I waited on the stairs, watching the afternoon light fade into dusk, an ache pounding in my head. But I wasn’t going to move, not until I could catch Jourdain and set a few things straight. So when the office door finally opened, spilling candlelight into the hall, I quickly stood, the stair creaking beneath me.
Luc and the stranger emerged first, heading down the corridor to the kitchen. And then came Jourdain. He stood on the threshold and felt my gaze, glancing up to where I stood.
“Father?”
“Another time, Amadine.” He began to follow Luc and the stranger to the kitchen, willfully ignoring me.
Ire boiled up my throat as I cleared the last stair, following him into the hall. “I know who you are,” I said, my words pelting him as rocks in the back. “You may not be Lord Kavanagh the Bright, but perhaps you are Lord Morgane the Swift?”
Jourdain halted as if I had pressed a blade to his throat. He didn’t turn around; I could not see his face, but I watched his hands curl into fists at his sides.
“Or might you be Lord MacQuinn the Steadfast?” I finished. That name had scarcely had time to leave the tip of my tongue when he rounded on me, his face pale with fury as he took my arm and pulled me into his office, slamming the door behind us.
I should be afraid. I had never seen him look so furious, not even when he took on the thieves. But there was no room for fear in my mind, because I had spoken truth—I had spoken his name to him, the one he had never wanted me to know. And I let that name sink into me, let the truth of who he was settle in my heart.
MacQuinn. One of the three Maevan lords who had boldly attempted to reclaim the throne twenty-five years ago. Whose plans to dethrone Lannon and crown Kavanagh’s oldest daughter had fallen to ashes, and as a consequence, whose wife had been slaughtered, who had fled with his son, to hide and quietly endure.
“Amadine . . .” he whispered, his voice choking on my name. The white wrath was gone, leaving exhaustion in its wake as Jourdain collapsed in his chair. “How? How did you guess?”
I sat slowly in one of the other chairs, waiting for him to look at me. “I’ve known you were Maevan ever since I saw you so effortlessly cut down the thieves.”
He finally met my gaze, his eyes bloodshot.
“It makes sense to me now, why you reacted so violently. How you will protect your family at all cost, because I now know you have lost someone very precious to you. And then this . . . stranger . . . mentioned that he had waited twenty-five years,” I continued, lacing my cold fingers together. “Twenty-five years ago, three courageous Maevan lords stormed the castle, hoping to place a rightful daughter on the throne, to reclaim it from a cruel, unrighteous king. Those lords were Kavanagh, Morgane, and MacQuinn, and though they may be hiding, their names are not forgotten—their sacrifice is not forgotten.”
A sound came from him, a tangle of laughter and weeping, and he covered his eyes. Oh, it broke my heart to hear the sound come from such a man, to realize how long he had been hiding, carrying the guilt of that massacre.
He lowered his hands, a few tears still clinging to his lashes, but he chuckled. “I should have known you would be shrewd. You are an Allenach, after all.”
My heart turned cold at the sound of that name, and I corrected him by saying, “It’s not that, but because I am a passion of knowledge, and I was taught the history of Maevana. Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
“Not until Isolde was crowned. But it was only out of protection for you, Amadine.”
I could not believe it. I could not believe my patron father was one of the rebellious Maevan lords—that a name I had once heard Cartier merely talk about was now sitting before me in the flesh.
I glanced to the papers scattered on his desk, overwhelmed. My gaze caught on something familiar . . . a piece of parchment with a drawing of the unmistakable bleeding quill. I reached for it; Jourdain watched as I held up the illustration with a tremor in my fingers.
“You’re the Grim Quill,” I whispered, my eyes darting to his.
“Yes,” he responded.
I was flooded with awe, worry. I thought back to all those pamphlets I had read, how bold and persuasive his words were. And I suddenly understood the “why” of it all . . . why he wanted to obliterate the northern king. Because he had lost his wife, his land, his people, his honor because of Lannon.
