She gasped, for there, faint but true, came the flutter of power in her veins, tucked into the secret corners of herself. A cool, blue energy swirled like currents of wind.

“Such a spell comes with a cost. Not until this moment could I appear before you and summon you to battle. Yet I am here now, and you are ready.” The ghost hovered nearer, her expression determined, merciless.

Anne’s pulse beat thickly in her throat, and she could barely speak. “I do not ... how can I ...”

“I have armed you, and yet you still require me to devise the battle’s plan? Can you not formulate your own attack?”

Anne felt the blood leach from her face. “I won’t harm Leo.”

“The greater good demands—”

“No.” The ground beneath Anne shifted as her head spun. Her life had become a nightmare. The Devil. Magic. Doom. “I chose none of this.”

“It has chosen you, fragile mortal.” Livia scoffed. “This female has none of the strength of the other, the girl of flame. Oh, for a better ally.”

“I am not your ally. I am nothing.”

“That is of a certain, should you continue on with your mewling protests. As the world collapses, you shall be burnt alive. And the man you call husband will watch and laugh. The crisis point is here. Either you are my ally, or my enemy. Make your decision now.”

Anne choked, bile rising in her throat. She staggered forward, then ran toward the house, seeking safety yet knowing that none was to be found.


He raced into the entryway of the house, the cold of early evening spreading an ache through his bones. As Leo handed his greatcoat and hat to the footman, Anne ran into the foyer. She skidded to a stop when she saw him, her face ashen, eyes wide and dark.

Leo understood at once. Wordlessly, he stepped forward and took hold of her wrist, then strode up the stairs, pulling her behind him.

She did not speak, either, not until they reached the bedchamber. He closed and locked the door behind them.

The candles sputtered. Went out. Likewise the fire. Darkness enveloped the room, the only light coming from the last remnants of a dying sun.

In her pearl-gray gown, Anne made a pale shape, a ghost of herself. She kept nearly the whole of the chamber between them, as if holding herself out of striking distance.

“The Roman priestess,” he said, toneless, “she spoke with you.”

A choked sob broke from her. “Then it’s true.” She turned away, pressing her hands and forehead against the wall behind her. “I kept hoping, wishing. God, this cannot be happening.”

He stared at the slim, straight lines of her back, his gaze tracing down the heavy pleat of fabric that ran from her shoulders to the floor. “It began long before we ever met.”

She made another strangled, wounded sound, and it pierced him straight through. “The whole time you courted me,” she said, “knowing I was to be your wife. Knowing you would bring me into this. Leo, what have you done?”

“You don’t understand.” Now that this moment was at hand, he felt hollow, bereft. A man facing the ruination and loss of everything. It slipped from his grasp, no matter how tight he clutched at it. He wanted to crush her to him, bind her close.

She whirled to face him. “Make me understand.”

A tap sounded on the door.

“Get the hell out of here,” Leo roared.

“Sir,” said the footman on the other side of the door, “I’m sorry, he said it was urgent and must speak with you immediately.”

Leo stalked to the door and threw it open. “Send the bastard away, whoever he is. And if you disrupt me and my wife again, I will throw you out of my damned house.”

“Yes, sir.” The servant gulped. “Only ... he said I was to give you this.” He held out his hand. A ribbon encrusted with dried mud lay curled in his palm.

Anne’s ribbon. From the riverbank earlier that day.

Leo stared at it for a moment. “Where is he?” he asked tightly, pocketing the ribbon.

“He told me he’d wait in your study, sir.”

Leo drew a breath. He could not leave Anne now, but this had to be attended to. “Tell him I’ll be down presently.”

The footman nodded, looking relieved that his job was not at risk, and hurried away.

Turning back to face the darkness of the bedchamber, Leo looked for Anne. She was pressed into the corner of the room, preserving the distance between them.

“I’ll return,” he said. “A few minutes only.”

“You cannot leave.” Her voice was thin, strained. “Not now.”

“This is important.”

She made a disbelieving laugh. “So is this.”

He was racked between necessity and longing, wanting to stay, yet knowing that he could not. “I have to go.”

“Leo—”

Before she could convince him otherwise, he turned and strode from the bedchamber. He hastened down the stairs, then along the corridor, until he reached his study. Leo opened the door.

Waiting for him was not Whit, as he had expected. The man who stood before the fire, glowering at him, was him. Save for the clothing he wore, the man was identical to Leo in every way, from his size, face, hair and eye color, to the way he stood, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet as if readying for an attack. Leo’s double.

“My master is extremely displeased,” the man snapped.

He wasn’t a man at all. It was his geminus.

Everything made a terrible sense now. Everything became clear. He understood what he must do.

Leo stepped inside and shut the door behind him.


“The situation is intolerable.” The geminus strode toward him, its face contorted with anger.

But its face was Leo’s face, and he knew in that moment how it must feel to be on the receiving end of his rage. Torn between fascination and horror, he stood his ground as the creature who was his exact likeness paced nearer. No wonder so few ever opposed him—in the full of his anger, he appeared utterly merciless.

And so he had been. In almost all aspects of his life. Anne remained the lone exception.

Thoughts of her spurred him on now.

“The situation isn’t intolerable,” he said, his voice cutting. “It’s ending.”

The geminus halted its advance. Its mouth twisted. “You made a bargain, and you will honor that bargain.”

“Honor? Poor choice of words, coming from you.”

