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Lynet bowed her head. “Yes, of course.”

“We cannot refuse to speak of these things, Lynet, nor to pretend they do not affect us now.”

“I know.” Lynet's hands still twisted together in her lap. She felt herself to be thirteen years old again, waiting to leave her home for the first time. She was too young for this, too alone, too afraid …

“Be easy, Sister,” Laurel said gently. “We are not wholly without help. I will be among friends as well as enemies. And you … I have brought you help should you need it.”

Laurel moved to the brass-bound casket. On its clasp was the smallest lock Lynet had ever seen. While Lynet marvelled at its delicacy, Laurel chose the smallest, brightest key from the ring at her waist and opened the box. She lifted out a piece of pure white linen.

Inside the cloth lay a round mirror about the size of Laurel's palm. It was made of glass so pure and smooth it might have been a pool of water framed silver.

“What is it?” asked Lynet in the hushed tones that beauty could inspire. “Where is it from?”

“It was our mother's.” Laurel handed the precious object to her and Lynet cradled it in both hands. It showed her face more clearly than Lynet had ever seen it before; her hazel eyes sunken into her skull, a glimpse of her brown hair trailing in wisps over her sallow cheeks. The mirror felt was heavier than it looked, and quite cool. The silver frame had been worked into the shape of foaming waves so detailed it seemed strange not to hear the sea.

“Mother gave it to me on her deathbed.” Laurel sighed and smoothed her hair back, clearly steeling herself. “Lynet, there are some things that I must tell you now. Things you must believe before you leave on this journey.”

Lynet tore her eyes away from her own reflection. “Believe?”

Laurel nodded. Her mouth had tightened into a hard line, as if determined not to let out one poorly considered word. “You know how it is said we were birthed from the sea?”

“Yes.” It was a jibe, a pleasantry that sprang from Laurel and Colan's pallid complexions. The proper folk of the Dumnonii lands were dark, like their father had been.

“We were not,” said Laurel. “But our mother was.”

Lynet stared at her, mouth half-open to say this was a poor time to be joking. But she could already see that Laurel was in absolute earnest, and the words drained away from her.

“Our mother, Morwenna, was the daughter of the
bucca-gwidden,
the White Spirit of the Sea,” Laurel went on. She walked to the shuttered window and laid her hand on it, as if she thought to feel some sympathetic message from the wind outside. “She told me … when our father was a young man, he saw her on the shore, combing her hair in the sun. He fell in love with her in that instant, and came back to the same cove, day after day. She watched him from her place beside her mother, and laughed at the infatuation of a mortal for a being of pure spirit. Then, one day, he did not leave when the sun set. He stayed that night, and the next, and the next. He did not eat, he did not sleep. He did not move, even though he began to waste away. It was watching this devotion that softened her heart toward him. As her kind might sometimes do, she took on mortal flesh and went to him.” Lynet smiled, in soft and sad amazement. “What you hold is her wedding gift from her mother, our grandmother, who is the Sea.”

Her mother, our grandmother, who is the Sea.
Lynet stared at her sister, with her translucent skin and her white-gold hair shimmering in the firelight. She thought of Laurel's detachment, of the witchlights that glowed in her pale eyes when she was angered, or when she spoke with certainty of things she could not have seen.

Lynet swallowed. “Why did you never tell me?”

“Mother told me not to, not until you were to be married … or until danger came.” Laurel eyes were distant, seeing some memory. Perhaps she saw their mother, lying in the great bed, wasting away from the sickness that came on her after the birth of her last child. Laurel would have been no more than eight then. She would have been very young to be hearing these things and making these promises.

No. Not Laurel. Laurel was never young.

“Mother did not want us pulled away from our father by the other half of our blood, she said,” Laurel went on, coming back to the fire. “I think if she had lived it would have been different.” She said this last so softly, Lynet could not tell if this was a thought, or a wish.

Laurel lifted her eyes to meet Lynet's gaze. “Do you believe what I say?”

