Alexis had risen from his chair as Penelope talked and was placing neatly written sticky notes on their timeline. “So this puts the ring definitely in Acre in 1291, but it was gone before Sultan Khalil arrived with his soldiers. The priest was lucky to get out when he did, assuming he managed to successfully sneak past the army.”
A certain tone in his voice made Penelope glance up from her computer. “You were there?”
Alexis shook his head. “Not when it happened. I was living in the East at the time, so I saw what remained afterward. A siege is horrific enough when it ends peacefully, let alone when the invaders manage to get in, and it’s always the innocents that suffer the highest price. There was barely a city left once they were done.”
Penelope got out of her chair and went to stand beside him to look at the wall. She wanted to comfort him, knowing there was a deeper pain in Alexis’s memories than she could ever begin to understand. Constantine’s advice was that work was always the best thing to keep Alexis’s melancholy at bay.
“1291 is the latest time period we’ve managed to nail down so far,” Penelope said. “Between the two of us, we are going to find Solomon’s ring in no time.”
“We have a lot of time to get through between 1291 and now.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to tolerate you taking up my space a little longer.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me already?”
“I suppose you’re not the worst study partner I’ve ever had.”
Alexis’s eyes gleamed with amusement, and he lifted her chin with his finger. “I can ask the Archives to make me an office, but who would you stare at when you’re doing nothing?”
“You make a valid argument, although I could convince the Archives to make a kitchen and get Zo to come down—” Penelope didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence before he was kissing her.
“If a kitchen turns up in the Archives, I’ll turn it to rubble before Zo even has a chance to try to redecorate it.”
Penelope screwed up her nose. “Why would he want to redecorate a brand-new kitchen?”
“Zo has never met a kitchen he didn’t try to redecorate.” They were still sniggering when the man himself pushed open the office door. “Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear.”
“Have you seen the news?” Zo asked, and Penelope’s smile froze.
Alexis’s tone turned urgent. “What’s happened?”
“Florence has been attacked.”
Alexis didn’t wait for further explanation. He took their hands and portaled them upstairs.
In the entertainment room, Phaidros was paled-faced, watching a news stream. Aelia was beside him, holding his hand as they watched Florence burn.
“Tell me,” Alexis said impatiently.
“Two attacks—small bombs inside trucks that were driven through crowds in the Piazza della Signoria and the Piazza del Duomo,” said Phaidros. “Emergency services are on scene, but they aren’t yet reporting how many are dead or injured.”
“And they’re blaming us.” Aelia pointed at the screen. There was a smoking truck crashed into the side of the Duomo, and on its side was the unmistakable trident-and-book insignia of the Citadel of Magicians.
“It’s a message, not blame. This is for the Bahamas,” said Penelope. Her hand automatically moved to cover the same symbol tattooed on her wrist.
“I knew I should’ve gone to Florence as soon as Penelope saw Kreios there,” Phaidros said, voice ragged with guilt.
Zo reached for the remote and turned up the volume.
“The exact motivations of the attackers are unclear,” the reporter said over the roar of sirens. “The drivers of the vehicles died in the initial blasts, but a video manifesto by the New Atlanteans was published on YouTube only an hour before the attack. They are claiming to be the lost bloodline of Atlantis and are rising up to take back their authority as the ‘First Men.’ They also claim that the recent discovery of a stone tablet in Crete was the sign they were waiting for to make their presence known.”
Penelope swore, and then her phone started ringing.
“Don’t answer it,” Alexis said before turning his attention to Phaidros. “Go and get ready. We need to get to Florence and investigate this ourselves.”
“I’m coming.” Lyca emerged from the shadows. “I haven’t killed enough priests to cool my anger.”
“Zo and Aelia, I want you to check in with Gisela Bianchi. DIGOS will be all over this.” Next, Alexis turned to Penelope. “Text Marco and tell him to get ready for the media. It won’t take them long to link the tablet script from the Duilio case to the diatribe in the YouTube clip. Don’t talk to the media until I get back.”
“Okay.” Penelope nodded, already halfway through her text to Marco when Alexis vanished, Phaidros and Zo hurrying out after him.
“Those fucking animals.” Aelia’s eyes were still glued to the screen as the camera panned over the horror. “They did this on Atlantis too.”
“The priests? Why?” Penelope asked, though she knew that inciting fear was always the goal of such attacks. She had watched 9/11 on her TV as a horrified teenager and saw the world change from that moment. The scenes of terror and war had become painfully common, from the invasion of Iraq to the London Bridge attack and Christchurch shootings. She’d stood numbly by, watching as Palmyra, Aleppo, and so many other cities had been looted and bombed, their people killed.
“The priests wanted to turn people against the Citadel of Magicians and Poseidon,” Aelia said. “The priests would go into a town, take the magically gifted for their sacrifices, and then they would destroy everything else. They would leave the insignia of the Citadel of Magicians on any wall that remained, so that when the magicians did turn up to help, they would be attacked, or the people would run in fear of them. It took months for word to spread that magicians weren’t the ones responsible for the atrocities, and by that time, many innocent magic users had been slaughtered by common people.”
