In an alley near a bathhouse, she caught the scent of Antony, stronger this time. Her eyes filled with tears as she inhaled. It was as though he were beside her. If only that were true.

A legionary passed her, pasting notices of the venatio onto a fence. She paused to look at them. A drawing of a man, his body familiar, broad-chested and tall. She looked more closely. The man in the drawing had a cleft chin. He bowed before a drawing of Rome’s emperor.

Cleopatra tore the notice from the wall and then followed behind the man who was posting them. How dare they mock Antony this way? It would be an actor, painted and costumed, a theatrical show exploiting the memory of her husband.

Still.

She would not stop this time. It had been a mistake. She’d had the emperor, and she could have killed him. This would all be done.

Now it would be in public. That might be better. There would be so many people there that her children would not be in any danger. No frenzy could take her and injure them, not with so many Romans present. Sekhmet craved the blood of enemies, Cleopatra convinced herself, not the blood of loved ones.

The animals Cleopatra had traveled with would fight here, to celebrate Conquered Egypt. She could feel them beneath her, in the cages that had been installed in the catacombs beneath Rome. They’d be prodded up into the light and given shouts and applause when they surfaced in the arena to meet their fighting partners, the bestiarii, gladiators doomed to fight the doomed. Lions, tigers, and crocodiles pitted against men.

She would attend.

The poster hanger paused, looking behind him nervously.

She leapt at him, her talons slashing, her teeth in his throat before he had time to make the slightest sound. If he broadcast the emperor’s filthy lies about Antony, then he deserved to die.

From the shadows, Antony watched his wife tear savagely into the man’s throat. He’d searched every corner of the city for Cleopatra, and now he had found her. In shock, he watched her drink the workman’s blood.

What the emperor said was true. Was she under a spell or sickened with some sort of poison? He did not know what she had become, but he was horrified. He turned and disappeared into the shadows of the falling sun. He could not talk to her. Not now.

16

Chrysate woke suddenly and looked quickly about the room. It was empty but for the shade of Antony, who sat beside her, quiet and still. She had slept most of the day, and she still felt weak from the spells she’d cast the night before.

She felt magic around her, and not her own. The house was filled with it. She had not seen the other witches in the scry, and the old woman in particular made her uneasy. Chrysate had slept like one drugged, dreaming of threads, of being entangled in a sticky web spun by a tremendous spider. She stretched, reassuring herself that nothing had changed in the room, and then turned to look at her captive.