THE WEATHER COULD NOT make up its mind. Waiting by the Font, Cassia kept tugging her cloak about her
against a sudden drizzle, then pushing it open again when the rain let up. Would that she could be as
unbothered as Knight, who sat calmly beside her and gave no indication he minded the drops that
clung to his outer coat.
She would get the information from Lio. He could give her an answer for the mages of Kyria. It
would be just like reading lips at dawn rites or listening for useful gossip at Lady Hadrian’s
gathering.
Except that it had to do with the king’s politics.
Cassia’s sense of unease grew by the moment. It was unlike Lio to take so long to appear. But that
might be no reason for concern. Perhaps he simply hadn’t gotten away from his uncle as quickly
tonight. He would come, and she would ask him the mages’ question, for she could not go into her next
conversation with the Prisma unequipped. What was one quick question about the Summit, just a
simple yes or no? That hardly signified she took an interest in royal affairs.
Cassia peered past the edge of the clearing, trying to see in the intermittent moonlight. Where was
Lio? He would come, for he must drink, and when he drank, he would know she was here.
He might even now be breaking his fast somewhere in the woods. Cassia shifted on her feet,
pulling her cloak close again. What was it really like when he took his nightly draught? She needn’t
waste time imagining the deed bore any resemblance to the nasty stories Tenebrans told. Instead the
memory came to her of Lio sitting poised and mannerly at table by candlelight, drinking Solorum’s
finest vintage. She had observed him as he had lifted the goblet in one of his long-fingered hands, had
seen the rim of it touch his lips, had watched his throat move as he swallowed... She could envision
him doing just that, when the dark red liquid he sipped was not wine.
Was it dangerous to interrupt a Hesperine in the midst of the Drink? She was confident in her
assessment of his intentions. That did not change the fact that his kind were powerful. Power, when
approached without caution, was always dangerous.
“Good evening!” Lio sounded like a young courtier hailing a lady in good cheer before a dance.
She turned to find him loping toward her through the trees. “What’s this? I see you approaching on
your own two feet. No sudden and magical appearance this time?”
He came to a halt before her. A courtier might be winded. Lio was not. In fact, he did not appear to
be breathing, until he did so to speak. “I walked up to you those times as well. You just didn’t see
me.”
“I thought for certain you whisked yourself about, moving on magic in an eyeblink.”
He held out an arm ahead of them. “Walk with me?”
Cassia set out into the trees, and Knight took his customary place between her and Lio. The way
the Hesperine prowled beside them made him appear restless. How strange for his usual poise to
falter. His graceful body betrayed he wished to be on the move, so Cassia set a brisk pace.
Even so, he had to shorten his stride to match hers. “We can use our power to assist in getting from
one place to another, although I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as a blink. It’s more like...” He held
up a finger. With his other hand, he reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out a sizable white
handkerchief.
Whyever would someone who did not sweat, sneeze, or relieve himself need a handkerchief?
Oh. Was it messy when they drank?
She eyed it as he unfolded it. Snowy and clean, with a black geometric design embroidered on it.
No red stains.
He came to a halt and turned to her. “Hold out both your hands?”
She stopped before Lio, and Knight sat down on her feet. “Shall I reassure Knight this will be like
the soap?”
“Yes, please. I should hate to see the state of my silk handkerchief if he deemed it a threat to you.”
“Hamaa.” She rubbed the toe of her slipper against Knight’s furry flank. Grumbling, he shifted
himself to lean against the side of her leg instead. She held out her hands in the open space between
her and Lio.
If her dog’s proximity made Lio anxious, he gave no sign this time. As he draped the handkerchief
across her open palms, the motion of his hands was relaxed, as if they did this all the time.
He smoothed the handkerchief over the contours of her hands, and she almost started. Knight
tensed against her.
Lio’s skin was warm. She felt his body heat through the cloth, as surely as she would a human’s.
The tales of Hesperines as cold as the grave were all lies.
She gazed down at his hands where he touched the handkerchief upon her palms. She caught
herself staring. But she ought to make note of the embroidery, she told herself. It might be significant.
It appeared to be a stylized flower of some kind, with a round center surrounded by five lobed petals
and five sharp points like thorns.
