Chapter Fourteen – Unwelcome Invitations

Sirius entered the library from James's cabin, shaking his head. "The only phrase from the map they could find in Prometheus Bound was tyrannus deorum, the tyrant of the gods."

Peter frowned. "So…what do we do with that?"

Sirius settled in across the table from Lily. "No idea."

"Well," she said, "at least it seems certain that Prometheus Bound is somehow related. There's no way that's a coincidence."

Sirius inclined his head. "And that gets rid of the Latin phrases, the Latin words, the English phrase, and the shapes."

"Leaving us with no obvious clues? That doesn't seem right. Unless some of the clues are clues twice over."

"The Latin phrases and the Latin words were pretty clear," Sirius mused. "The English phrase and the cross were a little more subtle. Doesn't the English phrase duplicate the work of the Oceanus and Io clues?"

Peter leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. "Why is it in English and not Latin?"

"I suppose it's meant to stand out from the other clues," Lily said. "It's unrelated to the others?"

"Well," Peter said hesitantly, "we're looking for a starting point and a direction. 'Where he lay fettered' sounds like it could be a starting point."

Sirius looked to Lily. "Could it be that simple?"

"Possibly," she said. "It could refer to the rock where Prometheus was bound, but that rock wasn't anywhere near the Azores."

"Then are we going the wrong way?" Peter asked. "Maybe the island we want is closer to Greece."

"No," Sirius said, "there was never any question that the island's in the Azores."

"So what could the English phrase be trying to tell us?" Lily sat back in her chair. "I think it makes sense that it's trying to help us find a specific location."

"It could be the endpoint," Sirius said. "The direction we're supposed to go toward, not start from."

Lily nodded to herself.

"So it's not the real place Prometheus was fettered," Peter said.

"Prometheus wasn't bound anywhere famous." Sirius leaned his chair back on two legs. "We couldn't chase it, even if we knew the Island of Prophecies was in Greece."

Lily tapped her fingers on the table in an uneven rhythm and studied the map in front of her. The 'he' in the phrase had to refer to Prometheus. The only other person mentioned was Oceanus, and he had never been fettered, at least as far as Lily remembered.

But as Sirius had pointed out, the myths never focused on where Zeus had bound Prometheus. The phrase was still a clue, not a specific historical reference; it had to be pointing them to somewhere in the Azores, somewhere obvious once they knew what they were looking for.

"But I wonder…." Lily paused for a moment. "If Prometheus had been bound in the Azores—hypothetically—where would Zeus have done it?"

She slid the map into the middle of the table, and Peter and Sirius leaned in to look. Lily's eyes flicked around the islands, reading the handwriting. Horta, Pico, Ponte Delgada—

Lily's eyes snapped up to Sirius at the same moment he looked up at her, his face alight.

Her mouth curved up at one end. "Angra de Heroismo."

"Any idea what Angra means?"

"Not a clue, but Prometheus brought fire to humans. He's definitely a hero, or he would have been to Bode, anyway. If he were bound in the Azores, it would make sense to do it at the Heroism…place. Angra might be port. Point. Cove. Something like that. But I think it's safe to guess that Heroismo is a cognate."

"So assuming that is the starting point," Sirius said, "then we've only got to look for a direction."

"It seems that way."

"So that's it?" Peter said, eyes bouncing back and forth between Lily and Sirius.

"No idea," Sirius said easily.

"Could still be the endpoint," Lily said.

Sirius nodded, tilting his chair back again. "But if it is the starting point…."

"It's got to be either the starting or ending point, I think."

"What do we have left to work with, then? That's the English phrase taken care of."

"Unless there are two spots he could be bound, and we have to draw a line between them, and follow that—I don't know Portuguese well enough to recognize most of the words on here."

"We could get Moody to translate some of them into English. See if anything is a reference to a tyrant, or Greece, or something."

"It's worth a try, although we're only guessing."

"But hey," Sirius said, grinning, "we're getting somewhere, aren't we?"

"Yeah." Lily smiled back at him. "We are."

