I woke up aching, but on the whole, I felt well: peaceful, relaxed, cheerful. There was sunlight streaming through the window, and I stared at it for a ridiculously long time before I realized what it meant; I wasn't in the Mirador.
I sat up. The furnishings of the room were elegant, well polished, spotlessly clean, but they were in no style I recognized. They certainly weren't Marathine. I looked down at myself and discovered I was wearing a linen nightshirt I had no memory of ever seeing before in my life—and it fit me, which was even stranger.
Where was I? I got up, padded across the stone floor to the window, and found myself looking out at a breathtakingly beautiful garden, everything green and glorious with the coming of spring.
Spring? But it was the middle of Bous.
No, that was clearly wrong. I sat down in the armchair by the window, put my head in my hands, and immediately came bolt upright again. My hair was nearly two feet shorter than it should have been. I spun in a frantic circle, but there were no mirrors in this charming, peaceful, unfamiliar room.
Something's wrong, I thought, and offered myself a mental round of applause for stating the obvious. Work backwards. Clearly, there was some kind of a gap in my memory, so what was the last thing I remembered?
I sat down again, slowly, because that question seemed to be unexpectedly difficult. I remembered quite clearly the soirée in the Hall of the Chimeras, the fight with Shannon, my shameful trip to the Arcane, Malkar…
I made a noise—a groan, a sob, a laugh. Well, whatever had happened, at least I knew who was to blame.
And then another window opened. Malkar's workroom, the taste of phoenix, the pentagram, the chains… Malkar's spell, the pain, the guilt, the Virtu…
I closed my eyes and saw the Virtu shattering. And I knew what had happened; I knew where my memory had gone.
I didn't want to know the rest. I sprang out of the chair again, as if I could somehow leave those dim, wispy memories behind, and found myself face-to-face with a tall red-haired man just in the act of entering the room.
We both started back with nearly identical yelps, and he said, in Midlander, "I beg your pardon. I thought you would still be asleep."
"No, I…" But I was staring at him—gawking—and could not find my wits to finish the sentence. He was a Sunling; he had to be. I had never seen anyone else with naturally red hair before, and his eyes were—
No. That wasn't true. I knew someone with red hair. I shut my eyes, one hand going up to my temple. Fox-red hair, green eyes, lurid scar, voice like Keeper's… but who was he, and how did I know him?
"Are you all right?" said the red-haired man.
"What? Oh! Yes, I'm fine. Just… everything's a little strange."
"That's only to be expected. You were badly hurt, and from what we can tell, you must have been… confused for a very long time—maybe more than a year."
"It was Bous when I left," I said, and my voice sounded odd and faraway.
"You are in Troia," the red-haired man said, kindly and briskly. "This is the Gardens of Nephele, and I am Diokletian of the House Aiantis, Celebrant Terrestrial of the Nephelian Covenant."
"Troia?" I said. "But I don't… how did I get here?"
And then I knew who the red-haired man was, the one with the scar. My brother, Mildmay, my fox, who'd guided and guarded me all the way across Kekropia.
"My brother!" I said, cutting Diokletian off before he could answer my previous question. "Where is he?"
"Your brother?"
"My brother Mildmay? Is he here? Did he drown?"
"No, he is here," Diokletian said cautiously, as if he were afraid I might attack him. "We are minding him. Do you wish to see him?"
I don't even know him. But I didn't say it. I had the feeling that the people here must have had more than their fair share of my acting crazy. I thought of what the journey to this place must have been like for Mildmay, of the weird, jumbled impressions I had of him and the horrible, fragmented versions of myself he must have witnessed. "Not… not yet. I don't think I'm ready."
"That's perfectly all right. There's no need to rush."
"How long have I been here?"
"About a month and a half."
"That long?"
"You were very ill," he said.
"Yes, I understand that. I just… I don't even know the date."
"In our calendar, it is the second day of Heraklios—the height of spring."
"What year?"
"Our calendar will mean nothing to you."
"No, of course not. Silly me."
"How do you feel?" he said.
"Rather sore, actually, but otherwise all right."
