Bennett ran through the small waves that lapped the rocky beach, London Harcourt in his arms. She had her own arms loosely, impersonally around his neck, and kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead. The caique bobbed at anchor. Bennett could not actually see the boat, thanks to Athena, but he knew where it was supposed to be. Shouts and the sounds of pursuit neared.
The water splashed around his boots, then up to his thighs, and the back of London’s skirt grew soaked despite his efforts to keep her dry.
“You can’t carry me and swim,” London said with a surprisingly level voice. “But I don’t think I can get very far on my own.”
“Not swimming,” he said.
“Then where the hell are you going? There’s nothing out there but water.”
He smiled grimly to himself at her coarse language. It didn’t take much to strip away the ladylike polish to find the wicked woman beneath. But what such a woman might be capable of, he didn’t know. He expected at any moment that she would turn on him like a cornered cat, raking him with her claws.
“Don’t trust appearances,” he advised. He ran a little farther into the water, then, with a small oof, they knocked into the hull of the caique, or where Bennett assumed the caique was supposed to be. It certainly felt like it.
“Brought some friends, I see,” Athena’s voice said from somewhere above them. “Always so popular. Come, I will help.”
London started when Athena’s hand appeared from the air. Her surprise did not last long, and she took the offered assistance to clamber over the rail of the cloaked boat. Bennett watched her disappear into the shielding magic, her trim ankles vanishing last into the middle of the air. He did so love his work.
The calloused hand of Nikos Kallas emerged to help pull Bennett aboard. Bennett grasped the captain’s hand, using it for leverage as he climbed on board, and he felt a buzzing in his head and bones as he crossed the border of Athena’s magic. Once on the boat, the caique became visible to him, with London, Athena, and Kallas standing on deck. Athena looked pale from holding the spell for so long.
“You know how to sail?” demanded Kallas.
“Only a bit,” answered Bennett. He glanced around. “We lost our crew?”
Athena said, “They fled to the Frenchmen on the island while you were gone.”
Kallas spit over the rail of the boat. “Cowards. Couldn’t handle a few crumbs of cannon fire. When I see them again, I’ll flay them, use their hides for sails. Now, you and the women must serve as crew.” He turned to Athena with a scowl. “Or are your noble hands too soft to tighten a line?”
Loftily, Athena said, “I am not afraid of hard work.”
“Good—then make ready to come about,” ordered Kallas. “Day, hoist the mainsail. Sheet it flat. Then I’ll raise the foresail.”
“Tell me how to help,” London said, stepping forward.
“When I say, you’ll hoist the jib, but keep them slack,” Kallas answered, pointing to the foremost triangular sail. She immediately went to stand ready. Bennett, hoisting the sail, shook his head slightly in amazement. Here she was, on a boat with the man who’d killed her husband, fleeing her family and the only life she had ever known. All done for a good cause. She was poised to work, watching Kallas for his signal.
She did turn when her father’s voice boomed from the beach. “What the bloody blazes happened to them?” he bellowed to the men with him. “They were just here! Day took my damned daughter, you sods! I want her back!”
A film of pain glazed her eyes as she stared at him. Bennett started to go to her, but stopped when she steeled herself and turned back to her task. Edgeworth didn’t know of his daughter’s willing defection, but he’d learn of it soon enough, as soon as Fraser came to. Edgeworth and his minions couldn’t see the caique just fifty feet in front of them. Or, at least, they couldn’t as long as Athena’s magic held.
Chernock stood beside Edgeworth, panting with exertion. The sorcerer peered into the darkness, then smiled coldly. He picked up a rock, muttered something over it, then threw it hard toward the boat. The rock hit the caique’s hull with a thud. Athena cried out as if she’d been punched, and Kallas leapt to her side, supporting her as she sank down to the deck. The air hummed, and the caique shimmered.
“There,” Chernock crowed. “Simple schoolgirl magic.”
He’d broken Athena’s spell, and now they were visible. Gunfire split the air, and chips of wood flew from the masts and rail. Bennett dove from his position to grab London, shielding her from the flying bullets.
