Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [38]
I watched Joscelin raise his bowed head.
There were no other Cassiline Brothers. Joscelin had kept the vigil alone this year. He got stiffly to his feet, turned, and saw me. For a moment, he merely blinked, not quite believing his eyes. "Imri?" After long silence, his voice was hoarse. His hands reached unthinking for his daggers, sure there must be danger. "What are you doing here?”
I hugged myself against the cold. "Greeting the dawn.”
Joscelin let go his hilts and swore softly. I smiled at him, and he laughed and shook his head. "Name of Elua! Look at you. I'm not taking the blame for this, not this time.”
"No," I agreed. "This time, it's mine.”
We rode home together in companionable silence. There was a blaze of gold in the eastern sky. The sun had returned, piercing and lovely. For the first time since I'd left the Palace, I let myself think about Sidonie, reliving every fevered whisper and gasp of our encounter, wrapping the memory around me like a fur cloak, warm and sensuous.
After a while, I didn't even feel the cold.
Chapter Eight
Once Phèdre had gotten over the worst of her outrage at my admittedly foolish decision to ride unarmed, unattended, and clad in rags across the City on the Longest Night, which took the better part of a day, I told her about how the Ephesian ambassador had recognized my medallion. If nothing else, it served to distract her.
"So they're among us," she mused. "The Unseen Guild.”
"So it would seem.”
She sighed. "Well, and so. You didn't speak to him of it, did you?”
"No." I shook my head. "Not directly.”
"Good." Phèdre frowned. "I'll see what Ysandre knows of his purposes, and try to find out who else he's meeting with. There's not much else we can do without tipping our hand.”
"Your hand," I pointed out to her. "It doesn't matter what they think I know, only that they don't know I've spoken of it. To you or to anyone.”
"Are you telling me to be careful?" she asked wryly.
I cleared my throat. "Who's Childric d'Essoms?”
Joscelin, listening without comment, snorted. Phèdre glanced at him. "He was a patron," she said. "Barquiel L'Envers' protégé, once. Delaunay used me to reach L'Envers through him. I don't think L'Envers took it kindly.”
"Hence the bad blood between them?" I asked.
She nodded. "Did he recognize the lamp-sign?”
"No," Joscelin said. They exchanged another glance. "I don't care if he recognized it or not," he added adamantly. "You're not doing what you're thinking of doing. Not with d'Essoms. I never liked him.”
"I know." Phèdre smiled sweetly at him. "I'm not." A corner of his mouth twitched. "You're thinking it, love."
"Oh, well." Her smile deepened. "Thinking's not doing."
"I don't think he did recognize it," I said. "Only the Ephesian." I was fairly certain it was true, anyway. In the end, there wasn't much to be done about it. I'd served notice to a member of the Guild, and they would respond or not as they chose. Either way, my future lay in Alba and owed naught to the Unseen Guild. It was one small piece of a puzzle that no longer held the interest it had for me. Once, I would have seized upon it. When I was younger, I'd daydreamed about finding my mother and bringing her at long last to justice. It was the one act of heroism I could commit that would clear away forever the taint of treachery that clung to me.
And now…
Now I owed her my life. It was harder to hate her wearing the seal of her protection around my neck, remembering Canis' dying words. It was harder to envision watching her long-delayed execution after reading her letters, reading how she'd counted my fingers and toes when I was a baby.
And I had other things on my mind.
Two days after the Longest Night, I returned to the Palace for another session with Firdha. The ollamh treated Alais and me to a lengthy dissertation on