2
Devon Blake, the fifth Earl of Richmond, heard every word Aphrodite had spoken. For two centuries, he had been able to hear everything and yet see nothing of what was in front of his marble eyes. He had been trapped in a nightmare, unable to speak or cry out. He had spent the last two hundred years traveling from museum to museum around the world, and he could hear Aphrodite’s mocking laugh each time he reached a new city. In his frozen stone state, he’d been able to hear bits of conversations of people around him but could not see, could not truly grasp how different the world must be around him now.
How much life have I missed while trapped in stone?
He had been reduced to a creature put on display, to be marveled at and gawked at like a common street performer—and a naked one at th
