"He might," I said. "His mother does. But I rather suspect you knew that already, my lord Pharaoh."

Thus our final audience with Ptolemy Dikaios, whose cunning made my skin prickle. We were escorted from his presence to generous quarters, wherein we found our trunks undisturbed and apologetic servants brought us a meal of cold bean-cakes and warmed-over lamb stew. And I had guessed aright, for Joscelin and I went sleepless throughout the night, arguing the matter in low voices while Imriel slept, fitful and restless. And all of the points Joscelin made were good and valid, foremost among them that we could easily be walking into a trap.

"We're not," I told him.

"How can you be sure?"

For that, I had no answer save one.

I have no right to see him, and no right to ask it of you. This I know. I can say only that I am willing to place myself in your debt for this, and swear in Kushiel's name that no harm will come to you, nor to him.

I knew Melisande Shahrizai.

Joscelin capitulated in the end, although he looked sick at it. "You know this is like to go unrewarded,"

he said. "If it even works."

"Yes," I said. "I know."

"Melisande doesn't have the power to threaten Ysandre's life." He sounded uncertain. "Not any more."

I raised my eyebrows. "She has enough to convince the Pharaoh of Menekhet to play messenger-boy, and Elua knows how many agents searching for Imriel before she summoned us. Do you remember what she said to Ysandre in La Serenissima?"

"Yes," Joscelin said. "I remember."

" 'I have always understood, if you have not, that we played a game,' " I said, quoting the words from memory. " 'Do you take my son, we become enemies. Believe me, your majesty, you do not want me as an enemy.' " "I remember."

"He's third in line for the throne, Joscelin."

He glanced over at Imriel's sleeping form. "And you think you can keep him there. With a promise.

From Melisande Shahrizai."

I nodded.

Joscelin sighed. "Tell me at least that this is some prompting of Kushiel's, or Blessed Elua, or the Name of God stirring within you."

"I wish I could," I whispered. "Oh, Joscelin! We're already up to our necks in trouble with Ysandre. As far as she knows, we might be dead in Jebe-Barkal right now, slain by bandits and Imriel with us. Will it really make it so much worse if we return by way of La Serenissima and not Iskandria? For better or for worse, Melisande loves her son, and that's the only cord that will bind her. We only have the chance to try it once."

"Why?" he asked. "Why only once, why now?"

I told him the card I meant to play.

He sighed and rubbed aching temples. "All right. All right. We may as well be hung for a cow as a calf at this point. Ah, Elua, like as not it will be faster, if we're not killed or abducted in the process. I hope Ricciardo Stregazza has kept our horses fit and ready for travel."

"You see?" I said. "We would have had to go to La Serenissima anyway."

One of the Palace slaves awoke us at dawn, and I gave word to the guard on duty outside our doors.

He nodded impassively and strode away, returning in short order with porters to bear our belongings back to the covered carriage. No one in the Palace acknowledged our presence as we left. It was a strange feeling. We had to hurry to catch the ship, which was nearly ready to sail by the time we reached the harbor.

"La Serenissima?" one of the guards shouted to a sailor onboard.

"Aye!"

"Hold for three passengers!"

They waited while we were hustled aboard the ship, our trunks loaded. Joscelin snatched his weapons from the guard's hands, slinging his baldric over one shoulder and settling his belt about his waist.

"Come on, then, hurry," the ship's captain said in Caerdicci, hands on his hips. "We're out to catch the last of the autumn winds."

"Autumn," I murmured. "It's autumn?"

"Aye. Nearly winter." He eyed me strangely, as well he might, for I wore one of my Jebean gowns, pinned at the breast, with bracelets of ivory and gold encircling both wrists. I'd meant to have clothingmade in Iskandria, or begged some of Juliette Laniol, the Ambassador's wife. "You're D'Angeline, my lady?"

"She is the Comtesse Phedre no Delaunay de Montreve of Terre d'Ange," Joscelin informed him, adjusting his baldric.

