“The dirt!” she exclaimed.
“Daniela, I’m not following,” Theo said, clearly wanting to understand her but frustrated that he didn’t.
“What do you know about the soils in Greece?” she asked no one in particular.
Not that it mattered, because no one answered. They all looked around at one another, waiting for someone else to respond.
“Look, Papantonis said the eye would blend into the dirt. What if he meant that literally, as in the soil was the same color as the gemstone? I’ve seen red soil before. Not here, of course, but in other parts of the world,” she said, as if she’dbeento other parts of the world. But that was beside the point. “Maybe we need to dissect each word of this letter and analyze what it could mean.”
She had to admit, she wasn’t basing it on much more than a hunch. But what other options did they have?
“So, where do you think he was from, then?” Andreas asked.
“I…that, I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m a librarian. Let me help find an answer.”
“And how do you presume to do that?” he asked.
“Got any libraries?”
Andreas laughed. “Well, Greece ishometo the library, didn’t you know?”
“I did know that, actually,” she responded. The question was borderline insulting, although she was sure Andreas hadn’t meant it to be. A person didn’t love books as much as Dani did and not know where libraries came from.
“Then you may also know that Athens has many wonderful libraries,” he said. “Though I’m afraid, I’ve probably searchedevery book in this city for answers, and I’ve come up empty-handed.”
“Even the rare collections?” she asked.
“Especiallythe rare collections,” he said.
“When was the last time?” Theo asked. “What building?”
“It was in the Vallianeio Megaron,” Andreas responded, clearly wondering what he was getting it. “But I’m telling you, there was nothing.”
“Did you know that when the library was moved to its current location at the SNFCC, they discovered a whole collection of old texts in a room that had been blocked for decades by a bookshelf?” Theo asked.
Andreas straightened his stance. “No, I…I didn’t know that. How didyouknow that?”
“Libraries are a special interest of mine,” Theo said, giving Dani a wink.
Dani could barely hold back her smile. Her mind took her right back to that morning.
“To the National Library, then?” Andreas asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.
“To the library,” Dani said, staring straight into Theo’s eyes.
Chapter
Seventeen
Theo
Theo had always wanted tobring Dani to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. The walls of books were truly a librarian’s dream. He couldn’t say this was exactly how he imagined their visit would be, but now as he walked beside Dani hand in hand past the canal toward the sharp-angled modern-glass-and-concrete building, he didn’t want it any other way.
“The National Library recently moved its entire collection to this new building,” Theo explained to Dani as they walked up to the library entrance with a wall made of dozens of windowpanes. “This library houses the largest collection of Greek historical texts in the world.”
“If we can’t find the answer here,” Andreas added, “then it doesn’t exist.”
When Theo opened the door, Dani’s eyes lit up like Belleopening the doors to the library inBeauty and the Beast. Floors and floors of books filled the large, open room. Light filled the area, casting a glow upon the shelves. Dani entered the space and looked up while slowly turning in a circle. Never mind that most, if not all, of the books were likely in a language she couldn’t read. It didn’t matter. She was like a kid in a candy store, staring at the collection in awe.
