She had said yes. After weeks of patience, after the ports and the pressure and the slow, careful construction of trust, she had said yes.
The dolphins surfaced off the starboard bow, their clicks carrying information about the shipping lane disruptions to the north. I acknowledged them and sent them back down. The barracuda from Genoa was gone, replaced by a pair of tuna running the deep channel between Sicily and the mainland.
I gripped the bow rail and looked east, toward the open Mediterranean. Somewhere out there, Alexander Stormwright was preparing his next move. But Stormwright was too smart to believe that economic pressure alone would resolve this. Eventually, he would come to the water himself. He had to.
There was no reason to keep him waiting. There was no reason to draw Andromeda’s pain out further.
I closed my eyes and let the Strait speak.
“The bond is stronger today,”it told me. “Stronger than yesterday. She is becoming part of us.”
“Good,” I murmured.
“The Zeus Alpha is still on the shore. He is not finished.”
“He is not. But he will be. Soon. Bring him to me.”
The Strait had nothing to say to that. It understood the command. In the silence, I heard its obedience. By tomorrow, Alexander Stormwright would be here. And he would be dead.
24
Ocean And Lightning
Alexander
The invitation arrived by dolphin.
Nikos found it in a waterproof cylinder strapped to the animal’s dorsal fin. It was a single sheet of pressed linen paper, the kind House Poseidon used for formal correspondence. The handwriting was careful and unhurried. No seal. No signature. Just coordinates, a time, and a single line:I believe we have unfinished business, Lord Stormwright.
“It’s a trap.” Nikos held the cylinder up to the light, turning it over in his fingers.
We were in the suite the Dionysus estate had provided. The room smelled of wine, jasmine, and someone else’s indulgence.I’d been staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes, trying not to think about what Andromeda was doing on that yacht at that exact moment. Whether she was sleeping. Whether she was happy.
“Obviously it’s a trap,” I said, taking the paper from him.
“You’re going.”
“Obviously I’m going.”
Nikos didn’t argue. He’d stopped arguing somewhere around the third port seizure. By then, it had become clear that the campaign was working and that Orion Maris would eventually respond.
Finally, that response had arrived. It was a polite invitation to walk into the jaws of a god’s descendant, on the only patch of water in the Mediterranean where my power was worse than useless.
“I can have a team in position on the Calabrian coast within four hours,” he offered. “If something goes wrong—”
“If something goes wrong on that water, a team on the coast won’t help me.” I folded the paper and put it in my jacket pocket. “Stay here. Keep the filings moving. If I don’t come back, Marseille and the Adriatic are next.”
“If you don’t come back, there is no Marseille or Adriatic. There’s no House Zeus campaign. There’s just me explaining to the Council why I let you sail into the Strait of Messina alone.”
“Then don’t let me die, Nikos. Pray, or sacrifice a goat, or whatever it is you do when I’m not looking.”
He didn’t smile. “What are you going to do when you get there?”
“Ask for her back.”
“And when he says no?”
I picked up my watch from the nightstand and strapped it on. The metal was cold against my wrist. “She’s still mine, Nikos. My Omega. Even if she doesn’t want to be. Even if she never wants to be again. That doesn’t change what I owe her.”