Leon had offered to pick him up, but Gregoire wanted to approach the place in his own time and on his own terms.

The Castle. God, it was hideous. Like something Eero Sarinen would build after being hit over the head too many times.

The closer Greg got to it, the uglier it seemed but at the same time… Yes, he understood why Liana was so impressed with it.

There was power here, though not gracefully applied. Gregoire spotted gaps and areas of instability, but someone of greater talent and skill than Maman could easily deal with those problems. He caught himself mentally smoothing out the rough areas, making the place what it truly could be — a humming, sparkling fortress, water-tight.

Magic.

And dangerous. Even now, talent exerted in that house would be doubled in power, perhaps tripled.

Leon answered the door.

“Uncle Greg, thank God,” he said.

“I was worried you might be too late. She’s so weak tonight.”

Greg tried to process this. It was hard enough for him to picture Maman weak, much less dying. “Have you sent for Laurette?”

“Grandmere won’t allow it. She says she doesn’t want Tante to see her like this. And anyway, Laurette has enough to handle with Artiste. Judy’s upstairs though.”

“Judith? Here?”

Leon shrugged. “She’s a relative, even if Grandmere won’t admit it out loud. When I told Grandmere we needed someone here, that I was going to send for someone whether she wanted me to or not, that’s who she asked for.”

Judith. Gentle, brilliant, untalented Judith was upstairs, Maman’s polar opposite. And Maman had asked for her.

Something fundamental had changed. Dear God. Maybe she really was dying.

‘You’re the one she’s been asking for, Greg. You need to get up there. Be with her. I think she wants to resolve some things.”

“Is she… Is she in pain?”

“She doesn’t seem to be. Judy is keeping an eye on her, making sure she’s as comfortable as possible.”

Leon sighed. “Uncle Greg, this has been a long time coming. You know, Grandmere must to be a little over a century old now. How long could we expect her to go on? I’m just glad you’re here, for her sake.”

Greg took off his hat. His mind, his heart, everything inside, were churning with too many emotions for him to name.

“Well, Nephew,” he said, smiling sadly. “Let us go upstairs.”

Judith was sitting next to the bed, her head bent over a textbook.

When they came in, she set the book down and rose. She hugged Greg, kissing him on the cheek. He tried to read her face, but saw only her usual gentle gravity. They needed to talk later this week. Every time he got a letter from Touperdu, he was afraid he’d learn she’d gotten engaged to some doctor, was finally defeated into marriage. That must not happen. There had to be advice he could give to prevent it — if he could just think of something.

But now…

He drew up the chair near the bed and sat down next to his mother.

She was so thin. In his mind, she was always solid and vigorous, with a round face, a double chin and broad shoulders. This face on the pillow was drawn, weary.

A spidery hand appeared over the covers.

Maman’s eyes opened, focused on his, and she shifted, murmuring something. Judith had risen from her chair.

“Gregoire,” whispered Maman, and he realized he was on his own feet, bending to help her, horrified by how light, how frail she felt as he helped her sit up, adjusted the pillows behind her back.

Only when after he’d adjusted her covers and stepped back did he see something close his mother again in those blue eyes. They were exhausted, defeated, but there was still a faint sharpness, a stab of famliar dissatisfaction with him. “Merci,” she said quietly.

She turned her head to look at Judith. “You are a good girl, cherie,” she said in her new, aged voice, “but I must speak with my son alone.” She looked at Leon, standing at the foot of her bed and tilted her head toward the door.

“We’ll be in the other room if you need us,” said Leon, as he and Judith walked out.

“So, my son,” she said in Fourchaise, “you have come at last. You have seen my house, my castle.” She raised her chin slightly with a ghost of her old pride. “What do you think of it.”

“It is impressive Maman.”

“Impressive,” Maman let out a sound that could have been either a cough or a laugh. “Your daughter appreciates it. Liana appreciates it a great deal.”

“Yes. Maman.”

She smiled. For a moment she closed her eyes.

“You are waiting behind all those walls you have built for what I will say next. Very well.”

She opened her eyes again. She was no longer smiling.

“I have made mistakes,” she said. “My worst was with you.”

“You are a father,” she continued. “So you know what it is to feel regret. It is inevitable with children. Do you know how many I had?”

“Seven,” he said.

“Yes. And with every one there were faults, there were… dissatisfactions. Except, I thought, with Telesphore. And he failed me, Gregoire… Failed me!” She almost spat out the words.

Anger rose in Greg like nausea. Of all the bitterness he felt towards his mother, the deepest, the blackest, surrounded Tel.

And then it dissolved when she almost cried, “He could not even outlive me,”

Her voice was soft, but it was as piercing as a wail. He was looking into the eyes of a woman who had lost too many children and had imagined, because they were grown, that particular pain was behind her.

“Maman…” His own voice shook.

“The mistakes I made, you have made too, Gregoire. Your daughter loves you. But… you know there is a lack she has always felt. You could have given her the things she wanted. Yes, I know, you care nothing for things. But she did. She does. Would it have been so terrible to work just a little harder, made just a little more money? Would it not have made you happy, when she was a girl, to give her a gift that truly made her smile? A pretty silk dress instead of a book? A gold necklace instead of a ticket to some lecture she cared nothing about? Could you not have let her enjoy life on her own terms?

Greg could not speak. He was remembering that fiasco of a present he’d tried to give Liana, that dinner at the restaurant where they humiliated her because of her race. No matter how hard he tried, how far ahead he planned, he always messed things up when it came to Liana.

