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I take a deep breath, moving my eyes to the lantern lamp that sits there waiting for me.

Maybe the books got it wrong. Or maybe Memnon and I are perfectly awful on our own and even worse together.

Either way, it seems like a good idea to end this now—if I can.

I pick up the lantern. Waving my hand over it, I murmur, “With a flicker and a spark, light this candle in the dark.” A tiny flame flickers to life, and I note with relief that this time, the flame doesn’t look demonic.

I step fully inside the room, Nero slipping in after me, and I close the door behind us.

Already, my head is pounding from the conflicting magic in the air.

I set the lantern on the table in the middle of the room, and I close my eyes to better focus my senses.

Now that I’m not looking with my eyes, I swear I feel the prickling awareness of all these spellbooks. Magic is semi-sentient; these grimoires may not have lungs or hearts or brains, but in some innate way, they are alive. And right now, they’re observing me.

With my eyes still closed, I place my hands on the wooden table. “I would like to sever a soul mate bond.” The words feel forbidden. Taboo. “If any of you contain such a spell, I would ask to see it. Please.”

For several long seconds, I hear nothing.

My heart sinks, even as a sliver of relief threads through my system. If it cannot be done, then it absolves me from acting—

I hear the soft scrape of a book sliding out.

I open my eyes in time to see a thin black tome leave one of the shelves high above my head. It flutters down to the table like a falling leaf before landing gently right in front of me.

I barely have time to look at the image stamped on its black cloth cover before it opens itself. The grimoire’s pages flick by, like some phantom hand is thumbing through them. Near the back of the book, it finally stops on a page. There’s an inked drawing of a heart and a handwritten spell penned in German.

I place my hand over the text, taking a moment to compose an incantation.

“Translate to English this spell for me. Make its meaning clear to see.”

The letters jiggle, then morph, and suddenly, I can read it all.A Spell for Severing Amorous Bonds.

I swallow. This may be a mistake.

What may be a mistake, Empress…?Memnon’s voice echoes in my head.

I scowl at the intimate feel of this man inside me.Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?I snap back at him.

On the other end of our bond, the sorcerer seems quiet, pensive. It’s better than the cavalier amusement I felt from him earlier.

There’s a flicker of something on his end of our connection, and then he withdraws completely.

I exhale, and my eyes move over the page in front of me. The bloodthirsty, vicious side of me gets a perverse little thrill at the sight of it.

I tap the spell.

I’m going to do it.

* * *

The wind howls as I stand in the spellcasting kitchen deep into the night, my cauldron bubbling.

It took me hours to hunt down the ingredients for this spell, including seawater, roses that bloomed under a full moon, tears from a broken heart (using mine—hope they work), and then some mundane herbs. And to be honest, I didn’t find all the ingredients. But I think I can still make it work.

Using a mortar and pestle, I crush the dried rose petals, then throw them in. The next part is going to be tricky—the recipe called for a dead man’s dreams, but I couldn’t find any of those, so I went to Olga and got the last words of a life cut short.

I bite my lower lip as I stare at the words I copied.