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and water, wind, and the very earth on which he awoke. The
     lintel that was the indicator for where a time portal was, the lintel that had cast its shadow across their bodies then, was
     broken now. It was a statement to the passage of time. Although for him it had seemed a moment, he knew he’d flown through
     centuries—forward or backward, he wasn’t certain.
    A shout, then a gurgle from the sea, had startled him. Scrambling to his knees, he thought he’d seen Chloe. But the creature
     who emerged had been RaEm, his former betrothed, a woman so vile and unfeeling that by her own testimony she’d tried to kill
     her lover. While he was yet within her. Cheftu’s skin crawled at the thought.
    RaEm’s stay in Chloe’s modern times did not seem to have improved her.
    “Can’t you at least catch a fish?” she asked in her flat interpretation of Chloe’s American accent. He hated her voice as
     much as he loved Chloe’s. Nor could he ascertain why she would speak English to him—even he and Chloe spoke in ancient tongues
     when they were together.
    For hours he had dangled the line in the water, waiting, hardly breathing. His arm ached, and RaEm’s snide comments were no
     assistance. While she had slept, he’d rested his arm, sore, hungry, and discouraged. He now massaged his muscles for a few
     moments, then dunked the line again.
    “You might as well be masturbating for all the good you are doing me,” she said from behind him. The demon was awake.
    If his belly weren’t also empty, Cheftu would have thrown in the line. He’d formed it painstakingly by stripping thread after
     thread from the edge of RaEm’s skirt, then tying them together. That had been a battle, too, just to get her to let him have
     a strip of the cloth.
    He turned to see her, her hair burned and standing on end, her eyes brown. Crocodile brown. Cheftu looked back at the water.
     He assumed they were still in the Aegean. That’s where he and Chloe had been standing when the portal beneath this lintel
     had opened. When they were now, neither he nor RaEm could guess. Why was also a mystery. Where was Chloe? RaEm said they had
     “passed” each other on the way here. Was Chloe now in her home time and world?
    Cheftu would swallow, except his throat was painfully dry. His skin was nearly blue from the wind. He was wearing only a sash,
     and though it did little in the way of protection for his body, it safely held the two oracular stones he’d taken from the
     ruined civilization of Aztlan. All told, he was likely to catch his death of pneumonia—though was that still possible?
    The fish line tugged, focusing Cheftu’s thoughts on getting the fish, even as his stomach rumbled at the thought of eating
     it. RaEm assisted in her own way, alternately complimenting and insulting him.
    “How are you going to cut it? How are we going to cook it?” RaEm asked. “It’s not even dead yet! What kind of fisherman are
     you? Are we supposed to eat it raw?”
    He was hungry enough to bite through the scales but knew he had to cut it open. After a moment he found a sharp enough rock
     to hack through the slippery skin. His stomach cramped as he wondered if Chloe had eaten, if she was warm. Where she was.
    They’d vowed to be together again, somehow, some way.
Remember your vow, beloved.
    “Are you going to cut it or just stare at it?” RaEm inquired. Cheftu sawed through the fish, filleting it clumsily while his
     mouth watered in anticipation. “So we’re having sushi?” she said, sitting on the rock. Night engulfed them suddenly and, with
     it, more wind, cooler temperatures.
    “What is sushi?”
    “Raw fish.”
    “Uncooked?”
    “Wrapped in seaweed and served in little bundles with saki.”
    Cheftu peered through the darkness at RaEm. “I’d always thought Chloe came from a titled, landed family.” He shook his head.
     “It must be awful being poor in her time.”
    RaEm snorted again. Cheftu didn’t remember this being one of