Helenne St. Cyr sat in the chair that overlooked her garden and waited, with the calm knowledge that she waited for the last time. She was not impatient. The long years had bled it out of her. If she’d known how long when it started she might have turned aside. The young did many things they should not because they did not know better, because, even as they believed they’d live forever, they did not know how long forever could be. She was supposed to remember her youth now that she was old. She did not remember anything but hating Phineas. And him hating her.
For so many years they’d been locked in a silent war to survive the other. To win. Neither dared to kill the other until—her lips curved in a smile. Today, she sighed, today he lost it all. How he’d hate losing. He’d hate that more t
