Rhita had visited Alexandreia only twice, both times before she was ten years old. Her mother, Berenikē, had thought it best to keep her only child close to the Hypateion and away from the cosmopolitan seductions of the Oikoumenē’s central city.

Berenikē had been an avid disciple of Patrikia, and had married Rhamōn, the sophē’s youngest son, more out of duty than love. She had loved her daughter fiercely, seeing in her a young image of Patrikia herself. In looks, however, Rhita resembled her mother more than her grandmother.

Now, with her mother dead a year, and Patrikia dead almost nine years, and her father still locked in a struggle for control of the Akademeia—in competition with theocratic elements her grandmother had openly despised—it had seemed best for her to take her talents and learning to the place where they might do the most good. If the Akademeia declined, at least she would be elsewhere, perhaps to establish a new Hypateion.

These worries were not foremost in her mind, however. They made her feel almost comfortable and secure when compared with her major concern.

For sixty years, Patrikia had searched for an elusive opening into a place she had called the Way. This gate had proven elusive, appearing at various times in various parts of the world only long enough to entice, never to be precisely located. Patrikia had died without finding it.

Rhita now knew precisely where the gateway was. It had stayed in one fixed position for at least three years. Such knowledge did not comfort her. She had become accustomed to her role, though hardly less resentful.

Knowing about the gateway had robbed her of her own life. Her grandmother, she thought, had imposed an almost impossible burden on a young girl by setting the instrument to recognize her touch, and hers alone.

Perhaps Patrikia had been a little crazy that year before she died. Crazy or not, she had given her granddaughter a terrible responsibility.

Everything else—her petition to study at the Mouseion, her personal life, everything—was subordinate to her knowledge.

She had not even told her father.

Rhita had hoped for a quiet life, but with a sigh, watching the seabird preen a wing, she knew that was not possible, not in this world. Even without the Objects, life at the Akademeia was going to be rough. All that she loved and was familiar with lay over the blue-black sea behind her.