“It must be my month for having beautiful women as drinking partners,” he said, handing her a glass. “Although I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you would be hiding under a pile of overpriced sheets with Donato.”
“Yeah, me too,” Penelope said, drinking her wine in one gulp.
“You want to tell me what happened? You two seemed so close.”
“If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Penelope, I watched Donato pull the MOSE gates from the sea. Even if I could tell someone, who would believe me? Besides, I know how to keep secrets.”
“Okay, let me fill you in on what’s really been going on since I first landed in Venice.”
Penelope laid it all bare, from that first meditation to their meeting in Australia, the Archives, and everything in between. She told him about how Alexis had rescued her from being sold to Duilio and the way Nereus had died and Lyca blaming her. With a lump in her throat, she told him how she had walked away from Alexis.
“I came here because I wanted to see you before I fly out tonight.” Penelope poured herself another glass of wine.
“Do you think it’s such a good idea to go so soon? You are still healing, and it sounds like you are making a rash decision that will be bad for both of you.”
Penelope shook her head. “I bought my ticket on the way over here. Alexis won’t stop me. He knows, strategically, it’s the best move.”
“Strategy is not always best, especially when it comes to the heart.” Marco shook his head. “I know better than to try and dissuade you, but health-wise, I still think you are flying too soon.”
“I have no job to return to. There will be plenty of time to rest back in Melbourne.” She didn’t sound bitter about it either. Stuart was going to lose it when he found out she had never responded to Latrobe’s job offer. She had filed it under future problems, but now the future was staring down at her, angry and disapproving.
Marco disappeared into the downstairs kitchens, returning with steaming bowls of fresh pasta, another bottle of wine tucked under his arm.
“I’m not going to put you on a plane without being properly fortified,” he stated, handing her the pasta despite her protests. “Plane food is the worst, and Isabella makes the best pasta in all of Venezia.”
“You are an incredibly good man,” she said. “I’m so grateful that I met you.”
“So am I. You have been good to work with. I’ll miss you.”
“And what about Gisela? Will she be heading back to Rome soon?”
“I don’t know. She still has a lot to finalize concerning Duilio’s case. It has finally been given to the media, and all of Italy is going crazy about it. I have kept you out of the articles as much as I can.”
“Thanks. I don’t think I could handle reporters right now.”
“They are scavengers, but Gisela is good in front of the cameras.”
“Have you asked her out yet?” Penelope smiled across the table at him.
“Of course not. You don’t ask women like Gisela Bianchi out on dates. Besides, she is too clever to date someone like me, and I’m too old to deal with such a high-maintenance woman.”
“Don’t wait if you want to do it, Marco. Despite how it ended today, I’ll never regret what I had with Alexis.” Will I ever have it again?
“Hmm, we’ll see if we can be friends first,” he replied lightly.
Marco insisted on escorting her to the airport and seeing her safely through customs. His ID meant that she got processed in a separate line without all the usual jostling and hoop jumping.
“Can I say something without you getting too upset?” he asked as they stood at her boarding gate.
“Depends on what it is,” Penelope teased.
“Alexis is not a normal man. He has different burdens and insecurities. I know how he looks at you, how he’d do anything for you. You cannot expect a normal relationship with one such as him. Despite the idiotic way you two are going about it, I think your future is with him.”
Penelope hugged him. “Thank you for everything, Marco. I hope you come and visit me in Australia soon. You’ll always have a place to stay.”
“I’m owed a lot of time off after the last few months, so I might take you up on that.” He kissed both of her cheeks. “I know you aren’t much of a believer, but I bought you this. Everything happened so quickly I had no time to give it to you. I figured if you were going to fight demon worshippers then you need some protection.” He draped a long silver chain around her neck. Hanging from it was a pendant of St. Mark, on one side a saint with a scroll pictured and on the other a roaring lion. “He has always protected Venezia. He might help protect you too.”
“Grazie, Marco, it’s perfect.” Penelope kissed his cheek, her hand clutching the pendant tightly.
PENELOPE’S STOMACH lurched as she stepped onto the plane and took her aisle seat. She would fly to Rome and connect to a flight that would take her all the way to Melbourne. The flight attendant handed her a small bottle of water and Penelope downed it. The knot inside of her chest that connected to Alexis pounded like an extra heartbeat.
“It’s all in your head,” she whispered to herself. “Alexis is perfectly safe.”
She reached into her satchel for her laptop just as an envelope fluttered down and landed on her plastic tray table. Sitting up, Penelope ran her finger along the cursive twists of her name. She looked down the aisle, but there was no one around who could have placed it there.
