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dared, the girl nodded slowly; once, twice. Yes. The boy, younger, sought to press himself behind her, ducking his head, a tangle of hair like autumn oak-leaves falling over his brow.
    Whoever he was, he was not Imriel de la Courcel.
    “Agnette,” I said in steady D’Angeline. “My name is Phèdre. I was sent to find you. These men are your friends.” Sitting on my heels, I extended one hand to her. “You’re safe now. Will you come out?”
    A pause, then a flurry in the shadows, two heads shaking, lank hair flying, scrambling fear and mistrust. Joscelin took a step past me, squatting in the straw, the torchlight gleaming red on his polished vambraces. “Do you see these? No one will harm you further,” he said, his voice flat and dispassionate. “In Cassiel’s name, I swear it on pain of death.”
    With a sound like a sob, Agnette Écot flung herself at him, burying her face against his chest, slender limbs clinging to him monkeylike. Joscelin rose, straightening, with the girl in his arms, his head brushing the low rafters as he carried her out.
    “Come,” I said to the strange boy, my heart breaking at his wide-eyed terror at being left behind. He took my hand in a death-grip, letting me lead him from the Carthaginians’ lodgings. No sooner had we reached the grey dawn-light of the alley than Luc stepped forth, his face haggard and drawn, and the boy fixed on him with a wordless cry, catching him about the waist, seeing somewhat he recognized in his kind, Siovalese features.
    I stood in the street, my arms empty.
    “So.” Captain Vitor Gaitán sat his own mount, looking down at me. His men had the Carthaginians well in tow. “It is done. You have the children.” He spoke Caerdicci with a sibilant Aragonian accent. “And the Count...” his gaze flicked toward Lord Ramiro, “... has his answer.”
    “ An answer.” Ramiro Zornín de Aragon drew up his cloak and his dignity. “We will not rest until we have a full accounting of how this came to pass.”
    Three children. The Tsingani had seen three. I met Joscelin’s eyes, above the head of the girl he carried. “Agnette,” I said gently, brushing her tangled locks. “Was there another? Was there a third with you, another boy?”
    She muttered fitfully, turning her head. It was the other who answered, the other boy, whimpering in Luc’s comforting arms. “Imri!” he whispered, jerking restlessly. “Imri!”
    One of the Carthaginian prisoners said somewhat to the other, who laughed harshly, spitting on the packed earth of the alley. Although I did not understand the words, I heard the name Fadil Chouma spoken.
    The Menekhetan slaver.
    “My lord Ramiro speaks the truth,” I said to the Captain of the Harbor Watch, speaking Caerdicci, light-headed with anger and despair. “We will have a full accounting. There were three children; three D’Angeline children stolen. Two, we have found. Ask these men: What have they done with the third?”
    Vitor Gaitán inclined his head. “It shall be done.”

Twenty-Two
    IT WAS done.
    It was done in accordance with Aragonian law, which is harsh and exacting. If I had known, at the time, what I was asking, I do not know if I would have had the stomach to ask it.
    Count Fernan put the Carthaginians to torture.
    And this, too, I made myself witness, for this too, I had caused to be done. It was carried out in the dungeon of the Count’s keep, a room of dank stone and iron.
    Nicola L’Envers y Aragon accompanied me.
    It surprised me, a little; but it was a different thing, to watch a controlled proceeding, than to observe the mayhem in the harbor. Mayhap she feared to let me observe it alone; mayhap it was only that she had seen the children’s condition when we brought them to the Consul’s quarters. I do not know. I know only that I was grateful to have her there.
    They had names, these men-Mago and Harnapos. First one, and then the other. One was held in chains, while the other was seated on a wooden stool, his ankles in stocks, as two strong men held his arms and the Count’s enforcer lowered a burning torch beneath the soles of his bare feet. So did they make their confessions, and a fourth man recorded it all on a waxen tablet, his stylus scratching without cease.
    It goes without saying that they screamed, though I will say it anyway. They screamed, as their skin blistered and blackened and split, and the torch sizzled with dripping fluids and the smell of roasting meat filled their cell. It