The geminus glowered. “And a word of which you are unfamiliar. Have you not profited, and well, from the advantage my master bestowed upon you? Is not all of this”—it waved its hands at the study, the shelves of books, the expensive carpets, the heavy desk of imported wood—“the culmination of your power?”

“I don’t need the Devil’s magic to succeed.” Nearly everything in the house, and the house itself, had been purchased before Leo had received his gift.

“Mark me well, mortal,” the geminus spat, “it is a small matter to my master to take all of this away from you. Everything can be taken away.”

Leo tensed. “What the hell are you threatening?”

“Precisely. Hell.” Seeing that it had Leo’s complete attention, the creature smirked. “My master does not tolerate sedition within his ranks. Sever ties with Lord Whitney. Should you see him again, kill him. And bring your wife to heel. You are her lord and master. Bend her to your will.”

Leo hated having anyone tell him what to do. Yet fury warred with fear. “If I don’t?”

The geminus moved to the fire, then reached into the flames. Leo hissed as searing pain blazed up his left hand and arm, and as he stared at his hand, the skin reddened and blistered. Turning back to face him, the geminus held a tongue of flame in its palm.

Leo stared as the flame grew larger, hovering above the geminus’s hand. The flames shifted, forming shapes out of fire. Figures emerged. His house appeared, only to tumble down into a smoking ruin. Yet he did not truly feel terror until Anne’s likeness appeared in the flames. A host of demonic creatures attacked, and he could do nothing but watch as the beasts dragged her away toward a ravenous abyss.

“Goddamn you.” He snarled, striding nearer.

The flame and images vanished from the geminus’s grasp. Pain receded by bare degrees from Leo’s hand, but rage and horror sank talons into him.

“Damn you,” the geminus corrected. “That is a given. Yet you shall damn her, as well, if my master’s will is disobeyed.”

Fury poured through Leo, white-hot. Most of it directed at himself.

He’d been stubbornly heedless, convinced of his own supremacy. A bloody thick-headed fool. To think that his gain outweighed any consequence, that nothing mattered but his advancement and the destruction of those he saw as his enemies.

And to drag Anne down with him ...

It was insupportable. He clenched his hands into fists. “Do not threaten her.”

The geminus gave an ugly laugh. “What leverage have you? My master’s power is vast, and yours a trifle by comparison.”

“But your power is not so great.” Leo stalked to the geminus and wrapped his hand around its throat. He squeezed tightly.

And felt himself choking.

His fingers uncurled from the creature’s throat. The moment he released it, his own breath returned.

Both he and the geminus panted and coughed, and the creature wheezed, “No business investment ... is undertaken without ... insurance.” Regaining more breath, it chuckled. “I am made from you. The other side of your coin. Hurt me in any way, and you hurt yourself.”

Black swam in Leo’s vision. He despised being backed into a corner, but the one who had put him in this position was himself. The architect of his own plight.

The geminus became all solicitousness. “Come, it needn’t be antagonistic between us. If you but heed my master’s command, your rewards will increase tenfold. You may enjoy a life superior to a king or emperor. And your wife shall be your empress. No harm shall come to her. Nay, she will thrive, and bear you fine, healthy sons—each of them destined for greatness unparalleled. Is that not a fair bargain? To gain so much, and for such a small cost.”

“Bring Anne under my control,” Leo recited, “and cut ties with Whit.”

“Your rewards would be handsome, if you were to eliminate Lord Whitney. Say, lure him into your confidence, and so dispatch him.”

“Let’s speak plainly. You want me to kill him.”

The geminus smiled at Leo, and the uncanniness of being smiled at by himself made his gut clench. “Ah, my master always did enjoy your directness. So, have we reached an accord?”

“I—”

The door to the study banged open, and the fire sputtered. Anne stood at the threshold.

“Leo, send your visitor away. We must talk—” Her words died as she looked past him to the geminus. Color leached from her face. “Oh, my God.”

“Hello, my dear,” murmured the geminus. “At last I have the pleasure of meeting you.”


What she saw before her was impossible. Leo in the study. Not Leo, singular, but two identical men, both of them not merely resembling her husband, but were her husband. Save for their difference in dress, the men in the study were mirror images of each other.

He had no twin brother. This she knew.

Then who, or what, was this other man?

Her gaze darted back and forth between the men. One was dressed in the same clothing she had seen Leo wearing throughout the day—dark brown coat, waistcoat of green wool, buff breeches tucked into tall, glossy boots—and the other was clad in a gentleman’s bronze velvet ditto suit, the buckles on his shoes clearly not paste. Aside from these surface differences, she could not tell the men apart.

No—that wasn’t true. One looked at her with agony in his storm gray gaze, the other smiled at her, but his eyes revealed a profound, bitter coldness, as if she were no more than a grub found wriggling through the flour.

“What is this?” she rasped.

“A fortuitous encounter,” said the Leo in velvet. God, even his voice was the same, with the barest hint of a rough accent in the hard consonants. He took a step toward her. “If I may—”

The other Leo moved to block his path, his face darkening in fury. “Don’t bloody touch her.”

The cold one smirked. “We have already proven that your threats hold no weight. I was merely going to suggest—”

“Suggest nothing.” The rage in this Leo’s face outpaced the vengeful wrath she had seen from him in the riot at the theater. And it terrified her as her mind struggled to understand what she saw before her.

He turned back to her. “Anne,” he said gently, the way one might speak to a frightened horse, “it’s me. Your husband. Leo.”