The Immortal City

by Amy Kuivalainen

  “What do you mean wrong? That’s the only connection I could’ve made with her and…” Alexis stopped as her smile widened. He huffed irritably. “Tell me then.”

  Nereus clicked her fingers, and the connection appeared again. “Moíra desmós, it’s a destiny knot. Your fates are woven so closely, so intimately and powerfully, that it’s manifested as an actual tie. It happened when she found your corner of the Tablet I’d say. It could be why it called to her in the first place. You’ve seen where it washed up. No one could have spotted it as easily as she did.”

  “But why has it been found after all this time? Why now?”

  Nereus brought out a silver device that looked like a modified astrolabe. She opened it and dials slid, gliding back and forth. “The tide of magic is rising again. You can’t have failed to feel it growing.”

  “Magical tides ebb and flow, Nereus. It’s nothing unusual.”

  “But it is this time. Look.” She handed him the glowing silver dials. “It hasn’t been this high since Atlantis. Thevetat might have waited this long to be at his strongest again. Fate always plays its part in these battles. Perhaps Penelope found the Tablet because you are going to need her, or the gods want her by your side.”

  “But she’s only a human. A human’s fate can’t be tied to an immortal’s.”

  “Looks like it can be.” Nereus got up and kissed his cheek, her eyes full of understanding. “Good luck trying to break it, my dear Defender.”

  As Phaidros would say, he was completely fucked.

  “ALEXIS?” PENELOPE’S hand tightened around his arm, jolting him back to the present. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, mi scusi, I got a little distracted—what was your question?”

  “You said that magic was too tied to the history of Atlantis, can you tell me how? Or is that a secret too?”

  “It’s a secret to everyone but you,” he replied, earning a quick smile. “You had it right the first time I asked you about magic. ‘They would know the difference between an aqueduct and astral projection,’ you said. Science doesn’t have a place in magic, and neither is it an evolutionary step from the dark age of magic and faith into an age of scientific reason or enlightenment. Science and magic were different disciplines on Atlantis, but both were woven seamlessly throughout our history and society. Faith in the Gods that created and protected us was the foundation of our culture.”

  “So when Thevetat’s worship began, it…”—Penelope seemed to be searching for the right word—“destabilized?”

  “Yes.” He was surprised her mind connected it all so quickly. “It destabilized, splitting communities, families, countries, but most of all, they twisted magic into something destructive.”

  Penelope looked ready to ask another question when Phaidros appeared.

  “Here you two are!” he exclaimed, his amber eyes taking in their linked arms. “Oh, very nice. Off on a date holding hands while I have to deal with all the drama.”

  “What’s wrong? Has there been another body?” Penelope asked.

  “No.” Alexis smiled knowingly. “Aelia is here.”

  “You might regret agreeing to come and stay with us,” Phaidros said, taking her other arm. “Let’s go get some rooms at the Danieli. I would be more than happy to be your tour guide, and I’m much more amiable company than the Defender.”

  “Defender?” Penelope looked up at Alexis who was restraining himself from pushing Phaidros into the canal beside them.

  “Oh yes, didn’t he tell you?” Phaidros leaned in, speaking in a confidential whisper. “Alexis means Defender, you know. He’s the fierce warrior magician, his magic much more civilized than the death magic our Lyca can wield, but impressive nonetheless. There’s more to defense than violence. It’s about protection. You feel safe with him, don’t you?”

  The moíra desmós vibrated in Alexis’s chest as her fingers curled on his sleeve. The familiarity in the touch made his body hum. That can’t be good.

  “Yes, Alexis makes me feel safe,” Penelope replied softly, “and no, I won’t leave him to go to some hotel with you because you don’t like Aelia.” Alexis couldn’t hold back a smile as he looked over the top of her head at the other magician.

  “You say this because you haven’t met Aelia.” Phaidros untangled his arm from hers. “Remember I made the offer before you got in too deep. I need to walk if I am going to deal with…her.” He sulked off, hands in pockets.

  “Is he going to be like that the whole time she’s here?” Penelope asked, watching him leave.

