Page 123 of Cathmoir's Sons

I reach out and stroke his cheek. I’ve never felt so loved, so respected, so cared for, as I’ve felt here in Italy with these three men.

I nod at the cave. Rhodes smiles at me, blowing thin streams of bubbles out of the sides of his mouth, before ducking into the cave.

The cave entrance is a fissure in the rock: ten or twelve feet wide in the middle, tapering into jagged teeth above and below us. Are the rock formations stalactites and stalagmites? Was this cave once above water? I think so. I’m not a geologist but I’ve learned the basics as I’ve worked on excavations all over the world.

The water around me darkens, then grows faintly luminous as I follow Rhodes. The luminosity ripples through the cave, waves of blue and green and the faintest gold sparking from the cave walls. Small invertebrates extend white and yellow frondstoward the light. They retract as we pass and I realize the light’s coming from Rhodes. That’s not a Water power I’ve ever heard of, and I wonder if Dittman taught it to him. I can see how it would be useful for a White Cloak.

A group of dark orange starfish ripple through the rocks and shells littering the cave floor, flowing around the sharp spires of rock. In their wake dart a few shy, striped fish. Rhodes points down suddenly and I follow his finger with my eyes. Half-hidden between scrubby patches of weed are the cracked and broken tiles of what was once an ornate mosaic floor in white, black, and rich red, washed to rust in Rhodes’ light.

I move slowly over the mosaic, trying to find the pattern. Rhodes tugs on the cord connecting us and I follow him. The broken mosaic winds around a corner of the cave and then comes together in a geometric pattern: a twisting white and red border that frames bold black squares and red lotus flowers. I stare at it, committing the pattern to memory so I can draw it for Luca. It’s beautiful, a treasure in its own right, but I hope it leads to an even greater treasure.

We follow the mosaic on through a narrow neck of the cave. Rhodes pulls us along, his hand skimming the rock walls as they hem us in.

The mosaic ends abruptly and stone steps rise from the floor, scattered with shells and dotted with what looks like lichen. The stone steps rise to a dark circle in the cave’s ceiling. Rhodes climbs onto the steps and sticks his head up through the hole. He tugs on the cord for me to follow.

I climb up after him, my head breaking through the water into a dark space, full of air. I pull on my Element to inflate my lungs and reach back into the water, closing my hand into a fist so Gabe and Arch won’t follow. I can use my Element to breathe but Arch will suffocate so long as Viv’s gill spell holds.

The darkness ebbs in ripples of blue and green as three small spheres of water rise from the water lapping around my chest. They spin around Rhodes, softly illuminating a space much larger than the cave we’ve come through.

It’s a dry cave. A short, sandy beach rings the water gate we’ve come through. More of the mosaic decorates the floor, the blue of waves joining the white, black, and red design. A double row of life-sized, stone statues leads deeper into the cave. Rhodes climbs fully out of the portal and stands dripping on the tiles, the watery spheres circling his head. He holds his hand out to me, and I climb out to join him.

“I don’t think we’re in the anticline anymore,” I whisper to him, wheezing slightly as I use my Element to counteract the gills that are fluttering futilely on my neck. “This feels like another Plane.”

Rhodes nods. “My Element’s responding normally. We can’t be far away from our own.”

My Element is, too; we could be in Faery or the upper levels of Hell.

I squeeze Rhodes’ hand and lead him down the aisle between the statues. They’re all male, in a variety of clothes from wetsuits near the pool to short trousers and sandals as we reach a dark archway.

The statues have a common expression: fear. Some of them hold up their hands pleadingly.

“Charybdis definitely wasn’t a Gorgon, right?” Rhodes mutters as we pass a cowering statue.

“Are you thinking these aren’t statues?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“I’ve never heard of any ancient creature other than Medusa turning men to stone.”

“This is not giving me any comfort,” Rhodes says.

I don’t have any comfort to offer. The statues are creepy, and I’d be willing to believe they didn’tstartas stone.

The final statues framing the archway grip it as though they’re peering into the space beyond. Struck by a sudden premonition, I hiss to Rhodes, “Close your eyes.”

He does just as light flares beyond the archway.

“Clever witch,” a rough voice says.

I blink until my eyes adjust to the light, gray and swirling like the Mists of Faery. I get the sense of a round room but the walls are obscured by the tricky light. In the middle of the room sit three women on carved and paintedcurules, low foldable stools, their gray hair streaming to the floor. Despite their gray hair, their faces are smooth, ageless, eyeless. The one on the right wears a beige pants suit and stilettos and could have just stepped off a runway. The one in the middle wears a linenpeplos, gracefully draped and bloused at her waist. The one on the left wears furs mottled tan and brown, cinched at the waist by a ragged rope that tangles in her hair. They all wear wide collars and cuffs of beaten silver. The one in the middle leans forward, a black eye opening in the middle of her forehead.

From the hard clutch of fear in my gut as the Graeae stares at me, I can guess who she is. “Deino,” I say to acknowledge her.

She cackles. “Well met, dark sister. Come to try your luck?”

“Yes,” I admit. “Will you let us pass?”

“Of course,” Deino responds. Her pale lips split into a wide smile. The legend of a shared, single tooth was horseshit. She has a mouthful of discolored fangs, sharper than any shark’s. “For a small price.”

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