By Jove (24 page)

Marlowe stood over her, holding a cup of coffee and a muffin. He wasn’t smiling.

“Hi, Marlowe. Call me whatever you want. My wishes don’t seem to enter into anything anymore.” She waved the latest moose-like form into the air and nodded at the empty seat opposite her.

He sat down, still regarding her. “You don’t look so good.”

“Thank you.” She took a sip of her coffee. It didn’t burn her tongue, to her momentary surprise. Oh yes, wasn’t it
swell
being a goddess? She was immune to such little annoyances as pain and injury now, wasn’t she?

“I’m sorry. But you don’t. Are you sleeping much?”

“When I can. I didn’t think I’d need much anymore.” Sleep had become a luxury these days: whenever she lay down, she was kept awake by obsessively imagining all the places where Grant might be. Worse, when she managed to doze off, was the danger that she might dream of making love with Julian, as she had both Tuesday night and last night. She had a sneaking suspicion that he’d arranged to have those dreams sent to her; Olivia had agreed it was a possibility. It didn’t make prospect of going to sleep very welcoming. Easier just to skip the whole thing.

“Everyone needs to dream. Even gods.” He broke a piece off his muffin. “That’s what wine was supposed to be for. To let men dream awake. I thought that it would bring about a new world.”

“You and Timothy Leary.”

He finally smiled. “Better living through chemistry. Yes, well. I’m distressed at how my beloved wine gets abused and misused. As you are aware.”

Theo felt a stab of anger. “I didn’t do the abusing and misusing, if you’ll recall.”

“No, I guess you didn’t. I’m sorry. Grant is my friend.”

“Oh, and he isn’t my friend? What is this? ‘There’s that stupid little tramp who trifled with my buddy’s affections then went and slept with someone else?’ I don’t need this, Marlowe. I’m trying to solve this thing. Getting scolded by you doesn’t help. I can scourge myself quite well, thank you.” She started to get up. Her coffee cup rose obediently after her, and Theo snatched it angrily out of the air before anyone could see.

Marlowe looked up at her, and the frost that had edged his manner and voice melted a little. “Sit down, Theo. All right, I really am sorry. I can’t blame you for falling for Julian’s powers of persuasion. Especially since he had the help of my wine to do his dirty work.” He sighed. “I wish I could help you. But I can’t. And even if I could, I really don’t have any idea of where Grant is.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Theo rubbed at her forehead again. The headache was back.

“Truce?” He held out a hand with a glint of his old smile.

She took it. “All right.”

He picked up his coffee cup and touched it to hers. Instantly the steam stopped floating up from their surfaces, and the brown liquid inside the cups turned red. She smiled a genuine smile for the first time since Sunday, and picked up her cup filled with fragrant deep-red wine.

“To Grant,” Marlowe said, lifting his to her in salute. “Will you two have me back up at Eleusinian some day? I might stay longer next time.”

We two
. Tears burned the back of her throat. “If I can find him, we would be delighted.”

Chapter Seventeen

Her liquid breakfast with Marlowe that Thursday made Theo feel better than she had all week. At least
someone
in the department was talking to her.

Dr. Waterman had, that first morning, asked her to stay after class. When the rest of the students had left and she stood by his seat, he looked at her with such a sorrowful expression that she wanted to cry.

“I tried to protect you from all this. Back at the start of the year,” he said. “I saw that first afternoon that there would be trouble with Julian. I’m sorry I failed you, Theo.”

“It’s not your fault, Dr. Waterman.” He looked as though he were about to cry, too. “It’s—” Theo turned away.

He rose and folded her in a hug. “From ’Trite,” he’d said after letting go. “I wish—” But when she opened her mouth to speak, he’d shook his head again, and left.

Di and Paul and Freddy Herman had been almost painfully reserved all week, treating her with exaggerated politeness. Dr. Forge-Smythe too was sad-eyed, and kept encouraging her to have dinner with Renee “some night
soon
.” And every time she walked by June’s office, she would feel the woman’s eyes on her like an ice-cold auger.

“I’m a wreck,” she said to Olivia on Friday night in the Great Room. “Thank goodness it’s Friday, but not for the usual reasons. At least I don’t have to deal with anyone for a couple of days.”