After dinner Dorcas beckoned Lily to the quarterdeck for another spell lesson. They'd moved on from Expelliarmus to Stupefy, which proved to be much harder to cast, and not only because they didn't have a volunteer target. They focused instead on Lily's enunciation and wandwork. For practice she'd aim spell after spell out over the railing, but it was impossible to tell whether it would work on a person.

In between her lesson and Marlene's, Lily sat on the quarterdeck stairs, watching James messing with the main sails.

Dorcas acted like she owned the ship sometimes, and her familiarity with it certainly showed, but it was truly James's ship, and not only by law. He scaled the ropes and bounded up stairs and hopped down ladders as naturally as a fox darted through a forest, his footfalls sure and confident.

He'd said he preferred land, but time could make any place a home.

Not long before the evening shift change, Caradoc wandered up from the galley and joined her on the stairs.

"Beautiful night." He rested his elbows on his knees. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm all right. Learning to Stun people. Or rather, Stun the air."

"Doesn't the air mind?"

Lily glanced sideways to catch his lips twitching, and smiled at him. "I can't imagine it notices."

"I think people underestimate the wind. It tears down trees and walls and mountains, eventually."

"And brings us closer to the Azores."

Caradoc nodded. "James has always been a natural in the air. He used to fly for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Even became captain of the team at the end."

"He does seem light on his feet," Lily said, although she didn't quite follow his train of thought.

"He's available, you know."

"Sorry?"

"James isn't involved with anyone. No one's waiting for him back home."

"I didn't—all right."

"I thought you might like to know."

"I hope he hasn't got anyone. Not for me, but—" She couldn't tell him she'd already kissed James.

Except she could, actually. He wouldn't spread it around the ship.

"Believe me," she said. "If he were interested, he's had plenty of opportunity."

"Oh?" he said, so innocently Lily nearly believed he didn't find it terribly fascinating.

"He's a terrific kisser," she said matter of factly. "But that one was stolen, at best."

Caradoc looked out at the ocean and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a smile. "You'd have an excellent story of how you met."

"We would, I suppose. But there's not much story. He's not interested in captives, the noble bastard."

"I thought you were only a passenger now."

"So did I," Lily sighed.

"Well, he's very focused on his mission."

"I know. And I'm glad he's doing what he's doing. What you all are."

Caradoc gave her a kind look. "You're helping, too, you know. I hear you're making progress with the map."

"Not enough. Sirius says we're only a few days away from the Azores."

"We can always take port for a while to figure things out."

"Yes, but—I think—I mean, I don't know much about it, obviously, but won't What's His Face have people all over these islands? I would, if I were him."

"Very likely. We've got some Cloaking Charms on the ship, but yes, there would be some risk to sitting in a harbor."

"We'll be better off if we can head right to the island, and hope they haven't figured out what we have."

He smiled without humor. "It all comes back to hope, doesn't it?"

There was the hope that Lily could help them figure out the map. The hope that they would arrive at their destination unscathed. The hope that they could keep What's His Face from learning the prophecy.

And, of course, the biggest hope of all.

"Do you…do you think you can do it?" Lily asked quietly. "Take back the government from What's His Face, I mean."

Caradoc hung his head, and smoothed his hair down with one hand before answering. "I really don't know. It's been almost three years. I've started to wonder. Mostly the things I hear—they're not good, Lily. So many of my friends from Hogwarts are dead, or missing, or doing—they're doing things they wouldn't normally do. Things I don't think they want to do but they don't know what other choice they have. Everyone is so scared all the time."

"You don't seem scared."

"We're in the middle of the ocean. It's harder to be afraid of him here. But I am. We all are. Not just for who he is, but what he does to people."

Lily grimaced.

"The worst part is," he added, "I'm starting to forget what it was like Before. What it was like when some people just disliked me. Now they want to imprison me. Or kill me. That's what scares me more than anything. The children who are growing up in this, and don't know any other way of being. I see them coming through on our ship when we bring them to France. They won't know what it's like to live in a world where people like us are a part of English wizarding society."

It was hard to imagine the ship full of children, of people displaced by a war. So often the crew acted in a way that really could be mistaken for pirates, telling stories and doing everything they could to keep busy.

