He needed to keep the Last Gorgon talking. If he could find out her name, distract her, he might have a chance. She had bargained with his father, after all.

He tried to remember what he knew about the Gorgons. They had been beautiful once, favoured by the gods; then turned into monsters.

His upper lip was tingling with sweat. The pain in his hand was intensifying.

‘Don’t you want to see me, Tisamenos?’ The Last Gorgon’s human voice was enticing.

‘I do, I do. You are so beautiful.’ Tisamenos edged forwards, eyes squeezed shut, feeling his way first with one foot, then the other. His toes were wet, though he couldn’t remember having stepped in a puddle.

‘I am beautiful,’ answered the Last Gorgon, sighing. ‘I was more beautiful than Medusa. And I have outlived her, and my other sister. So, boy, look at me, look at me, look on the beauty of the world.’ The echoes in the cave took up her call, and the snakes seemed to repeat it too.

Yesssss, yessss, looook at herrrr.

Tisamenos turned his head away, and half-opened one eye. The second torch was crackling where he’d left it, and he sensed that the Last Gorgon was about the same distance away from him on the right.

‘I will look at you,’ he said, closing his eyes once more and sidling blindly towards the torch. ‘But first, please, I must know what your name is.’

The Last Gorgon hissed with pleasure. ‘I am Euryale.’

‘Euryale,’ repeated Tisamenos, his heart thudding as he felt for the torch. ‘A pretty name.’ He recalled how earlier he’d felt the tingling sensation as soon as he’d looked at Euryale’s reflection. He’d been able to tear himself away just in time. A moment later, and he knew he would have been entirely turned to stone. Could he risk it now?

In order for his plan to work, he would have to open his eyes and let Euryale see him. It was dangerous.

He could feel the torch’s heat, and remembered Hero in the room of the Swallows.

‘I am sure,’ he said, locating where the torch was stuck into the rock, and aiming for its shaft, ‘that you are the most beautiful woman the world has ever seen.’

‘More beautiful than my sisters?’

Mooore beautiful than my sissstersss, echoed the snakes, rebounding around the cave.

‘Oh, more, much more.’ His voice was false, high. He hoped that she would not be able to tell how absolutely terrified he was.

Tisamenos found the torch’s shaft. In doing so he felt another sting of venom. His skin was burning where the poison fell. He couldn’t carry both sword and torch, so he placed his sword down, knowing he would be able to reach it again if he needed it.