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Centered on the pedestal, bathed in gentle light, stood an exquisitely perfect porcelain statue of a woman. Though she stood barely eight inches high, the clothing that identified her as a member of the Borcan upper class was complete down to the impossibly tiny stitches on her embroidered sleeves. Her back was slightly arched, and her perfectly detailed hands were raised, as though to block a blow. Her face looked up through the shield of her hands, twisted into an expression of utter horror. Except for the horror, she would have been beautiful.
    Head bowed, Aurek stood motionless before the alcove. A vein pulsed in his temple as he concentrated with all his power, all his heart, on the tiny figure.
    Then his shoulders sagged, and a strangled cry of despair escaped. He could feel the spirit trapped within the statue but, try as he might, he couldn’t reach it. Had never been able to reach it.
    “It’s a new day, Natalia.” With a trembling finger, he reached out and tenderly stroked the statue’s auburn hair. “Perhaps it will be the day we’ve been waiting for. I have permission to search,” he continued, clasping his hands behind his back as though afraid of what they’d do if free. “The Lord of Richemulot is a woman—well, technically not a woman, but female—less predictable than the Lady Ivana and probably more dangerous because of that. We …” He paused, strangely reluctant to tell the wife he loved so desperately that he and Jacqueline Renier had touched, if only for an instant, beneath the other’s surface.
    “I don’t know why she hides what she is,” he said instead. “Her family is so strong here it couldn’t possibly make any difference. But then, her kind enjoy dark and labyrinthine games, so perhaps that’s sufficient explanation. I’m sure it amuses them to mingle with the citizens of the cities.”
    That the citizens worked so hard at remaining unaware, he strongly suspected came in a large part from instincts of self-preservation and in a small part from plain and simple denial. The evidence was plentiful if any of them chose to heed it.
    “I believe she recognized what I am in much the same way as I recognized her—power calling to power.…” His voice trailed off as he remembered another time power had called to power and his beloved Natalia had paid the price of the visit. Finally he regained control and continued. “She as much as promised me that if I leave her family alone, she will leave mine alone. I think we’re safehere.” He had never worried about safety before, had taken it for granted … before.
    He half-turned as he heard a door open back in his bedchamber and the floor protesting under a familiar heavy tread. “It’s time for me to go, Lia.” Swallowing his grief, he cupped both hands around the statue without actually touching it. “I love you,” he whispered through the constriction in his throat. “I promise you, I’ll find a way.”
    Face twisted with painful memories, he returned to his bedchamber, pulling the study door closed softly behind him.
    Edik, his servant, had come and gone, leaving a pitcher of steaming water on the shaving table. Feeling as though at any moment misery and guilt could tear him apart, Aurek fought for control as he filled a bowl and reached for his razor.
    When he looked into his shaving mirror, his hand froze, the blade cold against the skin of his throat. The laughing face of the wild-haired man filled the glass. His lips writhed with the force of his amusement. Under heavy lids, his eyes, locked on Aurek’s, were dark with gleeful hate.
    A muscle jumped in Aurek’s jaw. Though the man in the mirror was eight months dead—his name unknown, his body food for worms—this was no true ghost. If it were, it would have long since been banished. But Aurek took little comfort in knowing that he haunted himself with a phantom called up out of his own pain and, even knowing its origins, he couldn’t help responding.
    After