Page 53 of Phoenix Chosen 3

“I’m guessing you didn’t know that was going to happen?”

“Not at all.”

With a quiet laugh, Tyler says, “I think they were sucking their thumb. Hey, you think it’s a boy or a girl in there?”

“I’ve been told that if a pregnant omega’s belly sits low and round, they will have a boy. If it’s high and wide, it’ll be a girl.”

“Jesus, I’m pretty sure I was all of the above. At least, that’s how it felt.”

“What do you think?” I ask him. “What does your gut tell you?”

“Oh, god… I don’t know. My dad was the youngest of four sisters. My mom used to tell me she expected I was going to be a girl. That was before I came out of the closet, then she completely denied she’d ever said that. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re a girl.”

“What is a closet, and why were you inside it?” I ask.

Tyler laughs, then kisses me tenderly on the chin. “Don’t worry about it.”

21

TYLER

One of the things I love about Circeana is its baths. The people hereloveto bathe. Kalistratos tells me every town, city, and respectable village will have some way to take a hot bath, whether in a bathing room, a bathing temple or house, or straight up in a natural hot spring, like the one at the hideout. It kicks the idea I’ve always had in my head that people from ancient times were all gross and dirty.

We soak together for a while, enjoying the moment of shared peace beneath the night sky, and afterward, we follow the path down the hill to the cave hideaway. Airos is sitting outside the tunnel entrance on a boulder, sipping on wine from a small clay bowl, hair still damp from his bath.

“I’ve given it thought,” he says as we approach. “If we’re going to Kausos, we’d be fools to do it on foot. A thousand miles of harsh landscape, much of it covered by parched desert.”

“Alyx and I did it,” Kalistratos replies.

“With a pregnant omega and an unhatched egg, we’d doom ourselves to failure—especially since we have a hunter of Umbrios nipping at our heels.”

“You’re not getting me on a boat, dammit.”

Airos tilts the bowl to his lips and drains the rest of the wine. “Not a boat,” he says matter-of-factly. “A sky flyer.”

I saw one of them in Athenos, ship-like things floating high above the city like Goodyear blimps. Hovercraft, airships, weird magical technology.

“That’s even more insane than the boat,” Kalistratos laughs. “But you have my attention. What’s your plan? Let me guess… someone from your order can get us on board?”

“Not quite,” says Airos. “We must acquire our own.”

“How much wine have you had?” Kalistratos asks. “The only way we could do that is if we had a sack full of drachmae. Oh wait, we did, but we gave it away.”

“Returnedit,” I correct him.

“I believe I know another way,” Airos says. “It will require luck, but given all that has happened to us, I’d like to believe we have favor from the goddess of fortune.” He points toward the horizon—west, I think. “I know a coastal gorge that once held a town renowned for its people who built and repaired flyers for generations until a terrible storm cast the place into ruin. Scattered through this place are the remains of abandoned flyers.”

“So the plan is to go to a flyer graveyard and hope we find one that works?” Kalistratos asks.

“Won’t this place have been stripped of anything good already?” I ask.

“That’s why I said it would require luck. I’m not counting on finding a working flyer, only pieces of them.”

“A junkyard Frankenstein, huh?” I say. “Putting together a ship out of scrap parts doesn’t sound like putting together a bunch of Legos. I mean, is it really something we can do on our own?”

“I have some knowledge of flyers,” Airos says. “With our resourceful little band, I think it can be done.”

“We’re missing a member,” Kalistratos says. “Where’s Jackson?”

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