The Breaking — Chapter 37

I waste no time finding someone who can mark skin with ink: a Thrakian sailor on the crew of the Adrestia, Barnabas's old ship. He'll come to my estate when he's finished helping twist new ropes for the ship's rigging. Three days

The Breaking — Chapter 36

Bruises heal, though the rift between Melitta and I remains, a festering wound we're both too stubborn to tend to in the way it truly needs: a good lancing to let everything air out. For the good of the house, we wordlessly settle into a truce.

The Breaking — Chapter 35

In Barnabas's workroom, two pairs of eyes stare at me in disbelief and two voices speak at the same time.

The Breaking — Chapter 34

Zinas could have told me anything. He could have fed me all sorts of lies about Atarbion, Epagathos, and Grifos, knowing he'd be far outside my reach by the time the falsehoods were discovered. It takes Melitta and her crew of informants several days to track down his

The Breaking — Chapter 33

No one's surprised when a messenger arrives the next day to deliver an apologetic note refusing my offer. And not only that: Epagathos wants to visit my estate with Nicea on hand to meet with my orphans. The matter of his missing slavegirl must be resolved.

The Breaking — Chapter 32

They come to me in ones and twos: children without family, children living on the city streets or in the forested outskirts, children who've heard stories of a wondrous palace in a valley below the great statue of Artemis, where there's always food to eat and

The Breaking — Chapter 31

Autumn on Mykonos. Warm days, heavy-scented with figs and apples. Chill nights, clear and sparkling. The olive harvest has the farmhands working from dawn to dusk, and the fine weather allows the construction work around the estate to keep up a fast pace. In the mornings, I conduct household business:

The Breaking — Chapter 30

The day the oaks on the hillsides begin to turn gold, the foreman overseeing construction declares that the villa's new roof could withstand a deluge from Poseidon himself. Though the walls inside have yet to be covered with plaster, I direct my household to move in. None of

The Breaking — Chapter 29

Mykonos was a prosperous island when I left it five years ago, but judging by all the empty berths at the docks and the number of laborers standing around aimlessly, the tides of good fortune appear to have gone out. The few merchants selling wares in the agora are guarded

The Breaking — Chapter 28

The stories were right about Thera: its waters are infested with pirates, their black sails prowling the seas like packs of wolves. But Captain Gelon's ship is a nimble little pentekonter, and when I ask if she's worried about being attacked, she says, "Fuck no!