“What were you thinking?” Iason whispered as he, Sophie, and a muttering Levi left the tent. “We don’t have time to fish for an entire rebellion. We need to work out what’s happening between me and that dragon and then get out of Mislia.”
“His name’s Levi,” Sophie said, as Levi opened his mouth. “And I know that. But how are you going to convince them to let you look through their stuff if they don’t trust you?” She handed Iason the box of fishing tackle. “It’s how things worked in the courtesan house my aunt used to run. If a courtesan wanted a favor from another one, they did something nice for them first. So: fish first, get books later. You’re welcome.”
She stomped off, fishing poles bouncing on her shoulder as she marched across the sand toward the tide pools. Iason gave Levi a look, and Levi smiled.
“Don’t say a word,” Iason growled.
“I don’t need to,” Levi said, striding after Sophie. “I think you’ve already been sufficiently chastened, don’t you?”
Iason muttered darkly to himself and followed them, hauling the tackle box, as bright midday sunlight fell over the sloping dunes.
* * *
Levi—best to think of himself by the name everyone else was using, which had been given to him originally by his little brother Astra, when the dream lord was new to his throne—stood in the sunshine while Iason explained fishing to Sophie, who clearly knew what she was doing and yet was patient enough to let him tell her anyway.
It was odd, watching them together. It reminded Levi of how they’d all been with Astra, when he was young and desperately lonely, creating fantastical dream landscapes to entice his new family to spend time with him. He’d given them all nicknames, too: Azaiah was Az, Leviathan was Levi, even Ares wasArie,though Levi had never been around his sibling enough to know how they felt about it. But all of them were very indulgent of Astra, even now, fully grown to his power as he was.
“Iason, Iknow,” Sophie said, as Iason once again critiqued her casting method. Levi wondered if he should simply call the fish to the shore. Perhaps it meant something to them, to go through these motions. Tedious though it might be. “Really. I grew up fishing. Did you?”
There was a pause, a tense moment, and Sophie’s voice went soft. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” Iason said, voice gone rough, and put a hand briefly on her shoulder.
She was no relation to the man, but their currents ran close together, nearly mingling. If she didn’t think of him as a father yet, she would. And if not a daughter, she made Iason think of—someone. Levi could catch only a glimpse of a face wreathed with soft silvery-blond hair, eyes the same silver-violet as Iason’s, a body racked with illness. The image flickered and faded; Levi would need to touch him to see more. But he at least understood that Sophie was important not merely because of who she was, but because of someone Iason couldn’t save.
It had been some time since Levi thought of Pallas, the god of art who’d turned into the spirit of decay. Her corruption didn’t touch his realm, and they’d never been close, but he recalled that her absence grieved the former god of dreams, Somnus, and of course Azaiah, who couldn’t take her hand and lead her into death as he should. Loss was not unknown to Levi, given that three of his siblings required mortal successors, but he’d always been closest to Avarice, who would endure as long as humans walked the earth. And before Desire, long ago, it had been only him and the cool, clean waters, watching life grow.
Sophie caught a fish, but it was too small to be anything but bait. Levi sent a quiet thought into the sea, calling forth fish so that she would have something to show for her effort, and watched as she whooped in delight when she pulled in her line with a much larger catch. She did that three times in a row, and then both she and Iason turned to give Levi alookwhen the third fish on her line was a tuna—a species typically found in much deeper waters.
Levi shrugged. “You’d be here a while if you were trying to feed people with reef fish.”
Iason left Sophie to her fishing and came over, eyes narrowed, but his tone was benign when he said, “You’re doing that, then.”
“Yes. Would you prefer I not?”
“Yes, actually. It’s going to seem strange. That she can catch those kinds of fish, here. People know. They’ll talk.”
“They won’t be hungry,” Levi pointed out. “And it isn’t like they don’t know who I am. That one, the man we spoke to. He knows.”
Iason frowned, pushing his hair out of his face. The way he kept fussing with it, he must be used to wearing it shorter. “Lazaros, you mean?”
“Yes. The mage with the library demon.”
“Lazaros,” Iason repeated slowly, as if he were talking to a child with a poor memory. “His name is Lazaros.”
Levi rarely concerned himself with learning the names of humans, as most of them simply did not matter, but he supposed there was no helping it in this situation. “Lazaros. Yes. He knows I’m not human, and I’m guessing he suspects I’m the dragon.”
“Aye, you weren’t very subtle.” Iason glanced over at Sophie, who was deliberately not looking at them. “What you did before, when you… touched me. Touched Sophie. You could see something, aye?”
Levi nodded. “Your current, yes. It’s the life force that runs through everyone. My brother senses when it has come to an end. I sense it because all life comes from my seas.”
“I guess that explains the ego. If you—if you try again, I could use magic and examine our connection, perhaps. But I’d have to borrow it from you, unless any of those tuna Sophie’s caught has some to spare.”
“The tuna aren’t magic, Iason,” Levi said. “If they were that clever, they wouldn’t have gone for the bait.”
“I thought that was your doing.”
“No. My influence drew them, that’s all. Yes, I can do it again. And you may use my power, since you asked. But I don’t have magic. That’s a human construct.”
