The blaring alarm jarred Semele awake. She was sprawled on her stomach, using her laptop like a pillow. She sat up with a groan and opened her eyes. Her whole body screamed in protest. A combination of jet lag and lack of sleep was taking its toll.
After dinner with Bren last night, she unpacked and faced her overflowing basket of laundry. Between cycles, she worked on translating more of the manuscript and continued well after the laundry was finished. She’d clearly fallen asleep at her computer.
She shuffled to the bathroom and would have laughed when she saw herself in the mirror if she hadn’t been so tired. A huge, angry sleep mark from her keyboard ran down the right side of her cheek to her chin. Her laptop was literally imprinted on her face. Lovely.
A shower helped revive her and gave her time to think about Ionna’s account of the fire. Semele knew of Alexandria’s history and the legends surrounding the library’s destruction. She had taken a course on ancient libraries of antiquity at Yale; it was also one of her father’s favorite topics.
The Library of Alexandria’s demise had always been plagued by controversy—debates raged over when it had happened and who caused the destruction. Many historians believed that when Caesar set fire to the ships, he caused the first fatal blow. Others insisted that only books in the warehouses near the waterfront were destroyed. Each camp cited countless historical references to back up their claims. In all the years, there was still no single narrative that historians could agree upon.
Semele ran down the list of culprits. If Caesar wasn’t responsible, then it was likely Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, who notoriously persecuted Alexandria’s librarians and burned books while at war with Roman emperor Aurelian. Less than thirty years later, Diocletian had purged the Library of Alexandria of every single magic and alchemy book and burned all the scriptures. Then, in A.D. 391, Pope Theophilus’ decree destroyed the Serapeum, where the remaining works from the library had been moved.
And between all those wars, nature had played her hand as well. Earthquakes caused major destruction over centuries, and every day the elements brought on a slower degradation. The most moderate theorists claimed that a combination of these factors caused the library’s demise.
Semele knew there wasn’t one simple answer, and yet here was an account from a person who lived through it. Just the thought rejuvenated her. She was wide awake now and couldn’t wait to get to the office.
She needed to talk to Mikhail.
* * *
She arrived almost late for her meeting and with no time for coffee. She hurried down the hall to Mikhail’s office. His assistant, Brittany, was sorting auction catalogs at her desk outside the imposing double doors.
“You can go right in,” she chirped, but then squinted her eyes. “What happened to your face?”
Semele gave her a tired smile and entered Mikhail’s office right as he was finishing up a call. He motioned her in, so she took a seat and waited, listening to him speak softly in Russian.
Mikhail had been head director of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg before coming to Kairos. He was somewhere in his late fifties and had the dramatic look one expected to see in a portrait of a Russian cossack soldier hanging on a museum wall.
He said something quietly and hung up the phone. Semele had no idea if the call had been business or personal. With Mikhail she never knew.
“Welcome back.” His voice had only the slightest hint of an accent. “You look tired.” He assessed her with sharp eyes; then his face relaxed into a smile.
“A bit jet-lagged,” she said, downplaying her fatigue.
He pressed his intercom. “Brittany, please bring Semele an Americano, one sugar.”
Semele flashed him a grateful smile.
“And ask Raina to join us.”
Semele’s smile fell. Why was Raina coming to their meeting?
“So!” he said, clapping his hands. “I hear Switzerland was a success.”
She nodded, now slightly off-kilter. “The collection’s here. We can go down. I just need to double-check the roster and get a few more items to the lab.…” She trailed off when Raina strutted in.
“That won’t be necessary,” Mikhail said, shooting Raina an appreciative glance as she sat down and crossed her legs.
Semele all but rolled her eyes at Raina’s daring hemline and stilettos. No wonder Cabe was a tangle of hormones.
“What’s not necessary?” she asked, returning her focus to him.
“There’s been a change of plans. Fritz is going to handle the Bossard account.”
It took Semele a moment to process what Mikhail had just said. He might as well have been speaking Russian again. She looked at Raina, who seemed just as surprised.
