Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [44]
"Lovely, isn't it?" Caroline noticed me eyeing it. "It's Akkadian."
"From Khebbel-im-Akkad?" I remembered maps that Cillian and I had pored over. "It must have come a very long way."
"Yes, indeed." She sounded a little surprised. "Ah, good! Here's Henri with the seal."
He carried it on a tray and set it down on her desk with great care. Small wonder, for the wax was ancient and brittle. Caroline no Bryony produced a fresh sheet of paper and a red wax taper. She lit the taper and let a precise amount of wax drip onto the clean paper. I sat, waiting while it cooled. My mother and Oengus and Mabon stood uneasily near the closed door. I could feel their discomfort. Caroline breathed on the surface of my ring and pressed it firmly into the soft red puddle before giving it back to me.
"Is that a piece of magic?" I inquired. "Blowing on it?"
She gave me a bewildered look. "Magic? No. A trace of moisture helps keep the seal from sticking to the wax."
"Ah," I said.
Her assistant Henri produced a funny little object, a round glass in a handheld frame—like a mirror, only clear. For long moments, Caroline no Bryony peered through it, comparing the new seal imprint with the old. She looked up and smiled at the curiosity on my face. "No magic here either, only science." She gave me the object to examine."'Tis but a magnifying glass to let me see the detail more clearly."
I held it to my eye and startled at the sight of her face, looming and blurred. "Stone and sea! So you say. It seems a fine piece of magic to me."
Mabon stirred restlessly. "Does the seal match?"
"It does." She folded her hands on the desk. "So. You have considerable funds at your disposal, Moirin daughter of Fainche. I am here to make them available to you and assist you in any way I might. That was the pledge my predecessors made to Alais de la Courcel. Tell me, what will you? Do you seek to make an entrance into Alban society? I can provide you with letters of authentication to present to the Cruarch."
"No, no." I shook my head. "I am not here to trouble the Cruarch on behalf of his wild kin. I need money, that's all."
Caroline tilted her head. "May I ask what you intend?"
This business of having a destiny was infernally complicated. "I don't know, exactly," I admitted. "I'm bound for Terre d'Ange to start. The City of Elua. Do you know it?"
Henri smirked.
Oengus shot him a look that drove the smirk from his face.
"Henri, leave us, please." Caroline no Bryony pointed at the door. He went, suppressing a scowl. "So." She refolded her hands, her gaze intent. "You seek funds sufficient to grant you passage to the City of Elua?"
"Aye." I nodded. "And mayhap to dwell there for a time."
"How long?"
I hadn't the faintest idea. "I don't know."
"Elua have mercy!" Unexpectedly, she laughed; but it was a nice laugh with no malice in it. Her brown eyes sparkled, and I suddenly decided I liked her after all. She smiled at me with genuine warmth, enough that it set the doves fluttering in my belly for the first time since Cillian's death. "What did I do to deserve you turning up on our doorstep, Moirin of the Maghuin Dhonn?"
I smiled back at her. "I can't imagine."
My mother coughed.
"All right, then." Caroline no Bryony sobered. "If you're willing to hear it, I'll give you my counsel. Will you all be travelling together?"
I shook my head. "Only me."
She gave me a sharp look and plucked a fresh sheet of paper from a drawer, dipping a pen into an inkwell. "As a young woman travelling on her own, I'd caution you not to carry overmuch in the way of hard coin. A hundred ducats should suffice to book you passage to Terre d'Ange and