Lynet did not answer right away. Then a memory came to her, from the penance she had done for her part in Iseult's deception and death, the penance that ruined her feet and of a dream of a bright and shining figure that had come to her in the depths of her despair. She had never spoken to anyone of that dream, or of what followed afterwards. She wrapped her fingers around the mirror. Did she believe that moment had been real?

It struck Lynet then how lonely her sister must be. If it were true … if it were true that she … that they … were not fully children of men, but partly of the sea, it was Laurel whom the sea tide pulled most strongly. What would she have been if their mother had lived to teach her its secrets?

Laurel for the sea. She herself for the earth, and Colan suspended between the two.

Oh, Mother what might any of us have been had you lived?

“I … I do not know what to think. I am afraid.”
Which is what keeps me silent of what I have seen even now.
“Bishop Austell speaks of the fair form devils can take.” Even as she said it, she felt the jolt of her disloyalty. How could she believe her sister had been mothered by anything evil?

But what of Colan? And what of me?

Laurel shook her head. “There are powers in this world that belong to neither God nor the Devil. It is one of our good bishop's few failings that he cannot bring himself to acknowledge that much.”

“What is this thing Laurel? You surely did not keep a simple mirror secret for so long.”

The corner of Laurel's mouth twitched upwards, acknowledging Lynet's attempt at levity. “I only know what our mother told me. She said that within the mirror waits a spirit. If great need came to me, she said, I could look into the mirror and I would have help. She warned me though, not to use it too freely, for there would be a price in body and spirit to be paid. She also said that if I came to a time there was no other recourse, I should throw the mirror into the sea, and the sea itself would bring me aid.”

Lynet stared at the mirror again. She saw herself looking back at her, as plainly as if she were two beings, one facing the other. It was a beautiful thing made with great skill, but it was just a thing. It had no aura or mystique about it.

“Have you ever used it?”

Laurel ducked her head, and to Lynet's utter astonishment, she saw her sister's cheeks flush red.

“Once. I was curious, or perhaps I was so angry at our mother for deserting me for God that I believed her a liar. I don't know. But one night I did cup the mirror in my hands and looked into it long and hard.

“I do not know how to describe what happened next, but I was no longer in where I had been. I was instead in a beautiful garden, such as I had never seen, and there was a man kneeling before me, smiling as if he had never seen anything so wonderful.”

“What then?”

“I was afraid, and I screamed, and it all vanished.” The blush on Laurel's cheeks deepened. “I never have looked in it since then.”

Lynet swallowed. She could not doubt her sister's word, but belief in it made her palm itch beneath the smooth silver of the mirror's frame, and she wanted badly to cross herself.

“It is all the help I can send with you, sister. I'm sorry.”

With these words, Lynet began to tremble again. “I cannot do this, Laurel. Not alone.”

If she had hoped for sympathy, her sister offered none. “You must.”

It was too much to bear. “How can I?” Lynet cried. “I know nothing about what's happening! I don't even know my sister or my brother or myself any longer!”

Laurel grasped her by the shoulders, turning her roughly around, stilling her outburst. “You know all you need, sister,” she said firmly. “You are Lynet of Castell Cambryn. You are the daughter of Lord Kenen and Lady Morwenna. You are earth and stone, and true heart, as you have ever been.”

The witchlight burned in her sister's eyes, lighting the shadows in Lynet's heart. She saw past it though, and saw that her sister was as frightened, as alone as she was. If she could not be strong for herself, she could not fail Laurel.

Laurel held up Lynet's autumn brown travelling cloak. “It is time to go.”

Lynet looked at the mirror in her hand, then and carefully slipped it into the purse she wore on her girdle beside her ring of keys. Once it was secured, she permitted her sister to settle the hooded cloak over her shoulders and lace it tight. Side-by-side, they descended the stairs, ignoring the three men who marched down behind them. Together, they crossed through the old tower, and stepped out its open doors.

Peran and Mesek flanked the steps, with their men around them, backed by a loose but watchful line of the men of Cambryn. Lynet did not permit her eyes or thought to dwell on these. She could not let her nerve shake again. A short line of lightly burdened horses waited at the foot of the steps. Lock and Bishop Austell were mounted on the lead horses with the three Trevailian brothers — Cam, Stef and Rory — behind. A chestnut mare with white socks, a white blaze and an empty saddle stamped its foot impatiently, waiting for her.

