“I’m beginning to think any point within it is futile, too,” Theo said, rubbing her aching temples. The past few mornings Julian had been stationed near the front entrance of Hamilton Hall when she came in, giving her a sharp and anxious once-over. In fact wherever she turned these days he seemed to be there, watching her with brooding eyes. No wonder she was frazzled.
Olivia looked up at the bleakness in her voice. “You’re losing hope, aren’t you?”
“Can you blame me?” Theo replied. Her voice shook. “We’ve been searching everywhere, and haven’t caught a single hint of Grant.”
“One of the first things Grant told me about you was the conversation you had with him on the subject of hope. Do you remember what I’m talking about?” She unfolded herself from her chair and came over to sit next to Theo.
Theo closed her eyes and thought about lying on the grass in the October sun, gazing up into Grant’s serious gray eyes. “I remember,” she said quietly.
“It was what made him realize just how important you were becoming to him, and what he needed to learn in order to love you. You can’t lose hope now, Theo. If you lose hope, you’ll lose Grant.”
“It was—it was the first time we kissed,” she said, still gazing back in her mind’s eye at the two figures on the grassy hillside.
“Well, he glossed over that part of things. I think he was still too shaken up by it. I’m afraid I didn’t much care for what I’d heard about you, until that conversation.” Olivia smiled and let her disguise slip, so that she looked at Theo with her own face.
“You didn’t like me?”
“No, not at first. I just couldn’t picture him falling in love with a twenty-first century woman. I should have trusted his judgment better—he is far older than I, after all—but I was worried he’d be hurt.”
“He was hurt,” Theo said, lapsing back into gloom.
“That’s the risk you take in love. He was also happier than he’d been in thousands of years. Your love gave him the courage to live, and to want to die.”
“Don’t say that, please, Olivia.” Theo buried her face in her hands. Olivia put an arm over her shoulders.
“We’ll find him,” she said again.
“Do—do you still hate me?” Theo asked from behind her hands.
“Of course not. I liked you before I met you, once Grant had told me more. And I like you even more now. It will be fun when all this is over and we can go back home to Eleusinian together.”
Memories—uncomfortable, some of them—swirled and roiled through her tired mind. She hesitated, then spoke. “I hated you too, you know.”
“I’d guessed,” Olivia said, unperturbed.
“Well, how was I to know? Grant kept talking about his great friend back in New Hampshire. And Julian—” Theo swallowed.
“Julian let fall some misleading comments about me, no doubt,” she said drily. “He was very angry when I went to Eleusinian. Oh, it was wonderful here at first. Our own little enclave at John Winthrop, for years and years. When any of us got to retirement age, we’d just pretend to move away to some old-age home in Arizona and take on a new shape to be rehired. Quite clever. But I got tired of it, and tired of them all. They’ve grown petty, a lot of them. Only Julian chafes under his comfortable yoke. I did too, but I had the option of running away. So I did. I don’t think Julian’ll ever forgive me. So I’m sure he took great delight in dropping poison about me into your ears.”
“I worried that you were what was keeping Grant from being able to love me,” Theo said, lowering her hands from her tearstained face.
“And instead I was the one who encouraged him to go to Cumae over Christmas, so he could become human and love you.”
Theo smiled, but her smile held no mirth. “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
…
Theo peeked out the seminar room door. She had stayed behind after Dr. Forge-Smythe’s Republican Rome class to scribble down some ideas for her class paper, and now the room and, it seemed, the floor were deserted. Well, it was Friday afternoon. People tended to leave a little early. At least Julian didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.
She picked up her book bag and stepped quickly down the hall to check her mailbox in June’s office. June had taken to locking her office at lunchtime, which meant Theo couldn’t get her mail while June was at lunch. She had to endure June’s fulminating stare every day now, which didn’t help her emotional state.
