The King's Seal
Page 27
“Do you think it ever woke for her?” asked Penelope.
“It would seem that she was using it for different experiments. There is one here, a broth for bringing down a fever—she wrote a note saying that the healing properties of the broth were much stronger and faster-acting if she was wearing the ring when she brewed it.” Phaidros flicked to another bookmarked page. “This one here tells of when she gave the ring to one of the nuns to wear when midwifing a woman through a difficult birth. She claims she observed ‘a healing touch’ when the nun massaged the woman’s stomach and helped turn the child.”
“Do you think that someone in the Vatican knew of these experiments, which is why the manuscript ended up in the secret archives?”
Phaidros shook his head. “The Vatican stopped interfering with Caterina after they refused to give her lands back. The simpler explanation is that Caterina left the book in Giovanni’s possession, and he may have given it back to the nuns for their use and safekeeping. Caterina died and was buried at La Murate. The nuns were close confidants of hers, and Giovanni would have honored that friendship. Like Riccoldo, they could have entrusted the book to the Vatican at some point, and knowing its origins were tied to the Riario and Sforza family, it was filed with their other documents.”
“I wonder if Caterina left the ring in the nuns’ care too. It might be in the Vatican…but that doesn’t make sense. Tim’s visions stopped with it being in Caterina’s possession.” Penelope chewed her lip.
“Maybe it never left her,” said Alexis.
“You don’t think she was buried with it like Constantine?” Her heartbeat began to race.
“That’s what Tim’s writings implied, remember? She was dying, and it refused to save her. She would take it to her tomb, for no man deserved to wield it. If Caterina was buried at La Murate, it would’ve been a good place for the nuns to hide it, and if there was ever a real need for it, they could always take it from her sarcophagus and use it.” Alexis’s face fell.
“What’s wrong?”
“Like much of Florence, La Murate was sacked by Napoleon and the French in 1808. The convent was turned into a prison in 1845.”
“What is it now?”
“It was restored and reopened as a cultural place of interest a few years ago, but Caterina’s sarcophagus would be long gone.”
Penelope collapsed back on the sun bed and swore. Another dead end. She felt like crying. There were no more visions from Tim to help her.
“And what if the French never found Caterina’s sarcophagus to sack it…” Phaidros said.
Penelope opened her eyes.
“What are you talking about? The French razed that place and took everything that wasn’t nailed down to pay the army,” said Alexis.
“I couldn’t let them desecrate her. All of Florence was in turmoil, but I couldn’t let them—” Phaidros pushed a hand through his hair. “I killed a soldier and stole his uniform. When they were busy with the chapel, I went out into the cemetery and used magic to…to steal her.”
Alexis trained his gaze on him. “Where is she now, Phaidros?”
Phaidros hesitated for a long moment before admitting, “Her sarcophagus is in my garden in Santa Croce.”
Alexis placed a hand on his slumped shoulder. “I’m sorry, Phaidros, but you know we need to open it to be sure.”
Phaidros nodded. “Okay, but Thevetat obviously knows where our houses are, so we go with backup. We don’t need Kreios or Abaddon jumping us just as we find the only relic that can stop him.”
Penelope gripped her journal tightly in excitement. “Florence it is.”
AS THEY ASSEMBLED in the inner courtyard, Phaidros did his best not to act as uncomfortable as he felt. Aelia stood next to Penelope in tight leather pants and a black T-shirt, twin gladiuses strapped to her back, hair in warrior braids, and makeup-free. He didn’t know who had told her, but she’d arrived downstairs and ready to go with them to Florence. She looked like a soldier, ready to kill every one of Thevetat’s priests they encountered. The ferocity of her energy made him even edgier.
“I’m coming. Don’t even try to argue with me,” she said, meeting his gaze and throwing his own words back at him.
“Okay.” He was tired of arguing with her, but he didn’t know how they could ever stop.
“Are you ready?” Like Aelia, Alexis had geared up and made sure that Penelope had a dagger strapped around her waist.
Aelia’s hand found his as they linked up, and Alexis’s magic rushed around them.
The afternoon shadows were growing long in Florence. Alexis had placed them in the gardens at the back entrance to the house.
“I can’t sense any priest’s magic close by,” he said, still gripping Penelope’s hand. “We’ll check the interior of the house. You two check the grounds, and we’ll meet you at Caterina’s sarcophagus when we’re done.” Alexis gave Phaidros a meaningful look behind Aelia’s back. They were being given alone time.
“I’ll follow your lead. I’ve never been here,” Aelia said once Alexis and Penelope had stepped away. It was true. He’d never invited her to his Florentine home. He’d never even imagined her crossing its threshold unless it was to destroy it and him.
“We’ll follow the wall and make sure the perimeter is clear.” He headed down the white gravel path. He could feel the brush of her magic, a heady warm pulse behind him. He didn’t dare think about their tumble in Venice all those weeks ago. They still hadn’t really talked about it, and when they’d been close to broaching the subject, Caterina had come up to destroy whatever had been growing between them.
