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The witch burned. She tossed in a sea of blankets, dizzy with heat. It was fever, not fire, that tormented her, fever and the nightmares that came with it.

She opened her eyes, breathing hard. There was no smell of smoke, no crackle of flame. Her doom had not yet come.

A brass monkey with a hideous face hung on a cord above her head. She curled her fingers around the monkey’s body and jerked. The bed curtains opened. Outside them, the candles in the wall brackets burned steadily. Cassandra was glad of that. Now that she had reached the end of her life, she was a child again and feared the dark.

She heaved herself out of bed and stumbled to the washstand. She splashed herself with cold water, drenching the front of her nightdress. Her fingers went to the filigree locket and the gold chain around her neck. She wished she could take the locket off and cool it in the water.

But the clasp of the chain was tiny and her fingers were swollen. Cassandra heaved a great sigh and sank onto the stool beside her dressing table.

It was the stone within the locket that burned her. She kept it caged inside the gold filigree: a fire opal the size of a crow’s egg, blood red, veined with ribbons of changing color. For seventy years she had cherished it. Now it fed upon her, burning her and sapping her strength.

In former times, it was called the phoenix-stone —

Cassandra’s head jerked up. The room was empty, but the words were as clear as if the speaker stood at her elbow.

You have no idea how dangerous it is. You possess it now, but in time it will possess you. It will burn you alive. In former times, it was called the phoenix-stone —

Cassandra dragged her fingers through her matted hair. Grisini had been in her dream; that was why she seemed to hear his voice. She had dreamed of a dark city, a labyrinth of steep houses half drowned in fog: London, she supposed. Grisini had been there, smiling at her through the gloom.

The strange thing was that he had not been alone. There were two — or were there three? — shadowy figures by his side. Small shadows . . . children? Why should there be children? Once again, she seemed to hear Grisini speak: Like the phoenix-bird, it erupts in flames. I have studied its lore and found out its secret history. Its fire will consume you unless —

Unless. He had spoken the warning nearly forty years ago, in Venice, but Cassandra recalled every word of their quarrel. She had spun round to face him, shouting, “If the stone is accursed, why did you try to steal it from me? Gran Dio, but I will punish you —”

She had punished him. He had studied the Black Arts, and she had not, but she was at the height of her power and her magic was stronger than his. By the time she was through with him, the floors of the palazzo were sullied with his blood. Late though the hour was, she had rung for the servants and ordered them to remove all traces of it, but to no avail; Grisini’s blood seeped into the pale marble and left a stain. She had sold the palazzo the following month.