{"id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","serial_id":"556fb8faada6e270f8e264d5","episode_ids":["57e000c8ada6e25bbf6d1355","57e001ceada6e25bc06d1d5c","57e001eaada6e25bc06d1d5d","57e00204ada6e25bbf6d1356","57e0024dada6e25bc06d1d5e","57e00298ada6e25bc06d1d5f","57e002bbada6e25bc06d1d60","57e002f5ada6e25bc06d1d61","57e0031fada6e25bbf6d1357","57e0034cada6e25bbf6d135c","57e0037bada6e25bc06d1d75","57e00396ada6e25bc06d1d76","57e005e2ada6e25bbf6d136f"],"description":"Sex, Scandal, Swordplay... and Chocolate! The prequel to Ellen Kushner's cult classic Swordspoint is back for a Second Season.","subtitle":"","title":"Tremontaine Season 2","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.issue.20160919","number":"2","featured":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TRE_S2_SeasonCover_Web_1235x1600_Notext.jpg","cover_wide_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TRE_S2_Carousel_Web_Horz_1600x800_NoS2.jpg","gowatchit_id":"","is_free":false,"episodePrice1":199,"episodePrice2":299,"episodePrice3":499,"episodePrice4":599,"episodePrice5":799,"episodePrice6":899,"episodePrice7":1099,"episodePrice8":1299,"episodePrice9":1399,"episodePrice10":1599,"episodePrice11":1699,"episodePrice12":1899,"episodePrice13":1999,"episodePrice14":2199,"episodePrice15":2299,"episodes":[{"id":"57e000c8ada6e25bbf6d1355","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":1,"title":"Convocation","released_date":"2016-10-19T11:43:41.625+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"The Council of the Lords is back in session and Diane looks to cement her power.","byline":"Ellen Kushner","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e01.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-10-19","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, went to the Crescent Chancellor’s annual Convocation for the Opening of the Council of Lords to do three things: to select a new lover, to seek out a new swordsman, and to show the ambassador from Chartil her shawl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The nobles of the city had already begun to gather in the formal reception chamber of the Council Hall. The high-ceilinged room swirled with the colors of\n their flamboyant dress and jackdaw chatter as they exchanged greetings and gossip after a summer away from the city at their country estates.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nicholas, Lord Galing, the elected Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords, stood on a dais at one end of the hall to greet the arrivals. Galing’s lady\n wife, Clara, had finally died of her lingering illness over the summer, and many took the opportunity to press his hand and murmur their condolences.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Crescent Chancellor was flanked by his colleagues of the Inner Council: Lord Ranulph Lassiter, the Raven Chancellor, secretary to the Council; Gregory,\n Lord Davenant, who held the post of Dragon and oversaw finance, and the Dukes of Karleigh and Hartsholt, members by tradition of the Inner Council that\n presided over the whole. The chancellors were resplendent in their robes of office: sumptuous blue velvet, with the insignia of each one embroidered on the\n chest in gold thread: the Crescent, the Raven, the Dragon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Only the Serpent Chancellor was not present; but everyone knew that Arlen always came late.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Behind Lord Galing, his latest lover, Lord Asper Lindley, stood smiling and nodding, looking for all the world, as Lord Nevilleson put it to his friends,\n like a debutante receiving guests at her first ball—“Which I suppose, in a way, is just what he is,” Nevilleson said acidly. “Heaven only knows what this\n Council season will be, without Lady Galing’s moderating influence.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did Lady Galing have a moderating influence?” Lord Adrian Berowne asked. Like the other men who stood with him in the hall below the dais, he was an\n enthusiastic member of the Council of Lords, socializing as well as voting with his peers at every opportunity. “I thought her primary interests were music\n and throwing parties. I shall miss the one, but not the other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Her chocolate was always excellent,” Nevilleson conceded. “But my point is that, however Galing felt about poor Clara, he always knew that she was\n watching him. As did dear Lindley. With that restraint lifted—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Surely Galing will marry again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Heavens, why?” Lord Martin Condell drawled, licking his lips like a cat after cream. “I can assure you, Asper Lindley is enough to keep any man busy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nevilleson raised carefully groomed eyebrows, and Condell took a sudden interest in his fingernails. “Nonetheless, Nicholas Galing will be wanting an heir.\n Otherwise, it all goes to the nephew, young Vernay.” Nevilleson twirled a tassel on his tight-fitting brocade jacket. “I think we shall see dear old\n Nicholas out on the Young Ladies’ Racetrack this season, looking for a winner among the second-years.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not the first-years?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If Galing ever knew what to do with a sixteen-year-old girl, he has long forgotten.” \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Hmmm,” said Berowne. “Why not a widow, then? Young, proven fertile,\n and with a bit of property?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Condell said boldly, “Why not a duchess?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nevilleson turned his head carefully to one side and the other, making sure the lady in question was nowhere near. “Diane de Tremontaine? The most\n exquisite creature ever to grace a chamber? What would Galing do with so much verve and style?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But more to the point, Condell, unless your information is more current than ours, Diane is not a widow. The duke her husband is still alive, after all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Condell shook his head. “Poor William. I suppose he is, in a manner of speaking.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A somber mood took over the small cluster. “He was a beautiful man,” Berowne said wistfully. “One of the stainless ones: devoted to his wife, for one\n thing, and then, I gather, to his books.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe that’s what drove him mad. Books are all very well and good when you’re young—history, and all”—Condell indicated the frieze on the wall above his\n head, depicting the triumph of the noble Councilors over the corrupt ancient monarchy—“but after that, one must have better things to do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “One must indeed.” Lord Martin’s wife bore down upon the group like a stiff breeze, and like leaves on the wind they scattered before her. Her piquant\n little face turned up to her husband’s. “You know, Martin, as this is the first time you have brought me to the Convocation, I have a great desire to see\n all the famous friezes. I understand they were painted by Bellerocque . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She slipped her arm into her husband’s, and he gave a wink and a shrug to his old friends before dutifully escorting her on a tour of the chamber’s\n historical friezes that rehearsed the land’s glories, making it perfectly clear that everything they depicted, from the royal marriage uniting the North\n and South kingdoms to the overthrowing of the Last King, conduced to today’s perfect state, ruled by the noble Council of Lords here assembled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Murmurs flowing through the room indicated a significant new arrival. Condell and Berowne turned to see the Duchess Tremontaine entering the reception\n chamber in a blaze of rubies, to be immediately seized and greeted by Lord Asper Lindley.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Remarkable,” muttered Berowne. “That’s the first time he’s left Galing’s side all evening. You don’t suppose\u003cem\u003e he’s\u003c/em\u003e looking for a bride, now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, had timed her entrance perfectly. The city’s merchants and councilors had not yet arrived, but all the nobles were there,\n having exchanged the summer’s news, and now looking for something else to talk about.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment, she stood outside the heavy doors of the reception hall, where she had been many times before with her husband, William, Duke Tremontaine.\n This time, she would enter alone. The duchess nodded at the footmen, and the doors opened on a blaze of light and chatter, the flash of jewels and the\n smells of powder and expensive scent. Diane stepped through them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The first to greet her was Lord Asper Lindley—and it mattered that he stepped down from the dais where he’d hovered (most inappropriately) beside his lover\n the Crescent Chancellor, to do so. If her mere appearance could bring him down from there, Diane thought, her will could bring him even farther. She had a\n score or two to settle with Lindley, in good time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane, my dear, how splendid you look!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asper Lindley was drawn to riches, power, and beauty, and this evening the duchess proclaimed them all. Her fair hair was piled high and studded with\n brilliants, and she wore the Tremontaine rubies around her throat—great jewels from the house’s disbanded ducal coronet, set in gold—with more of the\n rubies depending from her ears and glowing on her fingers. It was the first time she had worn them in public without Duke William at her side. It was a\n statement, for those who knew fully how to read it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gregory, Lord Davenant, knew how. From the dais where he stood with his fellow councilors, he admired the way Diane claimed the jewels of her husband’s\n house for her own, as she had already claimed the running of his estates when William had become too ill to manage them. Under her guidance, Tremontaine\n was growing rich again. Davenant was the Dragon Chancellor, Master of the Exchequer. But his interest in her went beyond the economic. Diane felt his eyes,\n but kept her gaze on Asper Lindley.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A new gown!” Lindley cried delightedly. The Duchess Tremontaine wore pale rose, billows of satin that caught the light with a rustle when she moved. A\n year ago, she could not have afforded one, and Lindley knew it; but if it was a dig, it was a reflexive one, for he went on, “You should have your portrait\n painted in it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane kissed his cheeks. “Oh, Asper, I intend to. And you must come to me at Tremontaine House when it is finished, and see if it improves upon the\n original.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s not a painter in the land could do you justice.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You must let me go, now, Asper, or the other ladies will be jealous.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He inclined his fair head toward the dais where the Councilors presided, sweating in their robes. “Or one other lord . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no!” Diane trilled a laugh, wondering how much Lindley knew. “Lord Galing and I are old friends. He knows that I am harmless.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lindley did not argue, which meant that he had no idea Lord Davenant had been her lover last spring. All he worried about was Galing, poor fool.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And so Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, who was anything but harmless, eased herself into the throng of nobles eager to admire her and to ask after poor dear\n William, and let herself be swept from Lindley’s view, not giving him another thought tonight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Kinwiinik Traders were the first of the city merchants to arrive, just as the clock chimed the hour in the Council Hall tower. Diane admired their\n precision. They were a splendid party: As at Tremontaine’s Swan Ball last spring—and, oh, it seemed a century to the duchess since then!—they were dressed\n in City fashion, with well-cut jackets and breeches, long, tight sleeves, the women in full skirts. But these fashionable clothes were then topped with the\n glories of their homeland across the sea: Men and women alike wore headdresses of stunning jewel-toned feathers, huge earrings of jade, or bracelets of\n gold set with precious stones, circlets of silver and pearl . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess waited, flexing her fan and chatting with her neighbors, while the Kinwiinik party made their courtesies to the Inner Council Lords.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Only when they had stepped back did Diane move softly through the assembly, until she could touch the arm of one of them: an older woman, proudly upright\n in her cape of scarlet feathers, but so heavily pregnant that it was clearly pride alone that kept her hands from supporting her lower back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Lady Ixsaabim!” the duchess greeted her, lending the woman the title to show respect, and pronouncing the name with scrupulous, melodic correctness: \u003cem\u003eeesh-sah-BEEM\u003c/em\u003e. With business partners, especially ones unwillingly graced with one’s personal secrets, it never hurt to butter the bread on both\n sides.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman Ixsaabim, small like Diane, but more powerfully built, raised her chin in acknowledgement. Gold jaguars flashed in her night-black hair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How delightful to see you here tonight.” Diane inclined her head sympathetically. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to join me over on the settee? I find these events so tiring.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I would.” Lady Ixsaabim nodded at the young man next to her. “But first, may I present my kinsman, Ahtul, fifth son of the house of Chel?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Alone among the Kinwiinik, the slender young man bore none of his countrymen’s exotic ornament or jewels. His suit was of fine cramoisie worsted, but its\n buttons were carved jet, like any prosperous City youth’s, and his hair was shorter than most of his kin’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ahtul executed a perfect, courtly bow. “Arthur, my lady,” he said, looking up at her with dark and shining eyes in his high-boned face. His voice was\n completely unaccented, which was rather a shame, as Diane found the lilting Kinwiinik speech charming. “My friends all call me Arthur.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But not your family,” Ixsaabim said, gently cuffing the crown of his shining black hair. “Your mother named you Ahtul, for the rabbit she saw as the ship\n sailed from home . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ahtul—or Arthur—was working hard at not glaring at his elder. Diane admired the effort. “Yes, Auntie,” he managed to say.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “. . . May she never be extinguished,” his elder concluded piously, for Diane’s benefit. The duchess wisely said nothing. “Ahtul was born here, on these\n shores. He cannot remember his true home in Cehtuun.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ah. That explained it. But: “Cehtuun? I thought you all came from Binkiinha.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur—or Ahtul—seized the opportunity to address the duchess. “The Balam are from Binkiinha. The triple alliance of Kinwiinik Traders is comprised of\n three cities: Cehtuun is one. But if I may say so, Madam Duchess, my heart is here, in the city of my birth, where all our families have found such\n hospitable welcome.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a pleasure to be worshiped so fiercely by so innocent a soul. Diane held out her hand, and he took it as if he couldn’t believe his luck. “Thank\n you, young sir. I hope that we may meet again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He bowed over her hand with perfect courtesy. “It would be my dearest wish.” The dark eyes looked up at her fervently. “If I can ever be of service to\n Tremontaine, I would be honored.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I shall remember that. But for now, I must see to the comfort of your aunt, if I am to show us to be as hospitable as you say.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took the dismissal as graciously as it was meant, backing away while Diane took Ixsaabim’s arm and guided her to a small quilted settee against the\n wall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The pregnant woman settled herself with the slightest “Oof!” A young Kinwiinik woman jumped forward with a stool for Saabim’s feet, then left them alone to\n talk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will not ask how you are,” the duchess began, “for I see you are in the bloom of health.” The foreign woman’s eyebrows knit—it was an expression she did\n not know. “Like a flower,” Diane explained.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixsaabim nodded wearily, and said with a wry smile: “I shall be glad to go back to being a woman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wish you well,” the duchess said inadequately. It was hard to know precisely how to converse with these strangers, but she had business to\n transact—without, of course, making it seem like business.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixsaabim was looking around her at the ancient wood gleaming in the light of many beeswax candles, the huge painted panels of ancient heroism, the high\n plastered ceiling with its geometric designs, and nodded as if satisfied. “I have not seen this place before. My husband has always come alone, with the\n men only. We understood—we believed we understood—that it was better that way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Often it is. No woman sets foot in Council itself—not to speak, anyway—though all are welcome at this celebration. Your husband is well, I hope? I do not\n see Master Ahchuleb here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Chuleb is at home with a bad tummy. I’m afraid he is very old-fashioned.” Ixsaabim smiled the smile of a woman well pleased with her choice of a second\n and younger husband. Diane hoped she could be as successful tonight, though in an arrangement far less permanent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Old-fashioned?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The fathers think they should feel what the woman does. Ahchuleb feels it deeply. It is his very first child. And so his ankles really are a bit swollen!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane wondered if she was being laughed at. The Kinwiinik were hard to read; she had learned a bad lesson last spring, when she’d tangled with Ixsaabim’s\n young niece, the redoubtable Ixkaab Balam—\u003cem\u003eKaab\u003c/em\u003e to her friends, she supposed, among whom the duchess did not count herself, and for good reason.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the Lady Ixkaab? She, too, is indisposed? For I do not see her, either.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah.” Ixsaabim looked out at the colorful assembly. “She is not amongst us now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did she go home?” the duchess asked, all pretense of subtlety gone. Kinwiinik ships had been sailing all summer. Away at her country estates, the duchess had had no sure intelligence of who or what was on them. If Kaab had sailed off with her secrets to a foreign land hundreds of miles away, Diane could\n breathe a small sigh of relief—just a small one, of course, since surely Kaab had left that knowledge with her family . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Saabim said bluntly. “No, she has not gone home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last, Diane sensed what she should have done before: a family quarrel. No details would be forthcoming; she knew that now. And she really should keep up\n the pretense of having no more interest in the girl than in any other junior member of the Balaam family, whether Ixsaabim believed her or not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Such a pretty girl,” Diane said lightly. “But then, you Balam are a handsome lot. I am sure the new baby will be, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve borne several children already, Madam Duchess, with my first husband, may he never be extinguished. I find them handsome, but then, what mother\n doesn’t?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How I would love to meet them. But they are in Binkiinha? They do not cross the sea?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They do not. Their business is at home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then I am sorry to hear that I will never see them, as I cannot make that journey. None of our ships have the navigational skills of the Kinwiinik, nor\n will they ever, I am certain.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There. It was said, the thing that she had come to say. In the spring, the Duchess Tremontaine had made a promise to young Ixkaab Balam, a promise meant\n for the entire Balam Trading family. She had pledged her word that any scholar on the trail of celestial navigation, the brilliant art mastered and\n jealously guarded by the Kinwiinik Traders, would see his project mercilessly quashed by all the power that Tremontaine could muster. And in return, Ixkaab\n Balam had promised that Diane’s own personal secret, even more carefully guarded, would be as zealously kept by the Balam, so that no one in the city would ever know it even existed. It was the final lock securing their partnership in the chocolate trade—a partnership almost as secret, though more profitable\n than perilous.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The sea holds many perils,” Ixsaabim said. “You are wise to avoid them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is good to be safe here at home.” The duchess settled back a little in her seat. The exchange was done, and had come off well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you?” Ixsaabim asked pleasantly, as though they were two friends chatting over afternoon chocolate. “Do you propose to marry again?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So the exchange was not done after all. Diane lowered her eyes modestly, so used to playing the part she scarcely even noticed. “My poor dear William\n lives,” she said, “though vastly troubled in his mind.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But he is so ill that you must take his place running all the duchy’s business,” Ixsaabim observed. “Will your people not permit a—ah, how is the word?—a final separation?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Divorce?” Diane raised her eyes to Ixsaabim’s: dark and shining with intelligence. And she realized that there were truths this woman would need to know, if their trade partnership were to continue. “It is unthinkable,” the duchess said. “For I hold Tremontaine only on my husband’s behalf. If I ceased to be his true wife—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You would lose everything,” Ixsaabim finished. “Unless you wed another man of power. I see. So!” Ixsaabim smiled warmly, the corners of her eyes\n crinkling. “We shall look to see you Duchess Tremontaine for some time to come. In which case, I would ask you to be so good as to consider the building of\n the new warehouses.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I—” Diane was at a loss. What new warehouses?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixsaabim read her face. “For the chocolate we bring in from Binkiinha. You are our partner in this, having helped us gain the tax relief, and justly\n claiming your percentage—a silent partner, of course, as it should be with so great a lady.” Ixsaabim shifted in her seat. “The temporary warehouses down\n by the docks are not good. Something, perhaps rats, keep getting in, and we are losing product. Your Merchants’ Confederation has petitioned for new,\n permanent, storage houses to be built. It will benefit all of us. Including, I think, Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” Diane said, and she meant it. “I will, of course, look into it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know,” said Ixsaabim. She drew a deep breath, and puffed it out with a grin. “And now, my flower, we must rejoin the company. If we are sitting here\n together longer than it takes for one woman to have sympathy with another, it may turn eyes to us we would rather have looking elsewhere.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixsaabim was extraordinary. Only a little older than she herself—certainly not yet forty—but you could feel the authority, the experience . . . For one\n tiny moment Diane wanted to fling herself on the Balam woman’s ample, bright-feathered bosom and hold on to her like a rock in the sea, even be held by\n her, wrapped in the arms of certainty—but then, of course, the moment passed, and she was the Duchess Tremontaine again, rising in a flurry of rose satin,\n adjusting the lace at her cuff to fall just so.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Better now?” she asked brightly, for anyone who might be listening.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am very well, thank you.” Ixsaabim gestured with two fingers, and a pair of Kinwiinik appeared at her side. They looked very like her; more relatives,\n perhaps, also dressed in a king’s ransom of gold and jade. The girl’s hair was in elaborate braids. She held a beaker of spiced wine for the lady, and the\n man had a plate piled with wafers. Ixsaabim smiled up at Diane. “I am always hungry these days.” She took two wafers from the plate—but then her hand\n stopped halfway to her mouth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane turned to see what the entire Balam party was staring at. Some richly dressed City merchants had entered the room—adorned, in their way, as\n elaborately as the Kinwiinik, with their neck chains, hat pins, carved buttons, even a white ostrich feather fan hanging from the waist of one city matron.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Behind a comfortable-looking older couple walked a splendid young man; a merchant prince, Diane thought: clad in fine wool, his black hair curling\n deliciously over his ears . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With a start, she recognized him, and her gorge rose at the thought that, just for one moment, she had found him handsome.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe Fenton. The University scholar who had stolen her William, and nearly destroyed Tremontaine in the process. That couple must be his parents, of the\n Fenton spice empire. So Rafe had sought refuge in the family bosom, had he? And given up his dreams of founding a school? He wore no scholar’s robe. Had he\n also abandoned his attempts to crack the code of Kinwiinik navigation? Or did he mean to take his half-baked calculations to the heart of the Merchants’\n Confederation? In which case, she would need to act immediately, lest her promise to the Balam be inadvertently broken—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it was not the Fentons that Ixsaabim was staring at. It was the young woman who walked on Rafe’s other side—not, at first, recognizable as a woman, for\n she wore a piratical outfit, half Kinwiinik, half street thug: a man’s loose trousers, a striped Kinwiinik sash, then a shirt of pressed white linen under\n a fancy embroidered waistcoat, golden earrings . . . the shameless jade!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab Balam was laughing at a joke of Rafe Fenton’s, head thrown back, her teeth white in her dark-skinned face. She walked past the head of her family\n without a care, without acknowledging Ixsaabim’s presence or that of her cousins—and their faces stiffened with distaste. One girl turned her head away and spat surreptitiously onto the ground. Kaab’s hand went to her belt, as though seeking the sword she would normally wear—and showing, definitively and\n conclusively, that she followed no rules, had no master and no loyalty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Oh, to possess her! To destroy Rafe Fenton, and to keep this girl—passionate, clever, and dangerous—as her own personal gyrfalcon! The thought of subduing\n her, then using her as a tool, made Diane’s blood pound. She had to look away; had to cool herself on something less overwhelmingly desirable . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Fenton party was at the front of the room now, hobnobbing ostentatiously with the Lords of Council. But then, their courtesies made, they went to join\n the others of their class who had entered while Diane had been consulting with Ixsaabim: the merchant Larue, a taciturn man known for his desirable\n connections with the rare Cham porcelain trade . . . several of the elegant St Viers, whose banking house funded many of the most successful ventures . . .\n There were others, but she didn’t know their names; over time, she supposed, she must learn them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not now, though. Now the Duchess Tremontaine was going hunting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She felt Gregory Davenant’s eyes on her as she crossed before the Councilors’ stand. Gregory, she knew, sweated like a horse; he must be poaching in that\n velvet Robe of Office. She did not flirt with him, though she knew the slightest glance or smile would drive him mad; for once, it was not in Diane’s\n interest to have a man desire her. Let Davenant think she had forgotten him; her role was loving wife to William now, her poor dear William, shut away\n where he could do no one any harm, and Rafe Fenton be damned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s here,” Rafe murmured to Kaab; “of course she is. Along with half your relatives, who are glaring at you so hard through the back of their heads I’m\n surprised you don’t catch fire. Look, are you sure it was a good idea for you to come?”\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\n “I come as your guest,” Kaab said doucely. “It was very kind of you to invite me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was very shitty of you to cheat at cards.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do not cheat. I am just more clever than you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I had three Celestials, a Wizard, and a King, and you took them with a—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Please.” Kaab raised her hand, regal even in her outlandish garb. “I will play you more cards anytime you like, but to continue going over the past is a\n fool’s game. Speaking of cards, how is our friend Micah?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine, I guess. Micah never leaves the University. He’s studying with Doctor Goodell now. Pure mathematics. Utterly useless.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you never go there? To the University?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe scowled, avoiding her true question. “My father keeps me busy. He has discovered, at long last, I have a knowledge of calculus that, while pretty\n scanty, far exceeds his own. So suddenly my University education was a wonderful thing; he brags about it to all his friends. It’s embarrassing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Embarrassing? To have your family pleased with you?” Kaab shook her head mournfully. “Rafe Fenton, I will never understand you Xanamwiinik as long as I\n live.” Rafe muttered something. “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The books don’t come out right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She considered making him repeat it again, but it seemed unfair to torment poor Rafe further. And now that the gates of confidence had been breached, he\n poured out his heart to her in his own inimitable, irascible way:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m a theorist, not a mathematician! This warehouse of his, it’s killing me, Kaab! Adding columns of numbers all day long, comparing shipments from the\n docks to shipments received upriver—whatever I do, they don’t come out the same!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have you told your father this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe dealt his friend a scornful look. “Are you joking? And ruin his newfound pride in me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And, indeed, Fenton Senior was descending on them in a mountain of velvet and a cloud of chypre, one arm held out to embrace his son, the other around the\n shoulder of a thin man with jaundiced skin and rheumy eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is my Rafe!” he said heartily. “Rafe, I must make you known to Master Larue. He’s cornered the Cham trade, won’t let any of us near it, though we\n have an understanding when it comes to spices . . . But I wonder, Aldwin, if you know to the thimble where everything in your warehouse is. My Rafe, now,\n my boy—he went to the University, and to show him your ledgers is to behold wonders!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Congratulations,” Larue said drily. “You can be proud to have such a son.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s father released his friend, but still held on to Rafe affectionately. “He’ll be running the whole show before too long! Of course, I’ve started him\n with the basics, that is, the warehouse ledgers—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Those warehouses are a disgrace, Master Fenton.” Larue sniffed. “We will petition both the City Council and the Council of Lords this season to get them\n seen to, or better yet, rebuilt. I hear young Basil, one of the Hallidays, who’s on the Dragon’s staff, favors our cause . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab left Rafe to the mercy of his elders, despite his frantic looks in her direction. It turned out she needn’t have come to the Convocation after all;\n her friend had unwittingly given her the information she sought. But she decided to stay: She was still learning this city, its layers of power and\n influence, and here, with the cream of its moneyed classes assembled, there were lessons aplenty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the elite members of the City Council came in, they made their addresses to the chancellors of the Council of Lords, but then regrouped to join the\n other bankers and merchants of their own class. They spoke of weights and measures, of poverty and servants, of the coming of the ambassador from Chartil,\n and what that might mean to trade, and of the parsimony of the lords in combining his official welcome with the annual Convocation, and how they would make it up to the noble ambassador, and what was his name, anyway?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab kept well away from her kinsfolk, which was easy, since the Kinwiinik made no attempt to mingle; they were an unarmed camp of foreign splendor, set up\n under a painting of the Battle of Pommery. Locals came to them, if they wished to speak, and many did: the merchants and bankers with some degree of\n familiarity, since they already did business together, and the nobles out of courtesy, out of curiosity, out of puppylike friendliness or arrogant\n patronizing, according to their natures.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Occasionally, Kinwiinik youngsters would be sent to fetch refreshments for their elders—\u003cem\u003ePoor things!\u003c/em\u003e Kaab thought. At home in Binkiinha, the Balam\n would have brought servants to attend on every member of the family. But then, at home, even Ixsaabim would never wear such splendid gold and jade in\n public. There, everyone knew the Balam Traders were as wealthy as the Batab himself. But only here in foreign parts were they allowed to show it, so show\n it they did, and the Xanaamwiinik of the City wondered at their splendor. Make no mistake; the Kinwiinik were enjoying themselves at the Convocation of\n Council.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab watched Rafe and his father making their bows to Aunt Saabim. Rafe was paying a ridiculous amount of attention to young Ahtul, fifth son of the house\n of Chel, for some reason. A less promising Trader, Kaab had never seen. But then, Rafe wouldn’t much care about Ahtul’s abilities, other than one. And she\n supposed Ahtul was handsome enough, by Local standards.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nKaab eased her way over to the feast tables so she could sample everything, and ease the best of their offerings into the folds of her Kinwiinik sash. Kaab’s sash was useful that way. Her obsidian knife was in there too, and a few other harsh necessities. But there was room for sweets as well. She’d take them home to Tess in Riverside, all the little marzipan dragons, ravens, and crescent moons: meant for the nobility, but sweet enough for her own true love.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a reception, and at receptions there were no cards, no dancing, nothing to do, really, but compare notes on the summer, and plan for the coming fall season.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord Lionel Chesney and his companions were in that most luxurious stage of a nobleman’s life: old enough to have the run of the city while they made their\n youthful mistakes, young enough to do so on generous allowances that they always found mingy and paltry; old enough to take a lover, but too young to be\n expected to marry . . . and so they would spend the winter gracing the ballrooms, flirting shamelessly with the young ladies being brought out in society, without being expected to propose anything but a chaste walk in the moonlight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And, being always hungry, the young noblemen ate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord Lionel and his friends had parked themselves near one of the tables spread with food, little nibbles of this and that, all carefully selected to\n reflect the history of the Council of Lords.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Cheese curds.” Horace Durant popped one in his mouth and chewed. “The marzipan chancellors I understand, and the deep-fried smelts are clearly a reference to the burning of the wizards . . . but cheese curds?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The richness of the glories of Chartil,” said Lord Terence Perry, reaching over his friend to take a handful. “Representing the impending arrival of the\n ambassador, who I trust is quite a dish!” He bit down on a curd. “That, my friends, is the squeak of joy with which we shall greet him tonight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not all young men had returned from the country yet—there was still good weather and good hunting to be had there. But it was the start of the political\n season, and Lord Lionel’s group were all eldest sons, sent to represent their families in Council while their fathers managed their country seats, raised\n their younger children, and wrote letters to their City-bound heirs asking what they were doing with their time and their money, and why they did not write\n more often.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Bad luck, young Chesney,” Lord Horace remarked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean?” Lionel drawled. His fair hair kept falling in his eyes, but he tossed it back with a gesture that had been known to stop traffic.\n “These are excellent cheese curds, and there are plenty for all of us, even you, Horace. Though I suggest you taper off—you’re getting fat, you know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t change the subject. Everyone knows about the duel you fought—oh, excuse me, \u003cem\u003elost\u003c/em\u003e—over the fair Esha.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fair?” Lord Terence considered his friend’s choice of mistress. “Pretty she may be, but she’s dark as shadow.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t be pedantic, Terence. She is smoke,” Lionel sighed. “Smoke from the heart of a smoldering fire . . . as ungraspable and elusive, rising to the\n stars, which are her eyes . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t be poetic, Chesney. It doesn’t suit you, and your metaphor is about to come crashing down. If you wanted the girl, why didn’t you just set up an\n arrangement with her, like a reasonable fellow?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because Beverley Hartsholt wanted her too. And he hired the better swordsman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Bev has more money,” Lord Terence continued prosaic. “Son of a duke, after all. So he could hire the best. You didn’t stand a chance, poor lad.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s not a swordsman to equal Bev’s de Maris,” Horace agreed. “His technique is impeccable, his control perfection. When he fights to first blood,\n there’s nothing sloppy about it: He pinks his opponent so delicately that there’s never any mess; keeps the ladies from screaming.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Admirable,” Lord Terence Perry said drily. “I won’t ask who poor Chesney hired; he’s probably dead by now, anyway. Where was the duel?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At Fitz-Levi’s picnic,” Lionel Chesney said. “His parents aren’t back yet, so he invited us all to bring our, ah, our particular friends. ‘Lovers and\n ladies,’ the invitation was worded, and you know what kind of ‘ladies’ he meant. Perfect, right? So Hartsholt and I agreed to hire swordsmen to meet and\n settle the matter there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Reasonable,” Perry said. “And very kind of you both to add a little spice to the Fitz picnic. So then . . . ?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I found a man who had been house swordsman to Lord Davenant. I thought it was in the bag.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you ask why he’d left Davenant?”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel sighed. “I should have. Turns out the fellow drinks like a fish.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His friend nodded sagely. “Lose their nerve. Occupational hazard. They’re useless, then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, well, I know that now,” Lionel snapped. “So could we please discuss something else?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you pick another girl there? At this little Fitz-picnic?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Lionel Chesney said morosely. “I can’t get Esha out of my head. She liked me, I could tell. The way she gazed at me over the pheasant trifle . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, she likes Hartsholt’s money better. Wait ’til he’s out of town—maybe she’ll give you a mercy toss then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Up yours,” Lionel snapped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In a red hot minute. But I know you don’t fancy me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Chesney fancies anything in a skirt. Have you tried dressing up in one, Terence? You might stand a better—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Cheese curds were about to be hurled when something in a skirt turned up—a skirt the color of rosy dawn, a breast the color of snow, surmounted by rubies\n red as blood, and a face lit by grey eyes and amused intelligence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How are the cheese curds?” asked the Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were absolutely delicious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The last time Diane had spoken to men so young, so free, so—admit it—beautiful, it had been as a mother, urgently seeking to marry off her daughter Honora to a man of means in order to rescue Tremontaine from debt. Two long years ago, Diane had been focused entirely on each young man’s prospects—and on making\n sure that Honora’s face powder remained in place: Fifteen was young to be brought out, and the girl had spots. It had never even occurred to Diane to flirt\n with any of the bright young men herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane was married at sixteen. William had been gentle, kind, and loving, only seven years her senior and deeply in love with her, then. The young duke was\n highly impractical, and more than a little bookish; but that had only made it easier to run things for him. And Diane, in her turn, had been faithful to\n her husband.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Until last spring, when matters required her to be otherwise, and she had finally permitted the lusty Lord Davenant into her bed long enough to achieve her\n goal. As he was the Dragon Chancellor, this had been to push through the Council a tax cut for the Kinwiinik chocolate merchants, allowing her to become\n their secret partner in a highly profitable exchange. It repaired the Tremontaine fortunes—but Davenant did not understand when he had served his purpose. A powerful man in the prime of life, he began acting as if he owned her . . . Not at all what one wanted in a lover. No, what Diane wanted was someone\n clever and beautiful, who would do what she told him and adore her enough never to question anything. Someone to represent Tremontaine’s interests in the\n Council of Lords while she played the grieving spouse to a man who would never return.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked at these young sparks of the nobility, and licked her lips.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can I offer you any fried smelts, Duchess?” asked the chubby one with the cowlick.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Forgive me, Duchess.” The saturnine one edged him out of the way. He had a wicked eye, and already a shadow of dark beard stood out on his fresh-barbered\n face. “I fear we have not been introduced. I am Terence Perry, this is Horace Durant, and this bit of airy persiflage is Lionel Chesney.” Each one bowed,\n gracefully and correctly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I adore fried smelts,” she told them all, “particularly with mayonnaise relish. But whoever chose to serve them had no thought, or indeed no mercy, for a\n lady’s gown and lace cuffs. I dare not indulge my passion,” she purred, and licked her lips again. “The only safe way for me to eat them would be to have\n you pop them into my mouth, very carefully, one by one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They showed signs of discomfort. Fair, pretty Chesney gracefully turned to hide his tight breeches, and portly Lord Horace carefully adjusted the edges of\n his long embroidered waistcoat. All but Terence Perry, who probably thought he didn’t like women. Diane contemplated teaching him otherwise, just as she\n would teach him politics . . . She imagined rubbing those dark, stubbled cheeks across the tops of her breasts . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She must not get delirious with freedom: There was no freedom where she was concerned, only carefully chosen steps that led her from rock to rock across a\n very wide and fast-running stream. She must take careful stock. That these boys were here at the Convocation showed they had some interest in the Council.\n But were they clever? Could any of them learn? And, most of all, could they be discreet?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nothing with a face, dearest, I told you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane did not even need to turn around to know that the woman speaking was young, very pretty, and either married or engaged to the blue satin sleeve\n trying to edge past her left elbow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me,” said Lord Basil Halliday, the owner of the sleeve. He was attempting to get to the refreshments table, through the cluster of boys around\n Diane.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No dragons, no ravens, their eyes are too—” Close behind her husband, Lady Aurelia noticed Diane a moment before she could run into her. “Oh! Madam\n Duchess! Basil was just getting me a nibble—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps I could help you to some smelt?” Lord Terence dangled one of the fish by the tail in the lady’s face, like a schoolboy taunting his sister with a\n dead mouse. Diane crossed him off her list. She didn’t need a schoolboy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I recommend the cheese curds,” Horace Durant said helpfully. “They are very fresh, and squeak still.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I detest cheese curds,” Aurelia pouted. Yes, quite young; very recently the belle of her season, and what poor, serious, earnest Basil Halliday had done\n to deserve her—or, for that matter, to win her—would be interesting to learn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Horace looked crestfallen. A sweet boy; he would make someone a good husband. But he was too easily flustered, too transparent, and far too eager to\n please.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have you tried the marzipan?” Aurelia asked Diane greedily. “Now that Lord Basil is on the staff of the Dragon Chancellor, we had to come, and I’ve always\n heard—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel Chesney intercepted Basil Halliday on his way back from the table. “Are you?” he said. “On the Dragon’s staff?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why yes. Here, my dear—” Halliday passed his wife a saffron-gilded sweet. “Yes, I am. It is my good fortune to have been selected by my lord Davenant,\n after he heard me speak in Council last year on the subject of land reform—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, land reform! That was you? I am sorry, sir, that I was away when that speech came up, but I have heard much about it since. Why the Exchequer, though,\n and not Agricultural Affairs . . . ?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There they go again!” Aurelia said loudly to everyone in general.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She really was astonishingly vulgar. One did not criticize one’s husband in public. Lord Basil just ignored it; he was caught up in animated conversation\n with Lionel Chesney. Diane wished she could listen in, but there was no way to join them without causing the men to change the subject to something more\n befitting a lady.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still, no reason she couldn’t have some fun.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lord Terence, would you be kind enough to fetch me a dragon? I like to hear the crunch when their little necks snap.” Oh, she was enjoying herself far too\n much! She never would have said such a thing when William was ali—was with her. But it was glorious to be essentially single, and beautiful, and\n well-dressed, and powerful; to hear the appreciative laughter of a patch of well-bred, clever young men all clearly hoping to impress her. She must not\n become drunk with it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane bit off her dragon’s tail, and considered suggesting that Lady Aurelia try the cheese curds, just to watch her squirm. But that would be mere\n self-indulgence, and teach her nothing she did not already know.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lord Basil!” She rapped his sleeve with her fan. “It really is too bad of you, to bring your wife along to these things and then ignore her. My William\n used to do the same to me, of course. Men are so interested in politics . . . and in each other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their faces yielded information: Basil Halliday was easily moved to sympathy; and Lionel Chesney was not interested in other men.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She might well have taken Halliday’s arm, maybe even probed him for what his master the Dragon was considering for this season’s Council—but his arm was\n already linked up with his awful wife’s. If Diane was going to interfere there, she’d need to do it slowly and carefully. And to what end, other than to\n rid a man she rather liked of his most unpleasant wife? The proud Dragon Chancellor would go quite mad if he learned she was with another man, particularly one on his own staff. For Halliday to flourish, she would have to leave him alone, for now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That left young Chesney. Who was very, very interested in politics. Who was looking at her hopefully from under his blond fringe. She decided to let his\n hope, this once, be fulfilled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lord Lionel,” the Duchess Tremontaine sighed, “it is so terribly warm in here. And so very crowded. I wonder if you might help me to a seat over by the\n window?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When he offered her his arm, she took care to lean her weight against him, to test his balance and to smell his breath. She couldn’t tolerate a man whose\n breath wasn’t sweet to her. She could feel how his ribs tightened and his breath quickened as he held her. She could have him then and there, on the floor,\n if she would.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Oh, and she would. On the floor, definitely, but not here. She would learn from him everything that he had learned from Basil Halliday. And she would\n instruct Lord Lionel in how to get people to do things for you with pleasure, even enthusiasm, thinking it their own idea.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A cloud of scent preceded the arrival of the ambassador from Chartil, as two gauzily-clad women entered the chamber, bearing censers issuing smoke with the\n most heavenly aroma anyone had ever smelt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The women draped themselves at either end of the Councilors’ dais; the Raven Chancellor coughed discreetly as the smoke wrapped itself around him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thus had a path been cleared for the ambassador from Chartil. He progressed down it like a man walking a familiar road: perfectly confident, perfectly\n unself-conscious, and sure of no impediment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But that was not what brought the collective gasp to the throats of more than one hundred of the city’s most influential people.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador from Chartil was breathtakingly beautiful.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was true he would not see thirty again. Those close by noted the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the lines down the sides of his mouth. But his\n thick hair was still jet-black. It flowed down his back like a waterfall, held in place with lacquered combs in the shapes of cranes that met in flight at\n the nape of his neck. His carriage was proud and graceful. He wore embroidered shoes on his feet, and his robes were a symphony of fine linen, cut and\n colored to resemble a summer’s evening in blues and pinks and greys, all embroidered with what was surely silk, it gleamed so bright: a sun on one\n shoulder, a flight of songbirds across the back that dipped down one sleeve . . . And, ostentatiously empty, a sword belt circled his waist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord Galing stepped forward. “Welcome!” he said, loudly and slowly and clearly. “Welcome to our land, and to our Hall of Council!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador threw open his arms, as if to embrace Galing. The Crescent Chancellor stepped hastily back amongst his peers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What a fine greeting!” the ambassador replied in ringing tones. The Chartili’s wide hanging sleeves revealed yet more marvels stitched on them: long,\n dripping branches dotted with delicate pink and white petals, amongst which hid tiny iridescent beetles and the occasional fluttering moth. “It is a very\n great pleasure for me to find myself here among you at last.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is it a trick?” Asper Lindley hissed in the Crescent’s ear. “Where is his translator?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shhhh!” Galing snapped. There was a lot riding on the Chartil visit. “Perhaps he’s good with languages.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador opened his hands. “I come without my sword,” he said, “for I understand in your country it is not the way of great men to bear the sword in\n public. Nonetheless, it stands ready to serve all friends to Chartil.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” Galing murmured inadequately. He put his hand to the gold-stitched circle on his breast, and bowed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The first formalities properly observed, the ambassador nodded briskly, then drew a sealed scroll from his sash and presented it to the Crescent. “From our\n Gracious Sovereign, of Chartil the Lord Omnipotent. My credentials, and greetings from one sacred ruler to another. You will find my name written there. I am Far-Reza ko Arezu ko Shirin-sa Chartili.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Murmurs sounded throughout the hall as people tried to repeat it with varying degrees of success.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Welcome, Farreza ko—” the Crescent Chancellor began.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I beg you to honor me with the name of \u003cem\u003eReza\u003c/em\u003e only, in token of our friendship.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Welcome, Reza, then,” Lord Galing said with relief.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I bring gifts from my land to yours!” the ambassador called, again in that ringing voice that promised delights. He clapped his hands. The\n censer-bearing women left the room, to be replaced by the first of many male servants, outfitted in robes like the ambassador’s, though far less splendid.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When they were assembled around him, Reza proclaimed, “The world rests on three things: courage, honor, and women.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servitor handed the ambassador a long, curved object wrapped in brightly woven cloth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A sword!” Reza revealed a splendid scabbard of intricate metalwork, from which a jeweled hilt projected. “Sharp as hunger, balanced like a wise man’s\n judgment. Chartil offers it to your mighty Council, to give as a prize to your most courageous and honorable warrior.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Galing did a quick estimation. “Er, well, that would be Master de Maris, I suppose. The finest swordsman in the city.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza smiled, still holding the sword. “And is there none to match him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Councilors looked at each other. “There are some who try,” the Raven ventured. “But I know of none who can match his fees!” the Dragon quipped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment the ambassador’s face might be said to have stiffened in distaste—or perhaps it was only a shadow passing over it from the guttering of the\n candles. Then he smiled, bowed, and handed the sword back to the attendant, who wrapped it again, and placed it at the feet of the Chancellor Lords.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Two men unrolled the next offering on the floor, to many gasps of delight. Chartil wool and dyes were known for their brilliance, and this huge rug was a\n stunning example. The geometric pattern managed to suggest a wave curling up and crashing on a rocky shore, with mountains in the distance, their difficult\n blacks as profound as the blues of the waves.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am glad it pleases you,” the ambassador said. “It is from the sheep of the Gracious Pomegranate region, wool and weave together so strong that it will\n show no wear even when the owner’s great-grandson’s grandson treads on it. But strength comes in many forms, does it not? In the Far-Seeing Mountains we\n have goats with hair so fine, and women with fingers so subtle, that cloth woven by them can pass through a ring of gold.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The gauzily-clad serving women returned, one with a ring, one with a scarf, and proceeded to demonstrate the truth of his words, to the wonder of all\n assembled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n You could almost hear the merchants’ drool hitting the tiled floor. A declaration of trade, if ever there was one, all these splendors being paraded before them. The ambassador would not be short of invitations during his stay. How perfect that he already spoke their language! How perfect that he was\n displaying his country’s wares before the great of the land, in the presence of their wives!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The scarf was a miracle of fineness. Its bright threads flowed like water when one of the women lifted it in the air, settling on her shoulders like a\n petal on a still pond.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador leaned into the dais, speaking for the chancellors alone: “In Chartil, I would offer you the woman along with the shawl. And it would be\n right and honorable, as she is bound to me for this voyage.” He indicated the silver bangles on the woman’s ankles. “In your land, I know such binding is\n not honored. But do not fear! I shall unbind her before I leave—and let you seek her favors honorably then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The chancellors gaped. “How kind of you,” said Lord Galing. It was the best he could do.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were saved from further awkward niceties when the next servant presented a tray, splendidly lacquered with jewel-toned fish swimming amidst water\n plants: lilies and delicate rushes. It was worth a king’s ransom. On it were two hair combs, also lacquered, in the shape of swans, edged with\n mother-of-pearl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “These”—the ambassador lifted the combs from the tray—“are for a woman of honor, wed to a man of courage.” He indicated the Crescent. “I beg, sir, that you\n will present them to your lady wife.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Crescent Chancellor sighed. “How my dear Clara would have adored such a treasure! But alas, she has joined her ancestors in the Stone City, only a\n month ago.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am sorry.” Reza looked at the other chancellors, clearly trying to discern their order of precedence so as to know who to give the gift to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Dragon Chancellor stepped in to help. “My Lord of Chartil.” His voice was powerful. “In this, our Inner Council, each nobleman is equal to the\n other—even the three ducal houses, Hartsholt, Karleigh, and Tremontaine. But tonight, we lack one of their number: William, Duke Tremontaine, has been\n taken sadly ill. With my esteemed friends’ permission”—he bowed to the other chancellors—“I beg to call his wife, Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, to stand for\n him here, and in his name to accept your gift, so suitably made in the shape of the swan that is the badge of their house.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eCurse him!\u003c/em\u003e\n Diane thought. Gregory Davenant was displaying his power in offering her a gift every woman in the room craved, and showing her, too, what he could do for\n Tremontaine on her behalf. It would be difficult not to owe him for that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Head high, the duchess made her way slowly to the dais. She made a deep obeisance to the lords assembled there before mounting the steps to join them.\n Davenant had made a place for her at his side. He said nothing, but she could feel him inhale her scent, deeply and fully.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Alone on the dais, she felt horribly exposed. Diane was not used to standing up among powerful men in public as anything other than a hostess, a beauty, an\n accessory. Here at their side, she was stripped of the protection that gave her. But what must be done could be done. She had faced much worse, in her\n time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The handsome ambassador proffered her the tray, saying something gallant about her beauty being greater than that of the combs. The duchess accepted them\n with a smile. Then, heedless of her careful coiffure, which had taken hours to arrange, the duchess lifted the lacquered combs to her hair, and placed them\n firmly to either side. For the room’s benefit, she pivoted coquettishly, her skirts pouffing around her so that the lords must stand back away.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The room broke into applause. Diane felt it like heat, warming her through and through. It was a triumph—and, unexpectedly, a pleasure. But one she must\n not grow used to. Instead, she shivered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Cold, my dear?” the old Duke of Karleigh asked solicitously. “I feel it myself, as autumn draws on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Diane told him. “Might you send someone to the cloakroom for my shawl?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While the ambassador was presenting a pair of urns patterned with flag iris and dragonflies, the Duchess Tremontaine settled her wrap around her shoulders,\n knowing he would see it when he rose from his final bow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza’s dark eyes widened, and no wonder. Folds of soft white wool fell from the duchess’s shoulders, the rose-colored borders imitating the waves of the\n Chartil rug.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He said nothing, but inclined his head in the slightest of bows in acknowledgement, as to an equal. They both knew that tomorrow every woman in the city would be clamoring for a shawl in the Chartil style like the Duchess Tremontaine’s. Her weavers had managed a pale facsimile. But such a shawl, made from local wool shipped to the dyers of Chartil and woven in their splendid colors, could start a lasting fashion.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Why, after all, should Tremontaine not benefit from international trade as well?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador’s presentation done, Reza, as he was now to be known, sent his servants away, and joined the crowd in the room, fielding compliments and\n questions and offers of hospitality as best he could.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come and call on me,” Reza said to everyone; “come and call on me at Embassy House. And bring your swordsmen—just for show, of course. We of Chartil\n admire a man who can handle the sword.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab Balam, who, though a woman, knew how to handle a sword, had gone home to her lover, Tess the Hand, in Riverside, having pointedly ignored the\n Kinwiinik delegation in front of all the powers of the city.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Kinwiinik did not lack for attention, though, most particularly from the distinguished members of the Merchants’ Confederation, who were very curious\n to know what \u003cem\u003etheir\u003c/em\u003e people had in the way of rugs and shawls, and how hard it would be to get more of those splendid feathers they were wearing,\n just a social question, you understand, since it was so uncivil doing business at a party, but perhaps in the coming week a visit to their compound could be arranged?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The dukes and chancellors standing on the dais of honor very much wished that they could mingle, too; the best of the food would be gone soon, and there\n were various people they wished to talk to, flirt with, and acknowledge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But custom dictated that they be trapped on the dais until every single one of the noble chancellors was present, so that they could formally open Council\n for the year.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you suppose he’s ill?” the Raven Chancellor muttered to Galing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arlen is never ill. And if he is, he would have sent a note.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never known Arlen to miss an opening,” Karleigh grumbled. “Even if his carriage wheel came off, he can still walk.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps you should say something, Galing.” The Dragon, Davenant, was not a patient man. “To him later, I mean. People are getting restless.” This was\n untrue; their guests were still enjoying themselves out on the floor. But Lord Davenant always thought of his own concerns as being everyone else’s, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arlen is the Serpent Chancellor,” Galing said repressively. “He is in charge of our . . . intelligence. One does not reprove Lord Arlen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But you are the Crescent!” his lover, Lord Asper Lindley, objected. “You outrank everyone in Council!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Crescent is voted into his position,” the Raven said patiently to this man who had no real right to be standing there amongst them, “as are all the\n noble Councilors. We come and go. Arlen is irreplaceable.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And therefore, Asper—” Galing began in an admonitory tone, but switched to coaxing, knowing his man: “Darling Asper, could you be so good as to fetch me a\n glass of brandy?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Make that two,” Davenant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “With pleasure,” Lindley replied sourly, annoyed to be made a lackey; then, seeing a familiar nobleman in a blue coat passing the dais, his hands balancing\n an assortment of sweetmeats along with a cup of ladies’ punch, “but I wouldn’t want to deprive Halliday of the chance to display his inestimable value as a member of your staff. Basil!” he waved his hand at the man. “Oh, Basil! I’m afraid the Dragon needs you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Duchess Tremontaine was staying far from the chancellors’ dais, surrounded by ladies admiring her thrilling new combs and her splendid shawl, asking questions designed to find out where and how to have the latter copied without appearing to do so.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane bore it all with equanimity: If she was known as a leader of fashion, she was less likely to be suspected as a mover of politics.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nonetheless, she did notice the look on Basil Halliday’s face as he left the dais in search of brandy for Lord Davenant. It was the face of a man who bore\n his troubles patiently. Interesting. Apparently the Dragon Chancellor was wearing to all who worked with him, whether horizontal or vertical.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe Fenton and his parents were among those paying court to Ambassador Reza. Recognizing them as a family of substance, Reza had cleared away some of his\n other suitors, and was complimenting Rafe’s mother on her jewelry and letting his father explain about swordsmen: “Of course, many of us follow the\n exploits of our finest swordsmen; but only nobles are allowed to hire them to take up a challenge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your nobles do not fight their own challenges,” Reza said politely, like a lesson learned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A nobleman will if he must, but since they do not train for it, it is almost certain death.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Even if the other challenger is also noble?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment, Fenton looked blank. “But \u003cem\u003eno one\u003c/em\u003e is allowed to challenge a noble except another noble—Ah! I see what you mean. No, one noble wishing to call challenge on another will already have chosen his swordsman. If he is gracious, he sends a letter telling his opponent of the challenge, so that\n the other has time to hire a man of his own. Then they will name the time and place, so no one gets hurt.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n (\u003cem\u003eExcept the swordsmen\u003c/em\u003e, Rafe thought, but said nothing, amused.)\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The duels often take place at parties,” Rafe’s mother added helpfully. “On the Hill. That’s where the nobles live.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza shook his head, implying much but saying little. “If these great swords fight for nobles only, how do others follow their exploits?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There are tally boards.” Rafe stepped forward, eager to come to the attention of this devastating foreigner. “In the taverns. The nobles’ servants bring the news of each fight, and make a little money off it for their pains. Are you a betting man, Master Reza?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In the right circumstances I am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then it would be my pleasure to show you around. It wouldn’t be the great swordsmen, of course, but some swords will duel outside the theater to entertain\n the crowds, or outside the betting taverns, especially on market days.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s mother smiled fondly. “I’m sure Lord Reza will be invited by the nobles to parties where he will get the chance to see the best swordsmen himself,\n dear.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That may be,” Reza said. “But it would still be an honor to have your fine son show me around.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador lifted Rafe’s hand, bent over it, and kissed it, just as if Rafe were a woman. Maybe the custom was different in Chartil, or maybe the\n foreigner had simply misunderstood their own tradition. But the skin at the base of Rafe’s skull, where the hair was now cut short, lifted and tingled at\n the touch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All too soon, the ambassador’s supple fingers were withdrawn. Rafe didn’t know if he had imagined the slightest of stroking as they did so. The ambassador,\n with his smoothly curving cheeks, his hawklike nose, and hair a man could drown in, was now talking to someone else. And Rafe—Rafe was sworn to abstinence.\n A little drunk one night—well, a lot—shortly after he’d joined his father’s business, he’d found his way to the Temple, hacked off his long student’s hair,\n laid it on the altar, and sworn that if the gods would help him find his William, Rafe would not so much as touch another man.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a vow he often had reason to regret. Rafe Fenton and abstinence had never before been on speaking terms. But just as Rafe was focusing all his will\n on succeeding in his father’s trade for the sole purpose of gaining the money and status to rescue his love, so too he must dedicate all his other drives\n to that one purpose only.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sometimes Rafe didn’t know if it was Will he wanted to find or simply the duchess he wanted to spite. Rafe understood Diane’s hatred of him: He had, after\n all, not only fucked and been fucked by her husband, but had made the duke, accidentally, unpredictably, fall in love with him. And had fallen in love in\n return. His short time with William, Duke Tremontaine—his beautiful, brilliant, passionate, innocent Will—seemed like a dream sometimes. But the duchess’s cruelty, both to Will and to himself, sending his beloved away to god knows where, pretending she had accepted Rafe into her household first—that demanded repayment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And there she was, just across a new-formed circle from him, hands to her golden hair, throat stretched out laughing, her face rosy with pleasure. The\n Duchess Tremontaine was brilliantly, savagely happy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d never loved Will, Rafe thought. She might have pretended to—she had certainly made even Rafe believe it for a day—but no one who loved her husband\n could laugh like that, surrounded by admirers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n To Rafe’s shock, the duchess extended her white hand to him, inviting him to join them. The rubies on her wrist flashed red, like blood being splashed at\n him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe Fenton stormed out of the room. He’d told his mother he was suddenly sick, and it was pretty much the truth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, laughed the harder. Her enemies fled before her! Grace, charm, and beauty were all the weapons she needed for a lout like\n Fenton. Let him hate her all he would. It made no difference to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She put her hands to her sides: Her stays were so tight, the laughter was leaving her breathless. Perhaps she should go to the cloakroom to unlace a\n little. Her face could probably use more powder, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not leaving us, madam, I hope,” Lord Nevilleson said politely, and Lionel Chesney cried, “No, no, you mustn’t go now! The stars . . .” Lord Lionel had\n been hitting the brandy hard, but it seemed only to make the fair man more poetical. Since she’d come down from the dais, he’d been staring at her with\n undisguised admiration, even hunger, like a cat at a piece of fish. “ . . . The stars are made brighter by your presence!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The stars,” said Lord Nevilleson repressively, “will shine just as well if you let the lady catch her breath, Lord Lionel. Madam, may I escort you from\n the room?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, please.” It was almost a relief to lean on the arm of a man she was not the least bit interested in, as Nevilleson cleared the floor for her passage.\n She tipped her head toward him coquettishly out of habit, and one of the lacquer combs fell out, tumbling down her billowing skirts and onto the floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me.” Nevilleson began the laborious task of bending over in his tight jacket and breeches.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Madam?” A slender brown hand offered her the comb; and a pair of glowing brown eyes looked up at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arthur. How kind of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The young Kinwiinik continued to kneel at her feet, like some warrior of yore. “Madam Duchess. I—I would do more for you. Much more.” Heavens! But no: “My\n regard for Tremontaine—my good fortune in meeting you here—my people don’t understand—But I was born here, educated here, and I feel such—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Educated?” Diane bent down to him. “Tell me, Arthur: Have you ever been to University?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I took a few classes, yes. But I’m not committed to any particular school.” He dared a smile at her. “I’d like to find work, actually. I have a fair hand,\n I’m quick to learn, I can do calculations and keep records neatly . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sure,” Diane said warmly. Nevilleson hummed with impatience. Diane ignored him: His business was to escort her; women were frail creatures, after all. If she wished to pause and chat with anyone, well, he would just have to wait.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So Arthur Chel was familiar with the University, was he? “Do you know,” the duchess told him, “I think I might well have some work for you. Things are so\n difficult with my lord taken ill. Will you come and see me at my house soon?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wordlessly, he nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned back to her escort. “Lord Nevilleson, you may see me out to the retiring room, if you will.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Once in every hour, a perfect silence falls on even the most crowded party. Retorts are being thought of, food is being chewed, a lace is loosened, an\n earring adjusted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Such a silence fell now. And before it could end, a man entered the reception hall of the Council of Lords, walking in soft boots and perfect composure. He\n wore a robe of dark blue velvet. Embroidered on the chest was a gold and twisting serpent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Serpent Chancellor looked around the room with interest, his pale eyes not fixing on any one person, but sweeping them all. The silence held. He was\n neither tall nor short, with a lean body, an assured stride, and silver hair just long enough to be caught at the base of the neck with a silver clasp. His\n high-bridged nose spoke arrogance; the lines around his mouth spoke humor. They quirked a little when he looked at the men on the dais toward which he\n walked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arlen.” Nicholas, Lord Galing, Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords, nodded a welcome.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Raven Chancellor shifted a little to one side, allowing Lord Arlen, the Serpent Chancellor, to insert himself between him and the Dukes of Karleigh and\n Hartsholt, so that the blue-clad line of Inner Councilors stood unbroken. The Dragon Chancellor, Lord Davenant, found himself swallowing the waspish\n greeting he had prepared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord Arlen looked out over the silent Convocation and smiled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, Reza,” he said conversationally in that thin, dry voice of his, but it was a voice that had the trick of carrying. “You’re here before me. Good. Then we can begin.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From the hall outside the room, Diane de Tremontaine could hear voices raised in the formal lines of the opening of Council, the ritual of oaths and\n obeisance, of prestige and power. The last time she had heard those words, her husband William, Duke Tremontaine, had been up on the dais, next to the\n Dukes of Karleigh and Hartsholt, wearing the splendid clothes she had picked out for him, looking proud and solemn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Standing at the massive doorway to the room, the duchess suddenly leaned her head against the doorframe. The Chartil combs were heavy in her hair. She\n found she did not want to see the ritual after all. She did not want Lord Arlen’s keen gaze assessing her, or Davenant’s hot eyes upon her, or Galing’s\n pitying ones.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had already done what she had come to do. She’d confirmed that all was well with the Kinwiinik. She’d identified a young man who might serve as both\n her lover and her representative in Council. She’d begun an understanding with the Chartil ambassador.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n True, she had not found a new swordsman, but she had unexpectedly discovered a possible spy who might serve her both in the University and among the\n Kinwiinik. And she had noted Basil Halliday as a man worth watching.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She did not need to return to the Convocation. She was a woman. Nobody cared if she left early.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, stood in the highest room in her house on the Hill, overlooking the city. Below her, the river sparkled in the afternoon autumn\n sun. The distant hills were golden with turning leaves. She had ordered the Tremontaine hunting lodge out there to be opened and refurbished, so she could\n host a hunting party soon. She hadn’t done that for several years, now; not since the expense of Honora’s society debut had taken all they had—and William\n wasn’t fond of hunting anyway, so it hadn’t really mattered. But Diane looked very fetching on a horse, and the old lodge was a delightful property,\n charmingly rustic in its woodland setting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had expected today to be tiresome: a lunch at Tremontaine House with three other Inner Council wives, all with large families, interested in talking\n about the doings of their children and grandchildren. Even if the duchess had ever actually met her daughter Honora’s brood, she couldn’t imagine any less\n appealing topic of conversation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But luncheon was far from dull this time. Now that Diane was without William, now that she was known to have the temporary control of Tremontaine’s\n estates, now that even the dullest of them could see how well the duchy flourished under her (though not even the sharpest could ever know what she had\n done to attain this), now they were eager to hear about her situation, and to share advice on how to look after it all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was embarrassing to get a long story from Lady Davenant about how she had managed when her husband, the Dragon Chancellor, was so ill, considering that\n his “illness” had been spent partly in Diane’s arms.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then the Duchess of Hartsholt, that Northern virago who appeared annually just long enough to join her husband for the opening of Council before fleeing\n back up to the mountains for an aggressive fall of killing any game that did not run quickly enough—leaving their eldest son, Beverley, behind to represent\n their interests in Council—the Duchess of Hartsholt, steeped in ancient lore and known to be a bit of a nut about it, had put down her fork and said\n suddenly:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why not be duchess in your own right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t be silly, Griselda.” The sensible Helena, Duchess of Karleigh, leaned across the table to her old friend as if Diane were not even present. “She’s\n just William’s wife. She’s married into Tremontaine. She can’t be duchess without him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane is a Roehaven. The last of the ancient line. As we both recall, Helena, the previous Duke Tremontaine married his son William to Diane because he\n was mad for genealogy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Genealogy?” asked Lady Hypatia, Helena Karleigh’s sister-in-law, who had been brought along because she was in town from the country and much too young\n and silly to be allowed out on her own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You young people!” The Duchess of Hartsholt nodded vigorously. “Your marriages are all for money, or for advantageous alliance. But Tremontaine cleaved to\n the old traditions: He knew the Roehavens were also descended from the family of the greatest Duke Tremontaine, David, the King Killer. And so”—she pointed\n her fork at Diane—“he brought you here to breed the last surviving Roehaven to his son, if I may be so indelicate, ensuring that the great and noble line\n of your common ancestor did not die out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Young Lady Hypatia tittered: It was superbly indelicate. But the old duchess went on, undeterred, “Indeed”—and here she looked at Diane sharply—“there are\n some who say the Roehaven claim to Tremontaine was even stronger than the Tielmans’. Duke David’s sister was the Last King’s wife, and her daughter\n married—” Lady Hypatia stifled a yawn. “Well, never mind. All in all, my dear”—her tough, sinewy browned hand clasped Diane’s on the white tablecloth—“I\n think you had better make the claim, now that Council is open.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have no interest in being duchess,” Diane said automatically. “Not that way. Besides,” she added, like the child in the tale taking advantage of the\n witch and her oven, “I wouldn’t know how.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the Duchess of Hartsholt was no witch. “Get lawyers,” she said. “Or ask Galing—or better yet, the Raven Chancellor. Ranulph Lassiter will have the keys\n to all the oldest archives, where precedent will surely lodge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s never been done before,” Lady Davenant asserted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not in living memory,” said the Duchess of Hartsholt. “But that doesn’t mean it’s never been done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or that it can’t be done now,” Helena, Duchess of Karleigh agreed definitively. “Who else can claim Tremontaine, Diane? At any moment the Council might take it into their heads to choose an heir and boot you out in favor of some nobody.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My daughter Honora has two children,” Diane said faintly. “One’s a boy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And as duchess in your own right, you may step aside for him when the time comes,” the Northern duchess said firmly, “if he turns out to be worth\n anything. The ducal houses have always had the privilege of choosing their own heirs. This way, you may judge Honora’s boy for yourself in time, and pass\n it to someone capable if he is a fribble.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It does mean,” Lady Davenant said softly, “having Duke William declared irreparably mad first. I wonder, my dear, if you would be able to do that, knowing your tender heart?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane assumed a sentimental pose, looking past the table and out into the garden beyond. “Were William to get well, I would want things back just as they\n were.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And if he does not,” the Duchess of Hartsholt said briskly, “you had better be in a strong position, or this whole place will go to hell, as it very\n nearly did under his father.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n You could not argue with the Duchess of Hartsholt. Diane didn’t even try.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Eventually the remarkable woman collected her smelly dogs from the kitchen, where they had been banished owing to Lady Hypatia’s terror of them, and the\n entire luncheon departed along with her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Leaving Diane with much to think about at her high window. Not a tiresome lunch after all. Not in the least. She leaned against the window frame.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was the river, and there were the hills. And between them was an entire city, full of merchants and craftsmen, foreigners and bankers in the Middle\n City; scholars in the University, nobles in Council, criminals in Riverside, sailors and bargemen and porters at the docks and warehouses . . . a whole\n world just waiting for her to crack it open like a nut—and put the two halves of the shell back together again so that no one could know that she had\n feasted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine—duchess in her own right.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane took a deep breath of crisp, sharp air. She imagined she could taste the fields and the forests, the vineyards and the rivers . . . all that belonged\n to Tremontaine from north to south—and a little of the tang of the sea, waiting to be explored.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And in that brief moment, she was happy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nDiane, Duchess Tremontaine faced the loss of all she had worked for as the premier socialite of a glittering city. Threatened by failing fortunes and the revelation of a devastating secret, Diane did what she had to in order to survive. Engaging in lies, theft, and murder, she found her husband, Will, was the one asset she could not save, and so poisoned him into madness to secure her wealth and secrets.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nElsewhere, a foreign agent named Ixkaab Balam took to the City like a duck to water, learning swordplay, finding love, and incurring Diane's interest...and wrath. Meanwhile, Rafe Fenton, an ambitious young scholar fell in love with Will, only to lose him to the duchess's machinations. And Micah, a mathematical genius from the country, made a groundbreaking discovery with the power to change all of their lives forever. \n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Ellen Kushner\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.88","slug":"tremontaine-s2e01","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E01.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101094_TremontaineS02E01.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101094_TremontaineS02E01.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101094_TremontaineS02E01.pdf","share_url":"http://serialbox.com/episodes/57e000c8ada6e25bbf6d1355","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e001ceada6e25bc06d1d5c","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":2,"title":"Old in Mischief","released_date":"2016-10-26T12:01:56.257+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Vincent makes a splash while Kaab must rescue Micah and Joshua. ","byline":"Tessa Gratton","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e02.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-10-26","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent Applethorpe loved Riverside the way he loved the sword: To the uninitiated, both were chaos and danger in a bed together, sharp and hazardous and deadly. But from the inside, the chaos revealed itself to be a finely tuned system of rules and rule-breaking, honor and secrets. The danger did not vanish if you knew how to play the game; it only became more precise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He leaned against the sill of the side window on the top floor of one of the moldering houses just north of the University Bridge. The building leaned in\n such a way that from his perch, he could see out across rows of slate roofs and tiny chimneys, shoved together as oddly as the colored panes of glass in\n the window through which he gazed. He’d been entertaining himself looking through the yellow and blue patches, imagining them as contrasting styles of\n fighting. From a window that held all blue glass a swordsman would see certain subtle details differently than from a yellow-glassed perch. Like some\n swordsmen fell into habits and ways of using their blades and couldn’t shift into something different even to save their own lives. Vincent was determined\n that would not be the way he’d go. Give him the clear-eyed view, without the distortion of any glass.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, here,” called the voice of Madeline, the shop proprietor. “I’ve got something!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent turned, a half-smile still pulling at his mouth. It grew full as the woman emerged from a rack of hanging dresses like a goddess born from some\n heaven of rainbow silks. She stopped, eyeing him suspiciously.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what were you thinking just now?” she demanded, playful in eye if not in tone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He glanced back out the window. “I was thinking about swords.” Then he pushed off the sill and stepped nearer to her. “And also what a goddess you look,\n surrounded by offerings from worshippers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Madeline tucked a messy curl behind her ear, the closest to a blush she was capable of getting anymore. “Talk like that won’t bring the price down,\n swordsman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Holding his hand out, Vincent waited silently. He was not quite a handsome man, but the thrum of violence he carried in his heart lent appeal to his\n features when the right person looked. Beneath his heavy brow shone bright green-gold eyes with gently curling lashes. His brown hair was too short to be\n rich or thick, the hairline slightly receding despite his youth, and his compact body neither tall nor very broad. But his hands were strong and perfect,\n competent, and like the rest of him, they never moved without intent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent Applethorpe rarely had to do more than gesture in order to get what he wanted in Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But for Madeline, he twitched his fingers, and she dropped the pretty silver buckle into his palm, wrinkling her nose because she knew she’d given in to\n something he hadn’t even promised. “Three silver,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Two, unless you show me where it came from.