“Just get us out of here,” Athena gasped to Kallas beside her.
He tore himself away to hoist the anchor. As soon as it was raised, he ran to the wheel. “Man the jib!” he shouted to Bennett.
Bennett unfolded himself from around London to grab the sail’s line, and she quickly rolled away from him as if to escape his touch. The wind caught in the unfurled sails, pushing the caique out to sea. A bullet tore through the foresail as they came about.
“Careful, you swine!” Edgeworth shouted. “My daughter is somewhere on that boat.”
The gunfire slowed, then stopped. Bennett, pulling hard to secure the sails, could only watch as London stood and revealed herself to her father. She solemnly gazed at him from her position at the rail, her hands gripping the wood.
“London!” Edgeworth strode into the surf, but he’d never catch them. They were already making for open water. “Jump, London!”
She stared at Edgeworth, as if memorizing him. She raised a hand. “Good-bye, Father.”
Silence. Edgeworth gaped. Confusion creased his face before anguish took its place. Bennett actually pitied the man. Betrayed by his child. The moment stretched out, tight and piercing, as father and daughter held each other’s gaze over the surf. Bennett wondered if London might actually jump from the boat and go back to her father, back to the familiar and safe.
London turned away from her father. Tears glistened on her cheeks, yet she did not falter as she helped Bennett with the sails. In the shimmer of night, hair wild, face sparkling with tears, she looked like a heartbroken angel, and Bennett’s heart broke with hers. She slipped away from his comforting hand on hers.
Kallas guided the caique deftly through the shoals and rocks surrounding Delos. Despite the darkness, the captain knew these waters, and soon the deep navy velvet of the sky met the inky black sea uninterrupted, the only sounds from the snap of the sails and the waves slapping against the bow. A strong, fresh breeze gusted, taking them away.
Dawn over the Aegean. It began pearl gray, then the sun broke the eastern horizon, gilding the sky and sea into a white-gold luster. Wisps of coral clouds surfed the bowl of heaven before the air shifted blue and clear. Far-off crests of islands broke the mirrored water like tawny dolphins surfacing, playful and serious. All around was the scent of brine and wind.
And coffee. As Bennett manned the wheel, Kallas brewed strong, bitter coffee over a bronze brazier, using a long-handled briki pot to boil the water. He stirred in spoon fuls of ground coffee with the austere ceremony of a high priest. Athena, sitting nearby, couldn’t quite hide her approval of his methods or the dark, rich foam that formed in the pot as the coffee brewed. As soon as the foam rose to the top of the briki, Kallas divided it into four waiting cups, then poured the coffee itself. He disappeared into the quarterdeck house, then emerged with a painted tin, which he opened and handed around.
“My mother’s koulourakia,” Kallas said as Bennett helped himself to a few buttery pastries. “Good with coffee.”
After yielding the helm to Kallas, Bennett moved to take a cup of coffee to London, but Athena intercepted him. She plucked the cup from his hand and gave it to London, casting him a warning look. The witch cautioned him with her eyes. Stay back.
An animal is never so dangerous than when wounded.
With a small nod, Bennett paced away, taking his own cup of coffee. He leaned his back against the rail while munching on the pastry and sipping the wonderfully punitive coffee. The morning came to life all around him. A breakfast at sea. Life was full of many small pleasures.
But it was a hard pleasure, darker and more bitter than the coffee. He glanced over at London, seated on the deck with her back against the railing. She stared down at the cup in her hands, swirling the coffee, before taking a sip. She choked, coughed.
“You like it?” Kallas asked.
“It’s very…assertive,” she gasped.
Athena’s soft laugh joined Kallas’s chuckle before they realized they were laughing together. Each busied themselves with the suddenly complex task of drinking coffee.
