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its acceptance. Slowly, her shoulders squared and she sat a little straighter, fixing me with a direct regard. “And if I pray for him? Do you believe still that Elua will hear my prayers?”
    “I do.” I said it firmly, as if I had never doubted myself. Whether or not it would aid the missing Imriel, I did believe it would help Beryl.
    “Then I will,” she said.
    Thus, for better or ill, was our encounter with the children of Elua’s sanctuary. They were subdued when we took our leave, and I did not think Brother Selbert would be pleased, but there was a spark of new resolve in Beryl’s green eyes, and I did not think it was entirely ill-done.
    It was not until Joscelin and I were alone in our humble guest-chamber that I gave vent to my own frustrations.
    “Name of Elua!” I hurled a down-stuffed pillow at the stone wall. “Brother Selbert, the priesthood, the acolytes, the children ... they’re telling the truth, aren’t they?”
    “Mm-hmm.” Joscelin prudently moved the oil lamp on the bedside table out of reach of my swirling skirts. I paced the chamber in disregard.
    “They’re telling the truth,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers, “L’Envers is telling the truth, Melisande’s spies ... Melisande, for love of Kushiel! Melisande is telling the truth. What am I missing, Joscelin? I cannot see the pattern here! Where’s the lie? Who are we overlooking?”
    “La Serenissima?” He fetched the rolled map from our travel-bags, spreading it on the narrow bed. “Selbert took the boy to see Melisande. Someone could have guessed.”
    “Severio would have told me if he’d gotten wind of it.” I pondered the map, tracing a semicircle north of Landras. “If they’d made for Marsilikos, someone would have seen them along the way.”
    “Mayhap they didn’t.” Joscelin traced a ragged route southward. “Mayhap they stuck to the mountains.”
    “And crossed into Aragonia? L’Envers searched there.” I thought about it and shrugged. “We could ride south, and inquire. We’d pass near to Verreuil, Joscelin. We could visit your family.”
    His eyes shone briefly in the lamplight, then dimmed. “I’d not want to take time from our errand. If we stop anywhere, it ought to be Montrève.”
    “It’s no time to speak of. We’d need to take lodging somewhere.” I got up and retrieved the pillow I’d thrown. “And Montrève’s not on the way. Verreuil is.”
    “As you wish.” He smiled with unalloyed pleasure, rolling the map.
    I was glad I could make someone happy.

Seventeen
    WE SAID our farewells to Brother Selbert in the morning, standing in the courtyard.
    “I am sorry,” he said, “that we could not give you the answers you sought.”
    “You have given us what you had, my lord priest.” I inclined my head to him. “For that, I am grateful. It may be that the Queen will summon you to discuss your role in Imriel’s disappearance from La Serenissima. I will speak on behalf of your intentions.”
    Brother Selbert swallowed, his throat moving visibly. “I never meant for the boy to come to harm. I thought... I thought he could grow up freely in Elua’s grace, his spirit untrammeled by the machinations of politics.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “Tell them who he was.” Joscelin adjusted the buckles on his vambraces, checking and settling his weapons. “It will help them make sense of it, Brother Selbert. And they should know that not even Elua’s grace renders them invulnerable to the ill in men’s hearts.” He looked up at the priest. “Or the follies of pride.”
    “I will tell them.” Brother Selbert returned his gaze unflinching. “Do not be quick to judge me, Cassiline. Can you claim to know the whole of Elua’s will?”
    “No,” Joscelin said quietly. At the far end of the courtyard, the young acolyte Liliane emerged from the arch of the stableway, craning her head to smile at the morning sun, our mounts and pack-mules trailing after her like ducklings following their mother. “There are mysteries no one can fathom.”
    “Even so.” The priest nodded. “And there are purposes too deep for us to grasp.”
    I could have sworn, from the sleek condition of their coats, their renewed reserves of vigor, that our animals had spent a month rather than a day basking in the sunlit paddocks of Elua’s sanctuary. My mare frisked like a filly crossing the bridge, dancing and shying at the hollow echo of her hoofbeats on the wooden planks.
    “Did you know Liliane was