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can’t. But was a bridle, I think,” she said. “The part that buckles over the beast’s cheek.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shrugged one shoulder, graceful, and believed her. Together they turned their attention to the leather straps of his sword belt, which hung from the\n hook of a hat rack. It was fine leather, supple and expensive, and his best: Three thick bands of shiny black connected the belt to the sheath itself, and\n one was missing the buckle necessary to adjust. He’d jammed the tiny tooth in a duel two weeks ago, knocking into a table, of all things. The bruise had\n lasted eight days, and he’d had to pry the buckle free, and now, finally, replace it. “Perfect,” he said, holding the new buckle up to compare it with the\n others. He was even fairly sure it was actual silver.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re going up on the Hill tonight?” Madeline asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent nodded as he slipped the new buckle into place in three efficient motions. “Lord Ferris’s birthday party for his son. Challenge to first blood.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Afraid the guests will be bored?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Bardsleigh contracted me to defend his honor.” He affixed his belt back into place, shifting his stance to let the sword settle where it belonged. As he\n handed her the two silvers, Madeline asked, “Didn’t I hear that Lord Ferris hired de Maris for the evening’s entertainment?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent gave her his best, most wicked grin. “Oh yes, yes indeed.” He swept his hat off the rack, offered her a precise, deep bow, and slipped out the\n door, down the narrow stairs, and into the alley.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The heat of the day stuck under eaves and in the thick shadows of the cobbled lane. It smelled of cat piss and river moss and baking bread, threaded\n through with a light breeze off the river, snaking through the tight lanes and streets of the island.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent joined up with a slightly broader street; the sun pinched his eyes and he was glad for the curved brim of his hat. He kept his face forward, but\n ears open, and hands relaxed, not too near the grip of his sword, having no need to go around always seeking a challenge. It was afternoon in Riverside, at\n the tail end of the summer, and the roofs glinted grey and black, the crumbling buildings leaned in like whispering friends, kids dashed by in scruffy,\n brightly colored shirts, barefoot and jacketless in the heat. Shutters were flung open to welcome the river wind, its cooling fingers worth the smells from\n the low tide. Flowers burst from window boxes and neighbors shouted from upper stories as they ran lines for laundry overhead. Most taverns here never\n exactly shut down, but on afternoons like this the fronts were open, and drinkers spilled messily out like the unused head of dark beer overflowing a mug.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Men and women who knew and liked him called his name, and those who didn’t nodded or tipped their own hats or held still to be sure not to project some\n threat. It was rare these days for trouble to try and trip Vincent up for no reason besides itself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He knew this living creature that was Riverside in and out: the guts and stinking refuse, the lip rouge and bright petticoats, the snarls and shadowboxing,\n liquor, smoke, sex, blood, the music and the screams. And the black, silent spaces between all those things, where tension reigned and the language was\n sharp steel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A person could see it all, and smell and hear and feel it all, on an afternoon like today.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent turned up the dead-end lane that led to the old house he shared with Tess the Hand and her lover, the Kinwiinik Trader woman Ixkaab Balam. It\n sagged comfortably in its foundation, having housed members of Tess’s old Riverside family for enough generations not to worry overmuch. Until midsummer,\n the lower floor had been occupied by a laundress, but she’d moved on, and Vincent hadn’t been sorry to see her go. Having the whole place to share between\n himself and Tess had allowed Vincent to spread out a bit, take up a room for practicing on rainy days and a narrow room for sleeping. Nearly as much space\n as he’d had the last time he’d been a live-in swordsman, years and a broken heart ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then Kaab had moved in with them five days back and quite thoroughly ruined the peace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A hard shriek tore him from pleasant thoughts and his sword was drawn in an instant, but the only attack was a glinting, winking vial spinning in a slow\n arc out of Tess’s window. Vincent stepped back, shielding his eyes with his arm, as the vial hit the cobbles and shattered, splattering him with perfume.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Seconds later he wrenched the outer door nearly off its hinges in his fury to charge up the stairs. Blade drawn, he knocked the door open and surveyed the\n room in attack stance for whatever threatened Tess.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It took a moment for Vincent to realize that though Tess had her fingers tightly fisted into the complex braids of her lover’s hair, nobody was about to\n die.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were kissing, as if it was their only way to breathe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Damn it,” he sighed, letting them hear the irritation, if they’d hear anything at all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” Tess said, but not to him. She said it to Ixkaab Balam, her lover, who gripped Tess’s hips passionately.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent was hit again with a waft of floral scent, delicate and sharp, and he glanced down at his boots and trousers. The threat of danger had made him\n forget the perfume.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” he drawled, as if anybody in the room cared, “I suppose it’s a good thing I’m off to the Hill tonight, where the women will be smelling sweet\n enough none will notice me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the time his brief foray into sarcasm ended, both Tess and Kaab had turned to stare at him. They really were too gorgeous together for a man to bear;\n fortunately, Vincent had a lot of practice. Tess was voluptuous and fiery, all pale skin and sunrise hair, fitted tight into her stays and layers of\n skirts. Kaab was a lithe, tightly packed coil, black hair tumbling out of braids, eyes like her Kinwiinik chocolate, and trouser-clad thighs as strong and\n quick as any other swordsman’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent,” Tess said breathily.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab laughed her full-throated laugh, and poked Tess gently at the hip. “I told you, maize-flower, it was a bad idea to throw things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re infuriating,” Tess the Hand replied, pulling away with false haughtiness. She stomped to her chest of drawers and nudged the perfume compartment\n slowly shut with her bare foot. A string of tension stretched between them, and not sexual, but something else, something Vincent was used to: These lovers\n fought like cats.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess . . .” Kaab said, longingly. She glanced at Vincent and he read clearly enough that she did not wish to discuss this with him present. He pointedly\n leaned his shoulder against the wall, both admiring and pitying Kaab’s fervor. It blazed out of her, transformed her into a singular light, but so, too,\n did it ruin her focus and often ruin her swordplay.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Vincent,” Tess said, ignoring her lover’s plea. “There’s a full meat pie in the other room. I know you’ve got your duel tonight on the Hill, because \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e tell me about your comings and goings. Let me cut you a slice to fuel your swordplay.” The forger sashayed through the arched door that led\n toward the hearth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab perked up. “You have a duel tonight?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Xamanek’s light, I wish it was me! I’d like to work—do something useful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Plenty of ways to be useful without getting yourself killed,” Vincent said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wouldn’t!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent shrugged. “You’ve got to be careful building a name as a swordsman. People will start challenging you just to challenge you, and it won’t be to\n first blood. You’re exotic, Kaab, for being a woman, a fighter, and a foreigner. Anyone who kills you will be famous for a week or so. Your family and\n political connections can’t protect you in Riverside, especially now you’re on the outs with them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab scowled. “I can protect myself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Until the moment you can’t,” he replied, calm. “That’s the way of it for all of us. Putting off that moment as long as possible, at the same time we\n invite it to dance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It isn’t your job to protect me,” she answered him in a low, almost dangerous voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m still your teacher, and if you go out and get ruined on your first hired fight, that reflects poorly on me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her scowl twisted into a reluctant smile. “I see.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent!” called Tess impatiently, stomping back in. “This pie is getting cold. Kaab, I’ll . . .” Her voice softened. “I’ll see you tonight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a strange dismissal, full of half-meanings and yet also a promise. Kaab pressed her mouth into a line, then grabbed her own sword belt, her\n short-sleeved Kinwiinik jacket, and slammed the door closed behind her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent waited quietly. Like he’d offered his hand to Madeline, he offered his silence to Tess. She stared at him, clearly deciding what to say or if she\n should say anything at all. Finally, she came over and put her forehead on his collar. Her bright hair teased his chin, her full breasts pressed against\n his shirt. Vincent touched her elbow, but nothing more. Enough that she knew he didn’t mind being used as a prop or for comfort. The forger heaved a sigh\n and said, “I don’t know if she’ll ever find a place here, no matter how hard she tries. She doesn’t understand us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think that woman can handle just about anything, especially with you on her side,” he said, his voice low and somehow thick with emotion that took him\n by surprise.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess said nothing, and Vincent added, “I might, the next time I hear of a challenge to first blood, see about getting it for her. The right fight won’t do\n her harm, and will give her a chance to show she’s dangerous throughout the city.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’d like that,” Tess said softly. “It’ll be perfect for her . . . liver-spirit.” The phrase sounded odd in Tess’s mouth, and the pause made Vincent\n think she’d meant to say something else.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess leaned away, wrinkling her nose. “You really do smell overwhelmingly of jasmine and bitters. Oh my.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent snorted. “I hope de Maris will like it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah was hungry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sometimes it hit her when she least expected it. Or rather, when it hadn’t occurred to her first that she should be hungry. She sat on Rafe’s bed—her\n bed!—surrounded by sheets of paper covered in lines and numbers as she worked through a complicated problem Doctor Goodell had given her. She knew the\n answer—she usually knew the answer—but Doctor Goodell said it mattered how one followed the path to the answer, not just the answer itself, so she should\n write her way through the problem. She didn’t truly understand why she needed to explain, but she trusted Doctor Goodell, and Joshua (who agreed with him),\n though she hadn’t been able to ask Rafe for his opinion since she hadn’t seen him in thirty-six days, assuming today was the day she thought it was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Besides, as Joshua said when she said she wanted to know what Rafe would say, it was oftentimes better to do the exact opposite of what Rafe would do.\n Micah had been worried that was a mean thing to think about her friend, but Joshua’s eyes had crinkled the way they did when he was being kind, so she\n decided he meant it with love.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Carefully layering her papers in order, she created a path and crawled off the bed. She tied up her shoes and shook her hair out. She was supposed to be\n growing it long like the other University students, but the front kept getting in her eyes and face, and it wasn’t long enough to braid back well, so she’d\n asked a serving girl in the Ink Pot for a sharp knife and cut off the front, leaving the back behind to grow. Joshua had gasped like a maiden in one of the\n cheap street-theater tragedies—that’s what Thaddeus said he sounded like, anyway—and declared they couldn’t let their genius roommate out of the house with\n half-hacked hair. So they’d chopped it all, and found some grease to slick it back, though Micah never remembered to do that part. She didn’t care either\n way, because Doctor Goodell never noticed, and his hair was wild, too. Besides, her black robes were all she needed to be treated like the University\n student she was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s stomach growled. She dug into her trouser pocket, but there were no coins. She reached under the mattress and found her hidden purse empty. Oh,\n well, she’d have to win some money before she could eat, unless Joshua or Thaddeus or the new boy in the front, David, had something lying around. She went\n to the door leading out into the main room. For once, it was empty except for Joshua, who sprawled across the chaise with his head hanging off, clutching\n papers to his forehead in a fist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m hungry,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He startled and nearly fell off the lounge. “Gods’ teeth, Micah! Hello! Yes, hungry! Me too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why are you doing that?” she asked, frowning.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He grinned, but upside down and all reddish in the face. “If I tip like this all the smarts rush up into my brain and I figure out what I’m missing in this\n long string of calculations.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah shook her head. “That isn’t true.” But she made herself smile a little. She knew from the wink that he was joking with her, even though she didn’t\n understand it, and she liked that he joked with her, because it made her feel like she belonged here. Or more accurately: It made her feel as though Joshua\n believed she belonged here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He rolled over and hit the wooden floor on hands and feet, rather like a cat who’s fallen out of a window. All casual, he sat back and set his papers\n beside the foot of the chaise. “You’re hungry, you said?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. But I need money first, unless you have some.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Joshua smiled so big all his teeth showed. “Lamb, was that a joke?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah shrugged shyly. She knew Joshua never, ever had money, and if she pretended otherwise, he thought it was funny. Joshua was just like a calculation,\n and she had nearly all the numbers she needed to see enough of his shape to know what to say. She loved understanding the pattern that repeated between\n them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Joshua tilted his head. “Well, I have bad news.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh no!” Worry made her cold. Had something happened to Doctor Goodell or Rafe? Was there a problem with their rooms or the money she’d paid for her\n student fees? Did she need to do that again now that summer was over? Had he heard from her Cousin Reuben?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shit, lamb, sorry,” Joshua said, coming toward her as if to give her a hug, but he stopped himself. He grimaced. “I just mean we have to find a new place\n to play cards, because nobody around here will play with you anymore. You’ve cleaned them all out too many times.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had a ready answer for this problem: “I know a place; I’ve heard of one.” She nodded decisively and marched for the exit. “The Brown Dog in Riverside.\n They’ll play with me there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And Micah left Joshua gaping behind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab Balam sucked a breath of not-so-fresh air in through her teeth, then let it out in a long, sighful prayer. Riverside was the angry, passionate liver\n of this Xanamwiinik city, and it stank accordingly. Kaab knew she was in the right place, despite Tess’s worries.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She settled her hand on her sword, tapping her thumb against the cool metal pommel as she decided on a course of action. Chocolate had gone missing from\n the Kinwiinik warehouses, and tracking down the culprits had to be her priority. There were several possible avenues for investigation: She could head\n straight for one of the taverns to hear what she could hear; seek out Jamie, that boy who sometimes took messages for Tess, and set him to gathering\n information; continue her careful exploration of all the ways and routes of Riverside; or head straight for the Bridge and hunt up evidence of how one\n might go about using it to steal directly off the barges and punts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Glancing longingly back down the lane to the rooms they now shared, Kaab wished she might return to tease her lovely, fire-haired lady into an outing with\n her, for a stroll and maybe dancing later to the wild, terrible tavern music Tess adored so much. That would be ample opportunity to further invest herself\n in the hearts of these Riversiders, show them she could talk among them, have a place here, spread the story that she’d broken with her family and\n Riverside was her chosen refuge. Where she could live with her lady and by her sword.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a perfect plan, if only Tess could see it. Even Saabim had agreed, after some little persuasion.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“This will be dangerous,” Aunt Saabim murmured, a crease between her lovely black brows. \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e “We don’t have time to avoid the risk of it, Aunt,” Kaab insisted, pressing her hands on her knees to keep from grasping at the air. \u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Saabim, round with her pregnancy, leaned back into the arms of a low moon chair, woven of river rushes and painted with all the colors of Ixchel’s rainbow to support and protect mother and child. Uncle Chuleb had sent to his family as soon as he learned he was to be a father, and the chair had\n come in Saabim’s sixth month, along with prayers. She rarely rested without it now. Saabim hummed softly, thinking or breathing through discomfort,\n Kaab could not be sure.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Kaab pressed on. \u003c/em\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n “Uncle Ahkitan’s letter said the inspector from the Batab would set sail with the end of the wet season, and so perhaps is already on his way here. We\n must identify the thieves stealing from our warehouses before then. If we do not, it will look ill for us in the Batab’s love-pricked eyes. If he is\n angered at us, that might mean losing our monopoly or—or . . .” Her argument faded away. She could not say the rest, knowing her part in destabilizing\n the Batab’s trust in her family last year.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e “War,” Saabim said wearily. “But we have many means of stopping this, many avenues that you might pursue before you leave us for Riverside! Tell me this\n is not for your pretty lady there, Kaab.”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e “No!” Kaab exploded to her feet. “Riverside is the best chance. The goods are vanishing between the Old City warehouses at the docks and our own\n warehouses, and what is between the two but Riverside?”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e “I worry, though, Kaab.”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e “It is less dangerous than what I have done before, in our family’s name, less dangerous than missions you have succeeded in, or my own mother, may she\n never be extinguished. I can hold my own with these people. Haven’t I shown as much?”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Saabim held out one hand, the other going to her belly. Kaab knelt once more beside her aunt’s chair, and struggled to remain at peace. Here in this small inner courtyard, surrounded by flowering plumeria, Saabim wore only her undyed mantle,\n loose and freeing in the warmth of the late summer. It was nothing like the heat of Binkiinha, but windless and thicker with moisture. “I do not mean\n danger to your body, little bee, but your heart. Our hearts. For you to be alone, cut off from us, even in knowing pretense . . . that is the danger to\n your spirit that worries me.”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e There was little Kaab could say to that, other than to take her aunt’s hand and press it in her own. “There is no force in any world that could cleave me from you, and this will make us all stronger.”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With that, the two women immediately created a plan for regular check-ins, emergency contact, and times and locations for dropping messages for other\n Traders to collect. They’d even timed it so that Kaab’s break with her family could be made gloriously public at the gathering of City folk for the opening of their Council season a few days ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If only Kaab had guessed how truly hard it would be to pretend she had left her family, for any reason.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Too bad Tess wasn’t playing along.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a gulf she did not know how to cross between them, her family and loyalty versus Tess’s independence and demanding love. Kaab wanted to give her\n everything, and this was a chance! But when she ran delightedly into Riverside and broke confidence by telling Tess all about the plan, all about the intrigue she was attempting, instead of being delighted by the trust Kaab placed in her, Tess was hurt that Kaab’s move to Riverside had been spurred by\n family concerns, not by singular adoration of her. \u003cem\u003eYou only want to move in with me to serve your family!\u003c/em\u003e Tess had said, shocked more than angry\n at first.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eIt is for you, and me, and them\u003c/em\u003e, Kaab had tried to soothe her love. \u003cem\u003eCan you not see how much it means to me to take an action that unites all my loves?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eCan you not see how much it hurts to be your cover?\u003c/em\u003e\n Tess had snapped, unmoved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThat is not all you are!\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Surely, that and a chance to play swordswoman.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e It’s no game to me, Tess.\u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Maybe everything is, to you.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab needed to purge the uncertainty she felt, the burning wire she walked with Tess, in order to focus. She could have both, her family and her fiery\n maize-flower, and she would. This would prove it, when she immersed herself in Tess’s world and saved her family’s monopoly simultaneously.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Bridge, Kaab decided, and headed off.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She strode along one of the streets that cut a meandering path down the middle of Riverside, narrow enough she couldn’t see the sun except in occasional flashes burning from the west, slicing between leaning buildings and gilding the rooftops. As she went, plenty marked her, for she stood out with her\n burnished skin, black braids pinned to the top of her head, the sleeveless cut of her orange tunic, her tight trousers, and of course, the sword. Riverside\n had heard stories of this foreign princess who’d taken up with their own favorite forger. Some had been witnesses the day she’d dueled every sword who’d\n answered the challenge, right over there in that cobbled yard; yet others had exchanged words with her, flirted or whistled as she passed, for she was\n stunning in that dangerous way of strangers and blades; only a very few knew just how deadly she could be, as they’d had it from brothers or whispering\n girlfriends that this girl had killed a very good swordsman last spring. \u003cem\u003eReynald\u003c/em\u003e, they murmured, and he worked for Tremontaine, and she did it\n silent and slick with blood, and other such things that made her one of them before she even realized it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab felt her shoulders relax as she went, though she kept her eyes open and listened to the chatter and cries, the wind and laughing and snarking birds\n overhead, as if it were all ocean waves, a crash of messages from Xamanek, guiding her way. Despite this strange land, despite her home being thousands of\n miles away, despite this split with her family, and even despite Tess’s reluctance to embrace the opportunity wholeheartedly, Kaab was certain she’d made\n the right choice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She grinned a vicious grin, picked up her pace, and found herself near flying to the bridge connecting this rollicking, gritty island to the western bank\n of the wide, low river.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This time of day the Bridge was crowded with those Riversiders who had business in the Middle City rushing back across before twilight set in. Without a\n thought for caution, Kaab took three long steps and leapt onto the stone railing of the Bridge. She caught her hip painfully against the edge and hauled\n herself up, kneeling first, then lifting to a crouch, and finally standing tall as a hundred-year ceiba tree. The red-and-violet sash of her belt flapped\n in the thick river wind, and she spread her arms for balance, laughing to herself. A woman on the bridge below, with baskets near-empty of bright apples,\n snorted at her, but laughed, too, and a trio of young men waved, calling out bravas. Kaab bowed to them, smiling with her teeth, and walked a few careful\n paces along the fat stone balustrade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could see so much from here, like a fire-colored papagayo perched at the pinnacle of a temple to Ahkin, may he always heat her mind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The river flowed lazily below, toward the docks and the sea beyond. Kaab turned, picking out the high masts pointing like arrows at the vibrant blue sky, where her family’s ships nestled at the docks. At night, it would be easy to navigate from there up the river toward the flickering firelight of Riverside\n taverns open late, slip under this bridge, and unload cargo stolen from the Kinwiinik. Or . . . Kaab pulled a swift about-face and gazed north along the\n curve of the river, toward the warehouse district on the western bank and beyond it the Kinwiinik compounds that she could not see from here, for their\n pale buildings were not tall enough to rise over the Xanamwiinik buildings, so uncouth and haphazard in style. But farther past where she knew her family\n now gathered for supper and evening conversations, the Middle City lifted in layers like cakes stacked upon each other for a feast, and farther than that\n rose the Hill. From here, Kaab could only barely see the edge of the Hill, but she remembered it in glowing detail: Noble homes clutching the slope of\n earth like barnacles, lovely and delicate from afar, more like flowers, perhaps, the spreading blossoms adorning a peaked plumeria tree. And at the\n pinnacle, Tremontaine House was a crown of ivory and green and pink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It filled her with satisfaction, even months later, the memory of her visit to that house, when she had challenged the duchess and won for her family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not for her friend Rafe, though, who grew less patient and more willfully desperate every day. It nagged at her, that she’d not found a way to give him\n some peace without pulling a thread in the blanket of intelligence that protected the Balam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab could not blame him: If her beloved Tess or Aunt Saabim had been driven mad by an ambitious, terrible woman, Kaab, too, would be incapable of rational thought. To be truthful, she was impressed that Rafe was able to make plans at all; she’d thought him impetuous and passionate to an immature degree.\n Perhaps this challenge was good for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Or perhaps Kaab only liked to think so, for there was information she had about his lover the duke and the conniving, lovely duchess that Kaab had yet to\n offer Rafe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Some friend she was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But her heart was her family’s heart, and that necessitated Kaab’s priorities.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab focused. Yes, it would be easy in the dark of night to load stolen goods onto a flat punt there at the steps near the warehouses, and slip with the\n flow of the river here to this bridge, remove what merchandise you liked at the dark pylons, and continue on without anyone the wiser. It would require\n multiple criminals.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Part of her thrilled at the idea of bringing down a gang, perhaps even some small organization of thieves, but the rest of her worried, for she had a\n deadline fast approaching, by which time she needed to have this matter of missing merchandise well and truly resolved. There was much to do: investigate\n the City warehouses down at the docks to locate all the security holes or—if blessed with luck—catch thieves in action; look into who in Riverside traded\n in stolen merchandise; discover from Locals who was best known for thievery and group work; maybe inquire about borrowing punts or owning them, and where such boats were tied up along the unfinished, crumbling banks of the island.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Turning toward the thin stream of folk heading into Riverside, Kaab caught sight of a familiar, slight figure. She leapt off the bridge wall, landing in a\n half-crouch, and stood gracefully to smile into the stunned face of Nimble Willie, a boy only a few years her junior, who was said to be a fine burglar and even finer carrier of news.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Young Nimble Will,” she said, and the boy bore up well against his cringe of fear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aye, foreign lady,” he replied, high and tremulous as the setting sun beat into his pale eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where might a young man from the Hill go in Riverside, if he were up to no good?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The young burglar grimaced, and leaned in. Kaab fished a sliver of brass from her vest pocket and handed it to him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll know if you send me off wild,” she warned. “And so Tess will too, and her sword.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He smiled, shrugging. “I’d never, lady. Try the Glorious Head, the Red Petticoat, or for drinking and gambling, the Brown Dog. It’s where all them masked\n louts go, to pretend they had an adventure in Riverside.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab clapped Willie on the shoulder and shoved her way into the crowd.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They’d taken the shortest way—that Micah knew of, at least. She was good at remembering the ways from places she’d actually been to places she was\n returning, but finding a \u003cem\u003enew\u003c/em\u003e place by directions alone tended to frustrate her, as it seemed the City hadn’t been planned by thinking people, but wandering cows. Fortunately, she’d seen several maps by now, from Doctor Goodell, and when he’d tugged his bushy orange beard and asked her to stare at\n them until she understood, she’d agreed, trusting him that there was an answer to the question.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There had been, too! All the streets made shapes. They weren’t organized or in much of a pattern, but here was a triangle and there another, and most of\n the market squares were actually squares or rectangles, or that one outside the University was nearly a hexagon, and all the shapes pieced together. What\n Micah had thought was a disaster, an impossible mess, turned out to be a complicated puzzle of shapes. Some of them she didn’t know the name to, and Joshua\n told her one was a jellyfish shape, which was ridiculous, and that another was shaped like the mole on his stepmother’s chin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The problem was twofold: First of all, Joshua kept hanging back or leaping forward to tell her this was a terrible idea, no matter how clearly she\n explained that she knew a girl named Tess who was from Riverside, and how she’d been to Riverside and also knew a very strong swordsman named Vincent\n Applethorpe, and the two of them along with Kaab—he remembers Kaab, doesn’t he?—had taken Micah to a shop where dresses spilled out of the walls and there\n was wine for sale and cheese and toast. Joshua said there were too many people in Riverside who were not Tess or Vincent or the toast shop owner, and most\n of them would stick Micah with a knife just for the shirt on her back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Second of all, and here was the real problem: She’d never seen a map of Riverside so she didn’t have any idea about the shapes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she knew that the Brown Dog was near the bridge leading to the west bank. Tess had promised. So if they came across from the east all Micah had to do\n was cross the island directly and find the other bridge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she stepped onto the University bridge, Joshua grasped her wrist, and Micah went still. His eyes were pinched and his black University robes gleamed in\n the setting sun. “Micah, truly this cannot be a good idea.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just stick with me, Joshua,” she said, carefully prying his fingers loose. “Cousin Reuben says if we just look like we know where we’re going, everyone\n will assume we do.” Like she dressed as a boy and everyone assumed she was one. Micah could say so to Joshua and prove her theory, but that would mean\n another conversation and even more delay.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Joshua stared at her for a long moment, then stood and untied his long blond hair. He slowly gathered it all up again and tied it back, exactly the same as\n before, so Micah wasn’t sure what the point had been other than stalling. Then Joshua nodded and held out his hand for hers. “I need it,” he said, only\n half his face smiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah gripped his hand, knowing it was the best way through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe is gonna murder me,” Joshua said as they plunged across the bridge and into the darkening shadows of Riverside itself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wish he were here,” Micah said, pausing to glance around hopefully.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Me, too, lamb.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Keeping her eyes ahead, where the last sunlight was coming from, so that she knew exactly which way was west and the other side of the island, Micah said, “We should go see him, since he won’t come see us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure. Fuck off!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The last startled her, but Micah quickly realized Joshua had said it to a leering man with a low-dragging hat and dirty vest. She ignored it and tugged at Joshua, so he moved faster with her. There were more people now, it seemed, since the shadows lengthened, and perhaps she’d overestimated her ability to\n find the Brown Dog. The houses pressed too close, and everything was louder and stinkier than her market or the University, even, a chaos of people and\n shouting. Her ears itched and she wanted to press her hands over them, muffle some of this wretched noise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey, Micah,” Joshua said, leaning toward her shoulder and letting her have her hand back. “Think about what a great story this will be for Rafe, when we\n go visit him. And once we get to this tavern we’re looking for, we can go across the bridge to the Hill side and walk up north to one of the other bridges\n back to University. Definitely if we survive this we won’t have to come back this way, I swear.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s eyes flicked between the vanished sun and her feet, and she kept on the straightest path she could, quick and determined. She gripped her black\n robe, glad of it, a thing to hide in—nobody bothered boys like they bothered girls, and she’d find a table and win some money and eat and then go back home\n and be safe in her bed with her numbers, and Joshua snoring in the other room, and Thaddeus might be home, and David, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Suddenly Joshua stopped, grunting in surprise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stopped too, and looked where he looked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They’d come out of a narrow lane into a crescent-shaped courtyard, and the river gleamed ahead. There was a tavern, and a man was flung out of the door,\n rolling along the mucky cobbles to land in a heap of beer and linen and pale flesh at their feet. Two silver coins rolled and spun and knocked into the toe\n of Micah’s shoe. Micah clapped her hands over her mouth. “Shit,” Joshua said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was it: whitewashed, with peeling black paint on the shutters and a hanging sign depicting a slavering brown dog as rangy and wild as a wolf—but\n wearing a fancy blue waistcoat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Murder was rare inside the walls of the Brown Dog, but it wasn’t unheard of. Just last week a man had fallen from the gallery, busting through the narrow\n carved rail, and hit the stone floor with a crunch loud enough to bring the entire tavern to a stop. Blood splattered onto the skirt of the nearest serving\n girl, who shrieked in irritation. It soaked the man’s chest beneath the dagger hilt that stuck out of him like a monument.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Too bad,” Merry Alfric had said, pointing up at the grimacing Balthazar the Sixth (sixth in size, they said at the Red Petticoat, but really his mama had named all her boys the same so she could be equally furious or equally proud of them without paying much attention). “If you’d not left it stuck in,”\n Alfric continued, “you might’ve gotten away with calling it an accident.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was the story Florian Larue was in the midst of performing, to the pleasure of Alfric, who liked his temporary reputation for wit, when the short\n young man in scholar’s black robes crept in and sidled immediately to a long table where the Farling brothers were playing cards against a line of noble\n boys wearing velvet half masks tied over lovely, short hair. The scholar joined them, and on his tail was a slightly older boy with his sleeves rolled up and his fair hair long, only a worried smile for a mask.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian looked across the packed tavern toward Shade, who leaned in the darkest corner, ostensibly rolling dice with Dirk the Fish and a couple of chums\n from the Middle City. Despite the mass of rowdy drinkers between them, their eyes met, green and black, and instantly the two were of an accord.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Keeping his throne atop an untapped keg of ale, Florian finished his story with all the flourish he could command, concluding with a dark reminder that\n missteps of all kinds meant more in a place like Riverside. He smoothed his silk waistcoat where it always puckered from being refinished poorly, and made\n sure to skim his fingers along the hilt of the knife tucked into his belt as a reminder to all that he had it. His audience shivered and grinned, mostly\n thrill-seekers happy to soak up what Florian sold. They’d be glad to be cheated at dice if he directed them to Shade, and happier still to be caught in the\n dark alley halfway home, divested of their rings or that very fine leather hat, but not their lives. Go home with a story to tell the grandkids about the\n time they dared venture to Riverside. Too bad they were from the Hill, youngest sons, and no merchants among them. Florian did so prefer fucking over the\n merchants.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As he laughed and threw wit, clapped shoulders and accepted a round of ale from his special new friends, Florian kept his eye on the scholars playing cards\n by the door. The young one was a spectacular winner, it seemed, and none too friendly: eyes all for the cards and no room for banter. At least his\n friend—not lover, Florian thought, nor sibling, by the way the older hovered but carefully did not touch the younger—at least his friend tried to fit in.\n Luck such as that boy’s was more likely manufactured, and they couldn’t have outside talent looking to the Brown Dog for a quick fix. Wasn’t usually a\n problem: Most folk knew better without needing to be told.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Seven hands in, the newcomer had won quite the pot and every Riversider in the place had their eyes on him. Florian glanced to Shade’s corner only to find\n it empty. His chest swelled in anticipation, knowing what came next. He tipped the rim of his mug against his neighbor’s and set it down on the bar, then\n slid off to join Shade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The two together were ofttimes called the Twins, though they appeared nothing alike and were the farthest from brothers two men could be. Florian Larue,\n tall and glorious, the bastard son of a successful merchant, had run away to Riverside five years ago, depending his survival on his gilded tongue in more\n ways than one. He loved the carnival of Riverside, the show and pretense, the worn velvet, cracked molding, all of it used to cover bloodstains. He knew\n the feel of a knife between ribs, the sudden give, the slick gush of blood, but wasn’t a killer himself, not by vocation, not like Shade. Shade had been\n born to Riverside: His grandmother escaped Cham forty years ago, pregnant with his mother, running from devilish enemies after her lover was murdered, or\n so Shade’s mother had told him when he was a thin child, ragged with ferocity. \u003cem\u003eYou come by it natural\u003c/em\u003e, she said. She’d never married, but her\n long-term lover had been the poetry-minded third son of some Southern country nobility, only rich enough to write poems in these slums and die of drink and\n melancholy. Poetry and ancestral violence together made Shade into the deadly slip of a man he was now. Sleek as a heron, Shade wore his night-black hair\n long because his mother and grandmother had, curse and cut any who said it made him look too girlish or scholarly. While Florian painstakingly hunted up\n and even personally repaired fine secondhand vests and jackets, trousers and neckties, to put together perfectly coordinated outfits like the echo of\n nobility, Shade wore black and black and black, covered over by a coat stitched from at least twice-ten different cloths and scraps of material. Ask him\n where it came from and he’d point to one long green strip or that brilliant vermillion patch or the slick silk in silver and saffron and tell you the name\n of the man it used to belong to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Some suggested it was all an invention, that he was too young or too lovey to sport such a thing as a murder coat, but never suggested it to his face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The new boy in scholar’s robes frowned prettily and showed his hand. “This Royal should be replaced because of the fold here on the corner.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Everyone at his long table stared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian and Shade stepped to either shoulder. “Young man,” Florian said, “welcome to the Brown Dog.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Young woman,” murmured Shade, and the two shared a glance, then a perfectly mirrored shrug, and turned their eyes back to the newcomer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” the boy or girl said—earnestly, as far as either could tell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade tucked a thick curtain of black hair behind his ear and leaned over the boy’s shoulder, not quite touching. “You’ve a gift with the cards,” he said\n in his soft, murderous voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s just math.” The boy’s wide blue eyes skittered away from Shade’s to Florian, who clapped his hand on the broader shoulder of the other scholar, the\n gambler’s anxious friend.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Florian Larue,” he drawled, and flicked his thumb along the young man’s jaw. “This is Shade.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, I’m Joshua Easom.” The older scholar managed a real smile, flirtatious even, and Florian appreciated the effort. “This is Micah. We just came for some\n gaming. He knows, ah, a woman named Tess? She came to our Ink Pot a few months ago. Red hair, fantastic, ah . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Though Shade held his expression dark and slick, Florian was amused enough to take pity on Joshua. “Tess the Hand.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah jolted upright. “That’s right! Do you know her? I was hoping she might be here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thinking of setting up?” Shade asked, uninterested in subtlety. He was a knife, a stiletto, not a dance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Setting up what?” asked Micah, and Florian grinned. The Riversider looked pointedly at Joshua, who pressed his mouth together and stood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Joshua said, “Well, Micah, we’ve won enough for a while, and these gentlemen might want your seat.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah frowned at Florian, then at Shade. “Do you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” Shade touched the ragged end of Micah’s hair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Get away from that child,” came a commanding voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade immediately went still, slipping back a step and putting hands on his knives. But Florian turned with an extravagant flourish. “Lady Ixkaab Balam of the Chocolatiers,” he declared like a herald, smiling his most charming smile. “What a pleasure, finally—we’ve heard so much about you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kaab!” cried Micah delightedly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you’ve heard so much,” Ixkaab Balam warned Florian in her rich accent, “you’ll know not to trifle with me or mine. And these are mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was only a silent pressure at his back telling Florian that Shade would very merrily accept such a challenge, but Shade was no swordsman, only a cutter\n and thief, and Florian was one of the few who knew without doubt this foreign princess was a killer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian said, “By all means, Lady Chocolate, take them and go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ixkaab Balam, and no sweet-names, Florian Larue.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He bowed, touching his hip to Shade’s. Shade held himself expressionless and still, eyes on Micah as the young cardsharp gathered the last of her winnings.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The three left together, both students and the Kinwiinik swordswoman. Shade touched the delicate skin along the side of Florian’s hand, and the two slipped out after, following like ghosts through the darkening night. The princess, the student, and her friend went fast across the bridge into the west-side warren of warehouses and shops. Ixkaab leaned near Micah, speaking hurriedly, and tossed accusing looks at the taller man, clearly scolding him, but he\n shrugged more easily once they were off Riverside and into the late evening foot traffic in this tamer neighborhood. Shade followed silently, and Florian\n behind him, amused and intrigued by his lover’s single-minded focus. Shade was undoubtedly already devising a plan for removing this student, who played\n cards like a professional and lied with earnest eyes, from the foreign Ixkaab’s care. The one called Joshua would not be a problem.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But now was not the time. Florian snagged his finger around Shade’s belt. He tugged Shade back against his chest and Shade turned his head to the side,\n shivering suddenly in the damp, black alley, despite the warmth and the smell of late summer green that spilled over the wall beside them. “Shade,” Florian murmured, pressing lips and then teeth to the flesh where neck and shoulder met. “Shade.” The word was a breath curling down his spine. “We have a meeting, you know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know.” Shade pressed his hips back against Florian, fingering the knife at Florian’s thigh. Together they stumbled against the rough stone alley wall,\n and Shade twisted to put his mouth on Florian’s. Shadows enveloped them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You—can’t—murder—” Florian said between kisses, “—that—boy—tonight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade gripped Florian’s hair, stretching up to put his mouth even with the taller man’s mouth. He pulled, and a burst of pain brightened Florian’s green\n eyes. “I can if I like.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But our retirement plan,” Florian whispered, baring strong, white teeth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’ll never retire,” Shade answered, aligning his lean body to Florian’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, true,” Florian shrugged. “But we still have money to make and an appointment to keep, my pretty knife.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade smiled coolly and slipped back toward Riverside, and Florian followed, whistling and grand behind him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was the usual gilded affair Vincent had come to expect from the Hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He entered through a side door, and even it was a finely polished slab of oak under a carved stone arch, decorated at the lintel with freshly cut country\n flowers. The servant who greeted him smiled cheerfully but ushered Vincent through a narrow corridor without preamble and emptied him outside onto a broad\n terrace. “My lords Ferris and Bardsleigh are present and ready whenever you are. Master de Maris is already here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nobility gathered in small clusters beside elegantly set tall tables of delicate finger food, or promenaded down the crescent of shallow stairs and onto the half-circle of crisp green yard before the gardens began. A trio of musicians on strings played a gentle tune across the patio from a silver fountain spilling pink liquid. Sconces shaped like seashells burned with fine firelight from the pale stretch of the manor wall, and torches burned evenly all around, at every level of patio, stair, and yard. Above it all the velvet night sky curved purple and black, dotted with a thousand stars and a sliver of\n moon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All in all, a terrible place for a duel, but he’d had worse, and at least the patio would serve a natural stage to separate them from the noble guests, who in Vincent’s experience were significantly less apt at jumping out the way of swordsmen than Riverside or lower city audiences.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, Applethorpe,” said de Maris, coming up a polite sword’s distance from Vincent’s left. “Fine night for a duel.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Insipid as the approach was, Vincent found himself returning de Maris’s smile with a cool but genuine smile of his own. “I’ve been looking forward to it,”\n he admitted. De Maris was younger than Vincent by a couple of years, and tended toward sleek doublets and tall boots with quite the shine. His hat was\n fashionably cut and feathered with white primary feathers from some bird of prey. If Vincent met him on the street, he’d assume de Maris was more bark than bite, but the pretty swordsman was sharp and well-considered by all who’d seen him fight. One of the more expensive freelance swords in the City, with a\n reputation for clean technique. Vincent had wanted this fight for months, though he’d never been willing to throw a challenge for his own sake.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see Ferris and Bardsleigh both. Shall I begin?” de Maris asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent simply nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And so de Maris strode out to the center of the patio and doffed his fine hat, calling clear as an actor on stage, “My name is Roger de Maris. I bear\n challenge from Malcolm Deverin, Lord Ferris, to Lord Everett Bardsleigh. A fight to first blood.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before he’d finished, every head in the yard and garden turned toward him, tittering and delighted that the centerpiece of the night’s entertainment was to\n begin. A few, Vincent noted, only watched reluctantly, and some faded away in singles and pairs. It was no matter to him. There stood Lord Ferris, with the\n tall, dark-haired son whose eighteenth birthday it was. The son was notable for the velvet patch over one eye. It gave him a more sinister look than he\n probably deserved. The single-eyed gaze discomfited Vincent. A wound like that ruined a swordsman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Across the terrace was his patron, Lord Everett Bardsleigh, wearing green and a worried smile. Vincent stepped out to face de Maris.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am Vincent Applethorpe, and I claim the challenge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Together, he and de Maris bowed to Ferris and Bardsleigh, who looked a lot happier now that Applethorpe had formally taken the challenge. Vincent slid his\n sword free in a quick, sure movement, and held it up in a brief salute. His skin was cool, his pulse calm, but he felt the edge of anticipation’s cliff\n pressing sharply at his toes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n De Maris tossed his hat away—toward a delighted lady who caught it with a tiny cry—and leapt toward Vincent with a flourish, sword appearing in his hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The audience faded to the periphery, where it belonged as only part of the landscape of the battle, a shifting, living obstacle, and Vincent’s entire being focused on de Maris, on the bursting energy of his opponent’s body. Their blades touched, gently, coaxingly, their eyes together, too, and Vincent knew this would be a fantastic fight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It began slowly, a tease for de Maris, an exploration for Vincent, give and take as they tested each other. First few feints and sudden strikes, parries and retreats. Neither was a talker, interested in goading with words, and all the swordsmen heard was the clash of steel, their tapping, scuffing boots on the stone patio, their breath, faster now, but mirroring the rhythm of the fight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n De Maris turned his wrist unexpectedly, the tip of his blade skimming too near Vincent’s face. Vincent ducked, turned, and drove in hard. Their swords met and stuck, crossed at the hilts, and the men were close enough to pant in each other’s faces. It was a good pause, and Vincent’s teeth gleamed through his quick smile. De Maris laughed, picked up his foot, and kicked away from Vincent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vaguely aware of a smattering of applause and elated cries from around the garden, Vincent breathed deeply, watching de Maris’s attention. Firelight\n skittered along their blades and in their eyes. Vincent put his sword higher, sinking slightly onto bent knees, and instead of waiting this time for de Maris to move, sprung up into a fast, flawless attack.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n De Maris barely escaped, but twisted in time to jab unsuccessfully at Vincent’s sleeve. Then they were parted again, on opposite sides of the patio.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The name hit hard at the small of his back, with familiar and nearly forgotten intensity, accent, tone. His head flew up, alert, and he stepped too hard, nearly turning his ankle. De Maris was waiting, and Vincent just got his blade there in time to block the strike, then angled his elbow in a feint at de Maris’s pretty face to allow himself a second to spin out and breathe. Breathe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the cry—\u003cem\u003eVincent!\u003c/em\u003e—woke a savagery in him, potent and raw, and everything that was not pumping blood or steel or his opponent’s ferocious gaze\n died in an abyss of inconsequence. He took hold of it, owning it. He was pure fire, forging his bones and flesh into a piece of his weapon by sheer force\n of will. His heart was the clang and clash of a blacksmith’s hammer inside his ribs. Pounding out, filling his ears and beating in his teeth, and\n there—there—he struck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was not pretty, but abrupt and direct. The sharp slice of his blade cut through the layers of de Maris’s vest and skin, and blood burst immediately in a\n scarlet cloud against the cream collar of his shirt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Stepping back, Vincent let everyone see he’d won, and kept his eyes on de Maris, who grimaced but had the style to be graceful about it. “Ah, Applethorpe,”\n he said harshly, due to his panting. “Damn it.” And he pulled his mouth into a wry smile as he bowed for the audience. A liveried young man hurried forward\n with cloth and water for the wound, and another offered Vincent a full cup of wine. He thought to ask for water, but \u003cem\u003eVincent!\u003c/em\u003e rang in his memory,\n and he took the wine. He drank it, forcing himself to hold as calm as he could, no gulping, no sudden movements, just sip as if relaxed, as if perfectly at\n ease, and let his gaze skim over the audience, never landing on any faces, not hesitating, unwilling to see the man who’d said it, who should’ve known\n better than to be so distracting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nobility were calling at each other, and closing in, speaking to him and to de Maris, wondering at the fine strike that ended the duel, sliding in subtle jibes about their host, who’d lost, but Vincent hardly heard their talk, only nodding and thanking those who paid him compliments, confirming his name and yes, that was how messages could be sent to him if they wished to find him for hire. \u003cem\u003eYes, yes, all of it, be patient, Applethorpe\u003c/em\u003e, he schooled himself, eyes burning as he finished the full cup of wine, skin flushed and tingling from the come-down—and only that, he insisted silently. Music picked up again, merry and bright, and everywhere were silky colors and firelight and possibly Vincent had been poisoned, he felt so on edge, so cloudy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then he was there, directly before Vincent—\u003cem\u003eVincent!\u003c/em\u003e—hot brown eyes in a pale face, thick black hair swept behind ears with lacquered combs, high-collared, layered robe fit tight to lean shoulders and chest, embroidered with desert flowers and long-limbed cranes, that thick sash and the curved,\n deadly sword of the Chartil warrior.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent bowed a shallow, tight bow, and without a word turned away, using every thread of strength left in him not to flee, but walk out into the night.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, only heard the ambassador from Chartil’s exclamation and noted the swordsman’s reaction because she stood directly between them, her hand delicately placed against the ambassador’s sleeve.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She saw Vincent Applethorpe’s head lift like a deer at the cry of hunting horns, she watched as the tremor of some vastly deep emotion shuddered through\n him and as he stepped awkwardly, and Diane witnessed, too, the moment he drew himself all together again to become a predator instead, diving in for the\n kill with one sudden, savage thrust.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It took her breath away, for only a moment: a brief, bright moment of pure admiration.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And the ambassador at her side was still as a statue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They’d missed the start of the duel, having been with the Ladies Courtenay and Montague in the gallery, admiring the Deverin ancestors. Diane found Reza\n quietly arrogant, though his condescension was not for her being a woman, rather for her being of the Land. It was pleasant enough to delicately\n interrogate him about his country; he was very patriotic and glad to discuss every manner in which Chartil might be superior. As he had described the\n intricate process of his homeland’s finest calligraphic art in the face of a rather thickly done oil of a late Lord Ferris, Diane’s thoughts had slipped\n toward the two men she’d noticed particularly eyeing her earlier: the one young Lord Lionel Chesney, gently mooning, exactly as she wished him to; the\n other much more troubling, as it had been Lord Arlen, the Serpent Chancellor himself, pinning her with a weighty, secretive gaze. Once she’d noticed him\n and gathered herself from the sheer surprise that Arlen would attend such a gathering, the Serpent Chancellor seemed to have vanished. She did not see him\n again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Naturally, Diane had made certain that young Chesney noticed her leaning toward the beautiful Ambassador Reza, happily accepting the invitation to join the\n small party heading for the gallery. Just as naturally, she’d glanced back at Lord Lionel with a casual smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she nodded and parted her lips in gentle wonder at the ambassador’s artistic descriptions, her mind cast forward to plans for continuing this careful\n seduction. She might arrange for herself and Lionel to accidentally meet upon some errand. Or make known to him the place and time of her next afternoon\n picnic to see if he would be bold enough to approach.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her scheming had been interrupted by a yell from the gardens below, and she recognized the familiar rhythm of a swordsman’s challenge. “Ah,” she said,\n allowing herself a pretty gasp. “A duel, Lord Ambassador. Perhaps you would like to view one of our own challenges, just beginning in the grounds below?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza acquiesced almost too eagerly, she noted, and they headed for the garden terrace, Diane wafting at his arm like the last breath of summer, in yellow\n as delicate as sunshine, and sweet autumn pink. She was eager to see de Maris fight, and yet more eager to see de Maris \u003cem\u003elose\u003c/em\u003e for refusing her direct employ, when she had approached him about the house swordsman position for Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Until the moment Reza tensed and said, “Vincent!” low in his throat, with such surprise and potency, the duel had been lovely and intricate, a dance between masters. Each of them focused, but clearly enjoying themselves, and Diane felt a slight kinship with them, though she would never deign to admit\n it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At the end of it, she played cool in the face of the ambassador’s rather hasty farewell, watching him find a way to approach the winning sword. Vincent\n Applethorpe held his own in the center of admirers and those lords congratulating him and holding up some pretense that they knew enough of dueling to\n comment on the style or intricacies of the fight. The swordsman appeared calm, though Diane was certain just below his surface that vivid savagery\n remained, tempered by will alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wanted him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The desire came immediately from her gut, not her heart or mind, and certainly did not bring with it reasoning or rationales. The decision was made in that\n instant, her heart pounding, even as possible ramifications spooled out in her head, twisting into plans for acquiring him, and what she would do when she\n did. Vincent Applethorpe would be her new house sword, whatever it took.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the center of Riverside, beneath a crumbling old hat shop, there lived a person known as the Salamander. They called him so, for there was not quite\n room for a dragon in the warren of ground-and sublevel rooms he occupied. His manner was reserved and slick, his voice soft, and though he had to be\n approaching fifty years on this earth, none could recall ever seeing him with a beard, or with lover or friends, and none was associated with him but his\n sister. The Salamander had a name, and presumably so did his sister, but a person had to earn them. Though Shade once nearly achieved such a dubious honor,\n the Salamander barely tolerated Florian’s bold gestures. The Salamander’s sister, on the other hand, preferred the glorious Larue to his sleeker partner.\n Both Salamanders were sharp in the cheeks and arch in the nose, and while the Salamander wore thin rosy spectacles, his sister adorned her lips with\n matching rosy tint. They were never seen together, and naturally stories had grown up around them, whether they were twins or the only same person slipping\n back and forth, or born from a strange egg, or spirits clinging to the rank depths of Riverside . . . but none dared ask.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were the best fence in town.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade and Florian entered at the back of the old shop, which now served as the primary entrance: through a molding entryway of striped red wallpaper and\n immediately down rickety iron stairs into the depths of the Salamander’s abode. Shelves lined the walls, full of knickknacks and paper, godlike statues,\n foreign obelisks, starfish and snakeskins and rows of tiny porcelain cups, rusting ancient daggers, hunks of full plate armor, a butter churn overflowing\n with shards of glass; and that only counted the particular items that caught Florian’s eye amongst the crush of strange treasure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Slithering incense masked dank smells of river moss and rat droppings. Florian shivered. He disliked coming here intensely, and forced himself to think of\n Shade’s fingers stiffened with pleasure, jabbing at his scalp, if he decided to grab his lover and shove him into the iron railing, knowing the Salamander\n waited below, ignoring them, counting his lot and readying whatever sly insult he chose to throw at Florian this time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Alas, Shade had reached the bottom of the stairs, yet the moment one soft leather boot touched the basement floor, he glanced up at Florian over the\n rainbow colors of his murder coat. One corner of his thin lips hooked up, and he knew, he knew what Florian had paused for. Florian snarled silently, and\n Shade made a promise with equal silence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Together they entered the wide round showroom of the Riverside Salamander.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re late,” the Salamander said, hunched over his long worktable with a narrow oculus glass at his eye, staring down at a letter. So it was to be him,\n not his sister, this evening.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And thus, though Florian might normally take over negotiations, it was Shade who approached. “Do you have an offer for us?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Salamander peered up, setting down his work. Behind him the smoldering hearth popped, and ten curved swords were set against the stone wall like a rib\n cage. “I do, but you won’t like it, and so I feel disinclined to tell you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Suggest something we \u003cem\u003edo\u003c/em\u003e like, then, old man,” murmured Shade, slipping nearer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your goods need papers, little moon,” replied the Salamander, making the epithet sound like a threat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian drifted toward the short shelf of thin folios to his left, trying to appear relaxed. He touched a round bowl of violet-colored glass etched with\n intricate lettering he did not recognize. “You’re the fence, Salamander—papers are your job.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And yet, you want a better price from me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade tilted his head like a curious cat. “I don’t believe you. Chocolate does not have papers, nor anything we’ve sold you before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Salamander very slowly, very carefully bared his small white teeth. “Believe me or not. What you’re doing is higher level than your previous jobs, and\n thus more delicate, and more care is needed. Take the care on your end, or take the cut in your price from mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade and Florian shared a glance. They had an idea, together, born of their earlier encounter at the Brown Dog, and both smiled. (Though Florian’s version\n of the idea involved a little more sex, and Shade’s a little more blood.)\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Both ideas spiraled prettily around Tess the Hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If a dragon existed in the City, most certainly the creature would be elegant, dangerous, and breathing a smoke of mystery, and most certainly instead of\n lurking in the dank underworld of Riverside, it would coil against the foundation of Geoffrey, Lord Arlen’s, stone manor, on the north side of the Hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Duchess Tremontaine had departed the Ferris birthday fete exhausted from holding her mask in place, especially after the duel threw everyone into a tizzy,\n Ferris’s man having, unexpectedly, lost. She’d drifted past Lord Lionel and several of his friends hearing the details yet again from the young Anthony\n Deverin himself, whose eighteenth birthday it was. Deverin was slender and dark, with an already vivid charm, despite—or, she supposed, because of—the\n missing eye. From the way he and Lionel sparred over the possible political ramifications of his father’s intended slap at Lord Bardsleigh, the boy was\n certainly a personage Diane would keep both her own eyes upon. He was much too young and quick with a sneer now, but who knew what he might become in time?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d chatted briefly with the Ladies Perry (alas, as childish as her son) and Fleming (quite tolerable), before begging off as in need of sustenance. It\n put her in a perfect position for Lord Lionel to join her at the refreshment table for a moment’s delicate flirtation as they both accepted glasses of\n sweet punch and went their separate ways. And so she considered it another evening of success: She’d continued her progress with Lionel Chesney, and\n identified exactly which swordsman to pursue. Unfortunate that there’d been no opportunities to explore her agenda to gain her husband’s title as her own,\n but that would come.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she stepped into the Tremontaine carriage, Diane smiled and leaned her head back against the cloth barrier, not minding her coiffed hair any longer, nor\n concerned for her expression or whether clenching her white fingers in the yellow silk of her skirt would wrinkle it unduly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The carriage bobbed like a river barge upon choppy waves, and she allowed it to carry her into a doze, trusting her driver and the warmth of the swansdown\n cushions beneath her seat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yet when the trip ended, and the door was opened, she lifted heavy eyes to a footman not her own, and instantly snapped, “What is this?” with steel in her\n voice. Then she saw the crest of the Serpent embroidered upon the man’s breast, and momentarily lost her balance—mental and emotional—as she accepted his\n gloved hand and stepped down from her ducal carriage. So there had indeed been purpose when Lord Arlen had studied her earlier that night, and now he would\n reveal it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arlen’s man led across white flagstones toward the curve of marble steps, into a great doorway that opened like the mouth of a god. The peaked arch\n stretched toward the sky, and above it towers of dark stone blackened out the stars. Anticipation was tinged with relished fear, raising the hairs at the\n nape of her neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The manservant put her in an elegant parlor and offered her a choice of wine or chocolate. The duchess inclined her head, knowing she would drink neither,\n but it was better to accept a glass as she waited beside the small hearth, which crackled with a pretty fire too small for the space. Just as Diane herself\n felt unprepared to fill whatever role she was meant to play here. Never before had she been inside Lord Arlen’s home, nor had any ladies that she knew of.\n He did not put on garden parties or host soirees, though there was word he occasionally had men in for cards.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane hated not knowing his purpose in bringing her here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Serpent Chancellor entered quietly, with an unconcerned poise like an ancestral painting come to gentle life. “Duchess,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lord Arlen,” she returned, dipping her head but slightly. “Good evening.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Glancing at her untouched glass of wine, he lifted winged eyebrows.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane said nothing. Impenetrable as he seemed, Lord Arlen was a man, and all men might be understood if only she patiently weeded for clues. His eyes\n studied her, seeming older than he could possibly be. His dark clothes were impeccable, though he wore a housecoat instead of something more formal, and\n she could not help but be wary that he had brought her here so boldly and yet himself was relaxed. It wound her up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ve been busy,” her host finally said, and seated himself upon a leather sofa. While with most men, she’d consider his speaking first a point to her,\n she could not shake the feeling that in this case, it was exactly what he wanted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Carefully seating herself across from him, she glanced at the fire as if her thoughts suddenly leapt away. Her hand came to rest at the top of her bosom.\n “There are many necessary, yet often unpleasant, arrangements I need make every day, while my husband is ill.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hmm, yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lord said nothing else.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s pulse pattered quickly in her throat. “I thank you for your concern,” she ventured.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I \u003cem\u003eam\u003c/em\u003e concerned, Diane de Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She flicked her eyes back to his. “With?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After a lifetime of delicate, barbed conversations and twisting phrases in every way to talk around the points she wanted to make, to plant seeds so that\n others might grow her ideas in their own minds, Diane felt Lord Arlen’s bluntness like a hammer to the chest. What did he know? Or suspect he knew? “Me?”\n she murmured with all the cold control she could find.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the future you seek.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She spun out every possibility she could think of, and the most salient future was her place on the Council. “You’ll support me in becoming the new\n Tremontaine, in my own right,” she said, in a manner that most men would find trouble refusing. Was this to be a third jewel in the crown of her evening?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Lord Arlen smiled. “Impress me, Diane, and I will.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess tried to be angry or bitter at his presumption. She tried to spark a flame of righteous indignation that he should dare, but instead it felt\n like a hand of favor, a promise that she was capable of fulfilling if only she could rise to the occasion.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And as she was ushered carefully back to her carriage, under clear-eyed stars, Diane de Tremontaine understood with utter finality that there were layers\n and threads of intrigue and promise running through the political web of this City she could not even see, and she was not—yet—the most cunning spider at\n its heart.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she would be.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAt the annual soiree opening the Council of Lords, Duchess Diane Tremontaine entertained the suggestion that she become duchess in her own right. Former University student and now dutiful son, Rafe Fenton did his best to play along with the social obligations of his merchant family in hopes of rescuing his love, Will. Meanwhile, his friend Kaab, apparently estranged from the Balam, plied him for information regarding a series of thefts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Tessa Gratton\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.89","slug":"tremontaine-s2e02","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E02.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101100_TremontaineS02E02.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101100_TremontaineS02E02.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101100_TremontaineS02E02.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e001eaada6e25bc06d1d5d","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":3,"title":"Fireworks","released_date":"2016-11-02T11:52:26.098+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Alliances shift as relationships on both the Hill and in Riverside grow complicated.","byline":"Mary Anne Mohanraj","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e03.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-11-02","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTo the Attention of the Most Honorable Lord Magistrate, in regards to the matter of Black Bertha and the missing Porter household funds.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e I, a clerk of the 7\u003c/em\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n court, am writing this letter at Bertha’s behest, to lay out the honest facts of her case, and I beseech you to listen to them patiently and\n thoughtfully, as Bertha is a good woman, the mother of six small children, who are entirely dependent upon her for their daily bread and for the roof\n over their heads. The charges that have been brought against her are completely false . . .\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003e\n Bertha’s children weren’t so small these days, and one of them had been hanged for thieving, but Tess didn’t think the judge needed to know that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003e\n “Put in that that lying bastard whoreson has been sniffing around my skirts since the first day I came to work for him. I slapped Porter’s face for\n grabbing at my tit just yesterday, and that’s why he’s laid claim against me now, saying I’ve been skimming off the household accounts. Tell him that,\n Tess! And right in the middle of preparations for Starflower Fest—as if I didn’t have enough to worry about, with just five days to go! Do you know what\n horseradish and ginger are going for this week? And coloring drops for the cookies? But the mistress insists on all the traditional festival foods, the\n same as what the lords are serving, or as near as I can get to them, and she’s got some fool idea she wants me to make cookies shaped like fireworks . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know what to write, Bertha. Just trust me—I’ll do my best for you, I swear.” Tess knew well that her best might not be good enough; letter or no, the\n judges tended to side with the wealthier party, particularly if said party were willing to slip a few coins to the judge. Bertha had no coins to spare, but\n Tess owed her a favor, and so she dipped her quill again. Maybe her letter would help. Anything was possible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Brown Dog was smoky today; the innkeeper, Joss, had responded to the crisp tang of fall in the air by piling the fire high with logs—cheap bastard had\n chosen green logs, which clouded the air with smoke and a peaty odor. Tess’s eyes stung as she bent over her writing, and she was glad that Bertha was the\n last of today’s clients. She didn’t much like the Brown Dog; it tried to be posh, catering to the thrill-seekers from the respectable side of the river,\n but didn’t get the details quite right. It felt false, like a bad forgery, and made her spine itch. But it was convenient for meeting clients from across\n the river, the ones who didn’t want to come farther into Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bertha worked as a cook across the river now, in a merchant’s house, but Tess had known her in more desperate days, when they’d both been Riverside girls,\n trying to make their way in the world. Bertha, a little older, had been working in a real pit of a cookshop back then, the kind that served rat stew—oh,\n they called it beef stew, but everyone knew better. Still, the way Bertha spiced it, you almost couldn’t taste the rats.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess hadn’t had to eat rat stew in a long time, but she remembered those days, when she’d been young and hungry—and stupid, she had to admit; truly stupid\n for leaving the home she shared with the rest of her sprawling family of cousins and aunts, grandparents, and her parents, of course, all dedicated to the\n art of the con in one way or another, whether it was coining or forging, sleight of hand or the lost-handkerchief trick. All her learning and cunning had\n gone to hell the moment Long Alfie came along, with his sweet words and knowing hands, making all kinds of promises he kept only long enough to make her\n realize he was also a bully and a drunk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While she hid from Alfie and his pals, too afraid and ashamed to go back to her parents, it was Bertha who had slipped her bowls of stew that Tess couldn’t\n pay for, and Bertha who’d finally convinced her to swallow her pride and go back to the family. Who made her pay for her mistakes before they took her\n back. Her father, tears running down his face, had laid into her, saying, “You can’t be stupid in Riverside, Tessie . . . The heart’s a liability here, the\n heart is for suckers, you hear me? Never, never, never again . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess’s hand shook a little at the memory, and she had to redraw the line, adding a flourish, as if she’d intended it that way all along. That was the way\n of it in Riverside—never let them know they’d gotten to you.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There, Bertha. That’s done. Good luck to you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thanks, Tess. Shake on it.” Bertha spit on her hand and held it out, and Tess spit on her own and shook.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess added, “Now, if you need anything else—an appeal, maybe, you let me know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, I will. And you take care with that foreign girl. I don’t know \u003cem\u003ewhat\u003c/em\u003e sort of spices they put in their food, but I’m sure it’s not healthful.”\n The woman climbed heavily out of her seat on the bench—six children had left her with a generous amount of weight to shift. The seat was promptly filled by\n a slender man, half her size, and one Tess was not well pleased to see, despite his elegant clothes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Florian LaRue. If you have business with me, we can take it up tomorrow. I’m done for the day, and need to get home.” Home to Kaab. It was too much to\n hope that her princess had cleaned up their rooms, or even gotten dinner for them, but at least Tess could drown the day’s worries in her lover’s arms.\n Maybe Kaab’s head on Tess’s pillows and her place at Tess’s morning table was mostly for her family’s sake, with their complicated plans, but surely Tess\n could trust that a little bit of it was for her? Kaab paid her such compliments, made extravagant promises, and she certainly seemed sincere . . . but Tess\n knew that words were cheap. She knew that better than anyone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tomorrow will not do, my dear. We have urgent business for you,” Florian said, smiling prettily, picking at his nails with a sharp knife.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d said \u003cem\u003ewe\u003c/em\u003e—ah, there it was. Shade’s hand falling on her shoulder, pushing down. The bright murder coat swung beside her as he slung himself\n onto the bench, moving too close, thigh to thigh. Tess repressed a shudder, and tried to pull away, but he held her fast, his palm sliding down her arm,\n pressing her hand—her writing hand!—to the table.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian continued, “We need you to create some documents for us. Quite a few, actually. It’ll take up a lot of your time, and we don’t want you getting\n distracted; we’ll want you to work exclusively for us for a few weeks. Won’t that be fun, sweetness? I’ve always thought it would be a pleasure, having\n your sole attention.” He was leaning forward, his breath hot against her face, sharp eyes intent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess hadn’t ever done any work for the Twins—she’d avoided them like the plague, in fact. Shade gave her the creeps.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian smiled, in a manner he no doubt thought was charming. “You don’t know how everyone admired you, Tess, back when you were with Long Alfie. Shade has\n told me all about it—he was just a kid then, picking pockets, but you—you had real skills, even when you were young. And now, ten years down the line,\n you’re Tess the Hand, queen of forgers. You’re the very best, and that’s why we want you working for us. The money is going to be very good; we’ll give you\n a nice percentage, right off the top.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They didn’t even have the cash up front—idiots. Shade wasn’t actually hurting her, but threat lurked in his dark eyes. If Florian gave the word, Tess\n didn’t doubt that his partner would gladly pull out his knife and play a little mumblety-peg with her hand. Either way, she definitely didn’t want to work\n exclusively for the Twins—Tess the Hand didn’t work “for” anyone, especially under duress. She worked for herself. She needed to get out of here, and there\n was no way Joss would intervene, not unless she screamed. Which she wouldn’t. They weren’t actually doing anything to her; they couldn’t, not in here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That realization was what gave her the confidence to finally say, “Shade. Let go of my writing hand,” in a voice as icy as she could make it. Kaab had a\n voice like that, and Vincent did too, the voice that said, \u003cem\u003eI mean business\u003c/em\u003e. Tess guessed she’d mimicked it with enough authority, because after a\n long pause, the kind of pause that said, \u003cem\u003eI’m doing this because I choose to, not because you made me\u003c/em\u003e, Shade released her hand and shifted away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess drew in a quick breath, trying to keep it steady. Better not to turn them down flat; she didn’t want to make them angry. “I’ll think about it. I have\n other work in queue right now; I’d have to get through it first, or at least pass some of it off to someone else.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian exchanged a glance with his partner and then nodded. “We’re going to be occupied for much of the next week, until Starflower, so you can have until\n the festival, sweetness. Darling Tess. We expect you to be ready for us by then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess gathered her things and stepped carefully away, keeping her eyes on them until she was safely out the door, out of sight. Then she ran. Down the mucky\n cobbled streets of Riverside, ignoring the cheerful calls from people who knew her:\n \u003cem\u003e\n Hey, Tess! What’s your hurry? Oh, she’s off to her foreign gal, going to get that sweet ass warmed up. Are you chilly, Tess? I can warm it for you, if\n you get tired of her!\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They didn’t mean anything by it, but today every word hit her, stinging. Tess was gasping when she finally arrived home, flinging open the door of their\n rooms to find Kaab and Vincent locked steel-to-steel, dripping with sweat and entirely focused on each other. And then Tess, Tess the Hand, Tess who prided\n herself on being able to take care of herself—Tess burst into tears.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane plucked disconsolately at the silken dress laid out on the bedspread. She had asked her lady’s maid, Lucinda, to lay it out; Diane was very fond of\n this particular dress, or at least she had been. But at the moment, its perfect foam of creamy lace at the wrists held no appeal; its richly embroidered\n blue bodice seemed dull as a dishcloth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shuddered away from the thought, and from the blue dress too. It would not do, it absolutely would not—which wouldn’t be a problem if she hadn’t\n already considered and rejected most of the dresses in her wardrobe. With Starflower almost upon them, she really had to have a new gown made. Something\n golden, perhaps, to echo the gold leaves turning on the trees, and the shining fireworks exploding overhead. Now that Tremontaine’s financial situation had\n finally stabilized, Diane could afford it. She’d have the modiste sent for tomorrow, but that didn’t solve the problem of what she would wear today.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She couldn’t stand around in her underthings forever. Lord Lionel was waiting for her, though he did not know it. The young lord thought he was merely\n meeting friends for his regular luncheon, but Diane had investigated the path he took, a straight and predictable one, and it would be no difficulty at all\n to arrange a chance meeting—he on his way to the chocolate house, she crossing his path on her way to the milliner’s to consider a new hat—something with\n feathers, perhaps, in the Kinwiinik style . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was being ridiculous. There was no need for such schemes. She would simply call upon her friend Lady Chesney, whose company she had sorely missed of\n late, dear thing . . . and all the better to catch him off his guard in his home.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane still wasn’t sure that Lionel was exactly the noble she sought—oh, it would be so much simpler if she could simply move directly rather than through\n intermediaries, but it was dangerous to be that direct. This path was better. Lionel \u003cem\u003ewas\u003c/em\u003e rather attractive, and it would only take a few deft\n moves to entice the young lord into her bed, should she so desire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane just wished—she didn’t know what. She flopped down on the bed, crushing the fabric, to the visible dismay of Lucinda, who hovered anxiously in a\n corner. Lucinda would have to live with it; she’d have plenty of time to press the creases out later. There were so many moving pieces to keep track of;\n sometimes the inside of her head felt crammed full. Diane had sometimes been able to talk to William, in the early days. He didn’t understand, of course,\n had simply enjoyed the sound of her voice and agreed with everything she said. But at least she could get the words out; in the echo, she could figure out\n what she really wanted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There had been that moment, at the Convocation, when she had yearned for a moment to confide in the Kinwiinik Trader, Ixsaabim Balam. The older woman was\n so savvy, yet so enormously pregnant, and Diane had been reminded of her own long-ago pregnancy, when she, a very young bride, had swallowed a thousand\n fears and pinned all her hopes on her marriage, her husband, and the child to come.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When her daughter was born, however, Diane quickly realized that whatever bliss other women found in motherhood, it wasn’t for her. The child was a puling\n misery, forever screeching, and the only relief Diane had found was when she banished it to the care of a wet nurse and the nursery two floors above.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A footman knocked at the door; Lucinda went to speak with him, and returned to say, “Milady, there’s a boy to see you below, one of those foreign traders.\n He says his name is Arthur Chel, and said you might have work for him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane sat up in bed, feeling a rush of energy run through her. Ah—here was one of her threads pulled taut. “I’ll meet him in my parlor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The dress was fine; really, she didn’t know what she’d been fretting about.