Part 10 (2/2)
”I will tell your fortune in the coffee grounds,” Athena said quickly. She walked over to them and held out her hand. ”Finish your cup.”
London shut Bennett from her sight as she downed her coffee in one swallow. She shuddered, then gave the cup to Athena. The witch went into the quarterdeck house, then reemerged with a saucer. Athena placed the saucer over the cup and handed them both back to London.
”Move them both counterclockwise,” the witch advised. ”Close your eyes and concentrate. Open your mind.”
London shut her eyes and followed Athena's guidance. Bennett stared at London, wondering where her mind was taking her, wis.h.i.+ng he could be there, in her thoughts.
”Now, flip the cup and saucer over,” Athena instructed. ”Wait a few moments, but keep your mind focused. Shut out everything around you.”
Ideas and feelings flickered across London's face, and, even silent, she radiated a complexity Bennett might never decode. He glanced up to find Athena watching him with something very like pity, making him scowl.
”Open your eyes and turn the cup over again,” said Athena. ”Remove the saucer.”
London did so. Both she and Bennett gazed down into her cup, where thick coffee grounds formed swirls and patterns along the white ceramic. Athena took the cup back from London and stared intently at the inside of the cup. The witch started in surprise.
”What does it say?” London asked.
Even Kallas at the wheel leaned closer to hear Athena's divination.
”Many knots, like the branches of a tree,” Athena murmured. ”You are deeply enmeshed in a tangled problem. The branches form a bridge, saying that you must make a difficult decision. And I see a man. He beckons to you, he will give you something, something important, but his hands are empty.”
”So he has nothing to offer,” said London.
Athena shook her head, then gazed directly at Bennett, staking him with a look. ”He has more than he realizes.”
”Is this a prophecy?” asked Bennett.
”It is what may be.”
”And what of certainty?” London asked.
”Nothing is ever certain.”
London tipped her head back so she could watch the sky. The sorrowful loveliness of her face hurt Bennett in the center of his chest. ”I'm learning that,” she said softly.
He ached to touch her, even for a moment. He began to reach for her.
She straightened, drawing about her the mantle of propriety, and he dropped his hand. Then she looked down and saw salt.w.a.ter whitely drying on her navy skirt. ”One thing is certain, my clothes are a disaster. Yet I haven't anything else to wear.” Clothing, it seemed, was easier to contemplate than figuring out how to untie the knots tangling her life.
”You are welcome to whatever I have,” Athena said.
London gave her a nod of thanks. ”That's kind of you. But there's no way for me to pay for anything. I do not have any money.” Realization dawned, and it pained Bennett to watch it in her face, the accompanying bleakness that hollowed her out like a glacier's path. ”I have...nothing.”
He tried to bring her back from that abyss. ”The Blades take care of their own. We provide whatever's needed. Even clothing.”
Her eyes flew to his, and instead of despair, they were filled with a sudden anger. ”Including widows' weeds?”
He felt the stab of her words, as much, if not more, than the curved Moroccan knife her husband had tried to gut him with. That wound had faded into a pale line across his right side. Sometimes he forgot about it altogether. He knew just then that London's wounds would last much longer.
”She knows,” said Athena.
”She knows,” London snapped. ”Apparently, she is the last to know about her husband's murder. And who committed it.” She glared at Bennett, but he refused to back down.
”Me,” he said.
”It was not murder,” Athena said gently. ”It was not deliberately or maliciously done.”
London's hurt gaze turned to Athena. ”So, you were there, too?”
”No, but I know Bennett and I know our cause. We are soldiers, not murderers. One kills in the heat of battle. The other coldly destroys life.”
”Have you you killed?” London asked Athena. killed?” London asked Athena.
The witch shook her head. ”Thank the Fierce Maiden I have not had to, not yet. But I know it is not lightly done by the Blades. It is not lightly done by Bennett.”
London looked away. The ghost of Lawrence Harcourt lingered, hovering over the deck. After a moment, she said in a low voice, ”The Heirs will be coming for us, won't they? Fraser. Chernock. My...father.”
Bennett was glad that, at the least, Harcourt's death could be momentarily overshadowed by more immediate threats. ”We'll stay ahead of them,” he vowed. ”Kallas's boat is a fleet little thing.”
”Only Hermes flies faster,” Kallas said with a raffish grin from behind the wheel.
”Even so, they will come,” said London.
Bennett knew she spoke the truth, but he wasn't deterred. Being a Blade meant living cheek by jowl with the enemy. He was used to it. ”Which means we'll find the Source first.”
”You're so c.o.c.ksure,” she said.
”Always.” That wasn't entirely true-not where she was concerned. With most women, he knew exactly what he wanted from them and usually got precisely that, no more, no less. He might desire their bodies, their company. Sometimes he played the seducer to gain information for the Blades. And when his desire had been met, he could continue on his way and think of each woman as a fond, often salacious, memory. They would take other men into their beds after he had gone, sometimes their husbands, sometimes new lovers. None of which troubled him.
London Harcourt proved to be much more complicated than this. He'd killed her husband. She wasn't a Blade. She wasn't an object of simple l.u.s.t. She turned him into a walking nerve, aware of her every movement, every emotion. He wanted her, his enemy's widow.
He needed to focus, had to be sharp. He could exert discipline over himself. Hadn't he nearly been starved out when holed up in an abandoned nunnery in Sicily, protecting a Source from the Heirs and their mercenaries? By the time he, Catullus Graves, and Michael Bramfield had killed or chased off the attackers, Bennett had lost almost a stone and was half-dead from thirst. Surely he could handle the torment of having London Harcourt nearby, close but unreachable. But he felt like Tantalus. The kiss he and London had shared had been revelatory, and he wanted more. Wanted and couldn't have, not again. For a handful of moments, she'd been his, and now she was lost.
”We don't even know what we are looking for,” she pointed out.
”What did the ruins on Delos tell you?” Athena asked.
London recited what she had translated from the columns: ”Upon the island in the form of a dolphin, find there the stream that sings. Its voice will guide you farther to the terrible waterborne gift of the golden G.o.d.” ”Upon the island in the form of a dolphin, find there the stream that sings. Its voice will guide you farther to the terrible waterborne gift of the golden G.o.d.”
”Something borne upon the water,” Bennett mused. ”If the Heirs want it, it must be powerful, and can be used as a weapon.”
”What weapon can be carried on water?” London frowned in thought. ”Perhaps a s.h.i.+p of some kind.”
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