“We must open the box together and stab Cleopatra with the arrow as soon as she emerges,” Usem told Agrippa, and Agrippa nodded tightly.

“Physician!” Nicolaus cried, entering the residence. “Physician!”

It was not physicians who came forth to meet them but the seiðkona and the household guards, all with grave faces.

“Cleopatra is escaped,” the leader of the guard said. “And Chrysate is gone as well.”

“Together?” Augustus cried. He had misjudged everything. He had been a fool to leave for Krimissa, imagining himself a warrior.

“Not together, no,” said the guard.

Moments later, Augustus stood over Selene, gasping in horror. Her eyes opened slightly, and she looked at him. The wound stretched over her breast and up to the hollow at the base of her throat. She had been cut open like a sheep for augury.

“Where is my mother?” Selene asked deliriously.

“You should not speak,” Augustus said.

“I should not have come here,” she said. “I should not have trusted you. You said that you would protect me if I helped you. You did not protect me.”

What did the witch want with Cleopatra’s daughter? He’d left Rome, and hell had broken free from its boundaries. This was all his fault.

Augustus staggered away from Selene, and ran through the house until he reached the room where he’d arranged for Cleopatra’s sons to be held in his absence. It had seemed the safest course of action to cage them in the same room where the queen herself was caged. The silver box had been kept in a separate case, safe from the children’s hands, but if Chrysate had gotten to Cleopatra, she surely would have gotten to the children as well. He fumbled with the key, and then threw open the gleaming door to the silver-lined chamber.

Amazingly, the two children were there, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, their small faces blinking in the sudden light. He had that, at least. He still had her children.

Augustus swayed. If he gave them up, she might leave him alone. She might cease attacking him. Another thought occurred to him. If he killed them, he might avenge all the pain Cleopatra had caused him, all the strife and chaos. He’d nearly lost control of Rome, and the sons of his enemy would only grow into new enemies.

And yet —

It was not Cleopatra who had attacked Selene. It was his own witch, Chrysate. He’d brought the creature into the house. He had done this.

Augustus closed the door to the princes’ prison. He slid to the floor, his back against it. What was he doing? What had he become?

“I failed,” Augustus moaned. “I thought to fight monsters, and I became one.”

Agrippa came upon Augustus and looked at him with infinite concern.

“We have a weapon against Cleopatra now,” he said. “We will fight her, and we will fight the witch, too.” But Augustus could not hear him. Augustus could not understand the words the man was speaking. Were they in another language? Agrippa picked the emperor up like a child and, limping with his own wound, carried him from the corridor and into his own bedchamber.