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lucinda laced Diane into the blue dress. It hadn’t crumpled too badly, not that it mattered for seeing Arthur, the young Kinwiinik. And indeed, when she\n swept into the parlor, he swept a low bow—and stumbled slightly, almost overbalancing. Arthur came up blushing, his light brown skin going maroon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well. Diane felt her spirits lifting further, and she bestowed a smile on the lad as she settled onto the chaise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am so glad you decided to pay me a call. Come, sit and talk with me.” She gestured to a delicate gold-leafed chair opposite her. She was sure he’d never\n come near anything so fine. The youth settled gingerly on the edge, as if afraid he would break it. “I so enjoyed our meeting at the Convocation of\n Council. I have given some thought to how we might work together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur’s eyes shone. “I would be delighted to serve you however I might.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My household could use a new messenger, one who might be trusted with my personal correspondence. I had a man I thought was reliable, but just last week\n he took a wrong turn and ended up in a most unfortunate alley, and has not yet recovered.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shrugged. “The city is full of dangers, but not for those who know its ways.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane raised an eyebrow. “And you do? But your family tends to keep to themselves in their own compound . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur sat up straighter. “Oh, I’m not like the rest of my family, Madam Duchess! All they think about is trade and politics back home; they’re constantly\n fretting about what the Batab will think, how they might best please the nobles across the sea. They don’t seem to care that there’s a whole world right\n here, full of opportunities beyond the profit from chocolate and feathers . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane smiled gently. “And what do you find most delightful about our City? What consumes your attention?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Everything!” He flushed, and grinned. “I love the theater, I love the markets, I love the way people say whatever they think, and anyone can go anywhere\n without permission, and study whatever they choose.” Diane smiled at his enthusiasm, and he added, politic: “The lords and ladies are so elegant, and so\n refined! Great houses such as yours . . .” He gestured, taking in the glory of Tremontaine, from crystal chandeliers to dark paneled walls to intricately\n knotted imported rugs. “My people have their own wealth, of course, but everything is done very differently back home, as they never tire of telling me,\n and done the same way it has been done for a thousand years. It is so frustrating, being here, seeing the possibilities for a different life but not being\n allowed to choose for myself. Like there’s a rope binding me from across the sea to a place I’ve never even seen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what kind of life do you envision? Do you yearn to be a swordsman, young Arthur? Learning the ways of the blade like that dramatic countrywoman of\n yours?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur shook his head emphatically. “That is not the life for me; I prefer slightly less permanent gambles.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perhaps this was something. “Oh? Is it cards you fancy? Don’t be shy—I am well aware of what men do for sport.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur hesitated, clearly wondering what would please her. “I have no great skill at cards. I do enjoy dicing, though I don’t have the funds to play\n often—the family doesn’t approve of a Chel spending time in Xanamwiinik taverns.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane nodded graciously. “Well, \u003cem\u003eI\u003c/em\u003e think young men should be able to have a little fun. If you come work for me, you’ll have some money to spend at\n the dice tables, should you choose. I might even stake you a few games, should there be items of interest likely to be discussed there.” She laughed\n lightly. “I imagine your family would rather you applied yourself to your studies? You mentioned you’ve spent some time at University?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur shook his head again. “I went to some lectures, but to be honest, I find them rather dull. My family wants me to study the law, because that might\n help us here with trading. But I would rather listen to the scholars speak of history—it’s so much more exciting: the wars, the kings, the scheming wizards\n . . .”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane wondered if all men were so easily distracted from the issues that really mattered. “Yes, I can imagine. Still, you’re familiar with the\n University—that’s good.” Diane leaned forward. “There’s someone there I’m trying to find, a young boy, quite gifted at mathematics. His name is Michael,\n and I believe he is a friend of a natural scientist named Rafe Fenton. Do you think you could help me with that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Milady,” he said gallantly, “for you I would even go to lectures on property and contracts!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane leaned against the low back of the settee, enjoying his adoration. He would be useful to her at the University, and she was sure, over time, she\n could coax out some information about the secretive Kinwiinik as well. Soon Diane would put on another of her many lovely dresses, and order her carriage,\n and call upon her friend, Lady Chesney. A nice, long visit, allowing plenty of time for Lionel to come upon them. It was going to be a beautiful day, and\n everything was going exactly to plan.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab dropped her sword with a clatter and sprang to her weeping lover’s side—careless girl. Vincent sheathed his blade more carefully, but was almost\n equally quick in reaching Tess; he’d never seen her like this. Tess had always been steady and sure of herself—well, Kaab sometimes overset her, but not\n like this.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab raised a hand to Tess’s cheek. “Are you hurt? Let me look at you . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess pulled back from Kaab’s embrace, dashing the tears from her face. “No, no, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I’m fine!” And then she was crying again, and Kaab was\n pulling her close, her eyes wide and bewildered on Vincent’s, clearly wanting help. And he didn’t know what to do, exactly—this was not his area of\n expertise. But something drew him forward, to enfold them both in his arms, so that Tess was nestled between them both, safe as he could make her in the\n cave of their embrace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It started out as comfort, but within moments, Vincent was aware that more was stirring. This evening’s practice had been bad enough; crossing swords with\n Kaab brought back disturbing memories of endless hours doing the same in a far-off time, a time best forgotten. Crossing swords in the day, and then again\n at night, skin slick and hot, muscles straining against each other. Now here was Tess, a hot, wet bundle in his arms, her generous flesh pressed alongside\n him. And Kaab, murmuring endearments in her own tongue, dropping a frenzy of kisses on her lover’s face. Since the spring, Vincent had successfully\n diverted his own attraction to Kaab into the discipline of the sword, but now, with her muscled body just inches away, his blood began pounding in his\n veins.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He should go—but as he started to pull away, Tess clutched at his shirt, pulling him closer. It was unexpected, and they overbalanced, the whole messy\n tangle of them. Vincent was just able to direct the fall enough to land them on a pile of bedding and discarded clothes, which Kaab had promised Tess that\n she would clean up—he was grateful for the heap now, and for landing mostly on Tess. She was a friend, after all, and unlikely to take offense. Tess didn’t\n seem to mind his face buried in her breasts, his leg sliding between her thighs. Did Kaab? Vincent turned his head just enough to see Kaab grinning at him, and then her hand was grabbing his ass, squeezing, urging him on. Desire flared—what the hell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With Tess, he’d always been careful to keep a friend’s distance, not wanting her to feel that she owed him anything extra for his protection; the rooms had\n been enough. But Vincent could feel her eagerness, Tess’s body tensing and arching beneath his, her hands sliding under his shirt, across the bare skin of\n his back. He thought they probably ought to talk about whatever had been bothering her, but right now, he didn’t want to talk, or even think. Dark eyes\n burned in his memory, and Tess’s soft breasts made a fine distraction.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab was already pulling down her lover’s blouse, bending to take one succulent expanse into her mouth. Tess whimpered in response, raking nails across his\n skin, and suddenly clothes seemed impossibly constricting. It wasn’t easy, stripping them off while simultaneously paying attention to Tess’s growing\n needs, but Vincent wasn’t a master swordsman for nothing; complex, coordinated actions were a specialty of his. Maybe they needed this, all of them—a mad\n frenzy to blot out dangerous thoughts, the slick of skin against skin, limb against limb. Not so different, in the end, from the dance of swords.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Afterward, they lay together in a pleasant tangle, Kaab murmuring love words against Tess’s hair, with Vincent between them, his head pillowed on Tess’s\n breast. Tess told them what had happened earlier at the Brown Dog, and Kaab reassured her that the next time she encountered Shade and Florian, Kaab would\n make certain that they knew better than to upset her. Tess had seemed to relax then, finally—Vincent liked to think that he could also take some credit for\n that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It had been an extremely enjoyable interlude, but Vincent was realizing that he’d been closing a book, rather than cracking one open. Now that Kaab was\n living here, this space was feeling increasingly overcrowded. She did create a rather shocking amount of mess.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nBut as Tess’s sworn protector, he couldn’t leave either. She had given them the bare bones of what had happened in the tavern; clearly, she needed \u003cem\u003esomeone\u003c/em\u003e to keep the riffraff away. But did it have to be Vincent?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His sword was out of reach, and probably too dangerous for what he had in mind in any case. But Tess’s eating dagger lay less than a foot away. Vincent\n shifted, twisted, grabbed at it, and then spun around to drive it toward Tess’s unprotected and lovely breast—only to be knocked back by Kaab’s naked\n shoulder, followed by the naked rest of her, slamming into him and thrusting him back against the tangled bedding. One hand pinned his wrist above his\n head, the other was pressed against his throat, and a leg had slammed between his, stopping just this side of crushing his balls—oh, very good. Kaab was\n cursing in her foreign tongue, the words sweet to his ear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent, what in all the hells?” Tess snapped, sitting upright and dragging a sheet up to cover her breasts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab released her grip on his throat just enough for him to answer. “A test, my dears. Had to know that she could protect you.” He coughed a little at that\n point—Kaab had choked him rather hard. Good for her. His student was climbing off him now, frowning.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Naked fighting is not my preference,” she commented.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent grinned. “It is not the best use for your nakedness, either. But I needed to know that you would never lower your guard, even in the grip of lust .\n . . or love.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will protect my beloved to my last breath!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know. Which is why she doesn’t need me anymore.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The women erupted in protest as Vincent murmured reassurances and he pulled on his clothes; they followed him downstairs as he gathered up his belongings\n into a few neat bundles. It didn’t take long, in the end—he had always preferred to travel light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab frowned at him. “You are not leaving because of \u003cem\u003ethis\u003c/em\u003e?” She had sat down cross-legged on his narrow bed, still naked, but clearly equally as\n comfortable naked as dressed; Tess, on the other hand, had pulled on a shift. Kaab gestured to the bed, the women’s bodies. “I do not mind sharing my\n maize-flower with you, on occasion. You are a generous bedmate, and I know her heart beats for me alone. You need not leave on my account.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent shook his head. “No, truly. It’s just time, my friends.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess put out a hand to him. “But Vincent, what will you do now? Where will you live?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took her hand, smiling, and squeezed it gently. “Oh, I’ll find a place. There’s always work for someone who’s good with his . . . sword.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She blushed at that, smiling, and Vincent was glad to see the light returned to her face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If Shade and Florian do keep bothering you, you can call me, you know. I’m not leaving town, after all. And I will always be your friend.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess’s expression firmed. “I think Kaab and I can handle those two. I was just . . . unprepared. I’ll be ready for them next time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No one will insult her while I’m around!” Kaab declared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excellent, princess. Then I will leave her in your tender care.” Vincent dropped a last kiss on Tess’s forehead, and then turned to the door. His step\n felt lighter than it had in some time, and his heart beat faster. It was time for a new challenge—or perhaps, time to truly master an old one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel Chesney walked home in a dark mood. His steps should have been light, triumphant even—he had finally managed to snatch a few hours with the glorious\n Esha. Lionel had not been allowed to sample all of her pleasures, as some were currently reserved for Hartsholt, but she had certainly given him enough of\n a taste to sate his curiosity. Yet while Esha was undoubtedly skilled, and her dancing was a marvel, a man needed more—Lionel had detoured to stop by the\n Crushed Blossom on his way home, where one of their girls had swiftly taken care of his most pressing problem. Sadly, paid pleasure was somehow never as\n satisfying as one imagined.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still, what choice did he have? The noble girls were all off-limits, unless one wanted to be tied to the marriage bed—Lionel had no wish for that yet! The\n merchants guarded their daughters even more fiercely than the nobles did. And while one could tup a maidservant in a dark corner, his mother would strongly\n disapprove if she found out—and to be honest, Lionel found the idea distasteful as well. One could never be sure such a girl was entirely willing, given\n her position. What one wanted was an amiable widow. But widows were few and far between. Perhaps it would be best to simply seek the consolations of his\n hand—or resign himself to paying for another Crushed Blossom while hoping for the play of Esha’s nimble fingers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The footman opened the front door for him with a warning: “Your lady mother is entertaining company, my lord.” Lionel nodded grateful thanks—if he slipped\n in quietly, perhaps he could make it to his rooms unseen. Work would take his mind off the disappointments of the flesh; he really did want to impress\n Halliday, and the land use problem he’d passed along was thorny enough to deserve all of Lionel’s attention. How to be most fair to both tenants and\n landholder? His mind was already turned in that direction, and his foot on the stair, when a sweet laugh escaped from the blue parlor, and his attention\n was entirely caught. Lionel knew that laugh, did he not? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to pause and greet his mother . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, Lionel! Come and give me a kiss, son. Diane, you know our oldest, Lionel? We are so proud of our boy—he’s been working hard alongside his father. I\n swear, Lionel understands politics better than Alistair does—he certainly pays more attention!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Mother, you flatter me,” Lionel said, bending to give his mother a peck on the cheek and then turning to bow to the Duchess Tremontaine. Logic demanded\n that she must be close to his mother in age, but you’d never think it to look at her. Despite the coolness of the season, the Duchess Tremontaine wore only\n a light white muslin, sprigged with roses; in that dress, with a tendril of gold escaping her intricately bound tresses, she seemed to embody youthful\n summer. Delicious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She smiled up at him, and Lionel’s heart skipped a beat. “I believe I last met your son at the Convocation a few weeks ago. Though of course, I recall your\n tenth anniversary party; he sang the most charming song in your honor. I wouldn’t have recognized that little boy in the dashing man he’s become! You are\n fortunate indeed, Cecily. You must imagine how I struggle with Tremontaine’s daily affairs; if only I had such a capable man at my side, my mind would be\n entirely relieved. You must loan him to me sometime.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His mother laughed, and Lionel wondered if he’d imagined the look in the duchess’s eyes. A look that seemed . . . inviting. Could she possibly be\n interested in him? She must be lonely, after all, with her husband gone mad. How long had it been since Diane—he could call her that in the privacy of his\n own mind, could he not?—how long since Diane had known the touch of a man? Months, at least. Long enough to be intrigued by the attentions of an able\n youth?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am at the duchess’s command, of course. If I can be of service in any way,” Lionel offered. Her eyes were really the most astonishing shade of grey,\n like that last moment of twilight before night falls.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane smiled, a small secret smile that seemed to promise the world. “Come and sit beside me, young man, and give me all your best advice. Sometimes, all\n the things I must keep track of make my head spin, and I fear I will simply fall down!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eOh, fall into my arms, my lady, and I will catch you!\u003c/em\u003e\n His pulse seemed to be throbbing in his veins, so loud that it was a wonder they couldn’t hear it. There was no possible way to get his mother out of the\n room, but if he could, Lionel would do more than sit discreetly in a neighboring chair—he would join Diane on that couch, lean her back against the watered\n silk, and find out just what a real lady wore beneath her skirts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But that was impossible—it was all impossible, for even if the duchess were inclined to permit him such intimate access, where could they possibly meet?\n His house, hers—the servants would talk, and Diane was still married. Even if her husband \u003cem\u003ewas\u003c/em\u003e stark raving mad, an indiscreet affair would ruin\n her. No, if he wanted to even have a chance with the delectable Duchess Tremontaine, Lionel needed to find a place where they might meet. A little house,\n somewhere safe, discreet, out of the way.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course, he had just come from such a house. Might the lovely Esha loan him a room, for a suitable consideration? It couldn’t hurt to ask . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even from his chair a foot away, Lionel could feel the nearness of Diane like a second sun against his skin. He leaned forward, basking in her regard,\n determined to delight and intrigue. Lionel couldn’t be sure that she was interested—perhaps he had imagined that note in her voice, that look in her eyes.\n But perhaps not, and faint heart never won fair lady. He set his mind to give this puzzle his best attention, at least as much as he had ever given to the\n political world and its problems. If he failed to pluck this delicate blossom, it would not be for want of trying!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe sat glumly on his narrow childhood bed, remembering the moment he’d walked through the door three months ago, dropping his satchel on the ground.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, I’m home,” he’d said. His parents’ house felt so much smaller than he’d remembered. Far more elegant than his student digs, of course, but the oak\n paneling his mother was so proud of felt suffocatingly dark, almost as if it would fall and smother him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And we’re happy to have you home, dearest.” His mother had chucked him fondly on the cheek as she walked past him into the room, in the process instantly\n returning him to being five years old. “I never liked you living at that nasty University, all those dirty young men. Much better to have you safe here.”\n She had dressed the bed with the quilt she’d embroidered for his childhood, dark blue with a scattering of stars.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe had been obsessed with the night sky as a youth, spending long hours huddled on the roof of their townhouse wrapped in that quilt, staring up at the\n heavens. But now, the quilt’s familiar constellations only reminded him of everything he’d lost—his work, his love, his dreams of navigating the dark seas\n with William beside him, their fingers interlaced at the wheel. Long nights making love under a brilliant scattering of stars—it was a wondrous dream, all\n gone to dust.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His mother had nattered on: “And look, I’ve moved a desk into the room, so you can work on your accounts here, or in the office, whichever you prefer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thanks,” Rafe had muttered, knowing he sounded ungracious. But really, it was too much to be borne. He’d dumped out the contents of his satchel on the\n desk, sending papers flying. His mother had clucked, setting his teeth grinding. Rafe quickly began sorting—schoolwork to the side for now. Micah’s\n envelope—he had no time for that now either. Ah—the preliminary accounts on the latest spice shipment—those should be front and center. He’d flung himself\n down in the desk chair, bending over the papers, tried to bury himself in work, but everything he touched seemed to go awry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Three months had passed, but what had he accomplished? No solutions, and his troubles only multiplied. Rafe sat, hunched over on his bed, and counted his\n tribulations. One: After months of searching, he still had no idea where his William might be. Two: Even when he found William again, his beautiful lord\n was stark raving mad. Three: Rafe might have passed his exam, but the possibility of founding his desperately desired—desperately \u003cem\u003eneeded\u003c/em\u003e school,\n he reminded himself—receded farther into the distance with every day—in part because four: The spice trading his father had entrusted to him was baffling.\n The day in the spring when he’d started in his father’s employ, all the other clerks had delightedly piled all the grunt work in his lap, but his math was\n so sloppy that the columns in the account books never matched; short of goods that vanished into thin air as they lay in the Fenton warehouses—far too well\n guarded for such a thing to happen—the only explanation Rafe had was that \u003cem\u003ebusiness was not where he belonged\u003c/em\u003e. And five: His mother insisted on\n fussing over him, as if he were some sickly invalid or small child, instead of a strong, capable adult. \u003cem\u003eWill\u003c/em\u003e had thought he was an adult . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now his mother barged into his room again—God, she \u003cem\u003ehovered\u003c/em\u003e! She was pressing her hand against his forehead, fussing worriedly. “You really don’t\n seem like yourself, Rafe. Your father has you working too hard—he could give some of that to a clerk.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no. Please, Mother.” Work was the only way through this, his only hope of salvation . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What you need is a wife; she’d take proper care of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not this again!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She hesitated, just long enough for him to hope that she would let it drop, but no—she was just gathering up her courage. “I know exactly what you were\n getting up to at the University, and that sort of thing is well enough for nobles. But regular people, like you and me, we do best when properly married.\n Matilda Larkin’s daughter is just come of age, and I hear her grandmother has given her the family recipe for lamb pie. You remember the last time we dined\n at the Larkins’—they served it then, and you kept asking why mine wasn’t ever as good! If you married Cynthia Larkin, you could have it every week!\n Starflower is only two days away—you could escort young Cynthia to the riverside, to see the display; I’m sure she’d be dazzled. A caring wife would bring color back to your cheeks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If his mother only knew what truly ailed him! “I can’t talk about this now, Mother. Right now, I need to work.” If Rafe could make enough money, he could\n send runners out looking for Will, he could pay for doctors for his lover, he could someday found his school—Rafe had been a starving student long enough,\n desperate and powerless. Money was a kind of power that no one could ignore, and he had been foolish to avoid it for so long.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His mother hovered in the doorway for a moment before sighing, heavily, and walking out the door. “Maybe I’ll bring you some nice, fortifying soup,” she\n called back as she headed down the hall. At least that was one benefit to being at home—no time lost to the mundane business of feeding himself. Although\n it wasn’t the same as sharing tomato pies with Micah. Rafe missed their camaraderie; he’d barely had time to visit in the last few months. He hoped the boy\n was doing all right . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane blinked drowsily at Lord Lionel. Well, \u003cem\u003ethat\u003c/em\u003e had been a great deal more pleasant than she’d expected. She hadn’t been sure how it would be,\n with such a young man, but youth did have certain things to recommend it. Like enthusiasm. And stamina. Even now, after hours of passion, Diane could see\n that Lord Lionel was not wholly exhausted yet. So why was he lacing up his shirt?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m \u003cem\u003eso\u003c/em\u003e sorry, Madam Duchess.” His face was the strangest mix of ardent and apologetic.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I told you to call me Diane. At least when we’re . . . intimate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane,” he said, blushing. “I regret that I must rush off. But please make yourself comfortable, for as long as you like. My friend Esha, our hostess, is\n entirely discreet, as are her servants.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But why must you go?” Diane had to work to keep the impatience out of her voice—sweet charm, enticement. That was what had brought Lionel to her; he\n thought her delicate and unworldly, which was perfect, at least for now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel was pulling on breeches, fastening his stockings and pulling on his boots. “There is an Exchequer committee meeting I must attend; Halliday was\n clear on its importance, and I cannot disappoint him. If I am to advance in Council, I must stay in his good graces.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane gave a soft \u003cem\u003ehmm\u003c/em\u003e. “Well, perhaps I could arrange for you to spend some time together. I recently reopened the Tremontaine hunting lodge—I’m\n sure Lord Basil would appreciate an invitation to a hunting party, perhaps with his friend Asper Lindley along? And then you would have the opportunity to\n impress him at your leisure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel bent down to kiss her, his lips lingering sweetly on hers; he tasted like peppermint and ginger. “Diane, you are a jewel among women. I am so very,\n very sorry that I must leave you. May I make it up to you . . . on another occasion?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was strangely arousing, being bare and exposed in this bed, with him fully dressed above her. Diane could think of a few ways Lionel might make it up to\n her. She smiled. “You must tell me all about your very important meeting when next we meet.” If only she could be there herself—but for now, this would\n have to do. Lionel would be her eyes and ears.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It would bore you terribly, I’m afraid, but if you insist. Might you be free . . . tonight?” The eagerness in his voice was almost flattering enough to\n make up for his insistence on abandoning her, and his hand came to her face, caressing the line of cheek and collarbone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I might indeed. Are you attending Octavia Perry’s ‘little supper’ for two hundred? You are a friend of their son’s, are you not? Good. Let us slip away\n before the dancing, then, separately, and meet here. If you’re sure your, ah, friend Esha won’t mind.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She tipped her head up for one last kiss, and Lionel bent down to her again, one hand fisting in her hair. For a moment, Diane was tempted to pull him down\n to her, just to prove she could. But patience—she was playing a long game with this one. She smiled and let him go.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Inviting as it was to lounge in this comfortable bed—really, almost too comfortable—she ought to head home; she had letters to write. Diane rose and began\n dressing herself, wincing slightly as she did so—Lionel's firm grip had left a few bruises along the way. Well, they would color up nicely, and though she\n had entirely enjoyed the process of accruing them, it wouldn’t hurt if Lionel felt a little guilty for his manly ardor; he would be all the more eager to\n please her. She would have to wear long sleeves for a bit, though.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Letters, letters. Young Arthur had finally managed to find Micah—not Michael, as it turned out—and provided Diane with an address at University. But two\n letters he’d delivered to that address had gone entirely unanswered, which was bewildering and infuriating. Why would someone ignore a summons from\n Tremontaine? Diane would send one final note, insisting that this Micah meet her the next morning, and then it would be time for more drastic measures.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had also learned that the fellow who’d so handily won the duel at the ambassador’s party was a free agent, available for work. Vincent Applethorpe;\n she wanted him, and now she could easily have him. The bright blade and its sudden, sure thrust, dedicated to her service. Diane wondered what unspoken\n history lay between him and the Chartil ambassador. Well, once he was working for her, she’d quickly learn all. Now that her finances had steadied, thanks\n to the partnership with the Kinwiinik, she could afford to stop being so careful and conservative. She could afford a fashionable and skilled swordsman, as well as the new satin dress that she had purchased for her assignation with Lord Lionel, an impossible creation in watery shades of blue and green. She\n looked very well in it, she knew.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A serving girl arrived at the ring of a bell to help lace her up—and oh, she \u003cem\u003ewas\u003c/em\u003e well trained. Deft hands, and silence—Diane couldn’t abide\n servants who chattered. This one might as well have been mute. Really, Lord Lionel had done nicely, bringing them to this house. It was small, but\n charmingly appointed, with a surprising elegance and a certain exotic flair. Small painted miniatures decorated the walls, which, when she came to examine\n them, appeared to feature rather scandalously explicit couplings in a variety of positions, some of them surely impossible. She had honestly never seen the\n like before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The window offered a fine view of the Hill looming above, the warm afternoon light lending it a most pleasant aspect. Closer to hand were the gardens of\n the house itself, rather admirably done, in an intricate wild style unlike the more formal patternings people currently preferred. In the center of the\n garden lay a wide grassy plot, and there, a figure moved. A swordsman, Diane thought at first, engaged in solitary practice, but a longer perusal made it\n clear that this was, in fact, a woman, dressed in bright silks bound tightly to her form. Shocking enough. But she carried two swords instead of one, and\n she did not seem to be practicing fighting moves. Her body arched and swung, the swords moving gracefully through a pattern that seemed closer to a dance\n than a fight. She held them close as a lover, and then flung them out in wild fury, almost as if she were telling a story—love gained, and then betrayed?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had to know more. Where had she put that mask—ah, there. With the blue silk secure on her face, she turned to her silent attendant. “Take me to the\n garden.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah beamed as she stood in the center of Rafe’s room, contemplating the massive black rectangle of slate that now hung over her bed. The smooth expanse\n was exactly like the one that hung in Doctor Goodell’s own study, an innovation he’d devised and had commissioned. Hers had been a gift from the doctor\n himself, who had said, gruffly, that Micah was going to bankrupt herself trying to do all her work on paper. It had taken three students to help her hang\n it, but now it was ready, and she had a fresh supply of chalk. It was so much easier to write on polished slate—Micah’s hand didn’t ache, the way it did\n after hours of writing on paper. Now she could really dig into the new problem Doctor Goodell had set her—it was entirely unlike anything she had\n considered before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The doctor had taken a thin strip of paper, given it a twist, and sealed the ends together. He had then cut a line down the length of the paper—creating a\n much longer loop with two twists in it when he was done. Where had the twists come from? Then, to make things even more confusing, he had taken another\n strip of paper, done the twist and seal thing again, and then cut a new line, a third of the way into the strip instead of halfway. \u003cem\u003eThat\u003c/em\u003e had\n generated not a long loop, but two interlocking rings! One bigger than the other! Micah had almost fallen out of her chair, and the doctor had laughed, but\n not in a mean way, Micah was almost sure. Doctor Goodell didn’t seem that sort of person.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d sent Micah off to solve some equations that he said should give a solution with the same shape as the paper strip. To be honest, the whole concept\n made Micah’s head hurt a little, but in a good way. She felt like she was being stretched wide open, and with chalk in hand, she climbed up onto the\n bed—the only place from which one could reach all of the slate, but that was all right—and made her first tentative marks. Oh, this was brilliant! She\n could try things, even complicated things, and make mistakes, and erase them, and no one would even know. If only she could do that with the rest of her\n life, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey—be careful! That beast could fall on you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe.” Micah recognized the voice, and turned to face her friend. “It’s good to see you. You don’t need to worry; the slate is very firmly secured.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Still, come down from there. Please.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe looked actually worried, so Micah reluctantly clambered from the bed, putting the chalk down as she went. Perhaps it was for the best—it was polite to\n pay attention when talking to your friends, and as long as she was in front of the slate, chalk in hand, most of her mind would have been on the exciting\n new equations.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So,” Rafe said, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. “How are you doing? Are you hungry? I thought maybe we could go over to the Blackbird’s\n Nest, get a tomato pie.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah hesitated. She wasn’t really hungry yet. But she would be soon, and eating with friends was more enjoyable than eating alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe added hastily, “You don’t need to gamble to make money for it—my treat.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah shrugged, pulling on her coat. “I can’t play there anyway—no one there will wager with me. Last time I needed some silver, I had to have Joshua take\n me to the Brown Dog.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?? He took you \u003cem\u003ethere\u003c/em\u003e?” Rafe had been holding the door open for her, but he almost let it swing shut on her foot. “You could have been killed,\n Micah! The Brown Dog is full of thieves and murderers!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe looked angry. That’s right—Joshua had said Rafe would be angry. It was good that Joshua knew his friend that well. Though not good that Rafe was\n angry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was good for gambling,” Micah said. “And when some men started to bother us”—she supposed they might have been thieves and murderers, if it came to\n that—“Kaab took care of them for us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean, \u003cem\u003etook care of them\u003c/em\u003e?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She told them to leave us alone. And then she walked us back across the bridge, most of the way to the University.” Micah considered for a moment. “She\n was mad at Joshua too, actually.” Micah had barely noticed—she’d been considering the patterns she could make with the coins she’d won, enough coins to\n last her for several weeks of tomato pies. With this many, she could make some interesting number sequences. 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36 . . . she’d\n wondered whether Joshua or Kaab could guess the next number in the sequence, but they seemed busy arguing. She hadn’t wanted to bother them. An even\n prettier sequence was 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 . . . Micah’s coins had clinked cheerfully together in her pocket, and she’d been as happy then as\n ever in her life.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I need to talk to Joshua,” Rafe said grimly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’s probably at the Nest.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s go,” Rafe growled, and set off walking, at a pace that Micah couldn’t easily match. She sighed, and hurried to follow. Sometimes having friends was\n a lot of work.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Maybe it was Vincent’s departure, two days before, that had made her sweet maize-flower so irritable. Tess was, Kaab had to admit, somewhat less lovely\n when snappish. It would be nice to have something to blame for the rift that seemed to grow hourly between them. Tess complained constantly about the state\n of Kaab’s housekeeping, but surely that couldn’t be the real reason she was upset. Kaab couldn’t spend the time and attention to wash every dish and pick\n up every piece of clothing that Tess would like her to. As for mopping—gods! Ixkaab Balam was a first daughter of the House of Balam, a swordsman, and a\n spy—must she be a housemaid as well?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At least remember to get something for dinner while you’re out!” Tess shouted as Kaab strode out the door, leaving her standing in a swirl of chaos.\n Vincent’s leave-taking had left the two of them sitting in a strange, intimate nest, and Kaab was a little worried that she was finding herself happier out of it than in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course, my beloved. I will bring back strange delicacies to tempt your most demanding appetites.” Perhaps some of her family’s special treats would\n sweeten her lover’s temper: honey-roasted fire ants, green mole with frog legs. Not that you could get proper chilies here—for a brief moment, Kaab felt\n sick with longing for the tastes of home. In this cold land, even if you brought the chili plants and tried to grow them, the sun would not shine long\n enough to bring them to full ripening. They would wither, doomed on the vine. Might her love be similarly doomed? No. She would not allow it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Roast chicken and bread would do fine,” Tess shouted at the closing door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab moved away quickly and quietly, so she might pretend she hadn’t heard the last. She was immensely tired of Riverside bread, coarse and black, that\n quickly went so hard that one must soak it in soup to make it palatable. She could cook for herself, of course, but the proper ingredients were hard to\n come by. And what she really craved right now were her aunt Saabim’s succulent tortillas, so tender that they melted in your mouth. It was fortunate that\n dinnertime was fast approaching—if she arrived at the right moment to make her report to her aunt, there would surely be some tortillas readying on the\n comal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She traveled to the compound by discreet routes, and waited until the path was entirely clear before entering. Once inside, Kaab was finally able to loosen\n the hood and wrap that had disguised her approach; within these walls, her face was safe from prying eyes. She was immediately overwhelmed with happy\n greetings, and with the embrace of little Xipil, who had surely shot up a foot in the last few weeks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We missed you, Kaab! Where have you been?” It was lovely, being surrounded by her family’s warmth, so different from Tess’s recent carping. Ah, she wasn’t\n being fair to her sweet flame, she knew it. But still.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s been busy working for the good of the family, Xipil. Now, let go of her, child; she must report.” Saabim had ponderously crossed the\n compound—waddling far more slowly than Kaab had ever seen her. The coming child rounded her belly enormously, and her breath came fast.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Saabim—are you well?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m just pregnant, Kaab. Don’t fuss. Here.” She handed Kaab a fresh tortilla, and Kaab had to fight the urge to cram it whole in her mouth, like a small\n child. She took reasonable adult bites, instead, as she accompanied her aunt to a corner of the courtyard. The tortilla tasted like sunshine and sweetness\n and home.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m afraid I don’t have much to report yet.” Kaab was embarrassed to admit it, but went through her notes as conscientiously as she could. These were the\n places she’d observed; these were the possibilities she’d excluded. A whole lot of nothing, was what she’d turned up so far. There \u003cem\u003emight\u003c/em\u003e be\n something at the docks; there was a possibility of goods being loaded onto a stolen punt there. But no real evidence yet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How much time did she have before the Batab’s inspector turned up, poking his nose into their affairs, judging both the finances and the politics of their\n deals with the Locals as if they were some upstart, no-name family instead of the Balam, the Kinwiinik’s most powerful, far-reaching Traders? But the Batab\n ruled over them all. And they had family back home. The situation there was unstable, not the least because of the disaster of Kaab’s last mission in\n Tultenco—her uncle informed them that Tullan authorities were still investigating the violent death of a particular minister's wife. If the Tullan managed\n to find any proof of the Balam involvement in that affair, and if their spies reported the instability and infighting among the Kinwiinik Trader families,\n that would give the Tullan all the pretext they needed to attack. And the Balam would lose far more than their monopoly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her aunt nodded. “This is a good report, Ixkaab. It is thorough, and detailed, and you do not jump to conclusions, as has been your practice in times\n past.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I haven’t really accomplished anything yet.” Kaab winced at the sound of the whine in her own voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Saabim laughed shortly. “You want to do something flashy again, like stabbing your sword through that man’s heart? Spy work isn’t glamorous, girl. It’s\n uncomfortable and slow and tedious—much like pregnancy and childbirth. You know that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab did know that—but sometimes that measured pace chafed. Still, she would try, for the good of the family. As for pregnancy and childbirth; she\n repressed a shudder. She couldn’t imagine being pinned down the way her aunt was now, her body tethered with the weight of the impending babe, who, when it\n arrived, would suck even more out of her. The priests said that if the mother did not take in sufficient food while bearing, the coming child would leech\n it from her very bones and blood. Appalling thought.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If they were to ever have children, Tess would have to be the one who did the bearing. Perhaps Vincent might help with that process. Although Kaab wasn’t\n sure she wanted children at all. Might a child bind Tess to Kaab more tightly, so that all their nagging differences fell away? Might it make her own\n family more likely to accept her flower? Or would a Riverside child create even more of a barrier? Her head began to ache. She hadn’t imagined . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her aunt groaned, her fingers tightening on the edge of the table.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aunt? What is it—is the baby coming?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her aunt shook her head, releasing her grip. “No, no—just false contractions. We are still weeks too early. Pay no attention, child.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stood, indicating that the interview was over, and Kaab perforce stood as well, though she still worried about her aunt. Her color didn’t look good.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Will you rest, please?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will rest, if you will work,” her aunt said, smiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is a bargain I will gladly make.” Kaab embraced her aunt, careful of the bulk of the babe between them, and then quickly rewrapped her cloak and\n hood. It was the work of a moment to leave the compound (snagging one last tortilla as she went), and then move, with renewed determination, toward the\n docks. Kaab had to find something that would help her family, and make it clear to the coming inspector that the Balam family could safely be entrusted\n with this important trade opportunity. The Batab would have no excuse to revoke their monopoly—Ixkaab Balam would make sure of that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane followed the servant down from the bedroom where she and Lionel had just been so pleasantly engaged. She entered the garden through a high gate; it\n had been locked, but the servant girl silently produced a key and let her through, ringing a small bell that hung by the gate before she did so. A warning\n to her mistress, no doubt, and a wise precaution—one wouldn’t want to be startled when whirling swords about one’s head. Or while doing whatever else one\n might do in such a garden. Lionel had told Diane that this house belonged to a woman from the East named Esha, with whom he had once enjoyed a brief\n liaison. Esha had allowed him to borrow it for the afternoon, and Diane was grateful for the discreet option thereby provided. With luck, this woman would\n be equally accommodating to them in the future.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane adjusted her mask, making sure it was well-positioned to conceal her appearance, then entered a long shrubbery. She followed a little path running\n down the middle, soon coming into view of the grassy center of the garden. A woman of startling beauty moved swiftly within the serene space, glossy black\n hair worn in a long braid, past hips bound by an intricate belt of gold chain. Large, expressive eyes, thickly lined with kohl, above a lush mouth. Esha,\n undoubtedly, the mistress of this house.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha had discarded one of her swords; she whipped the remaining one through a sequence of graceful arabesques before coming to rest with it balanced\n between her breasts. Lovely breasts too, only partially bound by a sheer fuchsia silk in a shade that would’ve looked awful on Diane but only enhanced the\n rich glow of Esha’s brown skin, now decorated with a light sheen of moisture. She stood with muscles trembling, as might a fine horse after it had been\n well exercised.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you quite done?” Esha asked, abruptly. She lowered the sword, resting its tip on the ground.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” Startled, Diane responded sharply.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman raised an elegant eyebrow—Diane envied its sculpted shape. “You have been in my house, making sport in my rooms, enjoying the silken sheets on my\n bed.” She laughed knowingly. “But I do not enter unannounced and stare at you, milady.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane stiffened further—the woman clearly knew that she was a noble. Had Lionel already disclosed her identity to Esha . . . surely he wouldn’t be so\n incautious! If he had, Diane had misjudged her man, and would have to let him go.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You do not know me, mistress,” Diane said, hoping the words were true. Her silken mask, which had seemed such a clever disguise, now seemed a thin bulwark\n to hide her reputation behind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha smiled. “I know that you are a woman who desired a man badly enough to ignore all convention, to risk her reputation, for a few hours of passion. And\n you didn’t even get paid for it.” The lightest tinge of scorn to that last line.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know nothing,” Diane replied, relieved, but also annoyed. “One with so little knowledge might do better to keep her thoughts to herself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha sighed and took a few steps toward her, so they were now only a small space apart. “Oh, milady. Are we making threats already? We barely know each\n other; if you knew me better, you would know that I am not a woman one should threaten. I hold intimate knowledge of a man who \u003cem\u003edoes\u003c/em\u003e know your\n name, and I hold a sword. I know how to use both, if I must.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Interesting. The woman was quick to anger—a trait Diane could sympathize with, but one that a woman in \u003cem\u003eher\u003c/em\u003e position would do better to control.\n Still, better to defuse Esha’s anger if possible; the last thing Diane wanted was another enemy to manage. “I am sorry,” Diane said, smiling prettily. “I\n am not used to such . . . assignations.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Indeed. At this hour, civilized folk should be dressing for supper, not dressing for their lovers.” The woman smiled. “Though I am not sure either of us\n is quite . . . civilized?” Esha reached out then, unexpectedly, and tucked an errant curl, dislodged by the breeze, back into place. She traced a thin line\n behind Diane’s ear and down her neck as she did so, sending a small shiver down the duchess’s spine. “Something tells me, lady, for all your fine clothes\n and lovely graces, that you are a little wilder than you seem.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane caught her breath for a moment—this woman couldn’t possibly know . . . No, no—she was referencing the hour Diane had just spent with Lionel, that was\n all. Diane should find a way to set her down for her impudence, for daring to touch her—but she could still feel the shiver in her skin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman was smiling now, and held out a hand to Diane, offering it palm up. “Peace, lady, and my apologies. The swords have heated my blood unduly, and I\n spoke more sharply than I should have. I am Esha Jayasuriya, and you are welcome in my house. We need not duel today. In truth, it would be a poor offering\n to the gods, to follow their sacred dance with true battle. It is meant to be paired with words of love . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane hesitated, intrigued. And then she lifted her arm and clasped the woman’s hand, firmly. It was wiser to make friends and alliances when she could;\n one never knew when a woman like this might be helpful. She would have a particular access to people—to \u003cem\u003emen\u003c/em\u003e—that Diane never would. “It is a\n pleasure to meet you; you will forgive me, I hope, if I keep my mask and my name for a little longer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course,” Esha said, smiling. “I prefer not to coerce a woman to give up her secrets until she is ready.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane flushed—best to change the subject. “Tell me more about this dance of yours. Is it a tradition of your homeland? I have never met someone like you\n before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha’s eyes darkened. “You are not likely to meet many like me—I fled war in my homeland of Zeren a score of years ago, and in all that time, I have yet to\n meet another of my people. My family is dead, and I am only a poor woman, frail and alone, at the mercy of the rapacious lords of this fine city.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane laughed, startling herself. The sardonic tone in Esha’s voice was oddly familiar. “They \u003cem\u003eare\u003c/em\u003e rapacious, aren’t they.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha smiled, quirking an eyebrow. “Luckily, many of them are also tremendously foolish, and a wise woman has many a tool at hand for protecting herself.\n Starting with \u003cem\u003etheir\u003c/em\u003e tools . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yes, this was an interesting woman, worth cultivating. “Tell me more, my dear. Perhaps over a cup of chocolate? I know so little of Zeren.” Diane had heard\n of the land, in the distant East, but as far as she knew, no significant trade came from there. Perhaps because of this past war?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha began leading her back toward the house. “Please let me offer you a cup of tea—it is the customary drink of my people. For long years, I could not\n find it here, but lately, I have managed to make contact with a trader who can smuggle a little from the homeland, here and there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane said, “I would be delighted to taste some. Does he bring anything else from your homeland? I am always interested in the customs of far places.” And\n the trade possibilities for Tremontaine . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha offered, “There are certain spices that can only be found there; we are also fond of incense, used to scent the home and praise the gods. We carve and\n paint masks, to ward away the demons of illness and war—though I have lost my faith in the efficacy of such. And the weavers of my land are exceedingly\n skilled, in styles that are like nothing you’ve seen here. I could show you a sampling of fabrics, if you have any interest in clothes . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane felt her lips upturn into a delighted grin; she could just imagine the splash she might make, appearing on the Hill in fabric none of the other\n noblewomen had even \u003cem\u003eseen\u003c/em\u003e before. Of course, that was a reckless fantasy, as such a bold move would certainly reveal her true identity to Esha . .\n . still, it couldn’t hurt to look. “My dear, I would be positively \u003cem\u003ethrilled\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Blackbird’s Nest was crowded today, but it didn’t take long for Rafe to spot Joshua, holding forth over a mug of dark beer he’d undoubtedly talked\n someone into buying for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What were you \u003cem\u003ethinking\u003c/em\u003e?” Rafe demanded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Joshua took one glance at Micah trailing along behind Rafe, and swallowed whatever denial he’d planned to make. “You know how determined Micah can be—I\n figured, better I went along, keep him safe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, and how exactly were you planning on keeping him safe? With your tremendous sword-fighting skills?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Look, Rafe, it all worked out; everyone’s fine. Why don’t you let me—why don’t you get yourself a drink and join us? Tell us how plans for the school are\n coming.” At that, several of the other students joined in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tell us, Rafe!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “De Bertel misses you terribly. Without you there to beard him, there’s no one to work him into a rage, and lectures have grown more tedious than you can\n imagine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe flushed. He’d made no progress on the school, of course—it had become a distant priority compared to finding and healing his lost lover. But he\n couldn’t explain that to any of them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He signaled for a drink from the serving girl, and then, to shut them up, had her bring refills to his friends. He got plenty of appreciative claps on the\n back for that, and some “Fine fellow, always were the best.” But Lawrence muttered, “He might as well pay; he’s rich now,” and though the others shushed\n him, the words cut deep. Is that what they thought? That he’d abandoned his studies, abandoned every principle he’d held dear, for a pile of silver?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe winced. What else\u003cem\u003e could\u003c/em\u003e they think? “Honestly, it’s not so lucrative as all that. My mother’s maids’ cooking is not nearly as tasty as the\n Blackbird’s pies. And my father has me slaving over the account books ’til my eyes cross, for a clerk’s wages.” Rather more than a clerk’s, to be honest,\n but they didn’t need to know that. Rafe just hated the edge of envy in their voices. Too many of them had gone cold and hungry for the sake of their\n education, and they would resent someone they saw as selling out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still, his complaint seemed to turn the tide of sympathy—Alain said, “Well, if money’s the problem, maybe we could think together, figure out how you can\n gather the funds to start your school. You could tutor some of the younger fellows here, for a start . . . Though you certainly couldn’t host them in that\n pathetic old room of yours, especially now that your friend Micah’s taken it over.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe you could rent a room from old Lambert. Just for a few hours per week, to get started?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then they were off, plotting and planning, voices rising in good-natured argument. Rafe took a long draught of his beer, hoping swallowing would\n relieve the tightness in his throat. God, he’d missed this. It felt so good, being among them, immersed in the old camaraderie, with Micah by his side.\n Ideas flying, jokes and laughter, salacious comments about the inn staff and about each other. They were all so damn \u003cem\u003eyoung\u003c/em\u003e. They had no idea what\n it felt like, carrying the weight of hopeless love pressing against your shoulders. He just wished he had a better plan for what to do next. So far, he’d\n made no progress on figuring out where the missing money was going; that was why he’d come to check up on Micah. He’d hoped the walk would clear his head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Instead, everything seemed even more confused and impossible than ever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab had chosen a warehouse to watch over for the night, one of the old ones, southeast of Riverside. She’d sent a child to Tess with the message that she\n was detained, and would not be coming home to eat with her at all. Tess would not be pleased, but Kaab’s responsibilities came first. She would take care\n of her family, and she’d take care of Tess too—tonight she’d keep watch at the warehouse, and tomorrow, she’d accompany Tess on her appointments, to ensure\n that Florian and Shade didn’t bother her. Tomorrow was Starflower Fest, when the two had said they’d come back for Tess’s answer. Kaab might be a poor\n dinner companion, but she was a fine swordswoman; once she made clear that she was Tess’s protector, she was confident that the two rogues would soon\n disappear.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d picked this particular warehouse because it held the newest shipment of Balam spices, a large supply of cinnamon and cloves, much of which was\n earmarked for Rafe’s father’s account. Kaab wondered whether Rafe had noticed the missing shipments yet; she should talk to him as soon as she had a\n chance. Tomorrow, between Tess’s appointments. Kaab wasn’t sure exactly when she would get a chance to sleep, but sleep was for soft nobles of this city.\n One trained in the service of the Balam house could easily go a night or three without sleep. It would be no trouble at all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab threw a weighted rope over a high rafter, tested its stability—it held. She swiftly climbed up the wall, using the rope for assistance, until she was\n perched high in the rafters. Perfect—from here, she could easily see everyone who came in and out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hours passed. Kaab occupied herself with counting the boxes on the warehouse floor, the stars outside the window. She rehearsed the Balam lineage, to every\n branch and twig, twice. She made a catalog of Tess’s most irritating habits, and then, remorseful, spent twice as long listing her more endearing traits.\n Those small delicious sounds Tess made when Kaab moved slowly down her body, spreading her thighs . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab was so lost in the fantasy that she almost missed the two dark figures entering the warehouse. They began shifting boxes, and Kaab bent forward,\nalmost tipping out of the rafters, but then she braced herself into a steadier position. Ah. The light was terrible, but if they would just move into \u003cem\u003ethat\u003c/em\u003e patch of moonlight, then she might be able to make out their faces. Oh, even better—one of them was bringing in a dark lantern, carefully\n opening a panel to let the light shine through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They paused to talk—Kaab craned forward, trying to hear them, but their voices were too soft. But it soon became evident what they were discussing. Their\n bodies entwined, the tall one’s head tipping down to meet the other’s. Were they really going to do this here? In the midst of stealing? Apparently. Arms\n gripped tightly; they moved together, a four-legged beast, toward a supporting wall, and in the process stumbled, dropping the lantern onto a pile of\n boxes. Idiots. If they didn’t move quickly, that box would be in flames, destroying whatever was stored inside—precious spices perhaps, or silks, or—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n An explosion rocked the room, and it was filled with colored stars, with trails of crimson and gold, purple and emerald green, blindingly bright, cascading\n around her. An explosion of fireworks, and despite her training, it was too much—Kaab lost her grip, and fell, down and down, to crash against the\n warehouse floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bright lights, and darkness following.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nMicah and Joshua ventured into Riverside, but Micah’s skill with cards aroused the ire of the local criminal element, forcing Kaab to come to their rescue. Meanwhile, a formal duel on the Hill brought Vincent Applethorpe to the covetous attention of both the Duchess Tremontaine and the Chartil ambassador, Reza. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Mary Anne Mohanraj\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.90","slug":"tremontaine-s2e03","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E03.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101117_TremontaineS02E03.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101117_TremontaineS02E03.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101117_TremontaineS02E03.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":null},{"id":"57e00204ada6e25bbf6d1356","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":4,"title":"All That Glitters","released_date":"2016-11-09T12:53:11.162+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Kaab fights her first professional duel. Diane pursues her destiny.","byline":"Joel Derfner","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e04.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-11-09","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n The steel was quick and sure in her hand. It ought to be; she had wielded it from a babe, after all, and the time was long past when she needed to devote\n any thought whatsoever to the quick jabs and turns she executed in pursuit of her aim. The sharp point was almost liquid as it flashed through the air,\n beautiful in its accuracy—forward, back, left, right. She was an artist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And part of her artistry, thought Diane de Tremontaine as her swift needle guided the white thread through the crimson fabric stretched across her\n embroidery hoop, was that she hated loose ends.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Loose ends like the boy Micah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He would arrive soon, however, and she would twist him around her finger—no, she would hardly need her finger; she would do it with a glance—and the loose\n end that he represented, the possible release of the astronomical research William’s toad of a lover had been conducting, would be tied up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And if she could not tie it up, well, she could just as easily cut the thread.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So the Duchess Tremontaine did not give a great deal of thought to the University student whom she had instructed to come midmorning to call on her at\n Tremontaine House.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had even given up wondering about the unexpected fire in the Kinwiinik warehouse the previous week. It had of course crossed her mind that the Balam,\n impatient at the City’s reluctance to tear down the decrepit warehouses at the docks and replace them with new ones, might well have set the fire\n themselves to prove just how decrepit the warehouses actually were. But if the Balam had desired to burn down their own warehouse, they would surely have\n succeeded. And, more to the point, they were unlikely to have used their own stock of fireworks, so very much in demand for Starflower Fest, to do so. They\n were, after all, merchants first and foremost.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No, her attention was far more engaged with the call she planned to pay on Nicholas, Lord Galing. The Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords was the\n next pin in the game of bowls she was playing, and she needed to pitch straight and true if the others were to fall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But even her impending visit to the Crescent Chancellor did not distress her overmuch. If she had the venomous Lindley to contend with, it might be a\n different matter, as Galing’s lover was certain to foil her in whatever way he could; but Lionel Chesney had, at her suggestion, obligingly taken Asper\n Lindley hunting with Basil Halliday. She would therefore find Nicholas alone, a state in which he would easily see how sensible her plans were.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At some point during the morning, however, as the shadows shrank on the floor of the sumptuous library of Tremontaine House, fantastical dark giants slowly\n returning to the size of the tables and sofas that cast them, distorted reflections of bibelots creeping back toward their originals, as the white thread\n began to birth a swan against the crimson, a curious idea occurred to the duchess.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No; it could not be. The University was an indolent tribe, its members slothful and undisciplined. Micah had been abed, perhaps, rising only now from the caliginous vapor of wine and pleasure that lingered still from the previous night. The light knock from one of the footmen would come soon, and by the time\n the sun began its descent she would be one lord closer to an Inner Council united behind her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But as the morning wore on toward afternoon, as the clock on the mantel continued to regulate the placid silence, Diane had to exert more and more control\n over her ivory-white hand to keep her stitches relaxed and her swan graceful; Chesney would not keep Lindley occupied forever, unless it occurred to him to\n flirt, and, knowing his predilections, it might not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last it was undeniable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane de Tremontaine was being stood up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Two emotions began to roil within her breast.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The first, of course, was anger. Such a thing had never happened before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Oh, it had happened to the woman sitting on the striped damask sofa in Tremontaine’s library, but only in a life lived so long ago that she had all but\n forgotten it had ever been hers. No, since she had traveled south to become the Duchess Tremontaine—and whose business was it of anybody’s whether she was\n the girl William had summoned? A duchess he wanted and a duchess he got—no one had dared stay away when Diane called: at first because of her husband’s\n position and the respect due to him, and eventually because people understood, instinctively, that she was not a woman it would be wise to refuse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The second emotion, running beneath the first like a deceptive undertow, was fear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If the young scholar had decided to deny her, after all, he must have had a reason. And whatever that reason was, it could not portend any good for the\n house whose crest was slowly growing against a field of blood-red linen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last she could tarry no longer; every instant’s delay increased the likelihood that when she arrived at Galing’s she would find Lindley there to oppose\n her. With a sure hand, she stitched the last point of the crown atop the elegant head of the swan, pushing the steel through the defenseless cloth one\n final time, turning the hoop over, and tying a knot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before she rose and called for her carriage, she snapped the thread in two.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane de Tremontaine, after all, hated loose ends.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The problem, Kaab reflected—hoping against hope that, if she stirred the mess in the bowl before her slowly enough, it might disappear—was that she was an\n idiot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If she had given the matter proper thought, she would have asked her aunt to give her goosefoot at their last meeting, to give her chili. A great deal of\n chili. Not to mention epazote. And, while she was at it, maguey worms. And tamales.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eLittle bee\u003c/em\u003e\n , she heard her mother’s voice say, \u003cem\u003eyou might as well tell your brother to walk past a cenote without diving in\u003c/em\u003e. For the sake of the nine heavens,\n all the goosefoot in the world would not transform this mush into actual food. She was stranded here in Riverside, and if at first she had found it\n intoxicating to be surrounded by Riverside’s pale women, with their ample bosoms and their skin the color of ant eggs, by now that intoxication had worn\n off in the face, day after day, meal after meal, of food so bland it made her want to throw herself into the river. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a tamal\n stuffed with Muscovy duck and luscious jumil bugs, sprinkled with algae! Or even just something real to drink, atole mixed with honey and chipotle . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Whatever the sum, it was nothing compared with what she would give for the company of her family. Of her cousins, her aunts, her uncles, of Topob,\n Koxol—Xamanek’s light, she was even thinking of baby Tucho with fondness, and all he ever did was drool and vomit.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This mission will be more difficult than you realize,” Saabim had said, and Kaab had scoffed; she had been in the service for years, she explained with\n exaggerated patience, knew quite well how to play a part, how to tell just enough of the truth to make it convincing. And if worries began to clutter her\n mind, why, the embrace of her sunset-haired lover would scatter them like sparrows! Was there any difficulty that could survive Tess’s bosom?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Aunt Saabim had simply smiled in her infuriating way. Had she known just how lonely Kaab would feel, how great the ache, as if she had been torn away from\n the greater part of her body and set adrift on the Road of the Sun? She would gladly eat mush if she could do it surrounded by her kin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well. Not \u003cem\u003egladly\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Tess was sitting across from her, gazing at her expectantly, waiting for her to say something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally: “It is delicious, my maize-flower.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she had waited a moment too long. Tess’s hair was a whirl of fire as she shot up, knocking her chair over. “Fine. You hate it. Our food is crap, our\n clothes don’t fit, nothing is as good here as it is back home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No! This gruel is—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Gruel! Oh, even better! \u003cem\u003eOatmeal\u003c/em\u003e, Kaab, it’s \u003cem\u003eoatmeal\u003c/em\u003e, and I \u003cem\u003ecooked \u003c/em\u003eit, over an open fire, sweating like a rotting Erlander\n cheese, and it has \u003cem\u003efruit \u003c/em\u003ein it, and \u003cem\u003echestnuts\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003ebecause I wanted to \u003cem\u003ecelebrate\u003c/em\u003e your first job as a swordswoman tonight\n and, oh, by the way, the fact that you walked out of an \u003cem\u003eexplosion \u003c/em\u003eall but unharmed, because every once in a while \u003cem\u003eI think about you\u003c/em\u003e! Not\n that you’d know what thinking about other people is like.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gods, Tess was beautiful! “My heart’s thrush, I think about you all the time, except—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Except when \u003cem\u003eanything\u003c/em\u003e else occurs to you to think about! Your family, the chocolate thieves, a spot of rust on your sword. Vincent shows up\n dangling a fight at some stupid party in front of you and all memory that I exist disappears! I can’t help it if I’d rather not burn my tongue off with\nspice at every meal! That doesn’t mean you can’t \u003cem\u003ethank \u003c/em\u003eme every once in a while! I cook, I clean—oh, yes, princess, does it not occur to you that \u003cem\u003esomebody\u003c/em\u003e picks up and launders the clothes you toss so haughtily on the floor?—and you just waltz around on your family’s business, allowing your\n servant to take care of anything you feel is beneath you. I’m getting goddamned sick of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her nostrils were flaring, her bosom heaving like jacaranda flowers in the wind. Full of flame. Kaab bowed her head. “I apologize, precious flower. You are\n correct. I do not think of you enough. I will try to do better.” The anger almost softened on Tess’s face. “Beginning with this delicious oatmeal you have\n so kindly cooked for me, in honor of my first appearance as a real false swordswoman and my safe escape from disaster.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What was love, after all, without sacrifice?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She closed her eyes, dug the spoon into the bowl, brought it up dripping with glop, put it resolutely into her mouth. Could not keep, no matter how hard\n she tried, from making a face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At the sound of something shattering against the wall behind her, her eyes flew open. She whipped her head around to see Tess’s bowl in pieces on the\n floor, oozing gruel—in the sight of the gods, Kaab could not lie; it was gruel—and then back around at her lover, whose eyes were wide with fury.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Get out of here,” said Tess. Kaab leapt over to her, seized her by the neck, her hand brown against Tess’s cream skin, and kissed her deeply. She could\n feel Tess struggling like a caged puma not to respond, feel her failing, feel her giving up. The two of them melted together, lips, teeth, tongue becoming\n one creature, fire and air and passion.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally Tess pulled back, the anger in her face blunted. She sniffed. “If you get killed tonight, you know, it would serve you right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It would, my morning star. But I will try not to, for it would keep me from returning to you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Pretty. Go away and come back when I’m not angry anymore.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your whim is the desire of my heart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe crumpled the letter viciously and threw it to the floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Master Fenton\u003c/em\u003e, it read,\n \u003cem\u003e\n I regret, after managing, through extensive and quite exhausting measures, to suborn both a footman and a chambermaid at Chatterton, to have to tell you that the duke is not here. They did reveal that another chambermaid left them some months ago, around the time your duke disappeared, but, no\n matter how energetic my exhortations, both of them claimed ignorance of her intended destination. Once this note is sent off, I will continue in the\n direction they told me she went.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n I hope I may take the liberty of begging once more that, when I return, you reward me for my service in the way you were formerly wont to do. If,\n however, the man has so beguiled you as to put you out of the reach of the rest of us, so be it. In the fond memory of times past, I remain yr obt svt,\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eJames Litton\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\n \u003cbr/\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe had lost count of the number of similar letters he had received over the last months. Nobody knew where William was—nobody at Tremontaine House,\n certainly, at least not as far as he’d been able to discover; he could hardly ask the duchess—and, as was seeming ever more likely, nobody anywhere else.\n Just letter after letter, every one whispering to him, \u003cem\u003eYou will never look upon his face again. \u003c/em\u003eRafe was coming to dread the receipt of a letter\n more than he had ever dreaded attending de Bertel’s lectures at the University.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAnd yet what else was there for him to look forward to now? Rafe honestly didn’t know how his father stood it. Day in and day out, dealing with \u003cem\u003eshipments \u003c/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003ebills of lading \u003c/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003efactors\u003c/em\u003e while the heavenly bodies spun above him, for all anybody knew setting other worlds\n dancing, as he breathed air wet with learning and knowledge, and the whole time his nose in his ledgers and his hand in his till—and yet still managing,\n day after interminable, wretched day, not to drink poison and wander out in the country to die!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe flipped another page in the account book, his fingers white against the paper. His head was beginning to ache. Of course, the fire at the Balam\n warehouse and the goods it had destroyed only made matters more confusing. Damn it, if only Micah were here, he’d figure out what Rafe was missing in a\n flash. Then again, without the imbalanced books to occupy his attention, Rafe would have had even more time to pine like a scorned maiden for his lover.\n Still, Micah would be better company than his father’s accounts. At least Micah cared about the workings of the universe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But, alas, Rafe was entirely alone in this citadel of unbreachable tedium. He scratched another number on the foolscap beside him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A soft knock. “Sir,” came Christopher’s voice through the door, “a visitor from the Traders.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab had come to see him! “By all means,” he called immediately, but when the office door swung open it revealed not Ixkaab Balam but the stunning\n Kinwiinik boy he’d met at the Convocation two weeks earlier. His nose sharp, his lashes long, his jet-black hair all but brushing his shoulders. Rafe\n inhaled despite himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy gave a bow so deep it was almost inappropriate. “Sir, my name is—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe put up a hand to stop him. “Be so good as to fetch me that paper knife on the table there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Certainly, sir.” He moved gracefully to comply.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now,” said Rafe, toying with the paper knife, “I must inform you that if you address me a third time as ‘sir,’ you will have the honor of being both the\n last man to see me alive and the only witness to my grisly death as I plunge this blade into my own heart. Address me as Rafe. If I’m five years older than\n you, my sister is the Crescent Chancellor.” Rafe beckoned the boy to sit in the chair across the desk from him. “And, while she would undoubtedly be more\n effective in the post than whatever incompetent holds it currently, not to mention quite possibly looking somewhat handsomer in tulle, Simone is most\n decidedly not the Crescent Chancellor. You have no need, Arthur Chel, to remind me of your name.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur gave Rafe a shy smile, ducked his head. “There were so many people at the Convocation, I wasn’t certain you would remember me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eBe careful of this one\u003c/em\u003e, thought Rafe, recalling a knife against his hair, a vow of celibacy to the gods that had seemed nothing when he made it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With this boy standing in front of him—fresh, dark, bright—that vow mocked him. “As if I could forget the utterly charming compatriot of my utterly\n charming friend Ixkaab.” Rafe leaned forward. “So, Arthur, how may I be of assistance?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You already have,” said Arthur. “I have been at war with myself since our last meeting. You have brought me peace.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nicely done, even if the delivery was a touch stiff. Rather like Rafe’s had been, at that age. There was a chance this was headed somewhere interesting.\n “Oh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The part of me that remembered you as more gracious than handsome was at odds with the part of me that remembered you as more handsome than gracious.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe smiled. It was not so long ago that he had been this self-conscious, this full of artifice to cover it. “And which part,” he said softly, “if I may be\n so bold as to inquire, do you now find has been more accurate?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Neither. The two qualities are quite equal in you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A tremor in the boy’s voice touched something in Rafe, made him want to teach him, advise him, protect him from the mistakes that would rend his heart in\n two. Rafe remained silent for a few moments, considering something. “And if I were to accuse you of having not nearly enough experience to judge\n accurately, and suggest that you make a more intimate examination of the evidence?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur blinked. “I . . . that is, I believe . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Exactly as he’d thought. Rafe came to the boy’s rescue. “That was not what you expected me to say.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur looked down, abashed. “It was not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The key to flirting smoothly,” said Rafe, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands under his chin, “is flexibility. You have composed a scene\n entire, have you not, complete with lines written for me? And perhaps given me a few options in some places, and perfected your responses to each one?”\n Arthur winced. “And what was the line I failed to deliver on cue?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur hesitated. “You were supposed to say that it was unfair of me to judge without giving you the opportunity to do the same.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe gave him an appreciative smile. “Not bad. Your sense of strategy bodes well. But, while this game has only one end, the styles in which men play it\n are as various as the ways in which swordsmen die. Sooner or later, in any conversation, your partner is bound to go off-script, at which point you will be\n left stranded, gaping and stammering.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe stood. William was gone—gone, perhaps, given the futility of Rafe’s search thus far, never to return—and mad, to boot. Kaab’s kinsman was in front of\n him, warm, alive, \u003cem\u003epresent.\u003c/em\u003e “Flirtation is an exchange, and a delicate one at that. It cannot be performed by one man. Seize inspiration from your partner’s words and allow yourself to be guided by your mother wit. Then you will flirt like one born to the City.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur rose slowly. “In that case, I’m woefully behind, for I \u003cem\u003ewas \u003c/em\u003eborn to the City.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe walked around his desk and laid a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, the muscle taut beneath the younger man’s chamois doublet. “It struck me at the\n Convocation,” he said, “that you sounded like a City man. I assumed at the time that you simply had a greater talent for languages than the first daughter\n of the first daughter of the Balam, which would be saying something indeed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Alas,” said the boy, almost trembling by now, “I have no gift for foreign tongues. My parents spent endless hours in my childhood—they seemed endless to\n me, at least—bashing Kindaan into my head with whatever blunt instrument they could lay their hands on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The result?” Rafe’s voice was growing softer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They regularly say my vocabulary is that of a boy of nine and my tongue that of an ill-bred pig.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Surely not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My tongue compensates with other talents.” As soon as the words crossed his lips Arthur looked shocked by his own audacity.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe grinned. “A little blunt,” he said, “but in the right direction.” He placed a pink hand on Arthur’s face. “And what might those talents be?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur raised an eyebrow. “What are you willing to give me,” he asked, “in return for such sensitive information?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now \u003cem\u003ethat \u003c/em\u003ewas excellent. Perhaps . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur’s face seemed somehow closer to his. “Yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Closer still. “Yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps we will . . .” Rafe’s voice broke.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it was to no avail.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stepped back, made his voice casual and hearty. “Perhaps we will meet again before long. I feel certain that you and I will find ourselves in the same\n place at some point before the straw kings burn.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Confusion tinged with hurt filled Arthur’s face. “Have I . . . have I done something wrong, si—Rafe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe closed his eyes. “You may very well have done something wrong,” he said with a sigh, “but if you have, it is unknown to me, and it is of no relevance\n to . . . to our friendship.” He opened his eyes again. Arthur appeared unenlightened. “I am in love, you see,” said Rafe, “with a man I may never touch\n again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur’s features brightened. “I understand,” he said cheerfully. “I have been in love with many such men before. And not a few women as well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe threw his head back and laughed. “Then I suppose that you will have little difficulty recovering from the wound I have dealt you and finding another\n upon whom to practice with your long eyelashes and your thick, rich hair.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, but you forget my mother wit.” After a moment Arthur assumed a look of great innocence. “What makes you think, though, sir”—he carefully pushed the\n paper knife out of reach—“that I have ceased to practice upon \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s mouth dropped open. “I believe,” he managed, “that you ought to leave now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And why is that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe stepped forward and kissed Arthur far more gently than he desired to. “Because you are, whether you know it or not, a very dangerous man.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The joy that filled Arthur’s face brought Rafe’s heart close to breaking. “Oh, the duchess will be so pleased!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A wave of nausea passed through Rafe; he closed his eyes, lest they betray it to Arthur. “The Duchess Tremontaine?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes—she is such a great lady! She allows me to do small errands and run messages for her now and then, but that isn’t all; she has given me so much good\n advice about so many things. Including you. She speaks very highly of you, you know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course. “And what did she say about me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She said that she had met you once or twice, and she thought that—” Arthur blushed. “She thought that you would like me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see. She is very wise, the duchess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m glad you think so!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Naturally, Diane would have asked Arthur to make sure to give her a full account of any visit he made to Rafe. And she hadn’t suggested that Arthur keep\n her request to himself, which meant that she \u003cem\u003ewanted\u003c/em\u003e Rafe to know.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well, what’s good for the king is good for the stag.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Actually,” said Rafe, “you may be of some assistance to me with regards to her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am happy to give you any help I can,” he said. He took a step closer to Rafe, looked into his face. “Provided that you reward me appropriately.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe smiled. “Nothing would make me happier than to do so.” He reached behind Arthur, held the back of his head. Just as Will had once held the back of\n Rafe’s. His hand stroked Arthur’s cheek.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In his time with Will, Rafe had never taken any but the most direct path toward his goals. Diane would expect him to be searching for Will, and she would\n have ensured that only those she trusted knew where she had imprisoned him. But dealing with his father’s business associates for the last few months had\n taught Rafe Fenton a modicum of subtlety. There were other things to find out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My family,” said Rafe, “has the honor of providing goods to Tremontaine House. We would like to do the same for the Tremontaine estates in other parts of\n the Land, but with the duke away, his man of business has been staunch in his refusal to continue negotiations—a safe business tactic, to be sure, but I\n believe you know I can be trusted. If you happen to hear anything of these other estates, therefore—even something casual—I would greatly appreciate your\n passing it on to me. If I can discover what some of the Tremontaine estates need, what they lack, what we can offer them, it might persuade the duke’s man\n of business to move forward with our discussions.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur frowned. “I will gladly do so, if I get the opportunity, but the duchess doesn’t speak about such matters to me. I’m not sure she takes an interest\n in the mechanics of her husband’s estates. She concerns herself with higher things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” said Rafe, waving a hand, “no need to trouble the duchess, of course. But if you hear servants discussing supplies being sent off to Chatterton, say,\n or any of the other great houses . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will give myself the ears of a fox,” said Arthur with a smile, “and I will put them at your service.