Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [355]
Afterward, Phèdre excused herself to her study. I sat for a while talking with Joscelin in the salon, casting glances toward the hall where her study lay. At length he jerked his chin toward the door. "Go. Talk to her."
I hesitated. "Do you want to—"
"Does it have aught to do with your mother?" Joscelin asked. Yes.
He gave his familiar half-smile, wry and loving. "Tell it to Phèdre. She may actually understand it."
The door to her study was closed. I knocked lightly on it.
"Come in, love," she called.
I entered and closed the door behind me. The room was cozy, warmed by a brazier and lit by a pair of oil lamps. It held at least a hundred texts written in a dozen tongues. Some of them had been Delaunay's, and some Phèdre had purchased in her long quest to find the key to freeing Hyacinthe. Many had been salvaged from the bottom of the sea and found languishing in the Master of the Straits' library. There were others at Montrève, too.
All knowledge is worth having.
Phèdre sat at her desk, but her chair was pushed away from it. A finished letter sat atop the desk, the ink drying. I glanced at it and saw it was to the Lady of Marsilikos.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Were you—"
"Waiting for you?" Phèdre smiled. "Yes."
I sighed and folded my legs, sitting at her feet. I leaned my head against the arm of her chair and closed my eyes. After a moment, she began to stroke my hair. We sat like that for a long time. After a long, long while, I began to talk.
I told her about Claudia Fulvia.
I told her about the Unseen Guild.
I told her how I had learned about Bernadette de Trevalion, and what I'd done about it.
And I told her about Canis, and my mother.
She listened to it without comment. Once I'd begun, the words spilled out of me, tumbling one after another. Ah, Elua! Too many secrets, secrets I'd never wanted. I'd been keeping them too long.
When I had finished, I shuddered. I was spent, wrung out. I rubbed my hands over my face, then got up and sat in the guest chair. I'd let myself be a child for a moment, but it couldn't last.
"What do you think?" I asked. "Are the Guild's claims true?"
"It would explain a great deal," Phèdre said quietly. "I always wondered how Melisande came to conspire with Waldemar Selig. Through the Duc d'Aiglemort, everyone assumed, but…" She shook her head. "She knew things he didn't. And she was able to contact Selig without his knowledge. She always knew too much. It would make sense."
"What do we do, then?" I asked.
"Wait," she said simply. "Watch and listen, as always. The Guild has played their hand; they're not like to take any further chances soon. We'll learn what we may." She glanced at the shelves and cubbyholes filled with tomes and scrolls. "Asclepius' priest said the system of notation on Canis' medallion was devised by a blind healer? A fellow priest?"
"Yes. Long ago, I think." I smiled, knowing she wouldn't see it. Phèdre's face had taken on the absentminded expression she wore when lost in thought. I'd first seen it in the zenana. Not at the beginning, but later; when she was busy hatching the impossible scheme that freed us. "Do you think you might find a reference to it?"
"Mm-hmm."
I liked it when she wore her absent face, because it was safe. I could look at her and wonder what she was thinking, or just look at her. There were no disconcerting undercurrents, no terrible, wonderful hints of transcendence clinging to her. Only Phèdre, thinking. I watched her for a while before speaking again. "It's dangerous," I reminded her. "If the Guild is half as powerful as Claudia claimed, their threat is real."
"Oh, I know." She returned from wherever it was her thoughts had led her. "Don't worry, love. I don't mean to take any risks. You've not told anyone else, have you?"
I shook my head. "Not even Eamonn. Will you?"
"Other than Joscelin?" Phèdre frowned. "I'd like to speak to Hyacinthe about it. Elua knows, if there's anyone in the world safe from reprisal,