Foss nodded his agreement. The solemn worry that had replaced the joy in his face twisted at my heart.
Aleki had thrown his mother’s hairpin on the ground and was now fishing out another from her collapsing crown of braids, oblivious to the upheaval of his life. Marcello watched him thoughtfully. “Do you have any idea what kind of magic he can do?”
Venasha and Foss exchanged glances, and Foss shook his head.
“None,” Venasha said.
“Not a vivomancer or a warlock, then,” I concluded, “since they use their powers instinctively, and they start showing up along with the mage mark.”
Zaira winced, and I immediately felt like an insensitive oaf. Hers had shown up by burning her parents to death.
Marcello nodded. “Since he’s either an alchemist or an artificer, that means there’s no rush to get a jess on him. He won’t be physically capable of using his powers until he’s older. Though I’d be careful if he’s mixing things together or doing scribble drawings, just in case.”
Alarm flashed into Venasha’s eyes.
“Oh,” Foss sighed. “A new way for him to cause havoc. And I thought climbing was bad.”
“Take a few days to think about what you want to do,” Marcello told them. “Let us know right away if anything happens to make you feel unsafe—people showing unusual interest in him, or powers starting to manifest. And don’t be afraid to come to the garrison for help at any hour.”
“Or to me,” I put in.
Foss caught my eyes. “Amalia, you’ve been to the Mews. Just tell me … Tell me, truly. Will he be happy there?”
I felt all their attention on me. Venasha and Foss, full of hope and fear, with unshed tears standing in their eyes. Zaira, daring me to lie. And Marcello, urging me with every line of his face to praise the place that was home and family to him.
“Most of the Falcons I’ve met seem to be happy,” I said slowly. “It’s a safe place. A comfortable place. The Falconers are good people.”
Zaira let out a soft snort, but kept her mouth shut, thank the Graces.
Venasha tried an uncertain smile. “And I suppose if we do move to the Mews, we’ll see you more often, Amalia.”
This was too much for Zaira. “A little,” she said with a bright, false smile. “Every now and then.”
I nodded, and hugged Venasha and Aleki in one big, squirmy armful. But the knot in my throat wasn’t one of joy.
Even believing everything I’d said about the Mews, I couldn’t pretend this was good news. Whatever Aleki might have been, whatever future Venasha and Foss might have seen unfold for him, whatever thousand roads might have lain before him … now there was only one.
It might not be a bad road. But he was too small to know his feet were on it, let alone choose his way.
I could feel the fury radiating off Zaira like heat as the three of us left the gardens.
“I’d say I can’t believe you, but I can.” She glared an inferno at me and Marcello. “You’re really going to take that baby from his home, put a jess on him, and raise him as a soldier.”
Marcello stopped before the garden gates and faced her. “What would you have me do? I can’t change the Serene Accords. All I can do is make the Mews the best place possible for the mage-marked.”
“It’s easy to say you can’t change the world.” Zaira shook a finger at him. “But people do change it. I don’t know much history, but I know that. Don’t say it can’t be done if you really mean you’re too lazy to try.”
The memory of the mage mark boldly circling Aleki’s sweet, trusting eyes cut into my heart. I curled my hands into fists.
“Maybe you can’t alter the law,” I said to Marcello, “but I can.” I turned to Zaira. “It’ll take years. Maybe a lifetime. And we need to find a solution that will still protect both the mage-marked and the people around them. But I’ll try.”
Zaira snorted. “Raverra will never give up its grip on the mage-marked. We’re the source of the Empire’s power.”
“We can find a compromise. You’re the one who just said—” I broke off.
Through the garden gates, across the Plaza of Six Fountains, the River Palace loomed in its grandiose brick splendor. The plaza teemed with all the comings and goings of the heart of Ardence’s government: people arriving and departing by foot, horse, and coach; courtiers and servants alike having discussions in the open plaza, or sitting on the rims of the fountains with a book or a snack. But one figure in the livery of the Serene Envoy’s household crossed the plaza toward the public gardens at a run, heading straight for us, waving urgently.
