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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 Daršanga 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!”
    And it was so.
    We entered La Serenissima.

Eighty-Six
    CESARE STREGAZZA, the ancient Doge, was dead.
    It was not a surprise, since he had already outlived expectations by ten years. What was surprising was that his son Ricciardo had not succeeded him.
    “Oh, I daresay he could have,” his wife Allegra told us after welcoming us to Villa Gaudio with a dozen questions in her gaze, and too much courtesy to ask them. “But it would have been an ugly election, and a divisive one. Sestieri Navis holds a good deal of sway in the city, and after Lorenzo Pescaro concluded such a lucrative deal with the Commander of the Illyrian Merchant Fleet, his supporters doubled. In the end, Ricciardo decided he was content to continue sitting on the Consiglio Maggiore and representing the Scholae. It’s all he ever really wanted, anyway.”
    “The Illyrian Merchant Fleet?” I asked. “The trade restrictions have been lifted?”
    Allegra nodded. “Completely, as of this past spring. The Ban of Illyria immediately appointed a Commander and gave him a great deal of autonomy. A clever fellow, they say, and a bold one. Seems there’s been a cessation of piracy since his appointment.”
    “Not...” I looked at her sparkling eyes. “No!”
    “Kazan Atrabiades?”