"Now would be fine." Alex's smile became strained, and her eyes closed briefly as Valentin used the scalpel. "That's it. Now cut sideways—through the muscle you see—yes, like that." She bit her lip, and hung on to Michael's hands as if they were her lifeline.

"I have cut through, Alexandra."

"Good," she said on a burst of released breath. "Do you see the end of it yet?"

"Not yet."

Her fingernails stabbed into Michael's flesh. "Cut deeper."

Valentin plied the scalpel again. "A little more, my lady. A little… there." He lifted his head and met Michael's gaze. "I see it."

"Here comes the part where you want to cover your eyes with your hands. Just don't." She looked up at Michael. "Take the shaft and push through me to Val. Val, you pull it out through the back. When it's out, douse the whole thing with antiseptic, and bandage me. I'll probably be out of it."

Cyprien put a hand on the shaft. For a terrible moment he didn't think he could do it. Then he saw her eyes, and the trust in them.

"Be strong," she whispered, "and fast, please."

He bent down to kiss her, and gripped the shaft and her shoulder with firm hands. As her lips clung to his, he pushed the bolt through. He caught her scream in his mouth as Valentin pulled the bolt out through the incision he had made.

"It is done." Val threw the bolt away, and it clattered on the tile floor.

"Great." Alex closed her eyes and went limp.

Cyprien used a towel to stanch the blood pouring from both sides of the wound before cleaning her torn flesh. "She will need blood when she wakes."

"I will have it ready."

Falco came to join them. "Master, I have found a trail. The assassin has fled on foot." He looked at Alexandra and his expression hardened. "Someone betrayed us. No human could have come here unless—"

"The assassin is one of our men," Valentin told his seneschal. "A native German."

"I want him," Cyprien said. "He belongs to me."

Jaus nodded. "I will care for her, Michael. Go with Falco."

Chapter 14

Jema made a point of arriving home in time for dinner, so that she could talk to her mother about the crate of artifacts she had taken from the museum. It seemed out of character for her to be working on some secret project; her mother had always been very proud and public about the museum and James Shaw's work. Jema was also curious about the legend Meryl had mentioned.

"I didn't know you were still actively researching, Mother," she said after the maid served Meryl and Daniel dessert and brought Jema's herbal tea. "Is this something new?"

"It's nothing. I'm only attempting to finish something your father was working on just before he died," Meryl said.

"Why? I mean, it's been thirty years. I don't think there's any rush."

"Who said I've been hurrying?" Her mother stabbed a piece of fruit from her dish of trifle. "I organized his papers on Athos many years ago, so that they might one day be published in recognition of his work. Unfortunately he never finished the dig, and his findings were incomplete, so I decided to finish the work for him."

"This legend is related to the Athos dig." Jema noticed her mother's agitation—her hands were trembling—and frowned. "If this is upsetting you, we don't have to talk about it."

"Did anyone watch the forecast?" Daniel asked. "I was wondering which way that blizzard out west is moving."

"West, I think," Jema said. "It's over Iowa."

"Please, God, not another riveting dissection of the atmospheric conditions." Meryl sighed and set down her fork. "If you must know, Jema, your father went to Greece to find a ceremonial object called the Homage of Athos."

"The Homage." A spasm of nausea made Jema swallow quickly.

"Yes. The peasants who lived near the Athos mountain in Greece apparently climbed it every year to present this homage to the gods. No one has any idea of what it was, precisely, but James said it was of great importance to the local population. We found a building that may have been the temple they built around it at the base of Athos. That was the first dig your father conducted there."

"Homage." Jema turned the word over in her head. "Could it have been a burned offering or a libation ceremony of some sort?" Both had been popular in ancient polytheist sacrificial rituals.

"James thought it could be an object with a map that showed the old pathways around the mountain, and the location of certain caves. The locals used the caves as natural temples." She moved her shoulders. "There is no description of the homage anywhere, except by name or unspecific reference, so that was purely speculation on his part."

The Homage of Athos. It sounded tantalizingly familiar. It also made Jema's stomach curl, or perhaps she'd eaten too much starch for dinner. Rice never did sit well on her stomach at night. "I think I've read about it somewhere, but I can't remember in what."