  “Probably. Phaidros might also flirt with you more than usual in front of her,” warned Alexis. “If he gets too forward or makes you uncomfortable, please let me know. He’s harmless, but if I need to toss him in the Adriatic to cool down, I will.”

  Penelope laughed delightfully. “You say that like you’ve done it before.”

  “More than once.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Not really, but it makes me feel better.”

  The blue door appeared on the wall, and Alexis reached for the handle.

  “What’s so difficult about Aelia?” asked Penelope.

  The door flew open, and Alexis’s eyes were assaulted by a mosaic of purple and gold. Aelia looked them over, gazing openly at their linked arms, fuchsia lips smirking.

  “Absolutely nothing,” she announced. “You must be the human that has our Alexis so unsettled.”

  THE WOMAN BEFORE Penelope was a goddess. With her dark brown limbs heavy with bracelets and wrapped in a purple silk kaftan, she could have been the love child of Beyoncé and Amun-Ra.

  “Hi,” Penelope said with a nervousness that only genuinely stunning people could inspire. Self-conscious, she slipped her hand from Alexis’s arm, but instead of moving his own hand away, he dropped it to the small of her back. Even through her layers of shirt and coat, her skin lit up with new sensitivity under the imprint of his long fingers. Don’t even think about it, Penelope. It will only end badly and jeopardize your chance at the Archives.

  “Welcome, Princess. I see you have wasted no time in upsetting Phaidros,” Alexis scolded her playfully.

  “All I did was ask him to help me take my things to my room,” she said, before kissing his cheek. “Lucky Zo arrived at the same time. He gave me a hand.”

  “I needed another two arms to carry all of your bags, so it was no wonder he knocked you back,” a cheerful male voice echoed around them as a set of stairs unrolled from the wall, and he appeared.

  Where Alexis was tall and leanly muscular, Zotikos was broad and brawny like a Greek nightclub bouncer in a tight black T-shirt. He had curly black hair, a closely groomed beard, and unlike the other magicians, there was something ineffably friendly about him.

  “Zeus’s dick! You finally caught her, Alexis,” he said, looking Penelope over before kissing both of her cheeks. “You’re everything I imagined.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Zotikos,” Penelope said.

  “Zo. Please. Doctor Bryne in the flesh. I’ve just arrived from stealing your find.”

  “You have my Tablet here?” she asked. “How?” The Greek government had refused to let it leave their soil, so stolen was the right word. How he had gotten it out of the country was the real mystery.

  “You mean my Tablet,” Alexis corrected bluntly.

  Penelope shot him a look. “If it was yours, you shouldn’t have left it at the bottom of the ocean for me to find.”

  “I like her already. Did you see that, Aelia? The great Defender just got put in his place,” Zo said, leaning his arm on Aelia’s shoulder.

  “Apparently she’s very argumentative,” Aelia replied, her smirk growing wider by the second.

  “Can I see it?” Alexis asked Zo impatiently. “It’s been ten thousand years after all.”

  “I put it on your bed for you.” Zo smiled. “Off you two go, but don’t play for too long. Aelia and I are organizing dinner and drinks in the floating courtyards.”

 
; “I’ll come by your room for a girl talk later, Penelope,” Aelia said before she and Zo walked away together chatting. Well, that’s ominous. Penelope hoped she was friendlier than Lyca.

  “That’s the poet?” Penelope stared after Zo. “I was expecting someone pale and bookish.”

  “Zo’s a lot of things,” Alexis replied. “Are you coming?”

  “I thought…it’s been ten thousand years after all. Don’t you want some time to…” Penelope struggled. Despite her comments moments ago, she remembered that young man from the vision when she had laid a hand on the Tablet in the Archives. It had been something infinitely special to him.

  “As you said, it’s your Tablet too,” he replied gesturing toward the stairs. As they walked, the palazzo moved, and she put a hand on the wall to steady herself.

  “Why do I feel like I’m going to be trapped in a wall one day?” Penelope remarked nervously. There was something about a sentient house that was harder to reconcile with than living with magicians.

