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never gave any indication of Ysandre’s mind.
    Not everyone I had known turned their back upon me. Once the gossip reached her ears, I had regular letters from Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, my old mentor in Naamah’s arts. Some years ago she had closed her salon for good and retired to her country estate of Perrinwolde, which, alas, lay a day’s ride outside the City walls. Nonetheless, it cheered me to receive her letters, and we resumed a lively correspondence.
    I received an invitation, too, for all of us to call upon Thelesis de Mornay, the Queen’s Poet, and that I accepted, for she was in seclusion at the Palace and I might visit her without breaking my pledge. It had been mayhap three years since I had seen her last, and I was shocked at her condition. Touched by the fever of that first Bitterest Winter, Thelesis had never recovered completely. Her quarters has always been maintained at a nigh-uncomfortable warmth; now there was a fireplace in every room and multiple braziers and pots of boiling water suspended over the flames added moisture to the air, rendering it as hot and steamy as the plains of Jebe-Barkal in the rainy season. A servant in Courcel livery tended them with quiet diligence.
    Thelesis looked older than her years, her hair streaked with grey, her skin grown sallow and loose on her small frame. But if her dark eyes were sunken, they still glowed, and her voice held a ghost of its rich musicality. “Phèdre nó Delaunay,” she whispered, giving me the kiss of greeting. “It is good to see you once more.”
    I leaned my cheek against hers, feeling the frailty of her. “You are kind to do so, Thelesis. Pray, don’t let us overtax you.”
    “Nonsense.” She held me off, smiling. “And you, Joscelin Verreuil! Come here and let me feel your strength, Queen’s Champion.”
    “No longer,” he said, returning her kiss. “But it is good to see you , Queen’s Poet. I hope you are keeping yourself as well as may be.”
    “As you see.” Thelesis waved a hand, indicating the boiling pot, the braziers, the eternal disarray of her quarters, which were strewn haphazardly with books and scrolls and fragments of half-finished writing. At the farthest worktable, a young girl in a drab smock sat perched on a stool, grinding oak-galls in a mortar, shards of husks strewn about the floor. In all the time I have known Thelesis de Mornay-which is a good many years, now-she has never been able to work surrounded by order. With her dark poet’s eyes, she watched Imriel take it in. “A proper mess, isn’t it?” she asked him.
    “Phèdre makes a mess of her study when she’s trying to find something.” He offered the words warily, watching her reaction. “She doesn’t think so, but she does.”
    “Does she?” Thelesis smiled. “I wouldn’t have imagined it. I am Thelesis de Mornay. You must be Imriel.”
    He made a half-bow. “Imriel nó Montrève.”
    “I know.” She touched his cheek lightly. “A fine name you bear, and a noble one. Anafiel Delaunay de Montrève was a friend of mine, and I mourn him still. He would be proud of what Phèdre has made of his name, and as proud again to know you bear it. He never did, you know, not in his adult lifetime. Have you heard that story?”
    “Yes.” Imriel relaxed, smiling back at her. “We have a bust of him, you know.”
    “I know.” It had been her gift to me. “I’d like to hear your story, Imriel, if you wouldn’t mind telling it to me. Yours, and Phèdre’s and Joscelin’s, too.”
    So we told our story to the Queen’s Poet from beginning to end, and it was a long time in the telling. The quiet servant brought tea sweetened with honey and a plate of small cakes, a warm blanket of fine-combed wool which he settled carefully about his mistress’ shoulders as Thelesis sat and listened without interrupting, sipping tea to suppress her cough. From time to time, her dark eyes filled with tears. We told the story in turns, and the only sound save for one voice speaking was the soft noise of oak-galls being ground to powder for ink. In time, even that fell silent as Thelesis’ young apprentice ceased her labors to listen, perched on her stool, chin in her hands.
    “Oh, my,” Thelesis murmured when we had finished. “Oh, children.”
    There wasn’t much more she could say. At the distant worktable, her apprentice picked up her bowl and resumed grinding.
    “It’s not a tale fit for poetry,” I said. “Not Daršanga.”
    “No.” Her