Her arms tightened around him, and he realized how bleak his voice sounded.

“Only one end to this journey of life,” he said. “None of us can avoid it.”

“You did,” she noted. “Only today.”

He needed no reminder. That shade would chill him the rest of his days. “I’ll have to make that voyage again, with no coming back. It’s inevitable. However,” he added, seeing her solemn expression, “what we do with the intervening years, that is our decision, and the measure of our consequence.”

She levered herself up, leaning on his chest. Cupping his face with her hands, she bent forward and kissed him, a kiss of unexpected sweetness. She pulled back enough to look into his eyes.

“We aren’t paragons, you and I,” she whispered. “The way of goodness does not come easily to us. Perhaps therein lies the secret. To see the more difficult course, and to choose it, anyway.”

“Sage counsel.” He brushed back a few clinging strands of hair from her forehead.

Her smile was wry. “I had over a thousand years to reflect on my shortcomings. Given enough time, and with a proper amount of boredom, anyone can become a philosopher.”

He pulled her back for another kiss. Her mouth was supple and eager against his, and he felt himself stirring again, wanting her.

The kiss ended in sensuous increments, until they broke apart and she settled against him with a sigh. He loved the feel of her hands on him, her breath soft against his flesh as she fell asleep.

Gathering her close, he continued to stare into the darkness. He’d no knowledge what the following day would bring. More revelations. More danger. The hazard of death all over again. Worse, the possibility of literal hell on earth.

As she slept in his embrace, he remained awake, in vigil, refusing to grant himself slumber’s oblivion.

He’d died today. And his single thought, as he lay dying on the floor of his father’s deserted house, had not been for the Hellraisers, nor the fight against the Devil. He’d only thought of Livia. This same thought came to him now.

I’m lost without her.

Livia started awake. She had heard something, the faintest noise, yet it had penetrated the depths of her sleep. Sitting up, she felt Bram’s arm warm and heavy across her waist. It surprised her that, with his keen senses, he continued to slumber. There it was again, that sound. As if someone walked back and forth, sandals rasping against the stone floor.

The room in which she had awakened was not the warehouse. Glancing around, she saw elegant marble columns, frescoes of pastoral scenes, and mosaics inlaid upon the floor. Light from oil lamps painted the chamber in flickering gold. Platters of apricots, almonds, and spiced cake sat atop a low table. Someone in another chamber played upon a flute, the notes low and coaxing.

A bronze silk tunic lay across the end of the couch, and Livia slipped it on as she rose to investigate. Bram did not stir.

She walked from the chamber, down a corridor lined with burning torches. This was no warehouse, but a villa, precisely the sort she had known in Rome, and Londinium. Everything she passed sparked pained recognition, from the braziers perfuming the air to the pots of rosemary placed between supporting columns. Through the narrow windows, the night sky sparkled, free of coal smoke and choking fog. It had been an age since she had seen a truly clean sky.

The villa stretched on, and she followed the sound of footsteps. Yet as she walked, she passed no one. No other inhabitants, no servants, no slaves. Wariness marked her steps, but she did not stop. She needed to know who was pacing back and forth, and what they wanted.

Turning a corner, she found herself in an open courtyard. Here grew carefully trimmed Cyprus trees, and a fountain trickled in the center of the courtyard, a bronze sculpture of a nymph bearing an amphora standing atop the fountain. More torches burned here, and a feast had been set up, with roasted partridge, oranges, and goblets of wine.

She stepped into the courtyard. The footsteps grew louder, and she bit down an oath when a man emerged from the shadows beneath the arcade. He wore a nobleman’s silk tunic and robe, a large ruby-studded pin fastening the robe at his shoulder, and more gold and rubies adorned his fingers. His snow-white hair was short but brushed forward in the popular fashion. The irises of his eyes were also the color of ice, and just as cold.

The Dark One, appearing to her as he did when she first summoned him.

Livia raised her hands, readying a Minoan spell.

“That is a poor way to greet my hospitality.” He spoke the language she had not heard for a thousand years, her language. He smiled.

She did not return the smile. “Your largesse is unwanted.”

“Is it? Surely you’ll want to partake of some of the delicacies I have had prepared for you.” He strolled over to a bowl heaped with grapes, selected one, and popped it into his mouth. “Delicious. And straight from the vineyards surrounding your father’s villa. Surely you remember the flavor, the burst of sweet juice upon the tongue, the yield of soft flesh beneath the skin?”

She did remember stealing grapes from the vineyards when she was very small, crouching down in the dirt and devouring the fruit by the handful, alert should any of the servants catch her and go telling tales to the master, her father.

She had been so young then, free of the ambition and avarice that had driven her thousands of miles from home. Her greed then had not been for power or magic, but grapes. A child’s covetousness.

“And surely whatever food Bram has been able to provide for you cannot match any of this.” The Dark One gestured to the arrayed feast. “Of a certain, you must be hungry and thirsty. A millennium without a proper meal.” He tsked. “That must be remedied.”

Her mouth watered, yet she would not touch any of the food. She knew the dangers of the Dark One’s munificence. A single bite could enslave her for eternity.

“You brought me to this place for a reason,” she snapped.

“Your manners have always been appalling,” he answered, shaking his head. “It was always, I want this or Give me that. Never a please. Never any humility.”

“Yet you came when I summoned you.”

His smile was indulgent. “Such conceit from a mortal amused me. And I knew that the ambitious ones were the easiest to sway. Simply dangle the prospect of a little power, and they fell into my grasp like overripe fruit.” The moment the words left his mouth, an orange appeared in his hand. “You, my dear, were too delicious to forgo. Seldom in my ancient life had I encountered another mortal as hungry for power as you. Now look at the wonders you have brought to pass.”

He waved his empty hand, and scenes appeared in the spray of the fountain. She saw herself as she stood in the underground temple, a room carved from rock. She watched herself summoning the Dark One. The bound Druid priestess and Indian slave lay upon the ground as she used a draining spell to rip magic from them. Alight with their power, Livia spilled ewe’s blood on an altar. She chanted as smoke billowed up from the altar, smoke dark as oblivion, and the temple shook. Her captives’ eyes were wide with horror as a door of black stone appeared, then, with an awful groan, swung open. The Dark One emerged, dressed as he was now, and laughing. Her triumphant laughter had joined his. She had done it—summoned the ultimate evil.

The scene shifted, and now Livia beheld the terror that harried Londinium. Brawls, fires, chaos, human depravity. She felt sick to witness the destruction all over again.

The images changed once more, revealing the Hellraisers in the temple ruins as they unwittingly opened the Devil’s prison. Images of horror followed—a demon attack on a band of Gypsies, a riot within a theater that spilled out into the street, Edmund lying dead in the street. Madness and death.