Lio tapped one point with his finger, then touched the end of a thorn on the opposite side of the
flower. “When we use our power to travel, it is not as if we fly about.” Now he traced from the tip of
the first thorn, all the way across the flower to the opposite point, following the lines of black thread.
His finger left a trail of warmth over her palms. “It is more like we ease our own passage. We simply
step.”
“I wish I understood,” Cassia said.
“You already do. You’re just overthinking it.”
She felt as if she were not thinking clearly at all. “It is very subtle, your magery.”
“That is because we work with the world, not against it as the mages of Anthros do. To perform
traversals, mortal mages must be as birds in a storm, heaving their rain-laden wings to stay aloft on
turbulent winds. Hesperines, when they step, are like fish in a river, swimming with the water’s
natural current. We enjoy the world. In Orthros, I run on foot every night when I awaken, without
using magic. When you go too directly from one place to another, you miss everything in between.”
Cassia could think of some shit-filled courtyards at Solorum she would gladly miss. But she
suspected that was not his point. She held the handkerchief closer to him to give it back.
He didn’t take it. “Do you recognize the emblem on it?”
“No. What kind of flower is it?”
“Have you never seen a rose?”
“Oh!” She looked at it again. “It doesn’t deserve what they call it here.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
She made a face. “Harlot’s kiss.”
Lio sighed. “They would give such a name to my Goddess’s sacred flower. Is it true mages uproot
them whenever they’re found in Tenebra?”
“I’m afraid so. No one grows them, for that would be heresy. None of the gardeners I’ve met in
palaces or temples even remember what they look like. I’ve never seen a depiction of one. Until
now.”
“This is a beloved symbol in Orthros—Hespera’s Rose. It appears everywhere, from
handkerchiefs to illuminated texts. I’m partial to seeing the design in windows, but I must admit my
bias as a glazier.”
“Glazier? But you are a diplomat, not a craftsman.”
“Every Hesperine must learn four things: a service, a craft, magic, and Ritual.”
“What a demanding education.”
“Life is best filled with purpose, rather than left to become aimless. Even with four areas of study,
many Hesperines find themselves looking for enough to do. We have quite a bit of time on our hands,
you see.” His smile was halfway to a grin.
If not for his lengthy canines, Cassia wouldn’t have believed the blithe youth before her could be
speaking of immortality. Hesperines lived forever. Lio was a Hesperine. That knowledge usually
hovered in the shadows of her thoughts along with every other Hesperine mystery, vast as darkness
itself and just as impossible to grasp. What they spoke of now brought it into the light. The fact was,
the person she passed each night with in conversation would live forever.
She had learned a great deal about him, and yet there was still so much of Lio she could not
fathom.
“I know of your service to your people as a diplomat. Your craft is glassmaking?”
He nodded, but did not elaborate.
She could see she would have to prod him, as usual, if she was to discover anything more. His
self-effacing tendencies were quite the obstacle. He would gladly tell her about his people from dusk
to dawn, but when it came to his own affairs, he was in his own way nearly as reticent as she to keep
their Oath.
He did not talk like someone whose people had spoken grand prophecies over his head since birth.
She might have believed his modesty a diplomatic affectation, except that it was so much work to
make him talk about himself.
“Yours is a very exclusive craft,” she said. “Glass is so expensive, and the truly fine pieces are
rarities treasured as heirlooms. I imagine it must be a challenge to work with.”
“In Orthros you can hardly turn around without seeing a stained glass window. Hesperines love
light and color, and glass is the perfect medium for both.”
“You make stained glass windows?”
“I earned my initiation in my craft with a rose window in this design.” He gestured to his
handkerchief. Knight’s gaze followed the motion of his hand. “But my Ritual mother embroidered this
for me. I’m no good with thread.”
“That makes two of us. What is a Ritual mother?”
“Ritual mothers or fathers attend our first Ritual after our Gifting and remain our trusted mentors
who watch over us and offer us guidance. They are usually a relative, a close friend of the family or,
for those given Sanctuary as adults, their Gifters. Mortals’ temple parents are similar, I think. In
Tenebra and Cordium, don’t a temple mother and father accompany parents when they present their
newborn to the gods for the first time, when the child is twice-seven days old?”
