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The Feast of the Departed was the first religious responsibility they had faced together, as lord and lady of Tresingale.

It was held every year on the third of October, the night that Imele Mer, the star of Agnephus, hung longest in the sky.

Remin spent the day on his own preparations, from the grunt work of hauling tables and chairs from the cookhouse to the market square, where Wen was supervising six massive spits containing three bears and three boars.

The valley’s first feast would be a rustic one, composed mostly of game and forage with crusty wheat bread.

Simple food, but of the finest quality.

Ophele was only a little less busy.

To her fell the duties of a hostess, and Remin forced himself to stand back and let her do it, flying about all morning to confirm that the number of plates and chairs would be equal to the number of guests.

By sunset, both were back at the cottage and dressed in their finest, with Ophele in her red silk gown and braided coronet, and Remin in a black doublet with silver buttons.

Silently, he bent his head to let Ophele place a heavy onyx-studded chain over his shoulders, one of the few pieces of jewelry he owned.

It was an important night.

Tonight, they would meet the spirits of each other’s families.

“You look beautiful,”

he told her, drawing her to him for a kiss.

She looked like the coming of autumn in crimson and gold, her rich brown hair gleaming .

There was always an uncanny feeling in the air on the night of the Feast.

The sky was clear, and the stars shone so bright and close, it was as if a veil had drawn back between heaven and the earth.

The night was cool and crisp, scented of woodsmoke, roasting meat, and apples, and the moon was rising early and yellow over the distant mountains.

All around them, people streamed toward the town square, washed and dressed in their best clothing.

It made the square look even more plain in contrast, especially when Remin remembered other feasts: the grand tables at Ereguil, the beautiful banquet hall of his father.

Here was only a large space paved in stone, surrounded by iron lamp-posts, with rough-hewn tables and benches packed together.

There was a row of white tapers down the middle of each table and a fine place setting at each end, plates made of fine china and crystal glasses, guest seats prepared for the spirits of the dead.

These notes were incongruous rather than graceful.

But it was the best hospitality he could offer.

“Everyone looks so nice,”

Ophele whispered as they took their seats at the high table, looking with wonder at the knights lined up beside them, dressed in their court finest.

Even Bram had donned a velvet doublet, though he usually said he’d rather be hanged.

When all the seats were filled and the tables were groaning under the weight of the food, Remin rose to lead the prayer.

Normally, it would have been the cleric’s place, but the Temple was taking its time in selecting just the right cleric to send to Remin Grimjaw.

“The harvest is in,”

he said, leading with the most important point.

“The valley’s first harvest, and everyone contributed something to it.

The food on these tables is here because we put it here.

We broke our backs putting it here,”

he added, with a nod that included everyone.

“Tonight, in the presence of the beloved departed, we share the products of our year’s labor, and honor them with the guest’s portion.”

He paused.

At every table, Wen’s boys cut and served thick slabs of roasted meat, filling the guests’ plates with potatoes, honey-roasted carrots, and generous slices of bread.

Bram and Wen did the honors at Remin’s table, then filled the glasses with a rich dark wine.

Only when they were all filled did he speak again.

“From the hunters, who brought in this meat.

From the planters of the wheat, last spring.

From those who foraged the forest… ”

So saying, Remin reached for Ophele’s hand to his right and Edemir’s hand to his left, simultaneously ink-stained and calloused, the hand of a warrior scholar.

He spoke of everyone that had contributed to this feast, and also those who had guarded the gatherers and farmers, the community that was joining hands even as he watched.

Two thousand people could not fit in the town square.

The invitation to this feast had been extended only to those who had made their oaths to him as their lord, the people who would live here all their lives.

“Beloved dead, come and rest from your journey,”

he said, and heard the answering murmur of all his people.

“Beloved dead, we have set you a place.

Beloved dead, come sit among us, who would share what we have in our season of plenty.”

Every candle went out, as if one breath had puffed them all at once.

This was a very good omen.

The smoke from the candle wicks wafted up to the starry heavens, and Ophele’s hand squeezed his, her head tilted back as she looked at the sky.

