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Arslan chuckled. "Alas, I had to know the truth, so I drank it, though the text warned me not to."

"It clearly didn't kill you."

"Oh, no, I definitely died. I remember a river, and there was a jackal beneath an impossible night sky."

Alexis simply waited for him to continue when he was ready. These kinds of confessions were never easy.

"The Great Anubis decided, for reasons he didn't explain, to send me back to the land of the living. Since then, I have served him and done my best to protect those who need it. That is the short version, anyway. The long version is for another day." Arslan refilled Alexis's tea. "Now, your turn again. You don't have to give me the long version, but I do want to know where you're from, originally?"

Alexis hadn't told anyone the truth for a long time, not because very few humans would recognize the name, but because something in the world still listened for it. Arslan had given him the name of his god and the reason for his immortality, so Alexis could give him the name of a country.

"Atlantis," he said simply and waited.

Arslan didn't laugh, but his eyes widened.

Alexis had given this information twice before, once again to Constantine and once to a skeptical astronomer in Mesopotamia who had set down his pen and gone to pour more beer. When he returned, he asked questions for three days without stopping, and on both occasions, disbelief was the first thing Alexis had to address.

Arslan simply nodded. "I see. How did you survive the sinking?"

"There were a few hours when I thought I was going to die, but Nereus moved the ship far enough out to sea, so when the island had the final eruption, it didn't take us with it."

"Nereus is…"

"First, she was my teacher and general. Now she is my friend and the matriarch of me and a handful of others. She sent me here to find you. Or rather, she permitted me to go. She doesn't really send anyone. She simply looks at you until you do the thing she wants you to do, and by the time you do it, you think it was your own idea."

Arslan's laugh, a real one, came out of him for the first time. "I know that look. There was an old woman in the palace in Damascus who made me study Greek through that exact method. I did not want to study Greek. I ended up writing commentary on Aristotle that the senior scholars stole from me and published under their own names. The old woman never said anything about it, except to say she knew the feeling. I've never forgotten her. Good teachers are the most dangerous people in the world."

"They are," Alexis agreed with a soft chuckle.

Arslan lit the hookah with a touch of his fingers. No spoken word. No sigil drawn in the air. Just the small flicker of intention and the coal taking light.

Alexis's own magic usually worked the same way, and he had, over the years, watched the magics of others work very differently. He understood something about Arslan from that single unshowy gesture. Arslan's magic was quiet, practiced, and more powerful because of it.

"Tell me why you are really here," Arslan said, leaning back against the cushions. "The 'bookish business.' Why come now, alone and in a boat with no crew? Which is something that you will have to pay young Theodoros more coin to keep his mouth shut about."

Alexis took the offered mouthpiece and drew in a breath of smoke.

"Because in about three weeks," Alexis said, blowing it out again, "thirty-three thousand crusaders are going to be camped on the other side of that harbor mouth. They are going to come over the chain and take what they please. I'm not here to try to save the city from its fate, Arslan. I couldn't even if I wanted to. Cities die. I learned that many times. What I'm here to save is of true value. The things that, if they are melted down or burned or shipped back to be ground up for silver or cut into pieces for the holy markets of western Europe, won't exist again. Not in this world. Not in any world."

Alexis had said more than he meant to and found he didn't care. Arslan was quiet for a long time. The smoke of the hookah coiled up and was lost in the vaulting above them.

"You are going to take The Library, obviously," Arslan said at last.

"Parts of it. Yes."

"The Church of the Holy Apostles?"

"There are things in the crypts under the Apostles that, if Dandolo's men find them, will never be seen again. I'm not yet sure how much of it I can get out."

"The Hagia Sophia?"

Alexis set the mouthpiece down. "I'm not a holy man, Arslan. I'm not even Christian. Sophia will not permit me to take anything from her, even if I wanted to. She has her own defenders. I will walk through her, and say a prayer in my own language, and I won't touch a single cup. She will be looted anyway, because the crusaders won't care."

Arslan made a sound of disbelief. "And you have come alone to do all of this?"

"I thought that I would move faster alone. I hadn't considered that I would need a guide. I haven't been in this city since Justinian."

Arslan steepled his fingers and looked at Alexis over the top of them. "Is this your roundabout way of asking me for help, Alexis?"