaweed hand. “I changed Scylla, and now I must take the punishment on my head.”
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> “Daughter, you begin to make a spectacle.” The words cut across the air. “If the world contained the power you allege, do you think it would fall to such as you to discover it?”
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\* Circe is angry. He tells Helios that he is wrong, and that those plants have power.

> His skin flared white. White as the fire’s heart, as purest, hottest coals. He stood, yet he kept on rising, as if he would tear a hole in the ceiling, in the earth’s crust, as if he would not cease until he scraped the stars. And then the heat came, rolling over me with a sound like roaring waves, blistering my skin, crushing the breath from my chest. I gasped, but there was no air. He had taken it all.
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> “You dare to contradict me? You who cannot light a single flame, or call one drop of water? Worst of my children, faded and broken, whom I cannot pay a husband to take. Since you were born, I pitied you and allowed you license, yet you grew disobedient and proud. Will you make me hate you more?”
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> In another moment, the rocks themselves would have melted, and all my watery cousins dried up to their bones. My flesh bubbled and opened like a roasted fruit, my voice shriveled in my throat and was scorched to dust. The pain was such as I had never imagined could exist, a searing agony consuming every thought.
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> I fell to my father’s feet. “Father,” I croaked, “forgive me. I was wrong to believe such a thing.”
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> Slowly, the heat receded. I lay where I had fallen upon the mosaic floor, with its fish and purpled fruits. My eyes were half blind. My hands were melted claws. The river-gods shook their heads, making sounds like water over rocks. Helios, you have the strangest children.
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> My father sighed. “It is Perse’s fault. All the ones before hers were fine.”
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\* Circe lays on the floor for hours, and no one moves to help her or looks at her. Her skin has been charrd by Helios' flames, and it hurts to move. She peels herself off the floor long after everyone has left. She cannot bear to return to her father's halls, and instead goes to the woods she had dreamed of so often.

* Near dawn, Circe's uncle Achelous finds her, his beard foaming in his haste. He tells her that her brother is here and she has been summoned. Circe follows him to her father's halls. Aeëtes is there, dressed finely.
* Aeëtes tells Helios that Circe truly does have powers, just as he does. He proves it by healing Circe's charred skin, which is a power reserved only for the greatest gods, not those like them. Aeëtes says that those are the least of his powers, and he understands that his father needs to take counsel, and that he would be happy to give Zeus a more impressive demonstration. Helios is afraid, and tells his children that they are not to leave his halls yet.
* News of their powers spread, and the nymphs stay out of Circe's way. She goes to sit with her brother and he tells her of his kingdom and his powers.
* For two nights, Helios is shut up with his brothers, deciding what to do. Perse brags that she will have a hundred more, and that they will rule upon Olympus.
* Helios returns from meeting with Zeus. They have decided that he and Perse may have no more children, and that his other children will be watched closely. Circe, however, was cruel in using her powers and is to be exiled to a deserted island where she can do no harm.
* Circe walks around in a daze. No one will speak to her. She goes to her room to pack, but she doesn't know what to bring. Aeëtes tells her that it could have been worse, and that Zeus wanted to make an example out of her.

## Characters

* Selene
* Circe
* Glaucos
* Scylla
* Helios
* Aeëtes

## Characters Mentioned

* Perse
* Thetis
* Prometheus
* Oceanos
* Tethys
* Zeus
* Achelous
* Pasiphaë
* Perses