Even if she could teach Bram how to invoke and use magic, the dangers were rife. How might she accomplish this? What if her own greed was their undoing?

“Stop worrying.” He shoved a large musical instrument against the wall, its legs scraping on the floor.

“I am not,” she shot back.

He gave her a look that said her protestation failed to convince him.

“This will be challenging,” she finally acknowledged. “Not only the perils of using magic. As a teacher, I’m . . . unpracticed.”

“Good to know you’re inexperienced with something.” He had removed his coat to move aside the furnishings, and he wiped his forehead on the full white sleeve of his shirt. “Mind, experience in a woman is an excellent thing.”

“Thank the gods I have your approval.” Yet his teasing strangely lessened her apprehension.

“What else will we need?” Hands on hips like a captain surveying his troops, he glanced around the chamber. “Black candles? The blood of a goat?”

She shuddered in distaste. “Props are for amateurs.”

The grin he gave her would have made a mortal woman tremble with want. Fortunately, she had no pulse to race, no breath to sigh. No wonder so many females leapt into his bed. Between his smoldering gazes and raffish smiles, only a dead woman could remain immune.

He had never smiled for her. Not until that moment.

“Again,” he said, “I give thanks for your experience.”

“Between the two of us, there is not a speck of innocence.” She steadied herself. “Let us begin.”

He moved toward her, unhesitating, the black of his unbound hair as dark as the shadows. They faced one another. She did not miss the way his gaze moved over her in swift, appreciative perusal, lingering briefly on her breasts. A man could not resist looking at a woman, regardless of whether the woman was alive or dead.

She fought the impulse to preen. After all, when she had been alive, many words praising her beauty had been spoken. She was no stranger to a man’s approving stare.

But it was this man’s gaze that filled her cheeks with the echo of warmth.

What she needed now was focus, not the silly flutterings of a female craving masculine attention.

“When I had full possession of my magic,” she said, “locating someone was a simple matter. All living things have their own distinctive energy. A kind of light and sound unique to them alone. To find them, I searched for the flame of their psyche, followed it much as a ship is guided by a beacon.”

“Sounds abstruse.”

“Only in the telling. The doing becomes a matter of instinct.”

He frowned. “In this, I have no instinct.”

“We’ll create it.” She struggled to determine what she ought to do next, how to go about the utterly foreign process of developing someone else’s magic. Some people, women especially, made for gifted teachers. She was not one of them. To teach was to steal from herself, or so she’d believed. Even now, the compulsion to hoard gripped her. She had to mentally pry her fingers from their vise, clutching knowledge close.

“To work magic, one must first find one’s own power.” She hoped her voice sounded far more confident than she felt. “Close your eyes. Let your gaze fall inward.”

He hesitated for a brief moment, then did as she asked. She also closed her eyes. Before, her magic had always been close to the surface. She could call upon it without thought or effort. One did not tell one’s heart to beat. Now, she had to recall what it was like when she had been a young priestess in training, learning how to harness the native magic within herself, and fan the spark into a flame.

“Deep within you resides magic,” she continued. “It’s strange, and foreign, but you oughtn’t fear it. Allow yourself to reach for it. Allow it to come into being.”

He exhaled through his nose. “No damned soldier ever followed such a strange command.”

“This damned soldier had better,” she growled.

“I ought to call you Madam General rather than Madam Ghost.”

“Concentration,” she snapped. “Do not make this more difficult than it already is.”

“Apologies, Madam Ghost General.”

She clenched her teeth. “Just be quiet and still your mind. Search for the gleam of magic within. It is unique to each being.”

“Not me.”

“Most especially you. Think of the talents you possess, the skills distinctively yours. Leading men into battle. Beguiling women into your bed. Your art with a sword. You see them now, don’t you? These gifts?”

A pause. And then he rumbled, “I see them.”

“Follow them. Use them to guide you toward the magic inside you. It resembles a key, shining deep within you, as though at the bottom of a well. Look for that.”

She must guide him toward his magic as she searched for her own. Thank the goddess, he obeyed, falling silent.

Now she had to heed her own directive. Finding one’s magic meant utilizing magic, a painful irony. At the least, she possessed enough power for that. When she had been a girl first learning the mysteries of serving in the temple, the head priestess had revealed to her the existence of true magic. It was a secret hidden from most of the world. But the true magic dwelt within her, and she must train herself to find it, calling upon her native power to guide the magic within her to greater strength. She summoned that power now.

There—just as she had said to Bram. A gleaming key. It didn’t possess the same strength as it had before, however, its radiance dimmed.

“I see it.” Surprise threaded through Bram’s voice.

“Hold onto it,” she said, urgent. “Hold it tight.” She must combine their energy, something she had never truly attempted before. The Druid priestess and Egyptian slave had been her victims, their magic stripped away forcibly, and by her greater power. Now she must find another way, a gentler means.

Gentle was foreign to her. Yet she reached out to Bram with softer, searching hands. A careful coaxing forward. She wanted to touch his flesh, but could not. His psyche, his energy, these she could touch. A strange hesitancy danced through her, slowing her movement. Never had she shared such a communion. Always, she had been solitary, proud. This would not leave her unaffected.

She almost recoiled when she came up against the shimmering edge of his psyche—they had shared memories, thoughts, but this was even more intimate.

He hissed in a breath.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, only . . . it feels . . . strange.”

“For me, as well.” She pressed onward, delving within him. His psyche held a dark edge, yet it glimmered, like a mirror made of black glass, taking in light and reflecting it back with its own illumination. She felt him everywhere within her, a closeness greater than sex. She could lose herself within him. A purpose brought her here, however.

Ah, now she found it. The key of his own magic. Of her magic, broken apart and residing in him.

She utilized a Thracian joining spell, softly chanting as she brought the two halves of their magic together. It flared brightly, light and sensation flooding her.

Both she and Bram gasped.

“Thought I’d felt damned near everything,” he murmured. “But this is . . . new.”

“It’s . . .”

“. . . Good.”

Radiance and strength. An expanding. Of power. Of self. Even greater than she had ever experienced before. How could it be thus? She’d been such a powerful sorceress, capable of the greatest magic. This, though, was stronger.

Because of him.

It was an intoxication. She had been so long without magic, having it again made her head spin and the shade of her heart pound. Together, they were equal to anything. Any spell, any show of force. Her old hunger returned, its lupine teeth bright in the moonlight. Where to start? They could set the whole of London afire. They might turn the river Thames to ice. The possibilities spread out like a banquet.