I read the words he had scrawled beneath the drawing, a messy first draft of his upcoming publication:
How to ask pardon for rightfully rebelling against a man who thinks he is king: Offer your head first, your allegiance second. . . .
“I . . . I cannot believe it,” I confessed, setting the paper down.
“Who did you think the Grim Quill was, Amadine?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. A Valenian who liked to poke fun at Lannon, at current events.”
“Did you think that I fled here to hide and cower, to sit on my hands, to try to become Valenian and forget who I was?” he asked.
I didn’t answer, but my gaze held his, my emotions still running the gamut.
“Tell me, daughter,” he said, leaning forward. “What does every revolution need?”
Again, I was quiet, because I honestly didn’t know.
“A revolution needs money, belief, and people willing to fight,” he replied. “I began writing the Grim Quill almost two decades ago, hoping that it would stir Valenians as well as Maevans. Even if the Dowager had never told me about you and what your memories could unleash . . . I would have continued writing and publishing the Grim Quill for however long it took, until I was ninety and frail, until people—Valenian, Maevan, or both united—eventually rose, with magic or without it.”
I wondered what that would feel like—he had spent over twenty years in hiding, letting his anonymous words slowly chip away at Valenian ignorance and Maevan fear. And he would spend twenty more doing it, if that’s what it required, until he had the money, the belief, and the people to make it possible.
“So without me and the promise of the stone,” I said, clearing my throat. “What were you planning to do?”
Jourdain steepled his fingers, propped his chin on them. “We currently have persuaded three Valenian nobles to our cause, who have provided funds, who have promised men to fight. Based on that, we project that we could successfully revolt in four years’ time.”
In twenty-five years, he had only garnered the support of three Valenian nobles. I shifted in my chair. “Wouldn’t that spark a war, Father?”
“It would. A war that has been one hundred and thirty-six years in the making.”
We stared at each other. I kept my face carefully guarded, even though the image of war made my heart wither. And suddenly, I was besieged with fear of conflict, of battles and spilled blood and death.
“What if you asked Lannon to pardon you?” I dared to ask. “Would he be open to change? To negotiations?”
“No.”
“Surely he has advisers there? At least one person who would listen to you?”
He sighed. “Let me tell you a little story. Thirty years ago, I used to attend the royal hearings. Once a week, Lannon would sit on his throne and listen to the people’s complaints and requests. I stood among the crowd, bearing witness with the other lords. And I cannot tell you how many times I saw men and women—children—cut to pieces at the footstool of the throne, fingers and tongues and eyes and heads. All because they dared to ask something of him. And I watched it, afraid to speak out. We were all afraid to speak out.”
I struggled to imagine his story, struggled to fathom that such violence was happening north of here. “There is no peaceful way to do this?”
He finally understood my questions, the glaze in my eyes. “Amadine . . . your procuring the stone and reviving magic is the most peaceful route to justice. I cannot promise there will not be conflict or a battle. But I do want you to know that without you, war would eventually come.”
I broke our gaze, glancing down to the pleats of my dress. He was silent, giving me time to process the revelations that had begun to unfold, knowing I was simmering with more questions.
“How do you know the Dowager?” I asked.
Jourdain drew in a deep breath, and then poured himself a glass of cordial. He poured one for me as well. I saw it as a long-awaited invitation, that he was about to tell me some dark things, and I graciously accepted the drink.
“Twenty-five years ago,” he began. “I joined Lord Morgane and Lord Kavanagh in their plans to upset Lannon, to place Kavanagh’s eldest daughter on the throne. She had a trace of that ancient, magical blood, according to their lineage, which distantly draws from the first queen, Liadan, but more than that . . . we were finished with serving a wicked king such as Lannon, who manipulated us, who oppressed our women, who slayed anyone, even a child, should they look at him the wrong way. You know that we failed, that the other lords would not unite behind us because we lacked the Stone of Eventide, and we lacked the Queen’s Canon. If we had possessed just one of those artifacts, I have no doubt the other Houses would have rallied behind us.”
He took a sip of cordial, turning the glass tumbler in his hands. I did the same, preparing for the hardest part of the story.
