Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [37]
"Imri?" Phèdre gave me a long, quizzical look. She suspected, I thought; surely, she must. But if she did, she didn't say anything. "Be careful," she said instead, smiling ruefully. "I know, I'm always telling you that.”
"And I'm always careful," I lied.
Outside, the air was bracing. The unseasonal warmth had given way to a cold snap and there was ice on the streets. I shifted from foot to bare foot on the courtyard as we waited for the carriage to be brought around. It was only an hour or so past midnight. The stars were distant and frosty, and a full moon stood high overhead, washing everything with silver. Mavros flung back his head and howled at it. I laughed, and he thumped my shoulder with one fist.
"You were right, cousin," he said. "You were oh so right. She wants you.”
"I don't want to talk about it," I said.
"Why?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I don't know.”
Mavros eyed me. "Are you going to be any fun tonight?”
"I don't know," I repeated.
"Ah, well." He shrugged. "I am.”
By the time we arrived at Cereus House and gave our tokens at the door, the festivities had gone well beyond revelry and into sheer license. I daresay at the outset the panoply outshone the Palace, but by now costumes were disheveled, and those masks that had not yet been discarded sat askew. Still, it was an amazing thing to see all the adepts of the Thirteen Houses in one place. So much beauty! Many of them came from a long lineage of Naamah's Servants, and their blood was as pure as any peer's.
On the Longest Night, there were no assignations allowed in the Night Court, no contracts. Only such liaisons as the adepts themselves chose. And this they had commenced to do with fervid enthusiasm. Everywhere one looked, in every corner or nook that afforded a measure of privacy, couples were entwined; couples and triads and groups of all manner. Alyssum's modesty and Bryony's avarice were abandoned, Heliotrope's marque blossomed beside Jasmine's.
"Elua!" Mavros took a deep breath. "What a lovely garden.”
He plunged into its midst and I lost sight of him almost immediately. I followed more slowly. I felt strange, a beggar at a banquet. I'd never gotten my lamp back, and I daresay I looked the beggar, too.
It was all right, though. I didn't mind.
A ripple ran through the crowd and I heard my name whispered. It seemed my bet with the Dowayne of Bryony House had caused a stir in the Night Court. I was Phèdre nó Delaunay's foster-son and I was welcome among them. Whatever I felt, I'd not go begging; not here.
There were offers.
A lot of offers.
And I turned them down, all of them. I found a perch atop a mostly empty banquet table and watched the glorious swirl of pageantry and lovemaking, the breathless, flushed garden of D'Angeline adepts. A vast tenderness filled me, and the beauty of it all made me ache with longing and loss.
"Are you sad, highness?" An adept with a satyr's mask pushed atop a head of brown curls hopped onto the table beside me. "You shouldn't be, not tonight.”
"Not sad," I said. "Thoughtful.”
"Oh, well then." He grinned. "That's all right.”
I thought about Eamonn teasing me for brooding, and I thought about Lucius, because the satyr's mask reminded me of him. And I thought about where I wanted to be at that moment if it wasn't with Sidonie, which it was. I excused myself and went to find the Dowayne of Cereus House to ask if I might beg the loan of a horse, to which he readily agreed.
The sky was beginning to turn dark grey by the time I reached the Temple of Elua. I was shivering in the saddle, huddled in my rags and cursing myself for a fool. I'd had to saddle the horse myself; there was no one left on sober duty in the stables of Cereus House, and no one from whom to borrow a cloak or footwear.
At least I didn't have to remove my boots. I passed through the vestibule and walked silently into the temple garden, the frozen ground hard beneath my bare soles. My feet made dark prints in the frost. I gazed at the statue of Blessed Elua and thought about