Kushiel's Dart

was long gone, seized along with all of Delaunay's holdings, but Cecilie Laveau-Perrin came at my side, and made a bargain with him that would have made an adept of Bryony House weep with envy.
    Fifteen tokens, one for each of Phedre's surviving Boys, to grant free passage to any of the Thirteen Houses on the eve of Ysandre's wedding. But he was no fool, Jareth Moran. My name and my tale were known, in some part, an odd scarlet thread in the tapestry of D'Angeline victory; Delaunay's anguissette , who had survived slavery in Skaldia, who had ridden to Alba. I was born and bred to the Night Court, raised in Cereus House. The Dowayne opened his doors to Phedre's Boys, and traded on my name to restore a measure of luster to the mythos of the Night Court.
    No matter that I'd had naught to do with him since I was ten years old and Delaunay came to claim me. I'd been born to it, which was true. And I kept my promise, which was what mattered to me.
    For the last of it, I brought the deed to Hyacinthe's house and his holdings to his crew in Night's Doorstep, finding Emile as he had bid me, and giving into his keeping the deed that Hyacinthe had written on scraped parchment in the lonely tower of the Master of the Straits. Emile wept and kissed my hands, blessing me profusely; out of joy, in part, and out of sorrow for Hyacinthe's fate, in larger part. It touched me, to see how much, truly, they had cared for him.
    Prince of Travellers.
    I made an offering, then, in his mother's name, at the temple of Elua where we had gone together after Baudoin's death. Clutching the scarlet anemones, damp with dew, I laid them at the base of the statue, kneeling to kiss Elua's cool marble feet. "For Anasztaizia, daughter of Manoj," I murmured, smelling all around me the moist soil and green things growing, the deep shade of the mighty oaks. Far above me, Elua's vast features bent an enigmatic smile through the gloaming twilight.
    I knelt there a long while.
    This time, it was Joscelin's hands that bid me rise; but the priest of Elua was there, the same, I swear it, though all priests and priestesses resemble each other in some way, for they are all part of an unbroken line of service. He smiled at us, barefooted in the damp mast, hands in the sleeves of his robe.
    "Cassiel's child," he said gently, remonstrating Joscelin, "do not rush. You have stood at the crossroads and chosen, and like Cassiel, you will ever stand at the crossroads and choose, choose again and again, the path of the Companion. The choice lies ever within you, the crossroads and the way, and Elua's commandment to point you on it."
    Joscelin gave him a startled look, but the priest was already reaching out one hand, laying it upon my cheek.
    "Kushiel's Dart and Naamah's Servant." He smiled, leaf-shadowed in the twilight; a smile of blessing, of remembrance, I thought. Who could say? I believed him the same priest. "Love as thou wilt, and Elua will ever guide your steps."
    He left us to linger there.
    When he had gone, I laughed. "It seems my turn for dire prophecy has passed."
    "You can have mine," Joscelin said wryly. "It seems I'm doomed to make the same choice a thousand times over."
    "Are you sorry?" I searched his face in the faint light.
    "No." Joscelin shook his head. "No," he whispered, and took my face in his hands, lowering his head to kiss me, unbound hair the color of summer wheat falling forward to curtain us.
    It was sweet, very sweet, and I felt the Tightness of it in our shared breath, the steady beat of his heart matching time with my own.
    When he lifted his head, the shadow of a smile curved his lips. "But there will likely be times when I am."
    "Likely there will," I murmured. "As long as it's not now."
    "No," he said, and smiled in full. "Not now."
    Above our heads, Elua's marble hands remained spread in blessing.
    Thus did I keep the promises I had made on that long and terrible journey; and afterward, you may be sure, Ysandre de la Courcel had me dancing attendance upon her to make up for time lost on my own business. While she bid fair to make a wise and compassionate ruler, she was also a D'Angeline noblewoman approaching her wedding-day, and indulged her foibles accordingly. Never in her life had she been allowed the luxury of being girlish; if she seized it now, I, who had been raised to fripperies, could not blame her.
    One such which demanded my attention was the bedecking of Alban royalty in D'Angeline finery: to wit, the splendid gown