But there was a battle. The evidence rode with them at this very moment, trapped between the sea and a single, surmountable door.

Lily just wasn't a part of it.

She turned to Caradoc. "What do you think are the chances that I'd get caught if I went back to England again?"

"I think you'd do all right if you didn't intentionally cast magic. But we know at least one Death Eater knows who you are, and accidental magic happens, so there's at least some chance."

Lily folded her arms over her chest. "I'd like to go home again. Someday."

"Well, we'll keep working on making it safe for you."

She fidgeted, and looked away from him. "Thanks. I—appreciate it."

But her gaze was drawn back to the ship when Marlene's head popped up from the gun deck.

"Looks like my break is over," Lily said, standing up.

"She hasn't spoken to you about it, has she?"

Lily shook her head. "You?"

"No. I tried, but…."

"Same."

Caradoc stood up and stepped down a few stairs before turning back. "Good luck," he said, and Lily wondered if he meant with Marlene, or the map, or—or with James, possibly.

Or maybe he meant all three.

"Thanks," she said.

Marlene ducked into the library to get the cutlass from where James had left it for her, and met Lily on the main deck for her lesson. With the moon a faint sliver in the sky, she charmed candles to hang in the air above them, and Lily watched her practice advancing and retreating across the deck, her blade flashing in the candlelight.

Marlene had been there for Lily when she'd felt isolated and attacked, and hadn't even seemed to resent Lily for lying and attempted thievery. Even if Lily hadn't felt she owed her for that, common decency would have demanded that Lily try to do what she could for Marlene.

But Lily could only push Marlene so far, and if Marlene didn't want help….

After much longer than Lily would have tolerated performing the same moves again and again, Marlene finally took a break.

"Marlene," Lily said delicately, as Marlene stretched her arms. "I wanted to know…if you were okay. I'm—I'm worried about you, all right? We all are."

Marlene shrugged, gave a small smile, and slid back into an advancing stance. "I'm fine."

"But, I mean, I'm not…I'm not so sure about that."

Marlene studied her feet, her smile growing thin.

"I know we don't know each other that well," Lily said, "but please. If you need anything at all, let me know, all right?"

Marlene looked up again and shook her hair back, false smile renewed. "All I want to talk about is a new defensive position."

Lily bit back a sigh. "In that case, raise your arm over your head…."

She'd thought that after her very embarrassing show in the crow's nest, James might have started avoiding her, but he seemed to be pretending it hadn't happened, and she was more than happy to play along. Even if she sometimes recalled, foggy though the memory was, how perfectly his arms had fit around her.

"I hear there's terrific progress being made on the map," James said one cool night, joining Lily in the common room. He dropped into a chair—not on the sofa next to her, she noticed, out of reach for her to do anything idiotic like touch him. It was probably best that way, but her heart twinged anyway.

She dog-earred her place and set aside her novel – something French to give her mind a reprieve. "Sirius can actually be helpful every now and then."

"Anything I can do?"

"Maybe. I know you've mostly got spellbooks in your cabin, but do you have any books by Greek authors hiding in there? I want to see if I can find a reference for the other Latin phrases in another play."

"Most of the books are from my parents, so I'm not entirely sure what's in there, but I'll take a look around." He adjusted his glasses. "Thanks for helping, by the way. I know you're not obligated to do anything, but obviously things have improved dramatically with you in the room."

Lily looked down at her lap, her chest suddenly tight. "I mean, Peter could've…no, I don't know what you would've done. He's sweet enough, but I don't know why you put him in charge of this."

James glanced toward the door. "Well, only because…the others were a lot better about learning the sailing spells. He can pick things up, I know he can, but he just needs a lot of time, and we didn't have any. I figured he'd have plenty of time on the trip to get into the map. He's smarter than he thinks he is."

"Sirius isn't exactly an encouraging sort of bloke to pair with him."

"No, it's—Remus might've been better, but he's busy as first mate, and Dorcas is out of the question, and Caradoc's got no time, and Marlene…."

"Right."

"I can do the navigation work for Sirius most of the time, so it was him or nothing."