Bennett watched London as she nursed her coffee. He wished he hadn’t kissed her. He knew now what he was missing, and, having tasted her once, burned to do it again. He had a sudden wish to go back to that moment, when she didn’t know who he was and all that had been between them was desire. Now, her anger and uncertainty were palpable things that crouched on the deck, snarling and snapping at any who dared approach.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself. He crossed the deck to stand near her. In the dawn light, her hair became caramel and her skin pink-hued ivory. When she turned her eyes up to him, he saw that they were not merely dark brown, but a shifting mosaic of hues, chocolate and amber and even flecks of gold and green.
“Come to pay your respects to the bereaved?” she asked.
He resisted the urge to strike back with his own cutting words, but it was hard. He was used to defending himself against assaults—the physical kind, anyway.
“I will tell your fortune in the coffee grounds,” Athena said quickly. She walked over to them and held out her hand. “Finish your cup.”
London shut Bennett from her sight as she downed her coffee in one swallow. She shuddered, then gave the cup to Athena. The witch went into the quarterdeck house, then reemerged with a saucer. Athena placed the saucer over the cup and handed them both back to London.
“Move them both counterclockwise,” the witch advised. “Close your eyes and concentrate. Open your mind.”
London shut her eyes and followed Athena’s guidance. Bennett stared at London, wondering where her mind was taking her, wishing he could be there, in her thoughts.
“Now, flip the cup and saucer over,” Athena instructed. “Wait a few moments, but keep your mind focused. Shut out everything around you.”
Ideas and feelings flickered across London’s face, and, even silent, she radiated a complexity Bennett might never decode. He glanced up to find Athena watching him with something very like pity, making him scowl.
“Open your eyes and turn the cup over again,” said Athena. “Remove the saucer.”
London did so. Both she and Bennett gazed down into her cup, where thick coffee grounds formed swirls and patterns along the white ceramic. Athena took the cup back from London and stared intently at the inside of the cup. The witch started in surprise.
“What does it say?” London asked.
Even Kallas at the wheel leaned closer to hear Athena’s divination.
“Many knots, like the branches of a tree,” Athena murmured. “You are deeply enmeshed in a tangled problem. The branches form a bridge, saying that you must make a difficult decision. And I see a man. He beckons to you, he will give you something, something important, but his hands are empty.”
“So he has nothing to offer,” said London.
Athena shook her head, then gazed directly at Bennett, staking him with a look. “He has more than he realizes.”
“Is this a prophecy?” asked Bennett.
“It is what may be.”
“And what of certainty?” London asked.
“Nothing is ever certain.”
London tipped her head back so she could watch the sky. The sorrowful loveliness of her face hurt Bennett in the center of his chest. “I’m learning that,” she said softly.
He ached to touch her, even for a moment. He began to reach for her.
She straightened, drawing about her the mantle of propriety, and he dropped his hand. Then she looked down and saw saltwater whitely drying on her navy skirt. “One thing is certain, my clothes are a disaster. Yet I haven’t anything else to wear.” Clothing, it seemed, was easier to contemplate than figuring out how to untie the knots tangling her life.
“You are welcome to whatever I have,” Athena said.
London gave her a nod of thanks. “That’s kind of you. But there’s no way for me to pay for anything. I do not have any money.” Realization dawned, and it pained Bennett to watch it in her face, the accompanying bleakness that hollowed her out like a glacier’s path. “I have…nothing.”
He tried to bring her back from that abyss. “The Blades take care of their own. We provide whatever’s needed. Even clothing.”
Her eyes flew to his, and instead of despair, they were filled with a sudden anger. “Including widows’ weeds?”
He felt the stab of her words, as much, if not more, than the curved Moroccan knife her husband had tried to gut him with. That wound had faded into a pale line across his right side. Sometimes he forgot about it altogether. He knew just then that London’s wounds would last much longer.
“She knows,” said Athena.
“She knows,” London snapped. “Apparently, she is the last to know about her husband’s murder. And who committed it.” She glared at Bennett, but he refused to back down.
“Me,” he said.
“It was not murder,” Athena said gently. “It was not deliberately or maliciously done.”
London’s hurt gaze turned to Athena. “So, you were there, too?”
