His men surrounded him, drawing him into the warrens of the Old City and hiding his recognizable figure behind their shields.

“What have you done?” he screamed, again and again, and his guards, pressing him into a decrepit building, surrounding the building with their swords, could not tell whether he referred to his queen or to himself.

3

The queen of Egypt willed herself to press the point of the knife deeper into her palm. Slowly, blood rose to the wound, and with it, a strange and terrible feeling. For an instant, she felt as though everything she loved was sealed away from her, forever trapped on the other side of the mausoleum walls. She stopped, her heart pounding.

No. They were only fears, and she was running out of time. Determined, Cleopatra cut more quickly until blood trickled over her fingers and into the goblet she held to catch it.

She glanced down at the incision from life line to heart line, trying not to tremble. She was doing the right thing.

There was no other choice. Her enemy was camped just outside the Gate of the Sun, his forces overwhelming the remaining resistance of Egypt.

Cleopatra must perform this spell or lose the kingdom. Her country had once been a place of magicians and gods. It would be again. She would not surrender.

She stood, her hair unbound, her feet bare and painted, her eyes rimmed in thick kohl, in the center of an intricate, faceted symbol incorporating countless glyphs etched in pigments. At each locus, priceless pyramids of fine-ground ebony, cinnamon, and lapis balanced, ready to be dispersed with a breath. Here, a scarab drawn in dust of malachite, and here, a sun disc poured in saffron. Polished metal bowls placed at intervals around the room smoked with clouds of incense, a perfume both sweet and biting. Her crown, with its three golden cobras, shone in the lamplight.

Cleopatra shivered, noticing the chill of the marble beneath her feet. The blood welling over her fingertips was the warmest thing in the room. She was alone in the mausoleum she’d built with Antony, the safest and most secure location in the city, or so she hoped. Cleopatra’s two handmaidens kept watch over the stairs that led to the second floor of the structure, though there was little need for that. The crypt, designed not just for burial but as a fortress, was two stories high, and the lower floor had no windows or doors, just thick, smooth stone walls. The top floor had only one entrance, a barred window some forty lengths above a man’s head, accessible only from the interior. The place was unfinished —Cleopatra and Antony had not expected to need it so soon— but it was complete enough to be formidable.

All the treasures of Alexandria were piled around her, the entirety of Egypt’s war chest, along with firepots, papyrus, and wood, stacked from end to end of the chamber, the better to kindle the flames should things not go as Cleopatra planned.