Billy hesitated, instinctively breathing in, but he smelled only the ever-present salt of the sea and the bitter tang of pollution. He shook his head, then, realizing that Machiavelli could not see him, spoke. “If there was, I don’t remember. No, I’m sure there wasn’t.”

“How did you experience it?”

“It was cold, so cold. And it sparked my own aura. For a few minutes I had no control.” Billy’s voice shook a little. “I thought I was going to burn up.”

“Anything else?” Machiavelli asked, keeping his voice calm, willing the American to focus. Every immortal human knew that an uncontrolled aura could completely consume the human body it wrapped around; the process was known as spontaneous human combustion. “Tell me.”

“Lucky I was parked when it happened; if I’d been driving I would have wrecked the car. I went completely blind and totally deaf. Couldn’t even hear my own heartbeat. And when I could hear again, it sounded as if every dog in the city was howling. All the birds were screaming too.”

“Perhaps it was the sphinx slaying the Sorceress,” the Italian murmured, and Billy frowned, his sensitive ears picking up what might have been a note of regret in the man’s voice. “I understand she has been given permission to kill the woman.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Billy said. “I’ve got a scrying bowl. Anasazi pottery, very rare, very powerful.”

“The best, I’m told,” Machiavelli agreed.

“When I got my aura back under control, I immediately tried to scry the island. I got a glimpse, just a quick image of the Sorceress standing against a wall in the exercise yard. She was sunning herself, as calm as you please. And then-and I know this is impossible-she opened her eyes and lifted her face to look up… and I swear she saw me.”

“It may well be possible,” Machiavelli murmured. “No one knows the extent of the Sorceress’s powers. And then…?”

“The liquid in my scrying bowl froze into a solid chunk of ice.” The Kid looked down onto the passenger seat, where the fragments of the ancient bowl lay wrapped in the morning’s newspaper. “It shattered,” he said, a note of despair in his voice. “I’ve had that bowl a long time.” And then his voice hardened. “The Sorceress is still alive, but I can’t sense the sphinx. I think Perenelle has killed her,” he said, in awe.

“That too may be possible,” Machiavelli said slowly. “But it is unlikely. Let us not jump ahead. All we know for certain is that the Sorceress is still alive.”