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe kissed him again, longer this time. “I look forward,” he said, “to our next meeting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Long after Arthur left, the taste of his lips lingered in Rafe’s mouth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The violence of Riverside, like its food, was beginning to weigh on Kaab. She had noticed it less in the spring as a visitor, she believed—a frequent\n visitor, to be sure, but no resident—because the men and women here, sauntering through the streets, contemptuous as catamounts, took it so utterly for\n granted. But not a day had passed since Kaab had left her aunt and uncle’s home that she had not heard screams both of pleasure and of pain, walked past or\n over people rushing toward the release of ecstasy and of death. If nothing else, it was teaching her that not every battle was one in which she needed to\n choose a side.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not if she wanted to protect her kin from the chocolate thieves and the ruin that would overtake her family if their depredations continued. Only a small\n part of the Balam cacao stores had been destroyed in the explosion of the fireworks in the warehouse (if you wanted to call that ramshackle building a\n warehouse); the majority of their stock was always moved to the newer warehouses upstream as soon as possible—but the loss made her mission that much more\nurgent. The Cocom family was making a play for the Balam chocolate monopoly. When the inspector sent by the Batab arrived, he must find nothing amiss. \u003cem\u003eNothing. \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned a corner and her neck tightened, along with her grip on her sword. Two of the men in her way, the one fair-skinned, in the cast-off clothes of\n the Hill, the other the color of leaves in autumn, in a motley coat of patches, had threatened more than one soul dear to her, and she harbored no\n illusions that the man with them, tall and pale as a body pulled from the river, was of kinder stock than the pair she knew. All three faces were tense;\n whatever their dispute, she wanted no part of it. “Do not,” she said as Florian opened his mouth, to forestall the nickname she knew would come if she did\n not, “address me as Lady Chocolate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He laughed and gave her an elaborate bow. “And incur your displeasure? No thought could be farther from my mind, Lady Balam.” Shade said nothing, but the\n smile on his face was drawn with the point of a dagger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is good to hear,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The man she did not know spoke. “I find missy’s tone insulting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is of no concern to me how you like or mislike my tone.” She put her hand on her sword as his eyes narrowed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But a rotting sign down the street behind them swung in the wind and caught her eye: tail, scales, claws, depicted in peeled, fading black and orange\n paint. That was her destination: the shop—or pawn shop, or way station of stolen goods—of the Salamander and his sister. Or, Vincent had told her,\n depending on the day, of the Salamander and her brother.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She removed her hand from the hilt of her sword. “But I think you and I have no business with one another today,” she said, and stepped carefully around\n them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I still won’t like your tone tomorrow, sweetheart,” said the man she did not know.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sleep on it,” she said brusquely—it was a phrase she’d learned from Tess that she had found could be very useful—“and we’ll see.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab stepped around Florian, Shade, and their friend, descended the steps, and walked through the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was impossible to determine the size of the cavern she walked into, but she could taste treachery in the air. She wandered the shadowed depths of the\n room, picking up a knife here, eyeing a pair of shoes there. A room full of secrets. A room, the thought occurred to her, to die in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s a fine piece,” said a soft hiss from the back, startling her, and she dropped the bracelet she had been examining. Something in that voice made her\n teeth itch. “But not for you, I see.” She peered into the shadows and saw the outline of a head. Stepped forward. “Something particular you’re looking\n for?” the voice continued.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I understand that you . . .” Kaab had fled the Tullan Empire in the dark of night along with her kin, the Tlatoani’s men never more than half a breath\n behind her, yet she had not been half so afraid then as she was now, with this voice winding sinuously around her. “Forgive me, please. It is disconcerting\n not to be able to see the face of one I speak with.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nothing more easily remedied than that,” said the voice. A match flared. A candle burned. Kaab saw a smooth face whose age was impossible to judge. Were\n those wrinkles? What color was the hair? She burned the image into her vision, looked away, and found it was gone already. Ah, to have had such indistinct\n features—such a face would be invaluable in the service! This was the Salamander, then. Or his sister. Or her brother.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have some items I am interested in selling,” said Kaab. It took more effort than it should have, but she had learned young how to keep her voice easy. A\n person such as the Salamander would be suspicious of an unfamiliar face no matter what, but a face both unfamiliar and anxious would meet a great many\n closed doors.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What a coincidence,” said the Salamander. “I have some items I might be interested in buying.” Kaab moved forward again. “That’s far enough, I think.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As you wish.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I assume these items are in that bag on your shoulder?” At his gesture, Kaab carefully placed on the table a pair of jade ear plugs worked with gold, a\n necklace of obsidian and chalcedony, and a dark block of fine Olmec cacao. “Interesting. And how came you by these things?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab kept her breath steady. “They were given to me by my cousin,” she said, making sure to speak too quickly. It was not difficult.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sure they were,” murmured the Salamander. “And if your cousin didn’t notice that he was giving them to you, well, no harm done.” Kaab stiffened\n appropriately. Could the Salamander see how shallowly she was breathing? Or hear? “Then again, I don’t get many Traders in here. You might very well all\n have generous cousins.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab gave a small, tense smile. “As it happens, we do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And why, with such \u003cem\u003egenerous\u003c/em\u003e cousins, do you want to sell these beautiful trinkets?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have had a . . . falling out with my cousins. They are no longer quite as willing as they once were to exercise their generosity on my behalf.” She\n screwed her mouth into a grin she hoped was convincing. “And a girl must eat.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That she must.” Silence. Finally: “I can give you four silver for the earrings and three for the necklace. The chocolate’s no good to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab suppressed the urge to flee. If she failed to haggle, the Salamander would believe nothing else she said. “Perhaps you think I am newly arrived in\n your city. The ear plugs alone are worth a royal. The cacao, more; it comes from Caana, where by far the finest is produced.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Even if that were true,” said the Salamander, “and that were not Olmec chocolate rather than Caana, the facts remain that I can give you four silver for\n the earrings and three for the necklace and that the chocolate’s no good to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab drew herself up, her heart a scrabbling monkey. “Among my people it is customary to show some—what is the word? It is customary to bend when\n discussing the price of a thing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are not among your people, as you may have noticed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine,” said Kaab, hotly, her pulse fluttering, and gathered up the things from the table. “I will find a more accommodating merchant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not sure you will,” said the Salamander. “But you’re welcome to try.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab turned on her heel and stalked out. As she stepped through the door, she heard behind her a faint, “I’ll see you soon.” But Kaab gave no answer, for\n she had the information she had come to obtain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Half a year ago—oh, it seemed a lifetime!—when she had stood in the freezing streets of this neighborhood, trying to pay an urchin in cacao, he had thought\n it was excrement. Cacao had been unknown in Riverside. She had since introduced it to Tess and a few of her friends, but it was impossible that anyone in\n Riverside was capable of telling Olmec chocolate from Caana by a glance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Anyone except, it seemed, the Salamander.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And how would he—she—they—have learned of it, if not by trafficking in what had been stolen from the Kinwiinik warehouse\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the time the Batab’s inspector arrived, the chocolate thieves would be a memory, and her family’s monopoly in the Land safe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Outside, as she caught her breath, shuddering, she saw that she had taken the measure of Riverside exactly. Of the three men who had been standing outside\n the shop when she entered, the palest one now lay prone and immobile in the dirt. His demise, meanwhile, had stoked a fire in his erstwhile companions.\n Florian was standing against the wall, his face away from her, Shade behind him, thrusting, grunting. She slipped quietly away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In Riverside, death and desire went hand in hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Upon entering Galing’s house, the duchess heard Lindley before she saw him. “Dearest, send for more brandy, will you? I’m chilled to the bone.” The voice\n of a thing that crept upon the ground.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The hunt had finished too soon, then, and Lionel had not flirted. Perhaps she had been wrong to keep from him so much of what she was planning. She would\n reveal more to him next time, then—at least a little more—and future hunts would last as long as they needed to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She gave a moment’s thought to the poor deer, now in pieces, sating the hunger of dogs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Dogs, however, with teeth far duller than she herself faced now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Galing’s manservant gestured her into the drawing room, where she beheld not only Asper Lindley and Nicholas Galing, but also Basil Halliday, and—thank god\n for small mercies—Lionel Chesney. The guests were in riding dress and, horrifyingly, covered in mud from the hunt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Basil and Lionel, sitting stiffly, looked mortified when the duchess entered in her crisp rose-and-green taffeta, while Asper, supine on a divan to her\n right, looked for all the world as if his boots were sullying his own furniture rather than his lover’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asper leapt from the divan and flipped her a bow she could neither fault nor believe. “Fairest duchess! You grace our humble chambers with your presence.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eOur \u003c/em\u003e\n chambers? The audacity! She waited for him to apologize, at least, for the shameful condition of the huntsmen’s clothing. Instead, he lay down again on his\n back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How glorious,” she trilled, “to find you all here!” She offered Lindley a smile that, in a just world, would have felled him on the spot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Duchess,” said Galing, stepping up from her left with a bow more heartfelt than his paramour’s, and the others, all chagrin, followed suit.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane turned to take in the huntsmen. “My, don’t the three of you look . . . \u003cem\u003einvigorated\u003c/em\u003e!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asper insisted that we attend him here,” offered a shamefaced Lionel, “without going home to bathe and change, and we could hardly—well, we—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did he, now?” It would have to have been something like that. Without Clara Galing’s moderating hand, what was there to keep Lindley in check? “How\n amicable of him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was sore in need of comfort,” said Asper, “after my mount missed a jump and threw me. Detestable beast.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What he means,” Lionel said lightly, “is that his mount \u003cem\u003erefused\u003c/em\u003e the jump, which is no one’s fault but his own.” He sat. “And that he does not\n wish to shoulder the blame.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hard to believe,” said the duchess, “when Lord Asper is known to be such a notable horseman!” Her face was all innocence. “Well, since you are so badly in\n need of comfort, I pray you will not allow me to intrude. I will sit quietly and listen to your conversation.” She settled herself in a very good chair.\n When was Galing going to recover his tongue and his manners and offer her chocolate? “Now, what were you all saying before I barged in?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Basil Halliday sighed and sat back down. “Nothing of interest, I fear. I was merely complaining that life as the Dragon Chancellor’s deputy would be far\n less tiring if Davenant actually kept his documents organized in any sensible fashion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane gave an indulgent smile. “The same might be said of me. I’m sure Lord Davenant has his own particular system, which only he can understand.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If he has,” said Lord Basil, “he has long forgotten what it is. He can never find anything himself, which maddens him into asking me to look for it, while\n he scowls at me and sips chocolate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lindley laughed. “Poor Halliday!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel jumped in. “We were also discussing, as Lord Basil will certainly remember, the languishing matter of the warehouses.” \u003cem\u003eGood boy! \u003c/em\u003eDiane\n thought. It had not been entirely clear to her at the time of her explanation that he grasped the importance of new warehouses to the City’s economy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It does, indeed,” Halliday replied. “To be honest, I don’t think the warehouses interest the Dragon much. He seems to feel that new ones would mostly\n benefit the Traders, and that the Council has favored them enough already by lowering their import tax last year—a decision I believe he has come to\n regret.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And to what,” said Diane, “does the Dragon turn his attention instead?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “His lover of the moment, I expect!” said Lindley with a disgusting chortle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asper!” Basil’s eyes flicked toward Diane.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Lindley continued unimpeded. “Is it still that stunning woman from Zeren? What was her name? Estelle? Esther? She was always most amusing on the\n subject, if you can believe it, of swords.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eAh,\u003c/em\u003e thought Diane. \u003cem\u003eEsha. \u003c/em\u003eThe woman might turn out to be more useful to her than she had realized.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Really, Asper,” Halliday tried again. “Lord Davenant is a married man. With a perfectly lovely wife.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Lindley said, “we cannot all be as faithful as dear William was to the duchess. I have no idea who Davenant distracted himself with before Mistress\n Sword-Swallower. But whoever it was, he definitely threw her over for more exotic pleasures.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane repressed a frown. Threw her over, indeed! It was she who had tired of Gregory Davenant. But it was just as well Lindley had no idea; she felt\n slightly nauseated at the thought of his understanding better.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very interesting, Asper,” said Galing with a touch of severity, “but the Duchess Tremontaine cannot possibly be interested in such a person.” He bowed in\n apology to Diane. “Your note, Duchess, said there was something particular you wished to speak to me about. I am eagerness itself: What has led you to\n grace us with your presence?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, Nicholas.” Diane sighed, shaking her head. “Your eagerness will diminish, perhaps,” she said, “when I tell you that I have come to upbraid you for\n your unforgivable behavior.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He made a moue. “I await your chastisement, madam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Two weeks have passed since the Convocation, at which I begged you to name a date to dine with me, and yet the doleful silence of my house remains\n unbroken by the melodious tones of your voice, Nicholas.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He laughed, the sound loud in the small room. “Do you really expect me to believe, in one breath, that any silence whatsoever has descended upon your\n house, that it has been doleful, \u003cem\u003eand \u003c/em\u003ethat I am capable of melody of any kind? Really, now; exaggeration is indispensable, but to strain credulity\n that far courts tastelessness.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asper all but cleared his throat. “Are you two \u003cem\u003equite\u003c/em\u003e finished?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I fear we must be, for now, dear Nicholas,” she said to Galing, “as we are delaying the chocolate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And, indeed, a servant had been standing, unnoticed, with a heavy tray at the door for several minutes. She had the pleasure of watching them start; then\n Lionel made as if to stand and Basil shifted his weight, both clearly relieved to have an opportunity to give their excuses to leave.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Asper Lindley stopped them with an imperious gesture. “No, gentlemen,” he said as the servant finally put the tray down on the serving table with a\n barely perceptible grunt of relief, “this is a particularly fine chocolate. I insist that you sample it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel threw her a glance, a perfectly charming mix of helpless and exasperated.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before long, they were all comfortably placed, drinking what Diane had to admit was indeed very good chocolate. Which meant, she suspected, that some of\n the profits from its sale were going into Tremontaine’s coffers. She smiled as she stirred in her cream.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nicholas,” Lindley said between sips of chocolate, “why don’t you ask the duchess what she has really come about?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The viper! Fortunately, Lionel was in the chair next to her; she applied the slightest pressure against his foot with hers and, bless the boy, he took the\n hint immediately.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Gentlemen.” Lionel put down his cup. “Delicious as it is, I find myself unable to appreciate the delicacy of this fine chocolate while my clothes are\n caked in mud.” He rose. “It would be the height of incivility to accept another cup from our host in such a state. I am going home to take a bath, and I\n feel quite strongly that you should all do the same.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I, for one,” said Lindley from the divan, “feel quite comfortable where I am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Halliday joined the fray. “No, Asper, we have importuned Galing’s carpet for too long. Come.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If the hunting really was that dreadful, Lindley,” said Diane, delivering the coup de grâce, “don’t you think your spirits would be buoyed by the speedy\n elimination of all evidence?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lindley held out a beseeching hand. “Nicholas!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am outvoted, dear boy. Come back when you’re clean again.” Lindley opened his mouth to speak, but Galing had obviously made up his mind. “Do not fret,\n Asper. I flatter myself that I possess the wherewithal to escape the snares of Tremontaine for the brief span of time your ablutions will require.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asper stood up, glaring daggers at Diane. “I hear,” he said, bowing stiffly to his lover, “and obey. I will be upstairs, if you need me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane allowed him the parting shot. As the huntsmen left the room, Lionel flashed her a grin, divining—correctly, as it happened—what reward she intended\n to grant him for his service.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Galing looked after his departing lover. “He’ll grow up at some point.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh? I thought he had already reached the fullest stage of his development.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nNicholas laughed. “You must admit, he’s \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003epretty.” \u003cem\u003eAs is the cobra\u003c/em\u003e, thought Diane, but she said nothing. “So, Diane, what \u003cem\u003ehave \u003c/em\u003eyou really come about?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She gave a small, sad shake of her head. “Fate has been unkind to us both of late, has she not?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She certainly seems less well-disposed toward us than in earlier days. I am so sorry, Diane, that William cannot be to you what he should.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, but, Nicholas, I at least can be sustained by the hope, however slim, that he may recover. It is you for whom my heart is sore. Even I feel the wound\n of Clara’s absence from this house—how much more cruelly must it torment you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thank you for your sympathy. But my question remains unanswered, for surely you cannot have come for the sole purpose of condoling me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“You are as wise as you are handsome, Nicholas, but before I lay bare my dilemma, tell me: what happens if—no.” A considered sigh. “One must face facts. \u003cem\u003eWhen.\u003c/em\u003e” She put a very slight hitch into her breath and stopped him immediately when he made as if to rise. Took a moment, as if to recover\n herself. “Already they are saying William is mad, as we both know he is. At some point the fiction that he is in the country recovering from\n exhaustion will become impossible to maintain. What will happen then? With the Council, and the Inner Council, and the duchy, and . . .” She trailed off.\n Would biting her lip be too much? His eyes were all concern. She bit her lip.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He laid his hand on hers, and she looked at him with gratitude on her face. “It is likely to happen sooner than you think. The Convocation is the one\n Council event of the year that every member of the Inner Council \u003cem\u003emust \u003c/em\u003eattend. If any of us fails to appear, as William did, Council rules state\n that an inquiry is to be launched. I’m sure the Council secretary has already filed the papers. No one will bother actually inquiring, since we know\n already exactly why he wasn’t present. Once a suitable amount of time has passed—by tradition, three months after the Convocation, which means we have two\n and a half still to go—I’ll schedule a meeting to resolve the question.” So she had believed, but it was a relief to hear it from the Crescent directly.\n “Let’s see . . . Does Honora have any male children yet?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “One,” she said faintly. “David Alexander Tielman Campion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then little David, unless William has explicitly instructed otherwise, will soon be Duke Tremontaine-in-waiting, until he comes of age.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now. She inhaled but then held her breath, as if she had thought better of saying something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His eyes narrowed. “William hasn’t explicitly instructed otherwise, has he?” She assumed a look of utter helplessness. “Tell me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked off into the middle distance. “You’ve seen him; you’re one of the very few who has. You’ve spoken with him. Heard the mad things he says.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But there are occasions—few and far between, to be sure, but they exist—on which he is perfectly lucid.” Galing raised his brow politely. “The first time\n it happened I was overjoyed. I thought my love had returned to me! Oh, it was as if I had awoken from a nightmare within a nightmare.” She smiled sadly.\n “But in a mere hour’s time he was shrieking again about a crow and falseness and a stag and the old kings.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That must have been terrible to bear.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was. But at least I could steel myself the next time it happened, a week later. And the next.” She looked directly at him. “What I could not steel\n myself for was what he said at the height of the summer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what did he say?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said nothing. Stood. Walked to the window. “I considered saying nothing about this, you know. It would make things so much easier. But every time I’ve\n seen you since then and remained silent, I have felt a traitor, base and grasping.” She turned to him. “Nicholas, he told me that he wanted me to be\n Duchess Tremontaine—in my own right.” His eyes opened wide. Her words came in a rush now. “He said he understood that he was no longer capable of holding\n the title responsibly, and that, rather than pass the duchy to an infant of whose character he could be nothing but uncertain, he had much rather leave it\n to me.” His mouth had closed by now; she widened her eyes. “Please tell me I don’t have to do it, Nicholas! I can’t \u003cem\u003ebear\u003c/em\u003e the thought of having\n to”—here she waved her hand vaguely—“I don’t know, go to Council meetings and learn things about taxes and decide who builds”—ah, no, to mention warehouses\n would betray a deeper understanding of current affairs than was appropriate to the pose she had chosen, especially after the accidental fireworks of last\n week—“monuments and buildings and who gets what committee posts. You know me, Nicholas. I am \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003ethat woman. I am no more a politician than you\n are an oyster-shucker.” He was silent. She spoke more softly and urgently. \u003cem\u003e“Please.”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was silent for several moments. “This is news, indeed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “William didn’t write anything down; there’s no evidence. Can I not simply pretend he said nothing? Or that I misunderstood? Say nothing about any of this\n and let events take their course, see dear, \u003cem\u003edear\u003c/em\u003e little David take the burden of the duchy on his tiny shoulders?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stepped back from her and gazed at the ceiling. “That is one possibility,” he said. “But to disregard the duke’s express wishes—Diane, that would be a\n very grave thing to do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I simply \u003cem\u003ecan’t\u003c/em\u003e do it, Nicholas, I \u003cem\u003ecan’t\u003c/em\u003e, I don’t know how I would even \u003cem\u003ebegin\u003c/em\u003e, I—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was quite certain he thought her incapable of seeing the crafty expression that flitted over his face. “You are a more resourceful woman than I suspect\n you realize,” he said. “I have no doubt that you would pick up the knack in a sparrow’s breath.” His mouth twitched; she thought he almost licked his lips.\n “And if it came to it, you must know that you would always be able to rely on me to help guide you around any maelstrom you were unequipped to skirt on\n your own.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nDid he really believe she would not understand exactly what he was thinking? “Nicholas, what do we—” She stopped herself. “No. I presume. What do \u003cem\u003eI\u003c/em\u003e do?” Moments passed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally he spoke. “There is a chance that even if we inform the Council of this development, you will still not be required to assume the Tremontaine\n mantle. It would require a unanimous vote of the Inner Council, and I’m sure you can see how that might be exceedingly difficult to procure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then I am saved! I’m sure to have offended \u003cem\u003esomeone \u003c/em\u003edeeply enough that no such vote could be unanimous in my favor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unless those of us with principles worked to make it so,” he said softly. “Diane Roehaven is of the line, after all.” She held her breath. “I am not\n prepared, in any case,” he continued, “to advise you on this matter without some thought.” He tapped his leg. “Will you be at Lady Perry’s soiree tonight?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Would that I could say no,” she said. “Sarah Perry seems to grow more tedious with every passing year.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wouldn’t you, if you lived with her husband?” Diane obliged him with a laugh. “Let’s speak again tonight, then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Should she ask him to consult Lindley, knowing he would refuse to do so? No, that would not be credible. She cast her eyes toward the floor. “If I might\n request—that is—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not another word. I’ll say nothing to anyone. Not even Asper. Not until this is settled one way or the other.” She beamed gratitude at him. “And perhaps\n not even then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She pressed his hand. “I feel a great relief merely having confided in you. I will be guided by your decision.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could offer the City real assistance as Duchess Tremontaine, you know,” he said. “You are a good woman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hardly,” she said, laughing, and bid him farewell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab strode through the streets of the Middle City, full of glee. Not only did she have real information about the chocolate thefts, but she was headed to\n her first paid duel on the Hill, her sword at her side. Vincent had told her that the swordsman she would be facing was flashier than he was talented, so\n it was only a matter of—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You,” called a voice from the west, “must be on your way to a very entertaining masquerade.” The accent was one she did not recognize.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab stopped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, you.” A woman stepped out of a litter, enveloped in cascades of silk, deep reds and violets and greens, with golden borders. Her skin was a shade\n lighter than Kaab’s own, but only a shade, and her midriff was bare. A drape of chiffon atop her hair fell down her back, kept in place by a ruby on her\n brow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is a ‘masquerade’?” Kaab said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A costume party, at which the guests wear masks to hide their true identity.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab had never before smelled the scent she wore; it was sharp, like tree trunks and oranges at the same time. A small diamond twinkled on the woman’s\n nose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am indeed on my way to a party,” said Kaab, “but I am not in costume. I am, as the Locals would say, the entertainment.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A swordswoman!” said the woman. “Then that weapon is not in jest.” She gestured at Kaab’s sword. “May I?” Kaab stepped back, taken aback by the intimacy\n of the request. “Ah, forgive me! I should know better than to ask to touch the sword of one to whom my name is unknown. I am Esha Jayasuriya. Many women of\n my homeland are trained in the use of swords and daggers as a tribute to the goddess. I know of swordsmen in this country, but you are the first woman I\n have met who wields steel. It would be an honor to examine your blade.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In that case,” said Kaab, “the honor is mine. I am Ixkaab Balam, and I am glad to share my sword with one who knows its value.” She drew the sword, handed\n it to Esha hilt-first. Their hands touched, and Esha’s skin on Kaab’s felt soft, a hand born to comfort. Not like Tess’s, callused and ink-stained.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha stepped back, assumed a pose very unlike those Kaab knew. Her left arm crossed her body in front, and the sword in her right hand almost rested on it.\n She began a dance—not an exercise but a dance—in which the sword was her partner, flashing in the light. She came forward, back, forward in a semicircle,\n spun around, the silk floating around her in the cool air, thrusting and slashing the weapon in ways that, though Kaab knew she was hitting her invisible\n targets to a hairbreadth, made it almost a thing of water. Kaab’s heart thrilled to see the blade used so fluidly. She had no idea whether the woman\n dancing before her had ever faced a man—or a woman—in battle or duel, but she felt quite certain that Esha was deadly if she wished to be.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha’s dance finally came to an end, the woman finishing in the same position in which she had started. She straightened, returned Kaab’s sword, put her\n hands together before her breast, and bowed slightly. “Thank you. I dance for the goddess often in my own house, on the prescribed days, but we are told\n that it is a blessing to share the dance with other women. In this Land, as you can imagine, I rarely get the chance to do so.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s voice was thick. “I am honored, then,” she said, “that you shared it with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your sword is a fine one,” said Esha. “The balance is true, the edge sharp.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is a gift from my teacher.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He thinks highly of you indeed, to have given you this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I believe it pained him to keep it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is, in any case, a sword made for the goddess.” Esha smiled, and Kaab’s breath came short.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she could not be late for the duel. “Forgive me, Esha Jayasuriya, but my masquerade awaits.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “By all means. I would not want you to disappoint the nobles.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hope you are able to share the dance with me again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps there will be another masquerade soon. This does seem to be the season for costumes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I served refreshments to a woman last week who refused to remove her mask in my house for an entire afternoon. She was quite mysterious: the manner of an\n aristocrat in the clothing of a cook. Though I have yet to meet a cook who could afford those swan earrings.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s breath caught in her throat. Esha could be talking about no one other than the Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Was she blonde? Small and graceful?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She was.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That,” said Kaab, “is Diane, the Duchess Tremontaine. A powerful friend indeed. And not one to be opposed lightly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha cocked her head. “Nothing in that is at all surprising. But it explains much, and I thank you for the information. This gives me another reason to\n hope this is not the last time you and I will see each other: I am now in your debt.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s tongue had somehow gone thick, so she merely bowed in the manner of the Locals, turned, and watched, silent, as the silken woman returned to her\n litter and proceeded up the street, leaving just a waft of strange perfume behind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Like every other swordsman he knew, Vincent Applethorpe disliked working for Adrian, Lord Berowne almost as much as he liked having worked for him.\n Berowne’s pawing was more insistent than that of most nobles—many a swordsman had been known to give in to it simply because doing so was the less annoying\n choice—but he paid well, and he paid promptly. If Berowne felt he needed a swordsman at Lord Perry’s party to fend off a possible challenge, Vincent felt\n up to fending off Berowne.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tonight, however, Berowne’s attentions were, shockingly, on his own wife, which meant that Vincent was at his leisure. Or, rather, he would have been, had\n his eyes not flicked to the ballroom door every time someone entered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d been lucky so far this evening. But there was no reason for Vincent to believe his luck would hold, and he didn’t want to be here when it ran out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are we to have the pleasure,” a woman’s voice sounded in his ear, “of seeing you duel tonight, Master Applethorpe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He had no need to turn around to know that the voice belonged to Diane de Tremontaine. “Not unless somebody challenges Lord Berowne,” he said. “Tonight I’m\n strictly window dressing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then at the risk of whose blood are we to be entertained?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Philip Argent,” he said, “and Ixkaab Balam. I think you know her?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do, indeed!” she breathed. “A swordswoman! How unusual!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He kept his eye on the chandelier above them. “She’ll duel well.” He hoped he was correct. Argent was a show-off, but not a harmless one. “And she’ll make\n it last.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A chuckle. “That is good to hear. Too short a duel and the Hill’s thirst for violence remains unquenched.” The candles in the chandelier flickered\n agreement.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s more violence every day on the Hill than in any week in Riverside. It’s just that the wounds here don’t show.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A perspicacious observation.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He said nothing, allowing the chatter of the guests around them to fill the space. He’d meant it. This woman, he felt quite certain, was more dangerous\n than any half dozen swordsmen he might name wandering the streets and alleys of Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You seemed particularly fascinated with Ambassador Reza at young Ferris’s birthday celebration last week.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He kept himself from stiffening. Whatever he gave her, she would use against him. \u003cem\u003eDon’t speak quickly. Take your time\u003c/em\u003e. “Did I?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are acquainted with him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How could I be?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is what I am asking.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He considered all of the answers he could give, and found none of them safe, not with this woman. “You couldn’t possibly find it interesting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She laughed, and this finally pulled him around, in spite of himself, to face her. \u003cem\u003eBe very careful\u003c/em\u003e. “I see you defend yourself well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As a swordsman must.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You need have no fear of me, Master Applethorpe.” Vincent gazed at the blonde ringlets brushing her shoulders, so as not to have to look into her face. “I\n have no desire to rip your secrets from wherever you have hidden them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m obliged, madam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There is another matter, however, which I have an interest in discussing with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eAh, now we come to it. \u003c/em\u003e“What’s that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not too long ago, my second house swordsman encountered . . . let us say he encountered a sword more skilled than he.” He fought not to offer her the\n smile her words demanded. “He got the worst of the bargain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Somebody usually does.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“In any case, I would hardly insult you by asking you to join my employ as my second swordsman. I should fear that \u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003ewould get the worst of \u003cem\u003ethat\u003c/em\u003e bargain.” \u003cem\u003eShe wants a laugh. Don’t give it to her\u003c/em\u003e. “However, I find myself very interested in you. And so a purely hypothetical\n question: What would you say if I expressed a desire to hire you as my first swordsman?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The urge to say \u003cem\u003eyes\u003c/em\u003e welled up in him like physical desire. He forced it down. Where did this woman get her power? “I’d say that your first\n swordsman probably wouldn’t like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Probably not,” she said, “but what he likes and doesn’t like is hardly a matter for your concern, and certainly not for mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked into her eyes. “I’m honored by the offer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A thing you would not have said if you planned to accept it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A perspicacious observation,” he said, and at last allowed a trace of a smile to play on his face. “But I’ve been in situations before where I can’t say\n no. I don’t like the feeling.” There. He was safe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A good reason to refuse, then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the answer you wanted.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She surveyed the room and gave an exquisite sigh. “As am I, Master Applethorpe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But there, by the punch bowl. He saw a waterfall cascade of hair, held by lacquered combs, above the flash of embroidered linen. He had missed Reza’s\n entrance. He tried not to think of what that linen covered, tried not to feel the sweltering nights of Chartil, tried not to smell the salt air blowing in\n cool from the sea. He saw Kaab walk by, focused his attention on her. “I’m afraid I must go greet the swordswoman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then I hope we will see each other again soon, Master Applethorpe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He bowed and headed for Kaab. He considered walking past her to the door and slipping out into the night, Berowne be damned. The lost fee he could make up\n in two evenings as a sword for more parsimonious lords.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were other things that, once lost, were far more difficult to replace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane smiled to herself: well begun. From behind her fan she watched Vincent approach Ixkaab Balam and felt a small twinge of envy that she herself had not\n thought to hire a swordswoman to entertain at a party. No matter; she would find another way to outdo Sarah Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nIxkaab saw her, smiled, and gave a small salute, which Diane interpreted to mean: \u003cem\u003eEven though I have broken with my family, our agreement still stands. You have nothing to fear\u003c/em\u003e. Shifting her fan, Diane returned the smile; Ixkaab\n would be perceptive enough to interpret it as: \u003cem\u003eIn that case, then, neither do you.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t flirt with the help, Diane.” Galing’s voice. Excellent. If he had sought her out, it was likely to be to deliver what he believed would be bad news.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She closed her fan and turned around to see him extending a glass of wine. “Nicholas!” He wore a doublet in blue slashed with violet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ruthven red,” he said, nodding at the glass. “A far better vintage than at last week’s party for young Tony Deverin. Then again, how good a vintage does\n such a callow young man deserve?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now, now,” she said, taking the glass. “It cannot have been \u003cem\u003equite \u003c/em\u003eso long since you were a callow young man yourself”—she tapped him with the\n fan—“that you believe the breed to be entirely without promise.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He gave her a rueful smile. “Would that you were as generous to Asper Lindley.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A callow young man is one thing,” she said, and ran a finger idly around the rim of the glass. “A callow . . . man in his prime is something different.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He laughed aloud. “Is there no end to your wickedness?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was all innocence. “I have it on good authority that one of these days we will all find out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I await the moment with bated breath. But since it is unlikely to come this evening,” he said, “I may tell you that I have given some thought to the\n subject of our earlier discussion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh? And have you decided to come to the rescue of a woman in distress?” Her tone was light but she allowed something like desperation into her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Alas,” he said, apology in his voice, “I am obliged to tell you that the particular distress in which you find yourself is one from which I am incapable\n of rescuing you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She closed her eyes lest they betray the exultation that rushed through her. Galing was hers. With Arlen provisionally on her side as well, that left four:\n Davenant, Lassiter, and the two dukes, Karleigh and Hartsholt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was equal to every one of them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She opened her eyes again, made them mournful. “Thank you, Nicholas, for reminding me of my duty. I should be ashamed of my desire to shirk it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wish I could avoid holding you to a course of action bound to cause you unease. But rest assured you will have my aid whenever you request it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asper Lindley appeared to her right, beautiful and serpentine. “Nicholas, I’m hurt!” He pouted, his cheeks slightly red from drink. “I have obviously been\n replaced in your affections by the Duchess Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Interesting. How would Galing find his way out of it? “Never,” said the taller man. “What point would there be in replacing perfection with perfection?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eOh, well done, indeed. \u003c/em\u003eThere was a reason he was Crescent Chancellor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The sound of steel against steel reached her ears from the garden outside. “Gentlemen,” she said, “it would be rude to Lady Perry not to watch the duel she\n has arranged for our entertainment. Shall we?” They walked out onto the grass, the two men flanking her. But her thoughts were no longer concerned with\n them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With Galing in her hand, and the swordsman Applethorpe nearly there, she was thinking about a young mathematician named Micah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The man circling opposite Kaab in the garden was exactly what Vincent had said he would be. “Argent is a dandy,” he’d told her when he passed the job on to\n her, “but he always has a few surprises up his sleeve, so you’ll want to watch out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The word “dandy,” thought Kaab, didn’t even begin to describe the wonder of frippery and ostentation who moments ago had spoken the challenge formula that\n transformed him from a stranger into an enemy for the length of their duel. Hair the color of rich loam curling down his shoulders, a waistcoat that\n matched his green eyes, a neckcloth foaming like a fountain, boots polished even brighter than his blade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their swords touched each other once, twice, three times. He wove back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Argent’s style with the sword was as showy as the rest of him. Full of unnecessary movement designed to impress people who wouldn’t know a genuine parry\n from a kick in the teeth. “You’ll need to give them a little of that,” Vincent had said. “It’s a performance, after all. But let your flourishes be\n extensions of movements you’re already making. Forward, not wide. Don’t add them for their own sake. Don’t open yourself up.” Which was exactly what Argent\n was doing. The hiss as his blade whipped through the air. That leap to the east, taking him farther back than necessary, just to extend his leg to show his\n well shaped calf to its best advantage. A quetzal bird preening before its mate. She repressed the urge to giggle at him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A feint, a thrust, a parry—hers. The ringing of steel against steel. Kaab began to relax into herself, barely able to feel the ache from last week’s fall,\n began to drift into visions of the dancing swordmaiden she had met on the way here. Soft in a way that Tess was hard, yet hard in a way that Tess was soft.\n Not that she would ever betray her Tess, her glorious sunset princess—but ah! Esha Jayasuriya offered a glimpse into another world, one in which\n undoubtedly no one would make her eat gruel or clean house or stay away from her family. She saw an opening, took it, almost had Argent, but he turned to\n the side and her blade missed him by half a handspan. No matter; she would soon have another opportunity, what with all the whooshing and looping. Her\n sword flashed in the air just as it had in Esha’s hand, and she imagined the two of them, both wielding swords, slicing the air, deadlier than jaguars,\n together.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nArgent was growing more and more ridiculous. That twist there, for instance: Was he demonstrating a new dance form appropriate for the Locals’ hideous \u003cem\u003e tweedily-tweedily\u003c/em\u003e music? She stepped easily to the north as he plunged his sword into the space where she had been.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then, when Esha and she were finished honoring the goddess in the dance—a goddess was a goddess, after all, whether she interested herself in the lives\n of the people of Binkiinha or not—they might lie together on silk, learn to know each other, offer the goddess more pleasure, poured from the—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A sharp pain against her upper arm. “First blood!” called Argent, at the exact moment she caught Diane de Tremontaine’s eye.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab looked away as if the sight had burned her. Scorn for herself rushed into her midsection and then settled in her cheeks, a fiery heat of shame. Hadn’t\n Vincent warned her that the extravagance would be a show? But she had preferred to lose herself in a child’s fantasies. Life with another, no matter\n who—Esha, Citlali, Tess—was something to be negotiated, something to be earned, not sweet golden plums handed over one after another from a servant\n standing by.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Losing served her right, for insisting on thinking otherwise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She bowed to Argent curtly, deepened it a little lest she insult him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She avoided Diane’s gaze as she stalked out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The problem was the number of twists in the paper. Perhaps if she—no—but if—yes—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If only the knocking on the door would stop!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could take the loop and turn it insi—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eKnock, knock, knock.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was so close! But Doctor Goodell said you were supposed to answer the door if somebody knocked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eKnock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. \u003c/em\u003e\n “I’m looking for Micah!” called a man’s voice from outside the door. \u003cem\u003eKnock, knock. Knock.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go away.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The knocking stopped. Micah turned happily back to her loops, able to concentrate once more.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But after a short time it returned. \u003cem\u003eKnock, knock, knock.\u003c/em\u003e Softer this time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ugh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nThe thought occurred to her that it might be Doctor Goodell. He might be bringing tomato pie again! Now that she thought about it, as a matter of fact, she \u003cem\u003ewas \u003c/em\u003ehungry. And maybe he could help her work through the twists of the loops while they ate! She finished the twist she was following, got up,\n left the loops on the table, and went happily through the outer room to the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When she opened it, though, the person on the other side wasn’t Doctor Goodell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The man who had knocked the first time had gone away, and in his place was a skinny blonde woman in a fancy dress. For some reason she made Micah think of\n the horrible, \u003cem\u003ehorrible \u003c/em\u003eball she had been to in the spring with Rafe and Kaab. That made twice this week she’d been reminded of the ball; a few\n days ago she’d gotten a letter inviting her to the house where it had been held, which she had ignored. Going would have meant an entire morning away from\n her loops, and besides, she hated thinking about the ball and how awful it had been and how badly she had wanted to get out and how it had gotten worse and\n worse until it ended up being one of the worst nights of her life, maybe even the worst, and—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah slammed the door, shaking her head. A familiar, cringing pressure took root in her and began to grow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What if slamming the door was the wrong thing to do? What if the woman got mad at her?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took a deep breath and opened the door again. The woman was still standing there, with a strange expression on her face. The longer she stood there\n without saying anything, the harder the pressure bore down on Micah. Was Micah supposed to say something? If the woman had something to do with the ball,\nmaybe Micah could use one of the two phrases Tess had taught her to help her deal with the people there. \u003cem\u003eFascinating. Why don’t you tell me more about that?\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eI’m really more interested in what \u003c/em\u003eyou \u003cem\u003ethink.\u003c/em\u003e But Tess had said that only worked when the other person said something first. Micah’s breath started to speed up. She started fidgeting with her fingers, wishing the loops weren’t all the way back on the table in Rafe’s room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you want?” she blurted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman blinked but didn’t say anything. Why wasn’t she saying anything? Was she mad? “May I come in?” she finally asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine.” Micah sat on a chair. \u003cem\u003eI know the loop has two sides. I counted them.\u003c/em\u003e The woman walked in, looked at the open door, then looked around at\n Micah. \u003cem\u003eIf I trace it all the way around with my finger\u003c/em\u003e . . . Finally, the woman went to the window and sat in the other chair, the one Thaddeus had had sex in last week.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah didn’t know how to talk to people like this. This woman wasn’t like Rafe or Aunt Judith or Uncle Amos. She wished she were back on the farm with\n Bessie or Trigonometry, or in the market with Esmeralda. When she needed to escape these days, when it was too overwhelming being where she was, she went\n to see Esmeralda and squeeze her and that helped her feel better. She wanted to go to Esmeralda now. But she felt trapped. This was so awful. The longer\n the woman stood there, the worse the pressure felt. She wanted to throw up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “These are charming rooms,” said the woman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What? The \u003cem\u003erooms\u003c/em\u003e? What did the rooms have to do with anything?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I like it here,” said Micah. “There’s only one right-angle corner.” The pressure was awful, but talking made it a little better. Her stomach felt funny\n and she couldn’t swallow. “Not in this room. In this room there aren’t any. But in the other one. I had to turn the bed because the right-angle corner was\n on the wrong side. It has to be near my feet, not near my head. Otherwise everything is wrong. Joshua said the room looked weird now but he doesn’t\n understand.” Good. Now she felt a little less like she wanted to throw up. She was probably talking about the wrong thing but she couldn’t help it.\n Besides, the woman had started it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman shifted herself in her chair. Had Micah said something wrong? It was probably better to stop talking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally the woman said something. “I am Diane, Duchess Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That seemed like a strange name. Maybe when you were a duchess you had to make “duchess” part of your name. Stupid. If Micah had to go around calling\n herself “Micah Mathematician Heslop” she’d never get anything done. Thank the gods she wasn’t a duchess. “All right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you the scholar Micah?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That one she knew the answer to. “Yes.” But wait, was the woman going to start calling her The Scholar Micah now? That wasn’t her name. If she did, how\n could Micah get her to stop?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what is your field of study?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I like math.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I understand you are very good at it.” Micah didn’t know whether to say anything. “I am glad to see you in excellent health.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m always healthy. I never get sick. Except the one time on the farm when I got cowpox, but Uncle Amos said that everybody gets cowpox and then you’re\n fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine opened her mouth and closed it. She looked kind of like how Thaddeus and Larry looked when Rafe was explaining something\n complicated to them. She opened and closed her mouth a few more times. Finally she left it open and started talking. “I was concerned when I did not see\n you at Tremontaine House this morning. I thought perhaps illness had kept you from visiting me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All at once, understanding rushed in. \u003cem\u003eThat\u003c/em\u003e was it! \u003cem\u003eThat\u003c/em\u003e was why this woman made her think of the ball! She had hosted it! “No,” said\n Micah. “I just don’t want to go to your house.” Diane Duchess Tremontaine sat up but didn’t say anything. Did she want an explanation? “I was at your ball\n when the swan pudding fell on that man and he yelled and everybody got so upset and I was on the bottom of the pile of people because Kaab tripped me and\n it was not nice at \u003cem\u003eall\u003c/em\u003e.” In case she hadn’t been clear, she said, firmly, “So I’m not going back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine laughed, but it was a strange laugh. It didn’t look or sound like Rafe or Joshua or Tess or Kaab or even Doctor Goodell when they\n laughed. “You are not the only one,” she said, “to be glad that the veil of time over that ball grows heavier with each passing day.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now that she was thinking about the ball, the pressure felt much worse. Would the sentences Tess had taught her work when she wasn’t at a ball?\n “Fascinating,” Micah said suddenly. “Why don’t you tell me more about that?” Was it okay to say that to the woman who had thrown the ball?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m really much more interested,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine, looking toward the inner room, “in what \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e are studying.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wait—Diane Duchess Tremontaine had actually \u003cem\u003easked\u003c/em\u003e her to talk about math! “Oh,” said Micah happily, “I’m trying to figure out whether angles mean\n anything in twisted loops. The corners of the loop are all right angles before they’re connected, and they’re still right angles after. But that doesn’t\n matter, does it? It doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That sounds intriguing,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“Really?”\u003c/em\u003e\n Was Diane Duchess Tremontaine a mathematician? “In that case, I’ll tell you that the difference isn’t the angles, or even the corners, it’s how they’re\n connected, whether they’re twisted, and—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I heard—” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine all of a sudden in a funny voice, and stopped. She spoke more slowly than before. “I heard you were interested in\n navigation.” She was quiet for a little bit. Had she finished talking? “Is that true?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ugh!” Micah rolled her eyes. “No! Navigation is boring and I don’t care about it at all. I was only doing it because Rafe said he thought it was important and he’s my friend, so I wanted to help him. But he’s not around, and he doesn’t care about navigation anymore, either. He’s spending all his time trying to find his boyfriend. He can’t figure out where he is, though, and it’s making him sad.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine’s eyes widened, and then after a little bit she stood up and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “This visit has been . . . most\n instructive. In a number of ways.” She reached out to touch Micah’s cheek but stopped when Micah stiffened. “Forgive me. You have set my mind greatly at\n ease.” Diane Duchess Tremontaine walked to the door and turned. “If ever you find yourself in a position to need assistance,” she said, “know that you have\n a friend in Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the latch clicked shut on the door, Micah’s stomach slowly began to unclench, her breathing to slow. What a strange conversation. Micah wasn’t at all\n sure she wanted to be friends with this woman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well, friends or not, the woman was gone. Micah returned to the table, relieved, and to her work. Eventually, once the candles were low, she fell asleep in her chair, dreaming of paper loops twisting, endless, into the sky.\n \n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nTess was threatened by Shade and Florian. After an unexpected interlude with Kaab and Tess, Vincent relinquished his position as the forger’s protector. Diane, Duchess Tremontaine hired Kaab’s cousin Arthur, took Lionel Chesney as a lover, and made a new friend in the form of hostess Esha Jayasuriya. Rafe rejected his family’s attempts to cheer him, and sought out Micah, only to learn of the gambling misadventure in Riverside. While investigating the warehouse thefts, Kaab was trapped in an explosion. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Joel Derfner\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.91","slug":"tremontaine-s2e04","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E04.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101124_TremontaineS02E04.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101124_TremontaineS02E04.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101124_TremontaineS02E04.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e0024dada6e25bc06d1d5e","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":5,"title":"Alive, and Home Here","released_date":"2016-11-16T12:54:43.477+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Kaab contemplates the meaning of home. Diane hosts a spectacle.","byline":"Alaya Dawn Johnson","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e05.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-11-16","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n In Binkiinha, in the mornings of the last three days of the month of Hok, the young priestesses of the corn goddess would wake before dawn to collect\n flowers from the nearby forest and return in a procession down the Avenue of the Dead just as the sun was rising rosy and blond in the east. The girls\n walked barefoot on the smooth white limestone, loose hair crowned with garlands of red and white flowers that fell down their backs in swaying,\n sweet-scented capes. Kaab used to crawl to the top of the great market wall just to see them those mornings, to sigh and catch the eye of her latest\n crush—who was in every way forbidden to so much as talk to her. The precious blossom, name unknowable, would nonetheless glance upward and smile and blush\n the color of her rose plumeria cape when she raised her hand to catch the white lily that Kaab had waded through the garden pond to find for just this\n moment—a sweet dawn smile of shy desire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Walking alone through another dawn on the other side of the world, Kaab felt a pang for those beautiful priestesses who would now be too old for the\n ritual. Kaab had a head of sunset on her pillow every night, she was no longer a baby possum of an adolescent crying for a glance of her latest love, and\n yet she found her heart swelling awkwardly in her chest and sinking to her liver. Her mother had been alive back then. She had caught Kaab crying in a tree\n in the garden, holding a lily in some kind of fevered invocation of that one fleeting look, and told her to focus on her lessons: “Loves will come and go,\n little bee,” she had said, “but family is forever.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And in this far-off place where Kaab had at last found a love worth a thousand predawn lilies, family meant more than she had ever suspected in her home\n across the mist and ocean: It meant language, it meant food, it meant jokes that someone would understand if she told them, complaints that someone would\n echo if she made them, it meant late nights over dangerous cups of pulque constructing towering scaffolds of poetry and dance with the other learned women\n of the court and trade. She loved her Tess with a passion as deep as the holy cenote of Cehtuun, but she despaired of her maize-flower ever becoming\n family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She despaired, but still, she would try.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After her run-in at the warehouse, both Chuleb and Saabim had been adamant that Kaab not return to the Balam compound. It would be too dangerous, they had\n told her, if someone recognized her returning to the bosom of her family after her supposed estrangement. Unfortunately, a week away had meant a week\n suffering through her beloved’s home cooking without even a calabash seed to pierce the gray, and there was only so much oatmeal even the most patient and\n attentive of lovers could eat before she was hurling it out the window.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab Balam, though in many ways a fine and satisfying lover, had never been accused of patience. Which was why she had devised this plan in the early\n morning hours, listening to her beloved breathing by her shoulder and her stomach gurgling further below. She didn’t dare return to the Balam compound, but\n no one had actually forbidden her from visiting the compound of another Kinwiinik family, now had they? The Chel family compound was the second oldest in\n the Kinwiinik section of the Middle City: It had been deemed politically expedient to invite Chel participation in the new trade within a few years of\n making first contact. Their compound—like everything about the Chel, really—was more modest than the Balam, but tasteful and judicious. Unlike the Cocom,\n the other great trading family of the triple alliance, the Chel were content to remain in their supporting role to the Balam, secure in the knowledge that\n fewer risks meant stable granaries.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab waited until she spotted a pair of servants heading to the gate of the Chel compound, a bit down the road from the Balam home. She jogged up behind\n them as they were chatting with the guards, and held up her basket filled with dried corn husks, providing the guards with an uninteresting explanation for\n her presence and hiding her face in case an attentive one remembered the most recently arrived member of the Balam family. This trip might not be\n forbidden, but it would get back to Saabim if she visited openly, and just to bring back some food, at that. The Chel weren’t actively ambitious, but they\n were Traders; they would use an opportunity if they found one. Kaab could just imagine Ixkutz, the head of the Chel family in the city, humbly mentioning\n how she had fed and sheltered the poor daughter of the Balam, so subtly implying that Kaab’s own family could not. There would almost certainly be many\n carry-weights of cacao to pay for that breach of social standing in the eyes of their junior trading partners.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So Kaab lowered her gaze and broadened her accent. “Ran out before we finished the tamales,” she said, by way of explanation. “Sent me to the Cocom for\n more.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The two men, attired in Local clothes but wielding Kinwiinik shields and obsidian axes, shrugged at her. The female servants gave her a closer look but, as\n Kaab had predicted, were too engaged in flirting with the guards to worry about some kitchen servant they didn’t immediately recognize. Kaab slipped\n through the gate and hurried down the path to the main house. She had visited the Chel compound once or twice before, but those had been official visits as\n a daughter of the Balam, and no one would have been so rude as to show her the kitchens. Still, the plan of the house, with its extensive outer gardens and\n large central peristyle, was modeled after that of the Balam, if on a more modest scale. She ducked into the corridor off the western edge of the peristyle\n and followed the smells and sounds of home: steamed corn dough, aromatic herbs and chilies, the soft, steady clap of women making tortillas for the comal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The kitchen was smaller, cramped with bustling figures dim and smudged with the steam and woodsmoke that the chimneys and open windows did little to\n alleviate. The women inside were shrieking with laughter over some story that one of the matronly aunts sitting by the tamal pot was telling, half with her\n hands, and the other half with her voice, which carried farther than a barker’s on market day.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And when the twins came to the base of the twin cacao tree, they saw that there were two beautiful ladies among the pods, with breasts full and\n sweet-smelling. ‘Can we help you down?’ called the twins. ‘We have a palace of jade and fine feather sleeping mats and a thousand golden monkeys to make us\n ten thousand tortillas and tamales, but we have no one to lie with at night.’ ‘Well,’ said the ladies, ‘we quite like it up here. Only a really good snake\n will be able to get us out, that’s what we say.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How good of a snake?” Kaab called out the traditional response; a certain amount of quotidian visibility was crucial to any good disguise. She wove her\n way to the tamal pots cooling against the north wall. She’d heard this story before, of course—they all had—and the call and response felt like the fall of\n a mallet marking the drumbeat of her heart.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh ho!” laughed the matron auntie, tossing up and catching a finished tamal for effect. “‘A nice, long snake,’ they said, ‘a nice, thick snake, good and\n thick, and strong enough not to get lost inside our caves, for our caves are very wide—’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “‘And very dark!’” said the women, laughing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “‘And sweeter than cactus wine at the end of a long, long journey. So, you know, boys, we just don’t think you’re up for it. Go back home to your mats of\n quetzal plumes, your mats of spoonbill feathers, and we’ll look for some other snakes.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The women laughed and began throwing out ribald comments about ex-lovers and current husbands and even the great Ahbatab of Binkiinha himself, which\n surprised Kaab. One did not hear that sort of talk in the Balam kitchens. She hadn’t expected such irreverence from the outwardly circumspect Chel, and she\n wondered what Saabim would make of it. Probably she was already well aware of this hidden strain of irreverence, but it might be something that Saabim\n could subtly exploit in the ever-important interfamily negotiations to maintain the political balance back in the triple alliance cities. The Cocom had\n gotten far too ambitious of late, and it never hurt to give one’s established partnerships a little more attention.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While she listened, Kaab busily loaded her basket with a variety of tamales from the still-steaming pots. She moved quickly. It would be wise to sneak out\n before one of the women inevitably noticed an idle servant with cheeks full of corn dough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You, girl!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Too late. A woman about Saabim’s age was waving at her peremptorily. Kaab took a deep breath of the smoky, humid air and tilted her head so her sheaf of\n unbound hair fell over her cheeks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, Auntie?” Her accent shifted subtly to be less educated, that of a girl who spent more time in her mountain village than serving a great family in the\n big city.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You bringing that basket to the Lady Ixkutz? Then here, take the atole also, but give that to little Lord Arthur.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She handed Kaab a giant gourd nearly burning to the touch from the hot liquid within. Only the cord mesh carrying case made it possible for Kaab to heft\n the strap to her shoulder and balance the bulk awkwardly against her hip. She maintained the basket of tamales in the crook of her right elbow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lord Arthur?” Kaab asked, not bothering to hide her confusion. The woman had used the Kindaan word for ‘Lord,’ not the Xanamdaan, but Arthur wasn’t a\n Kinwiinik name.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman rolled her eyes. “Little Ahtul. The one who now thinks he’s Xanamwiinik. He’s been helping the Balam and says that Ixsaabim particularly\n requested our special sour atole this morning.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, \u003cem\u003ehim\u003c/em\u003e,” Kaab said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, \u003cem\u003ehim\u003c/em\u003e, girl. Well, get to it. He’s waiting by the west entrance. You know how those Balam are about being kept waiting on any idle request.\n And the lady’s far along.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab had been trained in the bosom of the most illustrious Trading family of the civilized world. She had no trouble nodding with cowed earnestness and\n hurrying to the exit before she allowed her righteous indignation to show on her face. \u003cem\u003eYou know how those Balam are!\u003c/em\u003e As though demanding\n efficiency from one’s subordinate trading partners was some great undeserved hubris.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Chel should count themselves lucky to be so favored!” Kaab muttered as she headed back toward the western gate. The sun was firmly in the sky now, an\n hour past dawn. Tess might be just waking up, wondering where her lover had gone and then frowning with delicate precision when she read the note that Kaab\n had hastily scrawled in the dark of early morning. Something cold slid between her ribs, something that left her sick and unsure and without appetite even\n for the tamales that she would be bringing back to her beloved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You were the one who said you wanted to speak with me, pigeon. I thought it was for your new mistress, the golden gorgon on the hill.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab stopped short before the guards. She knew that voice, though she couldn’t see him past the guardhouse. What was Rafe doing here, of all places?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another male voice laughed nervously. “I’m sure I never said so—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One of the guards glanced at the pregnant gourd awkwardly balanced against Kaab’s hip and leaned outside the gate. “Tul, your atole is here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab hurried to push her way past the guards, into the street. “I’ll give it to him,” she said, over her shoulder. “I have to deliver this basket to the\n dock laborers anyway.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the other side of the street, Ahtul and Rafe were conversing, Rafe slouching against the whitewashed wall with a languid air that nonetheless managed to\n contain a hint of predatory watchfulness. He was taller than the Chel boy, and as elegantly attired as Kaab had ever seen him. He traced a delicate finger\n up Tul’s neat white shirt, allowing it to linger for a moment against his collarbone. Tul had turned the color of his family’s famous fermented red atole.\n Kaab took pity on him and called his name again. He jerked and spun around.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s getting cold,” Kaab said, again in her mountain accent. She wondered, idly, if the boy would recognize her (as he ought), but he seemed so flustered\n that he merely ripped the carrying cord from her outstretched hands and adjusted it over his shoulder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I should leave,” he said. Kaab pretended not to understand, while Rafe looked between her and Ahtul with momentary confusion followed by slow amusement.\n She would say this for her friend: While she had enjoyed none of her part in what happened to the duke, losing his lover had made Rafe a far more observant\n and bitterly clever friend. Still, sometimes she missed the earnestness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go, then.” Rafe touched his shoulder gently and pushed. “I’m sure our paths will cross before long.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ahtul nodded once and took off in an awkward waddle with the swaying gourd, heading north toward the Balam compound. Kaab now looked frankly up at Rafe,\n who shrugged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The guards were still watching them with idle curiosity. “Follow me,” she muttered in Xanamdaan as she passed him with the basket. “We can’t talk here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He waited a few beats, until she was nearly at the street corner, and ambled away from the gate. She waited until they were well out of earshot to speak\n again. “Should I ask what you were doing just then?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe raised his eyebrows. “Should I ask what you’re doing here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m a Kinwiinik!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In servant’s clothes. Poor Arthur didn’t even recognize you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She frowned. “Poor \u003cem\u003eAhtul\u003c/em\u003e could have been better trained. His family is lucky they have the Balam to help them in their trade arrangements. We are\n far more cunning.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At that Rafe laughed, but it was not a merry sound. “That I believe wholeheartedly, my dear Balam princess. Indeed, I find it entirely plausible, these\n days, that you have spent the whole of our acquaintance lying through your very even teeth.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab paused. “I thought we were friends, Rafe,” she said softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My friends don’t lie to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s lips quirked involuntarily. “Fine, but they don’t lie about matters that are vital to my happiness. They would tell me if they knew . . . if they\n suspected . . . Kaab, I’ve been looking everywhere. Have you or your family heard anything about where Will—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He swallowed and looked away. Kaab studied his profile, aching to relieve her guilt. Her deal with the Duchess Tremontaine meant everything to the Balam,\n both here and at home. She could not undo that even for friendship. The lives and livelihood of her people were at stake.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know, Rafe,” Kaab said, with the weight of her very best sincerity. At least this had the advantage of being specifically true. She had very\n carefully not inquired into the duke’s current whereabouts. “I have no idea where your love could be.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe studied her face for a moment and then nodded. He stretched the fingers on his right hand, and examined the faded ink stains of accountant’s sepia\n that lined the cuticles.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” he said, suddenly businesslike, “I take it, then, that you and your family continue to greatly exaggerate the accounts of your estrangement.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is perhaps true that we have allowed people to believe what they like,” Kaab said, cautiously. “It appears that we are under attack from someone nearly\n as cunning as we are.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Under attack, you say?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab considered for a moment. “Thefts,” she said, very softly. “From the docks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked at her sharply. “For how long?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are unsure. We noticed two months ago. But it might have been longer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shook his head and his newly shorn curls flew about his ears. “So that’s it, then,” he said. “Of course. I had chalked it up to standard losses, but\n when I looked back at the older books the numbers began to look utterly irresponsible. I thought I must have made a mathematical error. And the thought of\n what my father would say . . . hell, I was even thinking of asking Micah for help!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now \u003cem\u003ethis\u003c/em\u003e was unexpectedly useful. “Your family, too, Rafe? Which goods?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “An unholy quantity of saffron, mostly, with some of the good Cham cinnamon lately. The oddest part, though, has been that when the goods disappear they\n seem to be heading for delivery. The locations change every time. We can trace it to the bargemen, but once the specific order goes with its delivery boy\n they just disappear—the boy and the order. I haven’t been able to track down who’s placing the phantom orders. They’ve corrupted someone on the inside,\n that’s certain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab nodded. “Us, as well. The thefts would have been noted much earlier if it weren’t for some corruption on the inside. Even now, after we have changed\n the guards, they continue. The other night when I kept watch I saw someone enter the warehouse. But then lights exploded through the window and I fell.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lights? Oh, I remember someone mentioning some fool had accidentally lit up a box of fireworks by the docks. That was you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab rolled her left shoulder, which had nearly been jarred from the socket with the force of her fall. “\u003cem\u003eI\u003c/em\u003e didn’t light them! I was merely caught\n by someone else’s treachery It was very dangerous. I mostly missed the fire.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe looked modestly impressed. “I’ll have my father double our guards and rotate them from now on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And if you find where the false orders are really going?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll send word. You’re staying in Riverside now, I take it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No better place to catch thieves.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or your beautiful lover.” He laughed. “At least one of us is happy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That odd knife slid between her ribs again, colder than before. But she made herself smile. She and Tess were happy. Two people who loved each other so\n couldn’t help but be happy. Right?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will tell you, as well, if we find useful information.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe nodded and they bade each other farewell, fond and wary and distracted with their own problems.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab looked down at her rapidly cooling tamales and knew she should head back to Riverside. Back home. But she found her feet taking her southwest instead\n of south, past the Balam compound. Past home. She should report this latest information about the thefts to Saabim, but she was forbidden to enter the\n compound. So she loitered by the western gates, and passed the time eating a few of the tamales: one spicy and filled with mustard greens and the other\n sweet with dark honey and gooey figs. The sun had moved another thumb across the sky when she saw the gate open and her uncle step out with one of his\n assistants. They’d be headed to the warehouses, as was his habit in the early mornings. Kaab smiled to see him and had to catch herself before she called\n out a greeting. Instead, she sprawled insolently against the wall, her legs splayed in the street. She threw the empty tamal leaves beside her. She looked\n like a servant playing truant, and eating more than her share, besides. Her uncle noticed, of course.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Girl, you can’t simply lie here idle in the sight of the gods. Which family are you from?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab glanced at him with a faint smile. His eyes narrowed, the only sign that he had recognized her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Balam, but I’m just resting,” she said, making her accent so broad as to be nearly unintelligible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb sighed and turned to his assistant. “Go ahead,” he said, “and start the inventory. I’ll escort this young lady back to the compound.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The assistant—about Ahtul’s age and, if Kaab weren’t mistaken, one of the Cocom boys—looked at her with distaste and did as he was told. Chuleb waited a\n prudent period and rounded on her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your mother’s flower, Kaab, I thought we told you it wasn’t safe to be seen here!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No one recognized me,” Kaab said, standing and brushing the street dirt from her skirt. “Would you like a tamal? They’re from the Chel. Their women are\n brilliant cooks, if a little lacking in decorum.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can think of another woman lacking in decorum,” Chuleb said severely, but he took the tamal she offered. They walked a few blocks in silence, minimizing\n the chance that someone might notice them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have a report,” she said. “I suppose you’ll just have to tell Saabim if you really won’t let me inside—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, I will not! For the sake of the nine heavens, Niece, you were nearly killed last week investigating these thefts. And you think it’s wise to expose\n our ruse to every Kinwiinik with a wagging tongue? Will you ever learn caution?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Kaab said, “I don’t think age has taught me any, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait for responsibility to weigh down my shoulders someday.\n Hopefully a long time from now!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb laughed reluctantly and took another bite of his sweet tamal. The mamey fruit filling was red-orange as a sunset. “May it be that the gods didn’t\n hear you, my reckless niece. Well then, you might as well report.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The thieves are also robbing the Fenton warehouses. Rafe Fenton says that he thinks it must be an inside job. The goods go missing as phantom deliveries,\n arranged by someone on the inside. But Rafe doesn’t know where they were really going or to whom.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb considered this while licking his fingers. “As with our own thefts, then. And no one’s found a trace of what happened to the false deliveries so\n far. Perhaps if you and your Fenton boy compare books? No, I doubt his father would allow it. He’d suspect a ruse on our part to get an edge with his\n suppliers. But this is useful information. It seems to me that we might need to encourage these thieves to make another order and this time make sure we\n see where it goes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But how will you encourage them, Uncle?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He smiled. “There’s a new ship due to arrive from Binkiinha in the next few days, if Ekchuah guides the winds. I think we will put about that it has a\n particularly choice lot of Caana chocolate, the best of the last few seasons. Perhaps it’s time to write to the duchess and suggest that she mention it to\n her friends, along with a very dear price.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab could just see the plot unspooling in her imagination, and it filled her with the thrill of a new adventure: the duchess spreading the rumor far and\n wide, the bait irresistible to the thieves, the fake delivery placed, revealing at last the person who has been betraying them—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who do you suspect is helping them?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb frowned and checked the empty street again for any casual listeners. “I have been wondering about the Chel boy, Ahtul,” he said softly. “Saabim says\n he is too young and loyal to get involved in any such business, but I wonder if the baby isn’t clouding her judgment. He’s much too close to the\n Xanamwiinik, and he’s just started working for the duchess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But the duchess is our partner now, also.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He gave Kaab a weary look. “And do we know where she has swept her mad husband? We know \u003cem\u003ewhy\u003c/em\u003e he’s gone mad—no ordinary Xanamwiinik could withstand\n the rigors of their god herb, especially not at such doses. Who knows how she buys it, but you’ll remember that the Cocom are the ones shipping that divine\n madness back to the priests of Cehtuun by the handful. We all know the Cocom would like nothing better than to displace us. We might be comfortable with\n our arrangement, but a woman like her will always be looking for ways to regain the upper hand.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab went silent as she contemplated this. “But still, surely not Ahtul. I agree with my aunt: He seems so young he might have been weaned a year ago! And\n you yourself have one of those Cocom boys as your assistant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s just politics, Kaab.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, play politics, then, and hurry up and keep an eye on that Cocom before he robs the other half of our cacao while he finishes the inventory.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb grimaced. “Oh, you and Saabim are far too alike!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She laughed. “You could not give me a higher compliment. Send my love to Saabim—how is she?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Healthy as ever, but a little slow. She says she misses you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab bit her cheek. “I miss her, too. And you, Uncle.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She might have embraced him, but a group of Kinwiinik servants turned the corner at just that moment, and so she was forced to turn and walk away as though\n she had no family and no home at all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess was busy working at her desk by the window when Kaab finally made it back, hours later than she had planned. Tess’s stays were loose and her hair was\n tied back in a messy braid, slowly unraveling. Kaab paused in the doorway to admire her lover, concentrating so carefully on another note of recommendation\n for some Riverside girl hoping to enter in service to the gentry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you planning to stand there for very much longer?” Tess said eventually, not raising her eyes from the paper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think my heart might have forgotten how to beat, my love.