The Jardin des Muses had been designed by a landscape architect who believed firmly that nature’s role was to stand still and look respectable. The result was a park of geometric precision: gravel paths converging on circular fountains, hedgerows trimmed to military specification, and lawns so rigorously maintained that individual blades of grass had presumably been issued permits.
At its centre, a gazebo. White lattice, decorative ironwork, the kind of structure that hosted string quartets in summer and negotiations with immortals in winter. The architect had probably not anticipated the latter.
Isabella arrived an hour before the meeting and spent forty minutes confirming what she’d suspected from the moment the location was named. The nearest cover was fifty metres of open lawn in every direction. The gravel paths announced footsteps like a town crier with a grudge. Even the hedgerows had been trimmed too low to conceal anything larger than an ambitious squirrel.
High noon, open ground, clear sightlines in every direction. Clever bastard.
She completed her third circuit and settled on a bench with a sightline to the southern approach. The gazebo was clean, no secondary positions, no concealed exits, no surprises, and that had taken twenty minutes. She sat with the remaining twenty and nothing to fill them.
Her tea was in her hand before she remembered buying it from the vendor at the park gate. She drank it without tasting it and watched a pair of nursemaids shepherd children along the far path.
Sounds like we have an appointment to keep. She’d said it hours ago. Then Lambert had fallen out of his chair, and a golden woman had appeared above the butter dish, and the entire morning had detoured through cosmology and divine succession and the theological implications of what they’d already decided to do. Hours of context for a conclusion that had been sitting on the breakfast table before the toast went cold.
She saw them coming along the southern path before the gravel announced them.
Laila led with Lambert shortly behind her, hands clasped behind his back. Elariana flanked them, eyes scanning the grounds. Wylan a step behind like an oddly decorated festoon. There was a brightness about his style that stood out against the sombre mood. It was like watching a very angry pony leading the world’s strangest parade.
She met them at the fountain where the southern path split. “Nothing. No secondary positions, no concealed exits. The place is so open you couldn’t hide a bread roll.”
“He’s covered his ground well,” Elariana noted.
Isabella glanced at the gazebo. Still fifty metres away, still time.
“Before we go in,” she said. “Are we sure about this? We’re not just buying a cure. We’re clearing a path for his apotheosis. Theodora wasn’t lying about that.”
“Theodora also offered us nothing,” Laila said. “No cure. No alternative. Just warnings. He is the only person who has actually offered to help, yes at a price, but at least we know the price. There is no ulterior motive here. He wants the sword. We want Aurora safe. It’s clean.”
Lambert’s gaze was fixed on the gazebo. “A god of enlightenment and reform is a considerably better prospect than a dragon queen building an empire on the bones of the Church. If we must choose between two powers ascending, I know which I’d rather see succeed.”
“That’s your doctrine talking,” Wylan said.
“It is. And I’m comfortable with that.”
Wylan looked like he wanted to say more. He didn’t. He’s done the maths. He doesn’t like it. He can’t argue with it.
“It’s not too late to push him into the Dungeon,” Wylan offered.
“Wylan,” Laila said.
“Just saying.”
None of them have a better idea. Neither do you.
“Right then,” Laila said, and stood.
He was already there.
The gazebo had been furnished since Isabella’s last circuit. A small table, two chairs, a tea service laid out for one. Espérant sat in the nearer chair with his back to the southern approach. Either he trusts us or he doesn’t consider us a threat. Probably both.
His clothing was dark, simply cut, modest tailoring that cost more than most people’s wardrobes. Gold thread traced the cuffs and collar in patterns too fine to read at a distance. He looked like a man of means enjoying a morning in the park, which was technically accurate in the same way that calling the ocean damp was technically accurate.
His companion stood at the gazebo’s edge. She didn’t recognise him but instantly determined his combat training from his heavy shoulders and professional stance. When she saw the blade at his hip and the faint shimmer in the air around him, it was a clear enough signal that he meant trouble or business, or both.
Elariana clocked him too. Their eyes met briefly across twenty metres of gravel. The exchange was wordless and professional: I see you. You see me. Let’s hope this stays boring.
Espérant looked up as they reached the gazebo steps. He didn’t stand.
“I’m glad you could come,” he said warmly. “Please. Sit.”
There were two chairs. Five of them.
Laila took the empty chair. The others arranged themselves behind her without discussion.
“I appreciate your punctuality,” Espérant said. “Tea?”
“We’re not here for tea,” Laila said.
“No. But it seemed polite to offer.” He set down his cup. “Good. I had hoped we might speak plainly.”
He looked exactly as he had in the carriage. Dark coat, gold at the cuffs, patient, composed, unconcerned. The same man who had sat in their carriage uninvited and told them Aurora would die. Now he was offering them tea.
