“Crap,” Marina said. “Nothing like making things more difficult.”

“If it was easy, we wouldn’t be talking,” Alexios said. “I’d be happily wearing my purple jeans somewhere that I wasn’t judged for such fashion choices, and you would be dealing with your personal problems without the benefit of an extra ten thousand dollars in your bank account.”

“Touché,” Marina said. “Okay. Well, show us the original. It could be that some things about it remained the same.”

“Almost certainly so,” Alexios agreed. “Aphrodite’s blood was woven into the gemstone, so that’s the most likely commonality you’ll fine. And, of course, the quality of the silver would be the same, but that’s not as easy to test.”

He pulled out his cell phone and accessed photos.

“Really?” Halcyon said. “You can’t just conjure up a hologram? Even Iron Man can do that.”

“Sometimes streaming service doesn’t work all that great from our world, so we ditched holograms in favor of your phone system,” Alexios said. He turned the phone around and they both leaned in to look.

The ring was beautiful, but then Marina hadn’t expected anything less from a piece of jewelry made by a god. The silver was fashioned into tiny threads, wrapped around one another like vines, that formed the band. In the center was a single huge ruby, the color so bright and clear that it looked as if it had a light in it.

“Wow,” Halcyon said. “That’s seriously pretty. I don’t suppose Hephaestus takes commissions. I’ve got a couple wedding rings I’d like to do something with.”

Alexios frowned. “I’m certain that falls outside of his normal fare.”

“It wouldn’t have to be magical or anything,” Halcyon said. “And I’d really prefer it if no one bled on it.”

“It’s still a no,” Alexios said, then looked at Marina. “I’ll text this photo to you along with the specifications for the ruby and the silver.”

“Thanks,” Marina said, but she was feeling far less optimistic now that they’d talked to Alexios.

“You look disheartened,” Alexios said. “Please don’t give up so soon.”

“I’m not giving up,” Marina said. “I’m just trying to figure out how I’m supposed to find something when I don’t know what it looks like.”

“We believe that when you see the object, you’ll know,” Alexios said. “Hephaestus thinks you might even feel the pull of the ring when you’re near.”

“This one thinks. That one believes,” Halcyon said. “After all this time, you don’t know crap, do you?”

Alexios straightened, looking mildly insulted. “Magic is a difficult thing to pin down, especially when we all have different abilities. There’s no historical consistency to draw from. Drakos was gifted in the art of deception, and that came through in his ability to make objects appear differently than they were. No one else has had a similar ability and with Drakos dead, we can’t exactly ask him how it works.”

“So what happened to Aphrodite and Drakos’s love child?” Halcyon asked.

“Is this relevant to the search for the ring?” Alexios asked.