“Treasure is like a beautiful woman,” Séverin had once said. “It wants to know that you have taken the time to understand it before it reveals itself.”

Enrique had feigned gagging. “If I were treasure, and I heard you utter that, I would sink to the bottom of the ocean where you would never find me.”

He then proceeded to parrot the line for six months straight.

Séverin had not been amused.

When Enrique thought of it now, he almost smiled, but the movement disturbed the wound where his ear had been. His smile dropped.

“What’s this?” asked Zofia.

He turned to see Zofia holding up a small metal frame. Inside were five clay fragments, their surfaces covered in a wedge-like script. Before, he would have held it closely—almost reverently—to his heart. He would have traced the air above the wedges, imagining the blunt reed that had taken an idea and pinned it to this shape. Now he glanced away.

“Assyrian cuneiform, I believe,” said Enrique. When Zofia looked at him expectantly, Enrique took it as an invitation to explain. Zofia did not always want to listen to him. On more than one occasion, she had simply walked off when he was in the middle of a lecture, and so he had learned to wait and let her decide. “About ten years ago, the Society of Biblical Archaeology wished to corroborate events in the Bible with historical events, particularly the deluge.”

“Deluge?” asked Zofia.

“Also known as the great flood,” said Enrique. “Noah and the ark.”

Zofia nodded in understanding.

“There was an article published in 1872 that talked about the discovery of cuneiform tablets in the Library of Ashurbanipal near Nineveh…” said Enrique, glancing at the frame. “When they translated the tablets, they found another mention of the deluge. It was the first time people realized there were various instances of a ‘great flood’ occurring across the world … across different cultures, different traditions. As if this one great event didn’t belong to a single people. It’s groundbreaking, really, though the Order of Babel has tried to block further research and translation of the tablets ever since.”

“So they no longer wish it to be proven?” asked Zofia, frowning. “The higher the frequency of a recorded event, the higher the likelihood that it actually happened.”

“Not if it contradicts their view of themselves, I suppose,” said Enrique.

He couldn’t hide the bitterness that snuck into his tone. In the past, he would have been livid. He remembered an essay he had written at university arguing that such practices were an effort to take a paintbrush and pair of scissors to history, an act that no human had a right to commit. At the time, anger shook through him, turning his handwriting scratchy and feverish.

But now, he felt curiously flat. What was the point of his frustration? Of his essay writing and plans for great speeches? Would it even make a difference in the world, or did the right to make a difference only lie in the hands of the privileged few?