“No, but I know Bennett and I know our cause. We are soldiers, not murderers. One kills in the heat of battle. The other coldly destroys life.”
“Have you killed?” London asked Athena.
The witch shook her head. “Thank the Fierce Maiden I have not had to, not yet. But I know it is not lightly done by the Blades. It is not lightly done by Bennett.”
London looked away. The ghost of Lawrence Harcourt lingered, hovering over the deck. After a moment, she said in a low voice, “The Heirs will be coming for us, won’t they? Fraser. Chernock. My…father.”
Bennett was glad that, at the least, Harcourt’s death could be momentarily overshadowed by more immediate threats. “We’ll stay ahead of them,” he vowed. “Kallas’s boat is a fleet little thing.”
“Only Hermes flies faster,” Kallas said with a raffish grin from behind the wheel.
“Even so, they will come,” said London.
Bennett knew she spoke the truth, but he wasn’t deterred. Being a Blade meant living cheek by jowl with the enemy. He was used to it. “Which means we’ll find the Source first.”
“You’re so cocksure,” she said.
“Always.” That wasn’t entirely true—not where she was concerned. With most women, he knew exactly what he wanted from them and usually got precisely that, no more, no less. He might desire their bodies, their company. Sometimes he played the seducer to gain information for the Blades. And when his desire had been met, he could continue on his way and think of each woman as a fond, often salacious, memory. They would take other men into their beds after he had gone, sometimes their husbands, sometimes new lovers. None of which troubled him.
London Harcourt proved to be much more complicated than this. He’d killed her husband. She wasn’t a Blade. She wasn’t an object of simple lust. She turned him into a walking nerve, aware of her every movement, every emotion. He wanted her, his enemy’s widow.
He needed to focus, had to be sharp. He could exert discipline over himself. Hadn’t he nearly been starved out when holed up in an abandoned nunnery in Sicily, protecting a Source from the Heirs and their mercenaries? By the time he, Catullus Graves, and Michael Bramfield had killed or chased off the attackers, Bennett had lost almost a stone and was half-dead from thirst. Surely he could handle the torment of having London Harcourt nearby, close but unreachable. But he felt like Tantalus. The kiss he and London had shared had been revelatory, and he wanted more. Wanted and couldn’t have, not again. For a handful of moments, she’d been his, and now she was lost.
“We don’t even know what we are looking for,” she pointed out.
“What did the ruins on Delos tell you?” Athena asked.
London recited what she had translated from the columns: “Upon the island in the form of a dolphin, find there the stream that sings. Its voice will guide you farther to the terrible waterborne gift of the golden god.”
“Something borne upon the water,” Bennett mused. “If the Heirs want it, it must be powerful, and can be used as a weapon.”
“What weapon can be carried on water?” London frowned in thought. “Perhaps a ship of some kind.”
“Or a machine of war,” suggested Kallas. “Like the Trojan Horse.”
They all fell silent, considering the multitudes of possibilities. Those ancients never made the journey a smooth one, not where Sources were concerned. Bennett might have appreciated their foresight if he wasn’t in a sodding life-or-death race.
Suddenly, Athena jumped to her feet, startling everyone. “Virgin Mother! A weapon of that awful power in the hands of the Heirs…they would be invincible. The Blades could do nothing to stop them.”
“Athena, you’re starting at the end,” Bennett said. “Begin at the beginning so we know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Athena looked horrified. “Greek Fire. That is what the Heirs are after.”
Bennett cast back in his mind to the stories of his youth, the tales of adventure his father spun when he’d come into the nursery. “A very old seafaring weapon. It could burn on the water’s surface, and couldn’t be extinguished.”
The witch nodded. “A liquid fire. Used for generations—the Romans had heard of it, and it was said that Greek Fire defended Constantinople from Saracen ships. Then it disappeared.”
“I’ve read of it,” London said. “The theory is that it was invented by a Syrian, Callinicus. Many have speculated about its chemical composition. Some said naphtha, resin, burning pitch, quicklime. It is science, not magic.”