“Blessed be the bounty before us,”

Remin said, loud and steady.

“May the grace of the stars lie forever on our land.”

“So long as the Covenant endures,”

said everyone else, up and down the tables, and Remin pulled out Ophele’s seat for her, then took his own.

For the first few minutes, it was quiet as everyone served themselves from immense platters, and Wen brought Remin his food, separately prepared and guarded with the usual ferocity.

Everyone kept glancing at the ends of the tables, wondering who might be there, aware of the open sky overhead as if every star were the eyes of the departed.

Some years were better than others; last year, it had rained, and they had never managed to light the candles.

But this year, Remin was sure the spirits were present and listening.

“Rasiphe would have liked this,”

said Tounot, the first to speak a name as he skewered a thick slice of bear meat, slightly sweet to the taste.

“Remember that time Lord Polyeon sent us all that beef? Early in the war, when everyone was still enthusiastic.

Rasiphe must’ve eaten half a cow by himself.”

“Rasiphe, Huber, Victorin, Clement, and I were pages together,”

Remin murmured to Ophele.

Huber had been much on his mind as the weather chilled, and he was hoping that he had not already joined the beloved dead.

That would have put a final punctuation on their complicated friendship.

“I’ve never seen anyone eat like Rasiphe.”

“And he was skinny as a pike, for all that,”

agreed Edemir.

“Maybe we should have had the hunters kill an extra bear for him.”

There was a gentle peace as the decanter went around to fill their wine glasses again, not enough to become drunk, but enough to dull the pain as they spoke of their dead.

They had all been burned and buried in the valley, part of its soil, part of its air.

The dead did not want their grief tonight, the one night of the year when they could come and dwell among the living.

“Stars, Miche hated him.”

Remin said, leaning back in his chair.

“Rasiphe had an answer for everything.

I remember once, we were sneaking out to sample some wine while old Grout—that was Gronoult, the butler, wife—was busy attending on the duchess’s ball.

Miche caught us coming down from the window, and Rasiphe said we were testing Duke Ereguil’s defenses and congratulated him for catching us.”

That sent a low chuckle around the table.

“His plans always involved climbing,”

said Tounot, shaking his curly head.

“Only Rasiphe could’ve spidered up under the Gresein Bridge like that.

Long arms.”

They drank to Rasiphe’s long arms.

They spoke of Bon, who had loved to sing, and used to fill the quiet around the campfire with music.

They drank to Clement, an unlikely swordsman if there ever was one, nervous and stuttering and a lion in the end.

Ludovin had used his gift for mimicry as a spy, but what they remembered now was how he made them laugh with the contortions of his mobile face.

He had been especially good at mimicking Juste, and used to borrow Juste’s gentle voice to say the filthiest things…

And Victorin.

“Duke Ereguil’s middle son,”

Remin said, for Ophele’s benefit.

He was not drunk, but he felt a little light as the wine tingled on his tongue.

“We met when I was…five, I think.

The duchess kept us often together, when I first came to Ereguil.”

She had been wise to think that Victorin’s sunshiny nature was exactly what Remin needed, in the unbearable days after his family had been executed.

Maybe no one else could have drawn him back out of himself.

Everyone said he was the son of traitors, and his family deserved to die; Remin would not let them see him cry.

Except at night, when the tears came no matter how hard he tried to fight them.

And every time, Victorin had slipped out of bed to come stand beside him in the dark, patting his shoulder and saying it’s all right, it’s all right, as many times as it took.

Victorin had been Remin’s brother in every way but blood.

That pain was still too great to speak.

Instead, Juste and Tounot spoke for him, telling the familiar stories all of them had heard many times before, but no less beloved for it.

Victorin had been the spitting image of Duke Ereguil, with the eyes of a hawk and a nose to match.

One of those men with lightning in his veins, just a little more vital than everyone else.

And Remin was guiltily aware that it was fortunate Huber was not there. He could not have met Huber’s eyes, when the talk turned to Victorin.

They drank to the numberless dead of the war.

They raised their glasses to Tresingale’s dead over the past year: many to the devils, and more to the simple, lethal mishaps of building a city.

