Honor had exchanged a few muted words with one of the older Others before melting into the shadows herself. He heard her pause a few paces in, felt the weight of her gaze as she turned about. She'd smiled back at him and tipped her head toward the dark, an invitation to follow.
'It's safe,' she said. 'I promise.'
So he was following.
The cloistered air carried a dull, cool tang. In fact, it was much cooler in here than it had been outside, certainly far more so than the overstuffed palace. He moved through its gloom listening hard: the hushed singing limestone, the rumbling onyx, a few brighter notes of garnets and granite thrown in.
Angels in the windows regarded them with flat glass eyes. Every now and again they passed a single-flamed lamp set within an alcove, and then the colored panels would flare and shimmer in time with his footfalls.
Honor made no attempt to touch him again. She seemed perfectly at ease with the child behind them as they glided deeper, and then higher, into the bowels of the building. With her hair covered, her figure draped in elaborate ebony, she blended too well with the shadows; he followed her by the sound of her gown, the skirts brushing the floor, a cadenced bare hiss of satin over tile.
At the end of a corridor the boy suddenly darted ahead. He rushed to a pair of closed wooden doors and pushed them open with both hands, revealing a slender rectangle of light, a glow that deepened and expanded until it was a pair of blown-glass candelabras on a table, a gleam of blue and violet against the night.
It was a private chamber, even more splendid than the halls, with settees and chairs and rugs and that long, glossy table laden with food.
Honor began to strip off her gloves. She waved a hand at the boy, who dipped a bow and shot Sandu a look from the bottom of it, then retreated as far as a corner, settling on a stool.
'I purchased it a few years ago,' she said, and for a peculiar instant he thought she was speaking of the child; serfdom was a very recent memory in his land. But then she glanced at him from over her shoulder, freeing herself of the veil, and Sandu realized she meant the cathedral, this echoing and glass-shining place.
'You reside here?' he asked.
'Sometimes.'
The table was set with china and silver, platters of cold meats and olives and cheeses, a carafe of chilled red wine gathering dew along its curves. Sliced bread lay in a fan upon a platter, surrounding a bowl slick with oil and spices. He realized that he was hungry—it had been a long while since he had eaten anything but the orange and he was starving, actually—and when Honor took a seat at the head of the table he was already only a step behind her, in time to hold her chair, to glimpse the movement of her fingers against the burled wood arms.
'An interesting home,' he said. 'Very ... Gothic.'
'Romanesque, actually.' She reached for the wine, began to pour into the goblets nearby. 'It's the devil to heat, if you'll forgive the saying. At least it's temperate here most of the year.'
'Who are those people?'
She positioned a drink before him. Secure in his corner, the boy produced a fiddle and bow. 'Just people. People who needed a place. Strays, rather like me.'
'They're not your servants?'
'Not in the traditional sense. They're Roma, their own unique tribe. Grandparents and parents and grandchildren, everyone interconnected. They stay here betimes, I stay here betimes. They bring me things when I need them. It suits us all.'
He'd spent too many years holding court; the compliment came easily, without thought. 'You have a generous heart.'
Her head tilted as she looked back at him, neither agreement nor disagreement, only that rich blue gaze, unsettling. Her skin glowed pearl against the stark bodice of her gown, the ice-pink teardrops of her necklace.
Alexandru glanced away. He unwound the bells from his wrists, set them gently upon the table, as the Gypsy boy began to play.
Slow notes, almost a lullaby. The boy was surprisingly good. 'Do they know about you? About . what you are?'
'I don't know,' she answered, frank. 'I imagine not. Certainly not the Weaving part, and as for the rest ...' She lifted her hands, palms out. 'They have no reason to suspect I'm more than what I seem. I look just the same as everyone else.'
He nearly said it aloud—she could not be so ignorant of her own person as to be serious—but this time something in her gaze stopped him. Alexandru said instead, 'Yet otherwise, when you're not here, and not, ah, Weaving .'
'Otherwise I am the obedient daughter of Lia and Zane Langford. Yes, you know that name. We rent a set of apartments here in the city.'
He sat back in his chair. 'I didn't realize—you are their child?'
'Lia says so.' The doors opened again; a pair of adolescent girls slipped inside bearing ladles and spoons. They moved to the food without speaking.
'They're my second family. My first was back in Darkfrith. If you'll recall, I mentioned this before. In fact,' Honor lifted a hand again and one of the girls pulled a sheet of paper from her apron, handed it to her with a curtsy, 'I took the liberty of writing down some of the more salient facts. Since you seem to enjoy that.'
Sandu accepted it, skimming the words.
And gleaming between all that, her secret message:
He refolded the sheet, studying her, the face of perfect lines, the hair coiled in tinted powder, the intense eyes painted dark, sophisticated. She was, by her own admission, two years older than the last time they'd met, and the changes were subtle but there. Yet he found that he could still see that little girl in her, that girl he'd first met, who'd had no paint or powder or even poise. He could see that same burning concentration behind her gaze, passion and stubbornness and tremulous courage.
It was the strangest sensation, like he was looking at a rice-paper image traced over another. Old. New. And yet they were both the truth.
The song from the fiddle began a crescendo. Honor flicked her gaze toward the boy. He caught her whispered
Alexandru pinched a hand to the bridge of his nose. He was becoming light-headed again. That had to be the reason for his lack of mental balance around her.
'Are you unwell?'
He shook his head, tried the wine. Cinnamon and tannins, a welcome rush of flavor. He took another swallow, then replaced it carefully by the chains of bells.
'I must confess, Mistress Carlisle ... I've never known anyone like you.'
'I know,' she said.
Far and away, the first of the thunder began to rumble across the Mediterranean.
His hostess was running a finger over the crystal rim of her goblet, lightly, around and around. 'I feel that ... for the sake of utter honesty between us, I should tell you that, technically, you purchased this cathedral for me.'
'Did I?'
'Yes. And thank you.'
He began on the bread. 'What a generous fellow I am. When did I do that?'
She ducked her chin and smiled. 'As I said, a few years back. I have no income of my own, you see. Had I remained in Darkfrith, I would have been considered something of an heiress. But here, I'm as penniless as young Adiran over there with his begging songs. Zane and Lia feed me and clothe me. You provided my shelter.'
