That is — your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.

Several things happened at once then. Achilles - for it was Achilles - dropped Deidameia's hand and flung himself joyously at me, knocking me backwards with the force of his embrace.

I had seen the way he looked at Deidameia; or rather the way he did not. It was the same way he had looked at the boys in Phthia, blank and unseeing. He had never, not once, looked at me that way.

I listened and did not speak. Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.

I did not hear them. His presence was like a stone in my shoe, impossible to ignore.