And Remin breathed a prayer of his own for his villagers, whose fate was not yet known.

But there could be no sweetness without the bitterness of their loss, and Remin also wondered what Victorin would have thought of Ophele, and of the valley, and what place he would have had in it, if he had lived.

Maybe beyond the gates of the stars, there was another Tresingale already, and Victorin was there, making a place for Remin.

His mind was filled with wondering as the night went on, conscious of the shifting shadows as the people in the square began to leave.

There was no formal end to the feast.

People left when they were ready, taking small pouches of incense from the baskets Nore Ffloce had put underneath the lamps, to go home for more private communions.

He thought that time had come for Ophele and himself.

“The night before I got married, Miche told me something,”

Remin began, in the next lull in the conversation.

He was glad the wine had loosened his tongue.

“He said all of them—Bon, Clement, Rasiphe, Ludovin, Victorin—would have wanted to see it.”

In the dark, his hand found Ophele’s effortlessly.

“I think they would have wanted the same for all of you.

All of us.

Homes, and families.

Thank you,”

he said to the empty place at the end of the table, lifting his cup.

“Thank you for everything we have.”

Ophele rose with him, lifting her own untouched wineglass.

“I wish I could have known you,”

she said, and shared her cup with them, even though Remin could see her mouth puckering as she sipped.

She still did not like wine.

“Good night.”

Even tonight, guards trailed them as they walked home together, a long line of torches lighting the road from the square to Eugene Street.

Ophele’s light steps patted on the cobblestones beside him, but Remin couldn’t help imagining other, heavier steps, and Victorin’s grin, eternally light of heart.

“You miss them,”

Ophele said softly, her fingers slipping into his.

“They must have been very good men.”

“Yes.

I’m sorry we mostly talked about them,”

he added.

“I did think of your mother, but I didn’t know if you’d want to speak of her there.”

“No, it’s all right.

I liked listening.

And my mother…”

Her steps slowed.

When he turned to her, she was looking back at the feast behind them, illuminated only by the moon and stars.

The murmur of conversation was still audible, indistinct as the wind in the trees.

“She was always sorry,”

Ophele said, her eyes filled with something he couldn’t read.

“For Sir Justenin, and Duke Ereguil, and especially for you.

Even when I was little, I remember her saying that.

That she was sorry for what happened to you.”

“I know.”

Remin was a little confused.

She had told him this before.

And she looked so troubled, he lifted a hand to her cheek, as if he could brush the worry away.

“I’m looking forward to speaking to her,”

he said, mentally readying himself for what he would have to say.

He had much to answer for, to the spirit of Ophele’s mother.

“And your parents,”

she replied, with a nervous fluttering of her hands.

“We’ll be together.”

Seeing her anxiety steadied him.

He held out a hand to her.

“Come.

I want to introduce them to my wife.”

* * *

Ten years before, Ophele had been summoned to Lady Hurrell’s dressing room on another Feast of the Departed.

Such summons were not unusual.

She had even been hoping for it, that day; Lady Hurrell had been stringing her along for weeks with the promise that she would get to see her mother.

As the maids ushered Ophele into the room, her eyes went straight to Lady Hurrell’s dressing table, where the blue satin pouch of incense was waiting, emblazoned with a silver star.

The lady said nothing.

The small, opulent boudoir was silent as she leaned forward to smudge lip dye on her lips with a fingertip, with only a flick of her eyes to acknowledge the child’s presence.

Lady Hurrell was a handsome woman with honey-blonde hair and china-blue eyes, and since no maid could apply her cosmetics to her satisfaction, she did it herself.

It was one of the many deprivations she suffered because Ophele’s mother had ruined House Hurrell.

The silence swelled to fill the room, and Lady Hurrell gave herself a final look in the mirror and then turned in her seat.

“Do you know why I sent for you?”

“For the incense?”

But that hope was already fading, and Ophele’s stomach gave a flutter of nausea.

Two and a half years after her mother’s death, she had already learned to recognize the warning signs.

“No.”

Lady Hurrell sighed.

“Ophele.

Don’t you have something to tell me?”

Ophele shook her head.

