The world: it’s all he ever loved. The forest behind Arcady Lane, the busy meanderings of ants, the zip and swerve of dragonflies, the rustling of the aspens, the tart sweetness of the first huckleberries of July, the sentinels of the ponderosas, older and more patient than any beings he would ever know, and Trustyfriend the owl on his branch overseeing it all.

Are bombs going off in other cities, other nations right now? Are Bishop’s warriors mobilizing? And is Seymour the only one who has failed?

He steps off the stage and is moving toward the corner, where three bookcases have been arranged to create an alcove, when the wounded man calls from the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey, kid! I have your backpack. If you don’t come downstairs right now, I am going to carry it outside and give it to the police.”

SIXTEEN

THE RIDDLE OF THE OWLS

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio ∏

Though there have been many guesses, the riddle of the owls guarding the gates has been lost to time. The solution here has been inserted by the translator and was not part of the original text. Translation by Zeno Ninis.

… I thought, “Simple but actually complicated. Or was it complicated but actually simple? ·[He that knows all that Learning ever writ. Could the answer be water? An egg? A horse?”]·

… Though the tortoise with his honeycakes had plodded out of sight, I could still smell them. I ·[paced?]· on my crow feet, my talons sinking into the soft pillow of the clouds. The rich scents of cinnamon and honey and roasting pork flowed over me from the far side of the gates, and I flapped through the caverns of my mind, traveling from one end to the other, but I found nothing there.

The other shepherds were right to call me a dimwit and an airhead, a muttonheaded lamebrain. I turned to the two enormous owls with their golden spears and said, “I know ·[nothing]·.”

The two owls ·[stood straight up and the first guardian said, “That is correct, little crow. The answer is nothing,” and the second guardian said, “ ‘He that knows all that Learning ever writ, knows only this—that he knows nothing yet.’ ”]·

… they stepped aside and ·[as though I’d said the magic words]· the golden gates swung wide…

FOUR MILES WEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE

MAY 1453

Anna

From the top of the occasional swell, she can glimpse the now-distant shape of the city to the northeast, glowing faintly. In all other directions lies nothing but heaving blackness. Wet, exhausted, and seasick, the sack clamped to her chest, Anna ships the oars and gives up bailing. The sea is too large and the boat is too small. Maria, you were always the better sister, the wiser sister, moving on to the next world just as this one broke in half. An angel in one child, Widow Theodora used to say, and a wolf in the other.