She was grading Olivia’s class’s homework as she spoke, while Olivia read over Monday’s assignment in the textbook. Olivia had, somewhat shamefacedly, admitted that she was far more comfortable in Greek than in Latin.

“It’s what I grew up speaking,” she’d said, after asking Theo’s help.

“What about Grant? He did too, I assume.”

“No, not really. I don’t know what the Titans spoke, if they even spoke. But he’s at home in either language, far more than I am. He could have taught Greek just as well.”

Theo felt a little glow of pride. Of course he could. He was perfect. Then she laughed to herself, mockingly. Too bad she hadn’t thought that a few weeks ago.

“You’re doing it again,” Olivia observed.

“What?”

“Chastising yourself. I can always tell by that look of misery in your eyes. Beating up on yourself won’t help Grant.”

“No, I suppose not.” The sentences on the page in front of her were pulsating, large then small. She blinked at them and frowned, and they began to spiral. She clutched at the edge of the table.

“Theo! Are you okay?” Olivia said, looking up from her book.

“I don’t kn—I’m—I was dizzy, for a moment. Damn.” Theo rubbed the bridge of her nose and winced.

“Headache again?”

“All day today. I took an ibuprofen, but it didn’t even touch it.”

“It wouldn’t. Not anymore. Oh dear, we need a training manual for new deities.” Olivia looked sympathetic.

“Well, since you don’t get new deities very often, I don’t suppose there would be a big market for one. So, no more drugs for headaches and head colds and allergies?”

“You won’t need them, because you won’t get those any more.”

“This headache feels pretty real to me right now,” Theo muttered.

“You don’t need drugs. You need some ambrosia. All the gods need ambrosia every few days. Not having it won’t make you any less divine. But if you don’t get it, you’ll miss it—the headaches, and so on.”

“No,” Theo said flatly. “No ambrosia. I don’t want it or need it.”

“Theo, even I have it a few times a week. It’s like—oh, I don’t know. Like vitamins. You won’t die without them, but you won’t feel very healthy, either. Where you’re so new to immortality, you might need it more frequently than the rest of us do.”

“Oh, fine. And end up the way I did with Julian, so drugged and euphoric that I forget I’m looking for Grant? No thanks. I’ll do without.”

Olivia looked worried and rumpled her soft Grant hair. Theo watched her and winced again, but not from her headache. She looked away and added, “Maybe if Julian would stop looking at me like a wounded stag, I’d feel better.”

“Has he spoken to you at all?”

“No.” She’d been avoiding him, though whenever they passed each other in the hall she could feel his mind reach out to her, and see his hands rise slightly, as if in supplication, then clench into impotent fists.

“I hate to say this, but I think you’ll have to soon. None of the places where we thought Grant could be have panned out. You’ll have to talk to him, if only to try to prise some clues out of him.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. All right. Next week, if I must.” But she wasn’t looking forward to it.

…

That weekend Theo and Olivia combed every building on campus, though Theo was not quite sure what they were looking for as they peered at commemorative statues and into disused broom closets. Theo kept the editor in chief of the campus newspaper,
The Torch
, busy by pretending to be interested in writing a graduate student column, while Olivia examined its office minutely in the shape of a small gray mouse in case Julian had been in a punning mood when he banished Grant.

“We’re looking for a sense of Grant—a feeling of him. If he were in that tree over there”— Olivia pointed at an ancient hemlock tucked behind the Library —“we’d be able to feel it.”

“So right now all we can know is where he isn’t.”

“Well, yes. But that narrows things down, doesn’t it?” Olivia said brightly.

Theo tackled the department museum next. She brought her Latin class up for a treasure hunt, giving them lists of items, words, and images to find. Under cover of their bustle and chatter, she would try to examine as much of the collection as possible.

“What if he got turned into an intaglio and is put away in one of the locked drawers? How can I look there without a key?” she worried to Olivia while waiting for their classes to gather.

“You don’t need things like keys anymore, remember?” Olivia murmured patiently. “Just don’t be obvious about it when you search the locked places, that’s all.”

“Act casual. Act casual,” Theo muttered to herself as her students scattered in the museum. She followed the largest contingent from room to room, trying to look bored and contemplative as she moved from case to case and statue to statue.

