The security guards fell at the almost inaudible sounds from Virginia Dare’s wooden flute. She kept one awake, mesmerizing him with an ancient Native American lullaby, and he obediently turned off the security cameras, disarmed the alarms and opened the gates to allow her and Dee inside. The soothing lullaby ended with a single piercing note, which dropped the guard unconscious to the floor, face twisted in agony.

The Magician stepped over the crumpled body, looked around at the sleeping guards and nodded in approval. He turned to regard the flute, tilting his head to one side to look at the hints of a spiral design running the length of the instrument. “I’ve always been fascinated by your flute,” he said. “You never told me where you got it.”

“No, I didn’t,” Dare said firmly, and turned away, forestalling the discussion.

Dee followed the woman through the empty Tower of London. “A gift from your master, perhaps?” he persisted.

“I don’t have a master,” she said slowly; then she glanced over her shoulder, eyes cold and angry. “But you know that, of course.”

“Oh, that’s right: you killed him.”

“Only a fool kills an Elder,” she snapped. “And I’m not a fool… unlike you!”

Dee shrugged. “You’re referring to Hekate? What’s done is done and cannot be undone. And technically, I did not kill her-the Yggdrasill fell on her.”

“You always were a master of weasel words, John,” Virginia said softly. “Even Shakespeare said you should have been a playwright. I heard you had an encounter with him and the Saracen Knight, and that you didn’t come off too well,” she added with a sly smile.

Dee fell into step beside the immortal. “You knew they were in the city?”

“I make it my business to know whom I’m sharing the city with.” They were back outside under the night sky, and directly ahead of them was a red-and-black-paneled Tudor building. The sound of water slapping against stone was clearly audible, and the air smelled damp. “Shakespeare has been here since the sixteenth century; Palamedes comes and goes.” Dare walked across the flagstones, completely silent in flat leather moccasins. She leaned on the metal rail and looked down into a pool of black water; then she pointed over to where an arched opening in the opposite wall had been sealed with a heavy-looking metal gate. The two halves of the gate sagged in the middle, and through the struts a second black pool rippled like oil. “And you are now about to tell me that the entrance to the Shadowrealm is in the pool behind that gate?”

“It is. You’ve never been here?” Dee asked, surprised.

“I have never had your dangerous curiosity,” she said.

The Magician smiled. “We learn through curiosity.” Leaning his elbows on the metal rail, he looked at the barred entrance to the pool. “If I could use my powers, I could-”