“That’s how Sources hide,” Bennett said, “shrouding themselves in easily accepted fact. If the truth was known about such things, like the origins of gunpowder—”
“Gunpowder isn’t magic!” London exclaimed.
Bennett said, “Tell that to the Chinese wizard who created it from a Fire Demon.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and a smile tugged at her mouth as she looked up at him. “I had no idea. It’s like another Earth has been found existing just beneath the surface of this one.” For a fleeting moment, Bennett and London shared the wonder of discovery, the sheen of adventure, and a reckless happiness careened through him.
Then her smile faded. She remembered who he was, what he’d done. Collecting herself, she asked Athena, “Are we then to believe that this Greek Fire is a Source?”
Bennett wouldn’t let himself be shut out so easily. “Makes sense,” he said. “A terrible waterborne gift. The Heirs would certainly want such a weapon.”
“Control of the sea is everything,” Kallas added. “If the oceans are yours, the world is yours.”
“Then we’ll stop them now,” Bennett said. “We’ll find it first.”
“Where?” asked Athena.
“The island in the form of a dolphin,” Kallas repeated. “I know this place. On the shore, there is a small church and a tiny village. Mostly goats and rocks. It is a day’s sail from here, to the east.”
Athena challenged, “Does it have a stream that sings?”
“If it does,” Kallas shot back, “it is inland, where I never go. The sea is my home. I haven’t got a landlocked palace full of servants and costly baubles, Lady Witch.”
Athena’s fingers twitched as if she meant to cast an unpleasant spell on the tormenting captain.
“Take us to that island,” Bennett said quickly. He didn’t want a mollusk for a captain.
Kallas nodded. “I will need help with the sails.”
Bennett straightened to give his assistance, but Athena surprised everyone by stepping forward.
“This palace-dweller can do it,” she sniffed.
Kallas scowled. From a pocket in his vest, he took his pipe and stuck it between his teeth. “Follow me,” he growled. “Day, you take the helm. Steer us east by northeast, and mind the wind.” Then the captain strode aft with Athena at his heels, mariner and lady determined to show their indifference to each other. It made Bennett smile despite the continued sting of London’s anger.
Bennett did as Kallas ordered, manning the wheel. From his jacket, he pulled out the Compass.
“I have to plot our direction, so I’ll need you to hold this,” he said. When London rose and came to stand beside him, he kept his eyes ahead on their course, but felt her there, just the same. Sharp, pained desire flared in him, their fingers tangling as she relieved him of the Compass. The tips of her fingers were already growing more resilient from use, not quite as soft or pampered as they once had been.
He glanced down at the face of the Compass, marking their position and adjusting the wheel, but it was her hand and her fingers that captivated him.
“This is beautiful,” she said, after examining it. “It feels old, weighty.”
“All Blades carry a Compass. It’s our most precious belonging. We’ll defend them to the death.”
The implications of London being allowed to even touch such a prized object were not lost on her. “I shouldn’t be holding it.” She held it out to him.
“The Compass isn’t just beautiful. It works, has a use and function. If I kept it closed up all the time, it wouldn’t fulfill its purpose.”
She was silent for some time, studying the Compass.
“It was him or me, London,” he said, his eyes on the horizon. “I picked myself, and the Blades.”
“Is it so easy a choice?”
“Never easy.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“So I was supposed to pay a call on you in your cabin and say, ‘I’m the bloke that killed your husband. Let’s have a cup of tea.’”
“Don’t be flippant about this,” she said, eyes sharp and glittering. “Not this.” She began to walk away.
“I need you next to me,” he said. At her hard, questioning look, he said, “To hold the Compass.”
Slowly, she walked back to him, the open Compass in her hands. Her lips pressed tightly together as she deliberately kept her eyes on the horizon and away from him.
He was not used to apologizing. “I’d never hurt you.”
“That would be pleasant to believe.”