Theodora called him Valère. Just think of him as Espérant and you’ll get through this.
“We’ve had time to discuss your offer,” Laila said. “We’ve come to the conclusion that our interests may be more aligned than we first believed.”
“They always were.”
Wylan shifted behind Laila’s chair. “You can understand the scepticism, though. Given everything.”
Espérant’s gaze moved to Wylan and back to Laila. “I have given you nothing but honesty. I’m glad we can finally discuss the matters at hand.”
Lambert stepped forward. “Then let us start with candour over courtesy. We know you are not just Espérant. We have been able to figure out you are Valère, even Theodora named you as such.”
Espérant regarded him for a moment. The composure didn’t shift, but the performance of it quietly stopped.
“I am not surprised that Theodora reached out to you. As for myself, I never claimed that I wasn’t Valère,” he said. “Espérant is simply another name of mine, and one quite significant to me. You may use whichever name you prefer.”
“Valère,” Lambert said.
“As you wish.”
So much for Espérant. Wearing a coat of divinity, but didn’t change anything about his face.
“We have terms,” Lambert said. “Some are essential. Others are requests. We’d like to distinguish between them clearly.”
“Please.”
“First, the curse on our granddaughter. You offered to lift it. That remains the price.”
“It was always the price,” Valère said. “I see no reason to alter that arrangement.”
“Second. We have received overtures from Aeloria’s people directly on this matter. We were told, in no uncertain terms, to reject your offer.
“We are here. That should tell you where we stand. But in making this deal, we are burning what may have been our only prospect of détente with the Dragon Queen. We need your assurance that when the consequences of that decision arrive, you will stand with us.”
“You have my word. Any house that stands with me stands under my protection. That is not a negotiating position. It is a principle.”
She’d known men who dealt in these kinds of principles. They usually came with a trail of bodies.
“Third,” Lambert said. “We have a candidate in mind to replace the late Pontifex, and their appointment would prevent Primate Vaziri from assuming that role.”
Valère raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were on good terms with your great-aunt?”
“You tell us,” Laila said. “You seemed to be on good terms with her yourself. You did arrive as part of her entourage, after all. Does she also serve Aeloria?”
“A couple of points I would disabuse you of. Firstly, just as I do not serve Aeloria, I would say that Primate Vaziri serves her own agenda. As for your second question, Vaziri does not know my identity. But as you might imagine, I have my own reasons for keeping close to those who would lead my Church, and giving direct counsel where I can.”
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“Then pray tell, who is this candidate you would have me endorse to replace the person whose agenda I have helped cultivate?”
“We have to find him first,” Lambert said.
“I see. That does make it difficult to square the circle.” Valère paused. “What I can offer you is this. I will endorse a candidate of your naming, provided they meet certain standards that would be credible. I can elevate almost anyone to the Pontifarchy if I choose, but not everyone would be suited to the role.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Wylan said. “If we can find him, I think you’ll agree he is a most eligible candidate.”
Valère studied them. It was the first time he looked uncertain, even faintly, about anything.
“Very well. I will agree to the third term, with these provisional conditions.”
Isabella watched him stumble over the third term. Quit haggling. We’re literally helping you with godhood.
“I see you have thought your matters out with great care,” Valère said. “Then let us formalise them.”
He produced parchment and ink from the satchel beside his chair. For several minutes, the only sound was the scratch of his pen. The parchment accepted each word like a clerk receiving evidence.
He turned the parchment to face them. “I believe you will agree that everything is in order.”
Laila took it first. Fey courts had taught her what a misplaced clause could start. Lambert read over her shoulder. Wylan leaned in from behind.
Isabella didn’t read the contract. She watched Valère instead. His hands were perfectly still, his attention fixed on the parchment, but she could feel the want radiating off him. She’d learnt to recognise ambush predators before.
The language was florid but the terms were precise, with no hidden conditions, no buried loopholes, no fine print that contradicted the spirit of the agreement.
“This contract,” Lambert said. “Is it theurgical in nature?”
“Any divine contract is by nature theurgical,” Valère said. “The terms bind because they are witnessed by something greater than either party.”
“Could you have taken the sword without a contract?”
Valère regarded him. “It would simply have been far worse. For you. Besides, I had no wish to expend the power needed to wrest it from your possession forcefully, when I knew you could be reasoned with.”
They signed. The ink dried with what felt like unseemly haste.
“When can you collect the sword?” Laila said.
“When can you cure Aurora?” Lambert said.
“I will need three days. To gather my strength, to wield Caliburn properly, and to remove the curse from your granddaughter.” He produced a printed sheet. “In fact, I would invite you to attend.”
He placed the flyer on the table between them.
The Resurgence of Valère. Come and See.
A date three days from now. Noon.
