Perhaps it is the greatest grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

The door snicked shut.

I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

He is more worth to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?

and when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost vicious

The ship's boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy.

and her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as if it drank light from the moon.