Anger erupted, barely checked. “Better that you should be a widow than three hundred Nubians should lose their lives,” he growled. “That’s what your husband did. He killed a whole village for a Source. That Source was used to slaughter thousands in China.”
Color drained from her face, leaving her ashen. “I—”
“And you know what’s the bloody icing on the biscuit?” His laugh felt like a fist as he pushed it from his lungs. “Even though I had to kill Harcourt in Morocco, the Heirs still got their hands on Aisha’s Tears and wiped out half the damned populace of the Gold Coast. Your husband died, but his mission was a success. So take some comfort in that, Mrs. Harcourt.”
He couldn’t look at her, almost afraid of what he’d see.
After a moment, she said, “Hate is such an uncomplicated word. This,” she said, gesturing to the air between them, “is much more tangled.” She closed the Compass and put it into his hand. “I’m sure you can find your own way.”
She went below, leaving him.
Bennett’s knuckles whitened on the wheel. He said nothing when Athena approached him.
“Have you considered a career in diplomacy?” she asked.
He shot her a look, but she did not shrink away.
“She will need some distance,” Athena said, more gently. When Bennett did not answer, she eventually drifted away to help with the sails.
Bennett opened the Compass and stared down at its face. No matter how long he looked at it, he felt himself utterly lost.
Edgeworth kicked his way around the camp, shattering chairs and tables, throwing the cooking pots, scattering ashes from the fire. The imbecile maid bawled from inside her tent, partly from fear, partly from the slap he’d given her. He’d pawn her off on the French archaeologists later. How the maid returned back to England was not Edgeworth’s concern.
Chernock and Fraser stood nearby, as did the guards, all watching him with carefully blank expressions. Edgeworth wanted to smash their faces in with a rifle butt. But he needed men for the mission, so he corralled his rage and unleashed it on inanimate objects. It wasn’t very satisfying.
He was being punished. For that’s what it was, a punishment, to see the child of his flesh, his lifeblood, who wore short skirts until she came of age, and then white ball gowns and, finally, a wedding dress. He’d coddled her, kept her sheltered from the viciousness and brutality of the world. She had been given more toys and dolls and dresses than any girl could ever need, her whims and fancies indulged—to a point. She wanted to go to university, but she had a governess instead, long past the age that she might learn anything useful. He’d taken great pains to raise her as a model Englishwoman, to instill in her the values of the nation and shape her into Britain’s feminine ideal.
He still saw London, her mother’s plaything, standing upon the deck of the Blades’ boat, not only standing there, but her hand up to bid him good-bye as one might from the compartment of a train sliding out of the station, until noise and smoke carried them away to their destination. In London’s case, her destination was betrayal, and he was at the platform knowing that he’d bought the ticket for her journey.
By involving a female, he’d violated the sacred principle of the Heirs of Albion, and now punishment had been meted out. He deserved it.
But he couldn’t believe London had betrayed him. It was impossible. He was Joseph Edgeworth. She was his child. Anything other than perfect obedience from his daughter was unthinkable.
Edgeworth stood, panting, in the midst of the wreckage. Finally, Chernock picked his way to him, around the destroyed furniture and shredded tents.
“Day is a Lothario,” the sorcerer said. “He obviously seduced the girl. It was no fault of your own.”
Edgeworth seized upon this. “Yes—seduced. That has to be the reason. The female will is feeble, no matter her intellect. Even my own daughter is just a woman. Her emotions led her astray.” Grim but comforted, Edgeworth felt the cloud of rage dissipate. “Day is a master at manipulating females. Who knows what kind of nonsense he’s put into her head?”
Fraser, his face bruised and blood-crusted, grunted. “Next time I see Day, I’ll cut his fucking balls off.” There were probably scores of men across Europe who’d gladly queue up for the same privilege.
“I could summon a storm,” Chernock offered. “Cripple their boat.”
“No,” Edgeworth said. “I won’t put London in peril. I’m certain that if we take her back from Day, away from his influence, she’ll see how she had been misled.”
Edgeworth did not see the quick, exchanged glances between Chernock and Fraser.
