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J ules had let himself forget that the Vatican was the beating heart of the empire’s military power. A mistake he wouldn’t make again. Around the training yard pairs of exorcists sparred with quick, decisive movements and an array of deadly weapons—not a practice sword to be seen.

A covered walkway wrapped the entire courtyard, edged by an impressive colonnade. And in one corner a great skeletal tree stretched toward the open sky. Dormant, not dead. Waiting for spring.

Selene stepped onto the sand covering the flagstones, glancing at him. Jules tried to ignore the promise in her eyes—she’d make him pay for that. ‘Weapon of choice?’

At his hip were the D’Alessandro blades. Deadly and tempting.

‘Hand to hand.’

She scoffed. ‘You want us to pummel each other to pulp, cuore mio ?’

Oh, so it would be like that. He rubbed his jaw, glancing at the weapons arrayed along the walls. Pausing before a racked great sword, Jules was briefly tempted by its sheer size. Neither slim like the D’Alessandro blades nor stocky like the swords he’d fought with on the front, it was a different beast entirely. But wielding that five-foot abomination would make his inevitable loss to Selene and her sleek black blade even more devastating. Next, he ghosted his fingertips over a pair of vicious-looking poniards.

‘You’d forgo your reach?’ Selene asked innocently, leaning around him to look at the display.

He grinned. ‘I don’t need my reach to beat you, vita mia. ’

A light dusting of pink graced her high cheekbones and Jules smothered a smile. Point .

She spread her hands, walking backwards into the middle of the courtyard. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, it wouldn’t help you. Only make this fight more interesting.’

Her confidence was magnetic. Unable to take his eyes off her, he followed, spotting an exorcist who held a quarterstaff across his shoulders. Jules raised a hand.

The exorcist tossed it over and someone whispered, He’s not using the D’Alessandro blades?

Jules tested the balance of the staff. At seven feet long, it had a heft to it that he liked. The hard oak had been worn smooth by many hands. From the notches beneath his fingers, Jules knew this staff had faced a sword before. His fingers flexed. He had no experience fighting with a staff. They weren’t suited to war. Much better for single combat. Still, it was nothing more than studded wood, and the last thing on earth that would hurt the Butcher of Rome.

‘I’ll use this.’ He raised one brow at Selene.

She nodded, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. ‘A quarterstaff. How quaint.’

Jules chuckled. ‘I thought you were concerned about my reach.’ He gave the staff an experimental spin.

‘Now you’re all reach and no bite,’ she said, amused.

Maybe , he mentally conceded.

As they met in the middle, she drew her sword from her back.

Before he let anyone see him bleed, Jules would show her what he could do. He wanted Selene to see him. And he’d do it with a humble quarterstaff.

She circled, sword levelled against her metal armguard.

He winked and blew her a kiss.

Selene tilted her head, battling a smile. ‘Don’t be cocky, amore mio .’ She laughed, a soft sound that made the people gathered around them fall quiet. He spared them a quick glance. Even more had come to watch.

The moment he looked away, she struck. Fast .

He moved before conscious thought, bending away from her blade. If he hadn’t shaved that morning, she would’ve had some of his stubble. As it was, the blade whistled past his chin with nothing to spare.

‘Oops.’ Selene twirled the blade, shifting onto her back foot.

Jules pressed his thumb to his chin, checking for blood. He wasn’t bleeding. No thanks to her. He laughed darkly, subtly shifting his stance. He wouldn’t wait a second time.

But Selene didn’t give him a moment to take ownership of the bout. She met him halfway and they were dancing.

Jules felt her blade graze his skin. He spun the quarterstaff to divert her sword and stepped inside her guard. She twirled away, her hair catching and glinting in the dilute winter light. He followed, powerless to resist even when it brought his throat right to her blade.

‘Check.’

‘Different game, tesoro mio .’

‘Not so different,’ she whispered.

He pushed her hair out of the way and leaned in, letting her blade slide along the staff until he was close enough to brush a kiss against her neck. Her pale skin barely hid the delicate blue veins and he could feel the hurried steps of her pulse. ‘We really need to sell this thing,’ he breathed. Then before she could finish him, he fell back.

When she followed his feint, sensing an opening, he came up within her guard from beneath.

She met him with a dagger. He hadn’t seen her draw it, but that didn’t matter because suddenly it was there, catching his quarterstaff at her throat between her crossed blades. Their noses almost touched. His muscles, taut with strain, trembled against her incredible strength. This close she was more dangerous than beautiful. More deadly than alluring. And yet he was nowhere near strong enough to resist. With the eyes of everyone on them and the game afoot, he leaned forward and captured her lips in a searing kiss.

Her mouth softened beneath his, and for the briefest moment she kissed him back.

Then her boot met his chest and his back met the stone.

Worth it. The winter grey sky turned overhead.

Selene smiled as she leaned over him and her hair brushed his cheeks. ‘Do you forfeit, luce dei miei occhi ?’

Selene three, Jules two. Not satisfied with merely kicking his ass, she’d wielded the endearment like a knife.

Light of my eyes , she called him. He filed that one away.

Jules groaned. ‘Yeah. But only because I already got the prize.’

‘Oh?’

‘A kiss from the principessa .’

She laughed. ‘You’re concussed.’

He grimaced, rubbing the back of his head. ‘Maybe.’

Heavy silence filled the courtyard. Dragging his eyes from Selene, Jules glanced around at the shocked expressions, noting the way these trained exorcists now held their weapons in a white-knuckle grip.

Florentina’s skin was alabaster pale.

