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“Lost stories.” He smiled. “They are yours, if we survive this. I will order it so. Well, then, that’s it. Are you ready?”

“Are you?” I studied his face.

“Yes.” He took my hand, gripping it hard, the colors in his eyes shifting like the changing hues of the night sea when a cloud passes over the moon. “I won’t falter if you won’t.”

He had the power to command the waves to rise and the winds to blow.

The Master of the Straits was afraid.

“I won’t,” I vowed, and prayed it was true.

Ninety-Seven

HYACINTHE CALLED the isle-folk who attended him into the reception chamber in the tower. They crowded around, cooks, scullery-maids, foot-servants, laundresses, servants of all ilk, whose lives for countless generations had been spent doing the bidding of the Master of the Straits, maintaining the tower, purveying food, cleaning and restoring treasures brought forth from the bottom of the sea.

They murmured among themselves in an archaic dialect of D’Angeline, forgotten on the mainland for eight hundred years, stealing fearful glances at Hyacinthe as he stood on the curving stair above them, waiting. Ancient Gildas and Tilian, who was no longer young, were among them; for days on end, they had made the arduous trek down the stone stairs to fill the basin of the sea-mirror at sunrise and sundown. How many years? One might suppose they would be glad of their freedom, but they looked dismayed.

“My people.” Although he spoke quietly, Hyacinthe’s words encompassed the tower. “This day, I go forth to break the
geis
and leave the island. If we succeed, I will not return. Know that all things in this tower are yours, to distribute as you choose, saving only the contents of the library, which shall be held in keeping for Phèdre nó Delaunay of Montrève. Although this exile has been bitter to me, you have served long and well, and I am grateful for it. I leave you with my thanks.”

“Fair my lord!” Old Gildas’ voice emerged choked. “Surely, thou hast need of thy sea-mirror-aye, and thine acolytes to attend and fill it!”

“No, Gildas.” Hyacinthe shook his head. “It was wrought on Third Sister, and will open its far-seeing eye nowhere else in the world. Elsewhere, I must needs construct a sea-mirror anew, in its own place of vision. Let this one remain here, as a reminder.”

“Prithee, how shall we conduct ourselves?” someone said wondering, setting loose a flurry of anxious queries. “What shall become of us? What shall we do?” The questions fluttered around the stone walls of the tower, beating on nervous wings. Hyacinthe’s brow darkened, storm clouds gathering in his eyes.

“
Live
!” The word fell like a thunderclap, silencing them. I shuddered at the power that emanated from him in waves, a charged odor like the air after lightning has struck. “Live,” he repeated, more gently, in his echoing tone. “Live free of this curse, fish and hunt, grow crops and herd cattle. Build boats and sail to the mainland, trade and prosper. Make music, write poems, dance. Find one another in love, lose one another in sorrow.
Live
.”

No one spoke as he descended the stair, parting to make way for him. I saw how their eyes followed him-fearful, calculating, avid and forlorn by turns. Not until we reached the door did anyone utter a word.

“My lord!” It was Tilian who called after us, daring and defiant. “And if thou dost fail, my lord? ’Tis no secret thou has tried it before; didst do so this very day. We, who have attended thee these long years, know the truth of it. Why shouldst succeed now?”

Hyacinthe turned, staring at the man until he turned pale. “Because this time,” he said, “I am not alone. You have served power a long time, Tilian, and come to relish the taste of it. Listen to me now when I tell you: Do not pray for my failure. Because this time, Rahab will come in the fullness of his might and ageless wrath, and my power is to his as a bucket of water is to the ocean. And if we fail, his anger may raise the seas and drown the isles of the Three Sisters, and when the fish nibble at your flesh and the crabs scuttle through your bones, you will not have to worry about how to live without the Master of the Straits to attend.”

There were no further protests.

I waited until we were outdoors and the bright sun had chased the crawling chills from my flesh to ask him if he believed it.

“Yes,” Hyacinthe said shortly. “Why do you suppose it terrifies me so?”

Well and so; the lives of hundreds of innocent people rested in my hands. I clutched my skirts, concentrating on descending the long stair, my breathing coming shallow and labored-not with exertion, this time, but with fear. Below us,
Elua’s Promise
bobbed at anchor in the center of its tame whirlpool, laden with cargo too precious for words.