Beyond the horses, the yard was filled with people. A hundred familiar forms and faces stood shoulder-to-shoulder; men and women, ancients and crones and children of every age down to babes in arms. As Lynet and Laurel appeared on the threshold, they all knelt together, the men doffing their hoods and all bowing their heads. It was a pure gesture of loyalty and tears pressed hard against Lynet's eyes.

I will be worthy of this. I swear before God and Mary and Jesus Christ, yes and my father and mother too, I will.

With this vow, a calm descended over her, drying her eyes and lifting her chin. She turned and received Laurel's parting kiss and walked down the steps. Lock came at once to help her into the saddle. As she gathered the reins into one hand, she lifted the other to the folk of Cambryn, and they in turn raised their voices in a mighty cheer. The vibrant noise made itself the wind at their backs as Lynet and her protectors touched up their horses. Without looking back, they rode out toward the west, the coast and all that was to come.

Once out of sight of Cambryn, Lock set a brisk pace. They rode across the rough. low country as quickly as they could. They followed the river valleys, eschewed the heights when possible, and stopped only to rest the horses and themselves where necessary. The way was frequently steep, and even footpaths were few, but it was well known to them all, and offered up no surprises. The day, although chill, stayed clear, with the stiff wind off the land blowing all the clouds well before them.

All these elements combined allowed them to reach Port Yzack while the last thread of daylight still burned on the horizon. Its cramped and tiny
castell
backed up against the high cliffs and was watched over jealously by the mottled green bulk of Roscarrock Hill. The great house was not so large as that at Cambryn, being one long, low hall with a slate roof and walls of roughly dressed stone. Still, with Captain Hale there to greet them along side Lord Donyerth and his wife, Lady Cyda, Lynet felt it to be a palace fit for the Holy Roman Emperor.

Although only in his middle years and still strong, Donyerth was as thin and crooked as a cliff-rooted tree. He was also starved for news, and would have kept them talking over the lavish supper they were served by his four daughters if Lady Cyda had not taken charge. She was tiny brown bird of a woman who had nonetheless born nine living children and she would not be gainsaid when she bundled Lynet into the bed set up beside the longest of the fireplaces and shut the heavy curtains around her.

Alone, in the warm, dust-scented darkness, Lynet let out the deep sigh she had been holding back for much of the evening. Two flickering slivers of gold slipped in between the curtains, one from the fire, one from the rushlights that lit the hall. By this pale and uncertain illumination, Lynet wriggled out of her overdress, and laid it at the foot of the bed. She did not lay her girdle with it, though. This she belted around her woolen underdress before she climbed beneath the layers of furs and coverlets.

She had meant to go to sleep at once. Exhaustion lay heavily over her limbs. But her eyes would not remain closed. The gentle pressure of her purse at her hip nagged at her. The mirror waited there, her mother's gift, covered by her sister's warning. She knew that she should let it bide. Despite its reassuring weight of its metal and glass, it was an unearthly thing. Though Lynet might be descended from the spirits of the invisible country, she herself was mortal, and ignorant of such matters. Of all the people that walked God's earth, she should know what dangers lay in acting out of ignorance.

But her mind strayed back to it again and again, as it had throughout the day. As the green miles slipped by, she had not once been able to forget what she carried with her. She held the horse's reins, but her fingertips tingled with the remembered feel of the enameled waves. While she worked to keep pace behind Lock, she was aware that she carried with her a promise of aid that was also the one thing she had ever known to frighten Laurel.

Lynet pushed her coverings back and sat up, her resolve wavering.

Holy Mary, Mother of us all,
she prayed silently.
Watch over me now I pray, and give me some sign if what I wish to do is wrong.

Nothing happened. Outside the curtains she could hear the infinitely familiar sounds of the hall bedding itself down for the night. Inside, there was only the harsh sound of her own breathing and the drumming of her heart.