"I wish we weren't so pressed for time—especially now that Sirius is sort of working with me—but taking port's dangerous, and we've no way of knowing how far the Death Eaters are in solving the map. I mean, we don't, do we?"

James shook his head. "We don't hear much about their progress. Wish we did. I assume they're struggling if they sent someone after us, but that was almost two weeks ago."

"They wouldn't have sent someone to attack us if they were so close, though, would they?"

"No idea."

If What's His Face truly abhorred all things Muggle, he probably would have had a hard time solving the map. Assuming Lily and the others were on the right track, of course. But What's His Face could be well read, or at least some of his followers could be. If Severus was working for him, who knew how many other half-bloods were helping him, or purebloods who didn't mind Muggle literature. Sirius couldn't be the only one.

And if What's His Face really had attracted that many people to his cause—or terrified them into joining—they'd probably crack the map eventually, if they hadn't already.

And things would keep on the way they were.

Lily looked at James. "How many…how many people do you think What's His Face has killed?"

"Er, in what timeframe?"

"Ever."

James cocked his head. "That he's personally offed? Hard to say. But at his direction? Hundreds, at least."

"More than you've taken to France."

"Easily."

She folded her arms tightly over her chest. "How do you live with that?"

"It's sort of—you try not to think about it, really." His mouth pulled to one side. "It's going on all the time, and it's worse when you're in England. You wouldn't know—you've been elsewhere, and not in proper wizard society, but it's not—things used to be so different, everyone says. Maybe things weren't so different when I was at Hogwarts and I didn't realize it…. Hogwarts just makes you feel safe."

"Whatever things were like, they had to have been better than with What's His Face in charge."

"Probably. I like to think they were." He looked over at the windows, the candelight a flickering reflection in the darkness.

"At least you're doing something about it," Lily said. "You know that there's hope."

He waved a hand. "Yeah, keeping him from a prophecy. I'm not—I've been told it's critical, that this mission is of the utmost importance. Personally I'm not entirely sold on Divination at all. Seems like a load of bollocks to me."

"You trust the people who sent you, though, and they must believe in Divination."

"Yeah. They do, all right. So I'll do this, and then go back to shuttling refugees."

"And everyone else goes back to what? Dorcas and Caradoc with you, the others…bringing you refugees?"

"Nah. At least, I don't think so. I mean, the others aren't really allowed to tell me what they do. But they—Sirius has new scars, you know. I don't know what from. He's sworn to secrecy so I won't ask. But whatever they're doing is a lot more dangerous than what I do."

"You've got wanted posters," Lily reminded him. "You're clearly a threat."

"They're trying to stop us, but it's not their top priority. We've had pretty good success at beating the Death Eaters that do come after us. I think we'd all be dead or in jail right now if wizards knew anything about ships. And maybe that day's coming."

"The Death Eater in the orlop deck knew where to hide on the ship."

"Well, hiding's one thing. Anyone can hide, especially if no one's watching. Wonder what she would've done if you hadn't knocked Sirius out and got me off into the city…." He shook his head, as though trying to clear his thoughts. "What about you, eh? What'll you do when this mission is over and I drop you off in Portugal? Earl's daughter, on the run from the law."

"And pirate's daughter, thank you."

"You take after your mum, then? I've been told I do."

She nodded.

James leaned forward in his chair, so sweet and caring and curious. "What was she like?"

"It's—it's funny, the things I remember," she said, one hand idly playing with her pendant. "I wish I'd written down what I remembered about them, when it happened. I remember her smile more than anything. I think she missed being a pirate. I didn't think about it then, but when I remember her…. I think she did."

"How did your parents even meet?"

"He was on his way to Belgium—some official business or something—and her crew raided his ship right before they landed. She thought he was fit and followed him on land. They didn't—they always said they'd tell me more when I was older. I wish I knew more about it."

"She liked the ocean, then?"

"Loved it. And I do, too, you know. But I'm a bloody awful pirate."

He quirked his eyebrows. "And here I thought you weren't a pirate."

"A pirate has a crew. I tried being a real pirate, once." She slanted a smile at him. "Hated it."

"So you are a pirate."

