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Joscelin paused to rest our blown horses. “Phèdre,” he murmured as I came alongside him. “You said it yourself. Even Blessed Elua cannot prevent the world’s ills. He can but give us the courage to face them with love.”
    I choked on a bitter laugh. “And what did the girl say? She was right. It’s not enough.”
    “It has to be.” He looked steadily at me. “It’s all we have.”
    “This is Kushiel’s doing.” I brushed the tangled hair back from my face, gazing at the vista below, the distant blue mirror of a lake that marked the estate of Verreuil. “I feel it, Joscelin. I feel it in my marrow. I was a fool not to see it before.”
    “Mayhap it is so.” His hands rested quietly on the pommel of his saddle, and his eyes were as blue as the lake. “Even Kushiel serves Blessed Elua in the end, and even he must use mortal means to do his bidding. And you are his chosen.”
    “Yes.” I swallowed, remembering my pledge to Agnes Écot. “Come on. Let’s go.”
    It was after midday when we arrived at Verreuil. I had been there before, but I forgot, between visits, the atmosphere of tranquil chaos that reigned at Joscelin’s childhood home. It is a beautiful estate, sprawling along the shore of the lake-Lake Verre-crumbling in its oldest parts, the lines etched clean-graven and new where the family has expanded. We emerged from the dark shadows of fir trees to find one of his nieces at play on the forest’s verge.
    “Uncle Joscelin!” I caught a glimpse of an urchin face, smudged and wide-eyed, as the girl ran at him and heard Joscelin’s laugh as he leaned down from the saddle, catching her in a hug. And then with a wriggle, she was gone, high tones setting the hills to ringing. “Uncle Joscelin, Uncle Joscelin’s here!”
    We hadn’t ridden ten paces before the manor doors were flung open and its inhabitants spilled out into the courtyard; adults, children, a surge of barking hounds. Tears stung my eyes at the welcome. I hung back, letting Joscelin precede me.
    “My lady Phèdre!” Luc Verreuil came over to grin up at me, two years the elder of Joscelin, and taller by as many inches. His broad hands spanned my waist as he lifted me from the saddle, sweeping me into a crushing embrace the instant my feet touched cobblestones. “Well met!”
    “And you ... you great lummox!” The air had fair left my lungs. I wheezed, greeting his wife Yvonne, tall and willowy, with fox-slanted grey eyes. “My lady.”
    “Oh, Luc, do let her breathe.” Stooping, she smiled and gave me the kiss of greeting.
    I caught my breath and turned to greet Joscelin’s parents. “My lord Millard, my lady Ges, thank you for your hospitality. Forgive us for intruding, but we’d no time to send word.”
    “Nonsense.” The Lady Ges smiled, warm and earthy, even as her husband bowed. “You’re always welcome here, Comtesse.”
    “Thank you.” I drew another deep breath. My lungs seemed to be functioning again. “I am sorry to say it isn’t exactly a courtesy call, my lady.”
    Millard Verreuil gave me a speculative look. He was a tall man-all the members of Joscelin’s family were tall-with the same old-fashioned beauty as his middle son. What he saw writ in my features, I cannot say, but he took it seriously. “We will speak of it inside.”
    I nodded, and then Joscelin brought his younger brother Mahieu to greet me, and Mahieu’s wife Marie-Louise, and nothing would do but that I was reintroduced to their children and Luc and Yvonne’s, and then his elder sister Jehane, visiting with a pair of teenaged sons who shuffled their feet and turned beet-red in my presence, and all around us was the milling presence of dogs, great hairy creatures that stood waist-high on me, as tall as everything else in Verreuil.
    Somehow, the Lady Ges got us all indoors and managed to dispense with the children and dogs, assembling the adults in the parlour with light refreshments and wine. There was somewhat of her, I thought, in Joscelin’s quiet competence, for all that he favored his father and had his father’s reserve. I wondered, sometimes, what he would have been like had he grown to manhood in Verreuil, instead of being sent to endure the stern rigors of the Cassiline Brotherhood at the age of ten. I wondered too if he resented it. If he did, he never said so.
    There was a scuffling and scraping of chairs as everyone present drew chairs around, the better to hear. The parlour of Verreuil had the gracious,