‘And one other text.”

“In a language I don’t recognize, glossed in places in Arethousan, which I also cannot read.”

“I can read Arethousan. ‘God was born in the flesh so that you will also be born in the spirit.’ “

She had expected many things, guessing that she and Hugh would one day meet and that on that day she would have to remember her strength. But this so shook her that at first she could not speak.

He waited, always patient.

“That’s a heresy! The church condemned the belief in the Redemption.”

“At the Great Council of Addai. Yet what if the Redemption is the truth? What if the holy mothers were lying?”

“Why would they?”

“Who can know what was in their hearts? What if the blessed Daisan allowed himself to be martyred in expiation for the sins of humankind? What if the account bound into Bernard’s book is true, the very words of St. Thecla the Witnesser herself? I have studied. The text your father hid in his book is an account of the redemption of the blessed Daisan, son of God. It is the witness of St. Thecla herself, and glossed by an unknown hand in Arethousan—because the original text is written in the tongue of Sais, as was spoken in ancient days. As was spoken by the blessed Daisan. It was his mother’s tongue.”

“It can’t be.”

“Perhaps not. Where did Bernard find this book and why did he bind it with the others?”

“I don’t know. He never spoke of it. He must have found it in the east. It could be a forgery. Arethousa is rotten with heresy.”

“So the Dariyan church says. But it could also be the truth. Here.” He stepped back from the table. “Judge for yourself.”

It was impossible to stop herself from picking up the candle and approaching him, to see that in truth and indeed a book lay on the table. Was it Da’s old, familiar, beloved book? That book was the last thing she had that linked her to Da except his love and his teaching, except his blood and his crime against the creature that had become her mother, whom he had killed all unwittingly and out of love.

Da’s book.

She halted before she got into sword range. “What do you mean to do?”

“It’s yours. I’m giving it back to you.”

She tried to speak, but only a hoarse “ah” “ah” got out of her throat. She struggled against tears, against anger, against grief, against such a cascade of emotions that he moved before she understood he meant to and glided away through one of the archways and vanished into the shadows, just like that.

She bolted forward, sure that the book would vanish, too, become like mist and evaporate as under the glare of the sun, but when she reached to touch it, it was solid and so very very dear to her. She could still smell Da’s scent on it, even though she knew that fragrance was only a memory in her mind. She grasped it, the heft of it, its weight. Metal clasps held the book together. The leather binding was grayed with age, but it had been oiled and lovingly cared for, and the brass roses adorning the metal clasps had been polished to a fine gleam. She ran her fingers down the spine, reading with her touch the embossed letters: The Book of Secrets.