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Now that was changing Nobody said anything, and certainly no edicts came down from Pouncy, but the atmosphere becaation was cooling and te their collective mood Less wine came out with dinner, and sometimes none at all The food became plainer Conversations were conducted in hushed tones, as they would be in the halls of aroot a Fro into soious retreat

Julia felt it too She began getting up at dawn She spoke only when necessary Herto one another in an eht she slept heavily--deep-ocean sleep, cale, silent, luround visited her in her room She came in the form of a statue of herself, the one froave Julia a wooden cup Sitting up, Julia lifted it to her lips and drank like a feverish child being given ht of the Donne poeoddess leaned down and kissed her, with her hard, gilded icon’s face

Then the statue broke apart, its outside cruoddess, clear at last She was grave and unbearably lovely, and she held her attributes in either hand: a gnarled olive staff in her right, a bird’s nest with three eggs in it in her left Half of her face was in shadow, for the half of the year she spent underground Her eyes were full of love and forgiveness

"You are hter I will co on her door

"Come look," he whispered when she opened it "You have to see this"

Still drowsy in her nightgown, Julia followed hih the darkened house She felt as if she were still drea The floor creaked loudly, as it always did when one tried to creep through a house by night They padded down stone steps to a baseh-impact experihts were off A single coherent shaft of h hich was at ground level outside She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes

"Okay," Pouncy said "Before we lose the light"

There was a table in the room, with a white tablecloth and a sil on it three tier

"Hold out your hands, like this" He cupped his hands

When Julia cupped hers, he held the asped I cold and hard Coins They made a sound like rain

"They’re silver," Pouncy said "I think they’re real"

One of the coins jingled on the floor and rolled away This was powerfulelse she’d ever seen

"Let n he’d made on the mirror This ti white and liquid It pooled on the table, soaking into the cloth She touched a finger to it and tasted it Milk

"How did you do this?" she said

"I’m not sure," Pouncy said, "but I think I prayed"

"Oh God" She forced down a hysterical giggle "Who did you pray to?"

"I found it in one of these old Provençal books Langue d’oc stuff The language looked like an incantation, but I ondering why there were no gestures to go with it So I just got on my knees and clasped ht about--well, I thought about OLU"

"Let’s have a look under the hood"

There were siic visible: they showed you the ways the energy was running in and around an object with an enchantment on it But what Julia sahen she cast one on the ic she’d ever seen: a tracery of fine lines in an ornate pattern like a tapestry, so dense that it almost obscured the icians a year at least to put all those channels in place Instead Pouncy had done it alone, in one night, with a si she’d ever heard of

"You did this? Just now?"

"I don’t know," he said "I don’t think so I said the words, but I think somebody else ely light There was a sweet s on an impulse, she dabbed a little of the milk on each of her eyelids Instantly her vision sharpened and clarified, like when they change the settings at the ophthal close, Julia," Pouncy said "We’re getting close to the divine praxis I can feel it"

"I don’t like feeling things," she said "I like knowing them"

But she had to admit, she felt it too The only word she could think of to describe this ht or playful about it: it was dead fucking sober ic Serious as a heart attack Where was the line between a spell and a ht into silver coins wasn’t exactly parting the Red Sea, but the effortlessness hich it was accoer possibilities It was aoff an enor Asmodeus was at breakfast Real breakfast, not her usual lunch-breakfast She was practically vibrating with excitement She refused any food

"I found him," she said, with finality

"Who?" Julia said It was a little early for Asmodeus in her maximum-intensity mode "Whom did you find?"

"The hermit The tarasque’s holy man He’s a saint Or not a saint, exactly, not in the strictly Christian sense But he calls himself one"

"Explain," Pouncy said around a hunk of the al

"Well," and here Asue for a ure out, this guy is about two thousand years old Right? He calls himself Amadour--says he used to be a saint, but they defrocked hi in a cave Red hair, beard down to here Says he serves the goddess, the old one, the one we’re always hearing about He wouldn’t name her, but it has to be her Our Lady, OLU For a while he passed as a Christian saint, he told ot outed as a pagan and they tried to crucify hi in a cave ever since

"And at first I was all, sure, buddy, saint or crazy hos Weird things, guys, things we don’t kno to do He can shape rock with his hands He heals anis nobody knows He--he healed a scar I have Had He o away"

Her voice faltered Julia had never seen Asry that she’d let a secret slip Julia had never seen Asmodeus’s scar She wondered if sheelse

"Can you take us to hientle He seee she was

She shook her head quickly, trying to recover herself and not succeeding

"You only see hio find him yourself, maybe, but I can’t tell you where the cave was I mean, I remember, but I can’t tell you Literally--I tried just now" She shrugged helplessly "Nothing comes out"

They all looked at each other over the cold crusts and dead coffee