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against my skin the bitter intensity of her longing. When they left, she sat down on the couch with a shuddering sigh, passing both hands blindly over her face.
    “How is he, truly?” she asked me.
    I remained standing. “Whole enough in body, my lady. He has nightmares.”
    Melisande lifted her gaze. “Do I want to know why?”
    “No.” I shook my head. “You don’t.”
    She looked away. “And I am in your debt, twice over. Do I want to know what you endured to find him, Phèdre?”
    “No.” I couldn’t rid myself of a terrible compassion. “No, my lady, you do not.”
    “The kingdom that died and lives.” Melisande laughed without mirth. “Drujan. Jahanadar, the land of fires. Ptolemy Dikaios feared it, I know that much, and he is a learned man. It lies under the rule of Khebbel-im-Akkad now, had you heard?”
    “No.”
    “It seems they surrendered peaceably.” She eyed me. “Passing strange, when even the Khalif’s formidable army feared to cross its borders. So, I understand, did Lord Amaury’s men.”
    I said nothing.
    Melisande sighed. “What of the men who harmed my son?”
    “They are dead.”
    Her face hardened. “You swear to it?”
    “Yes.” I thought of Imriel, checking time and again to make certain that the Kereyit Tatar warlord Jagun was dead; and I thought of Mahrkagir’s heart beating beneath my hand, his brilliant, trusting eyes as I positioned the hairpin against his breast. “I swear to it.”
    “You took my son to Jebe-Barkal.”
    “Yes.” I crossed over to the low table where a tray of refreshments sat ignored, pouring myself a glass of wine. My mouth was dry with fear. “I did.”
    “Why?”
    Her gaze was sharper than Kaneka’s hairpins. I kept my face neutral as I sat on the couch opposite her and sipped my wine. “Do you know, he followed us? He pulled one of your own tricks, my lady, trading cloaks with a Tyrean serving-lad. Elua knows what Lord Amaury made of it when he discovered it.”
    “You could have sent him back.”
    “Shall we play a game?” I asked softly, curling into a corner of the couch. “Yes, my lady, we could have. But it would have cost me a season’s wait, while my friend Hyacinthe, my one true friend, descends slowly into madness. That’s why I went, remember? That’s why I accepted your bargain. And in the end, Imriel too had a part to play.”
    “You found what you sought.”
    I gazed at Melisande, feeling the Name of God present on the tip of my tongue, sounding in the throb of my blood. It was there, written in the immaculate geometry of her features, in the framework of bone and the flesh that sheathed it, a fearful beauty. “Yes,” I said. “I did.”
    Never, never show your hand. It is the first law of barter, of games of skill. And it is not my strength, which lies in yielding . It was hard, so hard to wait, to hold her gaze. But I did, and it was Melisande who looked away first. “And now you will give my son to Ysandre,” she murmured.
    I took another sip of wine. “That, my lady, depends upon you.”
    Her eyes blazed, and the color rose in her cheeks. “What do you mean?”
    “I will tell you,” I said, “what I offer. And I will tell you what I require in return. I am willing, my lady, to adopt Imriel into mine own household. And as such ...” My voice caught in my throat. “Ah, Melisande! I can’t make him love you. You poisoned that well yourself, long before he was born. But I can promise that he will be left free to make his own choices, and I will not turn him against you, not wittingly. If you wish to correspond with him, I will see your missives delivered. Whether or not he reads them is up to him. One day, he may be willing to hear your story. If it is so, I will let him. I would allow him choice. That is what I offer.”
    “Ysandre would never permit it.”
    “She would,” I said, “if I claimed it as the boon she owes me. I hold the Companion’s Star, my lady. It was seen and witnessed by the flower of D’Angeline nobility. It is the one thing Ysandre cannot refuse.”
    Melisande studied me. “Why?”
    I touched the hollow of my bare throat, where once her diamond had lain. “Why did you pay the price of my marque, so long ago? Why did you set me free?”
    A distant smile flickered over her features. “To see what you would do.”
    “Even so.” I nodded. “I would see what Imriel would do, what he would become, were he free to choose. After what he has endured, it is the least he