Erzulie Sangmarée pressed her palm to the carved seal and felt nothing give. The stone door barred a chamber of old Atlantean rites, the lost magic she had crossed an ocean to claim. She had left her tribe's reefs in the Caribbean for this. Poseidon had summoned her sea witches to serve his rebuilt city. She served, yes. But she came for the ruins and the orichalcum sleeping inside them. Her three red-and-black tentacles braced against the broken stone of the fallen king's hall. Above her, a toppled statue of old Atlan watched with cracked eyes. The seal's script mocked her. Rows of sharp Atlantean letters spiraled across the orichalcum lock. She had read many old tongues. This one refused her. She traced the marks with a tattooed finger and whispered a voodoo word to wake them. The letters only glowed and went dark. The rite stayed locked away. "The dead wrote that," said a voice behind her. "You cannot bully it open." Proteus drifted from the gloom, grey-bearded, his orichalcum staff cutting slow circles. Her student. Her problem. Poseidon had bound the prophet to her lessons, and the old god resented every one. He shared what he knew only with those who could pin him down. "Then read it for me," Erzulie said. "I could." He studied the seal. "I was alive when it was carved. But I give nothing freely. You know my rule." A second shape slid through the ruin. Kymopoleia, the storm princess, her silver gown pale against the ash. Erzulie's other student, and the one who flinched at her own power. She looked at the glowing letters, not at Erzulie. "He means you must catch him," Kymopoleia said quietly. "He always means that." Erzulie smiled. She had hunted slippery things in deep water her whole life. She spread her tentacles wide and sang a binding chant, the kind her grandmothers used on eels. The water thickened around Proteus. He shifted. A shark. A current. A knot of eels. Each form she named and held. Her tentacles cinched the water itself into a cage. "Catch the storm," she told Kymopoleia. "Don't fight it. Push it into my net." Kymopoleia hesitated, then let her grief move through her hands. A small surge of current slammed Proteus against the seal. His staff clattered loose. Erzulie's tentacles closed over his wrists. "Held," she said. "Now read." Proteus laughed, caught at last. He spoke the script aloud. The orichalcum lock turned. The stone door ground open, and the chamber of old rites breathed out cold, bright light. Erzulie floated before the opening, triumphant. Then Proteus went still in her grip. "You opened it," he said. "But the seal was a lid. Something was sealed in, not out." Inside the chamber, a deep orange glow pulsed. The volcanic stone beneath them trembled. A fissure split the floor, and molten light bled up through the crack.

Molten light bled up through the cracked floor. The chamber Erzulie had fought to open now spat heat into the water. She still gripped Proteus by the wrists, her three tentacles coiled tight. The old prophet laughed at her, unafraid, even as the volcanic stone groaned beneath them. He was Poseidon's shepherd of seals, a god who read the dead tongue she could not. He gave nothing unless you held him. She held him now. "The rites," she said. "Read them. All of them. Or I let the fire take us both." "You would die for a lesson." Proteus studied her face. "That is new." A shape burst from the glowing opening. Not fire. A seal, sleek and grey, darted through the smoke and circled Proteus like a hound seeking its master. More followed, slipping from the dark. His herd. They had found him. Erzulie's grip did not loosen. "Call them off." "They answer to me, not you." He watched the molten crack widen. The toppled statue of old Atlan shifted as the floor tilted. "But I see your future, witch. You will not release me, and the fire will not wait. So I will make a trade." "I don't trade. I take." "Then take this." His voice dropped. "You cannot read the old script. You never will. It was not carved for voodoo tongues. But the rites live in the orichalcum itself, not only in the words." He twisted one wrist free, just enough to point at a cluster near the opening. A knot of raw ore glowed orange-gold, its faceted surface cut with the same sharp Atlantean marks as the seal. The ore pulsed in time with the molten light. "The stone remembers," Proteus said. "Press your magic into it, not the carving. The ore will teach you what the letters cannot. I did not need to read it for you. I only needed to show you where to listen." Erzulie stared at the glowing ore. Her whole hunt had been for the script. She had captured a god to read dead letters. And the answer was the metal she already craved. The floor lurched. A seal nipped at her tentacle. She made her choice. She released Proteus and lunged for the ore. Her tattooed hand closed over the hot facets. She sang the voodoo word that had failed on the seal. This time the ore answered. Heat climbed her arm. Images flooded her mind, not words but rites, raw and old, poured straight into her blood. She gasped and pulled the ore to her chest. Proteus was already gone, slipped away with his herd into the smoke. He had traded his freedom for a truth that served him better than silence. Erzulie rose through the shaking chamber, the glowing ore clutched tight. She could not read the script. She no longer needed to. But the rites inside her burned hotter than she expected, and she did not yet know how to make them stop.