Pierre had made a grand Valenian cake, three layers deep with wispy butter icing, and Yseult had hung ribbons from the dining room chandelier. Agnes had cut the last of summer’s flowers and scattered them down the table. And they were all waiting: Jourdain, Agnes, Jean David, Liam, Pierre, Hector Laurent, and Yseult.
It was odd to see them gathered in honor of me. But it was even stranger how my heart affectionately tightened at the sight of them, this mismatched group of people who had become my family.
Luc played a lively tune on his violin as Pierre cut the cake. Yseult gave me a beautiful shawl, spun from midnight wool with threads of silver—just like stars—and Agnes gave me a box of ribbons, one for each color of passion. That was enough, I thought. I did not want any other gifts.
But then Jourdain came up behind me, next to my shoulder, and held out his palm. A shimmering silver chain rested there, waiting for me to claim.
“For your pendant,” he murmured.
I accepted it, felt the delicate silver in my fingers. It was beautiful and deceptively strong. This will not break, I thought and met Jourdain’s gaze.
He was thinking the very same.
Nine mornings later, I began my four-day journey in the coach to Isotta, Valenia’s northernmost harbor. Jourdain accompanied me, and he did not waste a minute of that trip. It seemed he had a mental checklist, and I listened as he moved from point to point, his dry lawyer tone emerging, which made me fight yawn after yawn.
He went through the plans, from start to finish, yet again, for each member of our group. I patiently soaked it in, thinking back to my pawns moving on the map, so I could know each person’s location. Then he gave me the list of safe houses that Liam had made, for me to memorize before he burned it.
There were five in Lyonesse—two bakers, a chandler, a silversmith, and a printmaker—and two yeomen on the way from the royal city to Damhan. All these people had once served beneath Jourdain’s House, and Liam swore they were still secretly loyal to their fallen lord.
Then Jourdain launched into his opinions of Lannon, of what I should and definitely should not say when I made the appeal. But as for the subject of Allenach, my patron father remained quiet.
“Was I right to call the two of you archenemies?” I dared to ask, weary of listening and bumping along in this coach.
“Hmm.”
I took that as a yes.
But then he surprised me by saying, “Under no circumstance should you tell him that your father, your real father, serves his House, Amadine. That you are actually an Allenach. Unless you are in a deadly situation and it is the only hope you have of getting out alive.
“For this mission, you are wholly Valenian. Stick to the history we gave you.”
I nodded and finished memorizing the safe houses.
“Now then,” Jourdain cleared his throat. “There is no telling what will happen when I cross the border. Allenach may insist on keeping you at Damhan, or he may bring you to me in Lyonesse. If he should hold you at Damhan, you need to leave with d’Aramitz on the third night after my arrival. That is when we are converging at Mistwood, to storm the throne. We will prepare for battle, but hopefully Lannon—coward that he is—will abdicate when he sees our banners rise and our people gather.”
Mistwood. That name was like a drop of wonder to my heart. “Why Mistwood?”
“Because it borders mine and Morgane’s lands, where most of our people still dwell, and it’s at the back gate of the royal castle,” he gruffly explained. But I saw how Jourdain glanced away from me with a sheen in his eyes.
“Was this the place . . . ?” My words died when he looked back at me.
“Yes, it is the place where we failed and were slaughtered twenty-five years ago. Where my wife died.”
We didn’t speak much after that, reaching the city of Isotta at dawn on the last day of September. I could smell the brine of the sea, the cold layers in the wind, the bittersweet smoke trickling from tall chimneys, and the damp patches of moss that grew between the cobblestones. I breathed it in, savored it, even if they did make me shiver, these final fragrances of Valenia.
My good-byes to Luc and Yseult had been built on hope, bound with embraces and poorly cracked jokes, crowned with smiles and thundering hearts. Because the next time we reunited, we would be storming the castle.
But my good-bye to Jourdain was a completely different experience. He refused to go all the way to the harbor with me, for fear of being recognized by some of the Maevan sailors who were unloading casks of ale and bundles of wool. So Jean David halted the coach in one of the quieter side streets, in view of the ship I was to leave on.
“Here is your boarding pass, and here are your Valenian papers,” Jourdain said briskly, handing me a carefully folded wad of forged papers that he had made. “Here is your cloak.” He handed me a dark red woolen cloak. “Here is the food Pierre insisted you take. And Jean David will carry your trunk to the docks.”
I nodded, quickly knotting my new cloak about my collar, pinning my travel papers beneath my elbow as I took the small knapsack of food.
We were standing on the road, shadowed by tall town houses, the echoes of Isotta’s fish market carrying on the sea gusts.
This was it, the moment when I finally crossed the channel, the moment I—at last—saw the land of my father. How many times had I imagined it, watching those green Maevan shores come into view through the channel’s notorious fog? And somehow, this felt like the summer solstice all over again . . . that sensation of time quickening, moving so quickly that I could scarcely catch my breath and absorb what was about to befall me.
I self-consciously felt for Cartier’s pendant beneath the high neck of my traveling gown, strung on Jourdain’s chain. I would think of Cartier, my master as he was my friend, the one who had taught me so much. The one who had granted me passion. And I would think of my patron father, who had accepted me for who I was, who loved me in his own gruff way, who was letting me go despite his better judgment. The one who was granting me courage.
My heart pounded; I drew in a shallow breath, the sort of breath one might take right before battle, and looked up at him.
“You have your dirk on you?” Jourdain asked.
I pressed my hand to my right thigh, feeling the dirk through the fabric of my skirts. “Yes.”
“You promise me that you will not hesitate to use it. That if a man so much as looks at you the wrong way, you won’t be afraid to show your steel.”
I nodded.
“I say this to you, Amadine, because some Maevan men look upon Valenian women as . . . coquettes. You must show such brutes otherwise.”
Again I nodded, but a horrible feeling had crept up my throat, nestled on my voice box. Was that what happened to my mother? Had she come to visit Maevana and been looked at as a coy, flirtatious woman who was eager to slip into a Maevan man’s bed? Had she been abused?
Suddenly, I realized why my grandfather might have hated my father so much. For I had always believed I had been conceived in love, even if it was forbidden. But perhaps it had been completely different. Perhaps she had been forced against her will.
My feet turned to lead.