Again thunder rattled the tall windows. Deirdre was so startled she took a step forward, an antelope drawn by fear toward the lion.

Anders tightened his big hand around the gun, holding it at arm’s length. “I need you to move away, Deirdre.”

As always, he pronounced her name DEER-dree. However, his voice was no longer preternaturally cheery. Instead it was sharp and grim, and his eyes had undergone their own transmutation from vivid blue to hard steel. A wave of regret crashed over Deirdre. Then the wave ebbed, draining away, leaving her cold. How long had he been there, just outside the hall, listening?

You have to assume he’s heard everything.

Which meant he knew who Marius was. Knew whathe was.

“Come on, Deirdre,” he said, motioning with the gun. “You need to get out of the way. Now.”

“No,” she said, her own voice going hard. “Tell me what you’re doing here and how you followed me.”

“There isn’t time for that now, mate. You’ve got to listen to me.”

“No. You’ve lied to me.”

He flinched, and a husky note crept into his voice. “I know I have, mate. And I’m sorry about that, I really am. But if you’ve ever cared one whit about me—and I think you have—then I need you to do this for me. I need you to step aside.”

“Don’t do it, honey,” a smooth voice said behind her. “He’s trying to trick you.”

Fresh shock sizzled through Deirdre as lightning flickered outside the windows. She jerked her head around. Standing in a narrow opening Deirdre had not seen before was a tall, dusky-skinned woman clad in a turtleneck sweater and tweed slacks.

“Sasha,” Deirdre said, her mind trying to comprehend what was happening. Sasha’s presence was an incongruity, like a polar bear in a desert.

Sasha took a step forward, and a door swung shut behind her, melding with the dark wood paneling. It was a servant’s entrance, designed to be invisible.

“Stop right there, Sasha,” Anders growled, taking a step forward, gun before him. So it was not at Deirdre or Marius that Anders had been aiming the weapon.

Sasha did as he commanded, resting her hands on her slender hips. She kept her dark eyes on Deirdre. “Everything he’s told you is a lie, Deirdre. It’s just like you suspected. Since that day we chatted, I’ve checked out the story he gave you, and it doesn’t match up with the facts I was able to uncover. Anders is not what he says he is. I went to talk to you, and that’s when I saw him rummaging through your desk and snapped his picture. Since then, I’ve been tailing him.”

“That’s not true!” Anders tried to get a bead on her with the gun, but Deirdre was still in the way.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Sasha said coolly. “Go on, Deirdre. Ask him yourself. See if he can look you in the face and deny it.”

Deirdre glanced at Marius, but he only gazed at her, silent. She turned, looking at Anders. “Did you tell me the truth about why you joined the Seekers? Did you tell me about the truth about your gun? Did you tell me that you had gone through my desk, my papers?”

Again he grimaced, but Deirdre didn’t fool herself into thinking it was because he regretted what he had done. He was chagrined that he had been caught, that was all.

“See, Deirdre?” Sasha cooed, taking another step forward. “He can’t deny it, because it’s all true.”

“Please, mate,” Anders said, adjusting his grip on the gun. “Step aside. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Deirdre couldn’t say the same. “Do something,” she said softly to Marius. “Stop him. I know you can.”

He raised a golden eyebrow. “Are you certain?”

“Yes!” she hissed.

“Very well, then.” He raised a hand.

“No!” Anders shouted, stretching out his arm.

Deirdre tensed, waiting for the fatal sound of a gunshot, but it never came. Anders continued to stand rigid, teeth bared, the muscles of his jaw bulging, his fingers tight around the gun. She kept her eyes on him; he did not move, not even to blink.

It was just like Marius had described in the journal, when Adalbrecht had rescued him in Advocate’s Close. She looked at Marius as he lowered his hand. For a second green sparks shone in his gold eyes, then they faded. He took a staggering step back, and his face was suddenly ashen.

“Thanks, darling,” Sasha purred, sauntering forward. “I had wondered how I was going to get rid of the big lug. How nice of you to do it for me.”

Deirdre shook her head. What was Sasha talking about?

“I see,” Marius breathed, his expression thoughtful.

And Sasha pulled a small pistol from the pocket of her slacks, aiming it directly at Marius’s heart.

Deirdre’s knees went weak, and if she had not gripped the back of the chair she had been sitting in earlier, she would have fallen. A feeling beyond words came over her. It was not pain, not exactly. Nor was it horror. It was as if a hole had opened up inside her—a void in which nothing existed, like the rifts in the heavens.

Sasha clucked her tongue. “Really, Deirdre, after all you’ve been through, I expected you to put up more of a fight than that. You’re not quite the legend you’ve been made out to be.” Her dark gaze flicked toward Marius. “But then, I suppose legends never are.”

Deirdre shuddered. Marius had lauded her, telling her that her instincts were deep and powerful. But that was laughable. Her instincts had been wrong. Dead wrong.

Only that’s not true, Deirdre. You wanted to trust Anders despite everything that had happened. Deep down, you believed in him, but your stupid brain convinced you otherwise. It was Sasha he was aiming the gun at, not you or Marius. He was trying to make you get out of the way so he could shoot her.

Only Deirdre had stopped him.

Another crash of thunder shook the windows. “Oh, this is going to be fun,” Sasha said, moving closer, gun resting easily in her slender hand.

Deirdre cast a glance at Marius. Couldn’t he . . . ?

He shook his head. “I do not have the strength to perform another spell,” he said, understanding what she had wanted him to do. “The first took far more out of me than usual. And I am not at my full power. It has been over a decade since I’ve journeyed to Crete.”

Sasha’s deep red lips parted in a grin. “She told me that was the case. Everyone else had returned to Knossos, to renew their strength in preparation for what’s to come. But not you. That’s one reason she’s been suspicious of you, Marius.”

“Phoebe,” he said softly.

Sasha shrugged. “Names aren’t important.”

“So she hasn’t revealed herself to you,” Marius said. “I wonder what else she has failed to reveal.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “I’m hardly going to start doubting my benefactor now. Not after she’s been so very kind to me. I know whom to trust, Marius, unlike poor Deirdre here. It seems the little shaman has lost her magic vision.” Her lips curled in a sneer. “Assuming she ever had it, of course.”

Those words stung, but Deirdre welcomed the pain, letting it fill the emptiness inside her. “So you’ve been working for the Philosophers all this time,” Deirdre said. “I suppose you were the one who gave Travis’s photo to the sorcerers and told them where to find him.”

Sasha pantomimed a yawn. “Of course I did. Shall I confess everything, Deirdre? Isn’t that what a good villain does at the end—gloats over her victory? But really, what’s the point? It’s not as if you’ll be around for long to lament it.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose I couldthrow you a morsel for old time’s sake. Yes, I communicated the desires of the Philosophers to the sorcerers. I told them where to find Wilder, and even mapped out the location in the Charterhouse for them, so they could open a gate there. The Philosophers didn’t want Wilder to interfere with their plans. They wanted to get him out of the way, and the sorcerers were all too easily used to that end. There—happy now?”