Gram squinted at both linen garments. “Is there a difference?”
“Roman or Greek. There’ll be some Romans about, especially since they’ll be in Caesar’s section of the city. Farway is fluent in Latin, so it’d be safer to go Roman if anything happened to his translation tech.”
“You did tell Bel we were getting togas,” Gram pointed out.
Imogen chose a toga virilis for Farway and an unadorned stola for Eliot. Below the rack was a row of leather shoes. They weren’t as finely crafted as hers—straight from the source—but one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the reproduction and the original.
CLOTHES: CHECK
SHOES: CHECK
DIGNITY: MOSTLY INTACT, NO THANKS TO BEL. AS LONG AS YOU GET OUT OF HERE WITHOUT SAYING SOMETHING IRRETRIEVABLY STUPID.
Gram, however, seemed in no rush to leave. He’d taken a bright purple toga picta off the rack. “These must have been comfortable.”
“Hashing comfortable. Like walking around in a cloud all day.” Imogen nodded to the golden embroidery on the outfit’s edges. “Showy, too. It’s what generals used for their victory parades.”
“You know so much.” Gram looked out over the warehouse: Regency gowns and neon jumpsuits, armor and tuxedos. “There’s so much to know.”
“Says the boy with two Academy tracks to his name.”
“Never did make it to Historian.” His smile went past wry into crescent-moon territory. “It’s amazing, everything you do.”
Imogen’s insides were starting to go zero G again. She grabbed the rack next to her to keep from floating off, an impossibility that seemed very likely, because dimples! “Well, I mean, guiding a ship full of miscreants through time is pretty snazzy, too.”
“That’s just numbers.” Gram shrugged.
“Just numbers! Ha! There’s a reason I make you sort out multicentury exchange rates. ’Twere I an Engineer, we’d probably get stuck halfway between the Grid and the late Cretaceous Period, watching T. rexes tromp about through the vistaport.”
The Engineer’s grin grew, lifting Imogen another few centimeters. “Getting stuck like that isn’t possible.”
“Exactly.” She smiled back. “I’m that bad at math. Being a Historian is just teaching yourself to learn. It’s about knowing the landscape to a T, but also being flexible for whatever curveballs the past tosses your way.”
“I wish I could live in the tangled places so confidently.”
Really? One of the things she loved about Gram was his neatness. There was always an order to the way he did things, a predictability that was more comfortable than boring. He was steady, stoic, smart. He was always there, in the chair across from hers—taking them beyond, bringing them home. He was perfectly him.
“Your brain works in clicks and mine in swirls,” Imogen said. “The Invictus needs both.”
“Clicks and swirls.” The words had felt like mist from her lips; they solidified against Gram’s when he repeated them. “I like that.”
This exchange was going well. She hadn’t said anything stupid. The awkwardness she’d feared between them all day was nowhere to be felt. There was a tension, but it was a good kind—less like scraping teeth, more of a whisper down her skin, shivering to the end of every capillary.
Priya and Eliot popped up on her shoulders, cartoon consciences. Instead of the normal angel-devil routine, both said the same thing: Tell him.
Imogen squeezed the Roman garments to her chest and wondered if she could. Was there enough courage clinging to her? Enough to say I like you, maybe, but could she survive the break if he didn’t feel the same way? Could she walk back to the Invictus with him in one piece? Could she sit in the chair across from him every day after, feeling the jaggedness between them, a fresh wound every time?
She had to say something. This silence was getting ridiculous.
Her breath hitched. Her mouth opened.
Gram’s did, too. “Look, Imogen. Last night—”
The darkness cut him short. Above them the warehouse lights died, then hummed slowly back to life. Bel’s way of saying Closing time! There are places to be and people to see!
“We’ll be up in a second!” she yelled at the stairwell, mind tumbling. Look, Imogen was a phrase ripe for disappointment; nothing good could follow it. She could still get out of here with her dignity intact, but she’d have to act fast. “It was great, wasn’t it? Look, we need to jet. If I’m the reason Bel’s late for a date, I’ll never live it down. Do you want to pick up some pizza for the crew on the way back?”
Swirling, swirly, swirls. The lights hadn’t recovered from the switch, the closet dim around them. Imogen’s vision was broken down to outlines—linen rumpled in her arms, the sharp edges of racks. Though Gram stood close to her, most of his expression was lost. The only thing she could see for sure was that his smile was gone.
“Yeah, sure. Pizza sounds great.”
He turned to leave. Imogen followed, wondering if she’d said something irretrievably stupid after all.
26
TUMBLING INTO A PAPYRUS TINDERBOX
THE INVICTUS WAS ALREADY IN FLIGHT, gliding over the Mediterranean with all the grace and shape of a moon-stung cloud. June 11, 2155 was a beautiful night—stars blanketing the black like a chorus—but none of the crew paused to savor it. Far and the others were eating pizza instead, nibbling through two large hot-boxes of Margherita pie, plus a pan of tiramisu. The dinner and adjacent planning session were a shipwide affair—even Bartleby was there, dressed in a toga. The stola meant for Eliot hung by Saffron’s tail with the rest of the wardrobe, linen hem just long enough to graze Far’s head every time he moved.
He fought the urge to swat at it.
Imogen stood by the mannequin’s side, walking the crew through the finer points of their heist. It wasn’t like his cousin to get stage fright—but her briefing came across shaky. Throat clearing, hair tucking, sentences riddled with ums.
“The Library of Alexandria was, um, the most significant collection of knowledge in the ancient world. Poetry, physics, philosophy, astronomy… This place had it all, until Caesar’s conflagration situation. Eliot’s, um, buyers have their credits set aside for two works in particular: the manuscripts of the Greek lyric poet Sappho and the history of the ancient world as recorded by Berossus. The exact locations of these scrolls are unknown, but, um, the librarians had an elaborate cataloging system. Sappho’s writings are thought to be kept somewhere in the, um, northwest corner. The Babylonaica is on the other side of the building. We think.”
“We think?” Grease leaked down Far’s fingers with his first flashing bite. Ow! The hot-box had done its job too well. He felt mozzarella scald its way down his throat, sticking to the side of his chest. Some of the burn regurgitated with his words. “I’d like more than thinking before I go tumbling into a papyrus tinderbox.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Imogen protested. “Considering.”