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"I’one It’s buried under the ocean--"

"And we are going to find it"

"What? How?"

He had already grabbed her by the hand and, with one sideways glance back through the doors of the church, started to jog across the square

"Daniel--"

"You kno to swim"

"That isn’t funny"

"No, it isn’t" He stopped running and turned to look at her, held her chin in his pal slon

"It’s not ideal, but if this is the only way to get the artifact, it’s the e’re going to get the artifact Nothing can stop us You know that Nothing can be allowed to stop us"

Mo theine with each stroke of his oar They sped past every other gondola in the canal,corners of buildings, splashing water on alarondolas

"I know this island," Daniel said, not even winded

"It used to lie halfway between Saint Mark’s and La Giudecca But there’s nowhere to dock the boat nearby

We’ll have to leave the gondola We’ll have to julanced over the side of the gondola into the cloudy green waterfast below her Lack of swim-suit Hypothere The gondola bench was freezing under her and the water se

All this flashed through Luce’s mind, but when she locked on Daniel’s eyes, it quieted her fear

He needed her She was at his side, no questions asked

"Okay"

When they reached the open channel where the canals ees, it was tourist chaos: The water tees toward hotels; ht aerodyna wraparound sunglasses Gondolas and barges and police boats all crisscrossed the water at high speeds, barely avoiding one another

Danielinto the distance "See the towers?"

Luce stared out over the multicolored boats The horizon was a faint line where the blue-gray of the sky touched the darker blue-gray of the water "No"

"Focus, Luce"

After a few ined she could ever see without a telescope--came into view "Oh There"

"That’s all that re speed increased as the nurew choppier, deepened to a dark evergreen color, began to s filth of Venice Luce’s hair whipped in the wind, which felt colder the farther froot "We’ll have to hope that our halo has not been pilfered by excavation teams of scuba divers"

After Luce had cliondola, Daniel had asked her to wait for him for just a moment He’d disappeared down a narrow alley and reappeared what see

When he tossed it to her now, Luce pulled out a pair of goggles They looked stupidly expensive and not very functional: es of the lenses She couldn’t reles, but as she looked out at the black-shadoater, Luce was glad to have theles but no bathing suit?" she asked

Daniel blushed "I guess that was stupid But I was in a hurry, only thinking about what you would need to get the halo" He drove the paddle back into the water, pro-pelling them more quickly than a speedboat "You can swiht?"

Now Luce blushed Under nor, soled at Not these nine days She nodded Eight days now Daniel was deadly serious Luce just sed hard and said, "Of course" The pair of green-gray spires grew larger, more detailed, and then they were upon them They were tall and conical, made of rusted slats of copper They looked like they had once been capped by ss, sculpted to look like they were rippling in the wind, but one flag was pocked eathered holes, and the other had broken off completely from its pole