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grounds, nattering on about nothing of importance. An agent of the Parliament appointed to work under Bastian, he was loyal to the government, not to Bastian or the dig.
    Bastian ignored him as he often did, his mind still dwelling on the presence he’d felt in his study that morning. On the color he’d seen. He was carefully dissecting the matter in his thoughts, turning it round and round, unshakable as a dog with a bone until he solved a puzzle. To one who’d never before witnessed a world awash in color, it had been a miraculous event.
    And it had had a curious effect on him. Afterward, he’d craved another lie-in with Michaela. Although he’d fought it, bathing first and completing business in his library, he’d eventually succumbed. He’d lain with her twice more that morning, and was now late getting in. A rather unprecedented occurrence in itself. He was always eager to begin here, often appearing before dawn and driving himself harder than any of the workers.
    â€œSignor? How shall we proceed?”
    â€œSlowly,” he replied, having no idea what Ilari was asking, but figuring it was usually the best advice in any archaeological case. “Now remove yourself from my sight. I’ll join you outside when it suits me.” Going straight to his great leather chair, he sat and surveyed his desktop, anxious to begin work. The well-worn chair was a comfortable fit for a man of his powerful build. His father had once sat in it himself as he lorded over the early excavations here in the Forum Romano . That had been eleven years ago, when he’d been alive. Before Bastian had killed him.
    Shaking off the morose memories through dint of long practice, he began sorting through neatly arranged items on his expansive desk—maps, tools, various containers of yesterday’s pottery shards, a stack of blank excavation cards, and another stack of cards upon which recent finds had been cataloged. His mornings were spent in study and his afternoons in the field, though there was some overlap and always many interruptions. And thus he typically passed the long, fulfilling days thoroughly entranced by the ancient past in the Forum.
    It seemed only minutes had passed when he heard Sevin’s voice. Another interruption in a day during which he had scarcely managed to steal a moment of time for what lay on his desk. “I trust you will not be too fatigued to participate in tonight’s festivities, big brother,” Sevin announced, pushing aside the canvas flap. “In view of your strenuous morning on Esquiline, I mean.”
    Bastian favored him with a lift of one dark brow. He saw no reason to respond. For like all blood-related Satyr, he and his siblings each shared the libidinous encounters of the others, albeit from a distance. When one of them engaged in fleshly pleasures, all experienced something akin to an echo of that pleasure. It was a certainty that his brother knew he’d bedded a female the previous night and again this morning.
    â€œWell? Come in or get out, but choose one,” said Bastian, “before that wind douses my fire.”
    Sevin came inside, throwing himself into the only other chair within the tent. Slight indentations that he refused to call dimples creased his cheeks, only emphasizing his masculine good looks. Although none of Bastian’s brothers had ever encountered difficulty attracting female attention, Sevin was the one that women of all ages were drawn to like felines to catnip.
    With the twist of one wrist high in the air, Bastian quickly bespelled the perimeter of the tent against any eavesdroppers that might choose to loiter outside the tent walls. Confident that their conversation would remain private, he asked, “What brings you here so early? Moonful isn’t for hours yet.”
    Sevin held up a single finger. “ One hour, brother. Singular.”
    â€œDamn. Really?” Bastian surveyed his desk, frustrated that