“We were betrayed by one of the other lords who had promised to join us. If not for his treachery, we might have overpowered Lannon, for our plans were contingent on surprising him. We had quietly gathered the forces of our three Houses, our men and our women, and were planning to storm the castle, to do things as peaceably as we were able, to give Lannon a proper trial. But he caught wind of it and sent his forces out to meet us in the field. What ensued was a bloody battle, one that saw our wives cut down, our daughters slaughtered. Yet he wanted us to live, his rebelling lords, to be brought to him for torturous punishment. And if not for Luc . . . if I did not have my son, who I had sworn to protect as my wife died in my arms . . . I would have let them capture me.
“But I took Luc and fled, as did Lord Kavanagh and his youngest daughter, as did Lord Morgane and his son. We had lost everything else: our wives, our lands, our Houses. And yet we lived. And yet our Houses were not dead, because of our sons and daughter. We fled south, to Valenia, knowing we might start a war by fleeing into another country, that Lannon would never cease looking for us, because Lannon is no fool. He knows one day we will return for him, to avenge the blood of our women.”
He drained the cordial. I drained mine, feeling the fire flow through every bend and corner of my body. A righteous anger was stirring, the thirst for revenge.
“We pressed as far south into Valenia as we could, keeping to the forests, to the pastures, to the land,” Jourdain continued, his voice rasping. “But Luc fell ill. He was only one year old, and I watched him slowly get weaker and weaker in my arms. So on a stormy night, we dared to knock on the door of a beautiful estate in the center of a field. It was Magnalia.”
I felt the tears line my eyes as he looked at me, as I realized what he was about to say.
“The Dowager took us in, without question,” he said. “She must have known we were fleeing, that we might bring trouble upon her. The news of the massacre had not crossed the channel yet, but we told her who we were, what the cost would be to shelter us. And she let us sleep in safety; she clothed us, fed us, and sent for a physician to heal my son. And then she gave us each a purse of coins, and told us to split up and set down Valenian roots, that the day of reckoning would come soon if we played our cards wisely, patiently.”
He poured another cup of cordial and rubbed his temples. “We did as she advised. We took Valenian names and went our separate ways. I settled in Beaumont, became a reclusive lawyer, hired a master of music to instruct my son to become a passion, to make Luc appear as Valenian as possible. Morgane settled in Delaroche, and Kavanagh went south, to Perrine. But we never lost contact. And I never forgot the kindness of the Dowager. I repaid her, wrote to her, let her know that I owed her a mighty debt.” His eyes flickered to mine. “So it looks as if she was right; the cards have finally aligned.”
I helped myself to the decanter of cordial, only because I felt the weight of that hope. He needed me to find the stone. And what if I couldn’t do it? What if the plans fell to ashes again?
“Father,” I breathed, meeting his gaze. “I promise you that I will do all that I can to recover the stone, that I will help you achieve justice.”
He drew his hand through his auburn hair, the gray gleaming as silver in the candlelight. “Amadine . . . I do not plan to send you to Maevana.”
I all but spurted on my cordial. “What? I am supposed to retrieve the stone, am I not?”
“Yes and no. You will tell us how to find it. I will send Luc to retrieve it.”
This did not please me. At all. But rather than fight with him, after he’d so generously opened his painful past, I sat back in the chair. One battle at a time, I told myself.
“We had an agreement,” I calmly reminded him.
He hesitated. I knew it was because he was terrified of seeing something happen to me, of sending me to my death, or perhaps something worse. His wife had died in his arms, on a blood-soaked field of failure. And I knew he was determined that my fate would not follow hers. Hadn’t I already seen him respond violently when I was threatened? And I was not even his daughter by blood.
This must be the Maevan in him, which I had also seen in Luc. Maevan men did not tolerate any threat toward their women.
Which meant I needed to become more Maevan. I needed to learn how to wield a sword, how to set these stubborn men in order.
“Our agreement was for you to have a voice in the plans, which I fully intend to see done, and for you to bestow the stone to the queen,” Jourdain replied. “We said nothing of you going to Maevana and retrieving the stone.”