“Yours will be the first stop upon my grand tour of the city,” Valère said. “I shall perform my first miracle for the nation in quite some time. And then I shall collect what is mine.”
“What is it with you and three days?” Wylan said.
“Because three days is an auspicious and fateful amount of time.”
Another three days of being strung along. I’m tired of other people’s deadlines.
Valère rose. His companion fell into step beside him. They walked south along the gravel path, unhurried, and did not look back.
The family stood in the gazebo and watched them go. The table held two empty teacups, a signed contract, and a flyer.
“I still can’t believe we did that,” Isabella said. “That we’re throwing all our weight behind Valère.”
“Not quite,” Lambert said. He was watching the retreating figures. What are you thinking, Lambert? “Valère may be our strongest ally, and bound now by divine writ. But he is a man with his own agenda, and I am not sure I trust anyone with that much ambition as a god.”
“Then why did we just go through all that?”
“Our problem has been trying to chase one side over the other. Light or dark. Valère or Aeloria. But that’s not how stories work. It’s not how any of this works.” He turned to face them. “Valère and R?zvan are cosmic counterparts. Light and dark. Their separation is a wound to the universe itself, because life cannot exist without death, and death cannot persist without life. The Pendulum swings because it must swing both ways.”
“Lambert,” Laila said carefully.
“If Valère ascends to godhood unchecked, with no counterweight, there is no balance. But if both of them ascend, their conflict moves to the divine plane. Away from mortal concern. A stalemate that preserves free will for the rest of us.”
“You’re talking about raising R?zvan to godhood,” Wylan said. “The vampire lord sealed in the Sepulchre.”
“I’m talking about balance. The Sepulchre holds Esteban. It also holds R?zvan. We have three days to bring back one or both.”
The Autumn Embassy occupied the centre of a town square that wanted nothing to do with it. It hadn’t changed since the last visit. The porcelain arch, amber and russet and gold, the polished disc shifting between silver and bronze. The barriers marking off the approach like municipal apology.
The square was quieter without the family. Isabella had told them not to come.
She’d considered, briefly, whether that was wise. Laila would have handled the politics with the fluency of someone who’d grown up in this world, and Wylan would have made her laugh to lighten the mood. Lambert would have scowled at something.
She touched the copper flower brooch Maximilian had given her.
No. This one’s mine.
It was barely another half hour before she found herself standing, once again, before Nereus. The path had opinions about distance but none about urgency.
He received her in the private chamber. No throne this time. The round table, the low chairs. He poured wine she didn’t touch.
“Have you come to a decision?”
“Yes.”
A pause. Nereus waited.
“I relinquish my claims to the titles and protections of the Autumn Court.” The words had been sitting in her chest all morning. “I am not Ondine Marinelle. I haven’t been for a long time. I’d like to make that official.”
Nereus studied her for a moment. Whatever he was looking for, he found it.
“Very well.” He produced a document. She suspected it had been drafted before she arrived.
She signed. The ink dried. Nereus inclined his head, and that was that.
It took less than ten minutes.
She walked back through the Widderslainte alone, the amber light shifting around her, the path curving in ways she no longer bothered to follow. She had just severed half her identity. She kept waiting for it to feel like something. The trees with their hammered gold leaves drifted past. The shadows fell in two directions. She put one foot in front of the other and tried to locate the enormity of what she’d done, and it wasn’t there. It was like pressing a bruise that had gone numb.
I should feel something. Shouldn’t I?
The sound of hooves on soft ground. Isadora drew up beside her on a mare the colour of turning leaves, russet and amber and gold, as though the Widderslainte had lent her one of its trees. She slowed to a walk.
“I thought I’d see you to the gate,” she said. “Just like last time.”
She offered her hand. Isabella took it and swung up behind her, settling against Isadora’s back as the mare found its way along the path. The Widderslainte shifted around them, unhurried.
They rode in silence. The mare’s hooves were soft on the leaf-covered ground, and the Widderslainte’s amber light moved around them like a slow tide.
“It felt real enough to hurt,” Isadora said, as though picking up a conversation they’d started three days ago. “Being someone’s daughter. Having a name that fit. It felt real, right up until it didn’t.”
Isabella said nothing. Her arms were around Isadora’s waist, and the warmth of another person was doing more than it should.
“You signed the papers,” Isadora said. Not a question.
“Ten minutes. Didn’t even finish the wine.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That’s what’s strange. I thought I’d feel something. Relief, grief, something. It’s just quiet.”
The path curved. The shadows changed direction and then changed back.
“I felt the same,” Isadora said. “When I chose to stay. Everyone expected it to be momentous. Grand decision, grand feelings. But it was more like putting down something heavy that you’d been carrying so long you’d forgotten what your arms felt like without it.”
“That’s the thing,” Isabella said. “I don’t feel lighter. I just feel like I’m standing outside my own life watching it happen to someone else.”
