They said the baby had been dead at birth. Stillborn, they said. A stillborn girl child that had perished inside her.

 But . . . but . . .

 Hadn’t she felt it move? Felt it kick, and grow vital under her heart? In her heart. This child she hadn’t wanted who had become her world. Her life. The son she grew inside her.

 The son, the son, she thought now as her fingers plucked at the buttons of her gown, as her painted lips formed the words over and over.

 She’d heard him cry. Yes, yes, she was sure of it. Sometimes she heard him cry still, in the night, crying for her to come and soothe him.

 But when she went to the nursery, looked in the crib, it was empty. Like her womb was empty.

 They said she was mad. Oh, she heard what servants she had left whispering, she saw the way they looked at her. But she wasn’t mad.

 Wasn’t mad, wasn’t mad, she told herself as she paced the bedroom she’d once treated like a palace of sensuality.

 Now the linens were rarely changed, and the drapes always drawn tight to block out the city. And things went missing. Her servants were thieves. Oh, she knew they were thieves and scoundrels. And spies.

 They watched her, and they whispered.

 One night they would kill her in her bed. One night.

 She couldn’t sleep for the fear of it. Couldn’t sleep for the cries of her son inside her head. Calling her. Calling her.

 But she’d gone to the voodoo queen, she reminded herself. Gone to her for protection, and knowledge. She’d paid for both with the ruby bracelet Reginald had once given her. The stones shaped like bloody hearts against the icy glitter of diamonds.

 She’d paid for the gris-gris she kept under her pillow, and in a silk bag over her heart. She’d paid, and dearly, for the raising spell. A spell that had failed.

 Because her child lived. This was the knowledge the voodoo queen had given her, and it was worth more than ten thousand rubies.