“Anaïstromeria,” I said under my breath. “Stop.”

She kept walking.

“Anaïstromeria, turn around.” My fingers dug into the stones of the wall I leaned against, mortar crumbling. “Anaïstromeria, come back to me.” If she’d been half a world away, she would have heard. Such was the power of a true name.

It was only the dead who could not hear.

Chapter 7

Tristan

“What are you doing?”

I did not let my attention waver from the five white shapes bobbing about in the basin full of bubbling water. “Making lunch.”

“Boiled eggs?”

I slowly lifted my gaze to meet Marc’s, all but daring him to make a comment, but he wisely refrained.

“Did you see Anaïs? Would she speak to you?”

I snorted softly, and the water in the basin went nearly all to steam in an instant. “She isn’t Anaïs.” I poured cold water over my eggs to cool them, then set the basin aside.

“I know she seems different,” Marc started to say, but I interrupted him.

“Someone is posing as her, but Anaïs is dead.”

My cousin sat down heavily on a chair. With one hand, he pushed back his hood, his light extinguishing as he did. “How is that… Are you certain?”

“She was wearing flat shoes,” I said, as though that would explain everything.

Marc lifted his head. “Tristan…”

There was concern in his voice, so I quickly added, “Her nails were bitten, and her laugh was off key. She isn’t our Anaïs.” I picked up an egg and stared at it. “Whoever she is, she’s my father’s accomplice, and the plot was planned well. She claimed he saved her life, which means that he must have arranged to somehow do so. With a witch.” I set the egg down. “He had a witch in Trollus the entire time.” He had planned everything.

I looked up at his sharp intake of breath, certain he was about to accuse me of having lost my mind to be making such accusations. “I called her by name, and she did not answer, so I know it isn’t her. Anaïs is dead.”

Marc slumped forward, burying his face in one hand. His shoulders twitched once, then again.

You inconsiderate bastard. I directed a few more choice words at myself for realizing too late that while I had months to come to terms with my grief, Marc had not. His relationship with Anaïs had been tense since Pénélope had died, but they were still close, in their own way. Family too, if by marriage and not by blood.

“Victoria will be devastated.”

His words were thick with emotion, and they sparked multiple realizations within me. No one, with the exception of Cécile, my father, me, and now Marc, knew that Anaïs was dead. No one grieved for her. None of the death rituals of our people had been given to her, none of the words spoken, none of the songs sung. Much had been done to our friend, and much was still being done to her memory, and my father was the cause of all of it.