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess snorted and picked up her quill knife. “Your stuttering heart is blocking the light, and your daddy wasn’t a glassmaker.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is a curious expression,” Kaab said, moving from the doorway. She placed the basket beside Tess’s chair and bent to kiss the fine strawberry blonde\n hairs at the nape of her neck. Tess shivered and set down the quill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No fair,” she said softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What isn’t fair, my love?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That you can always . . . make me forget . . . why I was ever annoyed with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s very fine with me,” Kaab said, moving down Tess’s collarbone. “I can hardly ever remember myself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess sighed and tilted Kaab’s chin to kiss her. After a moment that was entirely too brief for Kaab’s taste, Tess pulled away and then stood up, out of\n reach.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I had thought we were going to go to the market together this morning,” she said, “so you could choose all the ingredients you like and we could stop\n fighting about how terrible my Xanamwiinik food is.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab winced. This was at once true and somehow cutting, coming from her beloved’s lips. She thought, but did not say, that she had been dreading the\n negotiations of the market trip, now that it had become clear to her that poor Tess had grown up with such a bland diet that even compromise would leave\n Kaab grimacing over yet another boiled fowl in a few weeks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess, maize-flower,” Kaab said, “I had a better idea very early this morning and thought to surprise you as you were waking up. But then I was unavoidably\n detained on some family business.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess’s lips thinned. “Of course you were. On your tombstone it will read, ‘Ixkaab Balam, first daughter of a first daughter, unavoidably detained on some\n family business.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab opened her mouth and, for a wonder, thought better of it. Instead she lifted the basket and held it out to Tess. “I raided the Chel compound to bring\n these back for you. The Chel are master chefs. I was sure you would love them. But perhaps you have already eaten, after you awoke and found me gone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess looked between Kaab’s earnest face and the overflowing basket. Then she rolled her eyes, cracked a smile and stalked with an admirable swing in her\n hips to the short table they used to eat by the sooty fireplace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, bring them here, love,” Tess called. “I might as well eat something this morning besides my own righteous indignation.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So they sat down to Kaab’s penitent feast, and while Tess made a face at the maguey worms and ant eggs, she was entirely won over by the figs and spiced\n quince, which Kaab counted as a great victory. Neither fruit was native to her land, but the fusion of ingredients worked beautifully—if maize and quince\n could cohabitate with such harmony, why not Kaab and Tess? Even cold, the tamales were a paragon of the art, and Kaab found herself wishing that she had\n made off with the gourd of sour atole as well, though that would have meant robbing her pregnant aunt, and as much as Kaab loved the drink, her aunt and\n the baby needed its sustenance far more.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Afterward, Kaab snuggled against Tess’s ample bosom and basked in the sweet companionship that she had missed for so many days of their bickering.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So why don’t you tell me about this family business, Kaab,” Tess asked, stroking her loose hair. “Perhaps I could help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab felt herself stiffen and forced her muscles to relax. She supposed Tess already knew quite a bit about her family’s secrets. And surely she could tell\n her lover as much as she had shared with Rafe. Still, she had to push herself to begin even the edited version of the tale. When she got to the part about\n the untraceable deliveries, Tess sat straight up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is it, my love?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wonder, Kaab—don’t you think that forgeries could explain your problem? If your warehouse manager received an order that looked just like all the\n others, why wouldn’t he deliver it? The thieves wouldn’t have to so much as pick a lock!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab took a long look at her incomparable, brilliant firecracker of a lover, and squeezed her so tightly that Tess gasped for air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kaab! What’s that for?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have I ever told you how much I love you, Tess?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You might have mentioned it . . . once or twice . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then lie back and let me tell you . . . slowly and thoroughly . . . several more times . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, had long ago learned that any goal, once fixed, required an unwavering, fatal dedication. Hesitation, moderation, ill-advised\n caution in a moment when only complete conviction would serve—all had brought ruin upon more than one of her rivals. And if hubris had effected the\n downfall of some of history’s most famous charlatans, Diane comforted herself with the fact that history would never, of course, record the lies and\n outrageous dares of its more successful players.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had determined to become duchess in her own right, not just by marrying a duke, but through her dedication to Tremontaine, and through a certain\n necessity of which the Council was slowly being convinced. All history would note of her unparalleled success would be an entry in a dry genealogy of the\n ducal houses and a legacy of both money and influence that would serve her heirs—sadly enough, most likely of Campion’s get—for generations to come.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n However sweet that vision was to her as she went to sleep at night, the fact remained that, much like an Erland sausage, the savor of political victories\n did not lie in their messy preparation. The Duke of Karleigh, for example, an odious gasbag of a man trussed up in lace and velvet and much too strong\n perfume, was a necessary evil, an obstacle to be overcome on her chosen path. He had to be handled delicately, with a spectacle carefully calibrated to\n excite certain prejudices that Diane could then use to her advantage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The spectacle that Diane had planned offered more potential delights than its impact on Karleigh’s sadly limited sensibilities. Vincent Applethorpe, quite\n possibly the best sword-for-hire in the city, had agreed to fight for Tremontaine if the fight suited him, though he had so far refused her generous offers\n to become her official house swordsman. And so she had summoned him to her parlor this afternoon and offered him her best Kinwiinik chocolate (even the\n disastrous circumstance of their hold over her had delicious silver linings) to propose her spectacle. He had not taken it well; she had not expected him\n to. Indeed, it gave her a quite private pleasure to watch him struggle not to hurl his chocolate cup across the room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Reza—the \u003cem\u003eambassador\u003c/em\u003e of Chartil,” Applethorpe repeated.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He requested you specifically. He seemed to be under the impression you were my \u003cem\u003ehouse\u003c/em\u003e swordsman, though I of course corrected him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Swordsmen fight swordsmen,” Applethorpe said stiffly. “And the gentry pay us for the blood. It’s beneath my honor to fight with some dilettante foreign\n lordling.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ah, she quite liked this Vincent Applethorpe. If she did not already know better, he would have very nearly convinced her that he knew nothing of his\n Reza’s background or training. Diane widened her eyes and took a delicate sip of her spiced chocolate. “I believe you are mistaken in that, at least. The\n ambassador explained to me that he is one of the most accomplished swordsmen in his home country, where all of the nobles are expected to attain a high\n level of proficiency. I don’t doubt that he will at least prove a suitable partner for a demonstration. Of course, if you feel as though his foreign\n techniques might prove an unexpected challenge in a public fight . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent Applethorpe placed his cup very carefully in the saucer. It remained full. His hands were still and stiff and white by the wrists, where his bones\n pressed stark against his skin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am,” he said with every semblance of mild equanimity, “quite skilled enough to fight any comer, however foreign the technique.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane felt the blood rush to her cheeks at this masterful display of restraint in a man so self-consciously dangerous. She smiled. “I can’t tell you how\n glad I am to hear it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With her poor William locked away, she was realizing the many different potentials of the men around her, like dishes at a banquet she had always before\n observed and never imagined tasting. Still, a woman in her position had to be careful.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And there remained the awkward fact that at this exact moment, she was attempting to maneuver this dangerous, compelling man into publicly dueling with his\n former lover. She had been nearly certain of this from her conversation with the ambassador at the Ferris party, though he too let very little show in his\n face and his movements. But Vincent’s reaction confirmed it. Her spectacle would be noteworthy—and useful—in a number of different ways. And if she wanted\n Vincent Applethorpe, she had merely to bide her time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well then, are we agreed? You will fight in Tremontaine’s name at the welcoming banquet at the home of the ambassador this coming Saturday. Name your\n price; I’m aware that the circumstances are unusual.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Applethorpe stood up and walked to the mullioned windows, which had been opened onto the breezy late spring day. Bumblebees hummed heavily just beneath the\n ledge, where the striped tea roses, grafted last year, were just beginning to unfurl their fragrant blossoms. The view was impeccable, manicured, free of\n the slightest reminder of transience, of loss, of death, of winter. It was said of Chartil gardens that they abjured perfect symmetry, preferring instead\n some discordant note among the greenery: a lightning-marked tree that still somehow bloomed green at its base, a sandy shallow where there might have been\n a pond, moss growing over a broken statue of a lost master. Diane would have preferred the aesthetic, she suspected, but it wouldn’t do on the Hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent turned around, his expression the serene surface of an undisturbed garden pond, and named a figure designed to test her self-command as well as her\n commitment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thank goodness Tremontaine’s chocolate investments were doing so well. She didn’t hesitate. “That will do nicely. I’ll have my man of business draw up an\n agreement and send it to your lodgings. For now, I hope you’ll take this token as an object of my esteem, and to make it clear at the party whose house you\n are fighting for.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She opened the reticule set beside her chocolate service and withdrew a brooch: a Tremontaine swan of shining gold on a backdrop of dark green enamel. It\n was worth a good deal of money, which Vincent would know. It would also, in the eyes of the partygoers, tie him to Tremontaine House, official swordsman or\n no. Vincent would know that as well. But she had agreed to his price. And he would agree to hers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent gave her a little bow and palmed the brooch, with just enough of a smile that she knew he had been hoping she would balk at the cost, but he\n appreciated her play. She rang the bell for a servant to show him out, and sat for a moment alone, staring blankly at the gardens. It was a good start. But\n once she had Karleigh in hand, she would have to turn her attention to managing the Balam and that damned girl of theirs. She rang for the Kinwiinik boy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur skidded to a halt by the parlor door, recollected himself, and took a careful step inside. “Madam Duchess, you called?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane gave him an indulgent smile. “The lord Ahchuleb has done me the favor of informing me that they will have a particularly fine chocolate arriving\n either today or tomorrow. I desire to have it in time to present to the ambassador of Chartil at his reception this week, along with a few other sundries.\n You may note them and then place the order in person, and then bring the bill, whatever it is, back here to my secretary. Just note that it’s imperative I\n have them by the morning of the party.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course, madam. I’ll deliver this in person, immediately.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, Arthur. Wait until you’ve finished your other duties here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy flinched ever so slightly at the mild rebuke. Diane suppressed a sigh. Oh, he was so eager to please it almost made one miss the Fenton brat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab had spent much of this long day waiting outside locked gates, and this time she had no hot tamales to relieve the boredom. After her conversation with\n Tess, her uncle’s suspicions of the Chel boy had seemed slightly more plausible. She couldn’t believe that Ahtul would have ever thought of the complicated\n robbery scheme on his own, but Kaab knew better than anyone the deep games the duchess was capable of playing. Robbing the chocolate stores might seem\n self-defeating, given that Tremontaine profited from the Kinwiinik chocolate trade, but Kaab could just see the logic. The duchess would hate every minute\n of feeling beholden to the Balam to keep her secret. Now that society seemed to have accepted the madness of her husband, Diane was campaigning to\n consolidate power under her own name. The only thing, then, that would threaten that power would be the Balam, and Kaab in particular. So of course the\n duchess would be willing to take a temporary financial hit in exchange for destabilizing the Balam, perhaps even working with the Cocom, a family safely\n ignorant of her true history, to take their place. The Chel boy could have helped draft fake work orders without understanding most of the implications. He\n might have thought it would help his Cocom friends without causing the Balam undue harm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well, Kaab thought, he’d have to be a rank fool to believe that, but he had never impressed her as the brightest star in the firmament. Which was why she\n had come to Tremontaine House, once again disguised as a servant. If her aunt trusted the boy, Kaab felt inclined to follow her judgment. But pregnant\n women were known to be subject to odd quirks, and Kaab felt Chuleb’s suspicions too keenly to not at least check.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was rewarded at last at dusk, when Ahtul left through the main gate and immediately began to walk back to the Middle City. He hadn’t so much as glanced\n at her, or checked the street. Kaab could hardly believe it. Whoever had trained this boy deserved to have their head shorn for neglecting their duty! She\n plodded behind him, loud and in the open for the entire long walk back from the Hill to the Middle City. Not once did he look behind him. He appeared lost\n in his thoughts, clutching a scrap of notepaper in his right hand so tightly she was sure he would smudge the ink with his sweat. Ahkin of the waves, she’d\n have more trouble trailing a toddler through the royal gardens than this little scion of the Chel. This was what came from raising Kinwiinik children in\n this northern land, with this its pallid sun and bland food. She would have to keep a close watch on Saabim’s child.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s interest in her quarry rekindled when he walked straight past the Chel compound and on to the Kinwiinik warehouses by the docks. Unless he was\n playing a deeper game than she believed, feigning incompetence to throw off suspicion, it didn’t seem possible that he was the inside contact for the dock\n thefts. But perhaps he was being used unwittingly. Kaab let the distance between them increase when it became clear that he was stopping by the offices,\n then ambled past casually so that she could overhear the conversation. It was harder to understand than she had expected—the boys used a strange slang that\n tripped back and forth between Kindaan and Xanam at dizzying speeds in the middle of sentences and even words.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And a pound of the special new chocolate shipment,” Ahtul was saying. The clerk was the Cocom boy she’d seen with Chuleb earlier in the day, which made\n Kaab glad that she had covered her head with a scarf against the evening chill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy looked up at Tul from the smudged and crumpled list. “A pound?” He whistled through his teeth. “You must be doing pretty well up there on the Hill,\n eh? Ever thought of just adding a bit to the price and skimming the profit? I could show you how to do it so that those rich nobs wouldn’t ever know the\n difference. Then you give me a little and we spend a nice weekend in Kingsport.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sinik, I don’t think—I mean, I respect the duchess—I wouldn’t know how to even \u003cem\u003elook\u003c/em\u003e at her—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, never mind, Arty. I know you wouldn’t have the nuts for it. I’ll draw up the bill; you can come by for it tomorrow. Oh, by the way, this came for\n you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He handed Ahtul a letter, folded once and sealed with cheap wax without a stamp. Ahtul snatched it from his friend’s hand and stuffed it deep in his\n pocket. At this point, Kaab had run out of any plausible reason to remain in the vicinity, so she walked a block ahead, squatted in the shadow of a\n shuttered warehouse, and waited for the reliably oblivious Ahtul to hurry into view. He did, not more than a minute later, with the mysterious note now\n unfolded. He was reading as he walked, which was why he had to actually bump into Kaab to notice her now standing openly in the road. She could have\n laughed if she weren’t so annoyed about having wasted an evening on him. She felt more like a babysitter than a spy. If he was involved, it was obviously\n unintentional. She would learn more from a frank conversation than skulking. And on the remote chance that he was hiding some information related to the\n thefts, provoking him a little would only help shake it loose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Pardon me,” he muttered, and attempted to move around her without looking up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab stuck her foot out. He tripped with such exaggerated flailing that it almost looked like grace, and landed on his side, arm outstretched. Kaab bent\n down for the note before he could grab it again. He scrambled upright, red-faced, dirty, and puffing with indignation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Give that back! Why did you trip me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Honestly, your mother should be ashamed,” Kaab said in Kindaan as she pushed back her scarf. “I’ve been tailing you since you left Tremontaine House and\n you never looked back once. Weren’t you even \u003cem\u003etrained\u003c/em\u003e, you silly creature?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last, he recognized her. He bit back some kind of curse and reached again for the letter. Kaab glared at him and he lowered his hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aren’t you supposed to be exiled from your family?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aren’t you supposed to be helping them and not dangerously risking our trading affairs through sheer incompetence?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not incompetent! I was merely preoccupied! I hadn’t thought I needed to worry about—that sort of—family business while I was fulfilling my duties to\n the duchess!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now Kaab looked up from the letter and allowed herself a smile. “Let me give you a lesson for free, little rabbit: If you imagine that the Duchess\n Tremontaine is above the \u003cem\u003efamily business\u003c/em\u003e, you haven’t been looking hard enough. Her hair may be gilt and she wears those awkward clothes, but\n she’d make an admirable head of family.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He frowned. “She would?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She would. And this letter—why is Rafe Fenton inviting you to assignations in Middle City taverns? Didn’t you just speak this morning?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tul groaned as though enduring the trials of the underworld and held out his hands in silent desperation. Kaab took pity on him and handed back the note.\n She’d seen all she needed to, in any case—Rafe’s unmistakable University hand, all thick slants and sloppy loops and casual imperiousness suggesting that\n “Arthur” meet him at the Green Horn Inn this evening around eight to discuss items of mutual interest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How did you know?” Tul looked quite impressed, which was almost sweet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I saw you two. You were standing very close.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You—but how—oh, mother’s flower, the \u003cem\u003eservant girl\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab smiled. “And at last the little rabbit lands his bean in the center square. So what are you doing with Fenton?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Drinking, I suppose. You read the note. I told him to write me here if he . . . I mean . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “‘Items of mutual interest’?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If the rumors about \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e are at all true, you’re not nearly naive enough to misread that!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab took in the surly curl of his lip and just laughed. “Go on, then.” She waved him forward. “Have fun.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ahtul narrowed his eyes. “If you try to tail me again, I promise I’ll notice.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She nodded. “I look forward to it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He bowed, an awkward, resentful, overawed farewell, and took off. He would have to run to make it to the Green Horn by eight. He had quite a lot to learn,\n this Ahtul. He clearly didn’t know of Rafe’s history with his new employer’s husband, and Kaab would not enlighten him. For her part, though, she wondered\n about Rafe’s game. As far as she knew, he’d abstained from love affairs entirely since Will disappeared. He seemed to have dedicated himself to the search\n for his lover. Rafe’s designs couldn’t be purely romantic. So what was he after?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe arrived at the Green Horn Inn at half past eight, and was entirely unsurprised to see young Arthur sitting nervously at a table in the back, nursing a\n pewter mug of ale that had long since lost its head. The boy noticed the moment Rafe walked inside and smiled so sweetly to see him that Rafe couldn’t help\n but smile back. There was really nothing quite like being wanted, even if one’s personal circumstances had made acting upon such transient desires a moral\n impossibility. He had to keep his vow for Will. His days of using and discarding his sexual partners like old dishrags were over. And he was grateful for\n it—in the bad old days he would have hurt a gem of a boy like Arthur terribly. The kiss they had briefly shared a week ago had been a mistake, but a small\n one—chaste, and never to be repeated. Yes, he was still using the boy’s attraction to fish for information about the duchess, but even so, he wouldn’t\n cross that particular line again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe ordered another round for the both of them and sat on the bench beside him. Their legs touched and Rafe didn’t move away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m so glad you sent word,” Arthur said. “I wanted to see you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what, precisely, did you want to see?” Rafe asked, one eyebrow delicately raised.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your hair,” Arthur said promptly. “It’s so beautiful. And unusual. The way it bounces around your ears. I wish you would allow me to touch it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe coughed to cover his snort of incredulous laughter. Arthur looked much too earnest to spoil the moment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can touch it if you’d like,” Rafe said, though after he’d cut his university locks, he had a hard time so much as glancing at himself in the mirror.\n He had felt like a fraud with them and like a failure without them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the smudgy torchlight of the taproom, Arthur looked reverent as he traced his finger down a sable corkscrew by Rafe’s ear. He let out a slow breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s very pretty,” he said. “You must be very vain about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do I seem vain about it?” Rafe asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now Arthur looked a little sly. “You aren’t precisely modest. But then, I’ve often thought you deserve your vanity.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe winced and raised his mug. “Touché, Arthur.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They drank together. That round, and then another. Rafe had had a particular goal for this evening’s meeting, but he found himself delaying the point. He\n enjoyed Arthur’s company. He enjoyed the honest admiration, he enjoyed the thrill of a simple flirtation, the promise of a warm bed at the end of the night\n if he wanted it. He didn’t want it—of course he didn’t—but in his zeal to keep his vows he had missed companionship. Was it so wrong to enjoy it now,\n chastely, when it was so freely offered?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How is it really, working for the duchess?” Rafe asked, at last, when he sensed that Arthur would tell him anything he desired just to please him. “I only\n know her by reputation. She seems frighteningly cold.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, no! She is very reserved, that is true, but she always has a smile for me and treats everyone with the utmost respect. Her staff all admire her\n greatly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eAs one admires a venomous snake\u003c/em\u003e\n , Rafe thought. “That is very reassuring to hear,” he said, casually draping his arm over Arthur’s shoulders. The boy snuggled against him entirely\n unselfconsciously.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know the Balam have enjoyed her particular favor as a client,” Rafe said carefully. “And I would never do anything to harm your trading partners. But do\n you remember what I asked you, the last time?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ohhhh,” Arthur said, his voice sliding up and down in an endearingly exaggerated tipsy confusion. “That I tell you about her? For your family’s trade? I\n don’t know, Rafe. The lady Ixsaabim has trusted me very much and I hope the duchess will as well. I couldn’t hurt them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course not! I would never ask you do such a thing. I’d only like to know certain harmless bits of information about the duchess that could help my\n family. Such as where she travels, or if there’s a particular place she sends her correspondence, or really anything to do with the \u003cem\u003eplaces\u003c/em\u003e that\n most interest her. We’re traders, after all, and such information will help us find items that most suit her refined tastes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe wasn’t at all sure that this justification would pass even Arthur’s muster, but the boy thought for a moment and then nodded. “Well, I know she\n recently sent some goods to a tiny estate in the north. Secretary Holm told me the occupants were her original family, before she married the duke. Is that\n the sort of thing you want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Hemmynge estate. Rafe managed, with some effort, to keep his face pleasant. More useless leads. He had already sent a messenger there and had come up\n empty, again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Rafe said, “that’s precisely the sort of thing I want.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think I can do that. It doesn’t sound so bad. Does that mean I can see you soon?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perhaps he ought to kiss the boy again, just to seal the deal, as it were. But he hesitated. What would Will say to him taking advantage of someone’s youth\n and inexperience and desperate desire to belong to City society? He would find it contemptible, Rafe knew it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eBut it’s for you, my love\u003c/em\u003e\n , Rafe thought.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Would you mind very much if I kissed you?” the boy asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe sighed and finished his pint.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I would like that,” Rafe said, “very much.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And when the boy fell into his arms, Rafe caught him. The parted lips and joined tongues and raw-bitten lips of the next half hour were a tempest blowing\n him far away from chastity; they had reached, to Rafe’s forgotten shame, the shores of another country.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Caana chocolate that you gave me,” Micah told Kaab, “tasted a little like the sour cherries from the tree at the end of summer, and a little like\n bitter almonds that make you sick when you eat too many, and a little like the way the earth smells after a rain. This tastes quite a lot like bitter\n almonds and maybe a little like cow poop.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess, who was sitting beside Kaab, though at least two inches farther away than she had in the first few shops of their great chocolate tour, laughed out\n loud. “I think that’s a ‘no,’ dearest.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab took a tentative sip of her own cup and grimaced. “You are entirely right,” she said. “I would not have thought to put my distaste with such poetic\n precision, but I commend your discerning palate, Micah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah beamed. “Joshua says that because I taste very well I should eat more things than tomato pie and roasted potatoes. But I like tomato pies and roasted\n potatoes and there’s many more varieties of them than people think. Like chocolate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess gave Micah a very warm smile and said, “That’s just what I’ve been trying to get through to her!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab looked at the ceiling and then back at the floor, which Micah had learned meant she didn’t want to talk about something. Unfortunately, Tess kept\n going.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You dismiss our food before you even try! You say it’s all bland because it isn’t so spicy it peels the skin from your tongue, but you couldn’t tell the\n difference between a Riverside tripe and potato pasty and a Middle City sweetmeat and potato stuffed bun, now could you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab looked as though she would rather drink a whole cup of the cow poop and bitter almond chocolate than try either of them, though Micah had eaten one of\n those Riverside pasties and they were really quite delicious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab slid the third cup closer to Tess. “Would you like some chocolate, my precious jade?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess glowered. “You’re trying to say I won’t even be able to taste the difference between the luxury chocolate you give me and the crap they serve to\n tasteless Xanamwiinik like us!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess, maize-flower, I am \u003cem\u003enot\u003c/em\u003e trying to say any such thing!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is Xanamwiinik?” Micah asked, because she had learned that asking questions was a good way to stop the two of them when they started arguing. Which\n was more often than she had remembered. They probably loved each other very much. That’s what Cousin Reuben always said about the brood mare and the\n stallion that could never get along.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” Kaab said, “it just means you people with ant-egg skin.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do ant eggs taste like, Kaab? Like cow poop?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No! They’re a delicacy, very fine. You have to dig into the earth and search through the whole colony just to find where they keep their white eggs. They\n taste a little like your cheese, sharp and buttery.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nTess rested her head in her hands and squinted at Kaab while her mouth puckered like one of those little worms that curls up when you poke it. “ \u003cem\u003eHer\u003c/em\u003e people dig up bloody ant eggs from the bloody ground like bloody cavemen but no, \u003cem\u003ewe’re\u003c/em\u003e the uncivilized ones with terrible food!\n Because we eat potatoes!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab banged her fists on the table with such force that the bad chocolate sloshed over the edge of her full cup. “Nothing is wrong with potatoes! I’ll have\n you know potatoes aren’t only from this stupid land; we have our own kind across the ocean. Over there, potatoes are \u003cem\u003edelicious\u003c/em\u003e, along with our\n chocolate and vanilla and chilies and practically every other wonderful food—and it’s certainly not the \u003cem\u003epotato\u003c/em\u003e’s fault that you’ve all ruined it!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah pushed her chocolate cup safely away from the edge of the table before putting her hands over her ears. She never liked fighting, and Kaab in\n particular could get very loud. She sat there, waiting for it to be over, but it turned out that Kaab and Tess had already finished. They were looking at\n her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah slowly lowered her hands. “Can we try the next chocolate shop?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab smiled, though it looked a little funny, and nodded. “Absolutely. We have six more to go and I need you to help me find my Caana chocolate.” She stood\n up to pay the proprietor, who had edged closer to the table when Kaab started banging.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Outside again, the lovers were quiet as they walked to the next Middle City chocolate shop. Micah was grateful, because it let her think about her latest\n problem. While she was happy to help Kaab, she had been in the middle of a very interesting geometric proof that she was sure she would solve very soon.\n She could tell because the bubble inside of her had felt pleasurably full, nearly to bursting, and surely it would have rained inspiration upon her in just\n a few more hours. Well, that or it would have deflated like a hot air balloon when the flame catches the paper folds, which had happened just two days ago\n with this very same problem. To her frustration, Micah was discovering that the more interesting the problem, the less likely she was to be right the\n first, or second, or twentieth time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So when Kaab had knocked on her door and told her she needed her expert tasting ability, Micah had been willing to leave her proof, because sometimes\n walking helped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess and Kaab hardly spoke at the next shop, where the chocolate was not so bad as the last, but it wasn’t the very delicious kind either. They were so\n quiet that even Micah began to feel that they should talk. Though she didn’t always understand it, she liked the sensation of people behaving the way they\n ought to—just like numbers. Though numbers were easier to understand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the next chocolate shop, the Blue Parrot, the proprietor had said that he was closing, but then Kaab gave him some money and it seemed that he wasn’t.\n They sat down at an outdoor table. He poured their chocolate from a tall blue pot whose color Micah quite liked. She was wondering if it had a name when,\n just like with her numbers, the problem-bubble burst and she understood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess and Kaab,” she said, “you aren’t happy!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The two of them jerked and then kept very still.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry, Micah,” Tess said, eventually. “I’ve just been moody because I have work to do and I’m not much help to you or Kaab, with your fine palates.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab looked between Tess and Micah and bit her lip.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s just finish,” she said, and lifted her cup.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah wondered if she had said the wrong thing. She would have thought that if they \u003cem\u003eknew\u003c/em\u003e they were unhappy they would then want to do something to\n make themselves happy again. Like hug or kiss or drink good chocolate. Numbers craved resolution, thought Micah, so why didn’t people?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She drank the chocolate, then sipped it again. “Kaab!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Micah! This is it, yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, this really is good chocolate. Don’t forget you promised that I could bring the good chocolate back with me, Kaab. I always taste that nasty stuff at\n the Ink Pot for eight or nine hours afterwards.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab smiled another sort of smile, the one that made Micah shiver. “Oh, I’ll get you some right now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then Kaab stood up and walked inside the chocolate shop. Micah heard some yelling, but thankfully she couldn’t see them and the walls muffled the noise.\n Tess looked at the open door, but she didn’t seem to want to go in either.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t you want to taste it, Tess?” Micah asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess took the proffered cup, and looked at the dark liquid. “You know,” she said, “it was nice when Kaab made it for me. It really was. It was beautiful.\n But because \u003cem\u003eshe \u003c/em\u003ewas the one making it, not because this stupid poop-colored bean had some magical dust covering it. But the way she goes on about\n food, Micah, you’d think one overboiled potato mattered a hundred times more than the \u003cem\u003eperson\u003c/em\u003e you’re sharing it with!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab cleared her throat, and Micah realized that she had been standing in the doorway. Kaab was carrying a half-filled burlap sack, which she handed to\n Micah without taking her eyes off Tess. Micah peeked inside and was delighted to discover that it was filled with tiny brown discs, which she decided must\n be pure chocolate. Kaab stepped closer to Tess.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I just . . . I miss my family, beloved. My aunt is going to have a child in a few weeks and I might not be there to welcome her into the world! I miss\n her. I miss them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess scrunched her eyes together and took deep breaths, like Micah did when she was overwhelmed by the noise and confusion of the City. But when Tess\n opened her eyes again, she still seemed as though she were filled with a boiling liquid that she couldn’t help but spill.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go back to them, then, if you miss them so much! You know, there’s not a day I don’t miss my dad, but sometimes, looking at you, I’m grateful not to have\n six dozen nosy aunts smelling my shit every morning. Better dead parents and a real Riverside family than your brood of judgmental hens! Some of my friends\n had parents who spent more time with the bottle than trying to put food on the table. We had to learn what we could to feed ourselves and whoever else\n needed feeding, and you know, no one ever complained about what my heart could provide until you came along!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab stepped closer to the table, and then just shook her head. “I’ll sleep elsewhere tonight,” she said. “The chocolate is yours, Micah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then she just left. Micah and Tess sat in stunned silence for at least five minutes. Then Tess picked up the chocolate cup in shaking hands. She took a\n sip, and then another.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s very good,” Tess said softly. “See, Kaab, even I can tell it’s delicious.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Duchess Tremontaine moved slowly through parties—gracefully, like a dancer, though the duchess rarely danced. Her hems were exceptionally long and the\n effect of so rarely seeing her shoes was that she seemed to glide a bare inch above the surface that other, lesser, mortals were forced to tread.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tonight, the ambassador from Chartil had at last thrown open the doors to the elegant home he had rented on the skirts of the Hill. The reception took\n place in the ballroom, hardly the grandest of its species, but well-appointed and suited to the dignity of his office. At the back of the room a series of\n short balconies overlooked the modest gardens. For the occasion, the duchess had decorated one of her older gowns with Chartil-style embroidery, again in\n her Tremontaine wool. The effect was at once subtle and outlandish, with an embroidered kingfisher diving for a fish precisely beneath her bosom. The\n efforts of Diane’s conversational partners to not stare had kept up her mood for quite the last hour as she waited for Vincent Applethorpe to arrive.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She knew that he would. His payment, after all, was only deliverable upon the completion of the duel. And she had made sure the whole Hill knew of the\n spectacle that she would be providing them. Applethorpe’s reputation now rested upon the honorable discharge of his duties.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador Reza did not seem to be dressed for a duel, though one hardly knew what the customs were in Chartil. His long coat was, for all its\n strangeness, one of the most opulent sartorial objects on display in a room of people for whom modesty was not the most celebrated of virtues. It was of a\n natural black wool, tightly woven, and so soft that throughout the night the younger women would beg him the favor of touching it and then blush as their\n fingers slid down the weave, as though they were caressing an entirely different part of him. The coat’s elaborate embroidery had been hand-stitched\n primarily in silver and jewel-toned blues and cherry reds, and the figures of geometrically harmonious birds ran from his hanging sleeves to his high\n collar. It provoked conversation, as did the man himself. His manners were impeccable: polite, charming, engaging with a joke and a personal word with\n every guest at his soiree. Even the Duke of Karleigh, who had only agreed to attend after a campaign by his wife to persuade him that the Crescent\n Chancellor would not look kindly upon so crude a political snub, was forced to reluctantly admit that the ambassador was “not a bad sort, and even spoke a\n civilized tongue. I far prefer him to those grasping Kinwiinik, that’s for damned sure!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He directed this last ruby of wisdom to the Duchess Tremontaine, who he obviously felt sure would be sympathetic, given the disaster those uncouth Traders\n of no family had precipitated at her very own Swan Ball.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess smiled in her quiet way. “But one supposes that we who grew up with the old ways, tied to the Land by our blood and history, must make\n accommodations for change. Why, even if we could keep the foreigners from our shores—and as a fervent lover of chocolate, I can’t imagine why we would want\n to—there are upstart members of even the best families. This land, I fear, will never be what it once was in the time of the kings.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Duke of Karleigh, who had been quite willing to weigh in on the matter of foreign trade, stopped short at the mention of homegrown impurities.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why . . . Diane, certainly, sometimes one despairs of an ill-advised match, but such people are never let near the doors of power.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane shook her head sadly. “In that, I’m afraid I must correct you, my dear duke. Such people are \u003cem\u003erarely\u003c/em\u003e let near the doors of power. But in\n certain unexpected and regrettable circumstances, Frederick, I’m afraid that events might fall out quite differently.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane, do you mean—this business of the dukedom? But you and William are of the finest stock, and you do have a married daughter. So we have nothing to\n worry about there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As much as it pains me to say so, Honora made a lamentable match. The Campions are, shall we say, a no-name family.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Karleigh looked startled. “Do you mean—he’s not even a noble?!”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane slowly unfurled her fan and studied the roses painted on the lambskin with far too much attention. “Well, as to that . . . of course, he must be, if\n he says he is.” She looked up. “Mustn’t he?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Duke of Karleigh chewed his lip. “Really, Diane, we should have this looked into. Campion, Campion . . . wasn’t there a Campion who distinguished\n himself at the Battle of Pommery?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s a common enough name. Some kind of flower, I believe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Common . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, it’s done now, anyway. Our daughter is wed, and bearing his children—children William and I have never even met. And yet, the Campion boy will most\n certainly be the next Duke Tremontaine. My poor dear William took ill so suddenly, he never had the chance to name another heir.” She paused, met\n Karleigh’s dawning horror with the purest sigh of delicate resignation, and turned her face away from him, as though to hide the shine of unshed tears.\n “Oh, I know there is nothing a mere woman such as I can do, but to see all of Tremontaine’s glory eclipsed in one sad stroke of fate . . . !”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t mean . . . of all the damnable notions! It never even occurred to me! And you, duchess in name only, then, shunted to the side in favor of some\n nobody’s son!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She lowered her gaze. “Some sorrows are simply meant to be borne, I’m afraid.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, having stated the unfortunate facts so plainly to the clearly disconcerted duke, was fortuitously distracted from her sorrow—the swordsman of the\n moment, Vincent Applethorpe, had at last deigned to make his appearance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Applethorpe wore dueling attire of clear simplicity but impeccable elegance. His ivory linen shirt was statement of hubris, for blood showed most easily on\n white. By the collar of his doublet, the Tremontaine swan flashed gold and emerald against supple doeskin brown. He scanned the room with bright, almost\n haunted eyes that passed over Diane with barely a blink of recognition. They did not stop searching until they found their object: Reza, turning from a\n laughing conversation with Lord Basil Halliday. Reza paused, as though surprised to find Applethorpe in the doorway. Reza had not been surprised, and Diane\n doubted that he had meant to fool the swordsman with the display. Reza walked forward slowly, easily, and greeted his most notorious guest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is a great pleasure to have you here, Master Applethorpe,” Reza said, pitching his voice to carry. “I’ve heard you are the finest swordsman this city\n has to offer. I imagine that my own skills do not bring shame upon my people. I greatly look forward to seeing how much we might surprise one another.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane watched this exchange with deep satisfaction. She would have given a great deal to know just what history lay between those two, but even its\n outlines, so deftly dissembled, made for delicious entertainment. The Duchess Tremontaine, it must be said, had a soft spot for charlatans and liars and\n very deep gamblers. She moved steadily among the guests, threading her game of strings, where just one movement could unravel every knot. Reza was playing\n his own game, while more than aware of her own. She smiled to him once from across the room. He bowed to her with brief grace and returned to his\n conversation with Lord Basil and his wife.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duel would begin soon. Meanwhile, the duchess maintained a safe distance from the Duke of Karleigh, who was staring at her and looking away again with\n the subtlety of a bull eyeing a cow in the next field over. She would get back to him eventually, when the seed of discontent that she had planted within\n his xenophobic breast had blossomed to full flower.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Halfway across the city, Ixkaab Balam, the once-protégé of notorious swordsman Vincent Applethorpe, walked alone through the rain. She did not fear for her\n safety, though she was now skirting the edge of the lower city, a part of town that made Riverside seem rich as the Hill by comparison. She had her dagger\n by her belt and a canker in her heart that would make spilling blood seem like a mercy. She did not like killing people; even Tremontaine’s awful swordsman\n had haunted her nights for weeks afterward. Still, she was sure that she would like dying even less.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab wanted to go home. She wanted her rush mat piled high with furs against the spring chill. She wanted atoles and tortillas and tamales and complicated\n stews that took three days to prepare. She wanted the quiet of the family temple, the beauty of the mosaics, the ritual of scribing in the book of family\n history. But she loved Tess, and longed to make a home with her beloved as well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could go back to neither home tonight. And so she focused on the only problem she could possibly solve: the stolen chocolate. The proprietor of the\n Blue Parrot had known he was buying dubiously sourced goods, but the price was incredible for the quality and he’d agreed without asking many questions.\n The man he bought it from was a fence who operated out of Riverside, with Middle City connections. \u003cem\u003eThe Salamander?\u003c/em\u003e she’d asked, and he’d refused\n to say any more. So quite probably. The Riverside connection, then, was amply confirmed. Added to Tess’s realization about the forgeries and the necessity\n for an inside contact to pass off the orders as real, it seemed that they were looking for at least two people, one who knew Riverside, and a partner who\n knew exactly how to circumvent traders’ naturally cautious business practices. One person, even a very clever one, was unlikely to have such a diversity of\n skills and contacts in two such different worlds as Middle City and Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What they now needed was to catch the culprits in the false delivery location. If these thieves would just bite the lure that her uncle had so carefully\n dangled before them, Kaab could personally send them before whatever sort of magistrate would most efficiently order their hanging and they would be done\n with the affair. She could return to her family within the week.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And what of Tess, then?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab brushed the wet hair from her eyes. She couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t think of Tess’s face as she talked about the family that she’d\n already lost. She could hardly think of anything, really. Just her wet feet against crumbling cobblestone, Tess’s smile in the morning, Saabim full of that\n baby, waiting for Kaab to finally be worthy of her mother’s name.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duel begins after the rains have started, with the windows flung wide so the candles gutter and the torches smoke in their sconces. The room is\n redolent of damp cloth, cedar smoke, and orange blossoms, whose petals decorate nearly every elegant surface. The ambassador has changed—or not changed so\n much as stripped down to the wide belted pants and sleeveless white tunic that the ladies had imagined were his undergarments. Perhaps they are—perhaps in\n Chartil, it’s traditional to fight in your unmentionables. This is the joke of the Dragon Chancellor and it is met with nervous, relieved laughter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza and Vincent do not hear him. They can hardly hear the rain, loud as it is against the windows. Reza has unsheathed his two blades: one long and\n curved, the other only slightly shorter. Vincent fights with the long sword and the short. The bets have been placed; odds slightly favor Applethorpe. The\n Duchess Tremontaine, when asked if she’d lay a wager, politely demurred. It would be unsporting, she said, to profit doubly from the win of one’s\n contracted swordsman, and it would be cruel to profit from his loss.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Besides, after what Vincent has charged her for this one fight, Tremontaine could hardly afford a losing bet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duelers wait for the formal challenge to be spoken; then the fight begins. Reza is unapologetically, unquestionably foreign in this moment. His darker\n skin, his free-flowing hair, his singing, lightning-fast swords. And Vincent: the man from Riverside, from the soil that had witnessed the Age of\n Kings—even he does not seem quite so comfortably familiar to the crowd that has fallen silent to watch him. He fights with the long and short swords, yes,\n but he moves to match the ambassador. He twists beneath his blades in moves so quick that only a few in the room can follow him. He leaps and dances. The\n swords clash again and again. There comes a moment—or perhaps it was more than one; later the guests will say they had never seen a fight move so fast,\n that they couldn’t tell who was winning or losing until the very end—when the ambassador spins and aims one blade unerringly for Vincent’s throat and the\n other for his groin. Vincent stops them both—barely, gasping for breath, pulse pounding by his temples. Barely, but that’s all that matters. Vincent turns\n to disengage. He says in Chartil, low enough that only Reza can hear him: “Are you trying to kill me or remind me of why I left?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza laughs and then stops because Vincent has launched himself to the attack again, and there are only breaths and blades and sparks because a moment’s\n inattention \u003cem\u003ewill\u003c/em\u003e kill them, shared history notwithstanding. They fight until they cannot possibly fight any longer, and take another breath. Their\n clothes are in tatters but their skin is whole and unmarred. The murmurs surrounding them grow louder than the rain, but they can’t hear them, only each\n other, just like that first time, every time, until they die.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They might just kill each other. It’s a possibility.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent wipes the sweat from his eyes. It stings like blood. He lifts his sword as though it were a giant’s axe. He has lost the short sword, some moment\n or other when he almost died. Reza has lost his curved blade. They stare at each other for a long moment, chests heaving, impressed to something like joy\n with the brilliance of the other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Finish it!” someone yells, Vincent never knows who.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine,” Reza says, and slashes the palm of his left hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The blood splashes to the floor and suddenly the room erupts, some gamblers crying foul and others quickly collecting. Elegantly clad gentry push between\n them, dirtying something that had been silent and austere and beautiful. \u003cem\u003eWhy?\u003c/em\u003e they clamor. But Vincent knows. It was forgiveness and it was\n acknowledgment. Vincent won because Vincent had more to lose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent, edgy with memories but calmed by the familiar weight of the sword on his hip and the fragrance of the orange blossoms that Reza has of course\n contrived to bring from his homeland, slips past the crowd and hides himself in the shadows by a rain-soaked balcony. Reza finds him, as he was meant to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Will we finally speak, then, Vincent? Or have you decided that I’m dead to you?” He speaks in Chartil.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent closes his eyes. “I don’t fight dead men,” he says, in the same tongue. “And we always spoke better with steel.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the other side of the room, the Duke of Karleigh nods stiffly to the Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s one thing,” he says, “for \u003cem\u003efolk\u003c/em\u003e such as that to visit. But one cannot let our great institutions be tainted with inferior stock. You are a\n sensible woman, Diane. I’ve always admired that about you. I admit I had my doubts about a woman so distantly related to that great line becoming\n Tremontaine in her own right, but damned if I’ll let that that Campion brat have poor William’s seat when the duke would have doubtless rather seen you\n upon it first!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane feigns surprise and doubt and then, after an appropriate interval, touched gratitude. She feels a moment of triumph so pure she could have danced\n with a sword herself. She leaves Karleigh to find Vincent and congratulate him on his win, but the victorious swordsman seems to have made a quiet exit; no\n one remembers seeing him leave. Only Reza remains, standing alone by the balcony, fingers clenched over a bloody palm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It is very late at night; perhaps it could already be considered morning. The girl without a home looks for Xamanek in the sky, but the clouds are thick\n and the rain is unceasing. She goes back to the Middle City, of course she does. And in the end, she climbs the wall just where she knows she can catch the\n mulberry tree in the garden to get down the other side. She thinks of the steam baths. Perhaps it’s a memory: a young girl waking up on a rainy night to\n find her pregnant mother in the dark of the steam bath, praying to Ixchel in her manifestation as the goddess of death and childbirth. The steam bath is on\n the opposite wall of the kitchens, to take advantage of the heat and the ovens. Smoke rises from its chimney. She knew, didn’t she?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nThe girl removes her wet clothes and recites the steam bath prayer. She pushes back the thick reed hangings and walks inside. \u003cem\u003eThe womb of the earth\u003c/em\u003e, they call it. Dark as pitch and warm as her mother’s belly. It smells of red mud and steam and the bundle of herbs that\n leave stinging marks against skin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hello, dearest,” Saabim says as Kaab enters. “I was just thinking of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know I’m not supposed to be here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So like your mother in that. She learned responsibility, eventually, but she was wild, our Ixmoe, at your age.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab moves through the dark, careful to avoid the burning wall at the rear and the bucket of water at the center. She bumps into Saabim’s great belly and\n rests on the wooden seat beside her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why did she have to die, Saabim?” Kaab whispers. “I’d have gone to the houses beneath the earth for her. I’d have crossed the river of scorpions just to\n bring her back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Saabim slips an arm around her waist. “So would I have, love. And your father. Oh, if the gods let us, your mother would have had an army carry her out of\n the underworld on their shoulders. But death is not life, Kaab, and love does not matter there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There is nothing to say to that; nothing but silence, which is its own language. The language of the dead, perhaps. In a few hours, when the heat has wrung\n her out and the sky has cleared, she will go back to Riverside and she will try, again, to apologize to Tess, whom she loves more than poetry, and whom she\n always seems to hurt. But for now Kaab presses her ear to Saabim’s giant belly and listens—a new life beating in tandem with her aunt’s own precious\n heart-spirit.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eYou are home\u003c/em\u003e\n , \u003cem\u003elittle niece\u003c/em\u003e, she thinks fiercely, \u003cem\u003ewe are all of us alive, and home here. \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nDiane gathered support for her bid to become duchess in her own right. Rafe used Arthur in his quest to find Will. Diane sought out Micah leading to a confrontation that baffled them both. Kaab fought, and lost, her first professional duel. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Alaya Dawn Johnson\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.92","slug":"tremontaine-s2e05","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E05.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101131_TremontaineS02E05.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101131_TremontaineS02E05.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101131_TremontaineS02E05.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e00298ada6e25bc06d1d5f","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":6,"title":"Blood and Silk","released_date":"2016-11-23T12:57:31.147+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"An unwelcome admirer for Esha provides Diane with an opportunity.","byline":"Mary Anne Mohanraj","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e06.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-11-23","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you sure you should be up and about so soon again, Eveline?” Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, sat with her friend in the blue parlor, where she knew the\n morning light showed her impeccable complexion to best effect.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n Lady Eveline sighed. “The doctor said it would be the best thing for me, that staying confined to bed would make me melancholy. And to be\n completely honest, Diane, it was driving me quite mad, the way Charles \u003cem\u003ehovered\u003c/em\u003e over me.” She raised and lowered her shoulders in a delicate little\n shrug. “I am not the first woman to have lost a babe, nor will I be the last.” Eveline’s bravado was belied by the tremble in her voice. “You know, my\n dear. You know what it is like.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane did, indeed. After bearing one healthy daughter, she’d suffered three pregnancies that had ended in miscarriage. She had nearly died with the last.\n At least the doctor had assured her that she would be spared such agonies in the future; she could not become pregnant again. Those losses were long ago,\n in her first years of marriage, when she had burned to give William an heir to Tremontaine—her wifely duty, but one which would also tie her to the duchy,\n safely, irrevocably. Instead, she had but the one daughter, and in the end, Honora had failed her entirely.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do know. It is a hard burden, and you bear up under it beautifully. But take heart; you are still young.” That was what one always said in such\n circumstances. In truth, like her, Lady Eveline was in her mid-thirties, late to be still trying to give her husband an heir. “There is time for you to\n bear a child for Charles.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You think so?” Eveline sipped her chocolate. When she lowered the cup, the fine porcelain rattled against its saucer. “I fear he will put me aside, Diane.\n And perhaps that would be better. There are days when I long for a quiet life, perhaps in a country manor, visiting the villagers and helping them through\n their days, attending their small fetes and fairs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot see \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e at a pig race.” The duchess won a faint smile from her friend. “No, Eveline, my dearest, you belong at a fine table decked with\n silver and crystal, presiding over a banquet of elaborate subtleties. Like that fabulous ship your chef built of spun sugar this summer! I had no idea that\n it was possible to create such a thing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But having learned that it was, Diane had promptly come home and instructed her own chef to beg, borrow, or steal the technique in time for this year’s\n Swan Ball. Perhaps a fleet of white swans, crowned in gold foil, sailing a molded chocolate river down the center of the long banquet table . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Branwell is a genius,” Eveline said, dismissing the achievement with a flutter of her fan. “But what does it all matter, what does it signify, without\n children to share in one’s fortune?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane suppressed her annoyance. Back to that unpleasant topic of motherhood. It was all very well to produce them; but children could be a terrible\n disappointment. Diane had invested \u003cem\u003eyears\u003c/em\u003e in Honora—in her education, her sense of taste and refinement, her accomplishment of a variety of skills.\n The girl had proven shockingly lazy, with no appreciation of how crucial it was for a woman to win her way in the world. Her daughter had taken every bit\n of her good fortune for granted, which had led to hours upon hours of Diane standing over the child like a dragon guarding its hoard, making sure that\n Honora actually worked on her needlepoint, held her breath properly during singing lessons, practiced the clavier and her dance steps. She was hopeless at\n the harp, but it hardly mattered, as Honora’s elbows had been downright bony; she got that from her father, of course.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had often caught the girl reading a novel while she was supposedly practicing the keyboard—holding the book open with one hand, and running scales\n with the other. Finally, Diane had torn the book her daughter was holding to shreds and tossed it in the fire, over Honora’s animal wails of despair. It\n was all for her own good! It was for her \u003cem\u003esurvival\u003c/em\u003e. But the foolish chit couldn’t see that, and in the end, none of it had ended up mattering. In\n her very first season, when she was being presented to society in hopes of the most advantageous marriage her mother could devise, Lady Honora Tielman,\n only daughter of the Duke Tremontaine, had thrown herself away on a nobody and run off to some little estate in the middle of nowhere, where only the cows\n might appreciate her accomplishments.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Across the chocolate table, Eveline stifled a sob, and reached for her handkerchief. Diane murmured sympathy and grated more fresh chocolate into her\n guest’s cup. Lady Eveline had hinted broadly that she was dying to taste some of Tremontaine’s chocolate, known to be the best on the Hill. Her doctor had\n said that it might relieve the worst symptoms of her current unfortunate condition. How could the duchess refuse?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane wished she were sharing a cup and conversation with Esha instead. She suspected that the foreign woman had managed to avoid bearing children\n altogether; and that if she had not, she certainly wouldn’t bore Diane with it at the chocolate table! Esha knew what was important. Like Diane, she\n understood the sword’s edge that one balanced on in this world. And she was entertaining, which Eveline, tragically, was not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Eveline continued to babble inanely; Diane murmured sympathy, focusing her true attention on more important matters. Three more Council members’ votes to\n secure, and Diane would be Duchess Tremontaine in her own right, providing continuity and safety to the duchy and its people, even Honora and her brood.\n How old was her grandson, David Alexander Tielman Campion, now? Two, perhaps? Even if he were appointed heir to Tremontaine, he would need a regent for a\n long, long time, and regents could be changed at the whim of the Inner Council. Far safer for Tremontaine if Diane were named duchess as soon as possible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha surveyed the crowded room, trying to plot the best path across it without danger. The women in the room were skilled, and capable of taking a man down\n in moments. Or a woman, for that matter. She had known most of them for more than a decade—long enough to be quite aware of their abilities. Once, they’d\n been her rivals, and there’d even been a time when Esha hadn’t been sure she’d survive their subtle cuts and jabs. Now, though, her main worry was whether\n she’d spill the glass of wine in her hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It had been a long day; she \u003cem\u003eneeded\u003c/em\u003e that wine, especially if she was going to help Rosamund free herself from her current mess. Normally, Esha\n preferred a clear head for thinking, but some of her friends were easier to tolerate with a drink or two in her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She carefully began picking her way across the room, watching her step, lifting her feet lightly over outstretched limbs. Rosamund had covered the floor in\n exotic furs from the far North, and the fires at either end of the room were roaring, built high against the autumn chill. Esha couldn’t blame any of the\n women for not bothering to dress again yet, not with an array of delectable iced fruits on order, and honey to drizzle on them. Their state of deshabille\n was a little distracting, especially since she’d slept with most of them at one point or another.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sasha napped in front of one fire, facedown, her upper body cushioned on a pillow, her delectable rounded rear thrust up in the air. Angelique sat\n cross-legged beside her, playing a game of solitaire, a cascade of golden hair obscuring the cards. Fleur and Cat were intertwined, as they so often were,\n hands and mouths busy, though Esha knew they’d gladly make room for her to join them. For a moment, desire rose up in her, thrumming through her body,\n little sparks racing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a common misconception about the demimonde, that their profession left them little actual interest in the acts of love. If anything, Esha had found\n it the reverse—that the more one offered one’s body to the gods, the more the gods rewarded one with veritable floods of desire. There were some among them\n who spent practically all their waking hours fucking, either clients or each other, and she couldn’t blame them for it. Her circle were the most select\n courtesans in the city, at the height of their profession, and they were all rather delicious, in their own ways. Although she wished more of them would\n spend just a little time paying attention to the practicalities of their profession, such as their finances.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This room, for example—it was an indulgent little palace, rivaling a nobleman’s for luxury. Crystal in the chandeliers, carved wood beams overhead,\n hand-painted anaglypta on the walls. Rosamund couldn’t possibly afford it, not on the allowance that Esha knew her lover George gave her. Esha was going to\n have to have a hard conversation with her, some plain talk about what a woman should do if she wanted to have a comfortable life, once her days of pleasing\n wealthy men were past her. Nothing lasted forever, after all. Esha had had one life destroyed already, blasted to blood and ash; she had learned that\nlesson long ago. She didn’t intend to let herself be razed a second time, and there was no reason for her friends to suffer either. If they would just \u003cem\u003elisten\u003c/em\u003e to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rosamund laughed, pulling Esha down onto her lap as she passed, almost making her spill her drink. Not quite. “Come, Esha. That frown on your face will\ngive you wrinkles, and then what will young Hartsholt think? Enough working. The dinner was a huge success, the men are gone—it’s time for a little \u003cem\u003efun\u003c/em\u003e.” She pulled Esha into a sloppy kiss, pressing one of Esha’s hands to her bare breast, which had lost its blouse some time ago. It was a\n lovely breast, Esha had to admit, small, but perfectly shaped, topped with an upturned pink nipple that seemed to beg to be taken into one’s mouth. Esha\n bent down to give Rosamund what she wanted—perhaps a little sugar would help sweeten her disposition, and make the medicine go down easier.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey! What does a man need to do to get some service around here?” A gangly young nobleman had staggered through the doorway, and was now leering around at\n the room. Rosamund sighed, and shifted, and Esha took her cue to stand and let her friend rise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sir, I’m afraid you’ve been misdirected, or at least misinformed,” Rosamund said politely. “This is a private house.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A private house full of the most expensive women in the city! Don’t pretend to be better than you are. I can afford any one of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Across the room, Angelique made an almost imperceptible sign. Rosamund smiled an entirely false smile at their drunken visitor. “Of course you may, sir. As\n it happens, Angelique is without a protector right now. Perhaps you would care to return tomorrow, and meet her with the sort of decorum such a situation\n demands?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t want that one. I’ve had plenty of blondes. What about that girl?” He pointed at Esha. Chilled, she took a step back, into the shadows, bumping up\n against the tapestry that hung on that wall. “I’ve never \u003cem\u003eseen\u003c/em\u003e anyone like her before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rosamund said, “Ah, I’m afraid Esha is not available.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s here, isn’t she? She can work for me tonight. I’ve got plenty to pay her,” he said, jingling a bag of coin at his waist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her tone sharpened. “Sir, I’m afraid you mistake the nature of this place. If you go down the street, to the Rose and Thorn, I’m sure someone there would\n be happy to help you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He drew himself up to his full height, which was a good foot taller than anyone in the room. “You ladies think you’re too good for my money? My father is\n Lord Filisand. I’m a noble of this city—you’re just a pack of fancy whores.” He grabbed Rosamund’s arm, squeezing it tight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha braced herself, one hand going to the pendant that always hung around her neck, whose curved sheath held the dagger that had saved her life once\n before. If she had to use it again, in this room, she was going to ruin Rosamund’s white furs. There were three other daggers secreted on her body, if it\n came to that, but hopefully she wouldn’t need any of them. The lords of this city would not rule kindly on a woman who killed one of their own, even if it\n was in self-defense. Esha did not want to have to leave this land, to start her life over once more. But she couldn’t abandon Rosamund to this thug. How\n long would it take her to get across the room?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At that moment, the guard that Rosamund kept on retainer came to the door. Esha relaxed fractionally, but kept her hand on her hidden blade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sorry, mistress. Call of nature, and I’m afraid milord here knocked the front door off its hinges.” Piotr was blessedly tall and broad, and wore a\n wickedly long knife at his waist. Usually that was enough to deter any potential difficulties. “Now, sir, you don’t really want any trouble, do you? You\n were looking for a pleasant night, an enjoyable time. I’d be happy to show you the way to the Rose and Thorn; I can even offer you a credit towards their\n services . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The noble hesitated, and then, with a grunt, thrust Rosamund away from him, hard enough that she stumbled and fell to the floor. He fixed his eyes on Esha\n and said, “You. I’m going to find you again, girl. In the shops, at the theater, at the jewelers’ . . . I know where your kind go. I’ll be there, waiting\n for satisfaction.” The tall nobleman turned and stormed out of the room, leaving Esha to rush to the aid of her friend.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now that the crisis was over, she could feel the blood rushing through her, her pulse racing with fear and fury. Esha had built herself a lovely life in\n this land—or at least, she’d thought she had. It seemed she would need to take further steps to ensure her safety.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane looked approvingly over the crowded room. She’d decided to hold her musicale in one of the Tremontaine reception halls, but had been a bit concerned\n that her two dozen carefully selected guests would be lost in the larger space. Fortunately, her theme, Music of Distant Lands, lent itself to elaborate\n decor, so she had purchased fabrics from the Kinwiinik, Esha, and Chartil, all in harmonious shades of blue and green, which her people had draped under\n her direction to cunning effect. They’d made the room feel like an exotic, secluded retreat—open enough to hear the music to best effect, but closed enough\n for intimacy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The draperies made for enclosed little spaces in the room, nooks where one might have a bit of semi-private conversation in lowered tones. During the first\n pause in the concert, her guests had used that to good advantage, and during the second, Diane had managed to maneuver the Duke of Hartsholt into a\n secluded corner. He was old enough to be her father, and she was fond of him—but it was his place on the Inner Council that concerned her tonight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hope you’re enjoying the music, my lord?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Eh?” The duke looked flustered. “Yes, it’s fine, fine, Diane. Lovely stuff. Most entertaining.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She frowned delicately, touching a careful hand to his arm. “I chose the last piece especially with you in mind; it is so stirring in tone. With your\n strong Northern blood, I’ve always felt that you had the soul of a warrior.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He smiled. “You flatter me, my dear. It has been a long time since any Hartsholt rode out of the North, sword in hand.” Then the smile gave way to a sigh.\n “Although if my son Bev were to take up the sword, or even turn to gambling, they would make better occupations than the one he currently has.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not really a matter for feminine ears. I’m afraid your excellent sherry has led me to indiscretion. I shouldn’t say anything more.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Whatever was troubling him could be to her advantage. “Nonsense, Hartsholt. I’m no schoolgirl, you know—I’m a long-married woman, and I doubt there’s\n anything you can say that would shock me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well.” He hesitated, and then it spilled out. “It’s embarrassing, is what it is, but the boy has been spending a god-awful amount of my money on women.\n It’s those friends of his—the Nevilleson lad eggs him on, and as for Fitz-Levi—well, no thing costs too much for those who have it to spare. Young Chesney\n is a sensible fellow, tries to rein him in, but Lord Lionel’s had no more luck than I have.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Feminine sympathy, that was the right approach. “I’m sorry to hear that. Young men are so easily led astray.” Something was tickling her mind—something\n Lionel had told her. “I am surprised that Griselda said nothing to me of this when she visited.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My wife’s a proud woman. It’s hardly something she would mention to another lady. She wants to pack Beverley off to the country until we can arrange a\n marriage, but I want him here, so I can train him in his duties. And there’s no need to force him into marriage yet—he’s still young. I don’t mind a few\n wild oats, but at the rate Bev’s going, he’s going to sow a whole field before he’s done!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well.” Diane hoped he didn’t mean that literally. Ah—there it was, the fish that had been tickling in the back of her mind finally rising to the surface.\n She had been in bed, safe in their love nest at Esha’s, with that “sensible fellow” Chesney. Lionel—who’d been doing some far from sensible things to the\n nape of her neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Am I delicious?” she’d murmured, just to hear his groan of assent. “How delicious?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unbearably,” he said. He began working his tongue down her spine. She shivered with it, but managed to tease, “More than Esha?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She knew perfectly well he’d dallied with the foreign courtesan, too. And that it embarrassed him to be reminded of his brief infatuation with the woman.\n “Infinitely,” Lionel said. Ah, his skin was so soft, still! A young man’s lithe body, and she still young enough to attract and appreciate it . . . “I was\n furious when she took up with Bev Hartsholt,” he went on. “But now I see it was only so that I would not be distracted when the loveliest woman in the city\n showed me one inch more of her perfect flesh than I could bear—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The famous incident with her shoulder. Diane smiled. She might as well have bared her bosom at that dinner, from the way Lionel Chesney had reacted. When\n she’d said she was leaving the table to pin her sleeve back up, he’d followed a moment later, and seized both her shoulders and kissed her hard against the\n wall of the hallway. He would have taken her then and there, her skirts up around her waist, like a servant girl on the back stairs—and she might well have\n let him, if they hadn’t been dining at the Perrys’ . . . So it was a good thing he turned out to have a Friend. A Friend who was very Discreet, and would\n not mind if Diane and Lionel met at her house instead. Her dear little house at the foot of the Hill, currently maintained with a full staff of servants,\n fresh flowers every day, and all the best food at her table . . . by a young nobleman with more money than sense.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bev Hartsholt. The Duke of Hartsholt’s son. A spendthrift with the ladies, and she knew which one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \n “My lord. I think I may be able to help you with your problem.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hartsholt frowned. “What could you possibly do? I shouldn’t have troubled you with our family’s dirty linen. Griselda will be furious with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane patted his hand. “No, she won’t. She’ll be delighted when Bev suddenly stops asking for money. She’ll think you’re a genius; and why inform her\n otherwise?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hartsholt chuckled. “You don’t know Griselda.” In fact, she knew Griselda quite well: It was she, after all, who had originally suggested that Diane pursue\n the duchy in her own right. Clearly the Duchess of Hartsholt hadn’t mentioned the fact to her husband; or if she had, he had dismissed it. But now he was\n all ears. “Go on. I’m listening.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have an idea. I can’t guarantee that it will work, but if I can manage to correct young Lord Beverley’s course, I hope that you will agree that I am\n capable of managing other things, as well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He harrumphed. “I know what you want—you have that vote coming up. Well, I’ll be frank with you, Diane—I have my doubts about confirming you in Council.\n It’s not easy, running a large estate, let alone a whole host of them, and I’m not sure a woman is up to the job. My wife doesn’t lack for strength or\n courage, as you know—she’s always dashing about on her horses—but she has no head for management.” He raised a furry eyebrow. “But if you can actually\n manage to rein in my hell-raiser of a son, then I’ll vote for you gladly, in good conscience.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am pleased to hear it, my lord,” Diane said, smiling. “Though I am afraid we must suspend our conversation for now—I hear the musicians tuning up for\n their next piece. I will send you news as I have it. Have faith; I trust that soon your troubles will be over.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \n Hartsholt bowed, and offered her his arm to lead her back to her seat. But before they could take more than a few steps, the door to the room was flung\n open, and an apologetic footman bowed in the last person Diane expected to see.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Mother,” Honora said. “I must speak with you at once.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess the Hand sat cross-legged on the bed, watching intently as her friend Jenny’s needle darted through the fabric of Kaab’s blouse, repairing yet another\n sword-slice with invisible stitches, making it seem as if the fabric had never been torn at all. It was good to have something simple to focus on, to\n distract herself with. After their fight at the chocolate house yesterday, Kaab had found somewhere else to sleep. Tess, on the other hand, hadn’t slept at\n all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That night she’d made a small ball of Kaab’s clothes and curled around it, buried her face in the scent of them, and cried.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hours after dawn had streaked the sky, Kaab finally returned; they had fallen into bed again, as if willing bodies might bridge the divide that hearts and\n minds had balked at. When Kaab went out on some business, it was with a flurry of kisses, but Tess’s heart still ached. Enlisting Jenny’s help in mending\n Kaab’s clothes was a chance for some friendly company, but also a small act of service that might, somehow, help.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could do this yourself, you know.” Jenny’s marigold skirts were spread around her, and she had a variety of pins stuck through her laced bodice, just\n before the fabric met her generous breasts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I could try.” Tess shook her head. “But it would come out looking like a puckered arsehole.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jenny snorted a laugh. “Tess the Hand, who can forge a great lord’s signature so he can’t tell himself if it’s his or not! But you’re scared of a bit of\n fine darning?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess shrugged. “To each her own weapon. Really, Jenny, you’re a saint to lend me your skill with the needle. You can see what Kaab’s sword training does to\n her wardrobe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the woman doesn’t know how to sew, either?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Apparently not.” Tess didn’t want to tell Jenny, who made what living she could with her fine stitches, that among her own people Kaab had servants to do\n that. “Either that, or she just doesn’t care if she goes about in rags. But she’s my protector, Jenny, so I can’t have her looking like a vagrant. And\n besides,” Tess added, aware that she was making too many excuses, unable to stop, “I’d do it for Vincent, so why not Kaab?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Funny,” Jenny said. “I would never have expected you to take up with a sword at all, much less a foreign one. It must be . . . interesting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Was that disapproval in Jenny’s tone? Probably. Riversiders tended to stick to their own. Tess’s old friends were reasonably polite to Ixkaab Balam, but\n she knew they didn’t really understand the Kinwiinik woman. How could they, since Tess herself was in the dark?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When Tess didn’t answer, Jenny continued, “Well, the mending’s no trouble, and the fabric’s a pleasure to work with, truth be told: such soft, fine linen.\n And the color of it!” Jenny’s fair head bent over her work, and for a moment, Tess had the urge to reach out and touch that pretty hair. A few strands had\n worked themselves loose, and she could tuck them back in—ah, no. Tess didn’t actually want Jenny again; it was just frustration with Kaab that even had her\n considering it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She and Jenny had never really suited. Jenny’s skirts were as light as they came, and her heels as round; Tess had come home once too often to find someone\n unexpected in their bed. Tess had broken a few dishes in the course of their final fight, but Jenny had dodged them easily enough, and somehow, they’d\n managed to become friends again after. Jenny was just too good-natured to say no to anyone. Which was convenient when you needed a spot of fine mending\n done. It was an ease to Tess’s sore heart, to spend time with someone who understood her, without words or effort. Would Kaab ever be family to her in that\n way?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A banging at the door below, rattling it on its hinges. Not the knock of a friend. Tess frowned, and gestured at Jenny to be silent. She crept downstairs\n quietly, avoiding the steps that creaked, and peered through the knothole in the wall to see who was outside. Florian stood there, with Shade just a step\n behind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He knocked again, harder this time. “Tess? Most divine Tess, I’m \u003cem\u003ewaiting \u003c/em\u003eout here, waiting for your sweet company . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess’s breath came short. She pressed herself against the wall, hoping there was nothing to signal to the Twins that she was actually home. After more\n banging that seemed to go on forever, Florian frowned and turned away, gesturing for Shade to follow him. When they were safely out of view, Tess crept\n back upstairs, horribly relieved, and furious with herself for being so frightened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jenny glanced up from her mending. “Who was it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Twins,” Tess said shortly. “They’ve been leaning on me to work for them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jenny frowned. “Isn’t that the kind of thing Kaab is supposed to protect you from?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, actually.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The problem was that Kaab just hadn’t been in Riverside long enough; the Twins weren’t scared of her. Vincent’s reputation might have been enough to ward\n them off, but Kaab—Kaab might have to actually \u003cem\u003edo\u003c/em\u003e something to get them to stop.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Speak of the devil,” Jenny said softly, as Kaab walked in the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Greetings, Jenny. It is good to see you again.” Kaab didn’t sound like she meant that at all—she was jealous of Jenny, Tess knew, and honestly didn’t much\n like spending time with any of Tess’s Riverside friends. If it were up to Kaab, they’d spend their days in a little bed bubble, just the two of them—when\n she wasn’t off playing spy for her family, that is. Kaab didn’t seem to understand that Tess had a \u003cem\u003elife\u003c/em\u003e here in Riverside—a life that was now\n under threat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I should get going.” Jenny glanced at Tess with eyebrows raised, and started gathering up her fabric and notions.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, stay,” Tess said sharply. “You don’t have to rush off just because Kaab’s back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is the matter, my maize-flower? Of course your friends are welcome in our home. Why do you sound so angry?” Kaab sounded more frustrated than\n worried. Well, that made two of them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jenny rolled her eyes, which Tess hoped Kaab didn’t catch; that wouldn’t help matters any.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nTess said brusquely, “The Twins were here to see me.” Her heart was still beating a little fast, and her fists kept wanting to clench at her sides. She \u003cem\u003ewas\u003c/em\u003e angry, she realized—angry at Kaab, for not being there, not protecting her, not loving her in the right way, the way that would make\n everything all right again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did they touch you?” Kaab’s hand went immediately to her sword, as if that would do any good now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no. Nothing happened—I didn’t open the door, and they decided I wasn’t home. But something \u003cem\u003ecould\u003c/em\u003e have happened.” She knew that would hurt, a\n small knife in Kaab’s proud heart, and that she was twisting it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am supposed to be your protector.” Kaab looked dismayed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, you are,” Tess said flatly. She was being unfair—Kaab couldn’t be here every second, and it would take time for the foreign sword to build up the\n kind of dangerous reputation that Vincent had. But Tess hated how helpless she’d felt with the Twins at her door. She didn’t particularly care about fair\n right now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My sweet maize-flower! Do you want me to kill them?” Kaab’s hand had gone to the hilt of her sword, as if she were eager for an excuse to draw it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What? No, no.