Page 103

And if Cleopatra were to release the strangle lily, Bektaten would never believe that Ramses had not worked this deliberately.

Cleopatra gazed at the ancient ring as if it were a flower she had picked. She could see what it was, see the threads beneath the jewel, a ring with a secret compartment. She unscrewed the red jewel, revealing the bronze pin underneath. She looked to him, saw the fear in his eyes, and unscrewed the casing that held the pin, revealing the yellow powder underneath.

"No!" he cried. "You must not! You must not!"

"And so this is the poison," Cleopatra said to him, her eyes blazing. "The queen's poison."

"I did not seek to use it on you. I sought to subdue you with another substance, a sedative on my dagger. I did not come to destroy you or even to harm you, Cleopatra. You must believe this!"

"You seek to keep me alive?" She seemed dazed by the possibility.

"Yes. Please. Put down the ring."

"Put the poison aside, you mean. This poison you received from a true queen. Unlike me, a shade of one risen from death by your hand."

"We will discover who and what you are together. All of us."

"Ah, you seek to comfort me now. Would it comfort you to know I never wished to see you again? That I did not cross an ocean for you out of love."

"You seek the elixir. You believe it will make you strong against your connection to Sibyl Parker."

"Sibyl Parker." Her jaw trembled and tears came to her eyes. "Sibyl Parker, the vessel for my true spirit."

"I heard his explanation, his slurs. You must not yet accept them as fact."

"Give me the elixir, and then leave me to my own interpretations of my condition."

"I did not bring it."

"Of course you didn't. Because you never planned to give it to me. Only to abduct me again. For the purposes of what? More torture? Some kind of test to make sense of this madness?"

"You must not believe this. You cannot."

"You come for me with weapons that can end immortals."

"We didn't just come for you. We came for him. To end his destructiveness."

"And what do you seek to end in me, Ramses the Great?"

"Your pain."

She lifted the ring almost to her nose. "I could end it in this very moment, couldn't I?" Her breath was close enough to the open chamber to send small puffs of yellow powder drifting to the carpet when she spoke.

"No!" he cried.

"You wouldn't be pleased if I ended my life right here? You would not be relieved? To be free of the burden of me? From the monster you raised?"

"Come with me, Cleopatra. Let us free you from all of it without ending your life. Without ending Sibyl's life."

"Sibyl," she whispered, eyes wide.

A mistake, he realized too late, to use Sibyl in this way. He'd assumed she'd feel the same loving connection to Sibyl that Sibyl felt to her. But in her leering smile, he saw nothing but jealousy and anger.

"Oh, but of course. The silken sheets. The great roaring fire. She is with you, isn't she? The rescue of which she spoke. It was you, Ramses. I see now. I see why you have come. She is very pretty, isn't she, Sibyl Parker? With her golden hair and her pale skin. Perhaps in her every gesture you see the parts of me you do not despise. For she possesses my true soul, does she not?--the migrant soul that abandoned this flesh two thousand years ago. And so you come not to save me, but to save her."

"Your anguish blinds you...," he said. "We are the victims, all, of powerful mysteries. What can we do but explore them together?"

"Enough, Ramses. Enough of your pity. Enough of your guilt. If these are to be my final days of sanity, I will live them as I see fit."