“We need to find out where they’re going,” Edgeworth continued. “London said she couldn’t decipher the ruins, but likely Day had convinced her to lie.”
“But what if the Blades get to the Source first?” Fraser asked, plaintive. “The Heirs need it. It took us years to decipher the tablet that led us here.”
“Greek Fire is born of the sun,” Chernock recited. He’d read the tablet, too, many times, and none of the Heirs had been able to determine its significance. Not until the discovery on Delos. Then the pieces began to fall together.
“Greek Fire will give the British Navy unlimited power on the sea,” Fraser said. “But without a means to understand the Delos ruins, we’re running blind out here trying to find it.”
Chernock gave one of his awful smiles. “Gentlemen, don’t concern yourself. I’ve a reliable method of tracking them. All I’ll need,” he added, drawing a wicked, black-bladed dagger from his belt, “is a little blood.”
It was easier to focus on learning to sail than how to live her newfound life. As soon as London began to contemplate what this meant—homeless, friendless, virtually orphaned—she felt a gaping chasm open inside her, and, rather than tumble down into it, she kept herself busy throughout the day. If she could not walk steadily on land, then she vowed to conquer her place on the sea.
The steamships she’d taken from England to Greece, even the smaller ship on which she’d traveled from Athens to Delos, had been noisy machines belching smoke, riding high in the waves. She had thought the sea pretty before, but now, on the elegant caique skimming across the surface of the Aegean, London felt herself tumble into a kind of desperate, lonely love with the glittering sapphire water, the pellucid sky, the white and green islands in scattered handfuls, thrown by an indulgent god. Out here, she could pretend that she was a creature of the elements and nothing else mattered but sun and wind and water. The sea gave her complete freedom, and yet, its endless expanse made her small. She was herself an island, alone in vast, empty waters. This was a new life, and it was sweet and bitter.
Everything would have to be learned. Yet she commanded one realm, that of language. Words in their many shapes and sounds were hers, their power was hers, and she held it tightly as one might clutch at unstrung pearls, hoarding and proud.
Nikos Kallas was a gruff little bull of a man, but an able teacher. He showed them all the parts of the sails and masts, the multitude of ropes and lines, how to judge a good wind and the best ways to ride it. They each took a turn at the wheel, even Athena and London, but it was the captain’s privilege to man the helm, for he loved his boat with an intractable pride and would suffer few to tame her.
In the bright glare of the day, Kallas and Athena squabbled over the god Zeus. Athena considered him a remorseless philanderer whose peccadilloes cost untold human suffering. Kallas insisted the god had a natural right to share his divine glory with as many women as he liked, and Hera’s demands for fidelity were too great. Neither the lady nor the captain seemed willing to concede.
London listened to them as she practiced tying knots with a length of rope she’d begged from Kallas. Figure eights, monkey fists, Turk’s heads. Hitches and splices, each with their own personalities. She worked, cross-legged on the deck, until her hands turned red and throbbed, but she would not stop, not for a moment, because to stop meant being alone with her thoughts.
“Be careful of your hands, or they’ll turn to pulp.”
She looked up at Day, then back down at the rope in her hands, feeling burned by his image as he stood close by. His jacket and waistcoat were gone in the heat of the afternoon, so he wore only snug trousers, braces, tall boots, and a shirt, open-necked and sleeves rolled up, revealing the lean muscles of his throat, the planes of his upper chest, powerful forearms. The wind tousled his dark hair like a paramour.
“The knots have their own language,” she said. “And I will learn it.” She hoped he would mistake the flush in her cheeks for the effects of the sun.
He took the rope from her and began to coil it the way Kallas had shown them. She could not stop watching the movement of Day’s long, nimble hands, those hands that were so deft but also potently masculine.
“Can’t see Joseph Edgeworth encouraging and overseeing his daughter’s linguistic studies,” he said. “I thought the Heirs liked their women strictly decorative.”
“They do. I am…” she began, then corrected herself, “was an anomaly. No one knew. It was my secret. I taught myself.”