“Lieutenant Verdi!” he called. “Come quickly!”
Marcello’s back stiffened. “What’s wrong?”
The messenger shook his head, panting. “I don’t know the details. The garrison sent the Envoy’s Palace a message over the courier lamps, calling you back to deal with an emergency. A Falconer’s been attacked.”
The young officer’s eye and nose were already swelling and darkening, and bandages wrapped his forearm and chest as he lay propped in bed in the garrison infirmary. He apologized profusely to Marcello, his eyes glazed from whatever they’d given him for the pain. Marcello sat beside him, reassuring the man it wasn’t his fault. Zaira and I hovered perhaps a pace behind Marcello, toeing the awkward boundary line between a respectful distance and an audible one.
“Lemi, I need you to tell me exactly what happened.” Marcello’s voice stayed calm, but I could read the rigid tension in his shoulders. I knew he was remembering the same thing I was: the doge had said to consider any assault against the Falconers an act of war.
The officer nodded weakly. “A request for help came in just after you left, Lieutenant. Supposedly from a family on a farm outside the city gates, with a daughter whose vivomancy was out of control.” He drew in a shaky breath. “But it was a trap.”
“Who attacked you?”
Lemi gestured across his face. “They wore gray masks. And gray cloaks.”
“The Shadow Gentry,” I breathed. What had Domenic gotten himself into?
Marcello leaned back in his chair, meeting my eyes. “This is terrible.”
Zaira crossed her arms. “That doesn’t mean anything. Gray masks are easy to copy.” By the paleness of her face, she understood the consequences of this attack as well as I did. “These bastards have already tried fake Falconers. This could be a trick, too.”
“I’m not sure the doge will care.” I pressed my fingers to my temples. “And I’m not sure it is a trick. If the Shadow Gentry want to start a fight with Raverra, ambushing a Falconer is an effective way to do it.”
“Lieutenant … I’m sorry, sir, but it gets worse.” Lemi’s voice dropped to a whisper, and his face twisted into a grimace of guilt. “They took my pouch.”
Zaira shrugged. “So they robbed you.”
“No. I had …” Lemi closed his eyes. “Graces forgive me, but I believed them, sir. I came prepared for a new vivomancer. I had a jess in that pouch. They took it.”
“Hell of Nightmare,” Marcello swore. “This is bad.”
My stomach plunged down to my boots. That was more than enough provocation for the doge. Jesses were a closely guarded secret of the Empire. The fact that no one else had them was one of the primary keys to Raverra’s power.
“Whoever wants this war,” I whispered, “I think they’re going to get it.”
Marcello made his report to Colonel Vasante over the courier lamps. Usually wonder filled me whenever I thought of the courier-lamp network, relaying flashes of light across hundreds of miles from one lamp crystal to another; but this time, the image of those flickering pulses traveling all the way to the Mews, and from there no doubt to the Imperial Palace, brought me nothing but dread.
A return message came back within an hour: the doge was discussing the matter with the Council of Nine. They would have instructions for us tomorrow.
Our unseen opponents—the “they” Baron Leodra had died before un
masking—had made their move. It was the doge’s turn. But there were a dwindling number of spaces left on the board.
I lay awake a long time in my canopied bed in Ignazio’s town house that night. When I finally fell asleep, my dreams were full of fire.
I stared at the cup of black liquid before me. Coffee again. This was precisely what I needed to make our tense breakfast with the Serene Envoy even more horrible.
It was bad enough to have Ignazio and Lady Terringer in the same room. We’d scheduled this breakfast before coming to Ardence, as an obligatory social visit; now, with the terrible implications of the stolen jess hanging over our heads, the occasion had ascended from mere awkwardness to outright torture.
Of course she’d serve us coffee. I nerved myself to take a small sip without making a repulsed face at the flavor.
“I hope you’re settling in well? How’s the town house you rented?” Lady Terringer’s tone was stiff as her spine. She took a swig from her own cup as if fortifying herself for battle.
Ignazio forced a laugh, gesturing around the airy, gilded parlor that had been his for years. “It’s not the Envoy’s Palace, but it’ll do.”
