They expected him to appear soon. Hoping without hope that they’d for some reason change their minds, he peeked around to check. Blonde hair reaching past her waist—a sign she didn’t need to work for a living—Calliope Kallial stood in her filigreed robe and stared down at the man at her feet. Playing with a brood of toddlers who climbed on his back, pulled his hair, and rolled over his legs, Reef’s father, Thrace, spoke with a low deference. Thrace and all of his children had the same characteristics of black hair—dark as the deepest ocean cave—and blue eyes as clear as the lagoon Calliope kept in the gardens for her young sons to play in. She didn’t allow the males under her protection to swim the vast sea. “It might go more smoothly if you talked to Reef first.” Thrace glanced quickly at Calliope and back to the one he held sleeping on his chest. The boy, Patroclus, had been sickly since birth. They all kept an extra eye on Patroclus and ran interference when Calliope tried to shuttle him off to one of the servants—so he wouldn’t taint the other boys with is inferior constitution.
