“I do.” The realization scoured him.

“Then if you won’t fight for yourself, fight for her.” Shouting by the docks drew Whit’s attention. He glanced around, wary. “London is not safe. And the Hellraisers are to blame.”

“Mankind has always been treacherous. That isn’t the fault of the Hellraisers.”

“The Hellraisers have worsened a chronic illness,” said Whit. “Hastening society toward early collapse. And one of the first casualties will be your marriage.”

Leo inhaled sharply. “If that is true ...” His jaw tightened. “I have to find a cure.”

Whit backed toward an alley. “I cannot stay longer. But when you are ready, you will find me.”

“Whit, damn it—”

“Hurry,” was all Whit said, and then ducked into the alley.

Leo ran after him, but there was no one in the passageway. He stood alone.

She did not go straight home. Thinking about returning there, with its hollow chambers and shadowed corners, reminded Anne too much of the emptiness of her marriage. What could have been a warm, welcoming place became instead an unfulfilled promise. So she asked the coachman to drive around London, circling aimlessly.

At one point, the carriage drove past her parents’ townhome on Portland Street. A faded little building tucked between grander structures, an impoverished relative at an elegant dinner. She immediately discarded the idea of going to see her mother and father, taking shelter with them from the chaos of her life. They could offer no solace, no haven. Even if she did go in and confess everything—her fears, her frantic, dying hope—they would never believe her. She, herself, could not believe the thoughts she now entertained.

Leo cannot be in league with the Devil. The Devil is not real. Magic is not real.

Yet her faith in the world as she knew it crumbled away, with each day, with each hour.

The carriage drove on.

Everything spun out of control. She watched the streets roll past—Saint Martin’s Lane, Oxford Street, the Knightsbridge Turnpike as they headed west and out toward the new development of Kensington—seeing only a world off its axis, and her unable to right it, to stop the mad whirl.

“Sun’s going down, madam,” the coachman called from his seat. “Don’t think the master would want you out after dark.”

There was nowhere to go but home. It wasn’t home, in truth, but a house she occupied. “Very well.”

By the time she reached Bloomsbury, dusk lay in hazy folds, and the few lamps that had been lit threw flickering shadows across the streets.

Inside, the house held light, but little warmth.

She handed her cloak to a nearby footman. “Is my husband home?”

“Not yet, madam. Dinner is nearly ready, so Cook tells me.”

She had no appetite. “Excellent. Tell him to serve as soon as my husband returns.”

The footman bowed. “Very good, madam.”

Inwardly, she cringed. Making dinner plans, as though she and Leo could sit together at table and converse over Whitstable oysters and seed cakes like any married couple. The thought of the plates, the cutlery, the meaningless exchanges she and Leo would make when the weight of greater questions bore down with a relentless, killing force—it made something inside her curl up and shudder.

She could not sit in a parlor and occupy herself with a book or pore over her trove of maps and globes. She could not spend a moment within these ornate walls. Yet she could not go out. Only one place offered a degree of relief.

Her footsteps took her out into the garden. The time of year was still too early for any growth, everything remained barren and bare, but at the least she had no walls around her, no roof threatening to crush her. She paced quickly up and down the paths, feeling like an animal in a menagerie.

She pressed back farther into the recesses of the garden, where the shadows deepened in the twilight gloom. A small arbor formed a dark cove, hidden from view, and she sat down upon a stone bench tucked within it, determined to gather her thoughts.

She stared at the thorned branches of what would be roses. Nothing could coalesce in her mind, for every time she sought to understand what was truly happening, staunch reason tried to assert itself. All that remained were fleeting impressions, half-glimpsed truths, and thwarted hopes. With a violent intensity, she wished she and Leo could go back to those days leading up to and just after the consummation of their marriage. For she saw what they could be together—were it not for the darkness that gathered around him like a mantle.

A shimmering radiance drew her attention. It appeared as no more than a flicker of light beside the empty flower bed. And then grew larger, like a spark becoming a flame.

Anne dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. She must be tired, having slept hardly at all these past nights, and her vision played her false.

Yet as she took her hands from her eyes, the light remained. Grew even larger. Until it was the height of a person. It coalesced from a nebulous radiance into ... a woman’s hazy form.

Anne shot to her feet. Her heart thudded in her chest. Yet she could not run. She simply gaped as the woman sharpened, grew focused, her limbs and facial features emerging from the light.

“Oh, God,” Anne rasped. For the woman wore ancient Roman clothing. She had proud, aristocratic features and cunning dark eyes. And she stared directly at Anne.

The same woman from her dream.

Anne dug her nails into her palms, and fissures of pain threaded up her arms. She was truly awake. The ghostly woman who shimmered in the garden was real.

Which meant that everything else—Lord Whitney’s accusations, the existence of the Devil, Leo’s use of magic—all of it was real, too.

“You believe now.” The specter’s words sounded as though they came from a great distance. The ghost was talking. “At last you believe.”

“Who ... are you?” Anne hoped that the ghost would not answer, for that meant it was not sentient, and did not truly converse with her.

“Valeria Livia Corva,” said the specter, killing Anne’s hope. “Livia, as I am known. We have met before, as well you know. Now my strength has grown. Thus, I appear before you—though time is fleeting.” She took a step—or rather, floated—closer. “Come, there is much to do.”

Anne edged backward. “Leave. Go away. I don’t want you here.”

The ghost frowned. “What is this delay? The battle is nigh, I have given you the weapons you need. We must act. Now.”

“None of this makes sense.” Moving farther back, Anne felt the edge of the stone bench against her legs. It was all so similar to her dream, but she was assuredly not asleep, much as she wished that to be so. “Whatever it is you want of me, I won’t do it.”

Livia scowled. “Are you his, then?”

“I’m no one’s.”

“There is no neutrality. A side must be chosen.” Her hands made patterns in the air, and Anne bit back a yelp of surprise when a glowing image appeared, hovering in the space between her and the ghost.

She stared at the image, eyes wide. There stood Leo, and all of the Hellraisers, in the same temple of which Anne had dreamt. And there was the elegant, diamond-eyed man, receiving small objects from each of the men, including her husband.

“Reckless men.” Livia’s mouth twisted. “They transformed themselves from merely debauched to truly wicked, the enemies of virtue and honor. Gained magic, yet lost their souls.”

The same magic of which Lord Whitney spoke.

“The pact is written upon your husband’s flesh,” said the ghost.

“Leo keeps his skin covered.” She had foolishly thought the cause was discomfiture over birthmarks or disfigurement.

Livia’s smile was pitiless. “Hiding evidence of his crime.”

Anne assembled the pieces: Leo’s infallibility with investments, everything that had transpired with her father. His refusal to let her see his bare skin. She felt ill. More than an illness of her body, but a sickness down to the depths of her soul. The only man she ever loved was a fiend.