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of the townhouse he and Juliette had rented in The Pearl District of Portland and opened his book. The letters swam out of focus. He rubbed his eyes, but the words remained slightly blurry. It was a side effect of the higher dose of Paroxetine, but worth it to still the tremors. He closed his eyes for a moment to rest them, thinking back to the past…
    • • •
    Malledy was ten years old and walking through a stone hallway on the lower level of Castle Aertz. His fingers brushed along the gorgeous silk tapestries lining the walls: hunts with horse and hound and smartly-garbed lords and ladies; the ancient Greek boy, Icarus, flying too close to the sun; various religious scenes including the Last Supper and Madonna and Child; the poet, Dante, his face fearful seeing the ferocious monster who guarded the gates of Hell. Stopping, Malledy stared into Dante’s face. “I know how you feel,” he told the terrified mortal, because he was afraid, too.
    Climbing carved stone steps Malledy passed stunning stained glass windows that filtered the last rays of sunlight and painted the walls amber, ruby, and sapphire. His footfalls were muted as he tread along Persian and Turkish carpets.
    “Where am I going?” he asked aloud. But he already knew the answer. He was going to the bonsai garden where his fate would be decided.
    Malledy noticed several things when he entered the garden. The ornate bonsai trees were dusted with a light snow. Juliette was standing in the front row of the gathering, her green eyes hopeful, and her breath making tiny puffs of white that evaporated in the cold air. Ninety-three Archivists ranging in age from twenty-eight to ninety-seven were gathered beneath the purple sky that preceded darkness, ready to rule on whether the ten-year-old would become one of them or be removed from the Order.
    Otto, the Elder who led the Archivists and Juliette’s former lover, nodded to Malledy. A reed-thin man with a perfectly manicured salt-and-pepper goatee, aquiline nose, and deep-set hazel eyes, Otto was known for his brilliance and his unwavering determination to fulfill a client’s desires at any cost. He gestured to the gathering. “It’s time to make your case, boy.”
    Malledy walked slowly into the circle of Archivists. Instead of telling them that he was fluent in nine languages, including Clickita, an all but lost African dialect he’d managed to teach himself, or that he could grasp advanced physics, calculus, chemistry, biology and philosophy, he pulled a small, intricately-stitched leather pouch from his pocket.
    It had taken Malledy the better part of a year to locate the artifact inside that pouch. After exhaustive research and countless dead-ends, he and Juliette had ended up on a boat through the frigid Pacific Ocean to Easter Island. Once on the island, Malledy had discovered the artifact by following a map chiseled into a flat rock owned by a Mapuche shaman who’d disappeared without a trace. The map had led him to an enormous toppled stone head carved by ancient Polynesians. Inside the head, he’d discovered the leather pouch said in ancient lore to have been a gift from Zeus to his followers.
    The discovery should have been reported to the antiquities department of Chile, where it would be catalogued and end up on display in a dusty museum. But that was never going to happen because it now belonged to an Archivist and, ultimately, his paying client. Should anyone have disagreed, Juliette and the other Archivists would have changed their minds—permanently.
    Standing among the silent Archivists, Malledy withdrew from the pouch a perfectly smooth, oblong black rock. In its center was a jagged white-marble streak. Mouth dry, uncertain if this talisman would be enough to save his young life, Malledy had held it in his palm and spoken a phrase in ancient Greek. He repeated his words again and again, each time louder, until they began to tumble into each other with force.
    The white vein in the