Mélusine

lost and found…

Felix Harrowgate is a dashing, highly respected wizard. But his aristocratic peers don't know his dark past—how his abusive former master enslaved him, body and soul, and trained him to pass as a nobleman. Within the walls of the Mirador—Mélusine's citadel of power and wizardry—Felix believed he was safe. He was wrong. Now, the horrors of his previous life have found him and threaten to destroy all he has since become…

Mildmay the Fox is used to being hunted. Raised as a kept-thief and trained as an assassin, he escaped his Keeper long ago and lives on his own as a cat burglar. But now he has been caught by a mysterious foreign wizard using a powerful calling charm. And yet the wizard was looking not for Mildmay—but for Felix Harrowgate…

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Sarah Monette.

Text design by Stacy Irwin.

Jacket design by Judith Lagerman

Jacket illustration © Judy York

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

ACE is an imprint of The Berkley Publishing Group.

ACE and the "A" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First edition: August 2005

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Monette, Sarah.

Mélusine / Sara Monette.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-441-01286-8

1. Wizards—Fiction. 2. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3613.05246M46 2005

813'.6—dc22

2005045753

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 987654321

For A.L.M.

Mildmay

This is the worst story I know about hocuses. And it's true.

Four Great Septads ago, back in the reign of Claudius Cordelius, there was a hocus named Porphyria Levant. The hocuses back then had this thing they could do, called the binding-by-forms, the obligation d'âme. It happened between a hocus and an annemer, an ordinary person, and it was like an oath of loyalty, only a septad times more. The hocus promised to protect the annemer from
everything
, including kings and other hocuses and basically anybody else who had an interest. The annemer promised to be the hocus's servant and do what they said and no backchat, neither. And they renounced their family and all their other connections, so it was like the only thing in the world that mattered to them was the hocus. And then there was a spell to stick it in place and make sure, you know, that nobody tried to back out after it was too late.

You can see the problem, right? Most half-bright folks can. But some hocuses were so powerful and so nasty that I guess it seemed like it was better to go ahead and do the obligation d'âme with a hocus you sort of trusted than to go wandering around waiting for a different hocus to get the drop on you.

So there was Porphyria Levant. And there was Silas Altamont. Silas Altamont was annemer, a guy who'd been the favorite of Lord Creon Malvinius, and then when Lord Creon got married, Silas Altamont was out on his ear, and scared shitless of Lord Creon's wife, who was way better connected than him, and was rumored to have three or four hocuses on her string to boot. And she was poison-green with jealousy, because she loved Lord Creon like a mad thing, and everybody knew he didn't give a rat's ass about her. So Silas Altamont goes to Porphyria Levant—who was powerful enough to protect him from Lisette Malvinia, no matter
who
she had running her errands—and begs Porphyria Levant to do the obligation d'âme. And Porphyria Levant smiles and says okay.

Now, the thing about the binding-by-forms, the way my friend Zephyr explained it to me, is that it lets the hocus
make
you do what they want. Except for kill yourself. They can't make you do that. But what Porphyria Levant tells Silas Altamont to do is fuck her. I've heard it different ways. Some people say Silas Altamont was beautiful as daylight, and Porphyria Levant had been hot for him for indictions. Some say Porphyria Levant didn't know he was molly, thought he was janus and wouldn't mind. And some say—and I got to admit, this is what I think—that she knew he was molly and that was why she did it. There are other stories about Porphyria Levant, and it's the kind of thing she
would
do.

Anyway, there's Silas Altamont. He's molly, and he's still in love with Creon Malvinius, but he has to do what the obligation d'âme says, and it says, You got to fuck Porphyria Levant and make her happy. And after a while he goes to her and says, "I can't stand this no more, please, let me stop or I'm going to go out and slit my wrists."

And Porphyria Levant says, "Silas," and smiles her little smile, "I forbid you to kill yourself."

Felix

The Hall of the Chimeras, having no windows, was lit by seven massive candelabra hanging above the mosaic floor like monstrous birds of prey. Their fledglings, twisted iron stands crowned with candles, rose up at intervals along the floor, interspersed with the busts of dead and ancient kings. At the east end of the hall—not that east and west mattered in the great, labyrinthine bulk of the Mirador—the Virtu of the Mirador on its obsidian plinth cast its own strange, underwater light, which reached down to touch the steel spearheads of the Lord Protector's throne, but reached no farther.

