Vivienne smiled warmly.
“And I’ve been thinking about something.”
“Yes?” Vivienne waited.
“I want to see Diana,” Milicent said. “A part of me is incomplete knowing that she is somewhere I can see her.” She paused. “And I shouldn’t go alone.”
Vivienne sipped some more, not in a rush to reply. “I know what you’re thinking,” she finally said. “But this world is not mine to fix.” She stared out at the sea. “It’s up to humanity.”
“Grandmother, we both know that’s not entirely true,” Milicent said with a bit of scolding in her voice. Vivienne glared at her but she didn’t back down. “You know this. History repeats itself because the core issue has never been dealt with. The landscape may look different, but the energy is exactly the same.”
Vivienne paused. “I am not the same,” she said, quietly but firmly.
Milicent softened and took her hand. “I understand deep wounds of the past and how they color the view of things. But this is your last chance. Magus has Skylar.” She followed Vivienne’s eyes to the horizon. They both knew what sat underneath the ocean, waiting to be discovered. She squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “It’s only a matter of time before he finds a way to extract the stone and it leads him to the citrine wall.”
“The stone is useless unless buried within the heart,” Vivienne said. “It works its magic through human compassion.”
“Magus believes differently,” Milicent said. “Technology has always been his religion.”
“He destroyed the world in the First Age with his technologies. Casting out love on his quest for power.” Vivienne’s eyes were sad but no tears would be shed. In recorded history, she had only ever shed one. She knew the secret locked within her tears and had decided long ago that no one would ever deserve that power—her vulnerability.
“Grandmother, I still struggle with finding balance between exorcising the past and letting it go,” Milicent said. “And I feel you must do the same.”
Vivienne chuckled softly. “Child, you have come so far, and grown so much,” she said.
“Who knew there was hope for me?”
“I did.” Vivienne squeezed her granddaughter’s hand.
Milicent tried to stay present but grew uncomfortable and began to fidget. “I need to go inside. This air is the worst for my hair.”
Noah turned down the volume on a YouTube video about the secrets under Antarctica. He looked up at Milicent through his BluBlocker glasses. “Mil, did you know that Antarctica is fresh water?”
“There is no saltwater ice, Noah, it’s chemistry,” she said. “The salt is squeezed out. But don’t listen to that garbage anyway.”
He immediately went back to scouring the internet.
“If you care to know the real truth, the caps are melting to return fresh water to the earth,” Vivienne said in the doorway. “The sleeping goddess of Gaia is waking up to restore the water to its original state. The curse will be lifted soon.”
“Is that so?” Milicent asked, her cool demeanor returned. “Mother Gaia is just going to swoop in and fix your mess? After all this time, you’ll just be exonerated, without any penance?”
Vivienne walked toward Milicent and stopped inches away from her. “Be careful how you judge others, dear one, for it is how you judge yourself.” She turned and walked out the door to the living room.
“She looked hurt, Mil,” Noah said.
“She needs to own her role in this mess.”
“That’s harsh,” he said.
“Yes. But all of the Great Mothers have their secrets, and they are usually wrapped around lost love. She loved Magus in the First Age. We’re talking thirteen thousand years ago, but a woman never forgets rejection.”
Noah wrinkled his nose with disgust. “He’s all shriveled and pruny. He must have looked better then.”
“He only looks that way in our timeline. He can manipulate his appearance to suit his needs. I’m sure he was disgustingly handsome in the First Age. I mean, why wouldn’t he be?” Milicent sat on a round, tufted chaise tucked behind the balcony door. “She’s kept a low profile ever since, perfectly happy to let Ocean run the show. But this is her karma to dissolve. The whole planet is in Dissolution. This is hers.”
Noah got up and walked to the floor-length window. “Mil, how long do you suppose we’ll be here in Italy? It’s just glorious. I could stay forever. The world back home is a distant memory.”
“In more ways than one,” she said, staring at her cuticles. “Washington is officially dead. And Rosen … It’s marred now that I know Devlin was playing me all those years. I spent thirty years of my life with the man while he was orchestrating some other horrible plan. It’s as if he had me under the spell I claimed to know so well.”
“I’m sorry, Mil.” Noah bent to take her hand, forcing her to look at him. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve loved every second of the past year. Even almost going to federal prison.” He got up and walked to the balcony door. “It’s probably too soon to ask what’s next.”
“What’s next is we have to stop Magus, once and for all. Then we can discuss a future.”
Argan sat with his arms resting on his knees, staring out at the sea. As the small waves lapped at his bare feet, he casually let the emerald stone slosh around in the tidewater. He sat so long, the water receded and the stone was left in a small tide pool the size of a puddle. He drew a heart around the green stone, and one last wave of the outgoing tide lightly splashed it.
“Come in, child,” his mother, Leonora, called from the back door. “You’ll catch cold.”
He shook his head. The women in his life loved to tell him what to do. All except one. Skylar balanced him, complemented him. He loved taking care of her, making her happy. Their time together had been so short. He made no effort to go inside. “It’s eighty degrees out, Mom,” he called back.
A minute later, Leonora took a seat in the sand beside him. Her long, black hair blew in wind. “Rain’s coming,” she said, looking at the sky.
Argan glanced up briefly, then returned his gaze to the horizon.
“You’ll wait until tomorrow.”
“Tonight,” he said curtly. “The weather doesn’t matter.”
She shrugged and glanced down at the stone in the water. “You should keep that in a safe place.”
“That is a safe place.” He chuckled to himself, thinking of Skylar’s haphazard care of the Book of Sophia. The light from the gem made the water around it glow fluorescent green. Argan watched the light extend from the stone and out into the sea.
“It’s reacting to the silver in the seawater,” Leonora said. “Most of the silver on the planet is dissolved in the ocean. That’s why the moon has such an effect on the tides. It’s pulling the silver around like a magnet pulls metal filings.”
Argan nodded, acknowledging the science trivia. He picked up the stone and the light faded. “It’s not that special,” he said, unable to convince his mother or himself.