A fresh wave of dizziness overcame her as she walked. It was getting progressively worse, and was starting to interfere with her classwork. Theo paused by Dr. Waterman’s closed door to catch her breath and contemplated summoning a cane to help steady herself. But the way her magic use had been going lately, she would probably just fill the corridor with a bamboo grove. With a weak smile at the thought she resumed her walk, now creeping doorknob to doorknob. If she were lucky, June Cadwallader had left early and she could get her mail without feeling those dark eyes boring into her back. She already felt ill and tired enough without that.
She glanced down the hall. Hell. Julian’s door was half open. No such luck that he’d gone already. Another rush of dizziness made her stagger slightly.
June hadn’t left yet either. Double hell. Theo slipped in with a polite nod to her and went to look in her mailbox, taking out the ball of twine that had been wedged into it. That was the fifth time she’d found one there. Evidently June found it a convenient place to store it, or else she was just being annoying. Yes, that was probably it.
Under the twine there was a department newsletter, put out by Di and decorated with obnoxiously cute computer clip art. Theo rolled her eyes, which was a bad idea as it made her feel even dizzier. She steadied herself as unobtrusively as possible on the table below the mailboxes. It made a small scraping sound on the floor, and she could practically feel June watching her. She wanted to turn around and tell her that she wanted nothing to do with Julian and that June was welcome to him, but facing her basilisk stare was more than she could handle right now.
Along with the newsletter was a photocopy of an article about the excavation of the theater at Herculaneum that Dr. Waterman had promised her. She glanced at it but could barely read the title. Her awareness of June’s eyes on her was growing until it felt almost physical, as if two holes were burning between her shoulder blades. She wanted desperately to reach back and see if her shirt were on fire.
There was one more thing in her box—a small envelope addressed only to “Miss Fairchild.” She clutched her mail in one hand and almost stumbled out into the corridor. A funny smoky smell burned her nose, making her eyes water until she couldn’t see. She gasped; was there really a fire here in Hamilton Hall? Smoke was everywhere, in her eyes and ears and throat, in her head—
“Theodora!” she vaguely heard as the choking darkness closed over her.
Chapter Eighteen
A feeling of coolness, of sweet wetness, greeted her as she swam back up to consciousness. She tried to pinpoint where it was, but it felt like it was everywhere: on her skin, inside her, a sweet cool tingling that banished the dizzy burning smoke and soothed the pain in her head.
Then she realized that it was from the cup at her lips. Of course. That was what would ease the burning dryness in her throat and clear her aching head. She gulped eagerly, and blessed relief filled her. Another cup, yes. And another. After the fourth she let her head fall back with a sigh of contentment. A feeling of calm well-being flowed through her as the ache in her head eased. She smiled and stretched, and opened her eyes.
Julian was gazing down at her.
“Ju—?” She struggled to sit up. What had happened? What—
“Hush. You fainted outside June’s office. Fortunately I happened to walk by just then, my beautiful stubborn Theodora. Drink some more.” He shifted the arm that encircled her shoulders to help her up a little.
More memory flooded back then. This was Julian holding her in his arms, holding the cup that she was dr
inking from so obediently, drinking cool, sweet, honey-and-champagne-tasting— “No!” she cried feebly, and turned her head away to hide it against his chest. Another bad move.
“Yes. Enough foolishness, Theodora. You’ve refused any ambrosia for nearly two weeks now, and it’s made you ill. You’re going to have as much as I say you need. I won’t stand by and watch you suffer from your own pigheadedness.” He turned her head and put the cup to her lips again. “Drink,” he commanded in a low but very clear voice.
There was no gainsaying that voice. She drank another cup, felt the last of the dizziness and the ache in her head recede. A familiar dreamy contentment stole over her.