"Was a pirate. For a few months, anyway. Had to bully some captain into letting me on board, but I was young, and I thought…."

He nodded for her to continue.

"My sister was always more like my father. Liked the dresses and the customs and all that. I was Mum's favorite, and I assumed…I don't know why. But it had always sounded so great, being a pirate. The air and the sea and the crew and the treasure."

"What happened?"

She gave him a plaintive look. "Pirates smell bloody awful."

He threw his head back in a laugh, and settled deeper into the chair. His gasses sat a bit askew but he didn't seem to care, clasping his hands behind his head.

"And they're cruel sometimes." She pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged. "Even the nice ones. And having to deal with the politics of the ship—who got how many shares. It was exhausting. Plus the food's terrible."

"Right. No preserving spells."

"I made some friends. That was nice. They taught me basic swordplay – my mum taught me some things like pickpocketing and the pirate's code, but never swordplay. And I liked traveling. But I couldn't stick with it. They're so—they're willing to kill people, and I'm not, and—I dunno why my mum liked it so much."

Lily wrenched her hand down from her pendant, clasping her hands in her lap and avoiding James's eyes.

"You're neither the Countess nor the pirate," he supplied.

"I'm not really anything. I don't—I mean, it's silly, but I don't like thinking of myself as a thief, either. That seems so—so malicious. But mostly I like what I do. I meet loads of interesting people. I travel wherever I like, whenever I like."

"So you're going to keep doing that, then?" He sat up straighter. "When I drop you off in Portugal, you'll go wandering around from ship to ship?"

"Probably."

He regarded her strangely. "And that's it?"

"I thought—I thought I might stop with pirate ships, after this. Less risk of getting trapped at sea."

He kept looking at her, head tilted.

"What?" she said.

"It's just…why do you—why are you wasting your life stealing?"

"I'm not—wasting my life? I'm making a living, James. Everyone's got to, somehow."

"But you're clever," he said, one hand running through his hair, "and you're resourceful, and you're just…stealing. All of that for thievery."

"What else am I supposed to do, exactly?" Her feet found the floor again. "Please, tell me, I'm dying to know."

"Anything else? It's just—you're not—I don't understand why you do that."

"My parents taught me how to be a lady and how to be a pirate, but like you said, I'm not really either, am I?"

"That doesn't mean you can't do something else at all."

"You're so—you thought I was uneducated, when I got on board, and I hope you know better now. But you're just as ignorant about Muggles as I am about wizards, so I really don't know where you think you get off—"

"I've been playing Muggle in France and England for more than a year, thank you—"

"Oh, and that qualifies you to talk about it, does it? Living on your ship, with your wand and your crew—let me tell you, I'm not exactly swimming in a sea of options here. When I got off that pirate ship, I had almost no money and nowhere to go and—what was I supposed to do? Starve? Prostitute myself?"

"No, I dunno, there must be something, I mean, you're an Earl's daughter—"

"You don't see it at all, do you? I doubt you've ever—being a woman in the Muggle world means everything, all right? Decent society will always shortchange me for being a woman, but I get by without them. I try not to do wrong by too many people and I don't hurt them and I take just enough to live." She looked down at her lap. "Wizards...you don't have that same problem with women, from what I've seen, anyway. But apparently I can't join your world either because my parents are Muggles. So where am I supposed to go, James? What other option do I have?"

She could feel the heat radiating from her flushed cheeks, her heart hammering in her chest, but when she looked back to James, he wasn't upset. He'd moved to the edge of his seat, his hands resting on his knees, and he caught her eye.

"Come with us," he said.

"To the Azores? I'm already booked for that journey, regardless of what I want."

"No, after that. Come back to England with us. Help us fight You Know Who."

"They'll kill me in England if they catch me. Your crew told me as much."

He shrugged. "It's a risk, yeah. You won't be entirely safe there. But isn't it worth it?"

"Right, then. I'll just pack up with my mounds of savings you found in my bag and sail back to London. I mean, where would I live? How would I pay for things?"

"There's a safehouse for people like you with nowhere to go. Room and board provided. You can do the work you wanted done – fighting You Know Who. Why not come back?"

"Because—because that's not my life."

