“Semele!” Theo shouted.
“You can leave these walls but you can’t escape me,” Viktor said. “Our work here today is far from over, Semele.” He pointedly quoted Ionna’s words back to her. “You and I are entangled.”
Semele stared at him, transfixed. He was a monster like his father, another Evanoff playing God in a laboratory.
“No, we’re not,” she said, shaking her head with finality.
For a split moment she saw the surprise in Viktor’s eyes before she turned and ran. There would be no time for him to call Moscow, no time to reveal her identity to anyone. She had seen their futures; he had no idea his was ending.
“Run!” Semele grabbed her mother’s hand and dragged her out of the room. Theo ran behind them with his arms spread wide to shield them from the blast.
They had barely made it to the street when the building exploded. The force launched them several feet forward and they hit the pavement in a broken huddle.
Semele’s ears were ringing as she watched flames engulf the orphanage. She felt her body being pulled up and into the strength of Helen’s arms around her. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry” was all she could say to her mother.
“Oh, baby. Oh, my baby,” Helen cried, holding her tightly. Then she opened her arms to Theo. “Thank you,” she said between sobs.
Semele closed her eyes, feeling herself wrapped in their embrace. They had made it. Viktor was gone, taking with him a nightmare that would remain forever in the past. Now Semele knew how Nettie must have felt kneeling by the river.
Time seemed to stop and hover around her as she watched the orphanage burn. Her eyes met Theo’s, her heart breaking when she saw the resignation in his. Theo had known the cards and manuscript wouldn’t survive. Ionna must have written it in the pages. Every ancestor who had held those cards, along with the memories Ionna had recorded, were lost forever. Semele had finally found her roots, and now she was being forced to witness their destruction. If only she had touched the cards when she’d had the chance, studied them more. She had thought she had all the time in the world—and she had also been afraid.
The wind danced and blew heat on her face, making her look away from the fire.
She saw the corner of a card peeking out from her mother’s shirt pocket. Semele reached for it with shaking hands, unable to believe it.
One card had survived.
A sob caught in her throat. The physical chain between her and Ionna hadn’t been completely broken. Here was one last link. When Semele held the card in her hand, her tears flowed free.
Ionna had given her The World.
The Lovers
When they arrived back in New York, they felt like soldiers returning from battle. Helen and Semele got their own room at the Four Seasons for several nights. They wanted to be close to Theo and to each other. Semele realized she needed to have her mother nearby. They held hands and embraced often, assuring one another that they were safe. The rift between them had begun to heal. Their love had seen to that.
Semele tried to explain everything that had happened, and only because Helen had witnessed and experienced Viktor’s madness could she believe it.
Theo put in the proper calls to start the investigation on Viktor Salko and Kairos, as well as Mikhail and Raina. He discovered that Viktor was already under investigation for having ties to the Russia Mafia. Raina was missing and Mikhail had flown to St. Petersburg. Theo doubted either of them would set foot in the United States again.
Semele couldn’t believe she had been working in the devil’s den—Mikhail had reported directly to Viktor and must have known Viktor’s intentions and tried to protect her. Cabe had lost his life because of them, and before him, her father and Marcel.
She thought of Raina.
Raina had known Viktor wanted the manuscript, but she hadn’t known his whole plan. Yet she must have wondered at his obsession with Semele, even felt threatened by it.
Semele wanted to believe that Raina had nothing to do with Cabe’s death, that she was innocent. But she couldn’t explain away her fury. Raina had Evanoff’s and Viktor’s blood in her veins. Maybe one day she would meet her cousin and know the truth.
*
On their second evening back, Semele and Theo were alone in Theo’s suite. He pulled her close, wrapping her in his arms.
“So,” she asked point-blank, “do you have your grandmother’s ability?”
A gleam entered his eyes. “You’re not the only one who inherited something.” He had the audacity to smile.
Semele could only gape at him. “You’re telling me you can see through walls?”
“It’s called remote viewing,” he said, as if that made it any more normal. “Basically, I can focus my mind and leave my body to travel to other places.”
“What kinds of places?” Her eyebrows shot up. “How far?”
He considered the question. “Over land, pretty far. Oceans, not so much.”
Oceans? A giggle welled up inside her. His mind could fly like Superman, and she could see the future and the past. Now weren’t they the perfect couple?
“It’s easier if I have a specific place—or person—I’m trying to connect with.” He looked away, as if he was divulging an embarrassing secret. “I wanted to tell you sooner, but I couldn’t find the right time.”
She wondered if he had tried to “connect” with her at the chateau, and she realized that the day she had seen him meditating, he had actually been doing something else.
“When I was working in your father’s gallery, you were watching me, weren’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t watch you?” He kissed the tip of her nose playfully.
All that time she had thought he was indifferent to her, when the opposite had been true. “That’s how you knew the maid was in there?”
He nodded, looking pleased with himself. Semele began to get the full picture. “And do you normally sit on your bed shirtless?”
“Only when I know you’re snooping around my house.”
“I wasn’t snooping!” She swatted his chest. “I was coming up to the library to see the Orbis Sensualium Pictus. Is it really an original?”
His lips found hers again. “Come to Switzerland with me and find out.”
She kissed him back. “I could do that.”
“The gallery and the collection are yours.”
At first she didn’t think she had heard him right. “But the collection’s gone.”
“I canceled the auction after the theft. Fritz”—he said the name with relish—“had to ship everything back.”
She shook her head in amazement. “You were never planning to sell anything, were you?”
He gave her a sheepish grin. This entire time he’d been jeopardizing his collection just so she would read the manuscript.
“You realize you put priceless manuscripts at risk just by shipping them.” She didn’t know whether to throttle him or kiss him.