It would be better, I thought, if they were gone from this place.

“Can you send them away?” I asked him.

“Beyond Rahab’s reach?” His mouth twisted. “No such place exists upon the seas.”

“Out of sight, then. Surely it would be safer.”

We had gained the promontory. Hyacinthe gazed at the ship, then at me, shifting the case he held under one arm, containing the pages salvaged from the Book of Raziel. “It may be so. They will not thank you for it.”

“I know,” I said. “Do it.”

“Quintilius Rousse!” Hyacinthe’s voice echoed off the cliff walls, resounding across the harbor. “Raise your anchor! You are journeying beyond Rahab’s gaze!”

Across the shining waters, I heard the cries of protest and dismay. Poor Eleazar, I thought; he has travelled all this way to hear the Name of God spoken, and now I send him away. Yet it is better that it is so. I didn’t even want to think about what Joscelin would say.

“You’re sure?” Hyacinthe asked me.

I nodded. “Now, before I lose my nerve.”

Hyacinthe stooped, laying the case upon the rock, then whispered, blowing out his breath. A sharp, stiff breeze sprang up from nowhere, filling the storm-rigged sails of the
Elua’s Promise
. Rousse took his warning; I heard the chain clanking as the anchor was raised, a pair of sailors cranking at a furious pace. The sails bellied and snapped as the ship swung around, its prow pointing toward the narrow exit. Hyacinthe circled three fingers in the opposite direction and the whirlpool ceased, vanishing back into the waters.

The green water of the harbor humped and gathered, drawing back against the promontory. Once again, Hyacinthe pushed with both hands, murmuring under his breath. The unnatural wave surged forward, gathering speed, and picked up the ship as effortlessly as a cork. Sails taut, bobbing on the crest, it shot through the passageway and vanished out of sight beyond the cliff walls.

And like that, they were gone.

I sat on the promontory, numb. “Joscelin will be furious.”

Hyacinthe continued to concentrate, his black eyes wide and blurred, shifting, seeing something beyond the bounds of mortal vision. “No. He’s the boy to think of, now. He’ll understand.” Satisfied with his efforts, he retrieved his case.

The harbor was as empty and tranquil as it had been when we entered it. Small figures clustered at the top of the stairs, lining the temple, but dared come no further. It was only the two of us.

“What now?” Hyacinthe asked softly. “We try to cross?”

Still sitting, I nodded. “You can cause the waters to bear us upon their surface?”

“Yes.” He sat cross-legged next to me holding the case in his arms, an unlikely figure in centuries-old velvet and lace, a face out of my earliest, best memories and eyes like the bottom of the sea. “Unless we fail.”

It had not seemed so fearful when the ship lay anchored just offshore. I looked up at the bright sky, the wheeling gulls. A day for beginnings, not endings. “We won’t fail.”

He smiled a bit. “Will you tell me, afterward, how you travelled through darkness and came to find the Name of God?”

“If you like.” Our shoulders brushed, barely touching. We used to sit together just so, eating stolen tarts under the bridge at Tertius’ Crossing in the City of Elua. “Will you tell me what it’s like to command the winds and seas?”

“Yes.” Hyacinthe watched the empty harbor. “There’s no point in delaying, is there?”

I wished there was, now that it came to it. But there wasn’t. “No.”

“Then let’s go.” He rose, tucking the case under one arm; his turn, now, to help me to my feet. I kept hold of his hand as we walked to the very edge of the promontory. Water lapped at the rocks, clear and calm and most assuredly not solid. Hyacinthe released my hand to speak another charm in no tongue I recognized, forming his free hand into a fist and turning it palm-upward, then opening it.

The water continued to ripple gently, looking exactly the same.

My breath caught in my throat; I hadn’t thought I’d be afraid to take the first step. “Did I ever tell you how I came near to drowning off the coast of La Serenissima?”

“Phèdre.” Hyacinthe touched my cheek. “I am the Master of the Straits, and I have spent the best part of my youth in bondage to Rahab’s vengeance taken on a woman long-dead, for the sin of failing to love him. You are my dearest, only hope. As long as your courage holds, I will not let you sink. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I do.”

Closing my eyes, I stepped onto the water.