"Well, she's like to take a chill on the open sea in that attire," the captain said. He eyed me again. "Not that I'm like to complain. Stand by to weigh anchor!"

And with that, we were off.

EIGHTY-FIVE.

IT TOOK the last of our trader's coin to pay our passage aboard the ship, and the berth was small. By the time we were out of sight of land, the winds turned chilly, and I was forced to barter with one of the Serenissiman sailors for a thick cloak of coarse-spun wool. He'd have given it to me for a kiss-which Joscelin failed to note, being incapacitated with his customary battle with seasickness-but I paid him instead with the crystal beads salvaged from one of my ruined gowns, which was more than the cloak was worth.

At least aboard the ship there was a good deal of time to talk, for we had a good deal of talking to be done, and much of it to Imriel. Ultimately, my plan rested on his decision, and I meant to be certain it was wholly his.

"Why is Queen Ysandre so angry at you?" he wanted to know. "Because of me? But it was my fault-I followed you."

"I know," I said. "But we could have returned you. And that was our choice." And I explained to him once again the long history of his family, House Courcel, and the blood-quarrels that had divided it, and how Ysandre wished to make an end of it by bringing him into the fold. "It's a noble purpose, Imri. You'll like her. You'll like her very much. I do. There is no one I admire more."

He frowned, sitting cross-legged on deck in his Jebean breeches and chamma. It was still warm in the sun if one sat out of the wind. "Valere L'Envers wants me dead."

"It may be," I said. "But Nineveh is a long way from the City of Elua."

"Where her father is the Royal Commander."

"Yes," I said. "He is that."

There was nothing childish about Imriel's face as he considered it.

"House L'Envers will not be pleased with the Queen's decision. And they are powerful."

"Not more powerful than the Queen," I said.

He bent his head and fiddled with the pouch at his belt, his voice nearly inaudible. "You said you wouldn't leave me." "Nor would I," I said gently, touching his arm. "Imri, listen to me. You have strong feelings for Joscelin and I because we found you in the worst of all possible places."

"No!" The word came out sharper and more harsh than I intended. I sighed and ran a hand through my wind-disheveled locks. I was making a mess of this conversation. "Imriel. We love you dearly, Joscelin and I both. If it were only that. . . Elua! We would adopt you in a heartbeat."

He looked at me with the terrible hunger only an abandoned child can muster.

So be it, then. I couldn't bear to leave him in anguish. But I had to be certain. "You remember how you hated me in Daranga?" I asked him.

Imriel nodded.

"And how the way I was frightened you, after Saba?"

He nodded again.

"Well." I drew a shuddering breath. "It's part of who I am, Imri; of what I am. And that. . . that will never change, while I live. The manner of it may, but the nature remains the same. I am an anguissette, Kushiel's Chosen. Some of the worst things you have endured . . . those are things I have known freely, of my own will. Do you understand that?"

"Yes," he murmured.

"You've Kushiel's blood in your own veins." I took one of his hands in mine and turned it over, showing him the blue veins that coursed in his fine wrist. "One day, you will know it. And it will make matters more difficult."

"No!" He snatched his hand away. "Never! I am not like that. Like him." His face contorted with loathing. "Like her."

Like the Mahrkagir.

Like his mother.

"No," I said, "you're not. You are your own. But you're half-Kusheline, Imriel, of one of the oldest and purest bloodlines in the realm. And betimes it will out. Betimes you will despise me, as you did in Daranga. There was nothing said of me there that was not true. And betimes you may despise Joscelin, who knows it, and chooses to remain. It is a great mystery, Kushiel's mercy. The part I understand is the part that yields. Your birthright is the other part."

His face worked. "I don't want it. I don't! Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it is true," I said softly. "And these are things you need to know if it is your wish, truly your wish, to be adopted into my household."

Imriel caught his breath; not daring to breathe, not daring to hope. I knew that feeling too well. "Do youmean it?" The words emerged in a breathless rush.

