The ground before the oldest row of head stones had been disturbed, and he wondered if some inquisitive scientist had been at the graves, wrenching the sisters from their sleep so as to peer at their bones and decide whether they had starved or had been diseased. Modern mortals respected nothing, not even the dead.
"Are ye one of the protestors?" a sharp old voice asked behind him. "I'll not have you chaining yourself to anything."
He turned and looked upon the elderly mortal. "No." He glanced down at the lilies he had gathered from a nearby field. "One of my family is buried here. Her name was Sister Marian Christopher."
"There's one Marian." The old man pointed. "Over there, in the back."
He went to the grave, which occupied a corner beneath the shade of an elm tree, and looked at the stone. Her name, Marian, was all that he could make out. The year of her death had been wiped clean by the wind.
He knelt and placed the bouquet of lilies before the stone. "I loved you from the first moment I saw you," he murmured. "I would have tried to make you happy."
The groundskeeper hobbled over to stand beside him. "The developers began moving the sisters to a Catholic cemetery down the road. They would have taken the stones, too, but the protestors raised bloody blue hell, and now it's in the courts." He nodded toward the grave. "There's nothing there, lad."
"I know." His hell on earth had taken the dream of heaven from him, but he prayed she was there. "She is at peace now."
"No, I mean when they opened that grave and took out the coffin to move it with the others in this row," the old man said. "I remember the fuss they made about hers."
Nottingham stood. "What are you talking about?"
"There wasn't a body, lad." He gestured toward the empty grave. "That box was filled with stones."
"It is good to be home," Phillipe said as he carried Alex's suitcase into her bedchamber at La Fontaine.
"It sure is." Alex sat down on the bed she shared with Michael and bounced on it a few times. She had to tell him why she'd needed to leave Michael in England and come back to New Orleans a week early, but she still hadn't decided how to explain things. "You don't have to unpack, Phil. I'll take care of it."
He nodded but made no move to leave. "I called Suzerain Jaus downstairs. He tells me that there has been no word of your brother. He claims he never called you or told you that John had been found."
"I know." Alex faced him, and prayed that everything she thought she knew about her lover's seneschal was right. "I lied to you about that. John's still missing."
Disapproval flashed in Phillipe's light eyes. "Why would you lie about such a thing? We are all worried about your brother."
"I had to get away from Richard and Michael, and I needed you with me." Alex took a deep breath. "I'm human."
He frowned. "Yes, you are the most human Kyn who has ever existed, but—"
"No, I'm really human, Phil. I found the answer while we were in England. I found a way to synthesize more of Beatrice's Tears, and to create a serum. I injected myself with it and made the change back to human overnight. That's why I harassed you about leaving before Michael woke up." She approached him and saw him take a step back. "Don't worry; it's not contagious."
He hesitated. "You're ill again. I thought as much as soon as I saw your face; you're gone very pale. Let me call the master and summon him home. The high lord will understand."
"No, Phil, I'm not crazy. I'm just not Kyn anymore."
"My lady." He groped for the right words. "I would not make you angry, but I cannot believe you."
"I could show you my X-rays and my blood tests, but all you really have to do is smell me or bite me." She pulled up her sleeve and extended her arm. "Be my guest."
Phillipe bent down and inhaled. "Mon Dieu." He straightened slowly, as if something had broken inside him. "What have you done. Alexandra?"
"I've found the cure." Tears made it hard for her to see. "I always told you guys that I would. All I had to do was keep looking. I kept looking and looking, and then there it was. I'm a great fucking doctor, don't you think?"
Phillipe pulled her into his arms and let her sob. His big hand stroked over her curls as he murmured in French to her.
Finally Alex regained a grip on her emotions and pulled away. "I have to know some things now. Does Michael's talent give him access to all my memories? Can he look into my mind and find out what I know and what I've done?"
"Non. He must know what it is that you remember before he can make you forget it. But Alex, he will know that you are once more human the very first time he smells or touches you." He hesitated. "He will never force you to become Kyn again."
"Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing." She unbuttoned the collar of her blouse. "That's why you're going to do it."
