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proclaimed,” he said formally, “since you have come, that the Straits have a new Master. Let it be proclaimed that all who seek passage will be welcome. The Cruarch’s truce holds. While Alban and D’Angeline find love in common, the Straits shall remain open.”
    “Hyacinthe.” I felt Sibeal’s gaze upon me and said his name like a desperate prayer. “Is there no way to free you?”
    He looked up at me, almost close enough to touch, and the sorrow in his eyes was ocean-deep. “I have not found it, Phèdre. Have you?” When I shook my head in wordless denial, he gave his terrible smile, fine lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Then let all knowledge of my curse be buried and forgotten. If you love me, Phèdre, let them forget. For you see, I am still young enough and new enough at it to scruple at passing it on to any other. While my will holds, no vessel shall be allowed to land on these shores.” Hyacinthe spread his hands. “But I am getting older, you see,” he said softly. “The Master of the Straits was Rahab’s get, on a woman who was first-born to Elua’s line. I am not him, with three parts ichor in my veins to one part blood, to endure eternity unaging.” He swallowed, then, hard. “Let them forget. Then, when all I have known and loved has passed from this earth, when I am a withered husk, then when my scruples give way, I will have less on my conscience.”
    My dream came back to me with terrible clarity; the gap, the widening void of water and Hyacinthe receding, his boy’s voice crying out my name in vain. “What is it?” I made myself ask, forcing my voice to steadiness. “Hyacinthe, when you tried to step off the island, there was a presence, in the water. Is it Rahab?”
    “Him, or an invocation of him. Yes.” Hyacinthe went still. Our ship bobbed gently on the water, lines creaking, wavelets churning and milling. “You do know a way.”
    “Yes and no.” I took a deep breath and gazed into the empty blue sky. “There is a word. The Yeshuites claim the One God is nameless and unknowable, but it is not so. Adonai, they call him; Lord, nothing else. But He has a name, and it is a word, spoken, that all His servants must obey. Even Rahab.” I looked at Hyacinthe. “That much, I have learned. But,” I shook my head, “the Name of God eludes me. I do not have the knowledge.”
    Something moved in Hyacinthe’s oddly changeable eyes; power, mayhap, stirring in the depths ... or mayhap only hope. “You can find it.”
    “Hyacinthe.” His name caught in my throat. “I’ve been looking, for ten years! There are Yeshuite scholars who have devoted their lives to it, going back in an unbroken line since before Blessed Elua walked the earth. I will never, ever stop looking, I swear to you, but after ten years, I do not hold a great deal of hope.”
    Hyacinthe looked away.
    “Tsingano.” Joscelin’s pragmatic voice broke the silence. “You have the dromonde . What does the gift of sight tell you?”
    “The dromonde .” Hyacinthe gave him his dire smile. “I see an island, Cassiline; I see wind and sea. What do you think? I have seen naught else since I came here.”
    “What of Phèdre?”
    The question hung in the air between them. The intense black pupils of Hyacinthe’s eyes blurred, losing focus. “Phèdre,” he whispered. In the old days, he would never speak the dromonde on my behalf. “Ah, Phèdre! It is a vaster pattern than I can compass. There are branchings beyond which I cannot see, and each one lies in darkness. Kushiel bars the path, stern and forbidding, his hands outstretched. In one hand, he holds a brazen key, and in the other ...” His gaze focused abruptly. “And in the other, a diamond, strung on a velvet cord.”
    I touched the hollow of my throat.
    “It is my dream.” Sibeal’s voice spoke softly in Cruithne. “It is as I have seen.”

Five
    IT WAS a somber journey back to Pointe des Soeurs.
    We parted ways with Drustan mab Necthana and his entourage at sea; they would sail east, putting in at the harbor of Trevalion, where Ghislain and his wife Bernadette looked for their arrival. Evrilac Duré’s men were in restrained good spirits, uncertain what had transpired, glad of their survival. I leaned in the prow and watched the water part before us, thinking.
    Joscelin interrupted my thoughts only once, leaning beside me. The hilt of his sword jutting over his shoulder cast a wavering cruciform shadow on the water below us.