With nervous hands, she opened it and pulled out the letter written on thick paper. A necklace with a small glass vial tumbled out after it. She recognized it instantly. It was Nereus’s necklace that she had worn every day since Penelope had met her.
Dear Penelope
I hope this letter and my pendant arrive on time. I’m sure by now I am dead, and the palazzo is in an absolute uproar. I do apologize for my family; magicians are as moody and impolite as cats.
I foresaw my death five years ago as I sat feeding pigeons in Saint Marco’s square. Codussi’s folly, the great Torre dell’Orologio, chimed its bells and death opened out in front of me. After so long, you can’t imagine how relieved I was to see it. I didn’t only see my death, but a human woman who would enter our lives and bring the greatest of us to his knees. I longed to see my sweet Alexis happy and in love once more, but I knew that every ounce of that happiness would cost you both. He is stubborn and often misguided in his need to protect, but someone must defend the Defender, and I’m so happy that it is you.
The magicians will not understand my actions or my death. They will be uncomfortable that the Archives want a human to be its guardian. The Living Language chose you, the scars on your hand and your new abilities to translate language prove that the Archives want you to know its secrets. I saw the way you looked at the Archives and how it loved you back. I know you will not abuse it, and I’m at peace knowing that the sacred knowledge will pass on to you.
The vial in your hands contains a small part of my magic to unlock the seal the Archives and myself placed over it. Should you decide to take on the charge of Archivist, you will need to listen more to your heart than your head. The purest of magic is in your veins, and my only regret is that I won’t be able to train you myself in what you will need to learn.
This decision, as always, is yours entirely. No one can force you into this, and your feelings for Alexis cannot influence you. If you decide to go and live a quiet life without magic, send the vial to Galenos. He will know what to do, but first remember this; a home is where you belong, and you do not belong in some dusty corner of academia.
Now, get off the plane, Penelope Bryne.
Nereus
Penelope reread the letter, the vial warming in her hands. She shut the letter, took two deep breaths, and read it again.
“Signorina, you must put your tray up, per favore,” the stewardess said, making her jump.
“Sorry,” Penelope stammered and
pushed it up. Her heart was pounding as she twisted the vial in the light. What are you going to do, Bryne?
She looked down at the tattoos on her arms and remembered the pain and fear of the last few weeks. Her little finger, snapped by Giacomo, would always be crooked, and she would always have nightmares of pulling Alexis’s lifeless body from the sea.
In between these memories, however, were flashes of having coffee with Marco, quoting poetry with Zo, talking action movies with Phaidros, and doing yoga with Aelia. She thought of Alexis’s face while he slept, the thrum of the cello as he moved the bow across the strings, and the line between his eyebrows that deepened whenever he concentrated.
The love for them all pulled at her. The Archives wanted her because the magic of the Living Language had chosen to leave Alexis’s Tablet and live inside of her. As if the thought had summoned it, pale light raced under her skin.
Just then, Stuart Bryne’s brogue cut through her recollections like a rusty razor blade. You need to put aside all of this fairy tale nonsense and come home.
Home is where you belong, Nereus’s letter had said, and Penelope had never felt like she belonged to her own family or within the structured confines of a university.
The only place she had ever felt a sense of belonging was at the palazzo in Dorsoduro. Her life would never be boring or safe again. She couldn’t fight with magic alongside Alexis and the other magicians, but she could use the Archives to arm them with knowledge.
She would find a way to live with that. Penelope opened the vial and tipped the shimmering contents down her throat.
The plane that had been lifting off was suddenly filled with a flash of white light, and it hit the tarmac, the engines and the electronics instantly fried, and the passengers knocked out.
In the ensuing chaos, the emergency door to the plane fell open, and Penelope climbed out before anyone could stop her.
ALEXIS DIDN’T BOTHER to get up as the door to his tower shattered, and a furious Phaidros stormed in.
“What the hell did you do?” he demanded, ignoring the piles of rubble around him where Alexis had torn the contents of his tower apart.
“She left me, Phaidros, not the other way around. It’s okay. It’s safer this way.”
“You think she will be safer out there alone? Undefended? You think that if you let her go that Abaddon won’t kill her out of spite? She is mortal, Alexis!”
“That’s right. She is mortal. She deserves to live her short life away from all of this. Lyca is right.”
