Page 154 of The Amber Sunburst

“And if I hadn’t?”

“You might have had to share custody of me,” he says with a smile. And, Forms, she loves him, she loves him, she loves him.

“You’re mine,” she says, resolutely. She’s pretty sure Zeno likes to hear it and she definitely likes to say it. “I won’t share you. And I like the beach anyways. Arete too.”

When she looks back at him he’s staring with wide eyes, like he’s debating whether anyone watching would notice if he pushed her up against a wall and kissed her.

“You saying things like that is really distracting me, I’ve gotta say,” Zeno complains, turning back to his mirror.

Eudoxia gasps. “Me distracting you? You’ve been chatting this whole time!”

“I suppose. But I don’t think you understand how much you drive me to distraction just by existing. So when you say things like that I die of happiness, take Er’s journey, and find my way back to you all over again.”

She flushes from head to toe.

“We have to focus!” she shouts, for herself as much as him, and he smiles fondly.

“Yes, ma’am. I think we’re almost there, right? Just two more turns.”

“Three,” she corrects, leading the way.

“Ten drachmas says it’s two.”

“You don’t even have ten drachmas.”

“I won’t need ’em.”

Eudoxia arches a brow. “You’re on.”

Three turns later, because Eudoxia is always right and everyone else is always wrong, they arrive at the wall with the cobblestone trigger. Somehow this whole plan is going to… plan. Which seems too good to be true.

No booby traps, no obstacles between them and the exit, and the mirrors went up easily. Smiling in triumph, Eudoxia lifts the laser pointer to signal Alexander and Kallias. The assumption is that the boys reached the exit before them because Kallias is a human calculator. So, she and Zeno are meant to set off the system first, and the others will respond.

“Wait, wait!” Zeno yells. “The camera.”

“Right, sorry.” Forms, she’s going to get them killed.

“On my shoulders,” Zeno says, crouching down. She tries and fails not to swoon at how easy it is for him to haul her up right below the broadcast camera.

Theoretically, they’re in the its blind spot, which keeps her hidden from view as she affixes Ophelia’s curved mirror to the wall to change the camera’s view.

She exhales once it’s done, and hopes the whole change came off as a glitch to the viewers instead of an intentional misdirection.

Of course, the audience will be able to see the laser bouncing from mirror to mirror until it reaches the boys, but without knowing the source, the light will seem like one of the booby traps. Hopefully.

Zeno sets her down and they meet each other’s eyes, giddy. It’s been long enough that Ophelia must be in the control room, so when she sees the lights bouncing around the broadcast, she’ll know to activate her trigger.

She and Zeno back up to the disguised button in the wall, and she holds up the laser, ready to fire. An instant before she does, loud footsteps echo down the path and she scrambles to hide what she’s doing.

“Eudoxos? Oh, Eudoxos, thank the Forms.”

It’s… Kleitos?

Zeno steps in front of her and growls, “What do you want?”

Kleitos smirks. “None of your business, guard dog.”

“What, Kleitos?” she asks, already sick of the testosterone competition.