“This fountain is lovely.” Aelia stopped in front of the gurgling marble figure of Venus, scrutinizing the sea creatures carved around the goddess’s feet.
“Thank you.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, Salvi did it for me before he got commissioned to do the Trevi.” Would he ever be able to talk to her and not feel like a fumbling teenager?
Aelia looked around at the trees and flower beds—anywhere but at him. “I don’t feel any priests anywhere. Do you?”
“No. I’m hoping they’ve decided to leave this place alone. The sarcophagus is this way. I’ll send a pulse to Alexis, and we can get this over with.” Phaidros cut across the manicured lawn to a copse of decorative pine and cypress trees. Roses had grown and twisted around the pillars of the domed marble monument he’d built to shelter Caterina’s sarcophagus from the weather. There was a small stone pew where he liked to sit to burn incense, drink, and remember her. He sat down on it and stared at the marble figure carved into the lid.
“Phaidros? Do I have your permission?” Aelia still stood on the steps.
“She’s dead, Aelia. I don’t think she cares that you’re here.” He said it more gruffly than he intended, but she still took it as acquiescence and joined him.
“God, I hated her,” Aelia said, breaking their heavy silence.
“She hated you too. You know, you were both alike in many ways: clever, stubborn, ambitious, and beautiful enough to turn men into idiots.”
“If she hadn’t tried to kill me so many times, we may have learned to get along.”
“Well, you did sweet-talk Cesare into invading Forli, so you couldn’t expect a hand of friendship after that.”
To his surprise, Aelia choked out a laugh. “Yes, I suppose that was me. To be fair, the Borgias wanted to kill her, and I convinced them to imprison her instead. I knew it would destroy you. Despite how much I hated her, I wanted to spare you that pain.”
He’d always wondered why the Borgias had spared Caterina after the siege… “You only hated her because she had the courage to love me.” It was bold of him to say, but he was tired of fearing how she would react.
“I know.” Aelia shut her eyes and let out a long breath. “God, the way you looked at her used to make me wild. I’d only ever seen you look at me like that, on Atlantis, before everything went to hell. I knew you’d never look at me that way again, and it broke
me down until there was only rage left.”
“That’s how I felt every time you were with Constantine.” He shook his head. “We’ve spent so much time hurting each other, Aelia. Do you think we’d even know how to stop?”
Aelia’s fingers were trembling when they found his. “I want to stop. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I never really did. I’m sorry, Phaidros, for everything.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I am too.”
“I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.” A small, hopeful smile formed on her lips.
“We can give it a try and see how it goes.” The tightness in his chest truly loosened for the first time in centuries. He didn’t think the moment could get any more surreal, but he was wrong.
“Phaidros? You know I love you.”
He turned to face her, unsure if he’d heard her right, breath caught in his throat. “What did you just say?”
“I love you,” Aelia said. The edges of her violet eyes were silver with unshed tears. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same anymore. I only thought you should know in case we all die horribly when we face Thevetat.”
“What do you mean, if I don’t feel the same anymore? Woman, I haven’t been able to stop loving you for the last ten thousand years. Why the fuck would I stop now?”
Before she could change her mind, he took her face in his hands and kissed her with all the frustration, obsession, and love that had been eating away at him from the moment he first saw her at the Temple of Poseidon. Her hands tangled in his hair, her cheeks wet with tears and magic. He joined his energy with hers, and a wave of power shuddered out of them. It didn’t make him stop kissing her. Thevetat appearing in the flesh in front of them wouldn’t have made him stop kissing her.
Alexis and Penelope appeared, breathless with weapons drawn. “Damn it, you two! I felt the magic and thought you were being attacked.”
“Your timing is terrible, Defender,” Phaidros said and dropped his hands from Aelia’s blushing face.
“Now you know how it feels to be interrupted all the time.” Penelope grinned. “Every time you try to get alone time with Aelia, I’m going to be there to ruin the moment, just like you do to me and Alexis.”
“You two took your time.” Alexis smiled.
Aelia shrugged. “Better late than never.”
“I hate to do this to you, but are we going to open this up?” Penelope’s eyes fixed eagerly on the stone sarcophagus.
“I’m sorry, Phaidros. You know there’s no stopping the archaeologist in her,” Alexis said.
“No, Penelope is right. We have to open it. Ladies, if you would stand back?” Phaidros walked to one end of the marble slab, and Alexis moved to the other. Phaidros touched Caterina’s marble cheek. “Forgive me, amore.”
Using a combination of magic and man power, they slid back the lid with a groan of stone against stone and lowered it down. The shroud bearing the Sforza coat of arms was still mostly intact. Very slowly, Phaidros peeled back the fabric over her hands. Caterina’s skeletal fingers were covered in golden rings of pearl and ruby, and on her left index finger was a ring made of bronze and carved carnelian.
“Oh God. That’s it,” Penelope whispered.
Phaidros carefully slid the ring off Caterina’s shriveled finger and presented it to Penelope. “I believe you’ve been looking for this, Archivist.”
Penelope took the ring from him, her face full of reverence and wonder for the tarnished trinket. Phaidros wrapped the shroud back over Caterina’s jewels, arranging it as it had been before.