Zaira rolled her eyes. “Listen to you. You should try sleeping on the floor of an abandoned building for a week or two. Then you’ll stop fretting about whether your featherbeds are soft enough or if there’s sufficient gold on your ceiling.”
I glanced at Marcello and caught memory and understanding in his eyes. He was thinking of what we’d seen in the Tallows, too. My face warmed as the unspoken message passed between us; I reverted my gaze to my hostess before telltale pink could color my cheeks.
Lady Terringer snorted. “You don’t mince words, do you?
Annoyance flickered across Ignazio’s brows, but he turned it to a gracious smile and shrug. “The night before last I might have slept as soundly on the floor, after how late Lord Waldon kept us up.”
Now it was Lady Terringer’s turn to frown. I doubted she could be pleased the Ardentine nobility were so ecstatic at her predecessor’s return, especially when they refused to see her at all.
I couldn’t stand any more veiled jabs and stilted politeness, dancing around the crisis that lay like a pile of cannonballs on the table between us. “Have you heard from the doge about the imperial response to yesterday’s attack?”
“Yes.” Lady Terringer took a long moment to pour herself more coffee from a silver pitcher. “He’s giving Ardence until sundown the day after tomorrow.”
I twisted my napkin on my lap. At least it wasn’t an outright declaration of war. “What do they have to do by then?”
“Turn over the parties responsible for the attack, return the stolen jess, welcome the Serene Envoy back to court, revoke the illegal taxes, and abide by the Serene Accords.”
Marcello leaned on the table as if bracing himself. “Or else what?”
Lady Terringer met his gaze unflinchingly. “Do you need to ask that question, Verdi?”
His mouth tightened.
Zaira took a noisy slurp of coffee, with apparent relish. “That’s me. The unspeakable consequence. Great fun at parties.”
I wrapped both hands around my coffee cup, letting the heat sting my palms. “That’s a lot to accomplish in less than three days. Do we have people investigating the attack and searching for the jess?”
“We have investigators coming from Raverra, and the local intelligence agents we already had looking for the children and trying to find Baron Leodra’s contacts in Ardence are working on it.” Lady Terringer shook her head. “Sounds to me like it was the damned Shadow Gentry again. If we can unmask and arrest the lot of them, that should satisfy the doge—if we also get the jess back.”
A twinge pinched my chest. Domenic could too easily get swept up in a move like that, and his brother almost certainly would. Not to mention, from what he’d said, arresting the Shadow Gentry meant hauling off a fair fraction of the Ardentine court. The doge might count himself satisfied, but Ardence would never take it quietly.
I had to find out who exactly had been behind the attack. Gabril’s upcoming party might be our best hope.
I swallowed. “All right. What about the taxes, and giving due deference to you as Serene Envoy? Do you think we can get Duke Astor to return to the Serene Accords?”
“Hmph. He would have already if it weren’t for the cursed kidnapping.” Lady Terringer thunked her cup down on the table with greater force than necessary. “Everything was smooth sailing until then. I made it clear the Empire was not amused at his antics, and Duke Bergandon acted cowed enough. He was ready to drop the taxes on Raverran merchants and step back in line. Then the children disappeared, his nobles got hysterical, and everything went straight to the Hell of Discord. The timing was perfect to destroy everything I’d done.”
“I know what that’s like,” Ignazio murmured over the rim of his cup, “when people blunder in and destroy all your careful work.”
Lady Terringer’s eye twitched.
I ignored his interjection. “So what will it take now to get the duke and his nobles to become loyal subjects of the Serene Empire again?”
“Besides finding the missing children and bringing the kidnapper to justice? I don’t know.” Lady Terringer’s forehead bunched into grim furrows. “Several of the Council of Lords had children or grandchildren stolen, and they won’t listen to anything I say—or let the duke hear me, either.” She turned, with an air of reluctance, to Ignazio. “But they might listen to you. Will you help?”
Some intense emotion flickered through Ignazio’s eyes, but he kept his expression schooled and blank, then carefully orchestrated it into one of dry amusement. “I thought I was removed from my position because my negotiating tactics were too subtle and slow.”