And that was all I got out before Imriel flung himself on me, his arms in a stranglehold about my neck.

All I could do was hold him, not understanding a word of the incomprehensible syllables he gasped into my hair. All the fears I had, all the pitfalls I saw ahead as he grew to manhood-they measured as nothing next to this. All I could do was hold him hard and blink ineffectually at the tears that stung my eyes.

"What did I miss? Has someone died?"

It was Joscelin, emerged at last from his bout of seasickness, standing on the deck and regarding us with perplexity. Imriel relinquished his grip on me to greet Joscelin with a wordless shout of joy, taking a standing leap into his arms. Joscelin caught him and staggered.

"I take it you told him," he said to me over Imriel's head.

"Mm-hmm."

"Well." Joscelin bent his head to kiss Imriel's cheek. "I hope you don't think it's always going to be this exciting in our household, love."

And Imriel, overwrought, burst into tears.

It took some time to calm him, and more time to explain the procedures that must needs occur for the adoption to take place. It did not mean, I told him sternly, that he would no longer be a member of House Courcel. If he wished, when he gained his majority at the age of eighteen, he had the right to repudiate his House, although I did not think he would or should. We both of us, I said, stressing the fact, expected him to acknowledge his lineage and become acquainted with his kin and heritage. When his presence was requested at the Palace, we would comply. Whatever terms Ysandre de la Courcel dictated on that score, we would accede to on Imriel's behalf.

"But I can live with you?" Imri asked.

"Yes," I said, my heart swelling absurdly. "You can."

After his first delirious reaction had passed, Imriel settled into calmness. He glowed, though. He glowed with a solemn and private joy. I watched him aboard the ship, and how the sailors taught him their craft willingly, how the other passengers-merchants, for the most part- smiled as he passed. A deep, abiding fear had eased in him, a reserve that held itself half-flinching, prepared for a blow, ready to surface at a harsh word, a hint of cruelty.

"We did well," Joscelin murmured, his arm about my shoulders.

"I know," I said.

"It won't be easy."

"I know." Elua knew, it wouldn't. "We'll make it work." Joscelin turned me to face him. "We always do."

"I know," I said for the third time, and kissed him. "I know."

There was a good deal more to be discussed before we reached the harbor of La Serenissima, and that we did. Imriel listened gravely to my plan and nodded his consent. I was not worried about his discretion.

He had kept silent about the rebellion in Daranga and given naught away. After that, this was easy.

Except that it involved Melisande.

So we sailed north, and the winds grew cold and cutting, the sea choppy and grey, fraught with unexpected storms. The passengers took to their berths as we sailed northward up the Caerdicci coast, drawing ever nearer to La Serenissima.

We reached La Dolorosa, the black isle.

Joscelin and I stood on deck as the ship sailed past it.

It is all very different, now. The fortress where I was imprisoned stands abandoned and crumbling, and the sailors whistled absentmindedly as we passed, going about their business as they acknowledged the goddess Asherat's awesome grief for her slain son out of habit rather than fear. They tell stories about it still; I know, I have heard them. I am a part of them. This time, no one who would remember noticed, for which I was grateful.

A fraying length of hempen rope, supporting fragments of wooden planks bleached silver-grey with salt spray and time, still twisted in the wind, banging against the basalt cliffs. It had been a bridge, once, swaying over the dangerous sea and crags below. We had crossed that bridge, both of us. I walking it, Melisande's prisoner. And he ... he, crawling beneath it, inch by torturous inch.

Joscelin reached for my hand and our fingers entwined as we watched La Dolorosa pass.

There were things we spared Imriel, and that was one of them. He had reason enough to hate his mother already; he had no need of ours. My imprisonment in La Dolorosa, the cruel slaying of my loyal chevaliers Fortun and Remy . . . these things were not secret, and doubtless he would learn them, in time.

Now was too soon.

It is always too soon, with children.

"The Spear of Bellonus!" called the sharp-eyed lookout, sighting the landmark. "La Serenissima lies ahead!"