"No headaches? No difficulty seeing?"
"No, nothing like that."
"Good. I was not sure our success would be complete. We were not—and still are not—entirely sure what we were dealing with. What
happened
to you?"
"It's rather difficult to explain," I said, while my mind went into a state of sheer frozen panic. How much did these people know? How much had they learned from me when I was mad? From Mildmay? Did they know the whole truth? I could feel myself curdling with shame merely at the thought.
"Please," Diokletian said, with a wry, charming, inviting smile. "Try me."
When in doubt, play for time. "How much do you know? Was I… ?"
"You where never coherent enough to be asked, and your brother was of very little help."
"He's annemer. And—I beg your pardon—but are there any actual
clothes
I could wear?"
"Oh, yes, of course. I'm sorry; I didn't even think. Here." He opened a carved wooden chest tucked into the corner of the room behind the door and passed me clothes like the ones he himself was wearing: linen under-things, an unbleached linen shirt with no collar, dark, narrow trousers, a dark, quilted coat, dark wool stockings, and a pair of black-leather shoes with silver buckles. I reminded myself that by now there could be no doubt that the entire population of the Gardens of Nephele had either seen or heard about the scars on my back, and contented myself with changing as quickly as possible.
"A comb?" I said. "A mirror?"
"Here." He brought those out of the chest, too, and I was able to get my first good look at myself. I'd been braced for a nasty shock, but it was still appalling. At a rough guess, I put myself at fifteen pounds underweight, with great hollows under the cheekbones, and the dark stigmata of sleeplessness all around my eyes. I had always been pale; I was hoping it was the coat's high collar and dark purplish black color that was making me look bleached. And my hair—not quite shoulder length, and the last time it had been cut it must have been with pruning shears. And… I looked again, but there was no way around it: strands of
white
, at my left temple and the right side of my forehead.
It took me a moment to realize that Diokletian had picked up the thread of his answer to my question: "We could see the damage for ourselves, of course, and your brother did tell us that it was something to do with an artifact in your Mirador called the Virtu. Is that right?"
"Yes. Yes, it's a power-channeler, rather like a loom. Very old."
"And you broke it?"
I could tell by his voice that he didn't know about Malkar, and the sunlight seemed brighter and more glorious. "It broke," I corrected him with aplomb.
"Oh, I see," he said; he sounded relieved. "From what your brother said…"
"My brother is annemer," I said, sacrificing Mildmay's character in the service of my lie. "And not…" I only remembered the appalling voice, myself, but Diokletian had no difficulty in completing that sentence to his own satisfaction.
"Yes, of course. So, there was some kind of accident?"
"We were worried that the Virtu was becoming unstable," I said, extemporizing freely. "It is nearly two hundred years old, and the spells that went into its creation have been lost. The Lord Protector asked me to examine it, and…" A little artful amnesia was probably all right here; Diokletian wasn't to know that the circumstances of the Virtu's breaking were etched into my mind like acid into an engraving plate. "I don't really remember what happened next. I remember that it hurt."
"Indeed it must have. When we realized the extent of the damage… to be truthful, we were surprised the trauma hadn't killed you outright."
"I'm obstinate," I said and tried a smile on him.
He blinked and smiled back, his color a little heightened. Apparently I wasn't quite enough of a staring death's-head for that to fail; I felt better.
"There's just one more thing," I said, since I didn't especially want to hear all about what these people thought had happened to me; I wasn't entirely sure I'd be able to maintain my lie. "I know I'm being a dreadful nuisance—"
"Not at all. I'm just delighted that you're so…" He broke off, and I couldn't help being amused at his palpable search for a suitably inexpressive word. "So well. What can I do for you?"
"Earrings," I said. "I see that your people wear them." He had a single pair: small, heavy gold rings with teardrop pearls hanging from them. "I want to find out if my holes have closed. Plain gold rings, four pairs, not too large, if I can borrow them from somebody, or if there's a shop nearby."
He looked a little taken aback, but pulled himself together with creditable speed and said he'd see what he could do. He swept out. As soon as I was sure he was gone, I called witchlight; as quick and easy as blinking, it was there on my palm, a green chrysanthemum the size of a watch fob.
