Lucy touched the beautiful monas jewel in her hair—a wedding gift, as she deemed it, from John Dee and Prospero. Whether or not it had any true magic in it, she embraced all of its meaning with her whole being; had worn it close to her, in one place or another, since that morning at Longparish. It told her to reconcile whatever was opposite to herself, to embrace what was “foreign,” or “other.” She’d dwelled on the idea: that the inner should be like the outer, and the female like the male; and she wanted to find a way to make that cerebral idea into a physical truth. And she had.

After long, stubborn discussions and eventual agreement with Alex, she had gone to James Lovell a few days later to discuss an adjustment of her medicines. She was confident that she could prune down her use of immunosuppressants to the barest minimum, because she felt such a complete psychological oneness with Will. It was unconventional, but there were excellent reasons to encourage it for the sake of her ongoing health—especially if she were ever going to try to have a child; so she persuaded them to help her. They had gradually cut out her calcineurin inhibitors and moved her over to the newer sirolimus, which would be kinder to her kidneys and lessen the chance later of coronary artery disease. It was still in trial, and Alex was nervous, but almost two months on, Lucy was radiant. She was convinced she could do entirely without her drugs; but Alex was having none of it, so she accepted her initial victory as a present step and would see what she could do over time. She would never suffer rejection, she believed. She loved Will as a whole part of her.

“What a maze trod indeed. I wish Dee’s faith in all of us might be justified—that after four hundred years we were ready for the cryptic messages he left us—which take some work. But, Alex, haven’t we learned that if things were hot then, they’re almost hotter now? And don’t men like Walters want to keep the gods vengeful and jealous, to serve their own power plays?”

“But when Love speaks, Lucy, the gods ‘make heaven drowsy with the harmony.’ If the lost labors of love are truly won, perhaps we’ll learn the answer.” Alex laughed energetically, and took her hand. “At least, Ariadne—and I assure you you’re a goddess to me, and no angel—you brought us out of it. Although there may be more clues in there waiting for us.” Alex laughed again, but rather unsettlingly.

“‘Labyrinth,’” she recited from heart, “‘a complicated structure with many passages hard to find your way through. An entangled state of affairs.’” She kissed him sensuously, then teased: “But, Alex, does thy firmness make my circle just?”

He recovered his breath: “And make us end where we begunne?”