Salvator Fabris.”
“Fabris? Why do I know that name?”
“He’s one of the Italian masters. He was also my partner for a while, before I met Kenan.” Shifrah crossed her arms and leaned against a crate. “I know Salvator. I’ve seen him fight. I don’t know exactly how good Don Lorenzo was, but I know Sal, and the old Aker I knew could never have beaten Sal. So who have you been training with?”
“No one.” Aker grinned. He patted the sword at his hip. “Just the Don himself. I know what he knows. I remember what he remembers. It’s all just images and instincts right now, but it will grow sharper in time.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” She stared at the sword and wondered how long she could let him keep such a thing. Aker was a common mercenary, a blunt weapon with more ambition than sense. He had always talked a big game and when she left him years ago he was still just talking. Clearly, something had changed. “The aetherium in the blade. I mean, I’d heard the stories, but I figured it was all Espani nonsense. Souls and ghosts. But it’s real, isn’t it?”
“It’s all real. Very real. I admit, most of the souls in here are nothing special, nothing more than fuel for the fire in the blade.” He smirked. “But there have been a few soldiers, a few killers. Their strength and skill and knowledge are in here. And now the master Don Lorenzo is in here too, and I can stand toe to toe with the great Salador Fabee!”
“Salvator Fabris.”
“Whatever.”
Shifrah sniffed and looked away. “Listen, Kenan says we should go ashore alone to avoid running into the Don’ widow, and I think he’s right. I want to go into town quietly, not in the middle of a pitched battle. All right?”
Aker shrugged. “As you wish. There is no need, but if it will make you feel better to sneak back into your own city, I will not stop you.”
“Fine. Meet us by the rear launch as soon as the city is in view.”
Shifrah spent the next hour trying to rest in the bunk with Kenan, but the bunk was too narrow for her to get comfortable and Kenan kept touching her, so eventually she suggested that they go up on deck to wait. They went outside and stood in the stern of the steamer beside the little wooden launch hanging over the side. The tiny lights of Alexandria twinkled in the darkness far off to their right.
Aker sauntered up. “Are we ready to go?”
“We’re just waiting for someone to help us put the launch out.” Kenan glanced around the empty deck.
“No, the captain said there’s nothing to it.” Shifrah winked at Aker and the two of them deftly unlashed the launch and lowered it into the water. The three of them climbed down into the boat and released the lines, leaving them to bob and wobble in the steamer’s wake. As soon as the water was calm again, Kenan and Aker put out the oars and began to row.
Shifrah watched their steamer cruise into the harbor and settle beside a long stone pier. Behind them on the point, the bright lights of the enormous lighthouse swept across the sky with ghostly fingers to point at the dark horizons. The steamer docked and a handful of sailors lashed it to the pier.
As their little launch rounded another pier farther down the harbor side and approached the lower mooring, Shifrah saw at least a dozen men waiting at the foot of the steamer’s pier, and as the lighthouse lamp swung around, the light glinted off the steel weapons in their hands. “Looks like Kenan was right.” She pointed at the dark figures.
They found an old iron ladder and climbed up to the street, which was dark and deserted. Aker pointed the way and led them down the road at a brisk pace. Shifrah glanced up at the shadowed faces of the towers and temples in the distance. The taste of the salt water mingled with the smells of fish and birds, of fire and spices, of flinty sand and crumbling stone.
Alexandria. It’s been a long time.
Chapter 8. Qhora
She stood in the darkness, staring out at the starry sky and the lights reflected on the rippling waters of the harbor. She watched Salvator lead his band of cheap muscle down the pier, and she watched them talk to the crew of the steamer, and she watched them come back empty-handed.
We lost them. Again.
Mirari laid a gloved hand on Qhora’s shoulder, and the Dona reached up to squeeze her hand for a moment. “Go talk to Salvator for a moment,” Qhora said. “I just need a minute to myself.”
“Yes, my lady.” The masked woman strode away to intercept the Italian and the two stopped on the dockside to talk.
Qhora turned and shuffled back into the darkness of the empty warehouse where Salvator had placed a single chair with a few ropes and a rickety little table displaying an assortment of stones, broken glass, and splintered wood. Crude, he had said, but more than adequate to your needs.
She stood in front of the empty chair, a spectral shape drawn in starlight and shadow. The harpy eagle on her arm squawked and stretched his talons. She reached over to stroke his feathered head.
We would have put the Aegyptian in this chair, she thought. Tied him down. Tortured him. Bled him. Mutilated him. Listened to him scream. And killed him.
The cold emptiness in her chest made it hard to breathe and she sat down in the chair. Her lip shook, but she did not blink, did not crumple, and did not wail. She sat tall and proud, staring across the dirty floor of the empty warehouse.
For vengeance. For justice. For me, and Javier, and all of Espana.
She exhaled slowly. Her breasts ached.
Forgive me, Enzo. You deserve better than this. I tried. I did. But I failed. I failed you. The man in green is gone. And I know you wouldn’t have wanted me to kill him, but you deserve that much, and more. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s gone.
And we both know that killing him would do nothing for us. It wouldn’t bring you back to me and our son. It wouldn’t even bring me peace, let alone happiness.
I need to go home. I need Javier, and he needs me. I need to go back to Madrid and tell your students that you are gone, that your school is closed, and that your sword-of-life style exists only in your little book now.
Where should I go now, Enzo? How will I live? Where will I live? I suppose I can go to your parents in Gadir for a while, but that will not last forever. And what will I do then?
She reached up with her bare right hand to clutch the old triquetra medallion hanging around her neck. The metal was warm to the touch. Very warm. Qhora closed her eyes and tried to pray to Enzo’s three-faced God. But where was the justice of the Father? Where was the life of the Mother? Where was the mercy of the Son?
Enzo is gone, without justice, life, or mercy.
Qhora opened her eyes and saw a figure standing just a few paces away. It was a shadowy, indistinct figure, a little old woman as dim as dark glass and through her body Qhora could still see the door of the warehouse beyond her.
A ghost.
“You.” Qhora croaked the word.
“I’m so sorry, Dona.” The ancient Espani nun looked older than Qhora remembered. She had only seen the specter once in a butcher’s icehouse in Marrakesh. The dead woman had made a stronger impression that day, wreathed in swirling vapors and aether, passing down her wisdom centuries after her death to teach Enzo, to guide him.
But now she was just a shadow trapped in an old medallion, her soul imprisoned in the little patch of aetherium in the edge of the golden triquetra.
“I watched it happen,” Sister Ariel said. “I saw the man strike, saw the fiery sword shatter Lorenzo’s espada, and I saw it pierce his flesh. I saw it all. And I felt the aether riptide of that sword trying to tear me free of my prison in exchange for another, but I remained here in the triquetra while poor Lorenzo…” The nun covered her