“Lyca is as crazy as a bag of demented cats! She’s guilty and grieving and seeks to blame Penelope for all of our failings. Penelope’s an archaeologist, a scholar, she can help us! You keep talking about how we are at war and acting like some kind of a general, but a true leader doesn’t throw aside his best assets because he’s afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of Abaddon,” Alexis snarled. “I defeated him once without the aid of a human and I’ll do it again.”
“I wasn’t talking about Abaddon. I was talking about Penelope.” Phaidros sat on a broken hunk of table. “Alexis, you love her.”
“I have loved other humans before.”
“Not like this and not for centuries. You feel the intensity of it, and it scares you as nothing else has before.”
“Do you think she deserves this life? We are going back to war, Phaidros. How can I subject her to that?”
“She isn’t some silly girl. She knows her own heart and mind. You should’ve stopped her from leaving, not given up.”
Alexis gripped his head in his hands. “You didn’t see her. She was on her knees before Kreios, powerless and burnt and broken.”
“You saved her, Alexis.” Phaidros put his arm around Alexis’s wide shoulders. “And then she saved you. It doesn’t matter how far you send her. She’s a part of you.”
“I would be too worried for her safety if she were here.”
“You’ll be worried about her safety on the other side of the world. That’s Lyca talking, not you. Use your brain. You’re meant to be the smart one.”
“Nereus always knew how to manage every situation. I’ve lost my path and my compass. What am I going to do?”
“You know what you need to do. You are just too frightened to do it.” Phaidros squeezed him. “Don’t make my mistake and give up so easily. Penelope doesn’t have a thousand years for you to suck up your pride.”
“She won’t come back, and I can’t make her,” argued Alexis.
“You don’t have to make her, but you at least have to fight for her.” Phaidros got to his feet and offered him a hand up off the floor. “Maybe clean this mess up before you bring her back. You always were such a trasher when you were angry. I’m going to find Aelia.” He paused by the door and gave Alexis a meaningful look. “You aren’t the only one that cares about the doctor. If you don’t go after her, Zo will.”
Alexis knew he was teasing but the thought of Penelope in Zo’s arms, or in the arms of any other man, made jealousy spread its spikes in his chest. He had taken two steps when an envelope fluttered from the mural of the stars above him. He caught it in surprise.
His name was written on the front of it in a hand he would have recognized anywhere. Nereus. He slid a shaking finger underneath the flap and tore it open. Inside was a single slip of paper:
My stubborn Defender,
I told you that her destiny was tied to yours, and still, you let her go. Foolish boy, you can’t hide your heart like a relic in the Archives forever.
Don’t follow her, as I always said; it must be her choice. It was never yours.
Try not to take it too personally, and watch out for them all. I doubt they will understand.
Ever your proud mentor,
Nereus
“God damn it, Nereus,” he muttered before shouting, “Phaidros!”
Alexis was halfway down the stairs of the tower when the palazzo shuddered around him. He could feel the wards straining. Abaddon and Kreios had wasted no time in returning.
Alexis drew his power around him and portaled into the front foyer as the blue door shimmered to life. Phaidros and Zo joined him, swords ready.
“Let the bastards come, I’m ready to spill their blood,” Zo growled.
The great blue and gold door swung open, and instead of two priests of Thevetat, there stood a woman crackling with new power. Alexis’s breath rushed from his body.
“Penelope?”
Her smile was slow and shy when it came. “I do believe I found a part of Nereus’s lost magic.”
Alexis’s shock fell off him, and he dropped to his knees in front of her, wrapping his arms tightly around her hips. “I am so, so sorry. I should never have let you leave.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she said, lifting his face so she could kiss him long and hard. He could feel the thrum of magic inside of her, feel the strength and love running through the knot that bound them. She smiled radiantly down at him. “Release me, magician, so that I can go to my Archives.”
“Your Archives?” Zo’s voice was small and confused.
Alexis released her, and Penelope went to the wall of stone where the elevator used to be.
“Yes. My Archives,” she said, placing her hand on the wall. It shuddered and crumpled beneath her hand, and the art deco doors to the elevator reappeared.
Penelope fixed Alexis with a look that made him feel weak and invincible at the same time.
“Come along, Defender,” she said primly. “We have work to do.”
Amy Kuivalainen is a Finnish-Australian writer who is obsessed with magical wardrobes, doors, auroras and burial mounds that might offer her a way into another realm. Until that happens, she plans to write about monsters, magic, mythology and fairy tales because that's the next best thing. Amy is the author of The Firebird Fairytales Trilogy and The Blood Lake Chronicles series that mash up traditional tales and mythology in new and interesting ways.
> Amy Kuivalainen, The Immortal City
The Immortal City Page 30
