Fleeced by Julia Wills

swim across the lake with it. Though I’d be obliged if you didn’t take me in to the waaaaa—”
    The Scroll flew into the air as Aries shrieked and skidded to a stop. His haunches froze and he was only vaguely aware of the Scroll muttering furiously from the grass nearby.
    But he couldn’t listen.
    Or answer.
    Because Medea, the sorceress, was stdnin rit ni fornt fo him.
    Oh, I’m sorry…
    The very idea of her looming out of the twilight like that has made my typing go to pot.
    Just give me a moment to compose myself, would you?
    10 . Why being grumpy should be likened to the physique of a camel is beyond me. However, it is what people say, and perhaps if Alex and Aries had been speaking at that point they too might have discussed it. But they weren’t and so they didn’t.
    11 . In case you’re wondering, this was the Spade of Digging Coins. Each time it was stuck into the soil a sack of Earth money would appear. Just my kind of magical tool.

VI
C ROWN OF R AM
    Ah, that’s better.
    Thank you.
    What had actually startled Aries was in fact simply a painting of Medea. Life-sized and horribly accurate, it’s true, but still only a likeness of her copied onto Athena’s banners by the Underworld artists. Now, as his breathing finally slowed down, Aries took a closer look.
    The scene was of the night his fleece had been stolen and showed the
Argo
sailing out of Kolkis Harbour. Surf lapped at her bow as Jason manned the helm whilst Medea stared out of the picture, her smile more like a snarl, her hand wrapped around the fleece. She looked so real that Aries half-expected to hear her glassy laugh or see her push back that tangle of long black hair, smoothing its single lock of violet, twisting it round and round her pale fingers the way she used to when she thought hard.
    He recognised it as a copy of one of Jason and Medea’s wedding presents, when they’d tied the knot – bless! – although, as with many celebrity couples, the wedding presents had lasted much longer than the marriage.
    Dragging his eyes from the sorceress’s silvery gaze, Aries looked at the fleece and felt his heart lift like a harpy in a high wind. Even though it was just so much gold paint on canvas, it still dazzled the rest of the picture into shadow.
    Now, if this were a film rather than a most excellent book, the music would swell in a cacophony of violins and romantic pianos. There’d be a glorious sunset on the screen to silhouette Aries, whilst the audience, goggle-eyed and slack-jawed, tossed popcorn frantically into their mouths and down their jumpers because that’s what always happens with popcorn in the dark.
    Why?
    Because then, right then, at that very moment, Aries knew that no matter what anyone else had to say – not Alex, Athena, the Skeleton Soldiers, the Argonauts – he
had
to win.
    Snorting, he lowered his head and thundered at the banner, jabbing it with his horns until the ropes either side snapped and the picture wrappeditself around his head like a badly wrapped mummy. Then he snatched up the Scroll and for a moment stood and looked out over the black giggling water of the lake.
    That’s right,
giggling
, not gurgling.
    Because when the oracles had overheard the tourists complaining about sirens waking them in the night, they hadn’t realised that Earth people meant the
whoo-whoo
sort of sirens that you find on fire engines. No, they had filled the lake with Greek Sirens, the supernatural water-women of old Greece, who’d once enchanted sailors with their songs, luring them to smash their boats on the rocks and drown 12 . Tonight those mermaids rose up through the glittering lake to sabotage competitors instead.
    “Brilliant!” murmured Aries, picking his way through the spectators, who stood, frozen as statues, glaze-eyed and silent, hypnotised by the singing.
    “You reckon?” said the Scroll.
    Aries nodded.
    Not because he could swim as well or as fast as the others. He couldn’t. But because of