“You have forgotten how power works, little witch. It is one of the few things time hasn’t changed.” He smirks at me, the dim light in the room exaggerating his scar. “Modern people act like they’ve evolved into something…palatable. They pretend they don’t hunger for blood and destruction, and they almost have themselves fooled.” The shadows in the room have exaggerated Memnon’s features, turning him sinister.

“But, est amage,” he continues, “there is only one law humans ever follow: might makes right. We were strong enough to take this doorway, so now it is ours.”

“That’s not how the world works,” I argue.

His smoky-brown eyes glint. “Careful now, Selene. You’re thinking like an idealist. Bad men use such thoughts for their own gain.”

Memnon closes the last of the distance between us. Even the way he moves is confident. And why wouldn’t he be confident? He is physically powerful, wickedly intelligent, and has enough magic to wipe out a city. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who possesses so much strength.

He searches my face again, then peers into my eyes.

“Strange,” he murmurs curiously.

“What is strange?” I ask, distracted by how alluring he is. Even now, heat pools in me.

“Your memory and my legacy are both gone,” he muses. “Mine has been cast from the record, but it still lingers in my mind, while yours has been cast from your mind but still lingers in the record…”

My brows pinch together as his eyes grow distant.

“Damnatio memoriae,” he says, reaching out and stroking my cheek with his knuckles. “That’s the curse you would’ve used…”

Curse?

“I’ve never cursed another person in my entire life,” I say, indignant.

“That you can remember,” he tacks on, his knuckles still warm against my skin.

I narrow my gaze at him.

“But you cannot remember,” he says again, his gaze far away.

All at once those eyes sharpen as some realization snaps into place.

His hand drops from my cheek. “The Law of Three,” he says, like it’s all so obvious. “The Witch’s Law.”

I know what he’s speaking of—every witch does. It’s our equivalent of the Golden Rule. The Law of Three is the principle that rules all spellwork. It states that any magic you perform—good or bad—will return to you threefold.

His gaze is heavy on mine. “Est amage, you cursed yourself.”

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CHAPTER 34

As soon as we return to my room, I grab a pen and snatch up my notebook.

There are several things I need to remember. I rush to write them all down, starting with the Sarmatian command words I’ll need to invoke to open and close the doorway, then ending with damnatio memoriae and the Law of Three.

Ever since Memnon uttered these last two concepts, he’s been in a peculiar mood—half-broody, half-contemplative.

The idea that I’m some washed-up ex-lover who went to all this trouble…it’s the sort of story you spin to make some ridiculous worldview make sense.

That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t look into it.

I put my pen down and turn to the man himself. Memnon’s taken a seat at the chair by my bedside, and he’s studying the dozens of notebooks I’ve shelved on my bookcase.

I don’t know why he hasn’t left me yet. I expected him to. What I wasn’t expecting was to enjoy his company. He’s weird and edgy and just…a lot all at once, but I don’t really want to part ways with him.

His attention moves from the notebooks to the sticky notes that pepper my belongings—they’re on the covers of my textbooks, one is on my lampshade, another on my desk, and still another on the back of my door. I know that last one is a reminder to check that I’ve packed my notebook for the day.

Memnon taps on the chair’s armrest and jiggles his leg impatiently.

“Stop it,” I say.

Memnon’s gaze flicks to me. He doesn’t say anything, but there’s a question in his eyes.

“You look like you’re trying to figure something out.” He looks like he’s trying to figure me out. I rub my arms. “It’s making me nervous.”

His fingers cease tapping; his leg stops jiggling. Not that it does any good. Memnon caged his restlessness, but I can see it still prowling in his eyes.

I move over to my bed and sit on the mattress, so close to Memnon, my knee brushes his.

“Who are you?” I ask. “Beyond Memnon the Cursed.”

At my words, the sorcerer seems to tear himself away from his own thoughts. “I was never Memnon the Cursed. I was Memnon the Indomitable. I presume you gave me the new title when you buried me.”

I bite my tongue to keep from arguing with him on that point. “What else?” I say instead.

He tilts his head a little, considering my question. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

“I don’t know—anything, everything.”

He stares at me for a long time, those enigmatic eyes seeming to plumb my depths. He inhales, then begins.

“I was born Uvagukis Memnon, son of Uvagukis Tamara, queen of the Sarmatians, and Ilyapa Khuno, sorcerer king of the Moche.”

“They ruled different nations?”

“Est amage, they ruled different landmasses. My father was from the area you know as Peru. The only reason he met my mother is because he knew how to manipulate ley lines.”

Ley lines are magical roads that lie like a net across the world. They’re areas where space and time wrinkles. If one knows how to navigate them correctly, they can cross entire oceans in minutes. Hell, they can travel to other realms in minutes—the Otherworld and the Underworld share these same ley lines with earth.

I don’t know much more than that about them.

“You’re telling me that two thousand years ago, your dad left South America to visit a continent across the world?”

Because that would upend the entire history nonmagical humans have established about the moment the East met the West. But then, it would also explain why I discovered Memnon himself, a man who lived in Eurasia, asleep in a crypt somewhere in northern Peru.

“He did more traveling than just that,” Memnon says. “But yes.”

I’d like to linger on this, but the truth is I’m not particularly interested in Memnon’s dad. I’m interested in Memnon himself.

I search his face. “What else?”

The corners of his eyes crinkle, like I’m amusing him—or maybe he’s simply pleased to have captured my attention.

“I learned to ride a horse at the same time I learned to walk, and I killed my first opponent at thirteen,” he says. “But perhaps most importantly, my power first awoke when you called to it.”

Normally, supernaturals drink a concoction called bittersweet to Awaken their powers. To hear that this didn’t happen to Memnon, that instead, a person—Roxilana, I assume—awoke it…

“How?”

Memnon gives me a heavy look. “Trauma. When you were a child, a Roman legion attacked your village and killed your family. In your fear, you called out to me through our bond.”

I’m barely breathing. I don’t bother correcting him on the fact this is not me he’s speaking of.

“I was confused for many moons about the fearful voice in my head. I didn’t know who you were or where you lived—or even that you lived. I thought you were a spirit, one who spoke a language I didn’t initially know. And you couldn’t hear me, not for a long while.

“But once you did”—Memnon smiles—“things got very fun.

“We spoke to each other all the time—sometimes when we didn’t even mean to. I remember being in the middle of battle when I heard you curse at yourself for breaking a bowl.”

I stare at Memnon, hanging on every word.

“I started searching for you when I was thirteen, but it was only once I was crowned king that I was able to lead my horde west, into the Roman Empire, and find you.”