No! said a part of her brain. Wake up, idiot. Just because your head feels better doesn’t mean you can let down your guard. This is Julian and Julian’s wine, remember! Don’t—
“Look at me, Theodora,” Julian whispered. He set down the cup and tilted her head toward him, and Theo realized that she lay on something hard, something smooth and polished, and that he was stretched out next to her, stroking her face as he gazed down at her. The turquoise eyes were gentle and smiling, but something else was in them too, something fierce and hungry. The hand stroking her cheek began to wander south.
Theo screwed her eyes tightly shut to block out his hypnotic eyes and shoved as hard as she could against his chest, then rolled away from him and found herself falling. She landed ungracefully on hands and knees amid a litter of papers and files and realized they’d been lying on his desk, and he’d been about to—to—
“Theodora!” Julian peered over the edge of the desk at her.
“No. No you don’t, Julian. You’re not going to do that to me again.” Theo climbed unsteadily to her feet, waiting for dizziness to strike once again, but instead found she felt better than she had in days. She scowled at him.
He met her scowl with his charming smile. “Why not? You enjoyed it greatly the first time.”
“Because you’d drugged me senseless with ambrosia. Just like you were trying to do now. But if I went to the campus police and accused you of using drugs as an accessory to attempted rape, they wouldn’t believe me, would they?”
He ignored her. “I gave you ambrosia because you were so ill from lack of it that you were hallucinating in the corridor. What might have happened once you were restored to your right mind—” He shrugged, then vaulted lightly from the desk and landed beside her. She tried to back away but he caught her in his arms and began to kiss her neck.
“By the Styx, I’ve missed you,” he murmured. “It’s like having my heart torn out when you run away from me, or look at me with anger and disdain.”
“No!” She tried to jerk away from him. Damnation! She’d forgotten his strength. He ignored her struggles and held her pinioned, kissing his way up her jaw.
“Tell me. Tell me you didn’t remember this, and long for my touch again,” he whispered into her mouth.
“Grant,” she managed to gasp out.
“No! Not Grant. Grant wasn’t there when we made love for hours. It wasn’t his name you cried out as you came, but mine.”
“Grant wouldn’t have had to trick me into taking ambrosia to make me say his name when I came,” she retorted. With another shove against his chest she broke free from his embrace and ran to the door. “I’ll find him,” she said, hand on the doorknob. “You aren’t going to win.”
“I always win, my dear.”
“I rather doubt—ah. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” she said slowly. “It isn’t about me at all. It’s about you and Grant. I’m just a convenient tool for you to use against him.”
“Nonsense, my darling. We’ve already discussed this.” Julian bent to gather up a stack of files scattered on the floor. “You are my beloved Theodora.” He set them on the desk and turned to face her. “But I will win you from him, just the same.” A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Are you sure he still wants you?” he continued conversationally. “He’s an intelligent being. Knowing you’ve betrayed him with me—well, it just might be kinder if you failed to find him. Then he could slip away at commencement, and you wouldn’t have to put him through the unpleasant task of rejecting you to your face. If he were to see you now, with your blouse unbuttoned and your hair all tousled, what conclusion could he draw but that you prefer me?”
Theo looked down, swore mentally, and began to do up her buttons. “How would he know I’ve been here?” she demanded. “Unless you tell him—which would mean he’s somewhere nearby.”
Julian shrugged and pointed at another scattered pile of papers. They lifted obediently into the air and settled on his desk, shuffling themselves into an orderly stack. “Maybe he is. But he might be incapable of understanding anything in his current state.” He pretended to sigh sadly. “I can’t imagine you wanting to embrace the physical Grant just now.”
“In his current state—what have you done to him?”
“Nothing that shouldn’t be reversible, assuming he has the strength of heart and mind for it. Stubbornness was always one of Grant’s fortes, though others called it persistence and courage. I’m rather proud of myself for thinking of his hiding place. Not a bad job for short notice.” He smiled at her, a teasing, faintly malicious smile. “No, I’ll have to think about whether or not I tell him. Maybe I’ll save it for a few days, as a treat. I imagine he’s gotten a little bored by now.”