“You want to give my account to Fritz? To Fritz?” Semele asked twice in disbelief. Fritz was the company’s blond-haired wonder boy from Vienna and technically the most senior consultant on staff. He was also the one who had just handled the $14 million auction.
“I think it’s a wise decision,” Raina interjected, obviously taking pleasure in Semele’s discomfort. “Especially with such a high-profile collection.”
“The Bossard account is mine,” Semele said to Mikhail, stressing the word “mine.” He had never given one of her accounts to someone else. She was too stunned to say anything else.
The door opened again and Brittany entered. She reached to place the coffee on the side table next to Semele.
“I’ll take it,” Semele said gruffly, not even letting her set the cup down. She took several fortifying sips while she waited for Brittany to leave. She kept her eyes on Mikhail and ignored Raina entirely. “Why would you want to take me off?”
“Fritz handled the Galli account beautifully last year,” he said. “The board would like to see the same results here.”
“The Galli Collection?” Her mind drew a blank.
“The dowager in Bern,” Raina reminded her with a patronizing tone.
“The sheet music?” Semele asked, growing more astounded.
A wealthy widow in Bern had amassed a rare collection of sheet music and ledgers from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Both collections were in Switzerland, but their similarities stopped there.
Why Mikhail would want Fritz to take over the Bossard account was not only beyond her but also an insult. A fleeting thought crossed her mind. “Does Theo Bossard have an issue with my work?”
“Not at all.” Mikhail shook his head. “On the contrary, he’s been full of praise.”
The thought of Theo speaking to Mikhail about her was just as unsettling. What had he said?
“We have a new account you need to jump on right away.” Mikhail handed Raina the open file on his desk. “Set it up.”
“A new account? Are you kidding me?” Semele finally let her anger fully surface. “I’m in the middle of one I happen to care about!”
She and Mikhail were supposed to spend the next several hours going over the collection and hammering out potential strategies for the auction next month. She had also been anxious to discuss the manuscript and Marcel’s note. And now her account was being handed over to Fritz?
“What if I say no?” she asked. Raina laughed and Semele wanted to throttle her. She shouldn’t even be here.
“I’m sorry, Semele.” Mikhail met her eyes.
During the five years they had been working together, she and Mikhail had developed a strong mutual respect as well as a shorthand for communicating with one another. He was telling her the decision was final.
“Where is the client?” she asked.
“Beijing,” Raina informed her with barely disguised glee as she reviewed the file.
Semele closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Part of her wondered if this was some sort of plan to get her out of the picture. Why Beijing? Why now? She should be swamped with preparations for the auction. Now she was being shipped off to China.
Raina stood up to leave. “I’ll get with the new clients and set up your travel,” she said and sauntered out.
Semele waited until the door closed and then turned back to Mikhail. “Is this a roundabout way of firing me?”
Mikhail let out a surprised laugh. “No, I give you my word. I know this seems out of the ordinary. But sometimes I have to make decisions for the good of the company. The Beijing account is more important. You’re needed there.”
Semele refrained from questioning him further. She sipped her coffee instead and tried to make sense of what was happening. She didn’t see how an account in Beijing could be more important than Bossard. And Mikhail didn’t even know about the manuscript yet. She needed to broach the subject.
“There’s one piece in the collection that I think is going to be significant.”
He cut her off. “Turn your notes over to Fritz by this afternoon and he’ll sort out everything. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off?”
Mikhail was already walking toward the door. Semele stood in a daze and followed him.
“Recharge, get rested,” he said. “We’ll discuss Beijing first thing Monday morning.”
Semele looked from him to the open door, not ready to walk through it yet. “Seriously? You’re giving me the rest of the week off.”
His eyes softened at her bewildered look. “You’ve earned it.”
Her mind was in a tailspin. Yes, she had earned it. But she didn’t want to go anywhere next week.