"It's in a few of the scholarly texts on early Greek mythology," Meryl said. "Some of the more contemporary texts refer to it as the 'Image of Athos.'"

"That would explain Father's map angle."

"Whether it was homage or an image, it was lost eight thousand years ago." The lines around her mother's mouth deepened. "Your father believed the people of Athos sealed it away in a ritual cave so no one could take advantage of it. The scroll refers to the hiding place only as 'the Well of Life.'"

"A cave that's also a well." Jema raised her eyebrows as she took a sip of tea. "Generally it's either one or the other, not both."

"I know how preposterous it sounds. I tried to persuade your father to abandon the dig, many times. I never liked it." Meryl's gaze grew shuttered. "He wouldn't listen to me. It was the one time I couldn't persuade him to reason. He was obsessed with finding it."

With a little more coaxing from Jema, Meryl related the details of the legend.

"That's just the Prometheus story, with a few of the particulars changed," Jema said after her mother finished. "You do know that."

"That was exactly what I told your father. But he had an Egyptian scroll that substantiated the legend, and some obscure passages from Hesiod he was convinced indicated otherwise. He wouldn't listen to me. That's why he's dead." Her hand tugged at the lace collar of her blouse. "I knew it would end badly. I knew it the moment I saw that cave that something terrible would happen to anyone who went in it. I simply never thought it would be…" She trailed off. "I almost died there. That was the cave that collapsed on me and broke my back."

"This Well of Life," Jema said, trying to change the subject, "was it only a hiding place, or did it have a part in the legend?"

"Hesiod referred to it as the source of immortality. James's theory was that the one chosen by the gods after the homage was presented would be led to the Well of Life and permitted to drink. The water was supposed to heal all wounds, cure all ills, and bestow immortality." Meryl made a bitter sound. "The Greeks' eternal fountain of youth."

"You don't have to go to Athos for that," Daniel said, his tone jovial. "Lourdes is much closer."

"James went back." Meryl's voice hardened. "He brought me and Jema to the States as soon as he could bribe the Greek doctors to release us. He left me here with a broken back and a newborn, and went straight to Athos, and got himself killed on that mountain."

Jema couldn't quite believe that her father had put so much faith in an ancient legend. By all accounts, James Shaw had been a very pragmatic man, focused on uncovering and preserving tangible proof of past civilizations. This sort of thing sounded more like a plot for an Indiana Jones movie.

"Is there anything I can do to help with the project, Mother?" Jema asked.

"I'm nearly finished with it," Meryl told her.

"Whatever your father thought, I'm sure that the homage is only a legend," Daniel said gently. "There is no miracle water that can cure us, or keep us from dying."

"Who wants to live forever anyway?" Jema said, trying to sound lighthearted. "The taxes alone would be outrageous. The Social Security people would get very cranky."

"I wouldn't mind," Daniel joked. "I could end up with the world's best tee shot. I'd make Tiger Woods look like Wrong-Way Jones."

Meryl refused to be cheered, and pushed her dessert aside. "Take me upstairs now, Daniel. I'm tired." She wheeled out of the room before either of them could speak.

Daniel put his napkin on the table as he rose to follow her. "Night, Jem."

Her mother's depression tagged after Jema for the rest of the evening, until she gave in and went upstairs herself. After she took her evening injection, she changed into a nightgown and settled in with a volume of Mark Twain.

The Connecticut Yankee couldn't hold Jema's attention, however, not with the new worry over her mother. Why was Meryl trying to finish her father's work, and why did she need to take things from the museum to do that? It didn't make sense. The Athos artifacts had already been checked and dated; there weren't any that Jema could remember as even particularly remarkable.

Frustrated with having more questions than answers, she put away the book, turned out the light, and tried to sleep.

Sleep didn't want to have anything to do with Jema at first. Just as she thought she might toss and turn for the rest of the night, the scent of gardenias filled her head, and she drifted off.

The round-roofed white building was three stories tall, surrounded by rolling green grass and enclosed with channels of simple post-and-rail fencing. Jema dropped down in front of it, all floaty and nice, Glinda the Good Witch minus the Lollipop Guild. She couldn't see inside the structure, as there were only a couple of small windows near the roof eaves. She knew it was a barn even before she smelled the hay, manure, and animals.