Erra pondered it. “If Im tried to kill you, you would be dead. He must’ve reconsidered. But why?”

“I don’t know. Also he inscribed the language of power on me in the womb.”

“And you didn’t start with that? Let’s hope your lion has some brains, otherwise your child will be a dimwit.”

Semiramis moved.

“Yes, I know, Ama. Your grandmother says that in this day and age, you could do worse. Show the inscription to me.”

“I can’t. It only shows up in certain moments. When I claimed the city, for example. He can make it appear by touching me, but I can’t.”

“Do you know what it says?”

“No.”

She rose and touched me. Her hand went through mine. She waved her hand back and forth through my arms. I’d tell her that it felt like being passed through an icy cheese grater, but she would only do it more.

Erra swore. “Being dead has its problems. Although it does give you a certain clarity. I felt my mother when I awoke. I asked him about it and he told me he had left her by the banks of the Tigris. I told him then that if he lied to me, he would regret it.”

“He will regret many things by the time I’m done.”

“Find a way to record the words and show them to me,” Erra said. “We must learn why you’re still alive.”

“Okay. I will.”

I turned to the doorway.

“Where are you going?” Erra demanded

“I’m escaping,” I said. “He’ll probably arrive in the next few minutes.”

Behind Erra the purple blaze of Semiramis flared.

“Yes,” Erra said, pronouncing each word very clearly as if talking to someone very stupid or hard of hearing. “That’s why you have to take me with you. Because you’re an idiot and you need help and I’m the bigger idiot for promising it to you.”

I stared at the mass of her bones. “How?”

She turned away from me. “It’s time.”

Magic raged through the chamber, a furious tempest, filled with grief. The walls shook. I curled into a ball, trying to hide, but it was everywhere.

“I won’t be long,” Erra whispered, melting into the magic, her voice carrying through the room. “I’m coming back, Mother. And then I’ll take you out of this awful place.”

My grandmother wept.

I clamped my hands over my ears, shut my eyes, and tried to keep calm.

The room shook and shuddered. My body bounced off the floor.

Suddenly it was quiet. I opened my eyes. A dagger had sprouted from the center of my aunt’s bones, a wickedly curved double-edged blade with a bone hilt. A thin line of blood-red script crossed the plate substance of the blade. My aunt’s name.