Ninety-Eight

IT WAS hard, harder than I could have imagined, to take that first step off the shore. The
geis
that had bound me to the island struck like a blow the instant my feet left stone, driving the air from my lungs, doubling me over with pain. A yawning void opened in the waters before me, ocean-deep, dark and whirling, twisting my guts with fear. And at the bottom of it, something
moved
, something bright and awful.

All my brave words deserted me.

I forced myself upright and took another step.

The waters were churning, and I couldn’t bear to think on what I stood. All around me, the calm harbor was roused to a threatening rage, wind lashing. I wanted to be on the island so keenly it ached, and the fear was like a knife in my belly.

I did turn, then, and saw Hyacinthe behind me, standing on the waters. He clutched the case to him and his face was ashen with terror, eyes stark with helpless power. Only his promise to me held him there.

Fear.

Pain.

Let it come, then. I faced it and let it wash through me, setting my raw nerves to singing with the piercing-sweet, inimitable chords of agony, gradually tinting my vision the hue of blood. I was an
anguissette
. What was this to the Mahrkagir’s iron rod, to Melisande’s deadly flechettes? No worse, surely. Only pain, only fear.

In a crimson haze, I took another step.

Before me, the maelstrom widened like a maw, and the flickering brightness drove away Kushiel’s influence, leaving me with nothing to bolster my courage. What moved at the bottom of the abyss? Angel or monster? I had seen Rahab described as divine messenger and Leviathan alike in the Yeshuite writings. Something surged, a vast coil of flesh, bescaled and gleaming, green as jade. Pain wracked my bones like an ague. I bit my lip and on trembling legs, took another step. The winds rose to shriek past my ears, and I dared not look behind me. It didn’t matter if Hyacinthe faltered; only that I didn’t. He would not let me sink.

As long as your courage holds
…

I took another step.

The depths of the maelstrom roiled, revealing glimpses of something changing and unnamable, born of the protean underworld. A tentacle, an impossible slitted eye, a neck maned and arching, a whale’s flukes, a sculpted shoulder blade, a mighty wing … terrible beauty, formless and shifting, vaster than the mind can comprehend. I cannot say why, but it shook me to the marrow of my soul, filling me with awe and horror.

Still I forced my legs to move, step by trembling step, to the very brink of the maw. And though Hyacinthe’s control of the elements was faltering, though the waves raged around me and churned at the cliffs, though the winds flogged me and my garments were soaked, the waters bore my weight.

“Rahab!” My voice was inaudible. I drew a breath choked with salt spray and called again, into the whirling pit. “Rahab, by the binding of your own curse, I summon you here!”

The maelstrom shuddered, and a form arose from it-an outflung fin of water, sea-green and pinioned with foam, pointing to the egress and crashing back into the harbor, spume flying. I looked where it had pointed, and stifled a cry of despair.

There, between the cliffs, came racing the ship
Elua’s Promise
, storm-driven, every sail taut and straining, riding like a kestrel on the edge of the winds. Rahab’s gaze reached farther than we had reckoned. Somewhere behind me, I heard Hyacinthe cry out with fear, and the churning water that bore me
softened
. I sank to my knees in water and lost my balance, wave-tossed, putting both hands down to catch myself and plunging elbow-deep. The steep walls of the maelstrom canted before me, threatening to pitch me into its maw. Salt water dashed my face and I fought for breath, terrified of drowning.

If I went back all would be well.

If I went back, my loved ones would be safe.

Ah, Elua! It was unfair. I wanted to turn back, wanted it more than anything I’d known. I was afraid, for myself, for Joscelin, for Imriel-for all of us, everyone. But every patron, I thought, has sought to make me give my
signale
. This is no different. If I turn back, what then? I will have surrendered at last. And somewhere behind me, too near to be ashore, I heard Hyacinthe’s voice, ragged, chanting the incantation he’d spoken before, keeping his promise. The water grew more buoyant, solidifying. I managed to scramble to my feet, tossing my sodden, tangled hair out of my eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Rahab,” I whispered.

The maelstrom ceased its surging and went still, waiting, an impossibly deep well in the small harbor. The churning waves went flat, the winds dropped like a stone. Some thirty yards away,
Elua’s Promise
drifted, momentum slowing. The surface of the sea quivered like a horse’s flank.