Page 46 of The New Gods

“I’ll take a secret society over Diana Regan any day.” And that was the truth. My parents might not like me, but my former advisordespisedme. The grudge she held seemed way out of proportion with my supposed crime. Focusing on what Pollux had said, I continued with, “So do you have a name?”

He shook his head, glanced at Hector as if waiting for him to add something.

Hmm.That was interesting. Hector must occupy some sort of leadership role in this society.

Pollux went on. “There’s no name. But what you’re searching for… it shouldn’t be found.”

I had assumed it was pottery. A vase or an amphora. Maybe even some kind of box.

A seal was different. Seals kept things together, or kept them closed in.

The piece I’d found had told the story of Hector—a very out-of-canon story. Putting together everything that hadn’t yet been said, I asked, “Do you not want me to find it because of the story it tells? Or is it something else?”

A thousand mistakes I could have made ran through my mind. What if the shard wasn’t as old as the radiocarbon dating suggested? What if I’d misread the Greek inscription? What if someone had put it there, like Lady Elliot had suggested? My stomach clenched. Maybe I should call the museum. Retract my articles? Oh, god. I wanted to puke.

My phone was in the pocket of Orestes’ jacket, so I withdrew it. To call who? Dr. St. John? Dr. Merton?

This would make Lord and Lady Elliot pissed—not that they seemed to like me much anyway, but that donation…

I’d fucked up so bad. So, so, so bad.

“Wait. No.” Hector pulled his chair closer, took my phone from my hand, and flipped it over on the table. “It’s not—as far as I know, from everything Pollux told us—your theories aren’t wrong. But the pieces can’t be found. You have to leave it alone. Let it stay lost.”

More and more questions swirled in my head, racing around my brain in a way that made it ache. I rubbed my temples. “Then what do you want from me? It’s not like I have it in hand. It’s one piece, and if what you’re saying is true, and the dating places that piece thousands of years in the past, the likelihood of finding another is…” I wasn’t a math genius so I went with, “low. Very low. Highly unlikely.”

And I hated to say it, but— “I think you might be overreacting.” I shifted to glare at Achilles. “Actually, I know you are.”

Crossing his arms, the huge man smiled. “I apologize.”

“Not accepted.” Though it was about time.

He smirked and just shook his head.

There had to be something wrong with me that I wasn’t running and screaming out of this pub. As a child, I’d had fantasies of adventure and intrigue. I imagined running from gigantic boulders threatening to crush me as a temple sunk into the desert. In those scenarios, I fought bad guys, just like Indiana Jones, and repeated his classic line, “This should be in a museum!” when treasure hunters tried to steal what I found.

But reality was a lot less interesting and a lot more gray. I should be afraid of Achilles, and all of them, but I only had more questions.

“Does it belong to you?” I asked. “The—” I almost said, “shard” but corrected myself, “Seal?”

Hector nodded before he answered, “Yes.”

This complicated things. Not that they weren’t already, but Turkey had already laid claim to the artifact. It was very difficult to prove ownership. England had laws about such things, because it wasn’t so rare for a farmer to plow one of his fields and come upon a Roman village. There were assessments that were required before farmers dug trenches, or things like that. In Turkey, there were similar laws on the books, but private landowners didn’t always follow those regulations.

And then there was of course all the geo-political changes which made tracing land ownership dicey. If they were saying that the seal was found on their land, it could be difficult to prove. “How old is your claim?” I asked.

Achilles had taken a sip of the pint I hadn’t touched. Choking at my question, he covered his mouth with his arm, but he didn’t manage to catch all the drops of beer. He wiped them up with his sleeve.

“Old,” Hector answered. “Ancient.”

“I don’t suppose you have anything in writing?”

It wasn’t my imagination that he smiled. And god, what a change it made to his serious face. White teeth set against his dark beard and a cleft in his chin. He crossed his arms over his chest, just watching me.

“Okay.” Ignoring all the challenges and millions of questions I had, I repeated myself, “Okay. I’ll help you. But you have to understand, if there are more pieces, and they’re here, in England, or anywhere you can’t prove you have a title or provenance, things will be really tricky. Turkey has been attempting to get artifacts for years, but it’s very difficult. Almost impossible, really, without diplomatic intervention.”

Hector nodded as I spoke, but every so often his gaze would flick toward one of the other men. Achilles didn’t take his eyes off me, and I could feel Hector’s brother, Paris, watching. I took the pint from where it sat in front of Achilles and sipped it. It was a dark, like a stout, and much stronger than the light beer I tried at college parties.

“Jesus. This is like a meal.” But my throat was dry, so I took another sip.

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