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jenny frowned. “You can’t just go out and kill people for no reason.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well, you \u003cem\u003ecould\u003c/em\u003e, at least in Riverside, but there were consequences. Kaab might be some kind of princess in her homeland, but she had no such\n status here. Unless she killed each Twin in a formal challenge, their friends and allies would come after her, and make short work of her, first daughter\n of a first daughter or not. And even if Kaab could win duels against them both, Tess didn’t want her lover out there offing anyone who might be interfering\n with her business, making it look like she was so vulnerable that the least little threat required such an outsized response. That wasn’t how it worked.\n Kaab just didn’t understand the rules of Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab was frowning now, clearly unhappy that Jenny and Tess were united against her. “No reason?” she repeated. “They try to force you to work for them when\n you don’t wish to. I think that’s a very good reason.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, it’s a reason, but . . .” Tess deliberately gentled her tone. “It’s just not how we do things.” She smiled up at Kaab. “Why don’t you go get us some\n beer, love? Jenny’s almost done here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab looked briefly mutinous, but was also, no doubt, grateful for an excuse not to spend more time with Jenny. “I will do that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “After all, we owe her one,” Tess went on pointedly, “for the lovely work Jenny’s done on your torn shirt: see?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab might be possessive and mercurial, but she did have manners. “Thank you, Jenny.” She made a beautiful bow, a swordsman’s bow, and despite herself\n Tess’s heart jumped in her breast. “This is as fine a restoration of fabric as any I have ever seen. I will go fetch the best of beers for us all, and we\n will celebrate your skill with the needle.” She turned to Tess. “We can talk more when I return; we can make a plan for dealing with these rotten men, a\n plan that is good for Riverside, and good for you. Aunt Saabim always says, ‘A little thought beforehand prevents much pain after.’” She paused. “It is, of\n course, a better sentence in Kindaan.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure,” Tess said, biting back a frustrated sigh. Everything always came back to Kaab’s family. She loved her fiery princess, but sometimes, Tess thought\n her life would be easier without love to complicate it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see that you have learned no manners since you left,” the Duchess Tremontaine said to her daughter. “What do you mean, barging into my musicale, bag in\n hand, like the third act of a melodrama?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lady Honora Tielman Campion looked stonily at her mother. “Say, rather, that I have not forgotten anything. I know perfectly well you would not receive me\n otherwise.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From the floor below, the strains of flutes and viols wafted up; the musicale went on, while the duchess, her guests were informed, was busy welcoming her\n daughter after her exhausting journey from the country.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess took a steadying breath. “I would not receive you? You are my daughter, and this is your home. I only wish you had told us you were coming. I\n would have had your rooms prepared. I’ve had them beautifully redone. Now, sit down, Honora, and take some refreshment.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Honora remained standing. Her bags had been whisked away by the footman, but she still clutched a little reticule in her gloved hands. “You can stop it\n now, Mother. There’s no one here but us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And thank goodness, if you’re going to talk like that.” Diane sat on the velvet chair, and patted the one across the small table from her. Chocolate and\n biscuits had been set out. As though humoring a madwoman, Diane continued her pleasant chatter. “How was your journey? Do sit, darling, and tell me all\n about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She saw with satisfaction that her daughter’s gloved hands were shaking. But she was not prepared for Honora to slam them both down on the table. The china\n rattled; but only the cream drizzled over the edge of its pitcher onto the silver tray.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“Where is my father?”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess poured herself some chocolate, and drank it neat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Will you sit down, Honora? Please? I think you should have some chocolate; you look pale.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nWordlessly, Honora sat, and let her mother pour her out a cup. She closed her eyes when she drank it—\u003cem\u003eAh!\u003c/em\u003e the duchess thought; \u003cem\u003ebetter than anything she’s tasted in a long time. \u003c/em\u003eShe refilled Honora’s cup, added sugar and cream. “There. You’ll feel better soon.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t want to feel better,” Honora said through gritted teeth. “I want to see my father.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well of course you will, Honora; no need to make a fuss.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He isn’t here, so don’t bother trying to tell me that he is. You’ve shipped him off somewhere, and no one knows where. I demand to see him!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane stirred her chocolate with her small gilt spoon. “I cannot make him appear like a wizard’s trick; you said it yourself, dear, he isn’t here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stop doing that.” Honora halted the stirring with one gloved hand, and the duchess tolerated the sharp fingers on her wrist. “Stop using my words against\n me! Where is my father? What have you done with him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’s in the country.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “\u003cem\u003eIn the country!\u003c/em\u003e Where?” What a sharp nose the girl had. And still skinny and flat as a pancake, children or no. “Mother, where is he?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “One of his favorite manor houses. The people there love him. They take very good care of him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her daughter sat there, sharp-nosed, thin-lipped, and stiff, in her unbecoming travel gown. Diane took pleasure in leaning across the table in a rustle of\n lace to place her hand on Honora’s sleeve. “Not tell you? I shall send you in one of our own carriages, as soon as you’re rested and ready to go.” She\n patted the bony arm, and felt it relax almost imperceptibly under her. Good.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How is he?” Honora asked softly. “What’s wrong with him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane sighed. “He’s exhausted. He is . . . not himself.” She put one hand on her forehead, and leaned into it. “I don’t know—perhaps the sight of you will\n do him good.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were tears in her daughter’s eyes as she looked up at her. The one thing they shared, those eyes of grey. Honora had never learned to charm with\n them, they had never sparkled with wit or merriment. Only the color was the same. “What happened, Mother? Is he mad?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know. Nobody knows. It just started one day, for no reason. He couldn’t see what the rest of us were seeing; what he did see, no one else saw. He\n made strange accusations, and soon he couldn’t—” To her surprise, Diane found tears starting in her own eyes. “Soon he couldn’t recognize me!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Oh, Mother!” Honora hugged herself. Whatever roiled in their family, Honora knew at least that the duchess and her father adored each other. \u003cem\u003eAnd he won’t know you from a housecat\u003c/em\u003e, Diane thought. \u003cem\u003eBut you can find that for yourself.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A rattle of applause sounded from below. The musicians wouldn’t stay much longer, and without her, her guests would begin to leave.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rest now,” Diane said. “You must be exhausted. I’ll have your rooms made up, and then you can go lie down.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You needn’t,” Honora said dully. “I’m staying with Josephine Perry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What nonsense!” the duchess said briskly. “You belong right here, in Tremontaine House.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had forgotten the tone that would set her daughter off. Or maybe she’d never really known it—Diane remembered now being startled when she would say the\n simplest thing, only to have Honora go off like a firework. She really couldn’t predict it—but here, when things had been going so smoothly, it happened\n again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do not,” her daughter said tightly, her thin lips even thinner. “I do not belong here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I only meant,” Diane said, “that we are happy to have you—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you? Are you, Mother?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No one could remain seated with a line like that, and Honora didn’t try. She towered gawkily over the chocolate things, still no idea what to do with her\n elbows, and barked hoarsely, like a fishwife: “Try your tricks on someone else, but not on me! You’re not happy to see me, you don’t want me here—you love\n pretending I don’t even exist!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That isn’t true—” It just came out of her; she didn’t even stop to think. She hated the way her daughter could make her do that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then why didn’t you tell me?” Honora pressed the advantage. “Did you think I wouldn’t hear? I still have friends, you know! The whole town says that\n father’s gone mad, but you couldn’t find time to write me that he has to be locked away? My own father, and you didn’t tell me! You didn’t even tell me he\n was ill! How could you do that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Honora was shouting every word that fell into her head. It pulled Diane back from the brink. “Really?” she said coldly. “I didn’t know we meant so much to\n you, your father and I.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Honora gasped, her face an unbecoming blotchy red. “How can you say that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What indication did you give us otherwise?” All ice and steel, now. “Our only child, we raised you in this family to maintain certain traditions—chief of\n which was to uphold the house. We never asked you for anything, until the time came for you to enter the greater world and carry on the line. And did you\n consult us in your choice of bridegroom, the father of our heirs, the author of your future and ours? Let alone ask your father’s permission—is it any\n wonder I doubted your interest in him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How dare you? How dare you say this to me? You do not like my choice of husband, you do not care to see the children, fine! We are well quit of you. But\n they are your grandchildren, and father’s, and the whole world knows it.” Honora was shaking now, shaking so hard that she could hardly stand. “And father\n loves me! He wrote to me when you wouldn’t even recognize my existence— He sent gifts for the children—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I told him to,” Diane said. “I knew he wrote to you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Honora was flushed. She gripped the back of her chair. But none of this could be news to her. “Stop being dramatic,” Diane said, although she knew it would\n set Honora raging. She couldn’t even hear the music from downstairs, now. The whole thing was a disaster. Except for old Hartsholt—god, why was she\n afflicted with these people—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very well.” Unexpectedly, Honora drew herself up with some semblance of dignity. Diane would never understand the girl—woman, now, she supposed. Three\n years ago, her words would have sent her daughter sobbing to her room. “Very well. Tell Tilson to call my carriage. I will go to Josephine’s, as arranged,\n to recover from my journey.” She shivered. “I find I am quite tired after all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As you wish.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When she opened the door, the duchess heard music again, a weird and twisting tune that was meant to sound foreign. Chartili, maybe, in honor of the\n ambassador, everyone’s favorite new arrival.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And then, when I am rested,” Honora continued hoarsely, “I will make plans to see my father.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course, my dear.” The duchess did not embrace her daughter. And Honora did not offer her flushed cheek for even the semblance of a kiss.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane stepped out of the room to give Tilson the instructions herself. They included sending up a very junior footman to help her daughter out and into her\n carriage. If he took ill, it would not discommode the household. The duchess knew the red fever when she saw it. Honora wasn’t going anywhere for a while.\n But that could be her dear friend Josephine Perry’s problem.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha timed her request carefully—Beverley Hartsholt was appropriately sated, but not yet falling asleep.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My lord, I must request your help with a small matter.” She leaned on one arm at his side, trailing crimson fingernails through the small forest of\n curling brown hair on his chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He reached up to run his fingers through the curtain of her black hair, to trace the curve of her cheek. “Anything, my dear. Although please, do not tell\n me that your jewels are insufficient, for I might have to persuade my father to sell a vineyard to afford more of them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha laughed, her hand going to caress the ruby that hung between her breasts—the only thing she wore at the moment. “No, you have been most generous, my\n lord. This is a different sort of matter. There is another lord of this land, young Filisand, who has been causing me some difficulty.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What manner of difficulty?” The duke’s son frowned up at her, looking slightly more awake.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He broke into the home of a friend of mine, and seeing me there, desired me for his bed.” She gestured with one hand at her bare body.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bev smiled faintly. “Well, I cannot blame him for finding you enchanting. But you are unavailable for his bed; you are all mine. Just let Filisand know\n that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha bit back a sigh. It was true that she and Beverley Hartsholt had an exclusive arrangement at present, but that did not mean that she was his property.\n She belonged to no one but herself. None of her other lovers had assumed they possessed her—not even the Dragon Chancellor! She would need to remind her\n young patron of that at some point, but perhaps not now, not when she sought his assistance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I made it clear that I am currently unavailable, my lord. But he persists nonetheless. Nathan Filisand has been harassing me—he haunts my steps in public,\n assails me at every turn. It is becoming impossible to go about my daily business.” It was immensely irritating, in fact, and starting to be a little\n frightening. Yesterday the young man had stalked her from the moment she left her home, following her through the city, and only turned away when she\n entered the gate of a friend’s house, and past the eyes of its watchful guard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bev frowned. “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Call him out. Send your swordsman to defend my honor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hartsholt looked uncomfortable. “I would like to be able to help you, my dear. But Nathan Filisand is an acquaintance of mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha bit her lip. “Can you not reprimand him then? Speak to him as a friend?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lord looked away, his fine features flushing. “He’s not exactly a friend; he would pay no attention to any urgings of mine. The fact of the matter is,\n I owe Filisand rather a large sum of money. A debt of honor. I’ll be able to pay him shortly, once I receive my quarterly allowance, but in the meantime,\n it would simply not look right if I were to call him out. You must see how impossible it is.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well. Clearly, Beverley was not the man she had thought he was; Esha would have to find a way to disentangle herself from him, and soon, though ideally\n with his pride intact. It was smarter to not leave an enemy behind, if one could avoid it. “I see,” was all she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He reached down and patted her thigh. “Just be patient; I’m sure Filisand will get tired of chasing you soon enough. Why don’t you come here, give me a\n kiss—I’ll soon make you forget him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you, my lord. I’m sure you’re right about him. But it is growing late, and I must make my customary devotions in the garden, as is the way of my\n people.” Esha rose from the bed, wrapping herself in a thin night-robe. “I will return shortly; pray wait for me, and I will gladly join you in pleasure\n again.” Bev would be asleep in minutes, no doubt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He murmured reluctant agreement, and she closed the bed drapes behind her, sealing him in. As soon as Hartsholt was out of sight, all softness in her\n vanished. Esha picked up a pair of blades from their wall rack outside the room, and headed down to her garden. It took more than a few moments to compose\n herself sufficiently to begin the ritual sequence, and though she was soon moving freely through the blade dance, her mind did not settle into its\n accustomed tranquility. She wanted to make of her body an offering to the goddess, but the thought of that man, those \u003cem\u003emen\u003c/em\u003e, was infuriating. So\n concerned with their desires, and perhaps more importantly, their pride. Why couldn’t men be sensible, the way women were? She couldn’t imagine the Duchess\n Tremontaine, Lionel’s lover, acting this foolishly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Maybe the duchess could actually be of help here; she had options Esha did not. Set a noble to deal with a noble. Esha would write Diane a letter, give it\n to Lionel to deliver, as Esha herself wasn’t supposed to know the mysterious noblewoman’s identity yet. A cup of tea with a new friend, and a frank,\n practical conversation. Esha did not like owing anyone favors, but perhaps there might be some matter she could help the duchess with, now or in the\n future. Women could be a great help to each other, especially when men failed them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With action in reach, peace finally settled on her, and the dance flowed fluidly through her, the way it should. Moonlight glinted on the twin blades, and\n Esha moved quickly in the night air, her thudding heart and trembling limbs an offering that the goddess must surely smile upon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The pale fingers of the fall moon stretching through Rafe’s window would, under other circumstances, have been calming, serene. But Rafe was in no mood to\n be calmed tonight—not with the taste of Arthur’s lips still on his, the memory of that moment of love betrayed. Oh, William would never know, was past\n jealousy now, but \u003cem\u003eRafe\u003c/em\u003e knew, and that was what mattered. Knew that he had nearly betrayed his love, and for what? Some vain hope that the young\n man might know something Rafe could use against Diane, might offer some hope to his desperate quest?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur knew nothing; he was shockingly ignorant of the woman he worked for. If Rafe told him what she was really like—ah, but what was the point? He would\n just incur her renewed enmity, and crush a young man’s spirit in the process. He should never have started down that road with Arthur—if he hadn’t, he\n wouldn’t be lying here, naked and sweating under the twisted sheets, despite the coolness of the autumnal breeze. Feverish with regret, and sick to his\n stomach with the taste of the young man, cinnamon and clove. Nothing like William—his sweet Will had tasted of peppermint, and his own particular—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was not to be borne, not by mere mortals. The burden of memory was too great, and for a moment, Rafe wished that he might wipe it out entirely. All his\n efforts to find William had failed, and perhaps he was a fool, to cling to hope, long after his friends would no doubt have urged him to give up. Maybe\n that was why he’d let Arthur kiss him, to burn away the memory of William’s lips, his hands, their bodies intertwined. Rafe groaned aloud, and though he\n knew it would only bring a physical release, offering no salve to his soul, his hand slid beneath the sheet. He was about to begin when a knock came at the\n door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe, are you all right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His sister. Hells.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m fine, Simone.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you? “ She opened the door a crack. “I thought I heard you groaning. Are you sad, Rafe? What is it?” She clearly wanted to come in, share a midnight\n communion, the way they had when they were young. Rafe shuddered to think what she’d do if he actually went and told her what was wrong. “Do you want to\n tell me about it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no; it was just a bad dream. I’m fine, really. Go back to bed.” That’s what his life had become, a bad dream, from dawn to dusk. Gods. He shouldn’t be\n here, alone in this room. What he really needed was a drink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The hunting party was finally slowing down. Basil Halliday, in the lead, called back cheerfully to the gathered lords and ladies. “Hot drinks await us, my\n friends!” Lionel was in no need of a hot drink; he was sufficiently warmed by the exercise of cantering through the hills, his eyes fixed on Diane ahead, a\n goddess of the hunt in a fitted riding habit blue as the southern sea on a sunny day. As he rode up to her, he noticed that, under her fetching little\n riding hat, some of her hair had come undone from its elaborate chignon, and he had to fight the urge to pull her to him right then and there, to thrust\n his fingers into her hair and let it all down, a glorious cascade. Her cheeks were flushed pink, her lips an impossible red, begging for kisses. It was\n more than any man should be asked to stand, that they should sit their horses, inches apart, and pretend to be no more than friendly acquaintances.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I must see you privately,” Diane said quietly, leaning just close enough to be sure that only he heard her words. He could feel the heat of her breath on\n his cheek in the cool autumn air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “God, yes.” His heart was thumping in his chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She smiled. “I’ll meet you at Esha’s as soon as Basil lets me get away. You go now—no one will miss you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was safer if they didn’t leave together, of course. And while it stung a little, the implication that he was so unimportant, it was also true. Not for\n long, though—Lionel Chesney meant to be a power in this city, and Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, was one of his routes to that power. Power and sheer\n pleasure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It turned out, however, that Diane had something other than bedsport in mind. Lionel found himself a few hours later perched on the edge of a settee beside\n his lover in Esha’s formal parlor, with Esha across from them in her favorite chair, drinking that strange brew she called tea. It tasted like grass to\n him, no matter how much sugar he added, but he practiced his diplomatic skills, pretending he liked it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha had sprung up, and was now pacing the room, her deep red silks rustling as she walked. They wrapped around her in the most intriguingly eye-catching\n way; a single tug in the right place might lead the entire affair to puddle on the floor. Esha’s midnight hair swung loosely behind her, and gold bangles\n clinked the length of both arms. Lionel knew what she looked like wearing nothing but those bangles, and he dipped his head so that Diane might not catch\n him staring.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha paused in her pacing to say, “I so appreciate your taking the time to meet with me, Madam Duchess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was out at last: During the long conversation, the endless cups of tea, Diane had finally revealed her identity to Esha—though Esha had not seemed the\n least surprised. Already he had learned that this was not the first time the two women had had “a small matter of business” together. And, indeed, Diane\n demurred, “Not at all, my dear. Especially after the assistance you were recently able to offer in the matter of my friend the Duke of Hartsholt’s boy . .\n .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha smiled, looking genuinely amused for a moment. “I was \u003cem\u003edelighted\u003c/em\u003e to be able to assist you. That affair had run its course. When I required\n more gifts, and more again, our young lord soon came to understand he was playing in waters too deep for him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel put on a tone of regret he did not feel. “I did try to warn Bev, but he rarely listens. Always trying to keep up with Fitz-Levi and the others,\n though he doesn’t have the funds for it.” Esha’s dismissal of young Hartsholt had, in truth, afforded Lionel a definite satisfaction; Beverley hadn’t been\n able to afford the glorious Esha either, in the end. Not that it really mattered to Lionel now, now that he was favored by his darling Diane. But it salved\n a tiny sting of wounded pride.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane said, with satisfaction, “His father the duke will be able to keep a tighter rein on him now, especially since his son had fancied himself in love,\n and is now busy being broken-hearted.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In love?” Esha raised one carefully plucked eyebrow. “He never told \u003cem\u003eme\u003c/em\u003e about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The two women smiled at each other with perfect understanding, in a way that Lionel found somewhat unsettling. He was relieved when Esha went on, “I’m\n delighted, milady, to know that my gain was yours as well.” Esha’s brows furrowed in thought. “So now, I hope your renewed strength can serve to help me\n out of my own current difficulty.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane nodded, leaning forward. In the firelight, shadows danced across her delicate features, distracting Lionel with the desire to trace those patterns\n with his fingers. He had heard that it was possible to hire two women, if one had the funds. Diane would never agree, of course, but a man could dream. To\n sink into that bed just up the stairs, with a beautiful woman on either side—one slender and fair, one dark and lush—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane interrupted his reverie: “I believe I understand the situation, as you described it in your letter.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel had passed along to Diane the common attitudes regarding Filisand: an odd fellow, much given to drinking and whoring, even for a youth his age.\n Certainly, when a young noble was fresh up from the country as Filisand was, every lad tended to make a fool of himself—Lionel blushed to think of some of\n the idiocies he’d managed to commit his first year, and prayed that the duchess never heard about them—but Filisand was a particularly bad specimen. No one\n really liked him, but he was free with his money, and his family was good, so he was at least accepted everywhere. Lionel wasn’t surprised to find that he\n was making trouble, and since Filisand had no real friends—and apparently no uncle or cousins to warn him off bad behavior—he was unlikely to stop on his\n own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All this he had told Diane, and the duchess had thanked him, but that was all. Now Lionel listened eagerly as she said, “I believe I may have come up with\n a solution, if Lionel is willing to assist?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He glanced at her, startled. “Me? How can I help?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said, “I have lately had occasion to hire an excellent swordsman, Vincent Applethorpe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel nodded. He’d heard about the fight at Ferris’s party. “But what possible excuse could the Duchess Tremontaine have for challenging a dolt like\n Filisand?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane gave him that warm smile he loved, the one that said he was doing a good job of following her thinking. “Why, none at all, my dear. I do not even\n know the man. But you do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha made an impatient noise. “For Lionel to invent a quarrel with him does nothing to help my situation.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The quarrel need not be invented,” Diane said. “If Lionel were your acknowledged paramour, nothing would be more natural than for him to challenge this\n oaf who persists in refusing to see that you have no interest in him whatsoever.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel risked a look at Esha. The last swordsman he had hired had also been on her behalf, in a way, when he had challenged Bev Hartsholt for her at the\n Fitz-Levi picnic. He blushed. But Esha looked back at him coolly. She’d know all about it, of course. Was it too much to hope the duchess did not?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane went on, “You will hire Applethorpe, of course, and I will take care of his fees. He will be more than a match for any blade of Filisand’s on short\n notice, and so we will consider the matter settled.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lionel, would you?” Esha gazed beseechingly at him, and Lionel was uncomfortably reminded of the brief time he’d spent in her bed. He resisted the urge to\n adjust his breeches. She added, “It would mean a great deal to me—I find this man quite repellent. Even frightening.” She gave a delicate shudder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well . . .” Lionel thought it through. It would be useful if people believed him madly obsessed with Esha; that made it less likely that anyone would\n learn the truth about his relationship with Diane. \u003cem\u003eThat\u003c/em\u003e had to stay a secret at all costs, for the sake of the duchess’s reputation, and this\n might provide additional cover in that regard. On reflection, the scheme would serve all of them quite nicely. “I would be delighted to be of service to\n you.” He smiled at Esha, and was only slightly dazzled by the warmth of her answering smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There is just one problem,” Diane said, frowning prettily. “If the world thinks Lionel is your lover, then you will not be able to easily take up with\n another. And now that you have broken with Beverley Hartsholt, will that be a problem?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha said firmly, “I have savings enough for quite some time; I have no need for another alliance right away. In truth, it would be a relief to take a\n small rest.” She shared a smile with Diane, a womanly smile that made Lionel very uncomfortable. It wasn’t pleasant, being reminded that his time with the\n lovely Esha had been \u003cem\u003ework\u003c/em\u003e for her. Ah, but that was over now, and Diane wanted him only for himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Still,” Diane said musingly, “perhaps you might agree to a small allowance from Tremontaine instead? A token of my regard. In exchange, you might keep an\n ear out among your friends, for information that might be of interest to me. I imagine they have some fascinating conversations, what with one thing and\n another.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha raised an eyebrow. “Indeed they do. And it would be my pleasure to inform you of anything of particular interest there. Your offer of an allowance is\n quite beside the point, dear lady, considering your kindness in lending me the company of this delightful young man.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nonsense,” Diane told Esha. “Let us not count favors back and forth, like merchants haggling at the market. A suitable allowance would reassure me that\n you are in no need. And as for Lionel, well, I’m sure he will enjoy the charade.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course, I will do what is necessary to maintain the illusion,” he hastened to assure her. “At least until the duel is accomplished. Then Esha and I can\n have a spectacular fight—perhaps when I take her to the theater? You do like the theater, I hope?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do indeed,” Esha said warmly. “You may even”—that alluring smile, but was it aimed at the duchess or at him?—“escort me to that thrilling new chocolate\n shop that Lord Beverley was always afraid to be seen in with me. If the duchess approves, of course.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, certainly. Friends should help one another, don’t you agree?” Diane looked up at Esha, her perfect lips curving into the most inviting smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab tugged at Tess’s bodice strings, pulling them a little tighter, so that Tess’s beautiful breasts would be even more gloriously displayed. Her beloved\n frowned at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kaab, what are you doing? I don’t need your help getting dressed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s shoulders stiffened at the rebuke. She needed Tess to be her bright flower today, to charm her family, just as she had charmed Kaab. Lately, it\n seemed like any irritation one of them felt sent sparks over to the other, and then the wind carried them back and forth, cascading, so that soon they had\n a fiery blaze. Or a shouting match. Kaab knew she should use a soft tone, but anxiety prickled down her back, and the words came out more tersely than she\n wanted. “We should leave soon. Aunt Saabim likes meals to begin promptly; she’ll be annoyed if the family has to wait for their food because of us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms in front of her. “I’ve \u003cem\u003ebeen\u003c/em\u003e ready. You’re the one who’s changed outfits three times.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess was right. Why did it always feel as if Kaab were in the wrong these days? She could step more lightly over these cracks if she’d had more success\n tracking down the thieves. But she was failing there, and failing here. All she wanted right now was to go home. Kaab gathered her breath, let it out, and\n then said as calmly as she could, “I’m sorry—I’m just excited to have you meet my family. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to join them for the harvest\n festival, much less bring you with me, my maize-flower.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I’m excited too, truly.” Tess smiled then, finally, and leaned forward to kiss her, soft lips opening beneath hers. For a moment, Kaab wanted to\n abandon all their plans and just sweep her lover onto the bed. But then Tess pulled back, returning Kaab to her senses. “I want to be part of your entire\n life, as you are part of mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, of course.” Kaab was barely hearing what Tess said—they were both ready, they should \u003cem\u003ego. \u003c/em\u003eSwathed in a concealing cloak, she hurried her\n lover out the door, and it wasn’t long before they’d made their way through the streets to the Kinwiinik compound. She wanted to burst through the main\n doors, arms open, but even in her excitement, Kaab hadn’t completely lost all sense of discretion. She had Tess wait with her, watching carefully until she\n was sure they were free of observers, and then took her in discreetly through the back garden gate. The guards were expecting them, and let them pass.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Usually, the sound of the gate clicking shut behind her sent the weight tumbling from her shoulders. But today, her stomach churned with tension. Tess\n looked beautiful, radiant, as always, her red hair a bright halo above her shining face and crisp blue bodice. Surely Kaab’s family would understand why\n she had brought Tess to them? The only way to know for certain was to move forward. No one had ever accused Ixkaab Balam of being a coward, and she wasn’t\n about to start wobbling now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The scent of mole hung heavy in the air, and Kaab’s stomach rumbled in response—three days, it would have taken, to prepare it properly. First roasting the\n chilies: guajillo, ancho, chipotle, being sure to stir constantly over a low fire so as to release the essence without a hint of burning. It had been a\n proud day for young Ixkaab when her mother had finally trusted her to roast the chilies without supervision. Then the turkey broth, long-simmered on the\n bone, added along with toasted strips of tortilla—you couldn’t burn those either, not unless you wanted the wrath of all the aunties to fall on your poor\n head! Then more ingredients: onion, garlic, cumin, tomatoes, tomatilloes, green squash seeds, pine nuts, chiltepin, beans of the cuajinicuil, chocolate,\n and fat from the turkey. Some of the more experimental aunties had started adding cinnamon and cloves after trade opened up with the Xanamwiinik; others\n held firm to their original recipes. So many more steps to follow, soaking and grinding, simmering and blending, to reach this final, redolent result. Each\n step must be done perfectly, with grace and precision. Maybe someday, Kaab could bring Tess here before a festival, teach her how to make the feast dishes;\n she was sure her beloved had the patience to learn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixsaabim and Ahchuleb were already seated, nibbling on roasted corn before the meal was served, but they both rose when Kaab and Tess came in. Kaab made a\n formal bow to them, and then said, “The stars shine upon our meeting.” It sounded very strange in Xanam, but she must remember only to speak the foreign\n tongue, or risk confusing her Tess. “My aunt, my uncle, this is Tess Hocking, the sun of my nights, and my very good friend in Riverside.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Welcome.” Her aunt smiled at them both—a good sign. “Tess, please sit here,” Aunt Saabim said, gesturing to a seat across from hers. Kaab slipped into a\n seat beside her beloved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servants were already moving, carrying out dish after dish to the table, heaped high with the product of days of cooking. A young girl walked with a\n heavy pitcher from seat to seat, carefully pouring out small glasses of anise liqueur, to be mixed with chocolate or strong spirits, as desired.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Uncle Chuleb said, “We are glad you could join us. Kaab has been quite full of praise for your beauty and your talent with the, ah, pen, but tells us\n little about you otherwise. Were you born here in the City?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was, yes. I’m from an old Riverside family; we’ve been there for generations.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servants started dishing out one of Kaab’s favorite dishes, slow-cooked pork, combined with sour orange juice and vinegar to temper the saltiness of\n the meat, topped with onions sautéed with coriander and sugar. Fiery salsa and guacamole accompanied the freshest of tortillas, still steaming. Mounds of\n tamales rose in dizzying variety—so many that Kaab couldn’t decide which to try first. But even while her mouth salivated at the array of scents, her\n stomach churned with anxiety. She couldn’t bring herself to take her first bite—not yet. Not while it was still unclear how Tess would manage among her\n people.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb offered, “Riverside, eh? Your family must be strong indeed, to exist in a place that is so full of dangers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A slightly sore spot, given Tess’s family history—but her beloved moved over that awkwardness with grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My family has learned skills that are of use there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chuleb laughed delightedly. “Such skills! For Riverside, I can imagine what skills!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ahchuleb.” Saabim used his formal name as a warning, and said warmly to Tess, “It is good to have a strong sense of who you are, where you come from. No\n wonder our Kaab finds you such a perfect match for herself!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aunt, please,” Kaab said, her face reddening.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I only tease you, child.” Saabim reached out and patted her hand gently. “You will lose your sense of humor in Riverside, if you aren’t careful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab felt a sharp pang. When was the last time she had laughed? Really laughed? She couldn’t remember. And now Tess was looking down at the food before her\n with a still face, which Kaab could clearly read as masked apprehension. Some of the dishes would be familiar to her by now, but many weren’t—Kaab had\n meant to warn Tess that she had to at least try (and ideally praise!) a little of every dish; otherwise Kaab’s aunties would be offended, since each of\n them had made her specialty for tonight. But thankfully, her beloved gamely started in, tasting and swallowing with every appearance of appreciation, and\n Kaab managed to discreetly slip the spiciest offerings over to her own plate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From there, the conversation flowed more easily—the Balam household had outdone itself, and they were soon stuffed with the most delicious food Kaab had\n had in weeks. As the saying went, it was better to have a tamal in one’s pocket than a feather in one’s hat, and it was easy to like each other with sweet\n flavors on the tongue. Her uncle’s special ale was flowing freely, infused with lime, salt, and a bit of chili paste—an acquired taste, but one her Tess\n seemed to appreciate. It was all going so well, until her aunt asked, “And how is it, living with our Ixkaab? Is she as messy in Riverside as she was\n here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n An innocuous wisp of a question. But Tess’s answer was edged with sadness. “It’s lovely. I just wish I saw more of her than her piles of clothes and\n papers. She is so often away on family business.” A hint of bitterness to that last—more than a hint, actually, and Kaab saw her aunt and uncle exchange a\n look. Kaab rushed to explain, before they misunderstood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The family has required a great deal of my time recently, as you know . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Leaving very little time for me,” Tess said softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab sighed; her beloved should understand this by now. “Well, family is very important to my people . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh my god, Kaab—you think I don’t know that?” Tess snapped. “You only say it practically every single day.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab felt a hot flush of embarrassment sweep up from her liver. Had Tess really said that out loud? It was bad enough that they sniped at each other at\n home, but here? Aunt Saabim bit her lip, as if to keep herself from intervening. Uncle Chuleb frowned at them both.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am sorry if I have offended you,” Kaab said stiffly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who are you apologizing to, Kaab?” Tess asked, her eyes now bright with unshed tears. “Me, or them?” How hard had it been for her, coming tonight? She had\n been reluctant, but Kaab had pushed, hoping that this dinner might bring her beloved and her family together.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab didn’t know what to say in response. It had been a terrible mistake, bringing Tess here, when they had been out of harmony for so long. She should\n have waited until she had reassured her maize-flower of the bond between them, until Kaab had bound ties so warm and strong around them both that their\n hearts were beating as one, their words falling sweet, as if from the same lips . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I did not mean to hurt you, my star.” She said the words softly, with all the intensity she could summon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry,” Tess said, pushing back from the table. “I think I should go. This is your feast, your holiday, and you’ve made it clear that I don’t belong\n here.” She stood, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, her eyes cast down, refusing to meet Kaab’s. “You have more important things to worry about\n than some Riverside \u003cem\u003eoutsider\u003c/em\u003e girl. When that inspector arrives, you’ll need to have your affairs in order.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess!” Kaab swallowed misery, a stone in her throat. Tess knew, surely she knew, that she shouldn’t have said that out loud. She must be so angry . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her uncle half-rose from the table, clearly shocked. “Kaab! What have you been telling this woman?” His voice was loud, carrying, and the murmurs of\n conversation from the rest of the table, from the servants farther away, fell away into sudden silence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab protested, though she knew it would do no good; she was the one who had erred, confiding family matters to an outsider in the first place. “‘This\n woman’ is my beloved, as I am hers! She deserves to know something—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Aunt Saabim was frowning like a stormcloud. “\u003cem\u003eWhat have you been telling her?\u003c/em\u003e Ixkaab Balam, you put everything we’ve worked for at risk! What would\n your mother say?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What does that mean?” Tess demanded, her face gone dark. “You think I’m not to be trusted?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Saabim crossed her arms tightly above her enormous belly. “We are sure you are a fine young woman, but you are not Kinwiinik. Not a Trader. Not a Balam.\n Ixkaab knows what this means. You do not understand—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess shook her head, fine crimson hair flying, glinting in the firelight. Had she ever looked so beautiful as she did tonight? “I \u003cem\u003edon’t\u003c/em\u003e\n understand. Kaab does love me. I know that much.” She didn’t say that she loved Kaab as well. Did she still? Kaab felt as if her heart were being ground\n between two sharp rocks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The worst of it was that Saabim didn’t even look angry now. Just sad. Her aunt took no pleasure in what she did to them here. “Love is wonderful; we are\n happy for you both, that you have found pleasure in each other. Or we would be, if Ixkaab had not forgotten what is truly important.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Love isn’t important?” Tess asked. Her back was ramrod straight, and her fists were clenched at her sides, pressed hard against the fabric of her skirt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is. \u003cem\u003eVery\u003c/em\u003e important.” Kaab wanted to reach out, take Tess’s hand. She couldn’t, with what she had to say next. “But there is more at stake than\n my feelings for you, or yours for me.” The look on Tess’s face was a dagger in her heart. Kaab should just stop talking—but she couldn’t. She had to try to\n make Tess understand, one last time . . . “If you stop loving me, then it is only my world that will end. But I am a first daughter, and I have\n responsibilities that go beyond my own small desires. If I fail my family, many people will fall with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her beloved’s voice was cold as death. “And what would it take, Ixkaab Balam, for your people to consider me family?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab didn’t know what to say. She had hoped that bringing Tess tonight might show her family that Tess belonged here, with them. Instead, this meal had\n only shown how far apart they truly were. Maybe Kaab had always known that, under the surface. Maybe it had poisoned their life together. Was that why so\n many of their hours had been filled with pain and recriminations?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess shook her head. She dashed the tears from her eyes, and turned to Aunt Saabim. “I will keep your secrets—have no fear. We of Riverside; we know how to\n keep a trust.” And then she turned and walked away. Leaving Kaab standing alone, the last faint traces of sweet corn cakes turned to ashes under her\n tongue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nKaab and Rafe exchanged notes on the thefts plaguing both their families, but Rafe got no closer to finding Will. Diane hosted a spectacle as part of her campaign to be named duchess in her own right, forcing Vincent into a confrontation with his past in the process. After an argument with Tess, Kaab contemplated the meaning of home and the consequences of her divided loyalties.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Mary Anne Mohanraj\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.93","slug":"tremontaine-s2e06","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E06.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101148_TremontaineS02E06.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101148_TremontaineS02E06.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101148_TremontaineS02E06.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e002bbada6e25bc06d1d60","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":7,"title":"The Duchess Gambit","released_date":"2016-11-30T12:56:32.504+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Diane faces an unexpectedly skilled adversary.","byline":"Joel Derfner","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e07.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-11-30","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n Games of skill or chance, like everything else on the Hill, went in and out of fashion with all the urgency of a girl already out for a year and not yet\n wed. At present, Spin had begun a revival after a decade of disregard, and Two Across was enjoying a popularity it had not seen in living memory (although\n Lady Ferris’s ancient grandmother claimed her older sister had taught it to her lest her first season be a total disaster). Abandon Me, Impossible, Lovers’\n Quarrel—it was a fair bet that, on any given afternoon, at least one noble house would be host to men and women feigning unconcern for hours at their gains\n and losses in rounds of these games.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Games of skill, games of chance, Diane de Tremontaine excelled at all of them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But among the dizzying variety of options, one captured her imagination far more than the others, allowed her the fullest use of her considerable talents:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shesh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a game, she found, uniquely suited to her temperament. It left nothing whatsoever to happenstance. It required forethought, vision, and strategy. It\n required confidence and equipoise. It required an ability to dissemble.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And the willingness to lose a battle in order to win the war.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Melinda Lassiter, alas, possessed all these qualities in abundance except the last.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was a mistake, I fear,” Melinda said to Diane, not quite containing her glee, “to surrender that stag.” She swept her wizard to the far corner of the\n board and toppled a white peon. Diane’s remaining pieces looked quite forlorn amid the damask and mahogany of the Lassiter sitting room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane found Lady Melinda fascinating. She had been married to the Raven Chancellor for just over a year, during which time Diane had witnessed a number of\n women enlighten her, concern in their voices, with the information that she was neither as handsome nor as young as Ranulph’s first wife. As far as Diane\n could make out, Lady Lassiter brushed off these slights as one brushes off a dog’s attempt to steal one’s dinner: That is, she found them irksome in the\n extreme, but one could hardly blame a dumb beast for being true to its nature. When it became clear that shesh was to be the game at the center of the\n coming season, however, Melinda had obviously glimpsed an opportunity; her shesh game, as Diane recalled from their few matches together, had always been\nvery, very good. When Ophelia Argent, at the Galings’ season’s-end musicale, remarked in a thundering whisper that there did not in fact seem to be \u003cem\u003eany \u003c/em\u003eway in which the current Lady Lassiter proved a match for the previous one, Melinda made her a very public wager that she would reign\n undefeated this season. The loser, they agreed between them, was to attend this year’s Swan Ball in the gown the other had worn to last season’s ball, for\n all to murmur of behind their fans for weeks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So the stakes to each game Melinda Lassiter played this afternoon were high indeed, and Diane did not doubt that she was pleased by the growing heap of\n slain ivory beside her, chancellors and dragons and stags all fallen victim to her keen mind and terror of being forced to appear at the Swan Ball in\n yellow tulle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the duchess guarded her own hoard of polished ebony and, though it was smaller than Melinda’s, it had been just as strategically acquired. Lady\n Lassiter had yet to make a mistake, but even the best players can falter. “I feel certain that you are right,” sighed Diane, moving her chancellor two\n squares forward, the ivory hard and reassuring under her fingers. “But what is a woman to do in the face of such a strategist as you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are too kind,” said Lady Lassiter, moving a peon forward. “But at least you conduct yourself with a grace sadly lacking in other opponents.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was rather unsubtle; talk of Melinda’s recent match against the Duke of Karleigh, which had been notable almost as much for Melinda’s skillful play as\n for the duke’s hideous behavior, had finally begun to die down, and Diane found it unseemly to ride triumph farther than it would carry one. Nevertheless,\n she would use what she was given.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is you who are kind,” said the duchess, considering the board. “Poor players ought to be graceful losers. They could learn much from us—in many arenas,\n in fact. It will not surprise you, I am sure, to learn that at the Perry dinner, while you basked in the attentions of the Crescent Chancellor, I was being\n subjected to a colloquy with the Duke of Karleigh that managed to be simultaneously both the crudest conversation I have had this season and the most\n tedious.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lady Lassiter put a hand to the deep blue silk covering her breast, gratifyingly appalled. “So boorish!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Indeed. But I feel sure you will understand my discomfort, Melinda, better than most. First, Karleigh was uncouth enough to speak to me of my William,\n with his terrible state of exhaustion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?” Their moves on the board were slower now, further between, the casualties fewer. Melinda Lassiter was a worthy opponent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Karleigh had the gall to suggest that William’s state ought to be considered permanent.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Melinda gave a gasp that Diane found quite satisfying. “How \u003cem\u003edare \u003c/em\u003ehe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane shook her head, blonde ringlets tickling her ears and brushing the lavender charmeuse that graced her shoulders. “Oh, that was far from the worst of\n it, dearest! He even went so far as to propose that, rather than allowing the Inner Council to appoint little David as William’s heir—such a beautiful boy,\n my grandson—\u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003eought to petition them to make me Tremontaine in my \u003cem\u003eown \u003c/em\u003eright!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“No!”\u003c/em\u003e\n And there it was: Melinda, whether from inattention or lack of vision, moved a peon when she should have moved her chancellor. A fatal error. The only\n question that remained was how long it would take her to understand that she was doomed. Not long, Diane suspected.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But yes!” Diane leaned forward in her chair and moved a peon, exposing her dragon. “I begged him to be silent, but he was pitiless. Next, having reveled\n in indelicacy bordering on rudeness, he turned to monotony and began an astonishingly stultifying explanation, in minute detail, of the mechanics of the\n Inner Council procedure by which the thing might be accomplished.” Lady Lassiter gasped appreciatively. “Then back to vulgarity. He told me he had already\n been brazen enough to speak with several members—Galing and Hartsholt and Arlen, it was all so detestable—and that they all supported the idea!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Melinda raised a shapely eyebrow. “Every time Karleigh seems to have reached the height of indecency, he demonstrates that there are in fact higher reaches\n of which one has never even been aware.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He does, indeed. Do you know, he said he’d even approached \u003cem\u003eyour \u003c/em\u003ehusband?” Diane looked very intently into Lady Lassiter’s storm-blue eyes. “I\n wonder what Ranulph could possibly have said when confronted with such a proposal.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The wife of the Raven Chancellor held her gaze for a few moments and then looked away toward the harp that languished mercifully silent in the corner.\n “That, my dear Diane,” she said, shaking her head firmly, “I cannot tell you.” She looked at the board and succumbed to the temptation offered by Diane’s\n defenseless dragon. “Ranulph and I have an agreement: I never discuss politics with him, and he never discusses domestic affairs with me. It is the secret\n to our happiness.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane nodded and deployed her stag. “A wise arrangement on his part,” she said, “for I am quite certain that your beauty could sway his resolution on any\n business to which you chose to address yourself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps,” said Lady Lassiter, refusing to meet the duchess’s eyes as she slid her wizard three spaces over. “But, as I say, it is not to be.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess took Melinda’s hand and pressed it lightly, thrilling at the touch of warm, soft skin. “It is no matter,” she said. “You and Ranulph must\n remain forever the perfect couple.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then, without releasing her hostess’s hand, she struck, briskly moving her duchess three spaces forward, where it stood bright against the dark square on\n which it rested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The blood drained from her opponent’s cheeks as from the body of a swordsman left for dead in the street.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For only now did the Raven Chancellor’s wife see it, how she had been bearded and vanquished in her own house. Melinda’s next move would be her peon, and\n then Diane would take Melinda’s remaining stag with her wizard, and so on, ineluctably, to the end seven moves later. Diane’s wizard would threaten\n Melinda’s dragon—a threat Melinda would be able to avert in no other way than by sending her stag to the dragon’s defense.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Which would leave a square open in the eighth rank. And they were playing by Lord Sanditon’s rules, which meant that, should Diane choose to move her peon\n into that empty, forlorn square, it would be promoted at once.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n To the rank of duke.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At which point Melinda’s loss would become inevitable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Melinda reached forward with a trembling hand and moved her peon one square forward, as she must. Diane surveyed the board, a puzzled look on her face.\n “My,” she breathed. “I am certainly in a bind. I confess I am quite unable to perceive what my next move ought to be.” Her hand hovered over her wizard and\n she looked into Melinda’s eyes. “If only Ranulph were here, he might tell me his position on the matter! But I cannot know. Ophelia Argent, I dare say,\n looks more likely by the moment to be attending this season’s Swan Ball in your green brocade.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A moment in which only the sound of Lady Lassiter’s breath could be heard. Another.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wonder, Diane,” said Melinda carefully, “whether you have truly considered the merits of Karleigh’s suggestion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s brow rose almost imperceptibly. “Pray, continue.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Coarse as it was, and ill-timed, to be sure, the idea of your assuming the title of Tremontaine might not be entirely without sense.” Melinda’s words were\n too quick and too loud. “Only until William’s health is improved, of course!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s gentle murmur was an implicit rebuke. “Do you truly think so?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Melinda spoke more quietly. “Not only do \u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003ethink so,” she said, sitting up, “but I am convinced that Ranulph is of the same mind.” Diane tilted\n her head politely. “Or will be, once I have spoken with him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But that would be discussing politics with him, no? I would not have you endanger the perfection of your marriage merely to satisfy my idle curiosity!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lady Lassiter shook her head in fervent reassurance, her jaw visibly tight. “Nor would I. But this is a matter of some social consequence. He always\n appreciates my sensibility where that is concerned.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah.” Diane placed her hands on the table, the lace of the cloth delicate against her skin. “Perhaps I was hasty in rejecting Karleigh’s idea so out of\n hand.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think, duchess, that you were.” Melinda nodded enthusiastically. “In this case—surely in this one case only!—Karleigh is in the right and you, as much\n as it pains me to say it, are in the wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane took her time, relished the silence. “If you truly think the Raven will agree with you . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Melinda’s voice was fervent. “Nothing is more certain.” She watched Diane’s hand. She did not exhale.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In that case,” said Diane, moving her hand away from her wizard and reaching instead for her chancellor, “I will let myself be guided by your good\n counsel.” She moved the chancellor to shield her wizard. As soon as she released the piece she emitted a tiny gasp. “But I see it now, too late! That was\n exactly the wrong thing to do! I should have moved my wizard!” She looked up at Melinda, a sad smile on her face. “You will end this season, I believe, in\n triumph.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As you wish, Diane.” The color was returning to Melinda’s cheeks, but her voice was not entirely steady. “I think, however, that the same is true of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab didn’t know why she hadn’t thought to do this earlier. It made her feel so much \u003cem\u003ebetter\u003c/em\u003e. The fight with Tess, the fight with her family—the\n pain these had caused her wasn’t \u003cem\u003egone\u003c/em\u003e, exactly, but it had \u003cem\u003efaded\u003c/em\u003e. No—not faded. It had simply been . . . wrapped in warmth. A\n good-humored, forgiving \u003cem\u003ewarmth\u003c/em\u003e that made her feel so \u003cem\u003eunderstood \u003c/em\u003ethat she didn’t even \u003cem\u003eneed\u003c/em\u003e to be forgiven. She had not felt this\n way since before her mother died.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent, on the other hand, seemed to be taking a perverse joy in mistaking her meaning. She lifted her mug to her mouth. “No. You do \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003esee. She\n is \u003cem\u003eso beautiful\u003c/em\u003e.” She drained the mug and slammed it down on the table.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then, like a thunderclap sent from Ahkin of the Waves, she understood: Vincent needed to drink more!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But—they were at the Gilded Cockatrice, where people \u003cem\u003ecame \u003c/em\u003eto drink more! It would be an easy thing for him to do! She opened her mouth to tell him\n this, and to tell him how happy she was, but her tongue, which had somehow grown as thick as a temple door, prevented her from articulating these thoughts,\n which was a shame, because they were important thoughts. \u003cem\u003e“So beautiful.”\u003c/em\u003e There! \u003cem\u003eThat \u003c/em\u003ewas easy to say! And so very, very true!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, Kaab, you think Susan is beautiful. You’ve said so five times, and if the bell has struck two in the afternoon, I live on the Hill.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Her skin, so exotic, so pale, the color of—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no,” said Vincent, holding up a hand. “Let me guess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right.” Kaab giggled. He would \u003cem\u003enever \u003c/em\u003eguess!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The color of ant eggs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But—! “Xamanek’s light, how did you know that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lucky guess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent was truly astonishing sometimes. He had never tasted the food she missed so much, the yam and coconut pastries, the pine nuts in honey her mother\n had always served at her Name Day feasts! Had never walked the cliffs of Uaxactún, never ridden through the stone cities of Mirador, never climbed the high\n mountains of Munyal. It was so sad, so very sad. “Vincent,” she said, because she cared. “You are—” But here was Betsy walking by the table, Betsy with her\n maize-colored hair and her eyes like the evening sea. Wait, what had she been about to say? It could not have been as important as how she felt about Betsy\n in this moment. “Vincent, look at her! She is \u003cem\u003eso beautiful\u003c/em\u003e!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought that was Susan.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wished she could make him understand. “Yes! \u003cem\u003eBoth\u003c/em\u003e of them! They are both so \u003cem\u003ebeautiful\u003c/em\u003e!” She raised a hand to Betsy and found suddenly\n that it was difficult to sit up. Luckily, the table at which she sat was exactly the right height for her to lean on, and very stable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent was looking around the room. “Where \u003cem\u003eis \u003c/em\u003ehe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where is who?” But now her bench had somehow grown very narrow, so narrow that it was almost impossible to keep herself balanced on it. As she began to\n slip, Vincent, wonderful Vincent, generous, kind, talented Vincent, grabbed her arm and kept her from falling. As he pulled her up, she leaned back,\n enjoying the feeling of being held up by another. “Betsy!” she called. “Another one of your delicious, fine beers!” To think she had once compared this\n divine ambrosia to piss! What a fool she had been!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And how many is that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How many what?” Vincent could be so cryptic sometimes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How many mugs of ale.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nWhat a silly question! “That is not what is important, Vincent. What is important is that you are a dear, true friend. A dear, true friend who \u003cem\u003eunderstands \u003c/em\u003eme. Who knows what is \u003cem\u003eimportant\u003c/em\u003e. Who has ordered his \u003cem\u003eplior—\u003c/em\u003ehis \u003cem\u003epriolities\u003c/em\u003e properly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, Kaab.” She reached across the table to stroke his face, missed, tried again, yes, there, there—yes! His skin was so pink, so soft! Almost as soft as—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But now there was, inexplicably, another beer in front of her. How well Betsy knew her! She hoisted the mug and drank deep.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not like my family. Not like Tess. She is munifice—no, magnificent. She is magnificent, but she does not understand. She wants to be part of my family,\n but she does not understand what family means. My family, too, is manifig—manici—my family is \u003cem\u003egood\u003c/em\u003e. But they are all acting so strangely, Tess and\n my family. I did nothing that Aunt Saabim did not do when she told her family that she had chosen Chuleb as her beloved. She brought him to dinner at the\n family home, and after they had drunk atole with honey she spoke the words. Though we did not even get far enough into dinner for me to speak them! They\n are beautiful words, Vincent, so beautiful. ‘This is the woman I choose in the sight of the gods as my evening star, more precious to me than all the other\n four hundred siblings.’ But they sound even \u003cem\u003emore\u003c/em\u003e beautiful in Kindaan. I would say them for you, but you would not understand them.” She grabbed\n his arm, lest he mistake her meaning. “Not because you do not understand love! You understand love, Vincent. You are possibly the only person in my life\n who does. Perhaps you understand \u003cem\u003efamily\u003c/em\u003e less, for people here have ricidu—diriculous—people here have stupid, bad ideas about family. And your\n food is tasteless mush. Your food is terrible. But still, that is not why you would not understand the beautiful words I spoke about my love. You would not\n understand because you do not speak Kindaan. It is a pity.” Inspiration struck. “Vincent! I could teach you!” But she had talked too much, and now her\n throat was dry. She remedied the situation. “Why is everyone angry with me? Can you explain it? I cannot.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” said Vincent—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was so handsome! “You are so handsome!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you. Let’s review what happened. You took Tess to dinner at your family’s compound. You explained that—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“You are so wonderful. Do you know that? It is important to me that you know what a wonderful friend you are. What a wonderful \u003cem\u003eperson \u003c/em\u003eyou are. \u003cem\u003eYou \u003c/em\u003eare not angry with me. \u003cem\u003eYou understand\u003c/em\u003e.” And now she felt so overwhelmed with sadness and love and gratitude that she began to weep.\n “My family does not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was true! Why was everyone so angry with her? Tess was refusing to speak to her entirely, even though Kaab had paid her the highest honor it was\n possible for a Kinwiinik daughter to pay. Saabim had waited days to respond to her latest missive, and her note had been as one written to a distant\n cousin—cool, lacking in the endearments she had always used. No longer was Kaab “little bee.” What had she done wrong? What had she—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Someone sat down next to her, and for some reason she was now falling over. But a hand grabbed her, soft and white and ink-stained, and kept her on the\n bench. Rafe! She was surrounded by warmth, and by friends! “Finally,” said Vincent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Forgive me,” said Rafe, and put an arm around her. Because he \u003cem\u003eunderstood.\u003c/em\u003e She felt so \u003cem\u003esafe\u003c/em\u003e, so \u003cem\u003eloved\u003c/em\u003e, like a kinkajou\n surrounded by its den mates. But Rafe had more to say. “My father was so eager to increase the guard at our warehouses that I only had to\n shout at him for the better part of the morning to accomplish it.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She collapsed onto the table, and though she couldn’t laugh heartily—she wasn’t sure why—she gave a great smile. Then she sat up again with a jerk. “Rafe!\n My friend! My dearest, dearest friend!” Wait—she didn’t want Vincent to think—“You, too, Vincent Applethorpe, are my dearest friend! You are \u003cem\u003eboth\u003c/em\u003e\n my very dearest friends!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Horned God’s balls, how much has she had?” said Rafe. Rafe did not understand family, either. Xanamwiinik were so stupid about family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That does not matter!” Perhaps if she explained. “The only thing that matters is \u003cem\u003efamily\u003c/em\u003e. Because \u003cem\u003efamily\u003c/em\u003e is \u003cem\u003elove. \u003c/em\u003eBut they are\n the same thing, are they not?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not,” said Rafe, “in my experience.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent stood up. “My challenge awaits.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Kaab didn’t want him to go! “No!” she exclaimed. “Do not go!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nHe took her hand, squeezed it. “Don’t worry, I won’t stretch it out for too long before I blood him.” He looked at Rafe, which was so curious: He was \u003cem\u003elooking \u003c/em\u003eat Rafe, but he was squeezing \u003cem\u003eher \u003c/em\u003ehand. How could that be? He continued. “Wouldn’t want you risking your virtue in Riverside just\n to get her back home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I highly doubt that, by the time you return, I will be in any state to care a fig about whatever tattered semblance of virtue I may once have possessed. I\n intend to catch up to Kaab as soon as my throat and guts will allow. Whether either of us makes it home today is a matter up for serious disputation.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eHome\u003c/em\u003e. But she had no home. Nobody wanted her. Not Tess, not Saabim. “Vincent!” she said. “Can I move in with you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Be my guest,” said Vincent, and then he was gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Betsy!” called Rafe. “Another round.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Betsy! She is \u003cem\u003eso beautiful\u003c/em\u003e!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But how, love, did you know you were going to beat her at shesh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel had talent, Diane thought as his fingers intertwined with hers, but it needed refining. “The only point in asking a question to which one can deduce\n the answer,” she said, “is to make another think one a fool. I feel confident that such is not your current aim. Or am I mistaken?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He grimaced. “And again you shame me!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane lay on her back, eyes toward the ceiling, while one finger twirled itself in her golden hair; he was on his side, his head held up by one hand,\n gazing at her in wonderment. Their free hands toyed with each other on the counterpane. She had come to like Esha’s little house a great deal: comfortable,\n quiet, discreet, with a lovely garden. Not a house Diane would want to live in—there were not nearly enough windows for that, and the ceilings were far too\n low—but for her particular purposes, the height of the ceilings was irrelevant, and the fewer windows the house had, the better.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me try again, then,” he said, and fell silent for a few moments. “You are a better shesh player than she is, but you have found it convenient not to\n let her know that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A shy smile came to his lips. “And if, by some unlucky chance, you had not threatened to win the game, you would have declared yourself so delighted with\n your morning that you insisted she call upon you tomorrow to pay you the honor of a rematch.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She tapped him playfully on the nose. “And again well done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His brow creased. “But I still don’t understand why you went through the Raven’s wife rather than dealing with the Raven himself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How like a man you are.” Her eyes traveled over the wall hanging, brilliant in bright blue and purple silks, with a pattern whose intricacies even she\n could not follow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He laughed. “Would you prefer me otherwise?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She kissed him. “Perish the thought. But you think, as do all men, that force and directness are the only way to accomplish things. These are not the sole\n tools available to you. Indeed, they are not available to women at all. We must achieve our ends through other means.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It wasn’t only the house that made Diane feel comfortable. There was a way in which Diane understood Esha, as she herself felt understood. Oh, she would\n never go so far as to use the word \u003cem\u003etrust \u003c/em\u003eto describe what lay between them—but there were more important things, after all, than trust.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what are those means?” asked her lover.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Again, a question to which you already know the answer. How did I bring the Crescent around?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You made him think it was his duty to support your claim to Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And?”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You let him believe he would control you when you had it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very important.” She put one finger up, to keep track. “And the Duke of Karleigh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You played upon his prejudices and your blood. You portrayed yourself as the only alternative to circumstances he would find disastrous.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another finger. “Hartsholt?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You freed his son from the clutches of the villainous courtesan who was sucking him dry.” A more experienced man would have accompanied this utterance\n with a less impish grin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She found herself glad he was not a more experienced man. A third finger, and she stroked his cheek with all three. “What do the three have in common?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Galing wants more control over the voice of the Council; you offered it to him. Hartsholt wanted a way to stop his son leaking money; you gave it to him.\n Karleigh wants a land populated by no one whose ancestors did not wield power here five hundred years ago; you threatened him with the alternative, and he\n crumbled like wet chalk.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very, very good.” She had chosen well. “So what, Lionel, is the secret to power?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I believe, based on a consideration of the evidence you have laid before me, that the secret to power lies in first divining what a man wants, and then\n finding a way to give it to him.” Ah, the boy did have promise. “Or, I suppose, to withhold it from him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, well done! You will not need me to lead you through it next time.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane, you are magnificent!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She toyed with the end of the strip of silk that fastened her robe. “I could hardly insult you by demurring.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He frowned; the expression was truly charming on him. “But why did you not simply divine what the Raven wanted, rather than approaching his wife?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I went through Melinda instead of Ranulph because he is, unfortunately, opaque to me. When I flirt with him, he does not flirt back. When I gossip, he\n evinces no more than a polite interest. When I pique his vanity, or what I believe to be his vanity, he fails to notice. All of which tactics I would\n admire greatly, were he employing them to gain any appreciable end. But no, he seems simply not to be \u003cem\u003eaware\u003c/em\u003e of the machinations that are the\n life’s blood of the City. He does not appear to \u003cem\u003ewant \u003c/em\u003eanything. And this makes him invulnerable to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But not,” Lionel said, “to her.” He yawned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Exactly.” She struggled not to yawn herself. Failed. Luxuriated in it. Yes, she liked Esha’s little house a great deal. “I am not proud. It matters not to\n me how he falls or to whom, so long as he falls to someone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And Arlen?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She sighed. Arlen. The truth was that Arlen was the only man in the City who frightened her. “Arlen and I have . . . an understanding.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel closed his eyes. “Which I know means that you wish to say no more of him at present, a wish I will honor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She kissed him, a long, lingering kiss, his tongue brushing her lips. A shiver of delight. “As courteous as you are handsome.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the Dragon?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She kept herself from stiffening. “The Dragon I meet tonight, and I will keep my own counsel about him, if I may.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I would be a knave not to allow it. But”—and here a sudden concern filled his voice—“your plan is incomplete.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. For it appears that there is one man whose wants you have neglected to satisfy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She chuckled, ran her hand down his side, found that he had spoken truly. “How thoughtless of me,” she said. “Especially since those wants are so\n pressing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent didn’t \u003cem\u003ehate \u003c/em\u003ethe Middle City. It was perfectly pleasant, with its respectable people going about their respectable business as they walked\n the respectable streets between the respectable buildings.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But he never felt comfortable there. It was too safe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Riverside was full of people who’d just as soon stab you as greet you, and some sooner. Up on the Hill, meanwhile, they stabbed you \u003cem\u003ewhile \u003c/em\u003ethey\n greeted you, and the sweeter the greeting the deeper the wound. In the Middle City there just wasn’t enough stabbing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As a result, whenever Vincent walked from Riverside to the Hill, as he was doing at the moment, he spent the middle of his journey on edge. His senses, so\naccustomed to violence and danger lurking in every direction, picked up nothing, which they interpreted to mean that whatever lay in wait for him, \u003cem\u003ehe couldn’t see it\u003c/em\u003e, and the feeling drove him almost mad. Like right now. He couldn’t sense a single threat, and it frightened him. Rafe—poor,\n heedless Rafe—would have been able to amble along all unawares. Even Kaab would have assessed the situation, decided there was nothing to worry about, and\n continued on her merry way. Vincent shuddered—the hair on his arms was standing on end.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He frowned, kicked a pebble, watched as it skittered crookedly down the street, coming to rest near a group of men whose very sobriety made him\n mistrustful, their faces dour faces and their jackets dark and their eyes narrow. He was relieved to turn a corner and be shut of them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As he drew closer to the Hill, however, he grew calmer, allowing the stillness that was at the center of swordsmanship to quiet his suspicions: Who would\n his opponent be? His strengths? His weaknesses? How many spectators? He had no need for the answers, of course. That was the blessing of the sword: Every\n mystery unfolded itself at exactly the right moment. He would know his opponent soon enough. He allowed the breath to flow through him, checked carefully\n for knots in his muscles, ran through his—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent Applethorpe.” The voice was so soft it shouted, so sweet it stung, filled his body, banished the calm that had overtaken him, replaced it with a\n fluttering in his chest that he could not name. He stopped in his tracks. The scent of lemon and frankincense filled his nostrils. He suddenly grew very\n interested in the range of colors of the cobblestones beneath his feet. Slate gray. Dark brown. Ash. Dappled. Tan.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the Seven Hells. Of all the ways to get to the Hill, he had managed to select a route that took him directly past Ambassador House.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He kept his eyes resolutely on the cobblestones. “Reza.” He, too, could roar in a whisper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What he couldn’t do, it seemed, was move from the spot where he stood, no matter how hard he tried.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do not wish to delay you. May I walk with you?” The ambassador spoke in Chartili.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure.” Vincent’s tongue reached for the familiar vowels and sibilances it had not spoken in a year—oh, how much longer it felt!—shaped itself to them as\n if it had come home after a long absence. Heat filled his belly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They walked for a while, Vincent unwilling to look at the man to his right. He didn’t need to. He knew what he would see if he met the ambassador’s gaze.\n And he knew what it would cost him to see it. Then: “May I assume that you are on your way to a duel?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Assume what you want.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The silence was deafening. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have not responded to my letters.” No reproach in the voice, but he felt it all the same.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You sent letters?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A sigh. “Let us not play at this game, Vincent.” Vincent said nothing. “Would you be more inclined to favor me with a response if I remarked upon the fine\n weather?” A touch of pique, finally. It wounded Vincent worse than any sharp Chartil tach ever had. \u003cem\u003eDo not look at him.\u003c/em\u003e But his restraint, however\n valiant, did no good. His eyes were firmly on the street, but what he saw was lacquered leather armor, black, painted with red lions, wooden floor tiles in\n the shapes of stars, blue and gold hangings, a bench carved into a wall, a pile of feathered blankets in the soft night. He tasted wine, light and cool.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza sighed again. “Very well. I see that today is not the day on which we are to speak as we were once wont to do. But sooner or later, as your people\n say, that day will come.” Vincent knew the next words he would hear. “And it will be sooner.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The wafted scent of lemon and frankincense began to fade, the soft footfall to recede behind him. Vincent exerted all his will not to follow, almost\n failed, almost, then finally, finally, he spun around, looked up, inhaled as if to cry out.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the figure was gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent bit his lip, hard, savage. Stalked, unseeing, to the Hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess had told him several places where he might look for his mark, but searching turned out not to be necessary; the tall, lanky noble popinjay in\n showy red strutting through the street in front of him, a laughing lightskirt on his arm gazing up at the clouds, matched Diane’s description of Filisand\n exactly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am Vincent Applethorpe,” he barked, too forcefully—a challenge issued in anger was a challenge lost—but unable to help himself. Alarm filled the woman’s\n eyes, amusement the boy’s. A stripling, made even younger by his own self-satisfaction. “I bear a challenge for Lord Nathan Filisand, to fight to first\n blood.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The stripling’s cheeks flushed. “Who issues this challenge, and why?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lord Lionel Chesney, for the honor of Esha Jayasuriya.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Filisand laughed. “That doxy? Honor? I shall have to box Lionel’s ears for silliness when I see him.” He called to a waif who had stopped and was watching\n the exchange avidly. “Be a good lad and go fetch a swordsman from my house, would you? The third in Middleton Lane.” The boy scowled and ran off. “You will\n do me the courtesy, I assume,” the lordling said to Vincent, “of waiting until I have a swordsman about me to claim the challenge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The only acceptable answer was \u003cem\u003eyes\u003c/em\u003e; that was the only answer anybody ever gave. But somehow Vincent could not give it. He smelled lemon and\n frankincense. “I will not,” he found himself saying, his throat tight. “Do you accept the challenge?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He heard gasps from the onlookers gathering to watch the fight. Filisand’s eyes bulged and his mouth worked silently. The lightskirt paled. “I see,” said\n Vincent, as mockingly as he could manage. “I’ll tell Lord Lionel that you have refused his challenge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I have no sword!” There was something very satisfying about the youth’s sputter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent’s lip curled. “What’s that on your hip, then?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know perfectly well this is decorative.” There was a tremor now in Filisand’s voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?” Vincent filled his face with concern. “Well, then, I’ll take care not to scratch it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That did it. Lord Nathaniel stripped off his doublet, revealing skin so white it could never have seen the sun, handed it to the woman, drew his toy sword.\n Vincent grinned, savage. Now the stripling was the angry one. At least this wouldn’t take long. Scratch the boy’s arm—the lad could barely hold his weapon,\n and his stance was ridiculous, like something he had learned from the theater—and head home.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The two men began circling. Vincent thought of red cliffs, of flowers and birds embroidered in gold on purple cloth, a curved sword, so different from the\n one he held now, woven sandals, a bare chest, a tongue, and oil rubbed into skin, and fingers fumbling with unfamiliar clothing, and he could not bear it,\n and he slashed, and slashed, and slashed, anything to bring himself back from the hot, dry, sandy land to which his senses had stolen away, the land he had\n left, the man he had left, had chosen to leave, and finally, finally he landed on it: \u003cem\u003eThis\u003c/em\u003e City was what he had chosen, Riverside, with its\n crooked gables and leaning ruins and pickpockets and cutthroats and taverns. As the images of the island that was his true home clarified themselves in his\n mind, dispelled the illusion, he began to return to himself, and now as if from a distance he heard shouting, and he shook his head, and again, and now his\n eyes were clear and his head was clear and he saw what he had done.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The stripling still lived. But his shirt was in shreds, and almost as red as the doublet the lightskirt held.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Chesney will have a great deal to answer for,” gasped Filisand, his voice ragged, “when I take him before the Court of Honor! As will you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent cursed himself. His job had been a duel to first blood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This had been no duel to first blood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He would pay dearly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy who had been sent for the swordsman finally returned with one in tow. Filisand continued to shout threats and accusations, but what point was there\n in listening? Vincent turned around and began to run. He ran down the Hill, through the Middle City, panting, wishing he could gasp all the air out of the\n sky, crossed the Bridge, finally made it into the crooked decrepitude of Riverside, where he could pretend that the debacle he’d just caused had never\n happened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He passed his rooms, kept walking. Began, finally, to return to himself. Surrounded by the riot of tilting houses, the laughing whores, the leering men,\n the sly thieving urchins, he could remember that he was Vincent Applethorpe. He was a swordsman, and he belonged in far-off Chartil no more than a hawk\n belonged a hundred leagues beneath the sea. His place was in the streets he walked now. Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There. Between the houses ahead of him, a figure in the shadows. Long, straight, black hair falling down a proud, sinuous back. For a moment he felt thick\n rugs against his bare feet, a hand cupping his as he learned the delicate strokes of calligraphy. The screams of men at war.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then a turn, a face he did not recognize, and the illusion shattered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was pretty, all the same. “Got any plans,” he asked lightly, “for the next hour or so?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do now,” she said, and held out her hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the smile dimpling her face was not the smile he wanted, and the next hour was almost more than he could bear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah sat happily at her table—well, it was Rafe’s table, of course, but he had given Micah his room, so she figured it wouldn’t be wrong to think of it as\n her table—surrounded by loops and loops of foolscap, cutting them into more and more loops of foolscap. A few days earlier she had accidentally ripped a\n little tear into one of the loops, and that had given her an idea that was making the loops Dr. Goodell had introduced her to even \u003cem\u003emore \u003c/em\u003e\n fascinating. If she cut one of the twisted loops straight down the middle, she discovered, she ended up with a much bigger loop, but one with two twists in\nit, and that gave it two sides instead of just the one. But if she cut a little to the \u003cem\u003eright\u003c/em\u003e or \u003cem\u003eleft\u003c/em\u003e of the middle, she ended up with\u003cem\u003etwo \u003c/em\u003eloops, and one of them was a thinner version of the original but one of them was just like the one she got when she cut down the middle. And \u003cem\u003ethen\u003c/em\u003e, after the big loop with two twists, the idea had occurred to her to try it with \u003cem\u003ethree \u003c/em\u003etwists, so for the last hour she had\n been doing that, and what she got was a knot with a bunch of twists in it, and that was a real problem. Because if she untied the knot, she counted six\n twists in what had been a three-twist loop. But that meant she wasn’t counting the knot. And that was the question: Was the knot a twist, or not? She\n laughed to herself. \u003cem\u003eKnot or not?\u003c/em\u003e She couldn’t decide how to classify it. She guessed she was going to have to cut a loop with \u003cem\u003efive \u003c/em\u003etwists\n in it, but before she got to that she had to cut the three-twist loop to the right or left of center, which was what she was in the middle of doing now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Until the door slammed open, and she accidentally cut through the side of the loop. Whoever had come in was singing \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003eloudly. She frowned,\n dropped the ruined loop, and went into the front room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was Rafe and Kaab, who were sort of staggering around, singing some song in Kindaan, or at least she figured it was Kindaan, because it certainly wasn’t\n any language that made any sense to Micah. Now she was even more annoyed, because she hadn’t seen Rafe in a long time, and she missed him, but he had\nruined her loop, and since she was in the room with them now instead of having the door to protect her, their singing was so \u003cem\u003epiercing \u003c/em\u003eand\u003cem\u003egrating\u003c/em\u003e, and that was irritating. Then Rafe and Kaab stopped singing and started laughing really hard, and then they went back to singing, and then Kaab fell down and started laughing again, and then Rafe fell down and started laughing too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah walked up to them and sniffed. Just as she’d suspected. “Why are you both drunk?” She’d seen Rafe drunk before, though never in this early in the\n evening. Rafe was very stupid when he was drunk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why, indeed?” said Rafe, who was lying on his back. “But there are \u003cem\u003esho\u003c/em\u003e many responses to shuch a question! One could say it is becaushe the beer\n we have drunk has billed our fodiesh and our minds with joy! Or one could say it is becaushe our heartsh are shore, though at this pecishe—pleci—at this\n moment my heart ish \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003eshore, becaushe I am—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because you are, you are with \u003cem\u003efriends\u003c/em\u003e!” said Kaab, and then they both started laughing again, and Rafe tried to sit up and fell back down on his\n back once more.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” said Micah, “I’m working, so be quiet.” She turned to go back to her loops, but Kaab grabbed her hand. Micah tried to pull away, but Kaab was\n holding on too tightly. “Where are you going?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re both being annoying and stupid,” said Micah, “and I don’t like being around you when you’re like this, so I’m going to go work on my loops\n instead.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Loopsh!” said Kaab, and pulled Micah to her so that Micah sat down, sort of hard, in Kaab’s lap, though she got up again right away. “Loopsh—loopsh—” said\n Kaab, and then she started laughing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Loopsh!” shouted Rafe, and then \u003cem\u003ehe\u003c/em\u003e started laughing again. God, drunk people were dumb. “That would be sho much fun! Loopsh are fashcinating!\n Full of myshtery! But no, inshtead of loopsh, I have to sit all day fiddling with shtupid \u003cem\u003eaccount booksh\u003c/em\u003e and thinking about \u003cem\u003eshipmentsh\u003c/em\u003e\n and \u003cem\u003etrade\u003c/em\u003e.” He stopped laughing. “It’sh \u003cem\u003eawful\u003c/em\u003e.” And now the look on his face was different. “It’sh sho terrible. Day in and day out, and\nI have to . . .” He stopped talking and waved his hands around. “Like that! Jusht like that! Shee? And my godforsaken \u003cem\u003efather\u003c/em\u003e is so damned \u003cem\u003ejolly\u003c/em\u003e about the whole thing!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab had stopped laughing too, and now she had the same look on her face that Rafe had. “At leasht your family ish \u003cem\u003etalking \u003c/em\u003eto you. \u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003e\n brought Tessh to dinner—jusht like a proper Kinwiinik girl doesh!—and now Shaabim . . .” She just sort of stared at Rafe and didn’t say anything.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “\u003cem\u003eWhat\u003c/em\u003e?” said Micah. “Now Saabim \u003cem\u003ewhat\u003c/em\u003e?” She \u003cem\u003ehated \u003c/em\u003eit when people didn’t finish sentences. It was like leaving a puzzle unsolved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Zaabim thinksh Tessh izz—She thinsh—I mean she finkshh—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, whatever your aunt thinks is irr—irreverent. Tesh is fiiiiine. Nothing wrong with \u003cem\u003eher\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Izz not Shaabim! Izz Tess! She’s really really mad—”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tessh isn’t mad! She’s fine! Ish my Will, my poor sweet Will who’s gone mad—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t be shtupid,” said Kaab. “Will hashn’t gone mad, he’sh being poizzoned.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s eyes scrunched up. “Poishoned? What do you mean, poishoned?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I mean poizzoned.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” Rafe waved his hands. “Mad. Seeing thingsh.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Poizzoned.” Kaab shook her head. “With poizzon.” Kaab kept shaking her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah didn’t really understand what they were talking about, but all of a sudden Rafe’s eyes went wide. “You’re telling the truth.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Told you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who?” Kaab shrugged. “\u003cem\u003eWho\u003c/em\u003e, damn you?” Kaab didn’t say anything.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s hands balled up into fists. His face grew very red and the veins on his neck bulged out like they did when he got angry, and Micah’s stomach\n clenched, because she \u003cem\u003ehated \u003c/em\u003eit when Rafe got angry, and then he took a big breath in and opened his mouth to start shouting and she cringed\n because she \u003cem\u003ereally \u003c/em\u003ehated it when Rafe was angry and shouting, and his chest started heaving and then he threw up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On her floor!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The right side of Kaab’s mouth crept toward her eye in a grimace but then she leaned forward and threw up too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was just \u003cem\u003ehorrible\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s it,” said Micah. “You two are disgusting. I’m leaving.” At the door she turned around and almost yelled at them. “You’d better clean that up before\n you go. And it’d \u003cem\u003ebetter not smell\u003c/em\u003e!”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Neither one of them said anything, so she had no idea whether or not they’d heard her. They were just staring at each other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m going out for tomato pie,” she said. “And you can’t have any!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She slammed the door behind her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant, Diane was happy to see, laid down his wine glass with a satisfied sigh. “Ah, how I have missed your cook’s pheasant,” he said. “He adds an\n ingredient—I do not know what it is—that renders it \u003cem\u003ethat\u003c/em\u003e much more succulent than what the poor fools employed by the rest of us produce.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The evening had been superb thus far. This was the first time in months that Diane had allowed Davenant past her front hall, which seemed to put him in\n excellent spirits; throughout dinner, she had danced between flirtation and disinterest at intervals irregular enough that he was now both inflamed with\n desire and deeply insecure about her feelings toward him. She could see it in his eyes. When he had had no hope whatsoever of resuming their prior\n intimacy, he had been beyond her power. Let him think that intimacy within his grasp and he would grow careless.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are angling, Gregory, and none too subtly, for me to tell you what the ingredient is. I would scold you for your behavior, had I any idea just what\n was in the pheasant. But Ravenel will not reveal his secret. Oh, he pretends—he tells me it is cardamom, he tells me it is thyme, he tells me it is some\n unpronounceable spice sold by the Traders—but it is all a game, and he smiles while he says it. All of which is very cleverly done on his part. Not that I\n would ever allow a man with such talent to leave my employ, but if it is wise to keep secrets from those around you, it is often wiser to let them know you\n are doing it. Don’t you think?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Everything depended upon the conversation that was about to take place. Her fingertips tingled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think that, in the matter of secrets, we are all playing at your feet, as children at the feet of a sage who has forgotten more than they will ever\n know.” Elegantly done. “A \u003cem\u003ebeautiful \u003c/em\u003esage.” Ah, and he had to go and overbalance. He had many gifts, did the Dragon Chancellor, but a sense of\n proportion was not among them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But there, Gregory, is where you are mistaken.” She ran a finger over the rim of her glass. “For I never forget anything.” His smile faltered for a\n moment, but he quickly recovered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had set up the loom. Now to begin her weaving. With the others, she had exploited their weaknesses. But there was no way around it; with Davenant, she\n would have to bargain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That did not mean, however, that she had to bargain fair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The afternoons we shared in the spring, for example,” she said. “I look back so fondly on them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His left eyebrow lifted half a fingersbreadth. “You are not alone in that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is a pity, do you not think, that they are in the past?” She kept her voice light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He leaned back in his chair. “I confess I am surprised to hear you say so. It is, after all, in accordance with your will that they are no longer in the\n present.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane assumed an expression of mock offense. “Surely you do not grudge a woman the opportunity to believe she might have been mistaken.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, certainly not,” he said. She had once thought that smile alluring. “Especially when she believes that, by correcting that mistake, she might influence\n certain matters of relevance to her house and its future.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She laughed, long and loud. Wiped a tear away from her eye. “Oh, Gregory, am I that transparent?” Of course she was that transparent. She had intended to\n be. Lead your opponent to think you a less skilled player than you are, and he believes he hurts you more with each gain you allow him to make. She would\n triumph over him just as she had triumphed over Melinda Lassiter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is not that you are transparent, Diane. You have, in fact, a genius for opacity. But you forget that I know you.” She inclined her head. “Or perhaps\n you do not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Iron control kept her from holding her breath. He rose, walked to the window, looked out, framed by blue lace curtains. She said nothing; he would speak in\n his time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally he came over to her, stood behind her chair. “I think your plan is an excellent one. We both gain by it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was instantly on her guard. The Dragon was fond of her, certainly, but this was proving far too easy. She had learned her lesson with him after the\n Swan Ball. He was not one to sell anything for a price he thought the buyer happy to pay. She did not look around. “Do you?” she said, remaining in her\n chair. “I had rather thought you might not be certain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, but there you were much mistaken.” He touched her shoulders; she stood, as she must, and turned to face him. “And if I \u003cem\u003ehad \u003c/em\u003ebeen in any doubt,\n the pleasure with which you speak of our time in the spring would have overcome it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am delighted to hear it.” Whatever his game, he would reveal it in time. She took his hands and kissed them. “Perhaps I will come visit you tomorrow\n afternoon.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nothing would please me more.” Was she wrong? Had she overestimated him? A thought seemed to strike him. “Although, as I consider, an improvement on your\n plan—if any plan of the Duchess Tremontaine, that is, could ever be improved upon—occurs to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ah. Here it was. She braced for whatever was about to come. She raised her brow politely. “I am athirst to hear it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In that case,” he said, “I will dare to hope that my humble suggestion may meet with your approval.” It was his turn to kiss her hands. “Rather than give\n our friendship once more the character it had in the spring, I would like to propose a different sort of alliance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?” she said carefully.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Indeed. It was a disgrace,” he said with a chuckle, “the way we carried on. We must not get caught up again in such delicious folly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And so I believe that, once the matter of the succession is resolved, you and I, my delicious duchess, should wed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned to stone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How \u003cem\u003edare \u003c/em\u003ehe? Her hand twitched to slap him for presuming to \u003cem\u003ethink \u003c/em\u003esuch a thing, much less to suggest it. “An attractive notion, to be\n sure,” she said, and though it took all her might she favored him with a smile that appeared utterly natural. “However, unless events have taken place of\n which I am unaware, neither one of us is in a position to see it to fruition. The Duke Tremontaine is still very much alive, as is your lady wife.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nHis eyes shone. “Come, Diane, let us banish pretense. William will never be himself again, and before long people will start to talk if you do \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003edivorce him. As for Isabella—well, you needn’t worry about that. There are any number of ways in which I might suddenly find myself\n unmarried.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A chill ran through her. What was he implying? Just how far \u003cem\u003ewould \u003c/em\u003ethe Dragon go to get what he wanted?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Think of it, Diane,” he said. “Tremontaine and Davenant, united, with the power of the Dragon behind us”—at least he had the decency to put her\n first—“what could we not accomplish?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For long moments, she said nothing. She gently extricated her hands from his grasp and stepped back. He moved forward and she stepped back again. “You do\n me far too great an honor, Gregory.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He had her trapped, and he knew it. If she said yes, she would be forced to submit to his embrace at his pleasure rather than at hers—and, far worse, she\n would lose virtually all of the influence she was currently free to wield behind the scenes of the City. If she said no, however, he would see to it that\n she was never Tremontaine in her own right. She could not stomach either option.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her only choice was to play for time. “And I wish to give it the consideration it deserves. For which consideration, you understand, I will need time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His smile was all understanding. “Of course. I would think less of you if you did not.” He reached out a hand to her. She did not take it. “But not too\n much time, I hope.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will take exactly as much time to consider the question as it merits.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can ask no more,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She led him out of the room and toward the entry hall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Our evening is not over, I hope?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wish it were not,” she sighed, “but I am overwhelmed. I do not think I would be acceptable company this night.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Duchess Tremontaine could no more be unacceptable company than a Riversider could use the proper fork.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And yet I do hope you will allow me to spend the rest of the evening in seclusion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As you wish, duchess.” He kissed her—appalling; what if one of the servants were to see?—and at the touch of his lips she thought of a reptile crawled out\n of the swamp. “Am I still to see you tomorrow afternoon?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, I do not think so,” she said, and was gratified to see his smile harden. “It would distract me from the important decision I now have to weigh.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The corners of his mouth remained in place, but the smile disappeared from around his eyes. It was a chilling expression. “It is an important decision\n indeed,” he said. “For a great deal rests upon it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good night, Lord Davenant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Duchess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door closed behind him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A unanimous Inner Council vote was hers if she agreed to marry Davenant. Unthinkable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could evade Davenant’s clutches if she accepted that she would never be Duchess Tremontaine in her own right. Equally unthinkable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But those were the only two possibilities open to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She ascended the stairs to her bower, shaking with rage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door slammed shut behind Micah. Rafe stood up and looked at Kaab, cold, expectant. She too rose, and followed him to the water pitcher, where they\n rinsed their faces. He spat out vomit, walked back, sat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well?” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am not used to such strong drink,” said Kaab with a shamefaced smile. Disgusting. “I thank you, Rafe Fenton, for I have learned tonight that when I am,\n as you say, in my cups, I invent nonsense and fantasy. Forgive me.” She put a hand to her temple. “I do not feel well. I must go.” She moved toward the\n door.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He thrust his leg out to block her exit, his foot keeping the door shut. “You invented nothing.” His head throbbed, but the planes of his rooms were much\n straighter than they had been before he vomited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What were we just speaking of?” said Kaab, sitting. Rafe was shocked. Was she really going to attempt to get out of this? “I seem unable to remember the\n last several hours clearly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do not insult me,” he said, and his voice made of the snowy reaches of Arkenvelt a tropical paradise. “Will’s madness has for months been tearing my soul\n to shreds, and you found out that madness is artificial, and you chose not to share that information with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not a word from Kaab. She did not smile, she did not look embarrassed, she did not give any hint of what she felt. He waited for her to speak.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Poison,” he prompted. She remained silent for a long time. He waited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally she sighed. “All right then, Rafe. You win. Poison.” She nodded. “Though to our people, it is more than that. This poison is—it is your land’s\n equivalent of the sacred mushrooms that our priests have consumed for a thousand and a thousand generations. Once a month, at the dark of the moon, they\n eat them, and Ixchel sends visions upon them, showing them what the gods wish us to know about the things that will come to pass during the following\n moon’s waxing and waning.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are Trader mushrooms doing here? Are you saying your people poisoned the Duke Tremontaine?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no! They are not here. When my people landed on your shores, they discovered another plant, a—a long plant? A plant string? Ah, yes, a \u003cem\u003evine\u003c/em\u003e\n —the seeds of which brought on the same visions in a more powerful form. Since then we have been sending it home so that our priests might know the will of\n the gods more fully.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s nonsense. I’ve never heard of such a vine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is known here, I believe, as ‘shadowroot.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eShadowroot?\u003c/em\u003e\n “Shadowroot’s a myth. Historians hundreds of years ago used it to explain things they were incapable of understanding.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They explained correctly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He sat, silent, for a few moments. “The poison is Diane’s doing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She screwed her mouth up. “That, I do not know. We have tried to find out, but in vain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A lie, of course. She knew perfectly well whose hand had dispensed the poison.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No matter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His eyes narrowed. “How long have you known this?” Kaab said nothing, only set her lips firmly together. “\u003cem\u003eHow long\u003c/em\u003e?” Nothing. “Have you known\n since the beginning?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nShe had! She had known it all along, and she had said nothing, Will was mad, was in horrible, agonizing madness, and she had \u003cem\u003eknown\u003c/em\u003e, she could have \u003cem\u003edone \u003c/em\u003esomething, told him, rescued Will, \u003cem\u003esomething\u003c/em\u003e, but she had done \u003cem\u003enothing\u003c/em\u003e, simply crouched, spider-like, at the center of her\n web and \u003cem\u003ewatched\u003c/em\u003e while her friends were tortured around her, and it was monstrous—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“You could have stopped this!” \u003c/em\u003e\n He was shouting, he felt his throat tearing. “You could have saved him, you could have told me—\u003cem\u003ethis is your fault\u003c/em\u003e!” And he could control\n himself no longer, and he leapt from the chair and rushed at her, his hands transformed into talons before him to grasp her neck and squeeze, but she\n stepped to the side and did something with her arm and now he was on his back on the floor, she sitting atop him, his wrists tight in her hands. He kicked,\n trying to buck her off him, and she shot her legs out from under her and threw out her arms—and his—so that she lay full on top of him, her muscular hands\n keeping his arms pinned to the floor above his head, her flesh warm against his. He strained to break free, but he was completely immobile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She drew very close to his face. “Yes, I knew all along. But something dreadful is at stake!” she hissed. “Something far more important than your childish\n mooning after your duke.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e “Childish mooning?”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “You have no idea what is happening across the sea. What I do here is not for my own amusement. It is work I do to\n prevent thousands of men and women and children in Binkiinha, across the Road of the Sun, from being enslaved and slaughtered by Tullan warriors, the\n precious water in their veins soaking the earth where they fall until it bubbles from the ground! If I told you how I know what I know, it could very well\n lead to a war that ends with the destruction of my people. So yes, \u003cem\u003echildish mooning.\u003c/em\u003e You here in this land, with your petty concerns, your trivial\n politicking, your provincial ways—oh, you may have dreams about the movement of the stars, Rafe Fenton, but to you they are \u003cem\u003eout there \u003c/em\u003esomewhere—to\n the Kinwiinik they are \u003cem\u003epart of this world\u003c/em\u003e and we order our lives by the truths they guide us to. If you wish to know how I found out that your\n lover is being poisoned, send your head-spirit to the house of dreams and seek out the answer there, or die and ask the gods in the houses beneath the\n earth to tell you, because, by my mother’s blood flowing through me, I never will!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, yes,” he sneered, sensing an opening, “your precious family! They have rewarded you for your devotion, if what you told me an hour ago is correct, by\n casting you out; undoubtedly they see you for the traitor you are. I’m only surprised it took as long as it did. You are a serpent, after all, the serpent\n cares for nothing but itself, and what matter if the corpses it leaves in its trail cry complaint? Betrayal is its milk, its nectar, and it minds not who\n it poisons—its father, its mother—so long as the venom be—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“Shut up!”\u003c/em\u003e\n And she punched him in the stomach. The pain spread immediately, throbbing its way through his body.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Silence reigned for a time, her fist poised in the air. “Do not attack me again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You need fear nothing from me.” He emitted something that resembled a laugh. “Not that you ever did.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stood. With some effort, he followed, keeping his head turned toward the ceiling. She went over to the wall, pulled Larry’s tattered scholar’s robe off\n the hook, and returned to wipe the blood from Rafe’s upper lip.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “While you’re at it,” he said wearily, his throat sore, “you might as well clean up our mess in the other room.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stood and they went together into the next room. She wiped at the mess in silence and sat next to him, the robe bunched up at her side. “Your friend\n will be displeased to find his robe stained.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My friend’s robe has been stained enough times with enough bodily fluids that the washerwoman will hardly shrink from this.” They sat in silence for a\n while. The blood had stopped flowing from his nose. “You say your priests take this drug once a month. But that is not what is happening here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The effect only lasts for a day—two at most—so your duke must be taking it frequently, or he is being given far more than our priests take, and among\n them, it is only the most highly trained who invite the visions. It might drive an untrained man truly mad.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A thought occurred to him and his eyes narrowed. “You have not laid eyes on him since his malady began. You cannot have diagnosed the cause from my\n description alone. How did you find out what was going on?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She rose, stepped over to the window. Pushed the curtain aside, looked out into the darkening twilight. She spoke without turning back to him. “That, I may\n not tell you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“What?”\u003c/em\u003e\n His fists clenched, his breathing grew ragged. “You \u003cem\u003emay not tell me\u003c/em\u003e? You have just revealed that you have allowed my lover to howl with unreason\n until he must be locked away for months, and you \u003cem\u003emay not tell me\u003c/em\u003e?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is correct.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kaab, as my—I hardly know what to call you. I cannot name you ‘friend,’ not after your treachery. Let us say instead that you are my debtor, as you owe me\n deeply for the wrong you have done me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot deny it,” she said. “Though I would do it again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As my debtor, then, you have a way to discharge your debt to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He sniffed once more. “You must find out for me where she is keeping him.” She said nothing. He chuckled bitterly. “Of course. You already know. Where is\n he?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She gave a sigh. “That, I \u003cem\u003ewill\u003c/em\u003e not tell you. If you know, you will attempt to rescue him. And you will be killed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Happily,” he said, “there is a way for me to avoid such a fate \u003cem\u003eand\u003c/em\u003e for you to make up for a fraction of the damage you have done. I need not be\n involved in his rescue. Bring him back yourself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her voice was flat. “Absolutely not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why not?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because to do so would endanger my family’s plans.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stood and walked to the door. “Your family’s plans.” He crossed his arms, drummed his fingers against his biceps. “I believe, Mistress Balam, that you\n can have no further business with me. Now or at any time hence. I will trouble you and your family no more. Though once I rescue the duke—which, believe\n you me, I \u003cem\u003ewill\u003c/em\u003e do—and he returns to the City and to sanity, you may find the Council of Lords somewhat less disposed to favor the Kinwiinik cause\n than has been the case until now. Should the Balam find the change in attitude perplexing, I feel confident you will be more than capable of enlightening\n them as to the cause.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe, do not—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He opened the door. “You and I can have nothing more to say to each other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do not do this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have done nothing. You are the one who has made the choices that led us here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stared at her, his face stone, hers imploring.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally she turned and walked out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shut the door behind her and went into his former bedroom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He sat down on the bed and closed his eyes. He sat, remembering Will, remembering the scent of oranges he wore, the ink on his fingertips, the strength of\n his broad back, his golden hair, the way his hand felt on Rafe’s leg, the last time they made love, the warmth of his breath, his long lashes, the throaty\n sound of his laugh. Remembered his first visit to Tremontaine House, when Will had taken him on the floor of the library, surrounded by books Rafe had\n called putrescent, taken him so tenderly, and he was home.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The outer door opened and shut again. He opened his eyes, stepped out of the bedroom to see Micah, who scowled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not still drunk, are you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, I’m not. I’m sorry I was an ass.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You smelled terrible and you were so stupid. Where’s Kaab?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stood, silent. “It turns out,” he said quietly, “that tonight is far from the only time I have been stupid.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What does that have to do with Kaab?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never mind. It’s not important.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you’re tired, you can have Thad’s bed. He’s not coming back tonight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tonight.” Suddenly Rafe felt as if a year had passed since his meeting with Arthur Chel. His heart, his mind, his very bones were tired. “What’s left of\n it. No, thank you. I’ll leave you to your work. Good night, Micah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good night, Rafe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent Applethorpe didn’t like sitting down when he was on the Hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The chairs and couches were always so luxurious. Soft. Relaxing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Difficult to leap out of in case of an ambush.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the duchess had asked him to sit, which meant that she had ordered him to sit. So here he was, in this room with its high ceilings, its candles that\n created more shadow than light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Was there an ambush coming?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Foolish question. She was Tremontaine. Of course there was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You cannot know,” said Diane, and her voice was like velvet, “how cheering your unexpected visit is. I have had a trying evening, and I had thought to go\n to bed cross.” A shadow played across her face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” he said, casually. “I’m happy to say that I took care of your friend Lionel’s problem for him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So I heard. And in a rather more dramatic fashion than he expected, if I understand correctly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eIn a rather more dramatic fashion\u003c/em\u003e. If you called cutting somebody nearly to Maypole ribbons \u003cem\u003ein a rather more dramatic fashion\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You might not.” It came out sharper than he’d intended it to. \u003cem\u003eBe careful\u003c/em\u003e. “I made a mess of it. An unprofessional mess.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is no matter. The point has been made, and I suspect Lionel’s honor has been more than satisfied. I shall have my man pay your fee immediately.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Absolutely not. “Keep the money. I didn’t earn it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then what can have brought you to my house, if not the prospect of collecting your fee?” She touched a hand to a porcelain cheek.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shrugged. “Filisand will probably haul Lord Lionel Chesney before the Court of Honor. You might want to prepare him.” He felt the impulse to edge\n forward in the chair. \u003cem\u003eResist it\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s face fell. “Oh,” she said sadly. “Oh, dear.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nHere it was, the ambush. He felt keenly aware of the softness of the cushions. He tried to sit up. Was trapped. \u003cem\u003eShe wants you to ask what the problem is. Don’t.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s the problem?” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He should not have come.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why,” she said, and he held his breath, “it’s only . . . well, Lionel is a dear boy, but it is not entirely clear to me that, if he is called before the\n Court of Honor, he will have the wherewithal, on his own, to remember an accurate version of his precise instructions when he hired you.” She traced a lip\n with a pale finger. “I would volunteer to go over them with him myself, to ensure that his testimony exonerated you, as it should. But I have just\n discovered that my first swordsman is to leave my employ. Without a truly gifted sword protecting me against those who might wish me ill, I am reluctant to\n give my thoughts over completely to matters of honor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He flushed, as anger and desire coiled themselves around each other in him. Ultimately, though, who could he blame but himself? He had set the trap; he was\n the one who had botched the duel. She smiled and he felt slightly faint. He gave a thought to the departing first swordsman—lucky man, whoever he was. If\n she was telling the truth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He had refused the Duchess Tremontaine’s offer of employment before, more than once. How was it that now, in her presence, he \u003cem\u003ewanted \u003c/em\u003eto say yes?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stood, knowing as he did that he should not. “Then I accept the position.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her face shone with joy. “Oh, how wonderful!” She rose, clapped her hands, and stepped forward. “You set my mind at ease!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He too stepped forward. What was he doing? What was she, that she had this kind of power over him even as she practiced extortion? “Sure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am so very happy that my day is ending thus, when it had the potential to conclude so very differently. As for Filisand, do not give him another\n thought. I will see to it that Lionel’s testimony before the Court of Honor relays the exact truth. You will not see the inside of a prison.” She made a\n moue. “Or worse.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He tried to recall the scent of lemon and frankincense, but it was the scent of violets that reached his nose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He wrenched himself free before they touched. Turned away. Left without another word.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will see you soon, Vincent Applethorpe.” The words trailed after him as he left the house.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The anger built in him all the way back to Riverside, where he found safety again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Or something like safety.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Or something he could pretend was safety.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The paper was rough in Rafe’s hand. He opened the letter that had been waiting for him at his father’s house, immediately saw Arthur’s signature on it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eMy dear Rafe, \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n I do not know whether this is the sort of information about the duchess’s estates you seek in your effort to advance negotiations with her man of\n business, but earlier today at Tremontaine House, I overheard two of the servants remarking on a large quantity of supplies that had just been sent off\n to the estate at Highcombe. I listened carefully for some time, hoping to be able to tell you more about just what had been sent, but I was not so\n lucky as that.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n I will call upon you soon, both to find out what use you will make of this knowledge and to give you the opportunity to thank me appropriately for\n sending it to you.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI have the honor to remain your fond and obedient servant,\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eArthur\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe sat back in the chair behind his desk. Highcombe. None of James’s letters to him about his explorations of the various Tremontaine holdings had even\n mentioned an estate at Highcombe. He toyed with the corner of the paper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was no way of knowing for certain whether Will was there.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But even the merest possibility required action. Especially now. He called for a servant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, Master Rafe?” said Dunstan when Rafe opened the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have a journey to make,” said Rafe. “But before I go, there is equipment to be acquired.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Equipment, sir? Might I ask what kind of equipment you will require?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took a deep breath, exhaled. In for a minnow, in for a royal. “Where the hell in this City do I get a sword?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nKaab took Tess to a feast at her family's compound, with less than ideal results. Fearing he’d reached a dead end in his search for Will, Rafe moped. Diane was unpleasantly surprised by a visit from her daughter, Honora. Esha sought Diane’s help in dealing with an unwelcome admirer.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Joel Derfner\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.94","slug":"tremontaine-s2e07","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E07.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101155_TremontaineS02E07.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101155_TremontaineS02E07.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101155_TremontaineS02E07.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e002f5ada6e25bc06d1d61","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":8,"title":"A Rushing of Wings","released_date":"2016-12-07T12:59:27.555+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Micah accompanies Rafe on his mission to rescue Will.","byline":"Paul Witcover and Racheline Maltese","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e08.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-12-07","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n The boy shot out the kitchen door and into the blinding afternoon sun. He skidded on loose gravel and nearly dropped the leather-bound book that seemed too\n big for him, a book he had just filched from his father’s library. He clutched it to his thin chest, heart throbbing so fiercely it was as if that small\n organ had sprouted wings, along with a sharp beak that pecked fast and hard against the cage of his ribs. It wanted out. \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He swallowed, trembling with a confusion of emotions that had no other escape, and blinked the glare into submission. An expanse of smooth-raked,\n chalk-white pebbles unmarked by boot, hoof, or wagon wheel swept to the verge of grass where the lawn began, which itself unfurled in a lush green carpet\n to the edge of the beckoning woods, a silent shout of brown and green and white apple blossoms in the haze of summer heat and shimmery insect choir. There,\n off the tame paths favored by his tutor on their boring nature walks, was a limestone cave, low-ceilinged and pungent, that served him as a hidey-hole, a\n private place away from the tedious attentions of parents and tutor. In its cool confines, by candlelight, he spent the hot summer afternoons reading books\n and performing experiments of his own devising.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e\n He wriggled again, his heart as eager as he was. He clasped the book ardently, enjoying the smell of it—like age, like secrets.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Today he had a treat in store. A rare volume of natural history from across the sea. From the lands of the Kinwiinik Traders. For months he had regarded it\n behind the locked glass case of his father’s private library, a tempting new addition too valuable for him to touch, though his father had given him a peek\n between its covers, into sheet-sized pages so splashed with color it was as if a rainbow had spilled there. Ever since, the boy had known he would steal\n the book and bring it to his special place. Only the certain knowledge of the punishment this would occasion had kept him from acting sooner. But today he\n had been unable to resist the memory of those magical colors any longer. He had taken the key from Wickfield while the man slept off—with wall-rattling\n snores—the bottle of wine that invariably accompanied his lunch, crept up to the library, unlocked the case, pulled down the heavy book with trembling\n hands, and then dashed through the house, down empty halls and stairs, even the servants sleeping at this dead hour, the kitchen so strange in neat repose\n that he tiptoed across the still-damp tiles of the floor, holding his breath, heart fluttering, finally emerging at the back of Highcombe. He swallowed\n again, shifted the bulk of the book in arms already growing tired with the weight of it, then set off at a run, boots crunching across the gravel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stopped short. That was not the beating of his heart. Not this time. Maybe not ever. It came from behind. Behind and above. He turned, holding up the\n book as if it were a shield.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From a window on the second floor, a man gazed down, tapping at the glass with one knuckle. \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e He thought at first it was\n Wickfield, but then the man leaned into the light, exposing his haggard face. The boy froze, a butterfly pinned to the mounting board. The man in the\n window was shouting. The boy could see his mouth move, but no sound was coming out. Just the quick raps of his ringed knuckle against the glass. The sound\n sent jolts of pain through his head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Run!” cried the man in the window. “Get away from this place!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it was too late. The boy was gone. If he had ever been there. William, Duke Tremontaine, gazed down a moment longer at the empty courtyard. A wave of\n dizziness assailed him, as if the floor were shifting beneath his feet. Hadn’t he been that boy? Or would yet become him? Time was such a strange and\n inconstant thing! Surely he had stood there once, gazing up, the book clutched in his arms, to see his own face staring back, wizened with age and a\n knowledge that to others seemed like madness. But not madness. Oh no, the opposite! Wisdom. Understanding.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But why in the name of all that was holy did it have to hurt so?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He clutched his head, moaning, and turned from the window to stagger across the carpet to a chair. He flung himself into its cushions, twisting the ring on\n his finger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So much that had seemed to be true and real was false. False Diane. False Wickfield. Even Highcombe itself, and those who dwelled here. All false. Liars.\n Counterfeits of what they claimed to be.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The City, too, was false. He had lived there once. Had loved. A beautiful boy had betrayed him. As they all betrayed him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Was someone at the door? He rushed over, pressed his ear to the wooden panel, not daring to breathe, listening. He knew they were coming for him. The false\n ones who wore the masks of friends and lovers. False Diane. False Rafe. Coming to kill him. Or worse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Behind him! The window!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fat raindrops pattered against the glass. The sky overcast, dark with storm. He lurched to the window, the floor again shifting beneath his feet. Below,\n where he had stood a moment or thirty years ago, there was only water, water as far as the eye could see. Grey waves huge and windblown, their spume flying\n back like the banners of an army. The whole house afloat, not a house but a ship. False, all false!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield bent over the granite-topped kitchen counter to dispense the medicine the Duchess Tremontaine had entrusted to his care. Every three days, like\n clockwork, he removed the tincture from its small bottle with the aid of a dropper, his big hand as steady as any apothecary’s as he added the dose to the\n single glass of red wine that accompanied the duke’s evening meals.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finished, Wickfield replaced the cork in the wine bottle and tapped it home with the heel of one beefy hand. He glanced up at the duke’s caretaker, Thea,\n standing at the other end of the counter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s a mercy you cannot hear him,” Wickfield said with a grimace, gesturing toward the ceiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thea nodded. She could not hear Wickfield’s words, either, of course, but she was, he had quickly discovered, a wonder at reading lips.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not right the poor lad should suffer so,” Wickfield went on. “Howling like the fiends are at his throat! It’s not right. I wish—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He broke off as Norris entered the kitchen behind Thea, who, perhaps reading his eyes as she had his lips, turned. The man was tall, nearly as tall as\n Wickfield, but much younger, and more slender, too, like the rapier he always wore at his waist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go on, sir,” he said now. “Wish what? Or has it gone beyond wishing, eh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris was new to Highcombe, a swordsman dispatched by the duchess to keep her ailing husband safe from the attention of rival houses. The city was a\n cesspool of political intrigue, and that cesspool sometimes overflowed. Norris was an ambitious man, Wickfield had quickly learned. And a suspicious one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean?” Wickfield asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris strode past Thea without a glance and reached for the vial Wickfield had left upon the countertop.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield snatched it up and tucked it back into his pocket. “Medicine,” he said. “What did you think it was, Norris, poison?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris turned to Thea. “You’re up to something,” he hissed, “the two of you. Don’t think I can’t see it. If the duchess but knew . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thea reached into the pouch of her apron, where she carried her slate and chalk. She wrote quickly, then held up the slate to Norris. His grey eyes\n narrowed as he read, and his lips moved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWe all serve the duchess.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do we?” he said with a sneer. “Some more truly than others, I think.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thea had already wiped the slate clean. She wrote again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eIt is time for the duke’s dinner. \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris frowned but stood aside as she walked past him to the countertop and lifted the tray upon which Vera had left the duke’s meal, along with the single\n glass of red wine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will accompany you,” said Wickfield.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She inclined her head as if to say that he might do as he liked, then turned and made her way past Norris and out of the kitchen. When Wickfield made to\n follow, Norris stepped to block the way, his hand on the hilt of his rapier.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re not finished, you and I,” he growled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When Rafe came into view as he turned onto the street, Micah ran toward him, falling into step at his side just before the next left, which was three more\n turns before they would reach the market. Micah let the soles of her feet roll over the cobblestones as she walked. It was a nice feeling, the way the\n stones had been smoothed down by all the feet in the city. But walking on dirt was better for long journeys, and she was thrilled to finally be heading\n home to visit the farm after so long in the city.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe was less enthused about their travels. He kept listing everything he thought could and would go wrong—from highwaymen to wild animals to Reuben saying\n no, that they weren’t allowed to visit. Micah found it very foolish.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What if your cousin doesn’t believe I want to see your farm?” Rafe asked for the twelfth time. Micah had been counting. Highwaymen had come up nine times\n and bears twice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not my farm, it’s my family’s farm.” Micah felt it was very important to be precise. Not being precise was how numbers added up wrong, how cards lost\n money instead of winning it, and how boats sailed to the wrong port . . . or no port at all. “And you just want to use it as an excuse to get to\n Highcombe—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe waved his arms frantically, shushing her. An old sword, procured with the assistance of his friend Joshua’s actor boyfriend, clattered uselessly on\n his hip, threatening for a moment to throw him off balance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As they entered the market and its crowds, Micah grabbed her friend’s sleeve and marched straight for Cousin Reuben’s stall, where a woman was trying to\n choose from amongst all the striped squash.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You shouldn’t get those ones,” Micah said, “you should get the bigger ones. They cost more but you get more so then you can buy less.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman looked confused.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It all works out the same in the end,” Reuben reassured her. “You get whatever size you like.” He smiled a welcome at Micah and then took a long hard look\n at Rafe’s traveling gear. “Well, Master Rafe! Seems like you’ve come with more than a letter for me today.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re going home with you after the market,” Micah declared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought home was the University now,” Reuben said, taking payment from the woman, who scurried away with a wary glance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah frowned. “I’m not quitting University.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Didn’t say you were.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s just a visit,” she explained. “Rafe wants to see it. The farm. And the turnips, and the Everills and their cheese down the road. And I want to see\n Trigonometry! I hope she knows that’s her name. You can’t just name a cow and not tell her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You want to see the farm?” Reuben asked Rafe, forcing Micah to suspect that Trigonometry had not, in fact, been informed of her name.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe nodded to Reuben and then seemingly couldn’t stop. Sometimes Rafe banged his fist on tables when he was stuck trying to figure things out, but there\n were no tables here, so perhaps he was stuck in a different way. Micah stomped on his foot to shake him out of it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe yelped. At least he wasn’t stuck anymore.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reuben looked at them both the way he looked at baby goats, which were violent, and stupid, and very cute, but sometimes eventually turned into food. “You\n know we walk, and we’ve got a schedule to keep.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, sir.” Rafe nodded again, but this time he stopped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now, why have you got a sword?” Reuben said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Highwaymen?” Rafe ventured. “And bears?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTen\u003c/em\u003e, Micah thought, and \u003cem\u003ethree\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They don’t steal leftover squash. Or farmhands. Pretty merchant boys from the city though?” Reuben shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah certainly hoped no one tried to steal Rafe. That would be inconvenient. A stolen duke was already troublesome enough, even if he’d been stolen by his\n own wife, which was confusing already. She scampered into the confines of the stall, gesturing for Rafe to follow. It felt good to be back, even after so\n much time. She only hoped home would feel the same.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield was an old fellow, but he still stood a head above Norris, who didn’t often find himself looking up at anyone. Nevertheless, the swordsman had\n faced larger opponents and prevailed. The only difference he had found between short and tall men was that the tall ones took longer to reach the ground\n once he had run them through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield at first seemed inclined to push past him after the deaf-mute, Thea, but then sighed, shoulders drooping. “You’re not in Riverside anymore,\n Norris,” he said. “Put up your sword.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I haven’t drawn it,” Norris replied. “And I’m not, in fact, a Riversider.” Was the old man as crazy as the duke? “My parents were decent people.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was speaking in metaphors,” Wickfield said. “You do know what that is, I trust?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Something best left to poets.” Norris did take a step back, however. “I prefer to speak plainly. What did you put in the duke’s wine?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Medicine, as you know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know no such thing,” said Norris. “Show it to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you an apothecary now as well as a swordsman?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris drew himself up. “I am a loyal servant of this house, charged by the Duchess Tremontaine to see to the safety of her husband. Do you dispute that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know I do not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ever since I arrived here, my authority has been questioned and disregarded at every turn. That witch Thea has been elevated above me. The two of you are\n united against me, always whispering together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thea is mute, and cannot whisper.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know what I mean. You are forever closeted with her—why, I would suspect you of a dalliance were it not for your age and her appearance!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Appearances can be deceiving. For instance, at a glance you would appear to be a well-bred fellow.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Insult me all you like, but I will have satisfaction, one way or another. If you have nothing to hide, why do you exclude me from your conferences?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Each of us has his proper sphere,” said Wickfield. “You have been tasked with defending the duke. My task, as it has been for longer than you have been\n alive, is to care for Highcombe and for William of Tremontaine, whom I have known since he was born. Thea’s task, ordained by the duchess, is to minister\n to the duke in his illness. Indeed, the poor man finds comfort in no one else but her. That you are not included in our conferences, as you term them, is\n no conspiracy but simply a reflection of the roles the duchess has given us. Neither I nor Thea seeks to meddle in your sphere. I’d ask you for the same\n courtesy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris snorted. “You call it courtesy? I wonder if the duchess would find that word apt.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are at liberty to ask her,” said Wickfield. “The city is only a day’s ride away.” For an instant it seemed to Norris once again that the old man was\n going to push past him—or attempt to do so—but then, as before, his posture softened. “Walk with me, Master Norris. There is something I would show you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris regarded him skeptically, wondering if Wickfield really thought he could be thrown off the trail so easily.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unless you are afraid,” Wickfield added.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lead on,” Norris said and stood aside, sweeping one arm toward the doorway behind him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield, however, inclined his head toward another door, one that, Norris knew, led to a capacious storage area where foodstuffs and other kitchen\n supplies were kept. Wickfield walked briskly to it and pulled it open, then turned to Norris and, imitating his gesture, motioned for the swordsman to\n precede him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The room’s only light came from the kitchen and a narrow window high on one wall, through which a color-streaked sky was visible. Sunset. The air was\n close, tangled with scents that tickled Norris’s nose unpleasantly. He turned, one hand on the hilt of his dagger; these quarters were too close for\n swordwork, but the old man would find himself much mistaken if he thought that meant Norris could not defend himself. “Well? What is it you wish to show\n me, Wickfield?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Patience,” the man replied, entering and pulling the door shut behind him, cutting off more than half the light in the process. Now it was gloomy indeed,\n and Norris slid the dagger from its sheath, angling his body to hide the motion from Wickfield, who, in any case, gave no indication of having noticed,\n looking about with evident pleasure and inhaling deeply through his nose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, memories!” he said, an unfamiliar enthusiasm in his voice. “One of my first responsibilities at Highcombe, given me by my father, the steward before\n me, was to see to the provision and stocking of this room.” He held up the ring of keys he wore at his belt and gave it a shake. “The key to this room was\n the first on this ring, a ring my father had made for me, as his father had done for him. It is a tradition—one, sadly, that will come to an end with me,\n for my son has gone forth into the world to seek his fortune, scorning a place here. I will be the last of the Wickfields to watch over Highcombe.” He\n crossed in front of Norris and gestured to another door. “The wine cellar. A proud moment when I received that key, I assure you! And yet a sad one, for it\n was the last my father relinquished before he died. When he gave it up, all knew he was not long for the world.” Wickfield indicated a third door. “That\n door you know, I believe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris held up his own key ring, which was noticeably less populous. “The back stairs to the upper floor, where the duke’s rooms are located.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Spheres, Norris,” said Wickfield. “Come.” He turned to a fourth door and, sorting rapidly and noisily through his keys, with a sureness that must have had\n more to do with touch than sight, given the meager light, produced one, inserted it, and turned his hand; there was an audible click, and Wickfield drew\n the door open. Light poured through, brilliant in contrast to the shadows it dispelled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But only by contrast, for when Norris followed Wickfield outside, blinking, one hand still holding his dagger close, he saw that the evening had drawn on\n considerably, and the colorful sky he’d glimpsed through the storeroom window was muted now, washed out beneath a pale light that lay over the oranges,\n reds, and purples of sunset like a gossamer veil. Stones of white and grey stood upright and angled upon a sward of neatly trimmed grass behind\n ivy-shrouded walls.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield had brought him to a graveyard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My father is buried here,” said Wickfield. Out of the house, he struck Norris as a different man. Taller, the weight shrugged from his shoulders. And\n younger, somehow. His grey beard looked darker in the ebbing light, as if, receding, it had carried along a freight of years. “And his father before him.\n And his as well, back and back for nearly as long as there has been a Highcombe. No Wickfield has ever betrayed this house, Norris. None ever will.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His voice was firm but not loud; indeed, Norris found himself leaning forward to capture each word, and as he did, he tightened his grip on the dagger,\n although it suddenly seemed a ridiculous weapon to place any faith in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will be buried here myself one day,” Wickfield went on. “On that day, I will be able to hold up my head in the presence of my ancestors, knowing that I\n was faithful to my duke and to my house, and to the memory of those who came before me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris was nonplussed. “Why did you bring me here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Three reasons,” Wickfield said. “First, to show you where my loyalties quite literally lie. And second, to remind you that although I will one day lie\n among them, beneath this lawn in this obscure corner of Highcombe, I am not there yet. And if you think to hurry me along, either by sword or dagger, you\n will find me an obdurate foe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the third?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield sighed. “I find this a restful place. A refuge, of sorts. A man can relax here. Set down his burdens. I come here sometimes to think, to dream.\n Sometimes to pray.” As he spoke, he sorted through his key ring. Now, with an abrupt shake and a jingle, he slipped a key loose and extended it between\n thumb and index finger. “Take it, Norris. Use it. For if there is a man in Highcombe more in need of this place, I do not know him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe trudged along the dirt road, Micah beside him. Up ahead, the boy’s cousin Reuben idly conversed with the donkey pulling the cart. Overhead, the grey\n sky spit a light rain. Rafe hadn’t minded when they had first set out, but three hours later his clothes were damp, his hair was soaked, and his bones were\n cold. Periodically, he tried to swipe water out of his eyes with his sleeve, but to no avail.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you want to ride in the cart some?” Micah asked after he made a particularly miserable noise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s suggestion sounded marvelous, but Rafe shook his head. If this walk was too much, what hope did he have of successfully journeying on to Highcombe\n alone come tomorrow?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re dragging your feet.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So it’s bad for your shoes and bad for the road. See?” Micah paused for a moment to toe at the muddy depression left by Rafe’s sullen footprint. “It fills\n up with water when you do that. Which makes things hard for donkeys. And carts. And farmers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Silently Rafe cursed donkeys and carts and farmers, but he tried to be more conscientious about his steps.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah shook her head at his efforts. “You should go in the cart. You can’t weigh that much more than a big bag of squash.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Won’t I just make the donkey drag its feet too?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Donkeys never drag their feet,” Micah said. “They just stop moving ’til you give them food.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They also complain less,” Reuben called back to them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe sighed and climbed into the cart. As they set off again, it bounced and jostled over the road, providing new forms of misery. As Rafe squinted up at\n the grey sky, wondering if Will’s gaze was fixed on the same sky right now, a massive crow, angry about the rain, wheeled overhead.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The rain stopped just after dusk, and Rafe returned his feet to the road. While the weather had washed away the bulk of the mud as they walked, the rest\n had dried and caked on their clothes and skin. Under the moonlight that now shone hazily through the patchy cloud cover, they looked like animate statues.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As they came to pass under a massive tree whose canopy briefly blotted out the sky, Micah stopped. His face split into a grin. “Biggest Oak!” he declared,\n moving to awkwardly hug its trunk. He turned to Rafe. “This is home,” he said. “From here, everything is home.” He was off at a run then, naming all he\n passed. “Meanest Goat,” “Deepest Well,” “Tallest Fence.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah was gone before Rafe had time to focus on each of the details he had called out. Eventually his eyes settled on a big thatched cottage, windows\n gleaming with firelight, set back behind a crude fence and a barnyard half-seen through the darkness. Reuben chuckled. “Never mind. Let’s us unhitch the\n cart in the barn together, and give young Micah a chance to get settled.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Inside the house, Micah stood in the center of a roil of people of all ages and sizes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe! Everyone, this is Rafe, my friend from University.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe tried to say something civil, but Micah started rattling off names and relationships so fast he despaired of following. Dorothy and Edith and Mabel\n lived at the farm and were what Micah called far-cousins; except for Mabel who Micah wasn’t related to at all, but since she and Edith had been partnered\n up for eleven years, four months, and eight days now, they called her cousin too. Caleb and Grady and Toby were just visiting from a farm up the road; Toby\n tried to kiss Micah once, but Micah wasn’t having it. Theo and Flora and Dinah and Seth and Gwen were regular cousins, but Gwen’s parents were dead like\n Micah’s so she was special and could dance really well, did Rafe want to see?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s Aunt Judith stepped forward.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Welcome,” she said awkwardly. “We don’t get many scholars here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah laughed loudly. “We get zero. Rafe, you’re the first!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nah,” said Cousin Somebody-or-Other, “he’s the second. \u003cem\u003eYou’re\u003c/em\u003e the first, Micah!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This caused a ruckus, with everyone laughing and repeating the joke, and teasing Micah for not being as good at numbers as they’d remembered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’ll be food on the table soon,” Aunt Judith said through the noise. “We’re glad you can join us. You’ve been a good friend to Micah, that’s clear.\n Who ever thought she’d be a University scholar? But she’s happy, so we’re happy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe shook Micah’s aunt’s hand. “Sh-sh-she . . . is?” he stammered out, whipping his head around frantically to look at the boy. Who was not, apparently, a\n boy at all. Just a square-shaped girl who had never bothered to correct him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Must be,” Aunt Judith said. “Took her this long to drag herself away to visit us, didn’t it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s family welcomed Rafe seamlessly into the bustle of the end of market day celebration with a never-ending collection of small tasks, from carrying a\n bucket of scraps out to the goats to bringing in more firewood for the hearth. After the ordeal of the journey, he expected to be mocked for his clumsiness\n and uncertainty. But while Micah’s family had no qualms about mocking each other, they treated him kindly, even when his efforts to help were plainly\n getting in the way. Still, he was relieved when it was finally time to sit down for the meal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With more than a dozen people at the table, it was as raucous as any University tavern. Micah winced occasionally at the louder outbursts, but Rafe noticed\n that everyone in her family took care to lower their volume when they spoke to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why didn’t you ever tell me you weren’t a boy?” Rafe asked as Micah ripped off a chunk of the heavy brown bread being passed around the table.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not interesting. And you don’t listen to people anyway,” Micah said without rancor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I listen to you,” Rafe said, but as he looked around the table, at the cousins near and far whose names and relationships and tasks he had already\n forgotten, a realization more uncomfortable than his sore legs began to dawn. “At least, I listen to you more than I listen to most people.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I’m telling you, I saw him add something to the duke’s wine!” Norris insisted, speaking slowly and clearly, trying to keep the exasperation from his\n voice. Gods, was the woman really as stupid as she appeared? What was this madhouse he had been exiled to?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera raised brown eyes to him and left off chopping vegetables to wipe her splotchy forehead with one plump wrist. “And I told you that it’s no concern of\n mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you not a servant of this house, loyal to duke and duchess?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aye, I am that. So is Wickfield. And has been for more years than you’ve been alive. Why, I’ve known him since I was a girl! I would as soon cut off my\n own hand as accuse him of disloyalty.” She shook the knife at him as if it were really \u003cem\u003ehis\u003c/em\u003e hand that she contemplated removing. “You don’t know\n him, sir. You are a stranger here. I’m sure you have the duke’s best interests at heart, as we all do, but you should mind your own affairs, and let us\n mind ours.” She returned to chopping her turnips.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Could it be that the vapid cow was in on the scheme? What a nest of vipers he had stumbled into! Why, it made the Riverside stews look innocent by\n comparison! But he needed solid proof to bring to the duchess. Only thus would he ensure his return to the city and the position of second swordsman that\n should have been his after the death of that blowhard Reynald.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Forget about Wickfield,” he said, switching one line of attack for another. “What of Thea? She is as much a stranger here as I—more, even, since she is\n deaf and mute, or claims to be. I don’t trust her . . . and nor do you. Don’t bother to deny it. I’ve seen how you look at her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The click of the knife on the cutting board quickened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eFirst blood\u003c/em\u003e\n , he thought with satisfaction. “Why, the woman has ordered you about on more than one occasion, scribbling on that ridiculous slate of hers. I ask you, is\n it right that the cook of a great house not be mistress of her own kitchen? Who put Thea in charge of Highcombe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The duchess,” came the terse reply amid more forceful chopping still.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure, the duchess. But perhaps the duchess has been fooled. She is a trusting woman. Sick with worry about her husband. Who can say how this creature has\n played upon her fears, and for what purpose? What do we know of Thea, really?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She is from a penitents’ house in the North, Wickfield told me,” Vera said, laying her knife down and turning those placid cow’s eyes upon him—less\n placid, however, than a moment ago. “It is there that she learned her nursing skills.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what other skills did she learn?” he pressed. “Those who can cure can also kill. I make no accusation,” he added hastily. “But consider. Why should\n she order you from the kitchen before bringing the duke his meals? What does she do alone here that cannot bear the scrutiny of another?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She is not alone. Wickfield is with her. And Wickfield keeps the medicine with him at all times.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If she can deceive the duchess, can she not also deceive Wickfield? No doubt she has convinced him that he is adding medicine to the duke’s wine. But what\n proof is there of that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera did not answer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just keep an eye open,” Norris said, and tapped his nose with his index finger. “That’s all I’m asking. For the duke’s sake. No one would be more pleased\n than I to be proved wrong in this matter. You’ll do that, won’t you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her eyes shifted to the door, then back to him, and she gave the faintest of nods.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The next morning dawned cool and, thankfully, clear. Rafe hurt all over, but he wanted to believe the second leg of his journey would be easier. He’d be\n traveling alone, after all, on a bright, sunny day, free to stop and rest whenever he wanted to, maybe even to hitch a ride on a passing cart.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the farm had risen early, as all farms surely did. Rafe hoped Micah was sleeping late or visiting her favorite cow; he didn’t have the stomach for\n farewells, or arguments, either. He gathered his things as quickly as he could, buckled on his sword, and hoisted his pack onto his back once again,\n leaving a note of thanks on the table, and Micah Heslop behind with his—well, her—adoring relatives.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Rafe had barely passed the farmyard fence when he heard Micah calling his name. He pretended not to hear her. Maybe she wouldn’t follow. But her voice\n grew closer and louder as she ran after him. Rafe knew he should stop, turn around, talk to her. But Micah could be hard to convince. And he was in a\n hurry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Soon Micah had caught up to him and was tugging on his sleeve. He stopped, and she spun him around. “Rafe, what are you doing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought we were doing it together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe shook his head. “Only the first part. The next may be too dangerous for me. It’s definitely too dangerous for you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is this because I’m a girl? Reuben says city folk treat girls different, but I’ve never believed him, not really, but maybe it’s true, because if you’re\n going to—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. That’s not it at all.” That was the truth. “It’s because you’re Micah.” That was also the truth, and Rafe hoped she wouldn’t take it unkindly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah wrinkled up her face. “What do you mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I might have to trick people, and you’re a bad liar,” Rafe said. “Also, you don’t like surprises. You won’t know what to do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Neither will you! If something goes wrong, you won’t know what to do. You can’t go alone. You won’t blend in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “\u003cem\u003eYou\u003c/em\u003e don’t blend in!” Rafe retorted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You thought I was a boy. For eight months!” As Micah gestured at her breeches, Rafe had to admit her outrage was legitimate. “I blend in. And I can help\n you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This isn’t a math problem you can solve.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But you’re my friend!” Micah yelled. “You brought me to the University. To Doctor Goodell. To tomato pies and cards and friends and a room to sleep in. To\n the ball!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Actually, I tried to stop you from doing that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I knew about it because of you. And I’d never been to a ball before. Now I know what to avoid.” Rafe laughed despite himself, and Micah leaned in.\n “I’m your friend. And I’m going with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah had packed bread and cheese, and without donkey or cart to worry about, they made better time than the day before. As they cut through fields and\n farms, Micah kept up a litany of who lived where, made what, and kept which animals. Rafe found himself grateful for her company. It kept his mind off the\n task ahead, and with her at his side he worried less about the possibility of getting lost. As they clambered over fences, and occasionally ran from\n suspicious sheepdogs, Rafe could see that Micah took physically to the country the way she took intellectually to the city.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Abruptly, Micah stopped, and Rafe crashed into her. He grumbled, but she shushed him at a volume far louder than his own complaints and then led him behind\n a tree. She pointed up ahead to a juncture in the road where a coach was stopped. Its single horse nickered nervously as two men scuffled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We should help,” Micah whispered, still too loudly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We should find a way around.” Rafe watched as the highwayman—for such the man surely was!—knocked the coachman to the ground, and then knelt quickly to\n hobble the horse before it could bolt and take the carriage with it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The thief began to rifle through the vehicle, dumping its contents, mostly trunks and books, across the road. Micah gasped. “I think it’s a robbery!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then we should definitely find a way around.” Rafe put one hand on his sword and reached for her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wrenched her arm away as the horse, panting nervously, snorted. “No! That horse is scared,” she said, rushing forward, her words no longer for her\n friend, but for the highwayman. “And you’re hurting those books!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe cursed and crouched lower against the tree, hoping he hadn’t been seen. If Micah needed rescuing, Rafe didn’t want to lose the advantage of surprise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t care about books,” the highwayman spat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, you should!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Behind the tree, Rafe winced. She’d get herself killed for sheer cheekiness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Says who?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah pulled herself up to her full height, which wasn’t terribly tall. “I’m a student at the University.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you, now?” The man kicked the trunk he had been digging through closed. He put one booted foot up on it and leaned in to Micah’s space. He wasn’t\n large, but Rafe recognized that he knew how to use his body for menace. Micah, however, seemed oblivious to the intent of his proximity. “You carrying your\n tuition fees?” he jeered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. I’m carrying bread and cheese. It comes from my family’s farm.” Micah gestured to the satchel she carried. “Tuition doesn’t come from the farm. That\n comes from playing cards, but you can have some cheese if you want.” When the highwayman stared at her blankly, Micah shrugged, and knelt down to examine\n the nearest book he had discarded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The highwayman looked toward the heavens and took a great heaving breath. “A coach full of books! And now a scholar with no money! Has anyone ever so\n offended the god of thieves?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From behind the tree, Rafe hoped the man would now have the good sense to take the coach horse and flee with whatever he thought of value.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Instead, the thief fished about in one of the trunks, and drew out a silk-wrapped parcel. He murmured over the value of the fabric. “Finally! This is real\n silk, or my name’s not—what the hell?” In the silk nestled a brass object. He was about to toss it aside when Micah shrieked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nooooo!!! That’s a telescope!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shut up!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment, Micah was frozen, either by her chagrin at what was about to happen to the telescope or the sharp rebuke, Rafe wasn’t sure. Perhaps her\n silence would mollify the highwayman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But to Rafe’s horror, she found her voice. “Give it to me,” she demanded. Holding out her hand. “My friend needs it!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As the highwayman stepped back, Micah lunged for him, grabbing the man’s sleeve. The fragile telescope fell to the ground, and the man shrugged out of her\n grasp, stepping on the instrument in the process. He drew his sword and held her at its point.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stop!” Rafe ran forward, panicked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah turned to Rafe and beamed. “See, Rafe? It’s something you want, and he doesn’t want it, so—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the ground, the mostly unconscious coachman groaned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you a University boy too?” The highwayman smiled with a predatory delight that might have excited Rafe if they were in a tavern threatening to draw\n weapons of a different sort. But as the man assumed a fighting stance, Rafe drew his own weapon and mimicked him as best he could.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The thief scoffed. “Who even let you have that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was trained abroad,” Rafe said haughtily. Unlike Micah, who was now moving closer to the coach and the injured coachman, Rafe was both willing and able\n to lie.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The highwayman tipped his head to the side in acknowledgment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Did the other man really believe him? Rafe found his own predatory grin as the other man advanced, tapping his weapon lightly against Rafe’s. Rafe had seen\n enough duels to know that fighting was often a showy business. Kaab had even said—he did listen when it was important!—that swordsmen tested their\n opponents early in a battle. If this was all the highwayman had, Rafe might just be in luck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe, however, was definitely not in luck. He had not anticipated the way any blow against his sword would rattle up his arm. If only Micah would run for\n safety, then he could be content at having achieved some success in this disaster, but Micah had climbed into the coach and was unsuccessfully trying to\n hoist its driver in after her. Rafe had to face the very real possibility that they were all—Will and Micah and even the hapless coachman—doomed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The highwayman thrust. Rafe managed a successful parry, but instead of retracting his blade and trying again, the highwayman held his sword and took\n another step forward. Metal scraped on metal until their hilts touched. Rafe tried to push the other man back, but unless he dropped his own sword, he was\n locked in place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was time to run.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Micah!” he shouted as he let go of his blade and shoved the highwayman as hard as he could. The man stumbled a few steps back, but kept his footing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah did not emerge from the coach. Instead she gave up on trying to rescue the coachman. As she let go of him, the door slammed shut. The highwayman\n advanced. Rafe readied himself to face what would surely be at least the prelude to a killing blow. But suddenly, the door to the coach popped open.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah, her arms full of a jumble of scientific instruments, tumbled out headfirst. As the thief’s attention skittered to her, Rafe ran forward to reclaim\n his sword. He watched in surprise as Micah jabbed the sharp end of a crossbow quadrant into the back of the highwayman’s knee, sending him to the ground.\n Choosing efficiency over art, Rafe punched the man soundly. Their assailant rendered motionless, Rafe kicked him in the ribs for good measure. He shook out\n his hand and arm, which ached where they were not numb, both from the punch and the duel. Cautiously, he flexed his fingers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good punch,” the coachman grumbled from where he was still slumped against the wheels of his conveyance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The coachman’s name was Jasper, they learned, and Rafe suspected his gratitude might have been less profuse had he been conscious for more of the\n altercation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe helped him to his feet, and watched as he ambled slowly to his horse, still trying to walk off his injuries. After some quiet words exchanged with the\n beast, he knelt gingerly to remove the rope that hobbled it and tossed the length to Rafe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think those ropes might look better on our friend.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe hurried to bind the highwayman, hoping desperately that they would be able to just leave the man here. As he checked and rechecked the ropes, he\n watched in dismay as Micah gathered up the books and maps and instruments strewn over the crossroads.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe recognized these particular books. They were Will’s. The instrument Micah had used to bring down the highwayman had been kept in Will’s study. So had\n the telescope which now lay damaged in the dirt. Rafe and Will had flirted over it, using it as an excuse, unnecessary, to touch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me,” Rafe said, working to keep his voice steady, “but a coach filled with books and no passengers?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jasper puffed out his chest. “Not the usual, is it? But the Duchess Tremontaine can do as she likes, can’t she?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A duchess?” Rafe tried to sound casual. “Aren’t their carriages usually marked? A coat of arms or something?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The coachman gave a slow nod and a weary smile. “Usually, yeah. But trunks of books don’t care what’s on the door, now, do they? Help me gather them up,\n will you? I can’t believe this happened here, so close to Highcombe. It’s not much farther, thank goodness.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Highcombe?” Micah exclaimed before Rafe could stop her. “That’s where you’re going!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s Highcombe to you?” the coachman asked suspiciously.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “His own true love lives there!” Micah blurted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe groaned. Now he was going to have to spin a story and hope she would stay quiet long enough for it to seem true. “One of the housemaids. My sister and\n I were on our way there so I could see her when we came upon you—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sister?” Jasper inquired, looking at Micah’s breeches.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s safer,” Rafe said, “with highwaymen about. Don’t say anything, will you? About my sweetheart. I don’t want to get her in trouble.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jasper laughed. “It’s Olive, isn’t it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. Olive!” Rafe nodded enthusiastically. “She’s very special.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, you two had best come ride the rest of the way with me, then. One kind turn deserves another, as they say. Besides”—and here he winked broadly at\n them both—“I’ve a sweetheart waiting at Highcombe myself!