“Everything I do is poetry, gracious matron.”

Gishna would not yield to his banter. Treachery lurked in his eyes; she could never understand him. They saw past her, into her, to her very core. Being near him reminded her that there was something not right with him… or his power. It crawled over her skin, a sudden fear.

“Come, Julissa,” she said. “We will speak alone now, and I will explain the work that is done to bring Kandah the samples.”

“Yes, the work,” Kandah said wryly. “Come back soon, Julissa. I will show you wonders. Matron, if it is not too much trouble, I need more plants for my garden.”

Gishna nodded, but shoved Julissa toward the door, rapping on it with red, swollen knuckles. Sinnin unlocked it and they passed through. Behind her, Kandah chuckled softly.

The keys on Sinnin's belt jangled in the tunnel hall, flaying her nerves.

“Mother, I don't understand,” Julissa said, then hissed her anger.

“I know, dear. But understanding can come later when we have recovered. Now is a time of action. We may not understand the workings of it, but we, as matrons, must understand its import, and above all the solution. Let men like that one deal with the workings. A tedious business.”

They entered a side room to the left of the scriptorium entrance where two senior scribes were waiting.

“Here, high matron,” one said, leading them to a large canvas at least twelve feet tall and six feet wide.

Names linked by thin lines filled the canvas to the top, and two-thirds of the way down. The scribe lit a lamp and illuminated a tree. The white light set the silver ink on its branches and leaves blazing with a light of their own. He handed the lamp to Julissa with a low bow.

Gishna dismissed the scribes, and they shut the door behind them.

Julissa cradled the lamp, but her gaze did not travel the length of the canvas. She stared emptily in a single direction. She whipped about.

“You believe this charlatan, mother?” she asked. “A magister? What is he really? I see no sign of anything but strangeness.”

Gishna waited. She had behaved the same way with her own mother.

Julissa paced around the room, looking at the hundreds of names on the canvases, each grouped into a major bloodline name, going back to the beginning and sometimes beyond that to their ancient Alcar heritage. They were all there, all the great houses, the small ones, names immemorial, august and shamed, legends and the forgotten multitudes.

Julissa stood beneath the Daushalan tree. “Even they are within us?”

Gishna closed her eyes, avoiding the fury that was her daughter. “You forget we were all one people once,” she said.

“I have no interest in history lessons, mother. I don't recognize all these houses.”

Gishna stood, her bones creaking.

“No, you wouldn't,” she said. “So many erased. So many lost after the Fall. Many new ones. No one can keep up.”

“So, this green-eyed seer tells you who goes on which list?”

Gishna nodded. “That's right.”

“What does Maunyn say?”

Julissa wanted Maunyn for herself, but she didn't know his appetites or his capacity for violence.

“Maunyn does his duty as will your consort,” Gishna said.

Julissa shook her head. “This taint… it could just be a matter of flushing it out…”

Gishna was prepared for the flurry of solutions, the simple fixes, the herbs, the remedies that would make everything just go away. And Julissa did just that, just as she had done, pelting her mother with one thing after another, as if her ancestors had been so dense as to not consider them. Finally, she stopped, drained of all ideas.

“It was always with us,” Gishna said. “Just beaten down and suppressed by the power we wielded. Now it comes back with terrible vengeance to make up for cycles of defeat.”

“And this is what these val.. valmorin tell you?” Julissa asked.

“Valmasin,” Gishna corrected. “It is something I know.” Gishna rubbed her stomach. “I've lost more children than you could accept. My mother warned me and, like you, I didn't want to believe. You see, I loved my first consort, your father. He was magnificent. Kind, strong, intelligent. He had a sorcerer's mind and a knight's strength. Together, we planned the births. And we spoke in hushed tones about the boys and second girl that would follow. But then your elder sister—would have been—died before the fourth month. It all weighed on him, filling him with dread. Then the seer came. He instructed us, told us when to try again. And you were born, but he warned us to not try for more. We gave you all we had left to give.”

Julissa drew close and took Gishna's arm. “Come sit, mother. I cannot bear to look at these any longer.”

They moved through another door to a small chamber with a stove.

“This is the seer's chamber,” Gishna said.

“Won't he mind?”

Gishna arched a brow. “Everything in this city is mine.” She sat down on the edge of the bed.

Julissa sat at a desk which was home to a row of small potted plants, squat with wide, dark leaves.

“What did my father think of all this?” she asked.

“He saw it before I did. The dissolution of Hosmyr, of the entire tree, splintering before our eyes. He hated the solution. It destroyed him from within. He said we would fall beneath Vakayne in a hundred years, if not sooner.”

“But Vakayne is so small.” Julissa's nose crinkled, her father's look of derision.

“Vakayne may be small, but every boy born to them is a knight of Isilayne, worth a hundred from any other academy. And every Vakayne girl a priestess bound for the council.”

“But ours have Isilmyr's badge,” Julissa said.

“A worthless thing,” Gishna said. “A meaningless stamp.”

“So, we must do this, this work, to stay ahead of Vakayne? But we are third!”

Gishna looked up. The whiteness encroached on what little she could see with her own eyes.

“To stay ahead of what is beneath the five,” she said. “Houses clamor to be a high house. And why not? They are healthy, strong, and their wealth grows. Our people have not always ruled this way.”

Julissa rolled her eyes.

“History has its lessons,” Gishna said. “It is important. Those that did pay attention may surprise you, and this lesson you haven't learned. Matrons and consorts whisper it in the shadows or the Naukvyrae write it in blood on the walls of our cities.” She whispered the secret society's name, keen to keep the shadows away. The last thing she needed was Darks nosing about her business. Fortunately, they occupied themselves with the obvious violators of the old ways.

“Very well,” Julissa said. “Tell me.”

Gishna licked her lips. Julissa rose and looked through the glass and metal containers on the seer's shelf. She found an empty, clean one and filled it from the faucet. The water came drop by drop.