He was a flickering presence in the now frigid room. Augustus had to narrow his eyes to distinguish the man, and even then, he moved in and out of clarity, as though he were a sunken ship glimpsed deep beneath rippling waters.

In spite of his state, he was certainly Mark Antony. There was no doubt. The unruly hair and trimmed beard, the cleft chin, the wide chest, the handsome, weathered face. Augustus recognized the ragged, coiled scars, evidence of battles they’d fought together.

His enemy was more man than he, even as a ghost. Augustus picked up his goblet in trembling fingers and refilled it with wine, taking care not to meet Antony’s eyes.

“Is this safe?” Augustus asked Chrysate, taking care that his voice did not wobble. “You’ve brought my enemy into my house. I trust you know how to control him.”

“He is a shade,” Chrysate answered, smiling. “Not the man you knew. They are the perfect servants. Their will begins to slip away from them the moment they enter Hades. The river of forgetfulness beckons them, and they always surrender. Look at him. He is nothing of what he was. He cannot take up arms against you. But he may be useful.”

“What have you done?” Antony asked, the full darkness of his gaze upon the emperor. “Where is my wife?”

His voice seemed to come from far away, an aching echo propelled from the depths of the earth and into the room.

In spite of the witch’s assurances, the emperor clung to his chair, his entire body desirous of flight. He wanted the sun to rise, and it did not. The only glow came from the stars outside the window, and that light was cold. The soul-drawing witch—the psuchagoĝoi—stood beside him, her fingers resting lightly on his shoulder. Augustus did not like the way they felt.

“Where is she?” Antony demanded. “Where is Cleopatra?”

Augustus glanced nervously at the witch, at her gleaming, bone-white skin, her phosphorescent eyes and bloodred lips and the tongue that ran hungrily over them. He mastered his voice with another deep draught of wine and theriac.

“First, you must tell us where you have been,” he informed the shadow before him. “Tell us of your time in Hades.”

The ghost stood straighter, clearly angered. He shook his shoulders, and ripples of gray light came off him.

“Is this why you have summoned me?” Antony asked. “To tell you of the Underworld? You will go there yourself one day, and knowing will not ease your mind.”

“Tell us,” Augustus insisted.

Antony laughed, a short exclamation of disgust. “Do you think you will find yourself in Elysium, soothed by the light of Elysium’s stars, basking in the glow of Elysium’s own lovely sun? No. You will not go to Elysium, Octavian, though you call yourself a god on earth. Only heroes go to Elysium.”

“Your emperor orders you to tell what you know,” Augustus said, his voice cracking and betraying him.

Antony smiled, only his lips moving. His eyes remained bleak.

“My emperor? You are not my emperor. I live in the land of the dead now. I’ll tell you something, though, if you insist. In Hades, you starve. You perish, and you perish forever, without cease, without respite, without home. I am of Egypt. My love is of Egypt. I should not be in Hades.”

“And you are not,” Augustus retorted. “You are in Rome.”

“I should be in the Duat,” Antony said. “My body should be in Egypt, and it is not. Where is my wife? What have you done with her?”

Augustus started to speak, but the witch interrupted him.

“Your wife is why we have called you here,” she said. “She lives.”

Antony’s eyes narrowed.

“If she lived, I would have felt her tears filling the river Acheron,” he said. “Cleopatra would have sacrificed on my behalf. Her sacrifices would have fed me. She is certainly dead. What have you done to her?”

“She does not live,” the witch corrected. “And she does not die. She is here.”

“Cleopatra is in Rome?” Antony asked, looking up with focused eyes for the first time.

“In Rome,” Chrysate confirmed. She glanced at Augustus and tossed her hair back. “What is wrong, Emperor of the World? Are you afraid? Protected as you are by women, snake charmers, and shades? Do you fear for your life?”

“No,” said Augustus, lying. “I fear nothing. Rome is well fortified.”

So she was here. He had felt as much.

“She is in Rome,” Antony murmured to himself. “And yet she betrayed me in Egypt. Is she here? With you?”

Augustus glanced at him impatiently. The emperor’s hands were now quite numb, and his lips felt frozen.

“You will guard my home,” Augustus instructed the witch.

“I will find her,” Antony murmured. “If Cleopatra is here, I will find her.” He moved toward the window.

“You are my creature,” Chrysate told him sharply. “You’ll abide with me.”

The witch opened her hand to reveal a carved stone. A synochitis meant to hold shades in the upper world once they had been summoned. “You are held here,” she continued, moving her hand in the air. The stone disappeared from view.

Antony looked at her for a long moment. Augustus felt nervous, seeing the look on his face. He had known Antony, known him well, and he knew him to be no one’s creature.

At last, the shade bowed his head in assent.

“I am yours, then,” he said. “My lady.”

Chrysate smiled, fingering the carved box of ashes she held against her breasts.

“You are mine,” she repeated, and there was something rapturous in her tone. Something triumphant. “We are done with you, emperor of Rome. Octavian, is that your name? You may go to your bed.”

She gazed at Augustus steadily, until he was forced to look away.

The emperor left the room, swaying with unaccustomed wine and theriac. He could not say why he allowed himself to be dismissed from his own rooms by a witch. Perhaps Agrippa was right. There should be more soldiers, more Romans, not these unnatural things. Everything about this made him uneasy.

He made his way to his daughter’s bedchamber and stood in the doorway for a moment, his eyes filling with strange tears. He would protect Julia from all of this, these creatures in his house, this monster in his city. She moved in her sleep, pressing her rosy cheek to her pillow. What did Julia know of the powers of an emperor? What did she know of trouble?

Augustus envied her, blearily, for a moment.

He gently closed the door and walked to the next bedchamber, that of Cleopatra’s daughter, Selene. She’d been of service to him, and she might be of more. Selene was superior to his own daughter. Smarter. Perhaps Julia might learn virtue from his enemy’s child.

Augustus wavered in the corridor, uncertain, intoxicated. He was tired. So tired.

He made his way to his own bedchamber and lay upon his bed without even undressing. He shut his eyes and slept. In his dreams he walked through a fig orchard, ancient and miserable, knowing that his life had come to nothing.

In his dreams, Cleopatra came for him, as she did every night. He saw her teeth and claws.