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"It's in the Church of the Holy Apostles," he began, because Arslan had the patience, if not the attitude, of a saint.

"It was walled up in the sixth century during a renovation that Justinian's chief architect oversaw. It is a chest that arrived in the city from Egypt via Rhodes. Before that, from a sea-chest recovered from the wreck of a ship that sank off Crete in the century after Atlantis was destroyed."

When Arslan showed no concern or surprise, Alexis continued.

"The chest originally contained three objects. Two were lost to different buyers over the next hundred years. An emperor bought the third, and it passed into the imperial treasury without identification. From there, it went into the catacombs of the Apostles during a housekeeping purge and has been walled up there ever since. I've been searching for it since the seventh century. I last had reliable word of its location in 1120, from a priest who had been given a vision of it by what he believed was the Virgin, but what I suspect, from his description, was a much older goddess wearing a new face."

"Visions are always tricky when the old gods decide to play." Arslan clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "What is in the casket, Alexis?"

"A fragment of the orichalcum altar-stone from the Temple of Poseidon, at the heart of Atlantis."

Arslan didn't ask whether Alexis was certain. He didn't make any of the small, polite noises a man made when he was being told something that needed a moment to be absorbed. He looked at Alexis with understanding in his eyes, and he waited.

"The orichalcum was cut from the seabed," Alexis explained, gesturing with his hands. "It wasn't created or forged. It was…living, I suppose, is the best word. The priests of Poseidon had the whole of the temple's magic keyed to it."

Alexis paced the deck, unable to stay still. "Every ritual, every blessing, every offering at the high festivals across thousands of years of temple history passed through that stone. When the island sank, the altar was still in its chamber. The water came up, and the stone went down with everything else. I had assumed that the whole of it was beneath the Aegean and would stay there, but I was mistaken. It washed up on the rocks in Crete with the tides. Whoever found it didn't know what they had. It changed hands a number of times, as I've said, until it came here."

"How do you know that the vision was real? And if it was, how do you know it's definitely the altar piece?" Arslan asked, watching Alexis pace without judgment.

"I don't, and that is the problem. I have an amphora-mark, a shipping manifest, a priest's vision, and a bone-deep certainty that it is a piece of home." Alexis ran his hands through his hair, pulling out the leather tie and shaking his curls loose. "I was still debating whether or not to come and investigate the claim, but the crusade tipped the balance. If it is there, I can't let them find it. They won't know what it is, and in their ignorance, they will most likely destroy the last physical fragment of the temple of a god I once swore myself to."

"You swore yourself to Poseidon?"

"In a manner. Everyone on Atlantis paid homage to him," Alexis replied. "I thought about being a priest, but I was an artisan's son. I created a stone tablet as a gift for the temple when I was a young man, in the hope that they would either accept me because of how beautiful it was, or at least commission me to work for them."

"And I take it that didn't happen? Did the priests not want you?" Arslan asked.

Alexis shook his head, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "No, they did, but Nereus was also there and saw the magic I had worked into the stone. She and the high priest got into a fight over me. Nereus won, but Poseidon was the god the magicians worshiped too because he founded the Citadel. I don't regret the trade. I did love the god, and I still love him, even though he never did save Atlantis."

Arslan placed a hand on Alexis's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "If it's real, we will find it. If it isn't, well, we will have a chance to talk some more, and your mind can rest easy that it wasn't there. Go on, add it to the list."

Alexis took it from his pocket and, with a stub of pencil, wrote in Atlantean, 'the fragment of the altar of the Lord of the Sea.'

Arslan patted his shoulder once more before letting it go. "You didn't mention this artifact to the other magicians?"

"Not to anyone, but Nereus knows I'm always looking for pieces of home."

"Why not tell them?"

"Because I don't want them to get their hopes up if I'm wrong, and every time I do find something from Atlantis, they can get…melancholy."

It was putting it mildly. The last time he had, Zo had stopped talking for a full month, Phaidros got blind drunk and started a revolt in Sparta, and Aelia had sent Alexander the Great into Persia. After that, Alexis was more careful about telling them of his finds.

"We will get it if it is still there, Alexis," Arslan said at last. "You will take it home and put it safely into your Archive. You will touch it on the hard days and find comfort in the fact that you didn't drown with the rest of your homeland."

Alexis really hoped Arslan was right, but there was only one way to find out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The following evening, Andronikos's office was as empty as Alexis had predicted. Andronikos himself was at home three streets from the Patriarchate, and he did have cats because the room smelled faintly of them.

Alexis took the key from the drawer and left an old, very valuable coin at the bottom of it, as a kindness to Andronikos for his unknowing contribution to preserving the catacomb library.

They entered the Basilica from the back, through a service door that Arslan opened as easily as breathing.

They went down flights of stairs in the darkness and turned left once they hit the very bottom.

Alexis laid the key against the wall, and the stones acknowledged it with sleepy recognition, like a sentry who had been drowsing at his post and was pleased to be greeted by someone who still remembered the password.