I followed Seven across the backstage and down a spiral staircase not far from the service elevator. Silently, I began preparing a short homily in case she was still harboring her concern for the improvement of my emotional attachment to Menessos.
The rooms she shared with Mark were as large as my own, with sheer white drapery separating the spaces. The main chamber had taupe walls, olive and gold accents. Pieces of a stone frieze were hung along the left wall over three shadowboxed pieces of carved stone artwork and a gilded display case, softly lit. I wandered near, saw little ruby scorpions and amethyst scarabs placed around a diadem with a lapis lazuli cobra head. To the other side was a hand mirror. The tarnished round of silver was attached to a base displaying the head of Hathor, and a handle of obsidian.
Like Menessos’s office, this was reminiscent of a museum.
As I perused the art, the centermost piece held my attention. It was of a ba, the body of a bird and head of a person. Not quite the ancient Egyptian equivalent of a soul, but at least one of the essential parts of what made a human human. In this carving, the ba sat in the branches of a distinctive tree. “Is that a willow tree?”
“Yes,” Seven answered. “Do you like it?”
Thinking of my meditation wand—which Menessos must have cleared away with all the other magical items after the ritual—I asked, “What is the significance of the ba sitting in this particular tree?”
“That is Osiris.”
“The Egyptian god of the Underworld,” I murmured.
“Willow is believed to have sheltered Osiris’s body and his ba sat in its branches.”
“That’s interesting.”
Seven crossed her arms and threw her hip to one side as she said, “Actually, what’s interesting is your being named for both the Greek and Egyptian goddesses who were consorts to gods of the Underworld.” Her eyes narrowed just slightly as she scrutinized me, but they did not take on that stalking brightness. That made it easier to not flinch under her inspection.
I was choosing my words carefully, trying to craft something acknowledging our discussion of Menessos prior to the Erus Veneficus ceremony, when she said, “Let us sit over here.” She pointed toward a small table with two padded red leather chairs. I placed the Trivium Codex on the marble-topped table and opened it to the pages that Menessos had marked this time.
Just after midnight, the translation was complete and we had rehearsed it a few times. Seven had been nothing but charming, using friendly, lilting tones that put me at ease. She hadn’t brought up Johnny or pressed me about why we’d both needed steadying in the same instant. Trying to keep that going, I told her, “I’m completely impressed with your knowledge of Latin.”
“When it became clear that I had an aptitude for language, I was taught many. In addition to English and Latin, I am fluent in Greek and several other ancient languages as well as the major Romance languages and Russian.”
I almost said, “What? Not Chinese?” but resisted letting my inner smart-ass run my mouth. She could tell me off in a dozen languages. “Did this talent come before you were the Lustrata?”
“Yes.” Her features were alight as she said, “I grew up with the best tutors available and an amazing library at my disposal. What about your childhood?”
“Hmmm. What I had at my disposal growing up was a demanding grandmother.”
Seven didn’t laugh, as I had expected she might. Instead, she relaxed into her seat. “She must have made quite an impact to be the one thing you compare to my library and tutors.”
“She raised me.” I had an urge to check on Nana and find out if she and Beverley had stayed safely home and planned to continue staying at home until they heard from me tomorrow. But I had already asked her to; so she would. Right now seemed like an opportunity to find out more about the previous Lustrata. “Tell me about your library. What was your favorite book as a child?”
Seven became wistful. “My library is gone. And there were scrolls then, not books. So much knowledge was lost.”
“Lost?”
“Yes, but despite what legend may say, it was not destroyed by Caesar in my day. Nor did Mark give me the plundered library of Pergamon as a wedding gift.”
Wait. According to some accounts, Julius Caesar was responsible for burning the library at Alexandria. That was during the time of . . . that would mean that Seven was . . . No! She was the Lustrata? “You’re—you’re not—”
“But I am.”
“Cleopatra? And,” I pointed at the other section of the chamber though he was not here, “Mark is Mark Antony?” No wonder he was the one Menessos counted on for strategizing.
She conveyed a mixture of sadness and determination in her nod.
I was dumbfounded. My head was filled with so many questions and I could not speak one of them.
Finally she said, “The bite of an asp is not so different from the bite of a vampire.”
“An asp bite won’t transform you into an asp.”
“Neither will the mere bite of a vampire remake you into the same, but to someone in those times, physically the bites look much the same.” She was silent for a heartbeat longer, then, “If the bards and historians only knew how wrong they have been about so much.”
“But Mark Antony died on his w—”
She cut me off with an imperial—I realized now it came naturally—wave of her hand. “As I said: bards and historians are wrong about so much.” Seven stood. “They are also wrong about war. War is not romantic. It is brutal and ugly. Cities burn and the wind carries the stink of failure.” She closed the Codex and held it out to me. I was being dismissed. “Don’t fail.”
I stood and accepted the book.
As I left, she added, “Remember. You cannot shut the door until both fairies are dead. Only then will the bonds that are keeping the doorway open be severed. It cannot be shut until then, so make no attempt until you are certain they are both dead.”
I quietly closed the door of the last queen of Egypt.
Just before five A.M., I entered my chamber to get my coat. I had fifteen minutes until I was supposed to meet Menessos at the front entrance. We were going to take my car and leave for Headlands Beach. The rest of them had left an hour before.
The fairies knew I would show up with Menessos. WEC had sanctioned it. Of course, the fey had to have a plan ready in the event that we didn’t just easily surrender. But what kind of plan?
I had my coat in my hands and had started back to the door when I stopped short, captured somehow by the painting on the wall. I stared at The Charmer as if I’d never seen it before.
The lute-playing woman in the picture was peering down at the fish that were drawn to her by the music she played. Or was she? Far more intent on the water, she didn’t seem to see the fish. I could imagine her using the water to examine her emotions, as I had, but from the safety of the shore. Perhaps she was using the surface of the water to scry into her future.
I rushed to the closet and retrieved my suitcase. Throwing it open, I took out the shoe box with Nana’s scrying crystal. Shutting off all but the dome’s starlight, I drew a circle on the floor with my broom. I sat cross-legged within the circle, facing the closet to keep the light from reflecting on the surface of the crystal globe. While making my quarter calls, I used my T-shirt to wipe my fingerprints from the crystal.
Cradling the heavy ball in my hands, I grounded and centered. Gazing softly on the clear surface, I let my mind hit alpha. In seconds the crystal grew cloudy. Keeping my breathing even and steady, my mind receptive, I waited for the images.
Nana was more accomplished at this, but I was not entirely unskilled. I just preferred the stable symbolic images of Tarot. My interpretations seemed stronger with the cards than with the fluctuating fluidity of scrying.
I quickly settled my intention on seeing something to help me know if we were prepared for what would come to pass.
The murk within the crystal thickened and lathered into seafoam. It receded, showing me the wet sand. No, this was not the sea, it was a lakeshore. Another wave crashed, foam stretching . . . the splash of bodies falling into the water, screams.
My breath caught and held.
A flash of red. A lick of flames. The face of Fax Torris, the fire fairy, laughing. At her feet lay a man. Naked. His back . . . was that sand sticking to his skin, making patterns? She kicked him, rolling him over.
Johnny!