My magic was back; there was no pain, no difficulty, no failure. It was mine again, and I fought back the impulse to create some wild pyrotechnic of joy, just because I could. Instead, I sat down to do some serious thinking. I'd bought myself some time; I'd better make use of it.
Diokletian returned a little under an hour later, triumphantly bearing four pairs of plain gold rings, which he'd borrowed, he said, from two Celebrants Major, an acolyte, and a Celebrant Terrestrial with whom he was good friends. I gathered that Troians did not practice multiple piercings and wondered if they'd ever seen a Norvénan woman, and what they'd made of her if they had. I noted the peculiar ranks—celebrants? acolytes?—for future inquiry. Diokletian assured me anxiously that the rings had been cleaned with alcohol, and I gave him another smile.
I had figured my chances were about fifty-fifty with the holes, but they were all still open. I felt more myself with the earrings in; the dim kaleidoscope of the past year seemed farther away and less important. "Thank you," I said.
"My pleasure," he said, and bobbed his head.
There was a pause, a strange little hitch, and I said, "What now?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Is there something I ought to be doing? I feel strange, just staying in here."
"Are you feeling all right?"
"I feel fine. I'm not made of glass."
"Well, the other Celebrants Terrestrial are very eager to meet you, and I'm under strict instructions to take you to see the Celebrant Lunar as soon as you're able. But…"
"But?"
"There's something I have to ask you first."
"What is it?"
"Was your mother really named Methony?"
"
How did you know that
?" I felt hollow, suddenly as thin and fragile as paper.
"You told me," he said, and he sounded confused. "In a dream."
"In a
dream
? You've got to be kidding."
"No, no, it's how I found you. I was trying to revive the practice of oneiromancy, to reawaken the Khloïdanikos, the Dream of the Garden. I assure you, the Celebrant Lunar has already torn me to bits for it. But that's how I found you: you were in the dream. And later you told me your mother's name. Was it true?"
"Yes," I said, although I made no attempt to hide my exasperation and annoyance. "What about it?"
"I… I knew her."
"Oh."
After a moment, Diokletian offered, "You are quite extraordinarily like her—even more so now."
"Than when I was stark mad? Thank you ever so much."
"I didn't mean that. Just… I did know her. I… I held you when you were an infant."
After a moment I realized my jaw was sagging. "But… how…"
"You weren't born in Mélusine, although that's what you told me. You were born here. She ran away, taking you with her, when you were four months old."
"Why?"
He shook his head. "Who ever knew why Methony did anything? Do you remember her at all?"
"I was only four when she—"
sold me to Keeper
. I stopped, regrouped. Answer the question asked, idiot. "I remember her eyes and her voice. I remember her singing." And gossiping with the other girls and quarreling with Madame Poluphemie and picking the pockets of a dead-drunk trick.
"She liked to sing," he said, his face softly nostalgic.
"So if I was born here," I said, "who was my father?"
Diokletian came back to the present with a nearly audible snap. "I must take you to the Celebrant Lunar. She has invited you for lunch."
And he strode out of the room as if his shoe heels were catching on fire. Nothing loath, I followed him.
The Celebrant Lunar was named Xanthippe, and I forgot the name of her house as soon as she said it. She was sixty years old. Her hair was entirely white, although thick and vibrant, her eyes the clear colorless yellow of sunlight; the rings on her swollen-knuckled hands were silver set with amethyst, and I noticed that although she moved with extreme slowness—fighting an unending, losing war against arthritis, which the old herbals in the Mirador called the bone-winter—the gems of her rings betrayed not the slightest quiver in her hands.
She asked me no questions about my madness, my brother, or anything else thorny over an extended, leisurely, and remarkably pleasant lunch, instead telling me old stories of Troia and wanting to know about the history of the Mirador and Marathat. We got into a rather involved discussion of calendrical systems, and she actually clapped her hands with glee, like a child, when I told her that the wizards' calendar of Mélusine reckoned dates from the founding of Cymellune of the Waters.