He did not write on it.
He thought about the nine platforms on the beach. The three being rebuilt. The man with golden armour who had stood at the waterline and smiled.
It was not enough.
It had to be........
Daidalos came at dawn.
His hands were bandaged. Burns from the fire ships — raw, blistered, wrapped in linen that was already darkening with seepage. He moved carefully, the way a man moves when his skin hurts and every step reminds him.
He found Lysander in the war room. The lamp had burned out. Lysander was sitting in the dark.
"You did not sleep," Daidalos said.
"No."
"The platforms."
"Yes."
Daidalos sat across from him. Set a jar on the table. It was small — clay, sealed with wax, the kind used for storing compound samples in the workshop.
"I have been thinking since yesterday," Daidalos said. "You need something that stops wheels. Not fire. Not stones. Something that makes the ground impossible to cross."
"Oil worked. But it is gone."
