Kushiel's Chosen

the sculpted curve of his shoulder. It was over too soon, and too late to undo. There is a madness in love. I watched him go, gathering his clothes, averting his gaze to hide the self-loathing in his eyes. Naked by moonlight, he was beautiful, muscles gliding in a subtle shadow play beneath his pale skin, fair hair shimmering. I had to close my eyes against it and hear the rustle of him dressing.
    When I opened them, I didn't mince words. "You're leaving."
    "Yes." Neither did he; we never had, the two of us.
    "Will you come back?"
    "I don't know," Joscelin said bluntly. "Phèdre, you don't need me. This isn't Skaldia. Any one of your chevaliers can serve you better here than I have, and has. They protect you well enough. I was wrong about them. If you've not found what you sought, still, you found enough. It will be in Benedicte's hands tomorrow, and better for it. You can go home and be the toast of the City once more."
    "And your vow?" I made myself ask it.
    Joscelin shrugged. "I broke all my vows but one for you, my lady," he said softly. "Let us say it is you yourself who have shattered this last."
    There is such a thing as a grief too immense for tears; this was almost one such. Almost. I watched him go dry-eyed, and heard the click of my bedchamber door behind him, the louder thud of the front entrance door shutting, and the sleepy murmur of a servant-lad as he roused to bar the door on his exit. Only then did his absence strike me like a blow, a terrible emptiness. So many times, like the tide, he had withdrawn only to return. This time, I felt only absence, and a sucking despair. I wept enough tears to fill a void, and though I never thought I would, fell asleep at last in the whiteness of pure exhaustion on my soaked and bitter pillow.

FORTY
    "Where's Joscelin?" It was TiPhilippe, most blithe and careless of the three, who asked; Fortun had taken one look at my reddened eyes and remained wisely silent, and Remy, who had sent Joscelin to me, avoided my gaze.
    "Gone," I said shortly. "And not likely to return." I set down the heel of jam-smeared bread I'd been toying with-I had no appetite-and turned to Fortun. "You have the map?"
    "Yes, my lady." He indicated the cylindrical leather case at his side. "We are all ready," he added quietly, "and the boat is waiting. Whenever you're ready."
    "Let's go." I rose abruptly from the breakfast table, leaving them scrambling in my wake. My maid Leonora stared after us, shaking her head, no doubt wondering at the strangeness of D'Angeline ways. Well, if my behavior was odd this day, she'd put it down to the falling-out with Severio. If she hadn't heard it already, she would soon enough.
    The fisherman-cousin of the Pidari family, whose name was Fiorello, was awaiting us anxiously in a little skiff with a single set of oars and a jerry-rigged sail. He spread burlap sacking on the seat for me as I embarked, and set to at the oars nearly the instant we were all aboard. Any other day, I might have laughed at the way Phèdre's Boys fell over each other at the speed of his departure. Any other day, I might have rejoiced as we emerged from the canal and hoisted the modest sail to scud across the lagoon.
    Well and so, I thought, staring at the green wavelets. Today I seek audience with a Prince of the Blood to lay forth my suspicions of one of the foremost peers of the realm. Mayhap it is fitting that my mood match this day's deeds.
    Isla Vitrari is one of the largest to lie within the shelter of the vast lagoon, and 'tis a pleasant isle. Its harbor has a deep draw, for the merchanters dock here, carrying glassware for trade. Fiorello Pidari cast a line to a couple of lads ashore, jesting with them; clearly, he was known here. The harbormaster gave him a nod and a wave as we disembarked.
    We followed our guide along a well-trodden footpath, past studios belching smoke from the glass furnaces and jealously guarded by young apprentices. It was Prince Benedicte who suggested the glassworks be moved to the island some fifteen years past, Severio once told me. Before, they had been quartered within La Serenissima proper, and many fires had resulted. Small wonder, I thought, glancing within a doorway open to catch the breeze, seeing the red glow of a furnace within and a brawny Serenissiman craftsman at his trade. He wore a leathern apron and his lips were wrapped round the end of a hollow rod, his cheeks puffed out like a bellows. What he wrought, I could not say.
    It was not until