“They were,” Terringer said through her teeth, “when it was only the violation of the Serene Accords we were facing. Now I need the Ardentines to trust us as much as they fear us, and they haven’t had time to learn to trust me.” She came as close as I’d seen anyone come to visibly choking on her pride. “I need your help to make this peace, Ignazio.”
Ignazio took a long sip of coffee, savoring the steam drifting off it. “I’m afraid I’m no longer the Serene Envoy,” he said. “It doesn’t seem there’s much I can do to help you.”
Terringer stared at him. Thunderheads seemed to pile up on her brow, but Ignazio smiled lazily back at her. Finally, she slapped the table, shaking the china.
“Fine. You want this city to burn to feed your pride.” She jerked her head toward the door. “We’re going to talk now about what happens if we need to burn it. No civilians allowed.”
Ignazio stood, his voice going hard. “Well, far be it from me to intrude.”
“Uncle Ignazio …” I reached out toward him. He’d pushed his needling of Lady Terringer too far, but still, it had to hurt. Not long ago, he would have been the one leading this meeting, and now he was cut out of it entirely. She was throwing him out of what had been his own parlor a month ago.
Zaira also rose to her feet, stretching. “Good. I’ll go with you. I’m bored of listening to them flap their lips.”
Lady Terringer’s brows lifted. “These plans concern you. Don’t you want to stay?”
Zaira’s eyes gleamed like the reflection of a sword’s edge. “And hear you talk about using me like a weapon? No, thanks. Lady Dull-As-Rocks Cornaro here can fill me in.” She slid her arm through Ignazio’s. “Come on. You can show me around the palace. You know it better than this old bat anyway, right?”
“Better than anyone,” he agreed.
I mouthed a silent thank you to Zaira, glad Ignazio wouldn’t have to haunt his former home alone. She winked.
“Zaira has to stay with Amalia,” Marcello said. “The law—”
“Oh, unclench your arse for once.” Zaira waved a hand. “I’m not going to leave the building. This place is secure, right?”
“It had better be.” Lady Terringer’s clipped tone left
no room for doubt.
“Have fun without us, then.” Zaira blew Lady Terringer a kiss as they departed.
“Just as well.” Lady Terringer leaned in close over the table, dropping her voice. “Listen. We’re all hoping not to have to use her balefire. But if the order comes, we have to be ready.”
I nodded queasily. I didn’t think I could ever be ready.
At my side, Marcello laid his hand at the edge of his seat, next to mine. An inch or so still separated our fingers, but I cupped my hand slightly, as if I were clasping his back.
“Is Duke Astor Bergandon aware of the time limit?” I asked.
Lady Terringer nodded. “I’ve talked to him through unofficial channels. His nobles insist he can’t receive me in court, but he’s sent Lady Savony over here on his behalf. I haven’t explicitly told him what will happen if he can’t comply with the doge’s orders by the deadline, but I believe he understands the situation.”
“And what is his stance?”
Lady Terringer eyed me oddly. “You tell me. He’s asked to meet with you this afternoon.”
“With me? Why?”
“I don’t know. But he wants to speak with you alone.”
“No.” Marcello all but leaped to his feet. “Absolutely not. For one thing, Zaira has to be with Amalia at all times.”
“She can stay in the garrison.” Lady Terringer shrugged. “That’s permitted for Falcons traveling or stationed abroad. Should it come to an emergency, Lady Amalia can still unleash her from there.”
“It could be a trap,” Marcello protested.
Lady Terringer snorted. “If they were going to lay a trap for a Raverran, it wouldn’t be a Cornaro. No matter what they think of Raverra, the Ardentine court has an irrational degree of affection for your family. I’d be more worried about a trap if they did want you to bring your fire warlock.”
“We need to hear what the duke has to say,” I decided. “Especially if he’s shown he wants to engage diplomatically with Raverra but doesn’t feel he can do so openly. We’ve only got time for a few more chances at peace; we can’t waste one of them.”
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