Sylvie regarded me for a long moment. “How is Cécile feeling?”
“Never mind Cécile,” I snapped. “Tell me what is wrong with my mother!”
Her head tilted slightly, her eyes boring into mine. “I always liked her, you know. Little spitfire of a thing. Not one easily led, so I imagine she’s not pleased about the yoke your father managed to place around her neck.”
I opened my mouth to demand she answer my questions and to quit changing the subject, but realization dawned, and I clamped my teeth shut. “Physically, she is well,” I finally said. “But these last days she has rarely been herself.”
“Her will is at odds with his compulsion.”
I nodded slightly. “A ceaseless tension.”
“Do you feel it?” She asked the question as though it were the idle curiosity of one who had never been bonded.
“At its worst, it seems it is not her mind that suffers, but my own.”
She sniffed. “How taxing.”
And there it was – I had answered my own question. The emotions my mother was feeling were not her own – they were my father’s. My mind skittered and tripped over the implications – not only was something angering him terribly, it was bad enough to affect my mother. For the first time since my imprisonment, I started to wonder if perhaps my father wasn’t as in control of Trollus as I had thought.
“It is better than not knowing,” I said, settling back more comfortably in the chair, pushing aside my concerns so that my mind was wholly on our double conversation. It was always this way with her – she would not tell me outright anything that would betray my father’s confidence. I didn’t know – and would never ask – if she did this out of courtesy to my mother or because he had forced a promise from her at some point in the past. Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. The information I needed would be hidden in everything she did or said; it was up to me to extract it and put it together.
“Is it?” She tugged at the sleeve of her dress. “I should think that it would at times be worse – knowing how someone was feeling, but not the cause. You’ve been what now, three months parted?” She shook her head. “Strange how time manages to both accumulate and fade.”
She did not know the full extent of what troubled my father, but whatever it was had been mounting since my incarceration. Time was of the essence.
“It seems like longer,” I said. “I miss her terribly.”
One eyebrow rose in acknowledgment of my uncharacteristic frankness, but she did not seem surprised. “Do you still wish to play?” She gestured at the Guerre boards sitting in their rack, but it was not the game of which she spoke.
I said nothing for long enough for my silence to be significant. “I will play,” I said. “But only because there is no other worthy opponent.”
“It’s in your blood,” she replied.
The four primary boards floated off their rack, the pieces lifting out of their boxes. They were new, I noticed, elaborately carved out of black onyx and white marble. Undoubtedly Reagan’s work. “Shall we start where the game was left off?”
I nodded, my pulse quickening as I watched to see how she would place the players.
The pieces circled the boards. Kings and queens. Princes and princesses. Warriors, spies, tricksters, nobles, assassins, half-bloods, and tiny humans went round and round. “You play the white.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded for the benefit of those who spied on us.
White pieces rained down onto the carpet, accompanied by only a few black. “You’re losing,” she said.
“But I haven’t lost.”
“Not yet.” Her voice was cool, eyes unreadable as the players settled into their places. The black players were thick on the board – not representing her, but my father. Only a handful of white remained. The king, four warriors, and one human. I stepped closer to look at them, recognizing my own face carved onto the king, and those of Marc, Anaïs, Victoria, Vincent, and Cécile. I touched the piece representing my wife, marble curls hanging down her back and an amused smile on her face. Instead of the cudgel usually wielded by a human piece, she held an open book out in front of her.
“Is the game laid correctly?”
“No,” I said quietly. “I lost her.” I pointed to the female warrior, hair blown back in an imagined wind, sword raised in defiance. The piece floated off and settled gently