intricate piece when she'd met with Irina Odolf. The embroidery that had been wrapped around the stack of letters Irina had found.
That weaving, she said, hardly able to breathe. Where did it come from?
It's Lucan's, Gabrielle said. It was made for him in the 1300s. A long time ago, when the Order was still new.
Elise's pulse kicked into an excited tempo. Who made it, do you know? Um, a woman named Kassia, Gabrielle said. She was a Breedmate to one of the Order's original members. Lucan says her talent with needle and thread was unmatched, which you can see from the detail in this piece alone. According to him, this was the last weaving Kassia made, and her most stunning work. That's Lucan on the warhorse--
May I look at it? Elise asked, standing up and walking over to see it up close.
On a distant hill behind the knight on the rearing stallion, a castle smoldered under a thin sliver of a moon. A crescent moon.
And beneath the horse's hooves lay a trampled field, rutted with deep tracts of earth.
castle and croft shall come
together under the crescent moon
The strange riddle played through her mind, carried there in Petrov Odolf 's tormented voice.
It couldn't be...could it?
Elise ran her hand over the delicate stitches of the tapestry's detailed border. All of it had been woven with such deliberate care. And in the lower right corner was the weaver's mark--a Breedmate symbol, just like the one she'd seen on the embroidery Irina showed her--sewn into the design.
Was there a message hidden somewhere in here?
Hidden here all this time?
What is it, Elise? Gabrielle came up behind her. Is something wrong?
Elise's heart was racing. Would it be all right if we took this down from the wall? I guess so...yeah, sure. She got up on the cushioned chair situated next to the tapestry and reached up to lift the piece from its hanging mount on the wall. Gabrielle held the tapestry gingerly in her hands. What do you want me to do with it?
Lay it flat, please.
I'll clear the table, Savannah said, and she and Tess went to work quickly removing the food and dishes to make space. Okay, here you go.
Elise trailed Gabrielle as she spread the tapestry out. She studied the piece in silence for a moment, remembering the rest of the cryptic verse:
to the borderlands east turn
your eye
at the cross lies truth
I'd like to try something. I will need to fold the cloth, but I promise I'll be very careful.
At Gabrielle's agreeing nod, Elise brought the top of the tapestry toward the center of the design, then lifted the bottom of the piece and folded them so that the castle and the field below Lucan's mount met.
Castle and croft shall come together under the crescent moon,' she murmured, watching as the two meeting portions of the design formed a new picture.
It looks like some kind of mountain range, Tess said, as a distinctly shaped rock formation became visible within the stitches. How did you know to do that?
The Odolf journal contained odd scribblings--the same weird phrases that Petrov Odolf became obsessed with in the weeks before he went mad with Bloodlust and turned Rogue. The same phrases that his brother had written before he went Rogue. My God...it seemed like a puzzle we were never going to solve.
Gabrielle's eyes were wide. You mean this tapestry is somehow linked to all of that?
I think it must be, Elise whispered. She looked back down at the folded design. To the borderlands east turn your eye...' Maybe if we turn the tapestry to the left?
She pivoted the weaving ninety degrees, so that the top border was facing east. The folded center was running vertical now. And within the design emerged another--one that hadn't been obviously visible until held at this new angle. The faint outline of a cross was stitched into the tapestry, and in the center of it was a single word spelled out in the threads.
Praha,' Elise read aloud, astonished that a voice from so long ago was suddenly speaking through the silk and canvas of her work. The secret, whatever it is, is in Prague.
That's incredible, Savannah gasped.
She reached out and ran her fingertips over the hidden text. No sooner had they skimmed the stitches when the female drew her hand back as if she'd been burned.
Oh, my God. Her dark brown eyes were stricken and wide. She pressed her hand down onto the fabric again, holding it there in grave silence.