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leapt, I was aware of Joscelin reaching for me, trying to grasp the merest fold of fabric and halt my momentum.
    Too late.
    I jumped.

Ninety-Six
    A MIGHTY gust of wind caught and held me.
    I hung suspended in midair, buffeted by gale forces, my hair lashing like a nest of angry adders, skirts snapping and whipping, my watering eyes slitted against the pressure as the winds tore the very breath from my lips.
    Behind me, I heard above the roaring wind faint shouts of alarm, the ship creaking, ropes singing taut as the sails flapped and bellied in the fallout from the raging winds that held me. Below me stood Hyacinthe, his arms outspread. The terrible, deadly power of the Master of the Straits suffused his features, and there was nothing in him I could speak to.
    Like a great fist, the knotted winds began carrying me back toward the ship.
    “ Idiot !” I shouted, the word lost in the winds. Master of the Straits or no, I’d spent the last two years with Hyacinthe’s voice haunting my dreams. “Put me down! I have the key! Give me the chance to use it!”
    Doubt surfaced in those inhuman eyes. Somehow, in the roaring gale of his own elemental power, he’d heard my shouts. “You’re certain of it?”
    The words came from all around me, as if the wind itself had spoken. I laughed. How many times had I asked Imriel that very thing? And now the question came back to me. “Yes,” I said in the center of my personal whirlwind, trusting Hyacinthe to hear. “I’m sure.”
    His hands and lips moved and the winds ceased.
    I dropped like a stone onto the barren promontory and caught myself on hands and knees, jarred by the impact.
    “TSINGANO!”
    Joscelin’s voice was the first thing I heard when the winds stopped, shouting with fury. I turned my head to see him clambering over the railing, preparing to make the leap even as hands grappled at him, trying to hold him back. The gap had grown wider, the ship blown several yards from shore.
    “Joscelin, no!” I cried, getting to my feet. He stared at me, eyes wild and desperate, his fair hair wind-lashed. “Don’t do it,” I pleaded. “I was the only one who needed to come ashore. Only me. And if I’m wrong ... there’s no need to put the rest at risk.”
    “You knew.” His knuckles were white on the railing, his face taut. “You planned it all along.”
    “I thought it might come to it,” I said softly. “No more.”
    “Joscelin. Joscelin!” It was Imriel, catching his sleeve, who got Joscelin’s attention. “Don’t,” he said, his voice cracking with fear. “Please don’t. Not both of you. You promised.”
    It was a tense moment. Quintilius Rousse watched with glowering concern, the others with a mix of fear and interest. Ti-Philippe and Hugues stood close at hand, prepared to wrestle Joscelin over the railing if need be. I wouldn’t have given much for their chances, if he’d set his mind to it, but Imriel’s plea had reached him. Joscelin sighed, defeated, sagging against the railing. “Then do it,” he murmured, “and be done with it.”
    Only then did I fully realize that I stood upon the rock of Third Sister, the isle of the Master of the Straits. I raised my gaze to meet that of Hyacinthe, who stood near enough to touch.
    “Phèdre,” he whispered.
    I flung both arms about his neck and burst into tears.
    He felt the same, under my touch. Whatever changes his long ordeal had wrought in him, whatever powers endowed him, beneath it he was Hyacinthe still, my childhood friend, my Prince of Travellers. The scent of his skin triggered more memories than I could count. Before Joscelin, before the Queen, before Thelesis de Mornay, Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, before my lord Delaunay himself... before them all, I had known Hyacinthe.
    “Phèdre,” he said again, drawing a wracking breath, holding me close. “You said you were sure. You said you were sure !”
    I lifted my tear-stained face. “I am, Hyacinthe; as sure as I can be. You wouldn’t risk any of us. Should I risk them, when I am the only one needed?”
    His smile was a ghost of its former self as he released me. “You’re awfully willful for an anguissette , you know. A sickness in the blood, my mother would say.”
    I laughed through my tears. “I remember.”
    Hyacinthe shuddered and laid his hands upon my shoulders. “You know I have to ask?”
    I nodded. “What is needful to break this curse. I know. I will take your place.”
    “I could ask more,” he reminded