107
I stare at the fountain, wondering if maybe this isn’t the best plan after all.
I mean, am I really supposed to wade through the basin to lay claim to some mysterious bauble, and then storm the palace with frizzy hair and a drenched gown in hopes of charming some boy I don’t even know into traveling into the future?
What is Arthur thinking?
What am I thinking to agree to such a thing?
From the moment I pegged the fountain as the location, I should’ve taken the time to come up with a much better strategy.
Still, it’s not like I can just trot on over to the Hall of Mirrors, find Killian, and instruct him to chill by the portal while I take a midnight dip with Saturn and friends. So I do the only thing I can do—I stand at the edge of the fountain and conduct a quick review of everything I remember from my studies.
The fountain was created by Girardon in 1677, and it features the Roman god Saturn, also known as the god of time, sitting on a bed of shells, surrounded by cupids, as he leans against a sack that he thinks contains Jupiter, the son he wished to kill, when in fact, the child has been replaced by a stone.
A quick scan reveals everything I expected to see is laid out before me exactly as the book claimed it would be, and a wave of relief washes through me.All right, then. So far so good.
I guess because over the years, so many components of this garden have been remodeled or relocated, Arthur chose to send me here now, in hopes that the treasure he seeks has not been disturbed.
Not to mention, of course, the matter of Killian—which makes for a sort of two-for-one, if you will.
As I slink toward the rim and peer past the towering spouts to the gleaming bronze sculpture that sits at the center, there’s a rapid fluttering in my chest that I instantly recognize as the relief that comes from being right—of knowing with absolute certainty that somewhere within this mythological tableau is the prize I seek. All that’s left now is to claim it.
But first, I’ll have to brave the rocketing geysers launching from the mouth of the sack, along with the other eight jets scattered around it.
After kicking off my shoes and removing my stockings and the holster strapped to my thigh, I grab my skirts in one hand, ease my legs over the edge, and step inside a pool so frigid, I fight to stifle a cry as the icy cold water slices straight through my flesh, all the way down to my bones. Still, I force myself onward, splashing toward the island, where I place my free hand on a cherub’s bare butt and use the leverage to pull myself up.
My first thought is maybe the Get is hidden among the assortment of seashells. Though it’s as good a place as any to look, after a good bit of crawling around, looking for something, anything, that appears even slightly out of place, I’m coming up zero. And between the soaked state of this dress and the freezing night temperatures causing my teeth to chatter and my toes to turn blue, it’s becoming glaringly obvious that I need to find this thing soon. Otherwise, before I can even get to annihilation, I’ll be dead of hypothermia.
A quick tap of my mask informs me a total of twenty-seven minutes have passed, and for the first time since I arrived, I wonder if maybe I celebrated too soon—maybe I’ve somehow misinterpreted the clues.
I mean, what if the Get has nothing to do with this fountain?
What if—
I force the doubt from my head and try again. Figuring I should attempt a more search-and-rescue-style approach and comb the terrain in a methodical grid, I brace myself against one of the cherubs and focus on the bits to my right. This time, when my gaze lights on a cherub with his hand grasping toward Saturn’s wing, something about that chubby little hand, combined with the tormented look on Saturn’s face, reminds me of my second day at Gray Wolf when Arthur tasked me with procuring a ruby during the fancy Venetian hologram party.
There, on the wall, hanging beside Goya’s version of Saturn making a meal of his son, was an old masterwork of Heraclitus and Democritus that ultimately led me straight to the prize.
In the painting, Heraclitus wore an agonized expression, much like the look on Saturn’s face in the sculpture before me. While Democritus, appearing far more gleeful, pointed directly at the clue I needed, just like this curly-haired cherub points to the space beneath Saturn’s wing.
A rush of air licks out of my body as it suddenly occurs to me that ever since my first day at Gray Wolf, Arthur’s been leading me down a winding trail of breadcrumbs that’s been steering me here all along—right to this bronzed swoop of feathers belonging to the god of time himself.
And much like in the construct, when, for a fleeting moment I caught a glimpse beneath the golden shell of Elodie’s locket to the shiny jewel nestled within, as I follow the tip of the cherub’s pointing finger, I’m struck by a brilliant yellow light that wasn’t there a moment ago but now shines as bright as the sun.
The sun!
In an instant, a vision blooms in my head, and I can see it as clearly now as I did way back then.
I’m back home. Back to my nine-year-old self, with my dad sitting before me, his gaze glinting with an unnamable sorrow as he holds up a piece of a once-favored toy I now recognize as a replica of the Antikythera Mechanism. “Tell me about this piece,” he says, holding the shiny golden ball before me. “Tell me everything you know about the sun.”
A kaleidoscope of butterflies takes flight in my belly, and in a wild burst of elation, I thrust my hand toward it, only to be left grasping at nothing when it vanishes into thin air.