I hope you understand, and that you continue to rest in peace, he prayed.
When he looked up, Alexis’s expression was worried and tense as he stared at Penelope’s frowning face. The awe was gone from it, replaced with something more akin to despair.
“What’s wrong?” Aelia asked.
Penelope paled. “The engravings—they aren’t translating. I-I can’t read it.”
“The thing one must understand about time is that it’s not an arrow,
or a river, or something with a beginning and end;
it is a state of mind.
And like all states of mind,
it can be changed and manipulated.”
— Poseidon’s Treatise of
Time and Its Functions —
PENELOPE SAT ON the step of the canal entrance, her legs shin-deep in the salty, warm water. She held the ring of Solomon between her fingers, staring at the carved carnelian without really seeing it.
“It’s definitely the real ring, Penelope,” Constantine had assured her on their return to Venice. “It was on my finger for thirty years. I’d know a replica. It feels the same too. There’s a low vibration running through it.” His certainty had made her feel even worse. She’d threaded the ring onto her necklace with her Saint Mark medallion for safekeeping, unable to part with it even for a moment in case it decided to translate.
Warm arms came around her waist, and Alexis’s long legs dipped into the water next to hers. He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Talk to me, Penelope.”
“We’ve spent months searching for this thing. T-Tim fucking died for it, and it’s useless.” Tears choked her as she tried to swallow them down. She’d done enough crying over things she couldn’t change. Reliable anger surged up over her grief. “I feel like throwing it into the canal and being done with it.”
“It’s a magical object. They are notoriously temperamental.”
“It worked in the memory. I saw it change! I don’t know why it’s silent now.”
“Give it a chance. The prophecy said we needed to have it, so it has some part to play, but it’s hardly the only iron in our fire. We’ll find the way to sabotage Thevetat’s ritual, and if not, Constantine’s mercenaries are a little too excited by the prospect of attempting to blow up a demon.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “We’ll get our revenge for Tim and Nereus, one way or another, yes?”
“Yes.” Penelope sniffed and leaned back against the solid warmth of his chest.
“Would you like to show me how to build a wave?”
“At your own risk of getting wet.” Penelope’s mouth twitched into the smallest smile. She could at least practice this side of her inherited magic. After tucking the ring back inside her shirt, she rested her palms on her knees faceup and closed her eyes.
Penelope let her breath deepen, focusing on calming her pulse and temper. She searched for the call, that whisper of the sea she’d heard last time she sat there.
After a fruitless five minutes, Alexis’s hand settled over her heart. “Stop thinking so hard. Magic comes from the heart first and the head second. Imagine the connection that binds you to the sea until your intention becomes a reality. You’ve made the connection twice before. Your magic knows the way.”
Penelope allowed the lapping water at her shins to calm her further until she tried reaching out like Poseidon’s note had advised. She met a wall of resistance that held her back for a full minute before the warm caress of her magic rushed out of her. In that instant, she could feel the pull of the tide and the life in the lagoon shining like starlight in her mind. The water near her hummed, and she focused on manipulating it into the small wave she pictured in her mind.
“Open your eyes, Penelope.”
The water swirled out from around her legs and formed into a small mound.
“Careful now. Feed it a little more of your magic and hold it.”
Penelope did as she was told, and the mound grew up into a wave. Her magic sizzled silver along her skin, daring her to give it more and more. It whispered to her of what it could do at her command: topple boats, destroy cities, make the storms roll in. No, she replied firmly, though she wasn’t sure who or what she was responding to. Sweat beaded at the base of her spine.
“Okay, cara. Let it go slowly,” Alexis said.
She let the tide pull the wave back out into the canal. Blood rushed to her head, and she hung forward between her knees.
“Oh, God. That’s crazy.”
Alexis rubbed her back. “Well done, Penelope. Very well done indeed.”
“I can feel how the magic’s changed. Grown. It’s going to sound insane, but it was talking to me.” Penelope struggled to explain. “I could’ve destroyed us all if I’d wanted to.”
“It’s the high tide. It’s nearing its peak. That’s why you’re feeling that way. We are all going to have to be very careful from here on out.”
“I barely have a drop of magic. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.” Penelope wrapped her fingers over his ringed hand. “You’ll tell me if it becomes too much?”
“I will. And I’ll take myself to a cell if it is. I never thought I’d say it, but the magical high tide is the least of our worries at this moment.”
“If everything else fails, I suppose I could just swamp Milos as best as I can.”
“It’s a better plan than relying on a holy relic.”
Penelope leaned back in his arms. “You never trusted the ring would work?”
“Not in and of itself. I still want to find Nereus’s experiments. I can understand and trust that because I’m a magician. Constantine, on the other hand, trusts his God, his sword, and not much else. Three elements to one plan. We can’t rely on any one to work on its own.”
Penelope clutched the ring that hung between her breasts. “I trust Poseidon wouldn’t have tied our fates together without good reason. He strikes me as a man that enjoys the last laugh, so I doubt he’d have set us up to fail.”