Page 25

In response to that, Akamos left a small black feather on the doorstep of the cistern, indicating that he was disappointed but not angry. Not yet. Arslan kept the feather and all the others that came after it.

"He's tiring of being polite," Arslan said, showing them to Alexis. "But he won't move on us before you sail."

"No? What makes you so sure? If he keeps this up, he'll look like a plucked pheasant and have no feathers left."

Arslan chuckled and shook his head. "He has decided that a confrontation now would lose him the casket entirely, and he's hoping the next owner will be more reasonable."

"Then it will really please him when he learns that the next owner is going to have it locked in a vault under Venice." Alexis's smile sharpened, letting the Defender come out. "And I wish him all the luck in the world trying to get it out of there."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

On the tenth night, Alexis sat alone in the hull of the Eos and stared at the casket. Finally, he prayed to Poseidon and opened it.

The fragment was smaller than his palm. It was the shape of a broken wedge, with two smooth original surfaces and two rough broken edges where it had been shorn from the body of the altar by whatever force had taken it in the last days. It was a color that didn't exist in any other substance in the world, and which his eyes hadn't seen for thousands of years.

The moment the lid came off, the deep, underwater-bell note struck Alexis again. He had braced for its impact, and it didn't help one bit.

The grief that hit him filled every corner of him. It was in the marrow of his bones, and the taste at the back of his tongue. He let it come, and he didn't try to stop it. He had been outrunning this grief for nine thousand years.

He wept for his mother, who had drowned, and his grandmother, who had taught him a two-handed ward and always left offerings to the clay figure of the goddess Asasarame in her kitchen. He wept for the green-blue of the sea outside the temple doors, for the boy he had been, and for the altar that had sung for thousands of years and that was now a shard.

Eventually, his tears stopped falling, and he held the fragment against his chest, to the place where the old song of his magic lived.

The fragment stopped screaming its anguish and instead tuned into his Atlantean blood and magic. It would now sing to him when he needed it to, and he would sing back to it of his memories of home, and how they had both survived. Maybe the grief wouldn't be so bad for both of them if they did that.

He would make sure that the fragment was kept safe in a new home in Venice, where it would never have to be separated from its people again.

* * *

The following evening, the hold of the Eos was an overstuffed horde of treasure and protective wards. Alexis had laid seven preservation spells over the contents, and Arslan had added two of his own, at Alexis's invitation.

They sat on the deck of the Eos, ate simit with cheese, drank good wine, and watched the city.

Alexis had heard, from a sailor in a Galata tavern, that Dandolo's fleet had been four days out when last seen. The sailor was drunk, but Alexis believed him.

"We are out of time, and you were going to sail tonight without telling me," Arslan commented, not taking his eyes from the city across the water.

"I was going to leave you a note and the statue of Hermes to keep you company," Alexis replied and topped up his wine. "We don't do goodbyes at our age, my friend. We do, 'until we meet again' because we will."

"I suppose you are right," Arslan admitted. "I have never been one for goodbyes, but thank you for the gift. I’ll keep him safe."

They drank their wine, and the Eos rocked quietly beneath them.

"What will you do after you get home?" Arslan asked.

"I plan on dropping off this load before returning to lie in wait around Corfu, so when Dandolo tries to bring all of his looted treasure back to Venice, I can inspect what he has in case anything else needs…preservation," Alexis replied with a wink.

Arslan stifled a laugh. "Piracy? At your age?"

"I have to keep busy somehow," Alexis replied. "Besides, I'm young at heart." It wasn't exactly true, but it would be a shame to let Dandolo keep so many treasures.

"Arslan? I don't suppose I could convince you to come back to Venice with me," he said finally. "You can meet the family, see the Archives, and there is always room in the villa."

A look of longing crossed Arslan's face before he shut it down.

"The city will need help when the fleet arrives, and I can't be in Venice while it is burning. People need someone to try to protect them, because the powers that rule them won't care. The Order is here. My home is here. I can't leave it, even knowing that I can't stop what's about to happen."

"I understand more than you know," Alexis replied and patted him on the shoulder. "There will always be room at our table for you. The offer is for any night you choose to take it up. You can come to me in ten years. You can come to me in a thousand. It won't expire."