Aelia’s expression saddened even further. “Phaidros’s sister and little brother were killed by their own village council. It’s good he’s going to Florence with Alexis. It would kill him to sit here and do nothing.”
Alexis, Phaidros, and Lyca appeared soon after, all wearing pieces of armor and weapons that they would glamour to look like normal clothing.
“Leave your phone on. We’ll keep each other updated. Let us know if you learn of other attacks.” Alexis still had that cold calm about him even as he kissed Penelope.
She hid her surprise as Aelia came forward to help tighten one of Phaidros’s vambraces.
“Don’t do anything stupid that will get you killed,” she said.
Phaidros gave her his sharky, zero-fucks smile. “Is that an order, Princess?”
Aelia flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Fine. Go ahead and die then, but I’m stealing all of your stuff if you do.”
“We don’t have time to flirt.” Lyca gripped Alexis’s shoulder.
Alexis locked his hands around Phaidros’s forearm, and they disappeared.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing that,” Penelope admitted.
“It’s a sign of how strong Alexis is getting. Only a few months ago, it was a stretch for him to come to me in Vienna. Now, he’s taking more than one of us across the countries. This high tide is going to be terrifying.” Aelia sat back down on the couch and tucked her legs underneath her.
Penelope sat down beside her, not wanting to be alone while she waited to hear from Alexis. His hunt across Italy had been enough to make her realize it would be the waiting, not the danger, that would be the hardest for her to cope with.
“They’ve done this too many times to count, Penelope,” Aelia said softly.
“And that thought is supposed to comfort me?”
“No. You’re too in love for anything I say to bring you comfort. It was merely to point out that they aren’t going to do anything stupid.”
They sat in silence, watch
ing the endless news footage and some of the recovered YouTube clip rife with neo-Nazi propaganda. The attackers claimed to be lost descendants of Atlantis and the heirs to the earth through their Aryan heritage.
“Fucking Nazis. Those monsters just never seem to die, no matter how many we kill,” hissed Aelia. “If I could travel back in time, I would kill Edmund Kiss before he could ever publish his stupid book. Alexis thought Kiss’s theories were so ridiculous that no one in their right mind would believe them. He had no idea how deep Kiss was in with the Schutzstaffel, and by the time he did, Kiss’s poisonous theories were already rooted.”
Nazis and their fascination with Atlantis was one of the hurtles Penelope had to struggle over in her own research. Helena Blavatsky’s tales of Thevetat, however skewed from the truth that Penelope now knew, weren’t the most dangerous theory that had come from her fantastical writings. Her idea of Root Races, especially the Aryans, was twisted up for even darker purposes when they got the attention of pseudoscientists doing their best to place Atlantis in Northern Europe. In 1922, it began with Karl Georg Zschaetzsch’s Atlantis, The Original Homeland of the Aryans, With One Map, which sought to reinforce the theory of Atlantis being the true Gothic homeland, but it was Edmund Kiss’s The Last Queen of Atlantis and his pseudo-archaeology that worked to support the dangerous and racist theology that the Germans were the master race.
“What did Alexis do when he found out? Kiss got off at Nuremberg because he was only an archaeologist.” Penelope half-dreaded the answer.
“Kiss was an idiot, and the rest of the scientific world knew it. Without his supporters, he was just another nutcase and was ignored. He wasn’t really the problem; Himmler was. He was the one who funded Kiss and any archaeologists that could tie the Germans to the advanced Aryans and Atlantis. That’s also how the likes of the Institute of Ancestral Heritage got their money.” Aelia suddenly broke into a dark and vicious smile. “Don’t you worry. Alexis got his revenge on Himmler.”
“I thought Himmler committed suicide while he was in custody.”
“Do you think a vain, self-important man like Himmler would’ve committed suicide? Especially when he knew the British and Americans would keep him alive as long as he kept giving them information?” said Aelia. “It may have looked like poison to humans, but what do they know about what magic can do to flesh? Alexis always said it was one of the most satisfying kills of his life.”
“Did he get Hitler too?” Another suicide shrouded in mystery.
“Oh, no. Zo and Phaidros got that little weasel.” Aelia’s attention turned back to the TV. “Their ideology is like cancer. No matter how many times it gets cut out, it always seems to resurface.”
“Maybe Hitler really was possessed by the devil.” As Penelope voiced this other conspiracy theory, she realized what she’d said. “You don’t think…”
“That he was supported by Thevetat? It would make sense. There was so much about that rise of power—the cruelty and horror of what they did in the camps—that was so similar to what Thevetat’s followers did on Atlantis. We never even considered that Abaddon could’ve still been alive and spreading his lies.” Aelia wrapped her arms around herself. “It doesn’t matter now. We can’t change the past. Only stop them in the here and now.”
Penelope stared at the fire engines hosing down the Duomo and police spreading tape around the site to keep the public out. “I feel like such an idiot. I saw Kreios in Florence. I should’ve realized he was trying to tell me something.”
“You can’t blame yourself for this, Penelope,” Zo said. He carried in a tray of glasses and a bottle of scotch. “Kreios is a master manipulator, and if Thevetat is in his mind as much as we can assume, there isn’t anything he could’ve said as a warning. He might not have even known what Thevetat was planning for Florence until after he spoke to you.”