Theo snorted. “Behold the noble king of gods and men, who tortures his prisoners with lies,” she said scornfully, to cover the fear that had gripped her.
“It’s no lie that you slept with me, beautiful Theodora.”
“After being tricked into it. I’m glad you’ve had your fun, Julian. Don’t you dare try it again.” She finished buttoning her blouse and opened the door.
“At least I hope you’ve learned your lesson about taking adequate ambrosia, my dear. You’re welcome any evening to join me in a glass of wine, you know.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
Julian smiled and pointed at his desk blotter on the floor. It came into his hand. “I can afford to hold my breath, really. You have less than one month left to find where in the world I’ve put your dear Grant.” He tapped the calendar on it. “One month. I can hardly wait.”
…
Outside Julian’s office Theo leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Her breathing was still uneven, and she desperately longed for a shower to get the feeling of Julian off her. But there were more important things to be done first.
She willed her breathing into calmness, then held it. Breathing, as Julian pointed out, was optional now. In the stillness, she listened. Apart from Julian, humming cheerfully to himself in his office (which made her teeth grind), the building was empty. Good. She slipped down the stairs and into the Great Room.
It was full dark now, so Theo darted around the room turning on lights—she didn’t dare trust her powers just now—and looked around. “Not a bad job for short notice”, Julian had said when he taunted her about Grant. That must mean that whatever Julian had done with him the evening of the symposium, it was something he’d thought up on the spot. Which might mean that there was something in the Great Room that had given him the idea for it.
Not the furniture. Most of it had been piled away, with only the dining couches set up on the other side of the room. With a tentative wave, she sent a couch scuttling back on its short legs to rest against the wall. Then more confidently she moved the rest, apart from one chair.
Now, Grant had been tied in his chair, about here—a momentary sadness, mingled with anger, flooded through her, and she sternly pushed it back. That wouldn’t help her find Grant. Julian had been next to him. Yes: when she’d stormed down the stairs and into the room, she had stopped—
Theo looked down at the mosaic floor. There had been a wreath at her feet, one of the pretty fillers the mosaic’s designer had put in between the scenes from mythology. That would be right here. And so Grant’s chair had been the
re—she waved it impatiently into place. Which would have meant Julian was—she stepped the six or seven paces forward and to the left—here.
She looked down.
At first, she was—disappointed. At her feet was another of the floral patterns. But just to her left She moved over a few more paces.
There was a beach scene before her: curling blue waves washed up on a sandy tan shore. Two figures stood on the sand, surrounded by seals. One was a man, tall and strongly built, grappling with the other—but what was the other? A lion, from the savage jaws and wild tawny mane. But below, where paws and legs should be, was a thick, brownish-gray column, like a tree trunk. What was half lion, half tree?
“Proteus,” a voice said next to her.
Theo jumped and looked up. Olivia stood there in her own form, regarding her with her gray eyes. “Are you all right?” she continued. “I was worried when you didn’t show up for dinner.”
“I—I didn’t hear you come in. I thought the building was empty,” Theo said, blushing and floundering.
“It is now. Julian just left. He looked very pleased with himself.” She looked questioningly at Theo, who threw herself into the chair and stared miserably at the floor.
“I’m not surprised. He should be. He—” She bit her lip. “He almost got me again. I fainted when I was getting my mail and he took me into his office and gave me his ambrosia wine and I—we—” She shuddered. “It was a close thing.”
“I see,” Olivia said after a minute.
“Do you see now why I was avoiding ambrosia?” Theo said defensively. “If taking it will make me forget everything and fall into Julian’s arms, then I’ll have to learn to do without it.”
“But there’s no reason why it should do that,” Olivia said with a frown. “I don’t suddenly fall into a stupor and forget everything when I have it. Nor does anyone else I know. There must be something about his wine that does it to you.”
“He did say it was double-strength, from grapes fed with ambrosia.”
By Jove Page 20