Solon dragged a finger down his plate and licked the grease from it. “This isn’t a student council election. Atlas is the darkest force the Waking World has ever known.”
“How? He’s been trapped under the ocean for thousands of years,” Eureka said.
Solon stared into the waterfall for a long time. His voice was faint when he spoke at last. “There was a boy who lived two blocks from Byblis when she was a girl in Munich. They took a painting class together. They were … friends. Then Atlas took him. He possessed the mind of an ordinary boy and set a devil loose. At a certain point, Byblis died, but never mind that. Atlas didn’t leave his host’s body for years.” He waved a hand dismally. “The rest, unfortunately, is history. And if Atlantis rises, what the future holds is worse. You have no idea what you’re up against. You won’t understand until you’re face to face with him at the Marais.”
Eureka fingered Diana’s locket. Inside, her mother had written the very same word. Eureka popped its clasp and pulled the chain taut to show Solon. “What happens at the Marais?”
“Time will tell,” Solon said. “What do you know about the Marais?”
“It’s the Cajun word for ‘swamp.’ ” Eureka pictured the mythical city and its monster king rising from the bayou beyond her house. That didn’t seem right.
“But a swamp could be anywhere,” Ander said.
“Or everywhere,” Solon said.
“You know where it is,” Eureka said. “How do I get there?”
“The Marais is not on any map,” Solon said. “True places never are. Man has frittered away millennia speculating about where Atlantis once was. Did it droop beyond marlins in Florida, or amid icy Swedish mermaids? Did it sink alongside Antarctic seals? Is it undulating under Bahamian yachts, oozing beneath ouzo bottles in Santorini, wafting like palm fronds off the coast of Palestine?”
From the bedroom behind the tapestry, William whimpered in his sleep. Eureka rose to go to her brother, who often needed soothing from bad dreams, but the boy grew quiet again.
Solon lowered his voice. “Or maybe the whole continent just drifted, disinclined to settle down. No one knows.”
“In other words,” Ander said, “Atlantis could rise from anywhere.”
“Not at all.” Solon refilled his glass of prosecco. “Over the years the Marais’s latitude and longitude in the Waking World has shifted, but it is and always has been the place from where Atlantis must rise. The seafloor beneath the Marais is pliant in the exact shape of the lost continent. From there, Atlas can bring Atlantis up whole. A successful exhumation.”
“So it matters where the third tear hits the earth—” Ander said.
“If the third tear hits the earth,” Eureka said.
“Wherever the third tear hits, Atlantis will still rise,” Solon said, “but unless it falls on the Marais, it rises piecemeal, in jagged shards, like teeth growing in already decayed. Atlas would have ugly work to do to reunite his empire.” He grimaced. “And he would rather focus on … other things.”
“The Filling,” Ander said quietly.
“What is the Filling?” Eureka asked.
“You are far from ready to comprehend that,” Solon said. “The Marais is where Eureka must face the Evil One. He will be waiting there.”
Eureka remembered that vision of Brooks swimming toward her near the Turkish shore. It hadn’t been a vision. And it hadn’t been Brooks coming for her. It had been Atlas.
“No,” she said. “I think he’s here.”
Solon glanced around his cave and furrowed his brow at Eureka.
“Eureka’s confused,” Ander said. “On our way here she thought she saw the boy Atlas possessed. I told her it couldn’t be him—”