He turned her head slightly and kissed her on the lips. I saw the blue diamond in her ear flash in the low light as she turned. Another question I had was being answered. I was envious of their openness and tenderness but realized those very things had made them lose their vigilance. Eder was right — their only thoughts were for each other. They had not lied to me or given me any false indications. They had simply been fooled.
“What about the Fleur-du-Mal?” I asked.
“What about him?” Unai answered. “We are weary of the Fleur-du-Mal, as were Yaldi and Xamurra. He has
“What if he is stealing children?”
Usoa let go of Unai’s hand and took a step toward me. “He has stolen children before,” she said. “You know that, so why do you ask, Zianno?”
“What if he stole Carolina’s daughter?”
She was standing directly in front of me. She reached up and touched my cheek with her hand. “This is why you come, is it not? This is what has happened?”
I hesitated. I saw so many things in her eyes at once. She looked back at Unai and I followed her. I saw the same things in him. They had survived so long, living with the seed of a powerful, rare, and almost supernatural love, keeping it hidden and suppressed, waiting for the time to let it germinate and live, and then at that moment that same love somehow betrayed them and made them weak, vulnerable. Love, guilt, risk, consequence.
“Yes,” I said.
On the ground, Isabelle groaned and rolled over onto her back, leaving her mouth open and slack. There was saliva running out of the corner of her mouth and the angle of her head made her look as if she was snarling. Everyone looked down at her and for some reason Ray said, “She ain’t no Queen of Hearts, is she?”
Usoa knelt down and gently rolled Isabelle back on her side and replaced a small silk pillow under her head.
“What will he do with her?” I asked.
“If he lets her live, he could do many things. He has in the past,” Usoa said, rising. “But I think this may be personal and, therefore, he may take his time. He is unpredictable, but this is his favorite game of all.”
“What? What is?”
“The corruption of innocence. And pulling your heart out by the roots.”
Unai stepped up beside Usoa and put his arm around her waist. “Our watch is over, Zianno,” he said. “This information only proves it. We have made mistakes before, but none this egregious and untimely. We regret it and pledge on your mama and papa’s memory to help you any way we can. If I could change the way events have transpired, I would.
“You owe me nothing,” I said. “The Fleur-du-Mal owes me the return of a little girl who has nothing to do with this. And in return for her, I will take his life.”
“What can we do?” Usoa asked.
“We begin tomorrow. Ray and I will need your insight and knowledge, your memories and maps of his haunts and habits. We are no longer watching. We are after him like dogs.”
Unai clutched the Stone beneath his tunic. I looked down at Isabelle sleeping, dreaming there on the ground. She smacked her lips once and made me think of a doll, a dreaming doll being kept by two children older than any place her dreams could ever go.
Ray said, “Dogs?”
We checked in to a hotel that same night. It was an old hotel well past its prime, but centrally located and still run with discretion and an emphasis on privacy. There was cast-iron grillwork all around with thick vines weaving in and out. Ray and I liked the old place and the fact it was called the St. Louis made it a good fit.
I gave them my real name at the desk but registered under Owen Bramley’s and told the management he was the executor of my grandfather’s estate. There was no problem and the date of our departure was left open.
The next day, at about noon, Ray and I began a ritual that was to last much longer than either of us had anticipated. I awoke before him to the overpowering smell of fresh-baked bread and pastries coming from a bakery below our windows and not half a block away. Our rooms in the suite were separated by a sitting room, but each opened through louvered shutters onto a balcony that ran the length of the suite. I dressed and made my way downstairs and to the bakery, where I picked up a dozen assorted croissants and rolls with fresh butter and jam. When I returned, Ray was awake and waiting for me on the balcony, drinking chicory coffee that he’d ordered from room service. That in itself, a twelve-year-old kid ordering coffee, would have been out of the ordinary anywhere but in New Orleans, where the unusual becomes the ordinary. We sat on the balcony sharing the rolls and coffee, speaking little and watching the street life of New Orleans pass around and below us. Eventually, we planned our strategy for the day. We were searching for the Fleur-du-Mal, who was referred to by several names in countless countries, but whatever name was used, he was actually known to only a few. Ray, in his manner, decided to start in the French Quarter, then make his way to the far side of the Quarter and Storyville, the red-light district. My plans were slightly less practical and a lot more vague. Ray said, “Where you goin’, Z?”
I said, “Everywhere. Nowhere.”
Ray found out more that first day, on his own, than he ever did following any name or place that Unai and Usoa gave him later. It was not their fault, really. Ray had known the underworld, especially the kind of vice, deceit, and shifty deals that was New Orleans, most of his life. Unai and Usoa’s life, until they had been watching the Fleur-du-Mal, had been quite different. That evening, I found out some of it.
We met at Isabelle’s, as we would many, many nights thereafter. I only saw Isabelle herself infrequently. As usual, she was in her boudoir preparing for a grand ball that didn’t exist, and when I did see her, she was in a panic and yelling to Usoa that they would be too late, she would have to cancel. She was quite mad and Usoa always told her they had more than enough time and not to worry, she looked lovely. I asked Unai how long she had been this way and he said it had been a gradual but increasing decline, probably due to her love of absinthe. He said he had seen it before, the Giza destroying themselves from the inside out, as had most Meq. At the mention of the Meq, I thought of Sailor and Geaxi and asked if he had heard from them. He said no, but that was normal, he had once gone a century without hearing from Sailor. Impulsively, I asked him when and how he had met Usoa. He laughed out loud and sat down in a beautiful wicker chair with broad armrests and a wide, fanned back. He looked so tiny in the chair. A child in high leather boots and yet, when he spoke, when I looked in his eyes, I knew he spoke from twenty lifetimes before the chair was even made.
“I owe it to Charlemagne,
“Was it sudden?”
“Was what sudden?”
“Your realization of it, your. connection.”
“Ah, I see,” he said. “No, no, Zianno. Our realization and our connection were
I sat down in a wicker chair opposite him and leaned forward. I caught a glimpse of Ray moving in the shadows, finding a place on the ledge of the fountain, and I thought of Opari, appearing out of the shadows and into my life, changing everything in an instant. “Tell me the story, Unai. Please.”
He looked at me strangely and asked, “Where should I begin?”
“At the moment you knew she was your Ameq.”
He turned his head and stared into the darkness of the courtyard and then looked up, focusing his black eyes on the night sky above us. “You want to know of the Isilikutu, the silent touch, the Whisper, only our hearts can hear.”
“Yes,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “I shall begin there, but first, I must tell you where ‘there’ was.
“I was staring at the sky as I am now. I was in the Pyrenees, hiding among the boulders above a narrow pass called Roncesvalles. The year was AD 778. It was the first time I had been back to the Pyrenees in over two
