Ysandre carried them all.
She was a strong ruler, and a good one. After Lucca, I had a better idea what that meant. I might not agree with her choices—despite my own decision regarding Bernadette de Trevalion, it still galled me that Barquiel L'Envers had gotten away without any acknowledgment of his attempt to smear me with treason's brush—but I understood why she made them.
As I had made mine.
There among my family, the family of my heart and the family of my blood, I felt myself settle into a kind of peace with it. When all was said and done, it was good to be home… and that meant the Palace, too.
Later in the day, we strolled through the halls together in a deliberate show of unity, attended by the Queen's Guard and seen by the Court. We visited the Salon of Eisheth's Harp, where Gerard de Mere-Hot was playing a lap-harp and singing ballads for an appreciative audience. He caught my eye and winked without losing a note.
"Imriel!" A familiar figure leapt to his feet. Mavros wove through the crowd with lithe elegance. He sketched a quick, courtly bow to the Queen, then grabbed me in an exuberant hug. "Name of Elua! It's good to see you."
"And you." I grinned at him. Mavros… Mavros looked the same. His braids were caught back in a silver clasp, leaving his face bare. He, too, was family. The dark mirror of House Shahrizai, dangerous and beautiful. "And you."
His twilight-blue eyes narrowed. "What have you been up to, cousin?" he mused, holding my shoulders and studying me. His fingers flexed, digging lightly into my muscles. "Quite a bit, by the look of you."
"Enough," I said. "I'll tell you later."
"Oh, indeed," he agreed. "I'm all ears until you do."
There were others there; other members of the Shahrizai, and other friends I had known, or people I'd called friends, once.
One of them was Bertran de Trevalion. He greeted me with wary courtesy, uncertain of his reception; and well he should be, I thought. I clasped his arm in ostensible friendship, pleasant and amicable.
"Tell me," I said. "Is your mother here?"
"My mother?" He looked confused. "Somewhere, yes. Well, I think she's visiting a friend in the City today. Why?"
He had an open, earnest face. He always had. Even in the passionate throes of mistrust, Bertran had been honest about it. Now that I saw him once more, I couldn't imagine him dissembling well. If I were recruiting for the Unseen Guild, I'd never choose him. And if I were his mother, I'd hide my intrigues from him. Mayhap that was one of the reasons she'd waited until I was well away from D'Angeline soil to make a bid for vengeance. Or mayhap she simply thought no one would find out, so far from home.
In that, she was sorely mistaken.
"Oh, I've a lengthy message for her from an old friend in Tiberium," I said lightly. "It's a private matter. I'll call on her later to deliver it in person. Ruggero Caccini is his name." I clapped his shoulder. "Be sure to tell her that, will you? Ruggero Caccini."
"Ruggero Caccini." Bertran nodded solemnly. "I'll tell her."
I smiled at him. "My thanks, Bertran."
As for the rest of those I'd once called friends, although they greeted me warmly, I hadn't forgotten the cold shoulders they had turned in my direction when I was suspected of conspiring to treason. And I'd learned a great deal about what it meant to be a friend.
But I could forgive, or try to.
It seemed petty not to try.
And it was good, truly. Somewhere along my journey, I'd managed to lay down bits and pieces of the hurt and anger and fear I carried. Even, mayhap, a little of the guilt. Not all of it, no. I doubted I ever would. But I could carry it with better grace.
We left late in the day, with promises to return on the morrow. Eugenie had supper waiting for us. She served me herself, hovering at my elbow and heaping my plate until I laughed and bade her stop. Still, I managed to do justice to it.
Afterward, Phèdre excused herself to her study. I sat for a while talking with Joscelin in the salon, casting glances toward the hall where her study lay. At length he jerked his chin toward the door. "Go. Talk to her."
I hesitated. "Do you want to—"
"Does it have aught to do with your mother?" Joscelin asked. Yes.
He gave his familiar half-smile, wry and loving. "Tell it to Phèdre. She may actually understand it."
The door to her study was closed. I knocked lightly on it.
"Come in, love," she called.
