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Liliane de Souverain was the mother of Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève and an adept of Jasmine House of the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers. After making her marque by the time she was nineteen, she fell for a patron, Pierre Cantrel, who was the third son of a merchant prince, and later became his wife. Though Cantrel bid for Liliane's hand, the Dowayne of Jasmine House refused him so the couple eloped. Some months after, she gave birth to a daughter, Phèdre. Because the child failed to meet the canon of any of the thirteen houses of the Night Court due to the scarlet mote in her eye, Jasmine House declined to support her. In response, her husband begged stewardship of a trade caravan to Caerdicca Unitas from his father. A poor trader, Cantrel traded at a loss and he and his young wife and daughter returned to the City of Elua penniless. He was granted a final chance from his father on the condition they guarantee the trade with their own money. Desperate for money, Liliane begged an audience with Miriam Bouscevre, the Dowayne of Cereus House and sold her daughter Phèdre into indenture. At the time the gave up Phèdre, Liliane was pregnant with another child, who would be born four months later. Liliane never saw her first child again. Years later, when Phèdre's name and deeds were famous throughout Terre d'Ange, she speculated that her mother and father must be dead, as if they were not, they would have recognized the famed Comtesse de Montrève as their daughter.

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