Three Promises Read Online Free PDF Page A

enjoy them. Elaine glanced over the Tintoretto painting, then she gave a final, mournful glance to the Botticelli, her Botticelli. Everyone had thought the model was Simonetta Vespucci. In truth, it had been Elaine. She knew she’d just been a stand-­in, but as the passion and love Sandro had felt for Simonetta, and had put into every brushstroke, washed over her now, Elaine didn’t care at all.
    E laine let out a long sigh, coming back from her memories. She wiped absently at the tears that ran down her cheeks, then took a drink of her tea. It had gone cold, but she didn’t care.
    Faolan had returned, and she had gone with him willingly to stand before the Cruinnigh. They charged her with violating the Oaths. Well, not technically the Oaths, just an edict of nonintervention in mortal affairs. It was really just an excuse for the nobles of the Old World Regions not to dirty their hands in the war. And Elaine had said as much.
    It hadn’t been a persuasive argument.
    Faolan had spoken on her behalf. He tried to explain that she wasn’t directly involved, but merely showing mercy for mortal children. It was no different than the court had done in the past.
    Neither he, nor she, had spoken of his transgressions, how he’d violated the edict by helping her. And Elaine never would.
    The regent of the Old World had retorted that these times were not like any other, that never before had so much of mortal kind been embroiled in war. The court was bound by its word not to involve itself in mortal affairs, especially not of this scale. He’d reminded Elaine that she was a noble of the Rogue Court, not some noon fae rabble, and she needed to behave as such.
    It had been quite a shock to everyone, including herself, when Elaine said that if cold indifference to wholesale murder was what made a noble, she wanted no part of it.
    She took another drink of her tea and smiled, remembering the look on the regent’s face.
    They’d stripped her of her rank and locked her away. She shuddered, forcing down the memories of her dank cell and how the smell of exotic, blooming flowers that drifted in from the only window, far too high to see out of, almost taunted her.
    She later learned from a guard that Faolan had confessed his assistance to the Cruinnigh. He was only saved from censure by the magister of the New World Eastern Region, who’d sent word that he had desperate need of Faolan’s ser­vices.
    It had taken almost two months of planning, and some deeds she wasn’t particularly proud of, but Elaine escaped. She had been chased all over Europe by various marshals, but thankfully none had been as skilled as Faolan, so she always managed to stay one step ahead of them. When she learned that the allies had tasked a small group with saving the great works of art from Hitler, she’d helped when she could. She even handed over most of the paintings she’d found, only keeping those she was directly connected to. Her primary focus though had been on helping Jews, Gypsies, and others marked as undesirable escape the Nazi death camps; almost two hundred, mostly children, by the war’s end. It was nothing compared to the millions she couldn’t save, but it was something.
    Eventually, after the magisters and regent could no longer deny the atrocities that had occurred, the Cruinnigh pardoned her. It was as close as they would ever come to admitting they were wrong. They did offer to restore her rank, but she refused and went to America instead.
    Her eyes moved to another painting. It hung apart from the others, so it could be viewed from almost anywhere in the flat. It showed the kitchen of an old farmhouse in the northeast of France and a woman handing a tin of meat to two small children. It wasn’t a masterwork, but it was more precious to Elaine than all the others put together. The artist, an elementary school teacher in New York City, and her brother, a pediatrician who was