"So you're going to run."

"I'm not running. I'm just doing what I do."

"Come back to England, and come fight with the Order. Look what you've done for the map – you could really help, even if your spellwork is still a bit rough."

It wasn't that the thought hadn't occurred to her, but she hadn't—she couldn't.

"James, that's just…. It's not going to happen," she concluded.

He nearly leapt to his feet. "Fine."

"You're the one who told me not to go back."

"Yeah, I just—I thought better of you, is all."

His words sliced into her, an echo of the Death Eater's curse.

"Well," she said bitterly. "I'm happy to correct your misapprehensions."

"Great. That's just—you do that. Thanks for your help with the map."

"My pleasure."

He took a step, paused, and then continued stomping away. "I've got to go feed my cat."

Lily snatched her book off the table and held it in front of her face, but the words blurred in front of her, and she threw it down on the space next to her.

He hadn't been the one shackled to a table when some random stranger had cut him open, while he sat there powerless to stop it because he didn't know magic. He wasn't the one who had blindly wandered around Oporto, completely unaware that he'd be caught no matter what because he hadn't even realized spells could go through water.

As much as she'd been heartbroken over not going to Hogwarts, and as much as she'd wished in the intervening years that she could still go…. Her opportunity was gone. She'd missed the chance to properly learn magic while there was still a school to teach her.

She couldn't join this battle. She was so thoroughly ill-equipped to fight in it, regardless of what James thought. When confronted with a menacing witch, she'd been injured and disabled within seconds, and if it hadn't been for James….

She wanted What's His Face gone, yes, but there was little she could do.

She wasn't a pirate. She wasn't a soldier.

She was just…Lily.

In the morning she ignored James when he walked past her on the main deck. Sleep had blunted her anger, but it still lay low, a dying ember that flared up when she saw him.

If he was ignoring her, she couldn't tell, since she was too busy looking the other direction on her way to the library.

She slid into a seat next to Peter and noticed a new stack of books on the far corner of the table.

"Where did those come from?" she asked.

"James brought them in this morning."

"Oh."

James wouldn't be so petty as to withhold information that might help them find the island, and Lily wouldn't be so petty as to refuse to look through them. There were only four books, all worn around the edges, but they were something.

"He seemed a bit…upset," Peter said. "D'you know what happened?"

Lily reached over and pulled the books toward her. "No."

"Probably something with the Order."

"Yeah." She put on a tight smile. "Probably."

"Oh, sorry. You probably want to get working."

"No, sorry, I'm just worried we're not going to crack it in time," she said, which was only mostly a lie. "I don't mean to be rude."

"You're not rude. Not right now, anyway. Sometimes to Sirius."

"Only when he deserves it."

"Well, yeah."

He smiled, and Lily smiled back at him, this time genuinely.

He was all right, really. Perhaps not the sort of bloke she'd immediately peg as working for a resistance movement—not like Sirius, who exuded rebellion with every breath—but he was helping with the map as best he could.

"D'you like doing what you do?" she asked. "Working against What's His Face."

His smile faded. "It's not…. It's not about liking. I just do it," he said. "It's hard, and it's terrifying. It's…only it's the only choice. You know?"

"Yeah," Lily said, feeling a bit hollow.

"My sisters are a lot younger, but one's a witch, and I've got to—they can't do anything yet. If You Know Who found out about our father, and he sent someone after them…they'd be helpless. I had Sirius set up some wards and things at home, but nothing's foolproof."

She gave him a soft smile. "How old are they?"

"Five and seven."

"It's nice that they're close together."

"Yeah, they can keep each other company pretty well when they're not trying to strangle each other."

She laughed. "Speaking as someone with a sister close to my age, I completely understand. But really, it's noble of you to come fight for them."

"Oh, trust me," he said. "It's for me, too."

Lily swallowed and picked up the top book. "Suppose we'd better get to it, then, eh?"

Peter sighed. "I suppose."

She started skimming through the book, searching for any of the other Latin phrases. An hour passed, and then another, and then another.

Peter left for lunch, but Lily stayed put. They only had a couple days left until they reached the Azores, and it was all right for Peter to go—he had to go on watch after lunch—but Lily only had two more books left.

