Kushiel's Mercy

ridden with Gerard de Mereliot and an escort of the Lady’s men once. With my luck, I’d be sure to encounter one of them.
    For a mercy, I didn’t.
    At the Academy, I presented myself as Cadmar of Landras. It was the name of a boy I’d known long ago when I was a child in the Sanctuary of Elua. I don’t know why it was the first thing I’d thought of when I’d given a false name, except that it was a piece of my past no one would ever connect to Imriel de la Courcel. I’d warned Jeanne in the note I’d sent, and I was escorted to her study without question.
    “Im—” Jeanne caught her breath at the sight of me, barely catching herself before saying my name. We had passed a night together once, or at least several hours of one. Eisheth’s mercy takes many forms. Her smoky grey eyes widened. “You look . . .” She shook her head. “Thank you,” she said to the attendant who had escorted me. “You may go.”
    “Well met, Jeanne,” I said when the door had closed.
    “You look awful,” she said gently.
    “I’ve looked worse,” I said. “Believe me.”
    Jeanne regarded me with a chirurgeon’s concern. “You were very ill. You shouldn’t be travelling, Imriel. Not like this.”
    “I wasn’t ill.” I found a chair and sat. “I was stark raving mad, Jeanne. But it passed, and now I’m the only living soul who was in the City of Elua the night the moon was obscured who doesn’t believe that Carthage and Terre d’Ange are allies, and Sidonie de la Courcel fell in love with a Carthaginian prince.”
    “So your letter suggested.” Tears shone in her eyes, born of frustration and weariness.
    “What in Blessed Elua’s name happened that night?” Jeanne gestured helplessly around her study, which was piled high with books and scrolls. “I’ve been looking for answers; we all have. But there’s nothing in history to guide us, no account of thousands of folk succumbing to the same delusion at the same time.”
    “It was a trick,” I said. “A spell.”
    “You saw it?” she asked. “What they did?”
    The hope in her voice hurt. I shook my head. “I saw very little. A man drove a needle into me.” I touched my side. “Here. He told me I would go mad, but it was for my own protection. He said the fever would break in a month. And he said to seek out Ptolemy Solon in Cythera, who would know how to undo what was done. That’s why I’m here. I need your help booking passage to Cythera.”
    “A needle.” A strange expression crossed Jeanne’s face. She stooped before me, laying one hand on my brow. “Have you any idea how that sounds?”
    “Yes.” I caught her hand. “But it’s true. There’s nothing wrong with my memory. I remember you. You came to my room and offered me respite. Eisheth’s mercy. You opened all the windows. I remember, Jeanne. Your black hair spread on the pillow like sea-grass, the cool wind blowing over my skin. You were gentle and kind, and I needed that so much. When you left, you laughed and told me Eisheth had a fondness for beautiful sailor-boys.”
    Her fingers stirred in mine. “Remembering that doesn’t make this true.”
    “But what if it is?” I asked simply.
    She didn’t answer right away, but began rummaging through the texts piled on every surface of her study, her face fierce with concentration. I sat quietly, watching her.
    “Here,” Jeanne said at length, thrusting an ancient, cracked tome at me, marking a passage with one finger. It was written in Hellene.
    I read it.
    To induce madness, forge a needle of silver that has never seen daylight, one handspan’s length. Bathe it in the sweat of a lunatic’s brow mixed with the effluvium of a horned toad. For one year, expose it to the light of the full moon. When plunged into the vitals, it will induce madness for the duration of the moon’s cycle.
    My blood ran cold. “What is this book? Where did you get it?”
    “It’s a compendium of occult ailments by Cleon of Naxos,” Jeanne said. “He spent years gathering tales of folk rumored to have been afflicted by witchcraft.” She shrugged. “No one’s ever given it credence, but there was a copy in the Academy library. A curiosity, I suppose. I pulled it only out of desperation.”
    “Does Cleon of Naxos suggest cures?” I asked.
    “No.” Regret darkened her gaze. “He died some two hundred years ago. There’s a note at the end of the compendium stating he meant to compile a volume of occult cures, but so far as I know, he