An explosion of red blindness. Her hand flew up. Then, shadowy vision came seeping in from the edges … Grotesque stone heads sculpted on the encircling arcade. A demon, a satyr, a dead-eyed king. Staring at her from between the arches’ columns. A tortured soul with a beast’s jaws clamped to him. A twisted nose-picker, a grieving peasant. Head after Gothic head. And now, the light dwindling, Harper, lowering her eyes against the glare, saw the effigies of dead crusaders at her feet.

And then she looked up at Iago.

He was holding the match to a candle wick now, looking from the flame to her, smiling wryly. And the moment she saw his face in the yellow glow, she remembered what it was about him.

He was not only a handsome man, with his slim, straight figure in the white suit, his long black hair, his sharply faceted face and those smoky, hypnotic eves. There was something else. A certain unbridled, animal vitality, a pent energy in every movement he made; a kind of ease and confidence; a fluid comfort in his own skin. He was all alive, and the world sat so lightly on him.

It was an attractive quality. Standing there in the respiring flame light, Harper had to fight to remember what he’d looked like when she’d seen him last. That night after she’d crept from her bed in the cult’s compound. After she’d pushed the branches aside and peered into the clearing. There he’d stood. In the mists of the Argentine jungle, in the flare of the bonfire. His acolytes chanting. The mother shrieking through her gag. His own face mad, exalted, as he lifted the curved blade. And the child lying trustingly on the altar before him. His own child.

Twenty-five years she had hunted him for that. She had to remember it now.

The candle caught. He held it up. He held it out to her with one green-gloved hand, drawing his long hair clear of his cheek with the other. He moved the flame to and fro slowly in front of her, examining her minutely, as if she were some statue he had discovered in a cave. She stood like a statue, clutching her stick—so tightly that the ears of the dragon bit into her hand. But she shrank inwardly, wishing to hide herself under her hat, behind her glasses. She knew what he was seeing—every sag, every wrinkle, every premature, flaccid pouch of flesh.

“Oh, Harper,” he said at last. “You’ve grown so old.”

And it stung her. In spite of everything. Still, she managed to answer him with a frown like granite thunder. “It’s been twenty-five years.”

“Oh yes, I know, but really.” He pursed his lips. “You’ve gotten all … grim and wrinkly.”

“Ah. Well.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“I’m afraid it was.”

He laughed. “Because of me, you mean.”

“Yes.”