“Why, Miss Fairchild. This is an unexpected pleasure,” said a gloomy voice behind her. Dr. Bellow had glided into the room on silent feet and stood next to her, stoop-shouldered and grim.

“Good morning,” Theo replied as cheerfully as she could, and willed herself not to edge away from him. “I know it was short notice, but I cleared bringing my first-year Latin class up here with June. I hope we’re not disturbing you. So no Kirby today?”

Dr. Bellow’s eyes were a flat black. With a little thrill of horror she realized that she could not discern pupils in them; they were like black holes, leading into nowhere.

“No, no. Not disturbing us at all. A treasure hunt? How clever. It’s nice to have so much life up here for a change. My poor Kirby’s down in my other office. We have a few students in the department who are allergic to dogs and object to his presence, so he’s staying there.” He smiled, and she shivered involuntarily. Allergies, heck. They were just tired of being sized up as potential dog food. Between him and his master—brrrrr.

“Was there something in particular you were looking for?” he continued, looking down at the open drawer before her. She had started on one of the locked cases.

“Oh, no. I never seem to have much chance to get up here and look around, so I’m taking advantage of being here now. I just love looking at these.” Her voice was getting higher and more sincere with every word. In a minute she’d sound like Minnie Mouse if she weren’t careful.

“Then you must come more often. I always enjoy visitors to my museum.”

“Thank you. I should really go see how they’re doing.” She inclined her head at the doorway, which the last of her students had just vanished through.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to be alone and undistracted to examine these beautiful pieces? But of course you must go with your class. Happy hunting.” His eyes gleamed with a faint hint of mockery.

“What?”

“Your class. Good luck on their treasure hunt.”

“Oh. Right. Thank you.” She scuttled away before he could say another word.

“He knew,” she said to Olivia hurriedly in the hallway after they had returned downstairs and class was over. “He knew why I was up there.”

“That’s not too surprising, is it? Did he try to keep you from looking at anything in particular?” Olivia looked alert.

“No. But he’s impossible to read. How have you stood him all these years?”

“Everyone has a relative they love to hate. We’re used to him. But I think we’ll need to go check the museum out more thoroughly soon.”

Julian passed then, amid a group of his second-year Greek students. He said nothing but met Theo’s eyes with his electric turquoise stare. She felt a jolt pass through her as their eyes locked, felt her mouth go dry and her heart thud slow and hard.

“Theo?”

Theo realized that she was clutching Olivia’s shoulder. Unblinking, Julian passed by, silent among the chattering students.

“I’m sorry. I got dizzy for a minute.” She shook her head and let her hand drop. Would this sort of thing happen every time she and Julian looked at each other?

Olivia frowned at Julian’s retreating back.

…

On Tuesday Renee convinced her to go out for dinner. Theo in turn tried to convince her to invite Olivia to tag along, but Renee refused.

“She never liked me much. Always thought I was silly. Of course she’s tremendously wise and skilled and powerful. But it always irked her that there was a power I wielded that she never could. She pooh-poohed it, but I knew it bothered her just the same. Especially after Paris.”

“Paris? What does France—” Theo frowned, then swallowed. “Oh.
That
Paris.”

“That Paris,” Renee agreed. “Handsome boy, but not much sense. He was almost too easy to convince. Let’s go.”

Instead of one of her favorite trendy spots featuring Ozark-Szechuan fusion cuisine or the other latest craze, Renee brought her to Dmitri’s. Theo froze when she saw the sign.

“No. Not there,” she said, stopping dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Why not? We all like it. You’ve been there lots,” Renee said, her eyes wide and innocent.

“If you’re planning on having Julian join us for dinner by accident—” Theo began angrily.

“Oh, puh-
leese
. Give me more credit for subtlety than that. And Julian knows better, too.” She took Theo’s arm and steered her inside. “
Bonjour
, Dmitri!” she trilled as he led them to a back table.

“He’s Greek,” Theo muttered at her.

“I know. He thinks I’m French.”

Once they were seated, Renee turned serious. “I won’t deny that Julian wanted me to come here with you tonight.”

Theo felt her cheeks flush. “So I was right.”