But after five minutes alone, she'd read the same sentence five times without comprehending it, and resigned herself to a short break. Still, a break didn't have to be entirely useless. She set the text aside and pulled out the Death Eater's wand. She'd tried to get used to the feel of it in her pocket, but it kept falling out. There were probably spells to keep it in that everyone else knew.

She aimed at a book on a shelf across the room. "Accio."

Nothing happened.

She thought that was what Sirius had said, but her pronunciation could have been off, or her power, or her wand movement.

"Accio," she said, this time more firmly.

The book twitched in place, sliding out toward her just a hair, and Lily smiled.

The door to the main deck swung open, flooding the room with light. Sirius came through and eyed Lily curiously, a plateful of food in his hand.

"Show me your form," he said.

"Sorry?"

"You were trying to Summon something."

"Oh. Er."

He waved for her to get on with it, and she cast again, trying to copy the intonation Sirius had used on the violin case.

The book still didn't come off the shelf, and she looked to Sirius doubtfully. He walked over to her and gripped her wrist, adjusting it slightly downwards.

"There, try it now," he said.

This time the book actually fell off the shelf, landing with a thud. Lily grinned at him, but he shook his head.

"No, more power. You want that book, don't you? Then bloody bring it to you. It doesn't want to come. You've got to make it."

She tried again, aiming at the book on the floor, and pushed her magic through the wand.

The book hurtled through the air toward her, and she'd pulled too much, it was going to go right over her—but Sirius snatched it out of the air with one hand and offered it to her.

"Better. Here." He set the plate down in front of her. "You missed lunch."

"Er, thanks."

He slid into a seat. "You working on the names?"

"Not at the moment." Lily pocketed her wand and handed him one of the books from James.

"As much as I love reading, and I do, I'm open to thoughts on why exactly I'm reading this."

"Look for some of the other translated Latin phrases, will you? Maybe there are more clues to other plays that we just haven't picked up on yet."

"I'm on it." He leaned back in his chair, feet propped on the table, and began to page through the book. "Oh, and Dorcas asked me to change the wards on the magazine so you can practice your spells on the prisoner."

Lily's stomach twisted. "Oh."

"I'll adjust them tonight so you can get in, but, you know, since Remus isn't in here to say it, be careful or whatever."

"Your concern is overwhelming."

He smirked at his book and made a show of turning a page.

The day moved on around them, and eventually the sun began streaming through the windows facing the main deck, pounding onto Lily's back. She rubbed her palms over her eyes and sighed. She'd left the two remaining books to Sirius and gone back to trying to find references to tyrants or gods in the other locations, but her limited Spanish and fluent French were incapable of deciphering the Portuguese labels.

It didn't help that her mind kept wandering. Practicing Stupefy on a real person would be good practice, of course, but the Death Eater wasn't exactly a volunteer. But Lily needed to be able to defend herself, and this person had already hurt her—had been willing to kill her, in fact. And if Lily didn't learn how to knock people out, she'd have to resort to her cutlass or dagger, which were more harmful than Stunning—

The chair legs under Sirius thudded as he sat upright.

"We've been going about this all wrong," Sirius said. "What if there's more to the tyrant of the gods?"

Lily set down her quill. "How do you mean?"

"I mean, that clue could do more than confirm Prometheus Bound is the key. Look." Sirius slid a book of Sophocles's plays over to Lily. "The formatting."

Her eyes scanned over the page. The book of Aristophanic plays she'd read had been formatted like a script for a play, with paragraphs of dialogue for each character. This book, though, formatted the plays like poems, with frequent line breaks, some of them occurring midsentence. Next to each line the publisher had included a small number.

They needed something to go with a starting point. The map hadn't yielded any textual clues yet.

But numbers.

Numbers could be direction or distance related.

Lily looked up to share a grin with Sirius. "Any idea what line number 'tyrant of the gods' is on?"

"No," he said, standing up, "but it should be easy enough to find out."

A/N: Forgot to mention last chapter - one hundred points to your House if you realized that "For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends" is another line from Prometheus Bound!