Wealthy women of Korinth not yet risen. Only slaves at this hour, and the house of the gold worker closed. We’ll have to come back, Medea’s slaves tell her.

No. Go inside and wake him.

Low door of stone, lintel crooked, dark cave, but her slave returns with a white-haired man who complains.

This is for the princess Glauce. A diadem of gold. You can name any price. But I need it now. I can’t wait.

I don’t have something like that, he says. Pinched face from peering too closely, fingers burned from metal. I have only funeral diadems.

That will work, Medea says and smiles. Let me see.

He’s gone too long, but when he emerges, he holds a hundred suns, small beaten orbs wreathed in flame, Glauce’s mouth and throat as she burns from inside, immolation. Strips of suns in dagger points like the petals of the crocus, slender and beautiful and deadly. Perfect for the new bride, Medea says.

Who will pay? he asks.

Jason. Jason will pay.

Dresses, then, smoothest and softest for that wanted skin, something to caress and encase as she burns. The slaves have to wake dressmakers. Too many in Korinth sleeping, no one aware of what today will be. Then Medea sees a man in the open-air market, an Egyptian with his bundles.

He watches her approach, seems to know to fear, says nothing.

For the princess, Medea says. Finest from Egypt. Gold in it. Let her be a pharaoh’s daughter, not the daughter of a lowly weak king.

The man unties a bundle, smooth fingers, quick, sorts through half his pile and pulls free a gown of pure white with a collar and sash of gold. Feel, he says. With your fingers and with your cheek.

Medea holds the fabric in her hand, brings it to her face. I remember this, she says. From Iolcus. Alcestis had a dress as soft as this. What is it?

Linen.

Linen is not this soft.

Linen from very young flax, and treated like a princess. Woven very fine. It weighs half what these other dresses weigh, and costs four times as much. Collar and sash are a separate price.

Cloth as soft as Glauce, thin enough her breasts will be just visible beneath, shadow and desire. Over her arms, the material even thinner, in bands that will move like waves. And the collar, wide hemisphere of woven gold, sun god worshipped in every land with different names. Glauce will feel its heat. Heavy as her lungs melt. The sash binding her below, rope of gold. Glauce will not understand. The world given to her always, loved by all, belonging, poison not possible, pain not possible. She will be admiring herself right up until she feels the flames.

Jason will pay, Medea says. You may collect this evening after the gift is given.