This was all so unlike Mikhail. Normal Mikhail would want to go over each piece of the Bossard collection with her immediately. He would follow her down to the tenth floor and get so caught up that he would cancel his afternoon appointments so they could keep talking. Normal Mikhail would never want her to take time off, and he would never reassign a collection.
“Give Fritz your files and I’ll see you Monday,” he said, holding the door open for her to go.
Semele left, knowing her face betrayed her hurt and confusion. She couldn’t help thinking this turn of events was because of the manuscript. Ever since she had found it, she’d been on edge. Her gut told her someone knew she was reading the memoir, and clearly Mikhail didn’t want her to discuss it.
“Semele,” he called her back.
She turned around and saw the concern on his face.
“There will be other collections,” he said gently. “Let this one go.”
She nodded, not sure if she could.
Could I have saved my family if I had only foreseen the fire?
The question haunted me until I read Wadjet’s scroll. She explained how the future had a course, yet our lives remained fluid like water, leaving us with a choice in all things. Life’s greatest mystery was how these conflicting truths existed in harmony. It was the reason why intuition existed at all.
Perhaps pain was a teacher. After the fire, I began to cast the Oracle’s symbols to divine the future. I no longer questioned what they were telling me, and my intuition grew stronger.
I began to prepare for the journey they foretold. I had to believe that from the ashes of this tragedy, a new life was waiting for me.
The director of the library handled my father’s and brothers’ funerals and negotiated with the embalmers. I waited for seventy days for their bodies to be returned. All who knew them judged their lives as virtuous, and I was assured their place in the afterlife was secure.
My father’s wealth paid for each sarcophagus, and I buried them in our family tomb. I sewed what remained of his fortune inside my cloak. With luck I would have ample funds for my travels to Antioch, as well as means for several years if I lived frugally.
When I heard The Grebes, the largest Roman merchant ship ever to enter our harbors, had docked, I wasted no time.
My father had known the ship’s captain. He once saved the man’s personal books from being confiscated by the library and instead kept the transcribed copies for the library’s collection—something my father was prone to do when he could. He did not agree with the Ptolemies’ edict and believed one of life’s greatest tragedies was for a man to have to part with his books. I hoped the captain would remember my father’s kindness and grant me voyage.
“Of course I remember, girl!” the thick, barrel-chested man bellowed. “Now why are you bothering me?”
Amid the shouts and orders as the ship readied to sail, I spun my tale—that my husband waited for me in Antioch—and added that I was with child, for good measure. The captain looked at my slim frame and frowned but did not question my story.
“Pay your way and stay out of my way, and we’ll have you in Antioch by the week’s end. Now get on. We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“But I need to get my things.”
“Hurry up then. I won’t wait.”
I could tell he would leave me if I wasn’t back in time. I ran home calling on the speed of Hermes.
With no time to consider, I stuffed my bag with every valuable I could seize. First I emptied my mother’s jewelry box. Then I packed her comb, hand mirror, and perfumes, along with my father’s favorite reed pen, a huge stack of parchment, and my brothers’ sistrums—percussive instruments used in the festivals. They had no value or use, but I had to take something from each of them. Then I bundled the pottery jar holding the Oracle’s symbols in a swath of silk, along with Ariston’s translation. I laced the gold key on a cord around my neck and tucked it inside my gown. The metal felt cold against my skin.
The library key was now my talisman. Wadjet had chosen me to safeguard her symbols and help them survive. Now all that remained was my set of painted replicas and a translation of her words from a fledgling physician. In my eyes I had already failed.
I ran all the way back to port and boarded The Grebes only moments before she pushed off.
The captain saw me dash down the plank and laughed. “I’ve never seen a woman with child run so fast.”
I blushed and hastened to place a hand upon my stomach. The old man chuckled and turned back to his business.
Once on deck, I stood in awe. The ship was massive, bigger than it appeared from the docks. The hull stretched 130 feet long, and the vessel had three masts instead of one to accommodate the tonnage of its cargo. There was a complex system of ropes and knots rigging the square sails; it looked like one of the magical contraptions Ariston’s uncle had crafted.
