“What is a tophet?” asked Rory.
“Every Kena’ani child who died untimely in the first eighteen hundred years of the Kena’ani settlement in Adurnam was interred in this cemetery,” I explained.
“The remains of infants were placed here in dedication to the gods.” Bee sank onto a moss-covered stone bench as if exhausted. “But it was closed when my papa was a child, forty years ago. There were riots in the city after rumors spread that the Phoenicians were sacrificing children on Hallows’ Night and mixing their blood with wine and bread to keep away the Wild Hunt. Here in the tophet.” She sighed. “Just give me a moment. My legs are shaking.”
“I don’t think blood and wine would taste well together,” said Rory. “Why drink that?”
“It wasn’t true, you imbecile,” she snapped. “It was a pernicious lie!”
A gust of wind stirred my hair, like an unwanted premonition. “Bee, why did you notice the sign on that clockmaker’s shop?”
“The clock-faced owl? I saw it in a dream. I sketched it. When I saw it today, I knew we had to go there.” Her gaze, on me, looked so weary and worn that I wanted to tell her it would be all right, but I knew such words would be a lie. When I did not reply, she shook her head as if shaking off her fears and offered a teasing smile. “By the way, Cat, I saw a man’s face in the Fiddler’s Stone.”
“Who?” I demanded, remembering the woman who had told us girls went there to see the faces of their future husbands in the stone.
“Knives,” she said cryptically, mouth creasing down as if she was herself not sure.
Footsteps crunched on gravel. I should have heard sooner. A figure appeared where the gravel path hooked around a gaudy monument which was crested by a weathered representation of the lashing, intertwined sea monsters known as the Taninim.
“So here they are, the Hassi Barahal cousins.” Leaning on a cane and accompanied by his assistant, the revered headmaster of the academy Bee and I had attended regarded us with an expression whose depths I could not fathom. Even though I knew he had sent his assistant to find us, I stared at his regal features, seamed face, and silver hair as surprised as if I had been cast adrift on a wave-tossed sea to confront the toothy maw of a sea wolf.
With a snarl of rage, Rory dropped the bags. In a blur of gold too bright to be fully seen, he melted from man into huge, deadly saber-toothed cat, and sprang at the headmaster.