And I wasn’t dead, but with a couple hundred millennia under my belt, I’d seen some pretty faces. My sister’s face had launched a thousand ships, so I wasn’t impressed with beauty.
Brains, though? And strength? Those were my undoing.
I hadn’t learned anything useful from young Dr. Ophidia, but at the same time I felt as though I’d just made the most important introduction of my last two thousand years.
My words had hurt her and frightened her. I’d voiced a doubt she’d probably had spinning round her head since she realized there was only one shard of that vessel to be found at that far-off dig site.
The problem was her doubt could save the world.
“If there’s more to be found, I’ll find it.”
I pictured, for a second, what might happen if the pieces of the seal were brought together. The power that kept the old gods in place would dissipate, and just like that, the world would be at their mercy again.
Rather than continue to argue, I made myself step toward the door. As I did, I caught sight of the flimsy lock. Anyone with half a mind could break in here, and while I got the feeling she displayed nothing a thief could use to find the remaining four shards, that didn’t mean someone’s curiosity wouldn’t be piqued. Near the door, a knit blanket was balled up, and next to that, a pillow.
Did she sleep here?
Anger at such a blatant disregard for her own safety filled me.
But why should I care?
All I had come here to do was learn how close Dr. Ophidia was to finding the pieces of the seal. Her well-being had nothing to do with me.
“This lock won’t keep a toddler out, and this door may seem sturdy, but all this dry air has split the wooden door frame. One kick and it’ll fly open.”
Scarlet stained her cheeks, covering the brown freckles that dotted her skin. The same squeak she made earlier escaped from behind her lips before she stood. The red that started in her cheeks flowed to her neck, and even the tips of her ears.
“I’m not trying to threaten you.”
She’d been quick to make the accusation earlier.
“But you should be aware. Get facilities to add locks, or at the very least, replace the frame. Mention it at your next cocktail party and before you know it, every professor with pointless research will be demanding updated security.”
I turned to leave again.
“Your name isn’t on my roster,” she called.
An unfamiliar grin was impossible to deny. Not yet it wasn’t. But it would be.
Leo
Pollux didn’t respond, but his smug smile said it all. He was planning on coming to my next class.
He left, closing the door softly. When I was certain he’d had enough time to leave, I stood and peered out the window.
The man stood a full head taller than the people around him. What the hell did he want? Like—really want. There had been more behind his questions than curiosity.
I studied my office. No, nothing here would give anything about my research away. I had planned on sharing my suspicions with my class that ancient artifacts were brought to Britain following the Crusades. So while his question was unexpected, it didn’t fill me with scholarly dread.
Putting the strange man out of my mind, I pulled my computer from my bag and opened it. My email popped up, and the next few hours were filled with the more boring part of being a professor—responding to students, fact-checking grad student theses, and considering offers for other paid lecture tours. My research had plenty of money behind it, which wasn’t common for my area of interest. But like Pollux suggested, it wasn’t the facts of my discovery that interested people, it was what it sparked in their imagination.
My well-worn copy ofThe Iliadsat dog-eared by my feet. I picked it up, flipping to one of my favorite lines. “And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you—it’s born with us the day that we are born.”
The Iliad,Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan War, never failed to fully engross me. Immediately, I was transported back. I could almost see the Achaean ships in the harbor and hear the soldiers as they walked over the rocky beach below the Palace at Troy. The images were so clear, I dropped my book and rested my head in my hands. The problem with studying something so thoroughly was that it threatened to drown you. There were days when I shook myself back to the present, I was so deep in my research.
“Leo lives other people’s lives,”my mother said, her smile wide but inauthentic. It was her way of telling everyone around us that for as much attention as I got, I was really a pathetic imposter.
I felt like one now. Here I was, at one of the greatest seats of learning in the world, and I questioned why I was here.