‘The ship nymph can’t help us now – she’s gone home.’ Elissa held her hands together as if in prayer. ‘And I am glad that she did. She would have been killed if she’d stayed.’

‘We’ll have to go by land, reach another port …’ This journey was the only thing left for Tisamenos. He had broken the curse of his House, but now it was destroyed.

He couldn’t show his emotions to the others, though. He had to keep going. ‘We can find horses, somewhere. There must be some.’ He picked up the Last Gorgon’s head, and turned away from the flames. ‘We must get as far away as possible. The Swallows may still have spies here.’

He hadn’t, in the end, been able to save his blood family. But he would help Silvius and Elissa.

‘Let’s get off the shore. It will be cooler.’ He took them behind the rocks, and gasping, they pressed on, limping, woozy, leaning on each other. ‘We’ll make our way round the bay until we have to stop. Then we’ll rest somewhere high up, and in the morning we can go on.’

This time he walked in between the two, sometimes helping them, sometimes exhorting them onwards.

Climbing up the hill was the worst. A path made for sure-footed shepherds was only just visible in the starlight. There might be wolves or bears out on the hunt. Silvius slipped once, and almost seemed to lose consciousness, but Elissa pulled him upwards. Tisamenos slung Silvius’s arm around his shoulder, and helped the boy to stumble on.

It seemed to take an eternity, step by faltering step, but eventually they were at the top of the hill, and the breeze was cool and fresh. Tisamenos placed Silvius gently down. Elissa, too, looked drained. ‘We’ll stop here. There’s shelter, and a spring.’

The first thing Tisamenos did was bring a helmet-full of water to Silvius’s lips. Silvius sputtered awake and went to kneel by the stream, drinking deeply.

There was a hollow under the brow of the hill which was not quite a cave, but large enough to accommodate all three of them. Tisamenos threw a rock into it to scare out anything that might be using it as a home. Nothing emerged, except a tiny lizard, which skittered away.

‘We’ll sleep now.’ Gratefully Elissa and Silvius crept into its protection and lay down, slumbering almost immediately.

Tisamenos, just outside the cave, did not. His body was aching and he had a stiff neck, and he was hungry. His thoughts ran over the same patterns, again and again, and he hurled a stone away down the mountainside in silent rage.

Just after dawn, the sun was pushing itself up from the lip of the sea. The other two were still asleep, and he felt a stab of unaccustomed envy when he saw that Elissa’s arm was draped over Silvius.