And the entity smiled.
27
ARTHUR
I did not give myself time to think.
Thinking led to fear, and fear led to hesitation, and hesitation was how people drowned in ancient temples.
I shifted, scooped Artemis up, and launched for the dais in one smooth motion, wings snapping open as water surged around us. She clutched at my shoulders, trusting me without question, and that trust hit harder than any blow of Hadrian’s.
She had just saved our lives.
I landed hard on the stone platform, talons skidding for purchase before finding it. The dais held, but only barely. The water lapped at the edge, churning and impatient, as if annoyed we had not died on schedule.
The entity waited.
It remained in that unsettling, almost-humanoid shape, all liquid stone and dim light, chains wrapped around it like areminder rather than a restraint. It didn’t move. It didn’t need to.
Artemis slid down my back, breath shaking, eyes still alight with everything she had just seen and understood. Awe and fear and brilliance braided together in her expression, and for a wild, unhelpful moment, I thought:How is she real?
The voice came inside my skull, smooth and expectant.
What do you offer?
I swallowed.
We needed the water gone. We needed a way out. We needed this thing satisfied without destroying what was left of the world.
I had no gold. No ancient secrets left to trade. No bloodline deal I would ever agree to repeat.
But I did have one truly cursed object.
I shifted back to human form, water streaming off me, heart still hammering from the fight and the fall and the miracle of Artemis standing upright beside me.
I put my hand in my pocket.
Artemis stared as I pulled it out. “Is that your phone?”
I looked down at the rectangular slab of glass and metal like it might betray me out of spite. “Yes.”
She shook her head. “Arthur.”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I know how it sounds.”
The entity watched with what might havebeen interest.
“You’re offering your phone,” she said slowly, “to an ancient, chained, primordial entity.”
I lifted it higher, addressing the creature directly. “This device tracks me. Records me. Connects me to people who wish me harm. It led my enemies to us. Repeatedly.”
Artemis’s mouth fell open. “You are not helping our case.”
“It also,” I added, warming to the argument, “contains more accumulated human knowledge than most libraries did a century ago. Maps. Languages. Histories. Entire systems of thought. It is… deeply cursed.”
Artemis snorted.
The entity’s chains chimed softly.
