Ptolemy's Gate

away! The pentacles must be readied!"
    He turned to issue further orders. Without expression, the mercenary loosened his grip on Kitty's hair. Nathaniel, conscious of hostile eyes upon him—-Jenkins and Lime in particular were watching with undisguised suspicion—did not hasten to her side. She remained where she was, slumped on her knees, head lowered, hair hanging over her face. The sight pierced him.
    Twice now that evening Kitty Jones had nearly died, and all because of what he'd done. Because he'd found her, because he'd wrenched her out of her quiet new life and brought her with him, just to satisfy his selfish curiosity.
    When, in the theater, the Inferno struck her, Nathaniel had thought her dead. Sorrow had overwhelmed him; he had been almost unmanned with guilt. Despite the mercenary's harsh warning, he had flung himself beside her, and only then realized that she breathed. For the next hour, while she remained unconscious, his sense of shame had slowly grown. Little by little he began to recognize his folly.
    Already, in the last few days, he had begun to detach himself from the name of Mandrake, from the role that for years had become a second skin. But only with the events in the theater did that detachment become a true separation. The two key certainties that governed him—his belief in the invulnerability of the government and in the essential virtue of his motives—were dashed from him in a matter of moments. The magicians were overpowered. Kitty was struck down. Both came at the hand of Makepeace, and it was with horror that Nathaniel recognized, in that callous, indifferent hand, a reflection of his own.
    At first the enormity of Makepeace's crime almost blinded him to its nature: the theatrical panache of the coup, the bizarre perversion of the demons within the body, all the silly talk of genius and creativity helped divert attention from the banal reality of the truth. It was nothing but another cold, ambitious little man playing for power. No different from Lovelace, or Duvall or—and at this thought Nathaniel felt a chill upon his spine—from Nathaniel's own musings that very evening, as he sat in the car and dreamed of seizing the Staff and putting an end to the war. Oh, yes, he'd told himself it was for the right reasons, to help the commoners and save the Empire, but where did such idealism end? With bodies like Kitty's lying on the floor.
    How naked and obvious Nathaniel's ambition must have been! Makepeace had seen it. Farrar, too. Ms. Lutyens had understood it and walked away.
    No wonder Kitty had treated him with such disdain. . . As he had watched over her body in the Hall of Statues, he had come to share her contempt.
    But then she had woken, and with his relief came new determination.
    The conspirators were busy. Back and forth across the room they scampered, bringing out the paraphernalia of summoning: candles, bowls, herbs, and flowers. In the center of the hall the heavy rugs had been pulled clear and unceremoniously dumped to one side. Several pentacles were revealed beneath, beautifully inlaid in mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli. Makepeace stood within one, stripped down to his shirttails, pointing, pouting, issuing shrill commands.
    Kitty Jones still crouched as before.
    Nathaniel strolled forward, bent at her side, and spoke softly. "Kitty, get up." He extended his bound hands."Come on. That's it. Sit over here." He pushed aside a heavy chair of redwood, and helped lower her down. "Rest there. Are you all right?"
    "Yes."
    "Then wait. I'll get you out of this."
    "How's that exactly?"
    "Trust me." He leaned against the table, appraising the situation. By the door the mercenary stood, arms folded, gazing implacably toward them. No possibility of escape there. The conspirators themselves were feeble; it was easy to see now why Makepeace had recruited them. He had chosen the weak, the unpreferred, those eaten away with jealousy and malice, who would seize the opportunity but never be a threat to him. The playwright was a different matter, a formidable magician. Without his demons, Nathaniel was helpless.
    Makepeace. . . He cursed again his own stupidity. For years he had suspected the presence of a traitor high in government,
someone connected to both the Lovelace and the Duvall plots. Four magicians had been needed to summon the great demon Ramuthra back at Heddleham Hall—the fourth had never been seen, save for a fleeting glimpse in an open-topped car— a flash of