Sinner's Heart

“This damned soldier had better,” she growled.

“I ought to call you Madam General rather than Madam Ghost.”

“Concentration,” she snapped. “Do not make this more difficult than it already is.”

“Apologies, Madam Ghost General.”

She clenched her teeth. “Just be quiet and still your mind. Search for the gleam of magic within. It is unique to each being.”

“Not me.”

“Most especially you. Think of the talents you possess, the skills distinctively yours. Leading men into battle. Beguiling women into your bed. Your art with a sword. You see them now, don’t you? These gifts?”

A pause. And then he rumbled, “I see them.”

“Follow them. Use them to guide you toward the magic inside you. It resembles a key, shining deep within you, as though at the bottom of a well. Look for that.”

She must guide him toward his magic as she searched for her own. Thank the goddess, he obeyed, falling silent.

Now she had to heed her own directive. Finding one’s magic meant utilizing magic, a painful irony. At the least, she possessed enough power for that. When she had been a girl first learning the mysteries of serving in the temple, the head priestess had revealed to her the existence of true magic. It was a secret hidden from most of the world. But the true magic dwelt within her, and she must train herself to find it, calling upon her native power to guide the magic within her to greater strength. She summoned that power now.

There—just as she had said to Bram. A gleaming key. It didn’t possess the same strength as it had before, however, its radiance dimmed.

“I see it.” Surprise threaded through Bram’s voice.

“Hold onto it,” she said, urgent. “Hold it tight.” She must combine their energy, something she had never truly attempted before. The Druid priestess and Egyptian slave had been her victims, their magic stripped away forcibly, and by her greater power. Now she must find another way, a gentler means.

Gentle was foreign to her. Yet she reached out to Bram with softer, searching hands. A careful coaxing forward. She wanted to touch his flesh, but could not. His psyche, his energy, these she could touch. A strange hesitancy danced through her, slowing her movement. Never had she shared such a communion. Always, she had been solitary, proud. This would not leave her unaffected.

She almost recoiled when she came up against the shimmering edge of his psyche—they had shared memories, thoughts, but this was even more intimate.

He hissed in a breath.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, only . . . it feels . . . strange.”

“For me, as well.” She pressed onward, delving within him. His psyche held a dark edge, yet it glimmered, like a mirror made of black glass, taking in light and reflecting it back with its own illumination. She felt him everywhere within her, a closeness greater than sex. She could lose herself within him. A purpose brought her here, however.

Ah, now she found it. The key of his own magic. Of her magic, broken apart and residing in him.

She utilized a Thracian joining spell, softly chanting as she brought the two halves of their magic together. It flared brightly, light and sensation flooding her.

Both she and Bram gasped.

“Thought I’d felt damned near everything,” he murmured. “But this is . . . new.”

“It’s . . .”

“. . . Good.”

Radiance and strength. An expanding. Of power. Of self. Even greater than she had ever experienced before. How could it be thus? She’d been such a powerful sorceress, capable of the greatest magic. This, though, was stronger.

Because of him.

It was an intoxication. She had been so long without magic, having it again made her head spin and the shade of her heart pound. Together, they were equal to anything. Any spell, any show of force. Her old hunger returned, its lupine teeth bright in the moonlight. Where to start? They could set the whole of London afire. They might turn the river Thames to ice. The possibilities spread out like a banquet.

“Madam Ghost,” he murmured, summoning back her spiraling mind. “Livia. We’ve an objective.”

She huffed out a startled laugh. “Now you become the voice of reason?”

“More proof that the world’s turned upside down.”

“You feel this, though. The power. The possibility.”

“I assuredly do.” Husky and low, his voice stroked through her.

They could be capable of a great many things together—powerful things, devastating things. Fortunate that her ghostly state created an impediment, for had she flesh, even his reasoning and gravity would not restrain her.

“Leo and Whit,” he said.

Yes—she and Bram must find them. “Say these words with me: kidbara kunu satu de. A locating spell from vast deserts of Sumer.”

He repeated the words, stumbling over the pronunciation. He said them again, the words smoothing out, and together, they began to chant. Their voices blended together, harmonizing in the darkness. The chant threaded around them, spinning outward, dissolving the walls of the chamber. The huge house faded, the street outside melted away, and the city itself dissipated like smoke in the rain.

Bram cursed.

She opened her eyes to find him staring at the bright mists now surrounding them. “This is the place of Ambitus, the In Between. The sphere through which all magic travels. The realm between life and death.” She gave a rueful laugh. “So long I’ve been in this place, but I’d forgotten that you are a stranger here.”

The Ambitus crackled with energy and potential. An eddying conduit of magic. Abstruse yet quick. That energy had been all that had sustained her during her long imprisonment. Yet it hadn’t been enough to keep her from madness.

He gazed around, wonder vivid in his lapidary eyes. “Are we still in London?”

“We are everywhere. The In Between encircles and permeates the world. It was here I existed after trapping the Dark One.” She couldn’t keep the tightness from her voice. Her old madness seemed to call to her from the haze.

He gazed at the mists surrounding them. “A thousand years here? But I thought this was the space through which one traveled.”

“Incantations break down the walls that divide one realm from the other. When one becomes adept at magic, the time spent here dwindles to nothing. It is merely a channel. But, in the beginning, it becomes a way station between the will to magic and its realization. And for me, it became my prison. Imprisoned between the worlds. Alone.”

He looked grim. “I’d not wish that on anyone.”

“It was a fitting punishment.”

“Let’s be gone from here,” he said, “and quickly.”

She struggled to calm herself and push back memories of her long captivity. “The spell has to continue. Keep chanting. As you do, think of Whit. Picture him in your mind. His face. His voice. Memories of him. Use them, link between you. Do not let go of this—if either of us becomes abstracted during this part of the spell, we’ll be trapped here.” She nodded toward the swirling mist. “You see them? The blighted and unwary. I was one of their number.”

He swore as flickering shapes in rough human form spun through the haze.

“There must be a way to free them from this place.”

“The Ambitus has no walls to demolish, no battlements to breach. Once trapped, there is nothing to be done, you remain here forever. Only my connection to you pulled me fully from its grasp. But