I walked down the middle of the deck, trying to keep out of the way. One of the ship hands nodded gruffly and motioned “Passengers over there.”
A handful of men clustered in a corner: three scribes, a merchant, two priests, and a Nubian warrior with a goat. I nodded to the motley group with confidence, as if young women traveled alone all the time. Then I took a seat on the bench. The Nubian’s goat came over and nuzzled me.
The warrior surprised me by addressing me. “She smells the spice in your perfume.” He spoke softly.
I looked up at him and nodded, hesitant. Nubians had earned the hard-won reputation of being the fiercest fighters in the world. They were not to be crossed. I decided to let his goat lick my hand as much as the animal wanted.
Among all the merchant ships, The Grebes had one of the finest reputations—it carried Egypt’s wheat to Rome, wood from Lebanon, oil and wine from Greece, and delivered papyrus throughout the Mediterranean—but still, a week aboard any vessel was a long time. We would travel along the coastline to Antioch, stopping along the way in Damietta, Ascalon, Tyre, and Tripoli to unload cargo, and then finally dock in Seleucia at the mouth of the Orontes River. From there I would take a barge up the river to the city.
The idea of traveling alone both thrilled and terrified me. As the ship pulled away from port, the key hung heavy around my heart. The library shrank smaller with a distance impossible to bridge, for I knew I would never return to Alexandria again.
We passed the lighthouse and I forced myself to face the sea.
My old life was behind me, and my one chance at happiness existed in an unknown future. Antioch was a growing metropolis, often called the Rome of the East. I tried to imagine what Ariston’s home was like and began to worry that, in a city of over half a million people, I would never be able to find him at all.
As if the Fates could sense my fear, the voyage seemed doomed by the end of the first day. High winds threatened to batter us into the coastline, and a relentless storm followed overhead, meting out punishing rain and claps of thunder.
Fear took root inside me. What if I died at sea? No one would be there to bury me, and I would never find my way to the afterlife. Shipwrecks were a frequent occurrence, and by the second day all the passengers, everyone except the Nubian, were convinced we would die.
I watched him look out to the water, his stance straight and regal against the rain. Was the warrior unafraid of death, or did he simply know he would not perish on this voyage? I had no such certainty.
* * *
It was the knife at my neck that woke me.
“Make a sound and you’re dead,” a crewman hissed in my ear as his hand reached under my cloak.
The knife cut into my skin and the blade burned as blood ran down my neck. When I whimpered he pressed the blade deeper. I could feel his body against me, and bile rose up in my throat.
The man stopped groping when he felt the coins hidden inside my cloak. “What’s this? The nymph comes with gold?”
He moved the knife away from my neck to cut a coin from my cloak. The moment the blade lifted, a slicing sound blew past me and an arrow landed in his chest. The man made no noise as he slumped to the side.
I was free of him and looked up with terrified eyes. In the darkness I saw the Nubian, bow in hand, kneeling on his pallet twenty feet away.
He came over with the stealth of a cat, picked up the dead man, and lowered him over the side of the boat. It all happened so quickly. When the Nubian was rid of him, he took a piece of cloth from his bag and wrapped it around my neck.
“The wound is not deep,” he whispered.
Shock took hold of me and my body began to shake. In a panic, I looked around to see if anyone was watching. The Nubian did not seem concerned.
“Why are you traveling alone?” he asked.
My teeth chattered as I shivered uncontrollably. “My family is gone.…”
“And the husband you are joining?”
So he had heard my story. His eyes held surprising gentleness. I shook my head, unable to fathom the outcome if he hadn’t intervened. My eyes dropped to the intricate necklace banded around his neck.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He helped me stand and moved my pallet to be closer to his. “I have a daughter. May the gods watch over her as they do you.”
I lay down near him, and his goat licked my arm in a show of welcome. Filled with gratitude, I stared at the vast balcony of stars glittering above me, while beneath me the ocean rocked, lulling me to sleep as a mother would a child, and my fear vanished.