“Why did he leave?” she asked, feeling bewildered that Blaise would abandon her so quickly after their soul-searing night together.
Aubrey gave her a small, compassionate smile. He wore his costume. The simple austerity of a Roman tunic suited his classic good looks. “More than likely he has gone to the crystal room, to nourish himself. That would be my guess.”
Her gaze skittered anxiously off Aubrey’s face. Aubrey didn’t understand the full communion she’d shared with Blaise last night. For him, nothing had changed in regard to Blaise’s wariness around her. For her, everything had changed, so Blaise’s behavior struck her as odd, indeed.
He hesitated. “I will make excuses for you, Isabel, if you need to go.”
“Thank you for understanding,” she said in a hushed voice. “Yes. Please give everyone my apologies.”
She turned and fled the theatre without a backward glance.
She raced through corridors, the flickering torchlight seeming to bring Titurino’s detailed frescoes to life above her head. She found the elevator that led to the apex of Sanctuary. It didn’t occur to her to question her sudden acute anticipation. More inexplicable things had happened to her since coming to Sanctuary than this. She’d ceased to rationalize constantly, and trust her feelings more.
She’d been to the apex room once before, with Margaret. She’d been overly wary of the giant crystal. Not only did she sense its immense power—like a mainline for the earth’s energy—she had vague, frightening memories of being forced to touch it by Morshiel’s followers.
Wary or no, she would go there tonight.
She stepped off the elevator into a carpeted hallway. The silence seemed to have weight, it was so thick. She heard a noise, like the soft growl of an animal, and spun to her left.
For several seconds, she just stared, sure she was hallucinating. She was playing the role of Cleopatra. Had she somehow managed to conjure the ancient queen’s spirit? Was this more of Sanctuary’s magic?
The black-haired woman who stood before her wore a simple sheath dress, her gleaming, golden-brown skin making the color of it look starkly white by contrast. The only other adornment she wore was a half-dollar-sized crystal that lay flush next to the skin on her chest.
Her eyes were like two knives carved from ebony.
“He said I was to remain invisible, but I will eviscerate you, in Hathor’s name, for daring to carry the sistrum,” the woman hissed.
Isabel blinked in shock. She glanced down to where she clutched the prop in her hand—a small percussion instrument. She knew the sistrum played a part in ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies, and that only priestesses were allowed to carry it.
“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Isabel demanded.
The women sneered. Her downward glance was like splashed vitriol. “You call that the dress of an Egyptian queen? I wore robes spun from pure gold. I wore rubies and emeralds, and it was said the most precious gems in the entire world were invisible next to my beauty. You…you look like a harlot dressing up for a man with a costume kink.”
Isabel straightened in rising indignation when the woman began to laugh, as if she thought her joke was the best she’d ever heard.
“I don’t have time for you,” Isabel muttered under her breath before she started down the hallway in the direction of the apex room.
Apparently, this was not the thing to say to the woman. Isabel turned around at the sound of pure fury behind her. She barely had time to put up her forearms in front of her face, blocking the woman’s oncoming, clawed hands. Isabel grabbed her wrists, halting her in mid-air, but the woman struggled like a wild cat. Isabel’s fear that she would lose her eyes to the woman’s sharp fingernails made her fight back with equal fervor.
“You dare to speak to me that way? I am Shirian the Magnificent! You are nothing! Nothing,” she shrieked, shooting spittle into Isabel’s face. She flung her body forward, causing Isabel to stagger before she regained her balance. Isabel struggled to defend herself, shocked to the core by the intensity of a stranger’s hatred. Without pausing to consider her actions, she jabbed her knee upward between the woman’s thighs.
; Air whooshed out of her attacker’s lungs. Her black eyes went wide and she broke free of Isabel’s hold, staggering backward. Isabel read the moment in the woman’s eyes when her shock morphed to unmitigated fury. She flew at Isabel again, howling as she did so, her beautiful face twisted in malice. Isabel did the first thing that popped into her mind. She hauled back with her fist and clocked the woman in the jaw. Her assailant wailed in pain, but kept coming, clawing her fingernails through Isabel’s wig, and finding her real hair coiled beneath it. She scraped skin and yanked brutally. Tears swelled in Isabel’s eyes at the sharp pain.
“I don’t care what that fool Morshiel thinks, you’re nothing but a worthless whore,” Shirian grated out between clenched white teeth.
Pain made it difficult for her to think, so she automatically mimicked what Shirian was doing. She grabbed at a hank of thick, smooth hair and yanked for all she was worth.
“I don’t care what anyone says, you’ve got to be the biggest bitch on the face of the earth,” Isabel replied with difficulty from her stretched throat before she placed one hand on Shirian’s face and pushed back at the same time she jerked at the hair at her nape with all of her might. She landed a kick on the woman’s knee. She barely had time to process Shirian’s cry of outrage when her fingers caught at the leather string around her neck. Isabel felt something give.
Suddenly she was stumbling around off balance.
“Isabel?” Blaise called to her sharply.
She made a sound of dismay when she saw the woman was gone. Had it all been a bizarre waking-dream?
She lifted her fist and saw the crystal pendant swinging from the brown leather string. It had really happened. She’d ripped the necklace off the woman’s throat, and then she’d vanished.