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was not hiding her movements from me, I think, so much as from herself. I closed my left eye to block the greater part of the sun, and cocked my head slightly to bring my right into shadow where I could see her better without quite watching her.
    At the pace of a flower opening, Mistress Danae shifted her bundles of rotting straw and cloth and began to sweep the dirt on the floor with her left forearm. She was making a place at the center of the little round room. If the tower truly was a grave marker, that was most likely the occupant’s resting place.
    Was he one of the uneasy dead with whom Ilona spoke? My hostess and protector had a secret life among the graves of which she would sometimes hint in fragments, but had never shared directly. For my own part, I had too many dead of my own to want to open congress with that world.
    Erio.
    That was the word she had first whispered to me. “Erio” must be the name of whoever slept away the centuries here.
    Eventually she cleared a spot about the size of a coffin lid. Marble gleamed faintly in the shadows, the stone catching the sunlight from my doorway. I watched sidelong as Danae polished the exposed stone for a while. When her voice cracked to life again, though almost an hour had passed, it seemed no surprise. “Erio wishes to speak with you.”
    One hand patted the empty spot.
    I knew what happened to those who slept among the graves. Besides Mistress Danae, Ilona was the only permanent resident up here. She acted as a sort of guardian, though these dead seemed quite capable of maintaining themselves. Others came and went, I had been told, seeking the wisdoms of the past by taking a night or two or ten among the graves, until the whispering ghosts drove them out again.
    What no one ever seemed to understand about the past was that the people who lived there were just as petty and thoughtless and misinformed as those today. The dead had only the advantage of the veil of years to make them seem noble and wise.
    Still, this was why Ilona had sent me up these hills one last time before I made to take my leave of her. To learn what might be here for me to learn.
    Moving very slowly, though nowhere near Danae’s creeping pace, I stretched to my feet and sidled once more into her shadows. I was careful not to turn head-on, but rather kept myself sideways to her. That seemed to alarm my old mistress less. At the cleared spot, I lowered myself to the marble and stretched out as if for a nap. The stone was far colder than I had expected. I rolled to one side and placed my ear against the ground.
    From outside, the autumnal insect hum built louder. Winter lurked already in this patch of ground to which I had pressed my face. Though I had not seen them in the dim light of the tower’s interior, I could feel incised letters against my cheek.
    Mistress Danae’s hand brushed my ankle, only for a moment; then she scuttled back to her resting place with a speed that must have felt blinding in her silent, years-long stupor. I closed my eyes and let the dank quiet of the tower wrap me. Already the noises and scents of the day outside seemed to be fading. It was as if I had taken ship, and the meadow was a receding shoreline.
    â€œWhy do you tarry here, little foreign girl?”
    The male voice was so close, so normal, that I startled. My muscles twitched as my free hand brushed the hilt of my long knife. Mistress Danae squeaked some small, animal terror, but did not flee.
    â€œI was bid to lie down in this place.” As I spoke, my lips brushed against the slab of the grave. I felt foolish.
    â€œYou are needed in your city.”
    A man, definitely. Speaking the Petraean of Copper Downs with a curious accent, but clear enough. He sounded old, tired, and distracted. Or perhaps bored. Surely death was the most uninteresting part of life?
    I denied Copper Downs again. “It is not my city.”
    â€œYou who birthed a god and slew one on the