I wondered if Xerxadrea’s plans would have inspired more confidence.
Xerxadrea!
“Menessos.” I rested my hand gently on his arm. “The Eldrenne told me to seal the gateway before she died.”
“I’ll get the Codex.” He left us to enter his bedchambers.
Around the table, only Seven, Johnny, and I remained. To the waerewolf I said, “Guess I’ll be making a rather late call to Doc Lincoln.”
“Why do you need a doctor?” Seven asked, obviously puzzled.
“I’ll need the spell translated. Menessos has other business to attend to and Latin isn’t my best subject,” I admitted. Not to mention doing a spell of this magnitude without days or weeks of preparation would be strenuous, let alone the possibility of performing it in the middle of a raging beach battle.
“Well, you’re in luck.” Seven grinned, flashing fang. “Latin is one of my best subjects.”
Menessos entered the room carrying the Codex. She approached him and put her hand on his forearm. “You need to address the Beholders. Mark will also have to discuss strategy with them. I assume the Domn Lup will need to brief his people, as well.”
So she knows he’s more than just another old waerewolf. They must have discussed that before I awoke.
Seven continued. “Perhaps the Lustrata and I should go to my chambers? It will be quieter there for what we must do.”
Menessos approved with a single nod.
But I was left warily wondering if “what we must do” included more than Latin lessons—like my predecessor giving me any more advice on love.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
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.”