“Really?”

Another shake.

“My brooch is missing.”

Lady Hurrell tapped the empty space on her bodice.

There was only one brooch that she could mean.

Ophele’s mother had had an opal brooch that shifted color in the light, a beautiful object that Ophele had loved to look at very much.

But after her mother’s death, it went to Lady Hurrell, along with most of the rest of her mother’s possessions.

Ophele cringed back as she approached, but there was nowhere to go; the maids barred the door behind her.

Lady Hurrell’s silk skirts swayed, wafting the scent of rose sachet .

“Did you take it?”

Ophele shook her head a third time.

Back then, she had still hoped that if she didn’t speak, then she couldn’t be accused of lying.

The lady had already taught her that she was a bastard, and bastards were liars, crooked, deceitful creatures.

Ophele’s mother had done a terrible thing when she made her.

“Tell me the truth.”

Lady Hurrell’s fingers closed painfully on her chin, forcing her to look up.

“Did you take that brooch, Ophele?”

“No…”

A hand cracked across her face.

The shock of it was almost as bad as the pain, and Ophele started to cry.

The maids stood behind her, expressionless.

“Why are you lying?”

Lady Hurrell rarely showed anger.

Her face was just sad.

“I have told you again and again how important it is to tell the truth.”

“But I don’t…”

Another slap.

Ophele’s head rocked.

“I must punish you if you lie, child.”

Lady Hurrell crouched down to Ophele’s level, patting her red cheek and making her flinch.

“It makes me sad that you are making me punish you.

Do you know where the brooch is?”

She didn’t.

Ophele was sure she didn’t.

But Lady Hurrell was just as sure that she did, and so hurt, so disappointed, great tears welled in her eyes as she slapped Ophele again and again.

They were all so sure, Ophele even began to doubt herself, even as she denied it ever more frantically.

Had she done it? Surely Lady Hurrell wouldn’t say so unless she had done something bad, would she? In the end they were weeping together, Ophele’s eyes swollen shut with tears as she sobbed hysterically.

“Ophele, you must tell the truth.

It will all be better if you tell the truth,”

Lady Hurrell pleaded.

“You know where it is, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes,”

Ophele sobbed.

“Where?”

But she didn’t know.

Or maybe she did know and had forgotten.

Maybe she had taken the brooch and was such a liar, she had even lied to herself.

Lady Hurrell’s voice went remorselessly on, reminding Ophele of everything her mother had done and asking how she could be such a bad, ungrateful girl, to steal a brooch when she already would never be able to pay House Hurrell back.

In the end, Ophele was a liar.

She lied wildly, frantically, spilling forth whatever words she needed to say to make it stop.

It was a relief to just give up.

She sent the maids to the attic, to the cellar, to the library, lying again and again about where she had hidden the brooch.

And when it was perfectly clear to everyone that she was lying, Lady Hurrell ordered her taken back to her room, without the pouch of sacred incense.

“Your mother would not want to see you, after such a day,”

Lady Hurrell sighed.

Ophele had cried herself sick.

“Ophele.

Your mother was a liar, too.

The stars cursed her with a bastard for her lies. They cursed her to sicken and die.”

The bed shifted as Lady Hurrell sat beside her, brushing her hair back from her hot face.

“I should hate for that to happen to you,”

she murmured.

“You stay here tonight and think about what you have done.

Perhaps next year you will see your mother.”

That was not the last Feast of the Departed that Ophele spent in her bedroom, looking up at the stars through her window and calling to her mother.

And when the brooch was found some weeks later, she never questioned that she had been the one to hide it under Lady Hurrell’s dressing table.

She must have done it and then forgotten.

And when she came to Lady Hurrell and admitted it, the lady had been so kind, picking her up into her lap and embracing her.

“There, you see?”

she whispered, her soft cheek pressed against Ophele’s thin one.

“Isn’t it better when you tell the truth?”

“Yes,”

Ophele said, almost inaudible.

“I’m sorry.

I’m s-sorry I…lied.”

“I know you can’t help it, child,”

the lady said tenderly.

“You’re a bastard.

Bastards lie.”