  “The palazzo would never do that. I’m surprised you can even feel it. The best way to move about is to picture where you wish to go, and it will find it for you.”

  “But how do you know how big it is?” she asked.

  Alexis shrugged. “I don’t. You can’t expect a palazzo sitting on top of a repository of magic to act normal.”

  “I suppose not,” said Penelope as they walked past her bedroom and continued up another flight of stairs.

  “This is the tower that you so casually projected inside,” Alexis told her, and she felt like she was about to be shown something few people had ever had the privilege of seeing. What does an Atlantean magician’s bedroom look like?

  Alexis opened a large wooden door, and Penelope stepped into a space so essentially him that her mouth fell open. There were marble pillars, carved bookcases and cabinets, plush Persian carpets, hanging mosaics of cut glass, paintings of strange and beautiful landscapes, tall stands of burning candles, and statues of gods from Greece and Mesopotamia.

  “Whoa,” was all she could manage. “This place looks like you.”

  “Forgive the mess,” he said a little bashfully. “I’ve been meaning to get the palazzo to make another room.”

  It wasn’t a mess as Penelope would define it. The room seemed clean of all dust and grime. It was a repository of Alexis.

  Books and scrolls sat on any spare surface, with more stacks on the floor. There were scarred wooden work tables with alchemical symbols written in Arabic, low comfortable chairs upholstered in leather, velvet, and silk with Byzantine patterns. A cello and a silver hookah stood in a corner next to an onyx statue of Poseidon; blue glass bowls held stones of different shapes and colors. She loved cello but didn’t dare ask him to play anything for her. What would music composed by a magician sound like?

  The ceiling above her was the blue-black of the night sky, a mural of constellations and symbols of the zodiac moving in golden lines to chart their positions. The entire room smelled of sharp gunpowder and warm cinnamon spice, just like Alexis and his magic.

  “This way,” he said, and she followed him into a circular room where a huge bed sat covered in saffron pillows and royal blue sheets. Piles of books were arranged on carved wooden bedside tables, and a wall of marble arches overlooking the ocean let in a warm breeze. A shiny black briefcase perched on the end of the bed, looking modern and out of place.

  Penelope waited by the doorway, feeling that to go any further would be an invasion of privacy. There was something about Alexis and beds that was dangerous to think about. You are already thinking about it, otherwise you wouldn’t care.

  “You don’t need to linger back there,” Alexis said as he sat on the bed, lifting the case onto his lap. “Do you want to see it or not?”

  There goes that idea, she thought as she went over to him. The wind blew his dark curls back from his cheekbones, and his blue eyes were lost in concentration as he fiddled with the combination locks on the sides.

  Alexis wasn’t stunning in an intimidating way like Phaidros or Aelia, but the combination of his angular beauty, fierce intelligence, and aura of power made him irresistible. It wasn’t a struggle for her to imagine him dressed like a Byzantine prince, armed with a bloody scimitar, and storming confused crusaders like a forgotten eastern god. The thought vanished as he opened the briefcase and lifted out a broken corner of blue-gray stone.

  “They’ve cleaned it better since I last saw it,” Penelope said, studying it as he turned it over in his hands. “It was barely recognizable then, covered in pieces of shell and coral.”

  “But you still saw it,” Alexis said, his voice curiously soft. “Ten thousand years under the ocean and yet it was your hands it fell into.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it, but it was like it called to me,” she said and sat down beside him. “I hated leaving it behind in Crete, but there was no way they would let me leave with it. I’m glad Zo has managed it.”

  “He’s useful that way. He would’ve left a replica to confound them.” Alexis’s ringed fingers traced over the curved lines of script lovingly, eyes far away in remembrance. He passed her the stone block, and she cradled it, feeling the same humming under her fingers as she always had.

  “Do you see this scar?” Alexis indicated a long white line over his index finger. “I did that with the edge of a chisel carving that corner.” She ran her fingers through the groove.

  “What are you going to do with it now?” she asked.

