He tugged, moving them along. “Or something.”
Sophie took a quick step to keep up with his long-legged stride. “I’ll give you a name, then. A temporary one—just till you remember your own.”
“Why?” he asked.
Why?“So I can stop calling youThe Manin my head. Or Caesar.”
“Caesar’s not bad.” He’d never heard it before, but he liked it.
She grimaced. “Please, no. Even dressed like that.”
He glanced down at himself. “The people of Apple don’t like strong names?”
Sophie did her best fish-out-of-water impression. When her throat stung from the cold, dry air, she snapped her mouth shut. This was getting weirder by the second, and her current life was already weird enough. “Okay. I’ll call you Bob.”
“Bob?” He couldn’t have looked more incredulous if she’d suggested Yoda or Spock.
“Bob’s a good name,” she defended. She had an uncle on her mom’s side who’d escaped the Greekness and ended up with Robert for a first name. Bob for short. Half her family couldn’t pronounce it and called him Boob instead.
“Bob sounds like something you’d name a goat.”
“Okaaaay. How ’bout Bill?” she suggested.
“Now I’m to be called the mouth of a duck?” His jaw visibly tightened. “Fine. I have a name. You might’ve heard of me, in which case, maybe you can point me in the direction of home.” He took a deep breath. “Piers. Piers of Sinta. Gamma of the realm and third in line for the throne.”
Sophie mashed her lips together, quelling a chuckle. Was he a performer? She appreciated a person so devoted to their craft that they stayed in character despite near-freezing weather and a very-real fight with a power-drunk megalomaniac’s henchmen, but it was time to drop the act. “Yeah, I don’t think I can point you in the direction ofThe Realm. Sorry. Got any other information, Piers of Sinta?”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you mocking me?” It didn’t look like anyone mocked him often, or easily.
“Maybe.” She squeezed his arm to ease the sting. “Sorry. I come from a big family. Teasing is second nature.”
Something in his eyes both brightened and darkened. It was pure devotion. Worry. Sophie bit her lip, shocked by how hard that pained look made her heart flip over. “So, I guess you don’t have amnesia?”
His reply was a low grunt. So helpful.
A moment later, he asked, “Doyouhave a name?”
“Why?” she teased. She couldn’t help it.
His—Piers’s—lips twitched. “So I can stop calling you Pink in my head. OrThe Woman.”
Sophie laughed. Considering how scared she’d just been, this whole conversation seemed surreal to her—as surreal as being helped by a gladiator named Piers of Sinta.
“It’s Sophie. Sophronia Iraklidis.”
“Now,that’sa normal name,” he said with a firm nod of his head.
Oddly, he was dead serious. “You’re the only one who thinks so.”
“The prudent and wise descendant of Heracles.” He cocked his head, his coal-dark hair catching the first snowflakes as they fell. “If you’re Magoi, why not defend yourself?”
Magoi?Sophie was so confused right now, it wasn’t even funny. She was also getting really cold after the adrenaline rush and flat-out sprinting. She shivered. “Are you a classics professor? Were you at a reenactment or something?”
His nose wrinkled. “Or something.”
They continued toward Midtown. Piers obviously liked his secrets. She decided not to push. She had a thumb-sized secret of her own icing a hole in her pocket right now. Her teeth started chattering, the cold attacking her from inside and out.
“We should get you to shelter.” He made a beeline for the nearest shop. It was a frilly underwear boutique. Sophie nudged him one door farther down the avenue. As luck would have it, it was a men’s clothing store.
