Warriors of Poseidon 06 - Atlantis Betrayed

very afraid of you.”
    He kicked a white glossy stone on the path and then grinned. “Yeah. It’s so hard to get good help these days.”
    “We’re in Atlantis.”
    “I know.”
    “No, I mean, we’re in Atlantis.” She finally remembered to look up and leaned her head back as far as she could to stare into a cloudless, sunny sky.
    “It’s sunny.”
    “Usually is.”
    “No, you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying.” She clutched his arm and stopped walking. “We’re in Atlantis and we’re underneath a dome underneath the ocean, and it’s sunny.”
    He bent down and kissed her so thoroughly that her fingers were somehow twined in his hair by the time he stopped.
    “That was lovely, but it doesn’t speak to the question,” she whispered, trying to catch her breath.
    “What question? Was there a question in there?”
    Atlantis Betrayed – Warriors of Poseidon 06
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    She gestured around them with a sweep of her arm. “Every bit of this is a question. I’m going to be asking questions for hours. No, days. Years, maybe. This is amazing.”
    “Is this where I say ‘I told you so’ and you agree I’m the most wonderful man you’ve ever known?” He kissed her again.
    “No, definitely not. There should be no ‘I told you so’ between us, ever,” she decided. “However, you are quite wonderful. Now, where is that palace?”
    She started walking again, only noticing after about ten steps that he wasn’t with her. She turned and he still stood in place as if frozen, staring at her with the oddest expression on his face.
    “Are you coming?”
    “Yes.” He caught up to her, and they walked down the path into a fantasy.
    Everything, everywhere she looked, was impossible. Far too fantastical to be real. Even the trees and flowers in the garden were unlike anything she’d ever seen before, as if she’d stepped into the most secret imaginings of a master horticulturalist or possibly a Dr. Seuss book. Sweeps of vivid purples from an insane version of the color chart complemented shades of green from all ranges of the spectrum.
    Every color she’d ever seen and many she couldn’t conceive of existing in nature—they were all represented in a fabulous palette that somehow, in some crazy way, was absolutely beautiful together.
    And the scents . . . oh, the scents. Human perfume makers would go mad trying to take it all in. Each section of the garden carried its own distinctive bouquet of fragrance, shading from light to intense. By the time they reached the palace itself, she was nearly drunk just on the pure sensation of it all. Sight, scent, touch—for of course she’d had to touch and feel the petals on the blossoms, the rough or smooth bark on various trees—it all overwhelmed her until she believed she’d be completely unsurprised to see a white rabbit consulting its pocket watch at any corner.
    “How can you ever bear to leave it? I would never spend a minute indoors if I lived here,” she whispered, not wanting even the sound of her own voice to disturb the moment. “I have to set a book here. My fingers are itching for my paints. Oh, the children are going to love it. If there were only a way to bring these fragrances to the pages of a book.”
    He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s pretty.”
    “Pretty? Are you kidding? This is the most glorious garden I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of gardens.
    Even the queen’s gardens at Buckingham Palace.”
    He laughed. “Well, if you think about it, this is a queen’s garden, too. Or at least a high princess, soon to be queen. Atlantis is a lot older than England, too.”
    “I don’t want to meet her, Christophe. I’m dressed like—like—”
    “A lot like me, actually,” a friendly female voice said from behind them.
    Fiona turned to find a smiling woman with vivid reddish-gold hair walking toward them. She, like Fiona, was dressed simply in trousers and top. The woman held out her hand and Fiona shook it.
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    “Hey, Christophe, I thought you were in London. Oh, which I guess would explain the British accent of your friend.”
    Christophe bowed. “Princess Riley, this is Lady Fiona Campbell of Scotland by way of London.”
    Fiona wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the dirt in over top of her. “Oh, Your Highness, I’m sorry. I’m so pleased to meet you.” She bowed her head a little, since curtseying would