  “Reunite it.” Alexis stood up and offered her his hand. “Come with me. We’ll go the quick way.”

  Penelope rested her palm in his, clutching the stone close to her chest. Alexis pulled her close, and the same feeling of safety she’d had the night of her kidnapping filled her. The Defender, Phaidros had called him. The Tablet between them hummed, and they both looked at each other curiously. He felt it, too, Penelope realized.

  “Hold still,” he said, his arms looping around her back. Penelope rested against him as the air shimmered with glittery black sand. A moment of nothingness passed, and then the Archives and the rest of the Tablet materialized around them.

  “That doesn’t seem to bother you,” he said, his arms loosening from where they’d held her tightly.

  “There are far more unnerving things about you than your portaling skills, Alexis Donato,” Penelope replied, trying to sound more confident than she felt. She passed him the corner of the stone.

  “You wouldn’t think there was anything about me that concerned you. You are far too collected considering what you have gone through in the past fortnight.” Alexis studied her carefully. “I can’t figure out if you’re bluffing or not and it’s maddening.”

  “I have a talent for adaptation.” Penelope smiled even as he frowned. And I’m more concerned with my growing desire to kiss you.

  Penelope didn’t consider her seduction skills well-developed, but she had no problem showing when she was interested in someone. If he’d been a normal man that made her feel this way, she might have considered it. But Alexis was so very far from normal.

  “Watch and see what the Living Language is meant to be like,” Alexis said, his voice changing, his eyes brightening with power. The hair on Penelope’s body stood on end as the air around her electrified. Alexis reached up and placed the broken corner back into place.

  The script flooded with energy, lighting up like a circuit board. The pockmarks and roughened edges rejuvenated, the polish and shine of the blue-gray stone returning. As the writing pulsed with shimmering light, Penelope’s eyes welled with tears.

  She couldn’t read it, but she could feel it; the emotion, the care, the promise, the supplication to Poseidon for favor. It had been created with sweat and blood and raw, untrained magic. It whispered to her, words just beyond her hearing, calling out and coaxing her closer.

  Penelope moved in a trance as she reached out and placed her hand over the glowing words. White hot lightning shot through her arm
and body, filling her mind with images of the temple where it had sat, Nereus looking at it with interest and pride at the young man’s talent, Alexis’s bare back sweating and covered in stone dust as he chipped away at it…

  With a flash of power, the magic from the stone flowed into her hand, strange words lighting up under her skin. Strong arms came around her, pulling Penelope back from the Tablet. Alexis was talking to her, speaking urgently, his blue eyes terrified.

  But she didn’t hear what he said. She gasped as pain lanced her palm. It was burnt, red and glistening around lines of script. “Christ!” She clutched her hand to her, agony making her grind her teeth. “What just happened?”

  “I didn’t realize you would try and touch it. I don’t know how this could happen—” Alexis broke off. “Give me a look.” He took her wounded hand gently, turning it to inspect her palm.

  “I’m s-sorry,” Penelope fumbled. “I could hear it, and when I touched it I saw…” She shook her head, trying to dislodge the images now as burned into her mind as her own memories.

  “I should have known to keep you back from it.” Alexis cursed himself. “Must you always be so curious? Some things shouldn’t be touched.”

  “I can’t help it. Beautiful things demand to be caressed,” Penelope answered.

  The look he gave her was mischievous and disarming, and for a second she forgot all about her aching hand.

  “It isn’t burnt too badly and can easily be fixed,” he assured her. Alexis lifted her palm to his mouth and kissed the burning skin. A hot firecracker smell rose from his skin, and sweet relief flowed through her hand, pulsing up her arm to her shoulder. The damaged skin healed before her astonished eyes, leaving only a pattern of pale scars. He laid another lingering kiss, his stubble sending pinpricks down her arm.

  “There, it shouldn’t bother you.” He ran his thumb over the scars. “Though these will be with you forever now. We should get Nereus to look you over, just in case. Please refrain from touching magical objects, Penelope, no matter how beautiful they are.”