Selene stepped closer, her fingers gliding up his neck to rest against his jaw before she brushed the softest, sweetest kiss to his mouth. A kiss no more substantial than the touch of butterfly wings. All that ruined the moment was that everyone watching thought Selene was kissing Eliot, when it was most undeniably Jules Lacroix.

Still holding his jaw, Selene flicked a bored glance Florentina’s way. ‘Are we done here?’

The Vatican library was everything a library should be. A thousand gilt-edged books across three levels. A thousand more bound in stiff leather. And even some covered in enough jewels to feed everyone in Nice for a year. Selene walked ahead of him through the stacks, tipping her head back to look at the frescoed ceiling.

Jules pushed his hands into his pockets, not hurrying. ‘You said we’re going somewhere tonight?’ The dark side of Rome .

‘I have a compact to witness,’ she said as she marched across the inlaid marble, following the reference number clutched in her hand. She made no effort to explain what that meant . ‘And maybe there’ll be answers to be had, if we’re lucky and play our cards right.’

They passed a series of enormous portraits. Imperiums past, Jules supposed. Each appeared serious and intimidating, but he paused to read the plaque below one that looked a little different to the rest.

Selene turned, looking at the portrait he was interested in. ‘He was the last Imperium Politikos who was not also an exorcist.’

Jules nodded slowly. That’s what it was.

He found the portrait of a slightly younger Adriano de Sanctis, who seemed to have become less austere as he aged. Jules was glad not to have met the man when he was younger. ‘Does he still … you know … kill demons?’

‘His role is political. He can still do it, but he will never be deployed by the Imperium Bellum.’

‘Why?’

‘They’re technically on the same level. Cesare has no power over him and vice versa.’

Shallow winter light slanted in through a tall window, landing on a more ornately framed portrait of a shrunken old man whose bushy brows obscured eyes that had sunk into the dark hollows of his skull.

‘But this guy does, right? The Exorcist Primus.’ Jules leaned closer to read the brass plaque, whistling below his breath. The painting was over fifty years old—no way he was still around. ‘If he was alive, that is.’

‘He is alive,’ Selene said simply. ‘And yes, commanding the Imperium Politikos is his only external means of power. The rest lies within the Vatican walls. In the hierarchy itself.’

Jules whistled again. ‘I hate to guess how he looks now.’

Selene crinkled her nose. ‘Much like … that . But even older.’

Grimacing, Jules turned back to her. ‘So, your uncle’s one of the most powerful men alive. And, even better, he still looks it.’

She raised her eyes to the heavens, but Jules felt sure he could see a dimple in her cheek as she bit back a smile. Leaning around a stack to make sure they were alone, she said, ‘Yes and no. Yes, particularly given he’s become the mouthpiece for the Exorcist Primus, who hasn’t been seen outside his apartments for years.’

Selene pulled out a book and flipped through the pages, but it was clear she wasn’t really seeing it. Across the vast room, a librarian who looked almost as old as the Exorcist Primus was shuffling back and forth from a library cart, shelving books one at a time.

‘And, no?’

Selene pressed her lips together, and for a long moment he thought she wouldn’t tell him. Then: ‘When they’re recalled, the college are more powerful still.’ Even bathed in pale winter light, Selene seemed to shiver. ‘Individually the Extremum Filum fall below the Imperiums, but collectively they have more power than anyone.’

‘Even the Exorcist Primus?’

Half turning away from him, Selene pushed her hair behind her ear. ‘Their power begins and ends with the Exorcist Primus. The college is only called to appoint a new one when the old one dies. Otherwise they stay … elsewhere.’ The look in her eyes changed and he could see her shutting down.

Secrecy was a way of life here, Jules was beginning to learn.

Shoving the book back onto its shelf—still upside down—Selene walked away, gliding her finger along the reference numbers.

‘What are the Extremum Filum? Have I met one?’

‘No. And pray you never do.’ She looked ashen.

Jules wondered what could frighten the Butcher of Rome.

‘You see …’ Selene continued in a measured tone. ‘There is a threshold we exorcists must not pass. When an exorcist exceeds their own limits, one of three things can happen. In the best case, they’re killed swiftly before they lose themselves. Or they can become less than human and little more than a monster. They must then be killed by their fellow exorcists. Sometimes this mercy killing happens too late and lives have already been lost.’

‘Obviously that’s the worst case.’

Her expression twisted. ‘No.’

But her willingness to speak about the secrets of her world seemed to be drying up. Before she could retreat further down the row of bookshelves he pulled her around by the hand. ‘Selene, you can’t leave it there.’ He smiled to hide his frustration, stepping closer. ‘You said there were three things. Where do the Extremum Filum come in?’

She hesitated, then continued. ‘The worst case is you use too much power, but it happens slowly and there is time for the Vatican to act. In this instance, an exorcist can be arrested at the precise tipping point before becoming something completely other. But it is no life at all. I would rather die.’

Her eyes looked haunted.

Jules felt as though a vast hand pressed against his chest.

‘Here,’ she breathed, scrunching the paper in her palm.

The line of shelves was full to the brim with great, bound books. Their spines were stamped with dozens of French cities. Jules walked along the row, tracing city names with his fingertip: Cannes, Lyon, Marseilles, Paris, Toulouse.

He retraced his steps. ‘Nice isn’t here,’ he breathed.

Selene came closer, head bent to read the spines. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Nice is missing .’ Jules set his hands flat on the empty shelf. Folding almost double, he swallowed a yell. ‘The records are already gone.’