Page 30 of Of Love and Treason
He leaped to his feet, the battered wooden stool clattering behind him. “But how?” His eyes darted toward the shrine.
She shook her head. “I don’t know—but I see you. Your blue tunic is wrinkly. Silvia needs to wash it. You need a shave—”
Iris blinked.
Something like a fish scale dropped over her vision, flickering with light yet clouded and blurred.
“I didn’t—I didn’t pray yesterday.” Confusion masked her father’s voice. “I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say.”
She heard him move around the table. Felt his hands on her shoulders, then cradling her face in their rough gentleness.
“I—It’s blurring now.” Her mind caught on his words.Hehadn’t prayed.Shecertainly hadn’t. But Valentine had said he’d been praying. She blinked again. The scale remained, filtering in the flickering yellow lamplight and dusky shadows and the undefined darkness of her father’s face.
“It’s black again?” Acute disappointment stung his words. His hands dropped from her face.
She shook her head. “I see a dim light. I just... I can’t see you anymore.”
“This is good. We must be close to appeasement.” He moved to the lararium, where she heard him arranging the figures and pouringa libation of wine. Two images played repeatedly before her darkened eyes. The bird’s black shadow skittering over her feet and, far dearer, her father’s face. The tribune nearly forgotten, giddy excitement coursed through her. Perhaps, perhaps the curse was beginning to lift.
Silvia’s screeching from the laundry announced the arrival of dawn.With hurried thanks to the gods, Iris and Quintus left the apartment for Paulina’s Bakery. If her feet sprouted wings, Iris doubted she would feel lighter. They chattered the whole way as if repeating what had happened over and over would reassure them that it was real.
A thought flickered to life in the hard layer of parched doubt in her mind. She squashed it.
No.
But when the thought came back, she didn’t crush it again. It had taken root. What did she have to lose? Today, if Valentine came into the bakery, she would confront him.
Iris fidgeted. Epimandos would be back soon and Valentine had not come. She’d moved through the morning, distracted and quiet—much to Epimandos’s delight, which was rather difficult to discern from his usual gloom and doom. The rain had slowed the late-morning shoppers to a trickle, and Iris stood behind the counter, bored and on edge. The more she longed for Valentine to walk through the door, the more annoyed she became for wanting him to.Hehad obviously not thought about her as much asshehad thought of him.
The door in the back opened and shut. Epimandos had made his deliveries with surprising speed despite the rain. Disappointment swirled in her gut. Hesitating a moment more, she moved to the back room and traded her apron for her heavy palla. Water dripped from Epimandos as he exchanged his wet tunic for a dry one.
“The street is a river.” Epimandos wrung water from his tunic. “My sandals are ruined. I am soaked. I will probably catch cold and die.”
“But the shop would be so dreary without you to cheer it up.”Iris wrapped the palla over her head and shoulders. “At least wait until Paulina comes back before you get sick and die. I can’t make the deliveries.”
Epimandos sniffed and walked past her into the front of the shop. “This place would fall apart without me.”
She took her walking stick and followed him, intending to leave through the front door, where she could walk beneath the protection of the barrel-roofed arcade over the market street.
Baskets crackled as Epimandos checked the contents. “Are we having fewer customers? Is it because Paulina is gone? I knew this was going to happen.”
“It’s probably the rain. No need to tell anyone we’re going out of business just yet.” Iris opened the door and stepped outside. “Have a good afternoon, Epimandos.”
“Hmmm.”
She shut the door behind her, leaving the bright warmth of the bakery for the breezy dampness of the Via Biberatica. Iris shuffled her way down the curved street, mentally ticking off the vendors as she passed them. Yanni’s Silk Slippers, the sponge and pumice stone shop,Neptune’s Oyster Bar, and Praxtus Perfumes across the street—which no one could miss. The door of the perfumery opened and shut, wafting a cloud of mismatched scent into the street. Iris held her breath.
“Iris!”
Her pulse jumped as Valentine’s sandals splashed across the street. She paused, concentrating on arranging her features into an expression that didn’t appear too eager and relieved to meet him again.
“Shopping for new perfume?” She coughed as Valentine arrived in a haze of burning scent.
“Oh no.” He shuddered. “Although my aunt would love nothing more. Are you going home?”
“Yes.”
“By yourself?”
