Ever since his assistants had arrived that afternoon, Solon had been quiet. He would offer no further details on Eureka’s Tearline while the redheaded girl Filiz passed in and out of alcoves, clearing dishes, making fires. She looked uneasy, like she’d gone to a party far from home and lost her friends.
Before Filiz left for the night, she’d redressed Dad’s shoulder and brewed a potent pennyroyal tea that tucked him into sleep in the guest room behind the orange and red hanging tapestry. The twins slept on pallets at his side. Cat had refused food or rest until she reached her family, so Solon’s other assistant, a boy introduced as “the Poet,” escorted her to a veranda where there was a slim chance his phone might find reception.
The Poet was tall and sexy with the paint-stained fingertips of a graffiti artist. He and Cat had appraised each other intensely. As they spiraled up the winding staircase, Cat had drawn an aerosol can of paint from his cargo pocket. “So, you’re an artiste.…” Eureka assumed they’d be gone for hours.
At last, Solon led Eureka and Ander to a stone table in the center of his salon. The waterfall’s mist reached Eureka’s skin, dampened the maroon satin bathrobes she and Ander wore while their clothes dried over stones around the fire pit.
“The Tearline is tied to a lunar cycle,” Solon said. “When you cried yesterday morning, you may have noticed the waxing crescent low in the sky? That was when the Rising began. It must complete before the full moon, nine days from now.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Ander asked.
Solon raised an eyebrow and disappeared into his kitchen. He returned a moment later carrying a tray filled with chipped, mismatched ceramic bowls of creamed spinach, egg noodles swimming in mushroom gravy, nuts and apricots drowned in honey, crunchy chickpeas, and a big wedge of dense, sugary baklava.
“If Atlantis does not rise before the next full moon, the Waking World will become a swamp of wasted dead. Atlas will return to the Sleeping World, where he must await the next generation of Tearline girl, should there be one.”
“What do you mean—wasted dead?” Ander asked.
Solon held up an earthenware platter and offered it to Eureka. “Schnitzel?”
Eureka waved the plate away. “I assumed the rise was already complete.”
“That depends on how many of your tears hit the ground,” Solon said. “It is my belief that you shed only two, but you must enlighten me. The number will establish our position in this catastrophe.”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I didn’t know I was supposed to keep track.”
Solon turned to Ander, slid a cutlet onto his plate. “What’s your excuse?”
“I know each tear carries a unique weight,” Ander said, “but I never knew the formula. I didn’t know about the lunar cycle, either. The Seedbearers were secretive, even though I was family. After you left, they had to be careful who they trusted.”
“They keep secrets because they are afraid.” Solon swallowed a bite of meat and closed his eyes. His voice assumed a soft lilt as he began to sing.
“One tear to shatter the Waking World’s skin.
A second to seep through Earth’s roots within.
A third to awaken the Sleeping World and let old kingdoms rebegin.”
His eyes opened. “ ‘The Rubric of Tears’ was the last song sung before the Flood. It’s a metaphor, for life or death or—”
“Love,” Eureka realized.
Solon tilted his head. “Go on.”
Eureka didn’t know where the idea had come from. She was no expert on love. But “The Rubric of Tears” reminded her of how she’d felt when she met Ander.
“Maybe the first tear,” she said, “shattering our world’s skin, represents attraction. When Cat likes a guy, she never calls it a crush. She says ‘shatter’ is more accurate.”
“I know what she means,” Ander said.
“But love at first sight doesn’t lead anywhere,” Eureka said, “unless the second sight goes deeper.”