“What?” she demanded.
“This is a small gathering,” he said gravely. “Not a party.”
“This is plenty party for me.”
“Éla, there is no music, no dancing.”
As if on cue, Victoria started singing, loudly and with little adherence to any kind of melody. Andreas winced, shaking his head as Bruno began to howl along.
“The dead will begin to wake up soon,” he said.
Skye felt the featherlight brush of a shiver run up her spine.
“I think we might’ve already woken them,” she said. “Someone buried that saber for a reason, and they might not take too kindly to us having dug it up.”
“It was not us.” Andreas folded his arms, drumming his fingers against a bicep. “And I do not think that even a ghost would scare Dusty. In Greece, we would say that she isskliró karýdi—a tough nut.”
“I think she’d appreciate that,” Skye said, raising her voice to be heard over the caterwauling. “I heard you two squabbling earlier over the best way to pour cement.”
Andreas’s brows knitted together.
“I have offered my help, but I cannot force her to accept.”
Skye took a sip of her wine, so warm now that it tasted vinegary. Andreas had refused all offers of alcohol, though he had polished off every scrap of leftover food—including Skye’s salad, which he’d deemed “polý kali.”
“That means ‘very good,’ ” Mia had confided. “Klodi taught me.”
Greeks were indeed natural teachers. Skye had gleaned as much through the few interactions she’d had with people in the village when those she spoke to appeared compelled to impart some nugget or other of wisdom during every conversation. Andreas was chief among them, schooling her on language, local history, and cultural quirks. They talked often, though they hadn’t yet ventured beyond the surface level of friendship. To delve any deeper would invite questions, and Skye had long since raised thatdrawbridge. She had no intention of revealing more than was absolutely necessary.
“I hope Dusty doesn’t lay her foundations down too soon,” she said. “That saber was such a fascinating find. If it were me, I’d want to keep digging for more.”
“Perhaps there is more to be found,” Andreas mused. “Not only in that garden but in all the houses. Nobody has touched them since the war ended.”
“Apart from you,” she reminded him. “You were working up here for weeks before we arrived.”
“Correct,” he agreed. “But it was only after you came that we found something.”
The bundle in her fireplace. Skye had thought about little else since their discovery.
“Did you sneak another look at the letters earlier?” she asked.
Andreas unfolded his arms and rubbed a hand across his jaw.
“No,” he said, his tone pensive. “It is not my place to do so. They belong to you.”
Skye supposed they did, though it felt wrong to possess another person’s innermost thoughts and feelings, their hopes and dreams, their expressions of love.
“Will you read me the one you opened?” she asked. “It doesn’t have to be tonight, but soon?”
Andreas glanced up, and she followed his gaze across Orion’s Belt and the W constellation of the vain queen Cassiopeia, before trailing her eyes down to the Great Bear. The beauty of it, the wonder, made her emotions unravel as if dropped like a ball of wool. She looked away, back toward the glow of the small house, where the inhabitants of her strange new world were silhouetted in the half darkness.
“Éla,” Andreas said with the softest touch on her elbow. “Let’s go.”
He strode down the garden, and she followed him, aware of multiple sets of eyes on them as they passed the small group.
“Back in a sec,” she called to Joy, ignoring her friend’s bemused expression. Outside, they made their way across the dark hillside to the truck, where Skye climbed into the passenger seat. With a soft click, the glove compartment dropped open, revealing the stack of letters nestled inside. Andreas took the top envelope and carefully unfolded its pages.
Skye shifted to face him, one leg curled beneath her, the gear stick nudging her knee. Above them, the evil-eye pendant swung gently from its gold chain, no longer blue but dulled by night.
