“You go back into the world, dreamer,” said Hades. “You waken.”

“I would ask a favor, then,” said Cleopatra.

The god of the Underworld leaned forward, his eyebrows raised. “There are no favors here. If I do something, I do it because something has been done for me.”

His lady stood up, shaking her head slightly, her face unreadable, and drifted from the throne room.

“You are a strange woman to seek to gamble again with a god after losing so much. A brave woman. Or a fool, perhaps,” said Hades.

“I know what I ask,” said Cleopatra. “And I ask it anyway.”

Hades nodded. “What are your terms?” he asked.

“I will give you Sekhmet’s Slaughterer,” Cleopatra said.

“What use have I for such a creature?” said the god. “It fills my realm with unmourned souls. Death comes for all mortals.”

“Mortals will outwit death,” Cleopatra told him. “You will have need of a servant to bring you citizens. Hades will empty as time passes. The dead will go elsewhere. They will cease to sacrifice to this realm. It is happening in my country. It happened to Sekhmet. I visited her temple, and it was falling to dust. The other temples cannot be far behind. Once, the rituals of mourning were greater, were they not? Blood and honey poured into the earth to feed the dead. Now the shades here languish, starving. Your realm is shrunken. The gods of Egypt are fading because of you and your kind, and the gods of Rome will fade for some other. The Slaughterer will bring you souls when that time comes. It will be a useful servant for you.”

“And if you bring me the Slaughterer, what do you desire in return?” asked Hades, his mouth curling up at the corner. “I cannot imagine it will be a small bargain.”

“My love will go to the Duat. My children, if any of my children have died in this country, if any of my children are already in Hades, will go with him.”

“That is a large request,” Hades replied. “I hold no sway over Egypt’s Underworld.”

“You must bargain, then,” she said. “I desire Antony to go to his place in the Beautiful West. I desire him to go to my heaven, and our children with him.”

“Do you seek to meet him there, queen?” Hades asked. “You cannot. You will not be welcomed in the Duat. The goddess who owns your soul was banished from there, and you will not pass the gates. You do not offer me enough.”

“I am not finished,” Cleopatra said. “I will bring you another. An enemy of your own.”

Hades laughed.

“What enemy?” he asked.

“There is a priestess on earth who brings power to the goddess Hecate. They mean to overthrow you.”

“Hecate,” the god said, smirking. “Hecate has no power. She is a servant to her betters, punished for meddling in affairs that did not concern her. She’s a dog now, chained at the gates. They will not succeed.”