“What is Ritual? You said it is the fourth thing you must learn?”
“It is a sacred ceremony but also, in a broader sense, our beliefs. You can learn much of it from
Hespera’s Rose. Each part of the design has a specific symbolism.”
Cassia spread the handkerchief out again, holding it in her open hands. “Show me.”
Lio took a step closer.
It was just a step. But she felt all too aware of the space between them and how it was one step
smaller. Of Knight’s tension and stillness against her leg, which told her he accepted, however
reluctantly, that she had issued Lio an invitation.
Lio pressed a finger to her hand again. His touch pricked her where one thorn grew from the rose.
“The thorns are our most sacred duties, the five acts to which the Goddess calls us. You already know
a great deal about those. We must show Mercy to those who suffer, give Solace to the lost, guard the
sanctity of each person’s Will, strive to live in Union with all, and offer the Gift to any.”
Here it was, yet another perfect opportunity to return their rambling conversations to the subject
that had prompted them all. The Mercy.
No, this was not the time, she told herself. She needed to wait a little longer. Know a little more. If
he told her enough about Hesperines, the night might come when she found her own answers in his
words, without ever having to ask.
If she were to succeed, she must spend her carefully accumulated opportunities wisely. Her own
questions must come first, before she could consider the risk of any inquiry about the Summit for the
mages of Kyria.
“And the petals?” Cassia asked.
Lio spread five fingers upon her hands, as if to part the folds of the flower captured forever in
thread. “These represent what Hespera does for us, her greatest blessings. Ritual, through which she
first gave us the Gift. The Gift, through which we overcome death. The Drink, through which we can
thrive without the death of others. Sanctuary, the Goddess’s realm, where we go if death does find us,
and which we strive to realize in the world. And Grace...through which we experience abundance.
The center of the flower, here, represents Hespera herself, who binds us together, from whom
everything grows.”
“I thought you said the Gift was a thorn, not a blessing.”
“It is both.” Lio’s touch lingered on the handkerchief for a moment before he withdrew his fingers.
Only to wrap both his hands around hers. Cassia stood very still.
Lio folded her fingers around the handkerchief. “No one in Tenebra would recognize this symbol,
nor even a living rose.”
“No.”
“In that case, it will be no danger if you keep it.” His smile, never absent for long, now reappeared
in full force. “The fabric resists moisture. It’s perfect to wrap soap in once the paper is torn off.”
Cassia withdrew her hands and busied them folding the handkerchief, buying time to think. Was
there any polite way to refuse this second gift? No need for him to know she had yet to unwrap the
soap. Besides, who would tear paper so fine and expensive? Surely it was not to be discarded.
Lio folded his hands behind his back. “Forgive me. Perhaps I am not sensitive enough to how
different that flower’s meaning is here. I meant no offense.”
She glanced up at him quickly. “None taken. Why should your sacred symbol offend me?”
He relaxed, which seemed to bring him a little nearer to her again. “Why indeed? There is no
shame in a kiss.”
Just the sort of thing a man would say. Usually when he was trying to get said kiss. It was a good
thing Lio was a Hesperine, not a man, and that he had none of the seductive powers the tales claimed
his kind possessed. “I would think the reference to harlots would offend you.”
“And why should it? Women are far more sacred to Hespera than flowers.”
Cassia focused her attention on her gardening satchel, tucking the handkerchief inside next to her
spade. “You’d best not let anyone hear you say harlots are sacred to Hespera. That will hardly
advance your cause, Initiate Ambassador.”
“I will tell anyone who will listen the Goddess cherishes all women. Harlots and queens.
Concubines and their daughters.”
Now she had heard everything. A goddess who thought well of her and her mother. Cassia opened
her mouth. But the retort did not come. She could not bring herself to aim it at the earnest eyes looking
down at her.
“Thank you,” she said, resting her hand on her satchel. Then she pinned her gaze on her feet. The
underbrush might trip her. She started walking again, and Knight heeled.
Lio fell into step with her, and for the first time, she walked beside him.