Phillipe recoiled. "You cannot ask that of me."
"I siphoned out two pints of blood from my veins this morning, so you shouldn't go into thrall when you drain me. You know what else you have to do." When he made no move toward her, she nodded. "Fine, then tell me who else you or Michael turned from human to Kyn. For this to work, I have to be infected with the same pathogen you two carry."
The seneschal sat down and rested his brow against his palms. "I cannot think. Wait." He lifted his head. "What of Lucan's sygkenis? Samantha was changed with your blood."
Alex shook her head. "My blood had already mutated before Lucan changed Sam; it would probably be lethal to me now. Also, she's a woman. For this to work I have to get a male Kyn with the same pathogen and re-create exactly what happened the first time, with Michael. Which means I have to be turned by someone who made the change with you and him during the good old days of the Crusades." She saw his expression change. "There is no one else, is there?"
"The master and me," Phillipe admitted. "Everyone else is dead." He squinted at her. "These last five years, all you have ever wished was to be made human again. Why do you want me to force another change on you?"
"Because force won't be involved. I'm choosing to do it this time." Alex knelt in front of him. "Phillipe, I love him, and I know he loves me. But he never wants to be human again. I didn't understand that until Robin was changed back. You saw how horrified Michael was when I told him, and how many times he asked me if I could make Robin Kyn again. That was when I realized it, and accepted it. Michael is Darkyn, and he'll never be happy being anything else."
The seneschal nodded.
"Don't get me wrong; I want to stay human," she continued. "I miss chocolate, and my patients, and getting a nice tan every summer. But there are a million human doctors in the world. The Kyn have only me."
He eyed her. "You could still help us if you are human."
"That's the plan. And can you really see me living out a normal human life, growing old and dying while Michael watches?" She took one of his big hands in hers. "I love him more than I ever loved being human. If you don't change me back, he'll be alone forever."
He met her gaze, his own haunted by fear and doubt. "Alexandra, you know what must be done. What I must do to you. You and I…"
"Kind of blows your mind, doesn't it?" She produced a single, dry laugh. "You're my best friend, Phil." She didn't want to press the issue, but she had to make things clear between them. "If you're worried about a repeat of what I went through with Korvel, I don't think it'll happen between us. You have no reason to bond with a woman."
"When did you know?"
"The night I left him the first time, and you came after me, and we danced at that bar." She sighed. "I was pretty clueless until then. I'm just sorry you've had to put up with listening to Michael and me going at it like rabbits."
"I do not always mind." He smiled a little, and then covered his face with his hands and groaned. "What are we doing? This is madness. If you are wrong, I could kill you instead of changing you."
"I wasn't wrong about the cure," she told him, standing up and looking down at him. "I'm not wrong about this."
Phillipe stood and put his hands on her shoulders. The scent of warm honeysuckle surrounded her and made her feel drowsy. "If you found the cure, then you must know what causes the curse as well."
"I was hoping to skip that part." She gave him a sleepy smile. "I had to know what made the change in order to reverse it. Stop making me tell you things that I don't want to."
"Richard would do anything to know how to create more of us." He put his arms around her. "We cannot allow him to discover what you have done, Alex."
"We're not going to tell anyone. If things get bad, I can always have Michael remove the memory. But I don't plan to tell him, either." She yawned and leaned against him. "Can you keep this a secret?"
He pushed her hair out of the way and bent down, his last word whispering against her skin: "Yes."
"Alexandra."
Alexandra Keller jerked awake and saw that she had fallen asleep at her lab table. She looked up and saw Phillipe's face and groaned.
"Nothing happened. It was only a shared dream." He glanced at the empty syringe sitting next to the scope. "You have injected yourself?"
She remembered the smile on Chris's face when she had speken of Robin. "No. There isn't any left. I gave it to Chris."
A shadow crossed Phillipe's face. "But why?"
"Because she and Robin love each other, and they were meant to be together. Like me and Michael." She gathered the slides, the syringe, and everything she had used for her tests, and placed that entire lot inside a cardboard box.