The Lords and Ladies Protector traditionally had a penchant for being painted in Lord Michael's Chair, as the throne had been called for one hundred seventy-seven years. Lord Stephen Teverius, Lord Protector these past nine years, had not yet commissioned the portrait to commemorate his reign, but I doubted that Stephen, who hated pomp, would choose that particularly iconic and self-important pose.

Pomp was not the only thing Stephen hated. "Darling," I murmured in Shannon's ear, "your brother is scowling at me again."

Shannon glanced over his shoulder. "Nonsense. Stephen always looks like that at soirées."

"I made allowances for that. Trust me. He's scowling."

Shannon's smile lit his entire face. "You are incorrigible."

"I try," I said, smiling back.

"Besides, how do you know he's scowling at
you
? He might be scowling at Vicky."

I did not look at Stephen and Shannon's sister, dancing with my former master, Malkar Gennadion. "I wouldn't blame him for scowling at that. Do you think she really loves him?"

"I wouldn't even hazard a guess. Why?"

"No reason," I lied.

"I know you don't like him, but she's a grown woman."

"Of course she is." And if she could not or would not see Malkar for what he was, even the sacrifice of my pride to the truth would not make her believe me. She did not like me. Moreover, she was a daughter of the House of Teverius, a house notorious for its obstinacy. And in any event, whatever game Malkar was playing, I knew he was too clever to cause any harm to Victoria Teveria.

Behind us, a voice said, "I am surprised at you, Shannon."

Shannon rolled his eyes at me before we turned. It was Robert of Hermione, Agnes Bellarmyn just behind him. Robert was smirking. Agnes did not smirk—it was beneath her dignity—but I recognized the exalted look on her face from more Curia meetings than I cared to count. The two of them meant trouble.

"Are you, Robert?" Shannon said quellingly.

As if I weren't there. "The feeling is mutual, I assure you," I said.

Agnes said, "I'm surprised you aren't ashamed to go out in decent company."

"Oh, you know me, Agnes. I have no shame."

Shannon said, "Robert, I collect that you have some slander you wish to air regarding Felix. Would you, for the love of all the powers, just
do
it and go away?"

"But it isn't slander," Robert said, with a fine air of injured innocence. "It's true. Your lover was a common prostitute in Pharaohlight before Lord Malkar found him."

I saw Shannon blanch, but that was peripheral to the satisfaction on Robert's face. I said, "
Where did
you hear that
?"

"Are you denying that it's true?" Robert's grin had too many teeth in it.

"Oh, don't be stupid," Shannon said bravely. "Felix lived in Arabel until he was seventeen. You know that."

"Well, Felix?" Robert said.

"Where did you hear it, you verminous weasel?"

"Then you don't deny it?"

"I hardly think, Lord Felix," Agnes said, "that you are in a position to be insulting your betters."

"I hardly think, Lady Agnes," I said, "that anything other than a sewage-eating rat could consider Robert of Hermione its 'better.' And if he's going to spread rumors about me, I think I have the right to know what his sources are."

"But I'm not spreading a rumor," Robert said, lying, lying, through his hideous smile. "I'm warning Shannon."

"I could stand you better," I said, "if you were honest about your hatred. But the hypocrisy is wearing. You like Shannon no better than you like me."

"I know my duty to the House of Teverius. And you haven't answered my question, Lord Felix. Do you deny that you were a prostitute?"

"I deny your account of your motives. If your true concern were Shannon, or the House of Teverius, or anything but petty malevolence, you would hardly have opened the discussion in a public place." I waved a hand at the people around us, some of whom were staring, some of whom were not, but all of whom were listening. "I deny that you are anything but a carrion-eating jackal, a—"

"Lord Felix."

Stephen's voice, like a black rock. I spun around.

"I don't care," he said, his deep-set gray eyes going from me to Robert to Shannon, "to have the wizards of my court brawling like dockhands in the Hall of the Chimeras. What is going on?"