I entered and closed the door behind me. The room was cozy, warmed by a brazier and lit by a pair of oil lamps. It held at least a hundred texts written in a dozen tongues. Some of them had been Delaunay's, and some Phèdre had purchased in her long quest to find the key to freeing Hyacinthe. Many had been salvaged from the bottom of the sea and found languishing in the Master of the Straits' library. There were others at Montrève, too.
All knowledge is worth having.
Phèdre sat at her desk, but her chair was pushed away from it. A finished letter sat atop the desk, the ink drying. I glanced at it and saw it was to the Lady of Marsilikos.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Were you—"
"Waiting for you?" Phèdre smiled. "Yes."
I sighed and folded my legs, sitting at her feet. I leaned my head against the arm of her chair and closed my eyes. After a moment, she began to stroke my hair. We sat like that for a long time. After a long, long while, I began to talk.
I told her about Claudia Fulvia.
I told her about the Unseen Guild.
I told her how I had learned about Bernadette de Trevalion, and what I'd done about it.
And I told her about Canis, and my mother.
She listened to it without comment. Once I'd begun, the words spilled out of me, tumbling one after another. Ah, Elua! Too many secrets, secrets I'd never wanted. I'd been keeping them too long.
When I had finished, I shuddered. I was spent, wrung out. I rubbed my hands over my face, then got up and sat in the guest chair. I'd let myself be a child for a moment, but it couldn't last.
"What do you think?" I asked. "Are the Guild's claims true?"
"It would explain a great deal," Phèdre said quietly. "I always wondered how Melisande came to conspire with Waldemar Selig. Through the Duc d'Aiglemort, everyone assumed, but…" She shook her head. "She knew things he didn't. And she was able to contact Selig without his knowledge. She always knew too much. It would make sense."
"What do we do, then?" I asked.
"Wait," she said simply. "Watch and listen, as always. The Guild has played their hand; they're not like to take any further chances soon. We'll learn what we may." She glanced at the shelves and cubbyholes filled with tomes and scrolls. "Asclepius' priest said the system of notation on Canis' medallion was devised by a blind healer? A fellow priest?"
"Yes. Long ago, I think." I smiled, knowing she wouldn't see it. Phèdre's face had taken on the absentminded expression she wore when lost in thought. I'd first seen it in the zenana. Not at the beginning, but later; when she was busy hatching the impossible scheme that freed us. "Do you think you might find a reference to it?"
"Mm-hmm."
I liked it when she wore her absent face, because it was safe. I could look at her and wonder what she was thinking, or just look at her. There were no disconcerting undercurrents, no terrible, wonderful hints of transcendence clinging to her. Only Phèdre, thinking. I watched her for a while before speaking again. "It's dangerous," I reminded her. "If the Guild is half as powerful as Claudia claimed, their threat is real."
"Oh, I know." She returned from wherever it was her thoughts had led her. "Don't worry, love. I don't mean to take any risks. You've not told anyone else, have you?"
I shook my head. "Not even Eamonn. Will you?"
"Other than Joscelin?" Phèdre frowned. "I'd like to speak to Hyacinthe about it. Elua knows, if there's anyone in the world safe from reprisal, it's him. I'd trust him with it without fearing I'd put him in jeopardy."
"Not Ysandre?" I asked.
"No," Phèdre said slowly. "No, I don't think so."
Our eyes met. "Delaunay," I said.
"I know."
"Do you think…" I swallowed. "Do you think he told anyone?"
"Like your mother?" she asked gently. I nodded. "I don't know, love. He might have. They played a strange game with one another. Anafiel Delaunay was a complicated man, and Rolande's death had a profound impact on him. There are things about him I daresay I'll never understand."
"Like my mother," I murmured.
"Yes." Phèdre gave a wry smile. "Ah, well. Yes and no."
"Why did she save my life?" I asked. "Does she still think to use me?"