He was right.
I choked back a retort, washed it all the way down with cordial, and then said, “So who is that man? The stranger?”
“One of my faithful thanes,” Jourdain responded. “He served me when I was lord.”
My eyes widened. “Does it alarm you that he found you here?”
“Yes and no. It means I am not as hidden as I once thought,” he said. “But he has been searching for years. And he knew me very well. He knew how I would think, how I would hide and act far better than Lannon’s cronies would.”
There was a soft rap on the door. A moment later, Luc peered in, saw me sitting before Jourdain, the cordial in our hands, the emotion still bright in our eyes.
“Dinner at Laurents’,” he announced, gaze roving from Jourdain to me, back to Jourdain with countless questions.
“Amadine will accompany us,” Jourdain said.
“Excellent,” Luc stated. “Liam is in the kitchen, having his fill of Pierre’s cooking.”
I took it that Liam was the thane. But who was Laurent?
Before the inquiry could even flicker over my face, Jourdain said, “The Laurents are the Kavanaghs.”
There were a lot of names to keep up—Maevan names hidden within Valenian names—but I began to draw a lineage in my mind, a tree with long branches. One branch was MacQuinn, who I would continue to call Jourdain for protection. One branch was Laurent, who were the long-hidden Kavanaghs. And the last branch was for Lord Morgane, who I had yet to meet and learn his alias.
“Do you need to freshen up before we depart, Amadine?” Jourdain asked, and I nodded and slowly rose.
I was about to pass Luc on the threshold when I paused, helplessly turned back around. “I thought the Laurents had settled in another town.”
“They did,” Jourdain responded. “They moved here not long ago. To be closer.”
Closer to the heart of the plans that had unexpectedly changed with my arrival.
I mulled on all of this, the excitement threading through my heart, my stomach, my mind. I washed my face, changed my dress—Jourdain had been true to his word and procured me new clothes—and then tamed my hair in a braided crown.
Jourdain and Luc were waiting for me in the foyer, and wordlessly, we stepped out into the night and walked to the Laurents’ town house.
They lived three streets east on the edge of town, a quiet sector, far from the market and from curious eyes. Jourdain didn’t bother with the bell; he knocked, four times fast. The door opened at once, and an older woman with a linen wimple and a ruddy face let us in, her gaze hovering on me as if I might be dangerous.
“She is one of us,” Jourdain said to the chamberlain, who stiffly nodded and then led us down a narrow corridor to the dining room.
A long, oaken table was lined with candles and scattered with lavender, the plates and pewter glasses glistening as morning dew. An older man was sitting at the head of the table, waiting for us. He stood when we entered, a welcoming smile on his face.
He was white-haired and tall, broad-shouldered and clean-cut. He might have been pressing late sixties, but sometimes it is difficult to tell with Maevan men. They age faster than Valenians, with their love of the outdoors. His eyes were dark, gentle, and they found me at once.
“Ah, this must be your passion daughter, Jourdain,” he said, extending his large, scar-ridden hand to me.
That’s right; Maevan men shook hands. It went back to fiercer days, to ensure your guests were not hiding blades up their sleeves.
I smiled and let my hand rest in his. “I am Amadine Jourdain.”
“Hector Laurent,” the man replied with a bow of his head. “In another time, I was Braden Kavanagh.”
To hear the name come from his lips gave me chills, made the past suddenly seem closer and clearer, like the days of queens were gathering in my shadow.
But I didn’t have time to respond to him. A soft tread came up behind me; a lithe figure brushed my shoulder to stand beside Hector Laurent. A young woman, not much older than me, her hair a wild tumble of dark red curls, her freckles as stars across her cheeks. She had doe eyes—large and brown—and they crinkled at the edges as she tentatively smiled at me.
“Yseult, this is my daughter Amadine,” Jourdain introduced. “Amadine, allow me to introduce you to Yseult Laurent—Isolde Kavanagh—the future queen of Maevana.”