Aelia scowled. “Are you seriously taking that animal’s side right now?”
“No, but we don’t know the truth of it either. Kreios saved Carolyn from Abaddon. I think he would’ve warned Penelope if he knew about what was going to happen.”
Aelia started hissing at him in Atlantean when Penelope’s phone rang. She hesitated; she didn’t recognize the number.
“Don’t answer it,” Aelia said.
Zo jerked his head at the phone. “She has to. Alexis could be using a burner.”
“Both of you shut up.” Penelope put the phone on speaker. “Hello?”
“P-Penelope Bryne?” a woman’s voice asked in a strained British accent.
“Yes? Who is this?”
“My name is Suzie. A man told me that I needed to ring your number and give you a m-message, or he’d k-kill me.” She sniffled. “He said to tell you that F-Florence isn’t the real attack; it’s only so you don’t look back to Israel.”
“Suzie! What else—”
The phone went dead.
“Elazar,” whispered Zo. His glass fell to the floor as he searched his pockets for his phone.
Penelope pulled hard on the moíra desmós as she rang Alexis’s number. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she chanted, and on the fourth ring, it finally got through.
“Penelope, what is it?” Alexis shouted over the wail of sirens and screams in the background.
“Florence is a distraction! They’re going after Elazar!”
The phone connection crackled and died.
IN FLORENCE, ALEXIS placed them a few streets back from the Duomo and out of the way of any spectators or police. Phaidros’s expression hardened as his gaze focused on the plumes of black smoke billowing over the tops of the terra-cotta roofs. Alexis’s phone flashed with Gisela’s number.
“Pronto.”
“Alexis, where are you?” Gisela asked, never one to waste time on pleasantries.
“Firenze. This attack is Duilio’s followers’ doing, and I need you to find out what kind of presence DIGOS has on the scene.”
They hurried through the streets and toward the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. He really hoped that the terrorism branch of Italy’s police would be out in force in case Kreios had any other surprises planned.
“I’ve already been contacted by our Firenze branch about the attacker’s video. I should warn you: they are going to investigate Penelope’s involvement with this group.”
“I thought she was cleared after the Duilio investigation in Venice.”
“She was. That was before a terror group cited her discovery as motivation to commit mass murder. There’s something else you should know. They are keeping it out of the media for the moment, but DIGOS has removed bombs from underneath the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Santa Trinita.”
Alexis swore colorfully. Kreios had warned Penelope about retaliation, but he’d barely given her enough time to prevent any of it from happening.
“Thank you, Gisela.”
“Let me remind you that you aren’t police and shouldn’t be interfering in investigations.”
“Consider your legal obligations to warn me covered. I’ll let you know where to look if I find anything.” Alexis hung up before she could lecture him about being a vigilante, then turned to Lyca. “I need you to get over to the Piazza della Signoria and see if you can pick up a priest’s trail. There have been other bombs found, which means we don’t know how many more have been planted.”
Without a word, Lyca turned and walked into the shadowy alcove of a building and was gone.
“I’ll never stop being jealous of her ability to do that,” Phaidros said. “Where were the other bombs?”
“The bridges. It might have been an attempt to prevent emergency services from getting to the Duomo.”
Phaidros shook his head. “It’s because those bridges will have loads of tourists on them. Thevetat doesn’t care about taking buildings, only lives.”
The square was packed with emergency service crews and police, all trying to help the wounded and keep spectators out of their way. A large delivery truck was still smoking as fire
fighters doused it and the side of the cathedral.
“We need to get inside and check for damage,” Phaidros said. “If the truck hit it hard enough, it could’ve shifted or cracked the structure. The last thing we need is for Brunelleschi’s Dome to come crashing down on the crowd.”
“It will be full of police checking for bombs. Stay here. I’ll check it myself.” Alexis’s magic sizzled as a glamour settled over him, rendering him invisible.
“Show-off.” Phaidros huffed with an impressed grin. “Let’s hope everyone is too busy to notice an extra shadow that shouldn’t be there.”
Alexis ducked under the police tape and hurried toward the wall of the cathedral the truck had crashed into. He rested his hands against the stonework, sending his magic through it. It was a different kind of healing or mending magic. Alexis sought any weaknesses in the cathedral’s structure. He’d be damned if he lost the Duomo the same year as the Notre Dame fire.
Small cracks sealed, and the building stabilized from the thousand small mendings. Six months ago, holding a glamour and doing such work would have drained his magic dry. With the high tide, the exertion was equivalent to that of Alexis making a cup of coffee.
Once he was satisfied that the building wasn’t going to collapse, Alexis moved quickly back to where Phaidros was waiting. He gasped as Penelope pulled on the moíra desmós so hard his vision swam. He shed his glamour and stumbled into Phaidros, who steadied him.
“Something’s wrong.” Alexis fumbled for the phone in his pocket just as it began to ring. “Penelope, what is it?” he all but shouted over the noise around him.
“Florence is a distraction! They’re going after Elazar!” Penelope was able to say before their reception scrambled.
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