Return (Matt Turner Series Book 3) by Michael Siemsen

Author:Michael Siemsen [Siemsen, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Paranormal Suspense, The Opal, Psychic Mystery, The Dig, Matt Turner Series, archaeology thriller, sci-fi adventure
Publisher: Fantome Publishing
Published: 2015-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Alexandria, Aegyptus – 271 CE

Patra dismissed Unza and turned back to her mirror. “Hello, Steward. As you’ve observed, we are in crisis. You may or may not be aware, but the preservation of the Library’s collection has been we stewards’ duty since its earliest days, a mission launched by Euclid as the very first scroll slid into the stacks. But it was Zenodotus, the first librarian, who, along with Alexander Aetolus and Lychophron of Chalcis, organized our collection, and established the role of library steward to ensure knowledge’s persistence. The voice conveys knowledge−”

She considered going on, studying her own eyes for trustworthiness, and opted to leave it there.

“I’m walking to the Governor house,” she said as she passed Unza, polishing a silver goblet, “and then to the Serapeum.”

Unza grunted without looking up from her task.

Patra made her way down each of the Musaeum complex’s levels—ignoring hails from alarmed members above, and avoiding the pregnant gazes of passers-by—until she reached the main gate. The road outside the high walls bustled with distraught citizens with full arms, some leading slaves carrying their litters filled instead with valuables, or hauling loaded carts from the Palace District toward the temples. Foolishly, the moneyed populace believed Emperor Antonius would sooner respect the temples’ sanctity over that of anything else in the Royal Quarter.

Heading uphill toward the Governor’s residence, Patra drew her palla across her face to filter the dusty air. The busy main thoroughfare continued on to the temples, while Patra veered left up the private road.

Dense, spiraled bushes flanked a pair of marble pedestals, marking the estate’s formal entry path for guests, but Patra had little interest in climbing the near-one-thousand stairs leading to the front gate. Instead, she remained on the road, a flagstone-paved route that led to the primary entrance in back.

Halfway up the incline, her lungs and feet demanded a rest, so she paused, glancing out toward the now-visible sea.

So many ships.

She looked up the curving road again, the palace’s second story looming beyond the path’s crest. From his verandas, Cassius would have an even better view of the cluttered waters to the north. Did he fear for his own life? What might he be planning? There was certainly more to consider than the Musaeum, if he even intended to take Thomas’s purported advice to offer up the offending performers at the bay. It remained for her difficult to imagine Cassius taking such a cowardly approach. Then again, she still had trouble seeing him as governor, that rascally boy with whom she’d grown up.

She continued uphill, recalling the young Cassius in his family’s orchard.

Sometime after her mother’s death, Patra’s father began courting Cassius’s widowed mother. That summer, the two adolescents spent every day together, either exploring the vineyard, reading in the vine-shaded atrium, or playing in the small river.

Patra would never forget the day he’d pulled her behind a low wall, slid out of his tunic, and said, “Now you.”

She expressed her skepticism, but obliged him nonetheless. The two sat in

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