He moved around the cabin with the focused efficiency of someone performing triage. He filled a glass from the carafe on the desk and brought it to me, wrapping my shaking fingers around it. He adjusted the blanket where it had slipped. Hefound a change of clothes in the wardrobe and set them on the bed beside me.
“These are dry clothes for when you’re ready for them,” he said. “Nothing elegant. The head is through that door.” He crossed the cabin to a narrow door beside the desk and opened it. The warm air from a heated bathroom spilled into the room. “Take as long as you need.”
“Am I a prisoner?”
He stopped and turned to face me. For the first time since I’d landed on the yacht, something in his composure shifted. Not anger. Something closer to insult, quiet and personal.
“No. The cabin door doesn’t lock from the outside. There’s a satellite phone in the desk drawer if you need to contact anyone.” He held my gaze. “When you’re ready to leave, the tender on the boarding platform is fueled and provisioned. Say the word, and I’ll have it ready within the hour.”
I searched his face for the lie. I looked for the invisible walls that every offer of freedom had carried since the curse had activated. Helena’s protection had come with Samos. The collar had come with Argos’s power fused into the metal. Every solution had been a cage dressed in a different material.
Orion met my scrutiny and held still beneath it.
“You’re safe on theOdyssey, Andromeda,” he said. He moved to the door. “But more importantly, you are free. I’ll be on deck.”
The door closed behind him. The latch clicked, and I was alone.
I sat propped against the headboard with the glass of water in my shaking hands. The yacht rocked gently beneath me. Through the portholes, the deep blue of the Strait stretched toward the Sicilian coastline. The last of the storm was already dissolving, taking Alexander away with it.
I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders and closed my eyes. For now, I was content to let the stillness hold me. Against all odds, I had escaped. Whether Orion would keep his word or not was not a question I’d answer today.
21
Strategic Affairs
Alexander
“Lord Stormwright, I’m sorry.” The pilot stood in the cockpit doorway, his rigid posture emanating anxiety. “The pressure seal is cracked, and the navigation array took significant damage. The plane needs significant repairs.”
After the disaster of the storm, the news didn’t surprise me. It was still hard to hear.
“Where can we land?” I forced myself to ask.
“Taormina, my lord. There’s a private airstrip fifteen minutes out. I’ve already requested clearance.”
Helena appeared at my shoulder. Her eyes were swollen, and her composure was holding together through discipline alone. “Taormina is House Dionysus territory. They provide hospitality to every House.”
They also had countless agreements with House Poseidon, many to supply Orion’s ridiculous parties. But we had no choice, not right now. “Fine. Land the plane.”
We touched down twenty minutes later on a strip of tarmac cut into the Sicilian hillside above the coast. The airframe groaned when we taxied, and a thin trail of hydraulic fluid leaked from the port landing gear. The plane was wounded. So was I.
A black Maserati was waiting at the end of the strip before the engines had finished winding down. Its driver bowed low and greeted us in smooth English. “Welcome to Taormina. My lord is already waiting.”
Helena and I got in the car without comment. The vehicle brought us up through the narrow coastal roads and into the vineyard country above Taormina. The volcanic soil of Etna turned everything lush and dark. Almost as dark as my mood.
The estate sat on the lower slopes, surrounded by terraced vineyards climbing the black earth in neat rows. Old stone and terracotta, draped in bougainvillea, with wide terraces overlooking the coast.
The man who met us at the door was already drunk.
He was tall and lean, with the dark purple-black hair of his House and wine-dark eyes. His open silk shirt showed a tattooed chest. A dark-haired woman clung to his arm like a limpet, and a willowy blonde lay on the nearby daybed, eating grapes.
“Lord Stormwright. Helena.” He spread his arms wide. His smile was warm and delighted, the smile of a man who found other people’s catastrophes genuinely entertaining. “We heard what happened. Terrible business. Truly terrible. I’m Lysander, and this is my home. Please, come in.”
Lightning crackled between my fingers. The overhead light in the foyer popped and went dark. “I don’t need your hospitality,” I said. “I need a boat.”
“A boat.” Lysander plucked a grape from the bunch in the blonde’s hand and ate it. “Into the Strait of Messina. During what my people are telling me was quite the supernatural weather event.” He chewed thoughtfully. “You’re ambitious, Lord Stormwright. I admire that.”
“I’m not here to be admired.”