The last time he truly made her eyes sparkle was when she was six and he brought home a kitten for Christmas.

“I told you in that letter I had her in mind,” she said. “I know that is why you came… No, my son…” He’d been opening his mouth to deny it.

“…don’t act as if that were shameful. It is not. It is sensible. This house… It must go to someone powerful and wise. It is in your line, Gregoire, where the talent is strongest. Liana has been here. She looks at this house with admiration and respect. She is not a dreamer like you. Liana has a good head on her shoulders, respects things that are real and solid. So, I am leaving this house to you.”

“To me? But Maman…”

“You do not want it. Yes, I know this. There is a condition. You must make me your promise, here, from your heart, that as soon as this house passes on to you, you will give it to your daughter.”

“As I said, I made many mistakes in my life. Perhaps I interfered where I should not. Perhaps I… perhaps, at one time, I stepped in between a father and daughter. I cannot leave this world with that unrectified. This house will be your gift to your child. It will come from your hand, with your blessing. Can you promise that from your heart?”

A promise from the heart. Among their kind, that was more binding than any legal document.

Maman was right. His daughter had a hard streak of shrewdness he’d always lacked when it came to the material world. There was more than a little of Maman in her — or Tel. He’d always preferred to imagine Liana like her uncle.

He could make his daughter’s eyes sparkle again.

For once he could offer her something she truly wanted.

“I promise,” he said.

Maman lay back, suddenly weary. “This house,” she said, her eyes closed. “Will go to your daughter. Say that, Gregoire. Say ‘I promise from my heart, this house will be a gift from my hands to my daughter.'”

“I promise, from my heart, this house will be a gift from my hands to my daughter.”

“Now kiss me,” she said softly.

The seal to the promise.

He bent and pressed his lips to her forehead. It was cold. He gently pulled up some of the blankets higher, tucked them a little more firmly around her.

“Merci, my son. I wish… I am so tired,” she said.

“Would you like me to stay?” he asked.

“No,” the word was a sigh. “I must sleep. Goodnight. Let me rest for a little.”

He looked at her for a moment. This thin, defeated woman was his stout, terrifying, maddening, infuriating mother. He still could not entirely believe it.

As he left, tears were stinging his eyes.

Why had they wasted so many years being angry with each other?

Uncle Greg only stopped long enough to tell Judy, “Your Great-grandmother…could you please check on her? Make sure she’s comfortable, that she…” Then he’d cleared his throat, turned his head away, and walked out, but not before she noticed his eyes were wet.

Of course, she went upstairs immediately.

The old woman lay very still, her eyes closed.

Judith had not been in the Castle since she was a teenager, and had been astonished when Leon called her that night. “I think… I think Grandmere is dying,” he’d said.

He’d sounded at a loss. Someone was needed there, and when he’d threatened to call a nurse, Great Grandmere had asked for her by name.

Judith moved closer to the bed. She had been In nursing school long enough to have learned the truth behind those old, melodramatic words about the ‘stamp of death’ being on someone’s face. When Judith had arrived, Great-Grandmere’s face had had that rigid set of the jaw, the eyes that were sleepy and dull and defiant. The old woman’s pulse had been weak, fluttery.

But then, after Uncle Greg arrived, she had sat up.

Was her face the same? It seemed more peaceful, more relaxed. Was Great-Grandmere still breathing?

“Great-Grandmere,” she said softly.

“I want,” the old woman said without opening her eyes, “to make water.”

“I’ll get the pan,” Judith said, turning.

“No,” Great Grandmere said. “I do not want the pan.”

Judith moved forward to help, but Great Grandmere waved her away.

She did not so much walk as stride past Judith towards the bathroom. Just outside the door, she stopped.

“Great-Gran…”

“Go home,” Great Grandmere said. “Tell your Uncle Leon to go home too.”

“I wish to be alone.”

She loved the view from her bedroom balcony at night.

It was soothing to look out at the ocean, the dark little spit of island where nobody lived because some sort of bird nested there. The land did not belong to her, but she could pretend it did, could imagine that some day, it would be part of the family’s property. Maybe it would. In the right hands, this house could truly be a seat of power.

She felt rather than heard her guest just before the glass doors behind her slid open.

The words Julia Plessis Madison uttered were in the same tongue Noelle had been speaking with Gregoire. “Your son,” she said, “is adorable.”

Gwennoelle turned to face her. “It is done?” she asked. “All went well?”

“All went beautifully. Yes, it is done. He was here just long enough for the final touches. This place is… Well, it’s remarkable, Tante. After all that effort, I’m only a little tired. By tomorrow afternoon I’ll be recovered enough to go home.”

“You will take care, yes? There must be no accidents. And when you return, you will come straight here, straight to this house.”

“Of course. You will get your heiress, Tante Noelle, have no fear. Continuing the line is one thing. I’m willing to sacrifice a few months for that, and I’m flattered to have been asked. But I have no interest in raising a child. Have you chosen a mother for it?”

“I have narrowed it down. Someone who is healthy and malleable. I thank you, Julia. The talent is strong in you, and I know your child will make me proud.”

“It was the most pleasurable favor I’ve done for anyone, Tante. That Gregoire — I see why you want another grandchild by him. When he was young he must have been incredible.”

“I do ask one thing, Tante. Do not underestimate Gregoire’s brains or his talent.”

“Please ensure that when he learns what we’ve done, he cannot find out where I am.”

“Your son is sweet, Madame, but I would prefer to be well out of his reach when he gets angry.”