The words emerged, abrupt and bitter. I hadn't meant to ask it; and yet I had. Although I'd not given voice to it, it had been burning in the back of my thoughts ever since Canis died. Phèdre looked at me for a long moment. "Do you remember the promise I extracted from her in La Serenissima?" she asked. I nodded. As if I could forget. I keep my promises. "I bargained with her. I told her I'd adopt you only in exchange for her promise not to raise her hand against Ysandre or her daughters, nor to leave her sanctuary. She bargained me down to one promise, and made me choose. And after she agreed and swore an oath, she laughed and told me I was a dreadful liar." Her mouth quirked. "I didn't think I'd done that badly."
"Why did she do it, then?" I asked.
" 'One day—not soon, but one day—tell my son that this bargain I have made with you today is my gift to him, the only one he would accept from me,'" Phèdre recited from memory. "Those were her words. There wasn't a great deal Melisande did out of kindness," she said softly. "Although mayhap she sees it differently. But that, yes. It was a gift, pure and simple."
"Do you think…" I paused. "Mayhap she isn't all bad?"
"No one is, Imri." Her voice was gentle. "Nor all good, either."
There was a great deal more she could have said, although she didn't. When all was said and done, I think no one in the world knew my mother better than Phèdre. Not her own Shahrizai kin, not Anafiel Delaunay, not anyone. They were two sides of a coin; Kushiel's deadliest scion and Kushiel's Chosen. The dark mirror and the bright, and which was which depended on one's vantage point. They had reflected the best and worst of one another.
And I was both of their sons.
True and not true.
I took a deep breath and prepared to shoulder a burden I'd long avoided. "I'd like to read her letters, please."
Phèdre nodded as though she had been expecting me to ask. Like as not, she had. Without comment, she folded and sealed her letter to Roxanne de Mereliot and set it to one side. I remembered with a guilty start that I'd forgotten to ask Ysandre to send a courier to the Lady of the Dalriada with Eamonn's letter.
I would do it on the morrow.
There was time.
She got up and fetched the coffer from a shelf. It was made of polished wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Phèdre set it on her desk and unlocked it with a gold key that I hadn't seen since I was fourteen years old. She laid the key beside the coffer and stepped back.
"There you are, love."
I got up. Phèdre watched me. Her eyes were dark and luminous, filled with tenderness. The knowledge of the Name of God lay behind them, and the word it spelled was love. Every letter of the alphabet in which it was written, every stroke of every letter, was love. I sat down at her desk.
"Thank you," I whispered.
She didn't answer, only kissed my brow and left.
I sat for a long time, gazing at the coffer. At last I lifted the lid. A faint, spicy scent of sandalwood emerged. The letters lay there, seals cracked, neatly refolded. No one had touched them for four years. Not since Melisande Shahrizai had vanished from her sanctuary in the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea.
Melisande.
My mother.
I thought about Helena Correggio opening her hand in the streets of Lucca, and beads of blue glass falling onto the cobblestones. The Bella Donna's son. I'd forgotten to tell Phèdre that part. It didn't matter. There was time. I thought about the tears in my mother's eyes the last time I had seen her, and her voice breathing my name.
Imriel.
I took out the first letter, my hands trembling. I unfolded it and laid it flat on the desk, smoothing its creases. It was the one I'd hurled unopened into a brazier, and there were marks of charring along one edge where it had scorched before Phèdre had rescued it. It was old enough that the parchment was growing brittle. It was legible, though. There was a date on it, penned in a firm, elegant hand. It had been written the day after we left La Serenissima. There were others following it, dozens of others.
I read the first line.
To my son, Imriel…
Bowing my head, I whispered a prayer to Blessed Elua for courage to bear the understanding that might come, for compassion to use it wisely. I had no idea what these pages might hold. I was afraid to know. Afraid to know my mother had loved me, truly loved me. Afraid to see her as a mortal woman, capable of grief and regret. Afraid to discover that her actions had merit viewed through her eyes. Afraid to find an echo of myself in her.
But I would do it anyway.
The flickering lamps cast a warm glow over the parchment. Beyond the door, I could hear the ordinary sounds of an evening in House Montrève's household, muffled and indistinct. Joscelin's voice asking a question; Phèdre's low reply. A scuffle of boot-heels, a winecup rattling against a table. Eugenie scolding. Hugues laughing, Ti-Philippe protesting.