The mare stepped over a root that probably hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“My family traded away the most powerful weapon in Gallia this morning,” Isabella said. “For a promise. Not even a delivered cure. A promise from a man who wants to become a god. And before the ink was dry, Lambert was already planning the next move. Not just one apotheosis. Two. A cosmic stalemate to balance the universe.” She was quiet for a moment. “And all I could think was, I’m so tired.”
“Of them?”
“Of being in the room while the room gets bigger. Every time I think I understand the shape of the problem, it turns out the problem is actually about gods, or dragons, or the fundamental structure of creation. And I’m standing there with a knife and good instincts and nothing that matters.”
Isadora didn’t answer immediately. The path widened. Through the trees, the arch of the gate was visible in the distance, the disc catching light that had no obvious source.
“You know what I’ve learned about being the human in a room full of powers?” Isadora said. “You’re the only one who gets to choose. They’re all bound by something. Duty, prophecy, cosmic obligation, whatever it is that keeps immortals busy. You and I are the only ones who can just walk away.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“It’s supposed to be true.”
The gate was closer now.
“What will you do?” Isadora asked.
“I don’t know yet. But whatever it is, it’ll be mine. No borrowed names. Just me.”
“Freedom has its own weight,” Isadora said. “But I think you can carry it.”
Night had come as Isabella strode into the Rogue’s Gallery, for the second time in so many days. The same ambience greeted her, the same lingering smell of salt and tallow. The place had the decency not to comment on how quickly she’d returned.
Then Madame de Pompadour was simply there, as though the shadows had produced her on request.
“Mademoiselle de Vaillant. Twice in one week. People will talk.”
How does a woman that old move that quietly?
“Ah, yes, well, hopefully not for much longer. I’m looking for Captain Voltari.”
“Of course you are, dear.” Pompadour grabbed her by the hand and held her gaze in a surprising moment of proximity. “But I’m afraid Captain Voltari left earlier. She was keen to set sail. However, if you’re quick, you might catch her at Freight Expectations. I hear she has business there before she truly leaves.”
There was a wry look in Pompadour’s eye as she said that. I don’t have time for this!
She had already turned on her heel and was out the door.
Pompadour’s gaze followed her out into the street.
Freight Expectations was locked, but that wasn’t going to stop her. Not when the building had thief marks. The mark on the side entrance said open to friends after dark. She let herself in.
Guillaume was in his office, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. The man kept hours that would have concerned a physician. He looked up from his ledger, took in her travelling cloak, the bag over her shoulder, and the expression on her face, and closed the book.
“Isabella.”
“Where is Captain Voltari?”
He studied her for a long moment. She’d seen that look before, but whatever calculation he ran, the answer came quickly.
“She was here, but now she’s gone. Why are you asking?”
“I wanted to join her. Pompadour said—”
“You won’t catch her on foot. Nor even by train. I suspect she is out on the waters already.”
“How? She was here in Pharelle hours ago.”
“That doesn’t matter, Isabella. She is gone, and even if you got to Havralis, how would you catch up to her out on the sea?”
“I’m a siren. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
? The question of whether a siren raised on land could still navigate open ocean was the subject of some academic debate, and was about to be an exciting experiment for inquiring minds.
Guillaume stared at her. “Are you sure? You might not find your way back to Pharelle.”
“I’m sure.”
He stopped flicking the coin in his fingers. The showman gave way to the uncle.
“Alright. Never let it be said I stood in the way of a young and enterprising woman seeking to find her own way in the world.” He was already standing. “Saffron!”
The door to the adjoining room opened. Saffron leaned against the frame, a glass of amber in her hand.
“Isabella! What a surprise. What brings you here at this hour?”
“You know, I could ask the same of you. But I think we both know neither of us is doing something we want seen in the light of day.”
Saffron laughed, a rich and throaty sound. “My, we are full of secrets today. Guillaume, what can I do?”
“I’d like you to open the mirror, if you would,” Guillaume said.
Saffron looked at Isabella, and that settled the matter. She took a deep swig, crossed to the tall mirror that dominated the far wall of Guillaume’s office, and placed her palm flat against the glass.
The shadows in the corners of the room deepened and leaned inward, attentive. The lamplight dimmed to amber. The surface of the mirror rippled once, twice, and then it wasn’t a reflection anymore. It was a window into an office that looked almost identical to this one, slightly smaller, the lamp flickering against polished wood. Beyond its window, a jagged coastline under moonlight.
“Havralis,” Guillaume said. “The harbour office. From there you can reach the cove in ten minutes.”
Isabella looked at the mirror. Looked back at Guillaume.
“What should I tell the rest of your family?” Saffron asked.
“Tell them what they need to hear: goodbye.”
She stepped through.