“How?”
“It started as an accident. I found a Latin book belonging to my father—must have been about five or six. Tacitus’s Annales. That’s where it started.”
“Bloody hell,” Bennett swore. “When I was five, I was busy putting snails down my brother’s collar. Not reading Roman historians.”
London could not stop the smile that curved her mouth, but she did not let it live long. She focused on the red flesh of her palms. “I scrounged for more books and moved on to Greek, ancient and modern, then the usual assortment. French, German, Italian, Spanish. But I liked the ancient languages best. As soon as I got pin money, I’d spend it on books, even send away for them. I told my mother and Lawrence they were etiquette manuals.”
“And no one ever found out.”
“Not until a month ago.”
“Your father.”
She nodded. “He said it was for archaeology, and I believed him.” The clarity of loneliness surrounded her, made her tiny and lost.
“It is a kind of archaeology,” Bennett said, and his voice anchored her before she drifted away entirely. She wondered if he knew that, if it was deliberate, but didn’t want to think so. “The Heirs search out and dig up the world’s magic, and the Blades try and stop them, keep the magic safely hidden.”
She unfolded her legs and stood, putting her face into the wind, glad that she was ruining her prized porcelain complexion, a relic of her old life. “Magic truly exists. It’s still so difficult to believe. I’d never seen it before I came to Greece.”
He let the rope unwind, then began to coil it again. Somehow, it comforted her to know that he needed to keep busy, just as she did. “You’ve seen magic before, everyone has.”
“Of course I haven’t,” she said at once.
“That’s even harder to believe. There must have been some time that you saw something, something you believed was magical, but it was explained away. It happened when you were a child, I’d wager.”
“Why as a child?”
“Children are open to magic.” He took one end of the rope and began to tie it in a simple square knot. “They’re newer to this world; their minds aren’t shut and demanding logic like adults.”
A gleam of recollection flickered through her mind. “Wait…I think…” She tried to grasp it.
He stopped his busywork. “A memory?”
“Perhaps,” she said slowly. “I think that when I was a child, I thought a pixie used to visit me at night.” Speaking of it sharpened the remembrance. She spoke more eagerly. “It had dragonfly wings, and its skin was the color of opals. It wore a tiny cap decorated with a hummingbird feather.”
“Did it have a name?”
London searched the caverns of her memory. “I believe…it called itself Bryn.”
His sudden laughter made her start. “Bryn! That old gnat!”
“You know it? The pixie?” She stared at him.
“Know him? Bryn Enfys has been keeping an eye on the Heirs for centuries.” Day shook his head, chuckling. “He’d deliver reports to the Blades’ headquarters in Southampton, and always demanded a thimble of whiskey for his trouble.”
“An odd coincidence,” she murmured. “Him coming to visit me.”
“Not so coincidental,” he said, more seriously, “if you’re the daughter of an Heir.”
She darkened. “He urged me to run away. He said there was something evil in my home and that I had to flee from it.”
“Bryn knew,” he said, quiet. “He knew you were better than your family and the Heirs.”
“I wonder, though. What might have become of me, if I had heeded his advice?” She looked up at him. “I wouldn’t be here, now.” But whether that was a good thing or something to make her sad, she could not determine.
Day slipped the coil of rope over one shoulder, then took her hands in his own, keeping her reddened, chafed palms turned up. He looked at her, and she could not turn away, because she saw that here on the water, his eyes were the exact crystalline color of the sea, liquid, yes, but deeper and hotter than the sea, and he had a way of looking at her as if she, and only she, existed and it was enough for him.
“Bryn tried,” he said, his voice warm brandy and just as intoxicating. “He tried to liberate you. For years, you’ve been lied to, deceived, but now your eyes are open. It’s up to you alone how to live, what choices you make. You can choose anything, do anything. You’re free.”
Then, he carefully lowered her hands and walked away. She stared at the space where he had been and began to truly feel, for the first time, that the sea was not so much empty as it was without limits.