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n William, Duke Tremontaine, huddled against the wall of his room, twisting the ducal ring upon his finger. His father had given him that ring. The weight of\n it had always steadied him, reminding him that, wherever he stood in the world, no matter how precarious his position might seem, the ground beneath his\n feet was solid Tremontaine ground. How often in the Council chambers of the city had he touched the ring for reassurance before standing to make his voice\n heard on some matter or other his wife the duchess had told him was essential to their interests! His false wife. The false duchess. Was the ring false\n too? It spun around his finger, around and around, never catching hold of anything, never changing anything. It seemed to have no weight, as if it had been\n cut loose from all history and tradition, an anchor that had slipped its chain, leaving him helplessly adrift. It was useless now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With a moan, he wrenched the ring from his finger and flung it across the room. He heard it strike the wall; then, dully, the floor, then nothing. What had\n he done? He scrambled after it on all fours. Because suddenly, belatedly, he understood. The ring served a purpose after all. Not anchor, but cage. Free of\n its constraining band, the great bird that had been gestating in his skull flexed its infinite wings. That sharp, predatory beak resumed its tapping,\n striking a spot on his forehead just between his eyes, only from the darkness inside, \u003cem\u003etap-tap, tap-tap-tap\u003c/em\u003e. Each blow exploded agony through his\n brain and body, so that he could barely continue crawling across the floor, which had become an oozing swamp that sucked at his limbs. Clouds of tiny black\n insects stung his skin, and he stopped to swat at them, but to no avail. Where was this place? A forest of trees such as he had never seen before, shades\n of green he hadn’t dreamed existed, flashes of color that were birds flitting like winged gems or living flames from branch to branch. He would have gazed\n in silent wonder, only the pain of his skull cracking apart was too much to bear. He raised his hands to the sides of his head, and pushed back with all\n his strength, holding the pieces together. What was pushing its way out of him? And what would be left of him when it was done?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The kitchen was crowded to capacity with Highcombe’s staff. Wickfield stood facing them, with the duke’s nurse, Thea, and the cook, Vera, to either side.\n He towered over everyone. Excited murmurings subsided as Wickfield cleared his throat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you for coming,” he said. “As we are all here, and time is of the essence, let us begin.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One of the maids raised her voice. “Shouldn’t we wait for Olive?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Olive has a duty of her own,” Vera replied, with a significant glance at Wickfield, who colored and cleared his throat again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve asked you here to address a problem that affects all of Highcombe,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why’s \u003cem\u003eshe\u003c/em\u003e here?” interrupted another voice, this time belonging to a groom. A grubby finger pointed at Thea. “She’s part of the problem, you ask\n me. Come in here all high and mighty, ordering folks around like she’s a duchess herself. “\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield’s color intensified, while the groom’s color, as if by some inverse relationship, fled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No one asked you, Dilkins,” Wickfield said. “Nor is likely to. About anything. Ever.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A tittering among the maids and Dilkins’s fellow grooms was cut short at a glare from Wickfield. He cleared his throat. “Ever since the swordsman Norris\n arrived at Highcombe, he has been sowing dissent among us. He has raised calumnious accusations against me and against other loyal servants of the Duke and\n Duchess Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He said you was poisoning the duke,” Dilkins blurted excitedly, then blanched again as Vera and Wickfield trained their sternest gazes upon him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never mind what he said exactly,” said Wickfield. “The point is, we cannot let this situation continue. We must take action.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You . . . you mean poison him?” squeaked Dilkins. “With that caluminous stuff?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Dilkins,” said Wickfield, after giving his beard a formidable tug, “if you speak one more word, it’s you who’ll be choking on caluminous, is that clear?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy nodded weakly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now then,” said Wickfield. “Let’s have no more talk of poison, caluminous or otherwise. It’s plain enough that Norris doesn’t want to be here. He is\n intent on seeing conspiracies behind every door because he’s convinced himself that finding one is his surest way back to the city. And in that, I do not\n believe he is wrong. Button it, Dilkins.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The groom had indeed been poised to speak, but now he swallowed and looked down at the floor with a surly expression.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I propose we give him what he is looking for,” Wickfield continued. “Let us manufacture a conspiracy—nothing too awful. Just enough for Norris to feel he\n has evidence to bring to the duchess. Caluminous, Dilkins!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But even that reminder was not sufficient to dissuade the groom this time. “She’ll give us all the sack!” he cried. “What kind of stupid plan is that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The duchess is more than capable of judging what is and is not a conspiracy,” said Wickfield. “I assure you, if anyone is sacked, it will be Norris.” He\n paused, then added, “And perhaps a groom or two.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Dilkins seemed to have reached a point of no return. He puffed out his chest, what little of it there was, clenched his fists, opened his mouth, and—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How did that bird get in here?” cried Vera, pointing up at the ceiling in the far corner of the kitchen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Everyone turned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera shrieked as the bird began to flap about, seemingly frightened by the noise. “I’ll have no such thing in my kitchen! That’s bad luck, it is, a bird in\n the house! Get the filthy thing out!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you waiting for?” asked Micah. “Lie down.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe, standing beside her, did not reply. He regarded the heavy woolen tapestry unrolled by the side of the road with an expression that reminded Micah of\n the way he had regarded the scraps to be fed to the goats on the farm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have to lie down, Rafe,” she repeated. “It’s the only way to get you into the house without anybody noticing. We talked it over. We agreed on the\n plan.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well, not agreed, exactly. She and Jasper had done most of the planning, with Rafe sitting between them looking like he might be sick as the carriage\n jolted over ruts in the road and gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly that his knuckles turned white.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jasper had told them that he always followed the same procedure on his visits to Highcombe. He brought the carriage around to the back of the house, to the\n kitchen entrance, where footmen from the house unloaded his goods through the kitchen and into the connecting storage room. He neither knew nor cared what\n happened to his cargo after that, he said, as he had “more pressing interests, and I do mean pressing! But you know all about that, I’ll wager, my lad!”\n This accompanied by a wink and a nudge to Rafe’s ribs that elicited a queasy grin from her friend.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on, lad!” Jasper clapped Rafe on the shoulder, hard enough that Rafe winced. “It’s not so bad! A bit musty, I’ll grant you, but a small price to pay\n for true love, eh? You lie down there, and we’ll roll you up snug as a bug! Then we’ll carry you inside, and while Vera and I get reacquainted”—that was\n his sweetheart’s name; she was the cook—“you’ll have yourself a nice time with Olive! I’ll tip a nod to Vera once you’re in, she’s a good sort, and she’ll\n spirit you back out with no one the wiser.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course, Jasper didn’t know that Rafe wouldn’t be coming out of the house alone, or before Vera’s escort. They couldn’t tell him everything, no matter\n how nice he was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe nodded, swallowed, and hurriedly lay down on the tapestry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on, lass,” said Jasper. “Let’s roll him up!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They did so, without further protest from Rafe, then stowed the lumpy-looking tapestry back in the carriage. Micah was surprised how light it was; Rafe\n needed to eat better.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can you breathe in there, lad?” asked Jasper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A muffled grunt was the reply.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Soon after, they were rolling through the gates of Highcombe, the wheels of the carriage crunching over the loose gravel of the drive. A groom emerging\n from the stables hallooed loudly, waved, and sped off around the house as Jasper flicked the reins and followed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Remember,” he said, glancing at Micah, “you’re my niece from the country. I picked you up on the way out and am bringing you back to the city to find\n work. If anyone asks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah nodded, but hoped no one would ask. She did not think she and the coachman looked related.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t speak unless you’re spoke to, right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Right,” Micah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At the back of the house, two women stood beside the door with a groom—a scrawny-looking boy who put Micah in mind of a turkey—fidgeting next to them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jasper lifted one hand to wave as, with the other, he pulled the reins and drew the carriage to a halt. “That’s my Vera there—isn’t she a right beauty?” he\n said proudly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah nodded. “She reminds me of my aunt Judith.” This woman, Vera, stout and vigorous in appearance, looked as though she would be every bit as capable as\n Aunt Judith in a kitchen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Beside her is Thea,” continued Jasper. “She can’t hear nor speak, poor lass. The boy is Dilkins.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He looks like a turkey,” said Micah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jasper laughed, lowered himself gingerly from his perch on the carriage, and strode over to the women. Micah stayed put, as she hadn’t been told to do\n otherwise. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she saw Jasper produce a letter from within his jacket, which he smoothed out and handed to Thea. The\n woman, wearing a shapeless dress and apron of light brown, and with hair and skin to match, put Micah in mind of a potato. Micah liked potatoes. Almost as\n much as turnips.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Deaf the woman might be, and mute, but she evidently read well enough, for she opened the letter and studied it before folding it up and tucking it into\n the front pocket of her apron. Then she pulled a slate from that pocket and began to write upon it with a slate pencil.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The other woman, Vera, said something to the boy that Micah couldn’t catch. He sped off into the fields. Then she and Jasper began an animated discussion,\n which ended with the woman shrugging and Jasper walking back to the carriage. He motioned for Micah to step down from the bench, which she did, alighting\n in the gravel. A dark flicker caught her eye, quick as the beat of a bird’s wing, and she glanced up the facade of the house, to a window on the second\n floor, where a curtain fell back in place, as if someone had been watching.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wanted us to wait on the footmen,” he whispered to her with a wink. “But I told her I had special orders from the duchess herself to carry in the\n tapestry. Come on, lass. Let’s get your brother inside.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah nodded. The palms of her hands were sweating, and she rubbed them against her trousers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Together, they drew out the rolled tapestry, which seemed to Micah to cling revealingly to the shape within. She and Jasper carried the hidden Rafe slung\n between them across the gravel toward the door, where Vera waited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you’re Jasper’s niece, are you?” the woman asked as they drew near. “He never mentioned a niece before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah didn’t trust herself to answer. She simply nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re going to throw your back out, Jasper. Let me call for help,” Vera said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No need, no need,” Jasper glanced over his shoulder. “Like I told you, duchess’s orders. Anyway, she’s stronger than she looks, our Micah. You know what\n she’d like, though? Some of that buttermilk of yours. And I could use a glass of something myself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Suit yourself,” said Vera. “I’ve sent Dilkins off to fetch Wickfield. He’ll want to talk with you. Meanwhile, get that thing stowed away and bring young\n Micah back to the kitchen. The rest of the things can wait, eh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, indeed they can,” said Jasper, giving Micah another wink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera led them through the kitchen and to the door of the storage room, which she unlocked with a key from the ring tucked into her apron pocket. Jasper led\n Micah past her and into a large room, gloomy and cool. They lowered the tapestry gently to the floor, and Jasper said in a loud voice, ostensibly to Vera,\n but really, Micah knew, for Rafe’s benefit, “That’s it then! We’ll just come in for some refreshment, shall we?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And in they went. Jasper ushered her to a big wooden table, pulled out a chair with a flourish, and gestured for her to sit.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The coachman sauntered over to Vera and embraced her from behind. She gave a girlish shriek and turned, pushing him away, her face beet red.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s all right, love,” said Jasper. “She knows everything.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera shot him the kind of gaze that Micah had observed her aunt sometimes giving her uncle. “Does she, now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “N-not everything,” stammered Jasper. “About us, I mean. She knows we’re—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Friends,” said Vera. She turned back to the counter where she’d been at work and lifted a glass of white liquid—buttermilk, Micah assumed. She hated\n buttermilk, but managed a smile as the woman bustled over and set it down before her. She ignored the queer eye the woman gave her clothes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” she said. Lying was one thing, politeness another.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And now, Micah, my friend and I,” said Jasper, stepping up and sliding an arm about Vera’s waist, “are going to renew the bonds of our friendship.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This time Vera did not pull away, though a flush rose again to her cheeks. “You just stay here, Micah. Your uncle and I will be back before you know it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe not quite as soon as that,” said Jasper with a wink, and then did something with his hand that Micah could not see, though the result was another\n squeal from Vera. Laughing now, she drew Jasper by the hand out of the kitchen, pausing to hang her apron on a hook by the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah sat for a moment. When she was certain they were not coming right back, she pushed out her chair and stood. Walking quickly across the kitchen to\n where the apron hung, she reached into the pocket and took the ring of keys. Rafe said she was a bad liar, but sneaking was different, or so she hoped.\n Clutching the keys, she hurried back across the kitchen and pushed open the door—still unlocked—to the storage room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The tapestry was just where they’d left it. Only it wasn’t rolled up anymore. And Rafe wasn’t inside it, either.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris was on his way to the kitchen when he came upon Thea, hurrying in the opposite direction. “Just the person I’m looking for,” he said, blocking her\n way. “I hear a carriage has come from the city. From the duchess?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thea nodded and removed her slate from its pouch. She wrote quickly with her pencil and held it up to him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Items for the duke,” he read, then raised his eyes to hers. “Why wasn’t I informed?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She licked her finger, erased the words and began writing again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never mind,” he said, and reached to interrupt her. “Have you inspected them?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shook her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “God, woman! Who’s to say they are from the duchess at all? I had better take a look.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How was he supposed to do his job hobbled by such incompetence? Unless, of course, it was not incompetence at all. Perhaps the conspirators were making\n their play at last. He hurried through the house, the nurse at his heels, only to find the kitchen empty. Where was everyone? He rushed out the back door.\n Outside, the carriage stood unattended, the horse still in harness, tied to the post.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Norris stopped and looked back at Thea, just emerging from the house. “Where is the driver? Where is Wickfield?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shrugged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He hastened to the carriage and yanked the door open. Inside was a jumble. Books were strewn willy-nilly amid rolled canvases and carpets and an assortment\n of scientific instruments, including what he at first took to be a bent flute but then realized, lifting it up, was a damaged telescope. What had happened\n here?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Norris!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He turned sharply. Wickfield strode toward them, the ratty stableboy Dilkins strutting at his side with an absurdly self-important air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is this?” Wickfield demanded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You tell me,” said Norris.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield pushed his head and shoulders into the carriage as Dilkins did his best to stifle a snigger. Norris was an instant away from leveling the dolt\n with the telescope when Wickfield reversed course and emerged back into the daylight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where is the driver?” he snapped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How should I know?” Norris replied. “Ask her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thea had already been writing, and she held up the slate. “With Vera.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, where the blazes is Vera?” Wickfield thundered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shrugged, and Dilkins sniggered again, at which, quick as a snake, Wickfield cuffed the back of the boy’s head. “See to the horses,” he said. And then,\n to Norris: “Come with me—we’ll take the back stairs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “To where?” asked Norris.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where else?” said Wickfield. “To the duke!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Being alone in Highcombe was terrifying. Rafe had no idea where Will was. Nor did he know how many others inhabited this house. Each closed door and every\n stairway represented a risk. A poorly timed corner and he was caught.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before he could begin to formulate a plan, the sound of approaching voices sent him scurrying behind a large decorative urn just as two housemaids rounded\n the corridor. “I’m not saying he’s bad-looking,” said the fair, freckled one. “I’m saying he’s awful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her companion, a brunette with posture as fine as that of any Hill girl, scoffed. “I’m not using him for talking, am I?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not using him for anything, Olive, he’s using you. And if you think a swordsman’s going to take you back to the city with him when he leaves here,\n dream on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hush, Nancy. I’d never! Norris’d never! He’d only leave if Duke William dies, and if that happens it would grieve Uncle Wickfield to the bone.” Rafe heard\n a heartfelt sigh of emotion that reminded him of his sisters. “The poor duke! I remember his last visit with the duchess. Like the heavens come down to\n earth they were, all bright and glittery and merry! And look at him now, locked away all by himself in that upstairs room, screaming his poor head off,\n with no friends but the horses below.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m glad it’s Thea’s problem, not ours. Lucky thing can’t hear him, can she?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She does work hard, up and down those stairs all day with no complaint.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From behind the urn, Rafe considered his clues. He needed to go farther up into the house. And figure out which side of the building the stables were on.\n It wasn’t enough, not yet, but it was more than he’d had.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He held his breath as he waited for the women to pass, their gossip moving on from Will to some drama about a crow that had gotten into the kitchen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe edged himself out from behind the urn and dashed to the nearest stairs. At the next level he paused and frantically scanned the hallway, hopelessly\n trying to orient himself. He picked a direction at random and around a corner he came upon a far grander staircase and a set of double doors. The ballroom!\n It would have a wall of windows—he would be able to see the stables, or, at least, where the stables were not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He tried the handle, which creaked as he twisted it, determined to give him away. He darted inside and closed the door behind him. The ballroom was empty,\n furniture at its edges draped in protective sheets. He hurried to the windows, which looked out over the great drive leading to the house. He pressed one\n side of his face and then the other against the panes, trying to see to the sides. Woods. And fields. The stables would have to be at the back, and Will’s\n room likely another floor up if the housemaids found the stairs so onerous.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Up he went, taking the steps two at a time and skidding around a corner on a landing. Every step closer to Will was a step closer to happiness and being\n quit of Diane de Tremontaine once and for all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The next level was just as sumptuous as the rest of the house but less ostentatious, not intended for a ball’s mass of guests, but for the daily life and\n comfort of the estate’s master and mistress. Rafe hurried toward the back of the house, stopping occasionally to listen for sounds other than his own\n footsteps. They could be his undoing or his greatest treasure. Finally, a voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who’s there? Who’s coming?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWill\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe hurried down the hall, pressing himself so tight against the wall that he narrowly missed ramming the side of his head into a sconce decorated with\n the Tremontaine swan. He stumbled against a locked door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Again, the query came. “Who comes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Surely the duke could open it from inside? “It’s Rafe,” he said, his own voice tentative, hoarse. Frightened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not here,” came the duke’s reply.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am, I am here,” Rafe said, pressing himself against the door as if he could force himself through it. “And I need your help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Will demurred. “No. What has she done to you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe closed his eyes. “She’s done nothing, but I need you to open this door.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no, no, they’ll get in,” Will cried. “The water, and the birds, drowning and pecking, you mustn’t let them in!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know,” Rafe made himself to say. “That’s why you need to let me in. So I can be safe from them, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a shuffling sound, and for a moment, Rafe was filled with hope, but it was dashed by a crash, a curse, and the repetitive moan of \u003cem\u003emurder\u003c/em\u003e\n that came and went in volume, as if Will was pacing in the confines of both his prison and his madness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Could he break the door down? And if he could, could he do so without being heard? “Will, \u003cem\u003eplease.\u003c/em\u003e” Rafe thumped his head softly against the door,\n willing his plan to work. And then he heard his name, spoken softly behind him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t just go running off.” She shoved a massive key ring at him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s hands shook as he fumbled with the keys, trying one after another at the lock.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah grabbed for the keys. “Let me try.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shhh! No—I think—wait—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hurry,” Micah said under her breath. She rocked from foot to foot as Rafe fumbled through the keys, finally pushing the correct one into the lock. He\n cursed in delight as it clicked open.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Inside, Will cowered in a corner. Rafe approached his duke as if he were a frightened animal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not him!” the duke cried. “False, false, sent to torment me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not false,” Rafe said softly. “I am so true, that I traveled all the way here from the city for you and broke into this great house.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is \u003cem\u003emy\u003c/em\u003e house!” Will bellowed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is, yes.” Rafe continued to inch forward. “But you are not the master of it right now. You are not even the master of yourself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s the bird’s place,” Will said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That doesn’t matter,” Rafe said softly. “Your place is with me. You remember that, don’t you?” Surely the Will he knew still existed beneath the\n shadowroot that had so clouded his mind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I remember things that haven’t happened yet,” Will said. But there was a flicker of the familiar in his expression.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then that’s all right,” Rafe told him. “The order doesn’t matter. I love you as I did in the past and do in the present. And will always continue to do so\n in the future. See?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will nodded slowly, like a man figuring out a math problem. “I’ve lost my ring,” he said. The trust was back in his eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe frowned at the duke’s hand. He wasn’t raving; the ring really had gone missing. He hoped it hadn’t been taken from him. “We’ll look for it together,\n then, shall we?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He scanned the floor as if it were a grid, left to right, top to bottom, as quick as he could and hoping against hope. Finally, a flash of gold caught his\n eye and he could barely hold back his gasp at the discovery. He moved carefully to pick it up, not wanting any sudden movement to cause alarm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe held the ring out to the duke in his open palm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will crept forward, and Rafe held it up, such that they could each peer through the circle of it, as if to a different time and life.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will held out a shaking hand, flinching at Rafe’s touch but then, somehow, steadying himself. Rafe eased the ring onto his finger, as solemn as a groom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will turned his hand, tilting the ring into the light. “You are true,” he declared, and placed his hand back in Rafe’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe knew it was neither the time nor the place, but what rescue—what wedding —would be complete without a kiss?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He touched Will’s face carefully. “I am. Always.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will’s mouth quirked into the slightest of smiles. “What took you so long?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I had to find you first,” Rafe admitted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will leaned in to kiss him.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the doorway, Micah was frantic. “We need to get out of here!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Will you come with me?” Rafe asked his lover carefully. The duke nodded, and Rafe kissed his temple, where the grey was beginning to show.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We need to get out, and find somewhere to lie hidden until we can acquire some horses,” he told Micah. “You know how to ride?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you?” Micah retorted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With Will by his side, Rafe felt braver than he had since leaving the city. “Of course I do. After the last two days, I’m sure I could ride the most\n fearsome of monsters!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Beside him, Will shivered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera liked her life at Highcombe well enough. It was good work and, recent events aside, mostly quiet . . . which made it easier for Jasper to visit,\n whether he was delivering goods to the house or not. It was never a hardship to join him in a bed—or a cupboard or a pantry—but it was generally a hardship\n to get back up again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She smoothed her skirts down one more time as she and Jasper returned to the kitchen. She’d fix him and the girl some food, and then they’d be on their way\n back to town. She reached for her apron and tied it on before she realized it was strangely light. She shoved her hands into the pockets, searching for her\n keys, but her hands found nothing. She looked up at the hook. It was empty. Quickly, and with a growing sense of alarm, she patted over her dress. Had she\n taken the keys with her? Surely she hadn’t. Her eyes scanned the counters of the kitchen, the tables heaped with tools and supplies; she even bent over to\n check the floors. But the keys weren’t there.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And neither was the girl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned on Jasper. “What are you up to?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He held his hands up. “I’m not up to—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where’s that niece of yours?” Vera interrupted, as yet undecided between fear and anger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sure she’s just—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My keys are gone. My keys and your niece. Who is she, really? Did you bring thieves here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jasper laughed. “They can’t be thieves, dearest. They saved me from a highwayman. The girl’s a bit odd is all, I’m sure she’s just wandered off.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They? Saved you? From a highwayman? Have you gone mad? Because I tell you, sometimes I wonder if it’s catching around here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I got set upon on the road. That girl and her brother saved me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So she’s not your niece!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If someone saved your life, you’d let them call you family to help them too. The boy drew a sword and everything! Turned out, they were coming this\n way—he’s been carrying on with one of the maids—so I gave them a ride—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vera’s heart hammered in her chest. “Where’s the boy now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, with the maid, I’d imagine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Which maid?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Which maid is the girl’s brother seeing? If I need to find the boy, which I think I \u003cem\u003edo\u003c/em\u003e, it’ll be quicker—and less ugly for everyone—if I know\n which maid.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Olive,” Jasper stammered. “Had to be Olive, didn’t it? I asked him if it was, and he said yes. So no surprise to me, that. Couldn’t much be to you\n either.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You asked him if it was Olive, and he said yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because it was Olive!” he protested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The man was dumber than a newborn lamb. “Olive’s taken up with Norris. And she’s been flaunting that like a summer sunset. I’d have heard about some boy.”\n Vera sighed at her miserable luck and apparently poor taste. “A girl who probably stole my keys is missing, and a boy who lied to you because you’re an\n idiot is wandering about with steel! We need to find them.” She pulled a still bewildered Jasper toward the back stairs, muttering, “I hope—for all our\n sakes—they’re only thieves.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just another minute, dove, and we’ll have you safely away,” Rafe soothed, supporting the frail—impossibly frail!—body of his lover from one side while\n Micah bore him up from the other. A whirlwind of emotions battered him, so that he was now filled with rage at all the duchess’s machinations, which had\n led step by step to this awful place, now weak in the knees with Will’s closeness, his touch, his smell, now wanting to kiss him, now to protect him, now\n to—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think it’s this way,” Micah murmured.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You won’t let them hurt me, will you?” asked Will in a voice that turned Rafe’s heart inside out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No one’s ever going to hurt you again, dove. Not while I’m here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But they’re coming,” Will insisted. “Can’t you hear?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hush,” said Rafe, and somehow advanced this impossible burden he was bearing another step closer to the stairs that had brought him here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From which, now, stepped a swordsman. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, smirking. He held what appeared to be a damaged telescope.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They froze. Will gave a cry of wordless terror.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let him go!” boomed another voice, and a tall, elderly man came into view behind the swordsman. “You don’t want to hurt him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hurt him?” Rafe repeated, his voice strangled with outrage. “It’s you who’ve hurt him! You’ve poisoned him, you’ve driven him mad, kept him prisoner in\n this—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Steady there, lad,” came a voice from behind, a voice he knew. The coachman Jasper stood at the far end of the hallway, a red-faced woman at his side.\n “These folks don’t mean the duke any harm. Or you neither.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re half right,” said the swordsman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s blood went hot. “Micah,” he told her evenly, “take Will away. Now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shrugged out from under the dead weight of Will’s arm. Will clung to Micah, and somehow her farm girl’s strength held him up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe drew his sword.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The swordsman grinned and stepped forward. Rafe tried to remember what Kaab had told him of dueling, but his mind was blank, except for the rage. That\n would have to be enough. He extended his blade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rather unorthodox positioning,” the swordsman observed with a sneer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I studied abroad.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you, now? Probably would have done better to study a blade.” Without pausing in his advance, the swordsman flipped the telescope he was holding, then\n caught it again, so that he had it by its thick end, which was somewhat dented. Then he did something too fast for Rafe to follow, and suddenly the sword\n in Rafe’s hand was there no longer. Rafe had no inkling where it might have gone. It was uncanny. He gaped at his empty hand, then fell back onto the floor\n with a grunt as a blow struck his forehead. When his vision cleared, the swordsman stood over him, sword pointing to his chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stay down,” he said. “Or I’ll stick you like a suckling pig.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Around the duke, darkness moved. It slithered over him like the curves of glassware or the arcs of a sea, cold and wrong and alien. The darkness, he knew,\n was not the sort that could be lit or dispelled. It was a creature, and he was deep inside it. Eventually, he would feel its teeth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For now, in the terrible silence, there was only \u003cem\u003etap-tap-tap.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That sound was not the darkness itself, but something stranger. While it terrorized him no less than the darkness, it could, he knew, spirit him away from\n this suffocation. But the places it took him, on wings made out of his flayed past, were not always places he wished to journey. No matter how much he\n begged, it would not learn his language, and it did not hear \u003cem\u003eNo\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eTap-tap-tap\u003c/em\u003e, over and over again, as it thrust its sharpness into the wall of his prison, and then drew him through the darkness like a thread, spread out and frayed\n open until he seemed to unfurl in a chamber lined with stone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Deep under Highcombe, in a cellar storeroom populated only by dust, the occasional spider, and a single, flickering candle, Rafe and Micah sat side by\n side. Rafe wondered not just if they would die here, but how and when. Would his father ever find out his fate? Would Reuben blame him for Micah’s demise?\n Would he at least get to confront the duchess before his death? And what, oh what, would happen to Will?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you scared?” Micah did not turn to him when she interrupted the thick silence. Instead she peered into the unsteady shadows.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” he lied. “I’m bored.” That was true.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We could count,” she offered. “I always count when I’m bored.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are \u003cem\u003eyou \u003c/em\u003escared?” Rafe asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. I will be later. When it’s loud.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry,” Rafe said, simple and heartfelt and then suddenly unable to stop. Having wronged Micah in so many ways, he began to list them off to his\n friend with ever increasing fervor, until he was crying and snotting like a child who believed that if he was distraught enough, someone would come to\n rescue them, surely.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Micah said nothing. Not even to accept his apology or comment on his tears.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why aren’t you saying anything? Do you need me to be quiet?” If they were approaching their end, he did not wish to make that end worse, especially for\n his friend, who was there only because she cared for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah shook her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What should I do, then?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You should tell me,” Micah said carefully, “how a bird got into a windowless storeroom.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Despite his fear of what he would see if he followed Micah’s gaze, Rafe turned his head, but the shadows did not yield as readily to his eye as to hers.\n His heart pounded as he leaned forward, squinting into the dark. Then, the sound of feathers beating the air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The candle guttered and went out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nDiane educated Lionel on matters of power, but found herself at a disadvantage when Davenant proposed to her. Kaab and Rafe barged in on Micah’s research. Kaab, who was drunk, told Rafe what she knew about Will’s condition. After a run-in with Reza, Vincent’s duel on behalf of Esha’s honor went wrong, forcing him to accept Diane’s offer of employment.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriters: Racheline Maltese and Paul Witcover\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.95","slug":"tremontaine-s2e08","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E08.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101162_TremontaineS02E08.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101162_TremontaineS02E08.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101162_TremontaineS02E08.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e0031fada6e25bbf6d1357","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":9,"title":"The Heart A Liability","released_date":"2016-12-14T12:57:19.960+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Diane navigates her precarious position, and Tess’s loyalties are torn.","byline":"Tessa Gratton","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e09.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-12-14","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n Given he’d been stood up, Arthur Chel was in a surprisingly good mood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perhaps it had been the charming company of Simone Fenton, the young beauty of the Fenton household, where Arthur had waited more than an hour for her\n brother Rafe to put in an appearance. Last week, he and Rafe had made plans to spend an afternoon in the Laughing Rabbit for nothing but drinks and\n dice—Arthur was ruthlessly skilled at dice, especially against such an enthusiastically unfocused opponent as Rafe, who tended to distract himself with\n winding, delightful speeches. Arthur did not always follow the intricacies of Rafe’s thought process, but he certainly followed the gentle flush that rose\n in Rafe’s cheeks, the way he grasped at his dark hair as if surprised to find it short. Arthur couldn’t help wanting to chase that flush down Rafe’s neck\n with his lips, and find the racing pulse with his tongue. He’d been hoping, since sending that note to Rafe about Highcombe two days ago, to have earned\n the chance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Simone had hair just like Rafe’s must have been when long.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur thought wistfully of both Fenton siblings as he walked down the wide, winding avenue toward the edge of the Middle City, where the Laughing Rabbit\n tucked itself between a tailor’s and a chocolate shop he’d never tried. The Fenton chocolate Simone had offered him as they waited for Rafe to appear had\n been quite decent, the delicate porcelain cups beautifully painted with rows of tiny bluebirds. They’d sipped and chatted, and Arthur was not ashamed that\n he’d sought information about Rafe from her: Did she know for whom his heart had broken? Why he’d left the University? Questions he’d not quite so bluntly\n put to Rafe himself. Simone did not know—\u003cem\u003ealas!\u003c/em\u003e—details of Rafe’s broken heart, but she confessed her brother had left school to work for none\n other than William, the \u003cem\u003eDuke Tremontaine.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur relished knowing he and Rafe had both worked for Tremontaine! Though it made him wonder if William himself, the failing mind wed to the elegant,\n perfect cloud of femininity Arthur cherished, might be the culprit behind Rafe’s heartache.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Turning onto a side lane, protected from the noise of the main streets by tall courtyard walls and the rears of a line of shops, Arthur allowed himself a\n melodramatic sigh. But more of a smile teased at his mouth than should be there, were he truly upset. No, it all matched too perfectly with the wildly\n romantic drama he told himself, filled with intrigue and intricately woven relationships. His imagination had often overrun reality when he was a boy, a\n thing his older brothers and sisters teased him for, and his cousins accused him of pretending this Land to be finer than it was. But Arthur had found his\n imagination led him toward all sorts of useful information. His family did not appreciate how Arthur easily found ways to befriend nearly anybody, or his\n particular skill at finding things and people. All because of his imagination! Why, look how quickly he’d found that math student for the duchess, and he’d\n not even had the student’s proper name to begin with.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A figure approaching Arthur with an angry, determined stride wiped all trace of smile from his face: Ixkaab Balam, thundering toward him with her hand on\n the hilt of her long Local sword. Her black hair glinted in the slender strip of afternoon sun, and her eyes narrowed dangerously.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur backed up before he could stop himself, knocking his boot heel into the bottom step of a back door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ahtul Chel,” she commanded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Eyes on her sword hand, he forced a smile, and bowed. “Cousin,” he said, trying to soften her up. Despite his Landish suit and soft hands, she had to\n appreciate their blood came from the same homeland. And he had done nothing wrong! He did not deserve this . . . whatever this was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab glared at him. In Kindaan she snarled, “You’re going with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He lifted his hands in surrender, responding in Xanamdaan. “I was on my way to the Laughing Rabbit for a bite and a drink—which, lovely Cousin, I think you\n might need?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t flirt with me, \u003cem\u003elittle rabbit.\u003c/em\u003e” She held to Kindaan, her tone making his name slightly insulting. But she turned and gestured sharply back\n down the alley, toward the tavern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They walked side-by-side, Arthur’s mind racing. What did she want? In the few moments before they emerged into the busier front street, he landed on two\n relevant thoughts: There’d been gossip in his family and amongst his friends in the Cocom family—chief rivals to the Balam here—that Ixkaab and the Balam\n had more than merely fallen out; also, Ixkaab was Rafe Fenton’s friend, and perhaps she knew where he’d vanished to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Casually as possible, he said, “I was to meet Rafe, but his family hasn’t seen him in a few days.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab slid him a shining grin, revealing her teeth like a fox.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She must know where Rafe had gone! It relieved him, for Arthur assumed that if Ixkaab knew, Rafe should be safe enough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Laughing Rabbit’s doors and shutters were flung open despite the crisp wind blowing in with the autumn. Arthur smelled smoked fish and the charming,\n sticky smell of old wine. Ixkaab paused beneath the swinging sign and eyed him appraisingly. “You must not hate us so much if you cling to a place sharing\n your name.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t hate anybody,” he said, striving to hide his hurt as he led her up the slight stone step into the bright, lime-washed interior of his favorite\n tavern. He lifted a hand to the mistress at the bar, and took a seat. Ixkaab followed, and he watched her gaze sweep the half-empty tavern, the merchant\n and shopkeeper class of patrons with their ready money and sharply cut clothes, adorned with ribbons and glass jewels and cheaper versions of Hill style\n from three seasons ago. Arthur blended in as perfectly as he could with his brown skin. He’d had his hair cut in the style of the Middle City and bargained\n with a couple of tailors to stretch his meager family allowance farther than it should to keep himself in fashion. Diane de Tremontaine was helping with\n that: Merely being around her refined his taste.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab sat too near him at the round wooden table, and leaned in on her elbow. She said nothing, and Arthur said nothing, though he desperately wanted to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mistress Bianca set a cup of wine before him, and one for Ixkaab. “Dice table’s free in the back,” she reminded him, and Arthur smiled up at her as best he\n could.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The moment she departed, Ixkaab said softly, “I know what you’ve done, Ahtul Chel.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shivered, despite himself. “N-nothing!” Arthur took a rather too large sip of the peppery wine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Allow me to lay it out,” she continued, still insisting on Kindaan. “For some three months, chocolate has been disappearing from Balam warehouses, and\n others, not only Kinwiinik, but Xanamwiinik, too. The goods vanish when they go out for delivery, then make their way to Riverside, where they’re fenced\n and sold to chocolate houses—in the case of chocolate, at least. It requires two people: one who knows Riverside, and one who understands how the\n warehouses work and is familiar with merchanting. Do you know the easiest way to interrupt a delivery? New paperwork. Forged. By someone with a decent\n hand, who knows the right words, and has . . .” Kaab smiled again. “Someone who has a powerful patron. Everyone knows you work for Diane de Tremontaine,\n and have been running errands for her, insinuating yourself into her graces, as well as into the goodwill of several merchant families, searching for some\n way out of your true Kinwiinik life. I’ve seen you take documents to the docks, to separate out the goods you want, perhaps easing the way with the swan\n seal? And do you know where the fine chocolate you and your Cocom friends devour at that pretty flower of a chocolate shop comes from? \u003cem\u003eMy\u003c/em\u003e family’s\n warehouse. Stolen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With every word she spoke, Arthur’s stomach soured further. He pressed his hands to the clean table to stop them from trembling, and stared at the way his\n fingernails paled at the top as he pushed harder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you’re behind it, you’ll be shipped home, Ahtul Chel, where they know how to deal with traitors,” she finished, calmly and with a vicious little shrug.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur could barely keep from crying out. At her threat, and at the very idea he would betray his family! He took a deep, deep breath and said, “No, never,\n cousin. I would never steal from the great Balam, or anyone!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab leaned back in her chair. She pursed her lips with distaste, brown eyes on him, cheeks darkened beautifully.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Taking deep breaths, Arthur finally spoke his family’s native tongue, picking careful words. “On the name of Ekchuah in the Deep, I swear, Ixkaab Balam. I\n only ever have wanted out of the chocolate trade, out of our traditions. I work for the duchess, yes, and I—I have merchant friends, because I admire them.\n They offer me other choices, and my parents never did.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could make quite the name for yourself if you helped bring down the Balam with a plot like this to ruin our monopoly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He furrowed his brow, thinking through the chatter of the tavern, the panic in his heart. Chocolate was being stolen from the Balam? He could see ways it\n could serve his family, the Chel, but most especially serve the Cocom family, for the Balam to be accused of recklessness or mishandling their trade. He\n thought of his friend Ahrisal Cocom, always bitterly complaining about the Balam pride and monopoly. Arthur said desperately, “I might make a name for\n myself among the Kinwiinik, maybe, but the Kinwiinik are not the people I want to impress!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Xamanek’s light, you must have been raised on weak milk,” Ixkaab sneered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur stared into the more forgiving mirror of his wine. She clearly did not like him, and had always thought him foolish, but she \u003cem\u003emust \u003c/em\u003ebelieve\n him. Know he was not capable of such treachery. After a moment, Ixkaab hummed a little note of acceptance. His shoulders fell, both glad and disappointed.\n He licked his lips and finished his wine, waving to a passing aproned girl for another. He was going to get \u003cem\u003every\u003c/em\u003e drunk now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Expecting Ixkaab to leave, he stood, and aimed for the dicing tables. His head swirled with thoughts about the stolen Kinwiinik goods. It wouldn’t surprise\n him to discover the Cocom behind it. Maybe he should tell all this to the duchess. He wondered if Rafe knew, since Rafe was a merchant, too. Were the\n Fentons affected? He could ask Ixkaab. Turning back, he nearly ran his nose into hers. She’d followed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why do you do this?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Play that you’re one of them? I like it here, too. But I don’t give up all that I am for it.” Kaab stared into his eyes, so close Arthur’s refused to\n focus; he chose her left eye, watching the pupil shift, the gentle curve of her short black lashes, the warring browns and blacks and greys of her iris.\n She sighed. “How have you chosen against your family? How?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“This is my home,” he said mournfully. “I’ve never been across the ocean, or seen a palm tree or the towers of Binkiinha. My blood has only dripped \u003cem\u003ehere\u003c/em\u003e, on these streets and soil.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your blood is our blood. Our home shores and mountain peaks should sing to you, through your head-spirit, and reveal secrets in your traveling dreams.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It made him sad, for just a moment, as if she were right, as if he were missing some piece he should have been born with. But maybe Ixkaab did not hear the\n song of this place. Or, like his family, devalued it. “I have my own dreams,” he said. “One of which, right now, is an entire bottle of wine.” Arthur tried\n to smile and push past, but she grabbed his elbow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not through with you,” she said. “I want to know what you were doing at the docks, why you’re working for Diane de Tremontaine, what your business is\n with Rafe, and if you’ve given anyone any information at all about our trade, or our chocolate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur squared his shoulders. “I will not betray my lady’s confidence,” he declared. “Nor is my relationship with Rafe your business!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Relationship?” She raised her brow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur grimaced, knowing he’d given something away. “We are friends. He was interested, on his father’s behalf, in some information about Tremontaine\n lands.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab’s eyes widened. “What did you tell him?” she whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah . . .” He did not want to answer, certain Ixkaab would not like it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arthur,” she said, urgent, and using his Landish name like a gift. So he responded in kind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He wished to know if there was unusual activity regarding any of the duchess’s holdings, and I told him she pays more attention than usual to one of them,\n an estate called Highcombe. That’s all!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His cousin pressed her hands to her face and nodded. Her fingers crawled up into her hair and she pulled hard at the roots.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is something . . . wrong?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Letting go of her braids, she took his arms in her hands instead, squeezing. “Who have you spoken with about the chocolate, Arthur? Tell me and I’ll leave\n you be, for tonight at least.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Everyone,” he said through his teeth. “After that awful week last spring when your family held us all hostage to their shortage, everyone wanted to know\nhow it happened and where it comes from, and I told anybody anything they wanted to know, which wasn’t very much, because the real details are \u003cem\u003eboring\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Was anyone \u003cem\u003enot\u003c/em\u003e bored? Think, Arthur.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He did. Several fellow patrons nudged past them, irritated to have the path between the dicing tables and the taproom blocked. Arthur flashed them\n distracted smiles, and Ixkaab rolled her eyes. One of the patrons smiled back, rather bold.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It reminded Arthur of another certain cocky grin he’d been infatuated with years ago, when he was just learning to flirt and find a place with other\n merchant boys. He’d seen that grin again recently, and slowly his mouth dropped open. He stared at Ixkaab in shock. “Oh,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab’s smile turned feral and triumphant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The play was \u003cem\u003eFair Rosamund\u003c/em\u003e, a history in nature, but a drama in intent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was popular for sensational speeches on love, justice, and death; a risqué, albeit tentative, exploration of the relationship between wizards and kings;\n allowing both actors and actresses plentiful opportunities to shine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This season a new actor had taken up the role of the Young King, reputed to be a beauty and well worth sitting up straight for when he scandalously removed\n his shirt while declaring his love, half-rending the garment, half-offering it as a token to the audience. His name was Bronswick, and to believe the\n gossip, his chief talent was always landing the tossed shirt in the third row of the audience.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The prospect of that amusement was a significant portion of Diane de Tremontaine’s motivation for taking up residence in her box today. She desperately\n needed some distraction, and theater was one of the few things that oftentimes genuinely diverted her. Alas, the rest of her motivation for coming had been\n the opportunity to carefully interrogate Basil Halliday as to any weakness he might be aware of in the Dragon Chancellor’s armor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Halliday perched beside her, and his frivolous wife Aurelia beside him: Of course Diane had invited both, as well as the widowed Lady Davenant—not the\n Dragon’s wife, but his step-mother, Blair, a young woman who’d been Gregory’s father’s third wife. Unlike her feelings for said current Lord Davenant,\n Diane found Blair quite tolerable, and Halliday’s aggravating wife simply adored her. With them, too, were the Berownes, Adrian and Vivica, and Lionel\n Chesney filled out the box quite nicely as escort for his aunt, Lady Lucille Abbott.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord and Lady Berowne leaned toward each other, arguing over some lines the lady was certain had been cut from the performance she’d seen last week, and\n her husband chided her, suggesting Bronswick had merely forgotten them in his ridiculous passions. Diane refused to follow her own thoughts down the road\n of what William would say were he here; history had been a passion of his, and he’d loved this play.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nThe musicians sounded the start of the play. Diane lifted her chin. William used to quote some of the lines to her, when they were first married. \u003cem\u003eIf this be joy, it is a joy so wild\u003c/em\u003e . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What a mood she was in for a melodrama! Her eyes skimmed over the theater. Boxes hung with banners fanned out from the stage like honeycomb, stacked high\n and full of bejeweled nobility. She glanced toward the box where Gregory, Lord Davenant lounged with his wife and only one other couple for company. Glad\n for the distance between them, Diane made a fist in her skirt, wrinkling the hard lines of peach embroidery against the layers of cream and mint satin. Her\n box was comfortably full in order that Davenant not be able to easily insinuate himself. She could not bear the thought of him breathing behind her,\n watching the curve of her neck as she held her eyes on the stage. Coveting what he was certain he could have.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And she’d not found an answer for him. Marry him, for his support on the Council vote? Never. She refused to have gone through all this to give herself\n again into a man’s power. Particularly that man. But how to maneuver past him? She could lie, but that was a fool’s way out. Lies were vulnerabilities;\n half-truths and tricks were better escape routes. Even reverse blackmail was a thing she’d gladly consider at this point.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Laughter startled her; Halliday at her side, eyes bright on the actors. Lady Aurelia and the Berownes smiled broadly, clearly charmed. Lionel brushed his\n floppy hair off his forehead and murmured something into his elderly aunt’s ear, careful to avoid crushing the elaborate layers of satin that made up her\n skirts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had entirely missed the opening lines. She pursed her lips and focused. The Young King shared the stage with his friend Vidal, a minstrel and\n something of a truth-sayer in the play. Bronswick was indeed rather lovely, his hands elegant, his leg turned strongly, and his voice raised with a\n naturally royal tone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What a melodrama was her own life\u003cem\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e She the heroine, of course, forced to scheme against a villainous Dragon Chancellor, with hardly a confidant in\n the world but a burgeoning affection for a foreign courtesan. She had her secret lover, swordsmen, and a plot as intricate and delicate as anything the\n theater could provide. Diane smiled to herself, despite the rising drama onstage. She flicked her gaze at Lionel, who watched the play avidly. At the pause\n between acts she’d have to make certain he and Halliday continued to connect: Lionel would have a place on Halliday’s staff before Diane was through with\n them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the pause came, she gestured for chocolate and tiny rose-shaped cakes to be served in honor of the titular lady of the play.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What a beauty is that Rosamund!” Lady Berowne declared, and her husband revealed a preference for the sister, Cleomine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did anyone spy who was the lucky recipient of the Young King’s shirt?” Diane put in lightly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Aurelia Halliday leaned precariously out of the box and actually \u003cem\u003epointed\u003c/em\u003e. “No family I know, and why should we, for they’re in the pit.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I had heard,” Lady Berowne said, glancing at Diane with shared annoyance at Aurelia’s crudeness, “that some young noblemen have taken to slipping in with\n their friends near enough to catch it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Basil Halliday lifted handsome brow. “That might be Galing’s second son, now you mention it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’s wearing the shirt about his shoulders like a cape!” cried Lady Halliday delightedly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord and Lady Berowne left the box to take a turn about the grounds, and Lady Davenant seemed momentarily diverted by Lady Aurelia’s voracious appraisal of\n everyone in the floor audience, the two ladies leaning near enough to kiss. Lady Abbott requested that Lionel escort her after the Berownes to stretch her\n ailing knees, and he sent Diane a charmingly fast look of chagrin, leaving her nearly alone with Basil Halliday.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before Diane need find an excuse to engage, Halliday himself turned his earnest eyes to her. “I thank you for this evening. It’s impossible to drag my work\n with me to a theater box.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane dove in. “I hope you’re not having much trouble in the Exchequer, with all the Council distractions our Lord Davenant has been facing. I fear they\n are somewhat my fault.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your fault? How could that be?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She demurred, putting on a careful smile she knew affected most men as if it were a feminine wail of pain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Realization cleared his eyes and he gently said, “Of course, you mean the lack of my lord your husband, and the inheritance complications. But madam, you\n are not to blame for his illness.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So I am told, Lord Basil, and yet it is too difficult not to feel responsible. He is my husband, and I his other half.” Diane put a sweet determination\n into her voice, and watched sympathy and admiration paint itself across his face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have seen . . .” Halliday paused, then said in a lower voice, “Davenant has been working rather intensely beside the Crescent the past few days, and I\n believe—” The young lord’s voice stopped and he stood, the picture of politeness. “Lord Davenant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Halliday. Duchess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She nearly lost control enough to allow the shiver that crept up her spine to show in her shoulders. Turning, Diane tilted her face up to the Dragon\n Chancellor, who filled the door to her box with his shadow. He towered over her, and she could no longer recall finding his presence attractive, though his\n fitted midnight suit was strikingly edged in paler sky blue, and the black waistcoat decorated in sky-bright vines and flowers, all as finely designed as\n if she’d done it herself. Davenant took her gloved hand in his. “Basil,” he said, eyes on Diane, “my lady wife longs to share the second act with your\n darling Aurelia, and I promised to fetch you both to my box, if you’re willing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course Halliday could only agree, leaving Diane alone with the Dragon and Lady Davenant, his young stepmother. The lady stood to greet Davenant\n politely. He took her hand, and Diane could see neither liked the other much. After a peremptory bow, he turned away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How are you, Duchess?” Davenant asked. Was it Diane’s imagination that he emphasized the title?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So good of you to attend us, my lord,” Diane said. She smiled softly at Lady Davenant, just to annoy him. “My dear William and your kind stepson share a\n fondness for this play.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He did love the theater,” Davenant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And still does,” she replied carefully. “Chocolate, Lord Davenant?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eFlorian Larue!\u003c/em\u003e\n Kaab laughed as she dashed across the bridge into Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e You know\u003c/em\u003e, Ahtul had said excitedly, a wisp of fascination in his bright brown eyes, \u003cem\u003e the son of the merchant Larue, with a woman not his wife? His hair is so golden, and they’re ruddier folk.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She did know, and that bastard Florian’s golden looks meant only that he’d be easier to find as the evening shadows pulled harder across Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What Kaab needed was evidence. Enough to lay out for her family, to pull the political strings to bring Larue down and end the thieving, in order to tie it\n all up in a pretty bow for the investigator from the Batab.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A win she desperately needed, since Rafe now knew about Highcombe. If he succeeded in restoring the duke, everything Kaab had worked for in the spring\n would be ruined. It was despicable what Diane de Tremontaine was doing to her husband, but it was also very convenient for the Balam. William was\n dangerous, his knowledge of navigation threatening so much more than war alone if it fell into the wrong hands.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Damn her drunken slip about poison, and damn Rafe for not listening to reason, for rushing off and probably getting himself dead by now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab halted in the middle of the street. She ground her teeth together. She could not take the time to worry. Rafe chose his way, as she chose hers, and if\n he died . . . Kaab refused to be distracted by guilt, no matter how sharply it pressed. There was nothing she could do now, anyway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Except end the thieving. It had been such a leap to go at Ahtul Chel like that, with no evidence but a hunch. But she’d decided he must at least know\n someone who knew someone, and she’d been right.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian Larue was easily capable of writing up false documents that would mimic real trade documents, until, of course, he used up all his know-how, or\n simply got too lazy—and that was why he’d approached Tess to forge something better! The sniveling dog. And his lover Shade was a Riversider born. Kaab had\n been right about that, too: The warehouse thieves were a pair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d find Florian and follow him, gather real evidence with her eyes. Her testimony would be enough for her family. But here in the City, she wasn’t sure\n how to get Florian and Shade thrown in prison. If she found some of their forged documents perhaps; Tess might have ideas about that. Could she use their\n own methods against them? What if Kaab could bring down a whole ring of criminals with this? That fence, the Salamander, was likely up to her pretty\n eyebrows in it, and who knew what else might unravel when Kaab pulled this string?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But first, Larue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For Tess’s sake, Kaab had made it her business to know where Florian and Shade spent their time, and neither hid their habits much, proud as most\n Riversiders to show off their pettier crimes. The Brown Dog, where she’d rescued Micah last month, was their favored evening haunt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She arrived as the setting sun burned red along the choppy river, and sure enough, it glinted off Florian’s blond hair, slicked off his face in luxurious\n waves that ended at the high collar of his open jacket. He leaned on an empty beer barrel just outside the tavern door, several men laughing around him—all\n nobles, by their soft faces and fancy rings, but dressed down in borrowed coats and vests that ill fitted their shoulders and waists.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sauntering up, Kaab smiled. She considered getting a beer inside, joining the Riversiders teasing the nobility, perhaps locating Shade too. Should she hide\n herself, her interest in them, or be bold? Aggression had worked perfectly on Ahtul Chel, but Ahtul was no hardened criminal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still, watching Florian’s easy arrogance, Kaab found she couldn’t resist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The nobles gathered about him parted like water before the prow of the fastest Kinwiinik ship and the bastard thief grinned at her. “Lady Chocolate!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Bastard Larue,” she returned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian laughed once, surprised, and then shrugged. He opened his arm for her as she stepped near enough to put one hand flat on his bare sternum. He wore\n no waistcoat tonight, and had left his linen shirt untied, the collar flapping open in the cool autumn breeze.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab held her wide, dark eyes on his pretty blue ones, shifted up onto her tiptoes, as if she might kiss him. Florian acted the flirt, pursing his lips and\n leaning his hips toward hers, but nothing of desire flashed in his eyes; they remained calculating.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Balanced with her hand on his chest, the other on her sword, she brushed her cheek to his cheek and whispered in his ear, “I know you’ve been stealing from\n my family, dog.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Took you long enough,” he said, loud enough for performance. “Let’s discuss, Lady Chocolate.” He slipped a hand to her ribs, \u003cem\u003eunder \u003c/em\u003eher jacket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab bared her teeth, then turned them to the noble audience. With varied laughs, nods of encouragement, and a single smart, wary grimace, the crowd of\n young men trickled into the Brown Dog.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian backed toward the corner of the building, where the street narrowed into a junction with a lane of abandoned smiths and bakeries, repurposed into\n an open market that pretended to shut down for the night before opening again under even less legitimate auspices. “It was easy, you know,” he said\n silkily.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not even bothering to keep her temper in check, Kaab hissed and half drew her sword. “No longer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do like a challenge, pretty lady. You’d be one in any aspect, wouldn’t you?” Florian edged away, but not out of reach of her sword. He did not wear one,\n though a long knife settled in a sheath against his thigh, the leather handle worn from use, not neglect.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab vividly recalled seeing him and Shade screwing like wild cats over a body outside the Salamander’s lair. He was not afraid of murder. But neither was\n she, despite the pounding of her heart. “Only in your darkest dreams,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian smiled a rather terrible, brutal smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She heard the whisper of Shade’s murder coat just in time to sling her sword free and twist, escaping the smaller man’s dagger as it slashed for her neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The fight was on.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Neither Shade nor Florian wielded a sword, but there were two of them. Kaab freed her dagger for her left hand. Florian danced around, distracting her as\n best he could with jabs and slices, trying to turn her back toward his lover.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Kaab knew the slick Shade was the one to never lose track of. She attacked him with all her might, crying out and going low. He parried, and kicked her\n away, black eyes focused. Kaab twisted and stabbed fast, then retreated. The uneven street threatened her stance and the dark corners of buildings loomed,\n here where no streetlamps glowed. But she’d practiced under such circumstances, and relished the shadows, relying on the flash of eyes and teeth and steel,\n the flare of Shade’s coat as he spun back, the thud of a boot under his sudden strike. It was like no swordfight she’d been in before: These were not\n swordsmen, dueling for pretty nobles, but Riverside toughs. Luckily, Kaab knew her way around knives.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took every chance she spied, sacrificing finesse and balance for speed. She darted in and back, feinted left again and again—Shade’s weak spot. But\n Florian was there both times, laughing darkly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade moved in, cutting at her arm. She dodged and he kicked her hip hard enough that Kaab stumbled back. His straight black hair slapped her face, and\n Kaab snatched a handful, pulling; Shade used his hair as leverage, swinging around with a grunt, until Kaab had to let go, shaking her fingers free of the\n tangle before he unbalanced her. His knife caught her sword hilt and he thrust all his weight onto the blade, twisting it free of her hand. The sword\n flashed as it fell. Florian laughed, and Kaab spun without thinking, and sliced his cheek with her dagger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s mine,” said Shade, his first words of the evening, and Kaab shivered. He slipped close and gave his shoulder to her dagger point, sacrificing his\n flesh to slash along her jaw with his own blade. She screamed in fury, knocking him back. Pain flared up her face. She could see his shape, and Florian’s,\n too, as they drove her down a narrow alley—too narrow for either thief to get around behind her. The two stalked toward her. Kaab sunk low, thinking of\n panthers and ferocious jungle spirits.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She leapt, charging through them, and Shade twisted into Florian’s way, shoving off his lover to attack her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab kicked up her sword as she dashed past, caught it and kept running.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant’s presence behind her was exactly as chilling as Diane had imagined. She had no choice but to will herself calm and pretend the prickling\n sensation on her neck was a draft. The Dragon Chancellor put his hand once or twice lightly to the arching oval back of her seat, not touching her, but\n claiming her nevertheless. Lady Davenant saw it, as Lord and Lady Berowne certainly did. \u003cem\u003eHow bold of him\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eDiane thought furiously. She\n practically ignored young Chesney, determined to give the Dragon no hint of their connection, and the young man seemed more confused by her distance than\n angry. Diane supposed she’d given him the impression she could handle Davenant herself, and shouldn’t be upset with Lionel for believing her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She focused on remaining still, but not stiff, her arms relaxed, allowing a pretty expression to flit across her face whenever the audience gasped or\n cried. Diane did not weep at theater, but Davenant’s hand mere breaths from her back kept her anxious. \u003cem\u003eI am not afraid of him\u003c/em\u003e, she insisted to\n herself as the wizard Guidry swept across the stage, huge and robed, all dangerous, bearded masculinity, threatening the rebellious Young King in tense\n verse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lady Rosamund died with her famous speech, and Lady Davenant covered her lips in sorrow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant shifted in his seat; onstage, Bronswick’s hands shook, noticeable even from the Tremontaine box, as the Young King slowly, agonizingly stabbed\n himself on the wizard’s terrible command.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What power,” Davenant murmured, and Diane glanced sharply at him, debating whether to remind him how the wizard would fall, as they all eventually did.\n But it would be too aggressive, when the expression on his face told her what he wanted: for her to remember \u003cem\u003ehis\u003c/em\u003e power. She agreed with a coolly\n lifted eyebrow and a slow nod.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane hardly attended the final speeches—the best friend minstrel and jealous sister kissed in mutual sorrow and newfound love—as she was too busy running\n through every scenario for how to avoid time alone with Davenant now. Or whether to allow it briefly and bestow a promising kiss, a thing for him to read\n without words. If she could stomach it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Around her, applause broke out, cheering and bravos, and Davenant used the eruption to lean toward her, skim his hand on her bare shoulder, and say,\n “You’ve been avoiding me for days, Diane.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Clapping softly with a pleased smile, Diane turned only slightly toward him. His body loomed in the corner of her eye. A flash of rage stuttered her\n applause. “You’ve been pressuring me, Davenant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Marry me, and we will both have what we want.” His low voice was nearly a growl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I want William whole, and none of this,” she whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And the Dragon Chancellor \u003cem\u003elaughed\u003c/em\u003e. A brief, bright chuckle, and he removed his hand from her chair, applauding strongly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane breathed and smiled, breathed and smiled. The actors bowed together, waving to the audience; Bronswick blew a kiss to the third-row boys, who cheered\n and held up his shirt like a flag of surrender.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lady Davenant took in the undercurrent of tension in the shade of the box and said, “What a show. I do swear this play improves with every performance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At least with a fellow like Bronswick!” Diane teased.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant said, “You must all join me at home for brandy. The Hallidays will be there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lord and Lady Berowne agreed immediately. Lady Davenant demurred, but Lady Abbot thought it a fine idea, thus holding her nephew’s escort and making it\n safe for Diane to plead weariness; Davenant couldn’t possibly follow her home and deny these guests he’d just invited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All declared their regret at her refusal, but politely and well. As she left, Davenant stepped close, all concern, and held her gaze. “Feel well soon, dear\n Duchess, for you must be ready when the Council meets concerning Tremontaine. A week from yesterday.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane froze, abruptly lightheaded with horror.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant smiled innocently for their own small audience.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That was what Halliday had been trying to tell her: Davenant had convinced Galing to schedule the vote. As of this moment, she only had six days to extract\n herself from the Dragon’s claws.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And no idea how to do it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur was drunk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n An entire bottle of wine to himself was not a mistake he’d made in quite some time. Though, as he meandered through the streets up, and up, and up, past\n shops and rows of cafes and taverns, skimming his hand along garden walls, careful to step in straight lines, tapping his fine boots as he climbed shallow\n stairs cut into the sides of the steepest alleys threading between townhouses, he wondered if it had been a mistake at all. He saw rather clearly at the\n moment: Ixkaab had reminded him that he was of two worlds and belonged to neither, when he didn’t choose and choose again with every breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He should’ve hired a torch. But this neighborhood was the skirts of the Hill, and he was not so richly appointed as to draw the attention of the high-class\n trouble that lingered in these parts. His only real danger was tripping and breaking his neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When he’d been fourteen or so, first venturing out with the Cocom boys, he’d been the runt of their pack, and carried the light himself. He’d picked them\n because they made him laugh, and laughed at his problems as much as they laughed at their own. Ahrisal Cocom had taught Arthur to flirt, and Ahsek—who went\n by Erik now—introduced him to dice. They’d run around looking for girls and games, anything to avoid tutors and duties as the sons of Kinwiinik merchants.\n It put them in places to meet other ne’er-do-well merchant sons, like Florian Larue, who said he liked Arthur’s sweet voice, and hoped nothing ever\n happened to ruin it. Arthur swore to the Cocom boys he was desperately in love. They laughed at him, as usual, but told stories of their own passions, and\n told even better stories they’d heard about Florian the bastard Larue, who spent his nights in Riverside. \u003cem\u003eRiverside! \u003c/em\u003eWhere Arthur had never\n ventured. The next time he saw Florian, outside one of the finer establishments in the merchant district, the bastard had been flushed with anger, stalking\n away too fast for Arthur to catch up. But he found Florian at a lower city tavern, throwing dice, and Arthur joined the game, winning and flirting and\n buying Florian drinks. \u003cem\u003eAre you even sixteen? \u003c/em\u003ethe bastard had sneered, flicking a wooden die with his well-tended finger. It rolled and jumped,\n landing against Arthur’s brown knuckle. He guessed Florian was only six or seven years older than that. \u003cem\u003eOld enough to know what I want\u003c/em\u003e, Arthur had\n responded, making the other stare, narrow his lovely blue eyes, and then laugh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After that, for a few months Florian often joined Arthur and his friends, his attitude wobbling between recalcitrant young merchant like them and\n beautifully dangerous conman, lazy and sharp because he could afford to be. Arthur tried to kiss him, up against a railing on the second-story balcony of\nthe Kennleys’ house, one Midwinter night, and Florian Larue grabbed his lapels, bent him back over the edge, and sweetly threatened to drop him. He said, \u003cem\u003eI know what a murderer tastes like, and I don’t think even the secondhand flavor is for you, pretty Arthur\u003c/em\u003e.\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eThen he released Arthur and\n vanished into the party, and Arthur didn’t see him for two entire years. He heard Florian had been spending more and more time in Riverside; some of the\n new rumors were delightful, others full of blood. The Larues never disowned him, but everyone moved on. Until this spring, when Florian had appeared in the\n Cocom boys’ favorite chocolate shop in a shabby but well-mended brilliant blue jacket, a long dagger in a black leather sheath at his thigh, and his grin\n cockier than ever. He offered them all a nip of Riverside whiskey to go with their chocolate, told tales of swordsmen and whores and wild thieves and\n hilariously incompetent murders, teasing them all and luring them to the tavern next door. It had been a thrill, and yes, that was the last time Arthur had\n been this inebriated—but he did not misremember Florian Larue touching his wrist and asking questions about chocolate and warehouses, flirting all the\n while.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Was it his fault? These losses to the Balam warehouses? Had he given a key to a thief without knowing it? Arthur put the heels of his hands to his eyes and\n pushed until he saw flashes of silver and orange light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eOld enough to know what I want. \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He felt immeasurably young and stupid suddenly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur stopped walking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A trio of noblemen on horses trotted past, laughing and leaning toward each other. Clouds obscured the moon, though it was full enough to lend gentle light\n to the crest of the Hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before him rose the elegant iron fence of Tremontaine House.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yes, Tremontaine House. Of course he had brought himself here. Her glorious nest. The crown of the Hill. Arthur’s head swam and he blinked heavily, then\n walked toward the gate, swerving to avoid a carriage spinning its pretty painted wheels as the perfect white team of horses approached, and slowed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur bowed to the swan crest, right there in the center of the dark street.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He heard the creak of axle and the bounce of the rig as the driver pulled the horses to a halt. Then the door swung open and he heard her voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arthur Chel, is that you? Are you well?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, the Duchess Tremontaine. Arthur took too deep a breath, for she was a slice of starlight, soft and silver before him, wearing the delicate colors of\n a springtime garden, cool and pristine, but oh, so very wise, hair high and curled perfectly, sparkling with jewels at her ears and neck, thinly gloved\n wrists, ah, her brows came together concerned—concerned for him!—and she parted her lips to speak. “Arthur?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My lady,” he said, bowing again, chest ablaze because he knew, seeing her, what he wanted: This was his home. Diane de Tremontaine represented everything\n good and strong and devastating and beautiful about this land. She could be the center of it, the heart of it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur met her curious grey eyes and made a choice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The facade of Ambassador House was hung with the blue-and-red striped banners Vincent had first seen four years ago as a refugee in a foreign land in\n search of a sword master. The sight made his blood roar in his ears, and memories surge: long, curved swords raised in war, wind across arid steppes, a\n cloistered rose garden, and silky black hair brushing across his chest, his collar, along his mouth and jaw.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He couldn’t get Reza’s name out of his blood, or the memories out from under his skin. Those years were marked on his bones like scars, and several nights\n ago Vincent had lost control because of them. Now he found himself house swordsman to a dangerous woman, a woman he liked too much, and if his control had\n slipped once, mightn’t it again? He had to find a way to purge himself of Reza. To say goodbye. He hadn’t said anything when he slipped away from the\n shores of Chartil, and maybe it was necessary.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent pushed through the small gate in the white stone wall, glaring at the guard, who recognized him as the swordsman from the party. “Do you bear a\n challenge?” the man asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” Vincent could have lied, forcing permission to enter; a challenge couldn’t be directly barred, only avoided. But lying wasn’t his style. “I’m here to\n see the ambassador.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s nearing midnight, Master Applethorpe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’ll see me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent went on, picking up his pace along the pale gravel walkway, took the wide front stairs two at a time, and lifted a hand to the greenman knocker.\n But the door opened a slit, warm candlelight pouring out along with cedar and jasmine incense. A Chartil man in Reza’s blue livery said, “What is your\n business here, sir?” in carefully accented local tongue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In Chartili, Vincent said, “Tell Far-Reza ko Arezu ko Shirin-sa Chartili that Yr-Vincent Applethorpe wants to see him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The man’s dark eyes widened. He backed up, allowing Vincent into the foyer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was all Vincent could do not to pace the checkered wooden panels of the floor. Or take out his sword and thrust it into the richly dyed wall hangings.\n He clenched his jaw and settled his fist onto the pommel of his sword.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Moments later, a slave girl hurried in, the metal at her ankle glinting in the candlelight. She stopped and met his eyes. “You’re the one who ruined him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent clenched his jaw, wishing he could argue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl smirked very prettily and gestured for him to follow her through a carved door into a sitting room. She knelt in her thin robe to wake up the\n fire, and two more servants entered, neither one of them slaves, bringing a tea set and tray of three crystal decanters; one with pink liquid, the others\n two different shades of golden liquor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent stalked after them and the moment the tray was down, he took one up and unstoppered it, pouring a generous splash into the small glass. Ignoring\n the appalled looks of the Chartils, he lifted it in his rough hand and knocked it back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You did always like our whiskey,” came Reza’s voice behind him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent whirled, only his fast reflexes keeping the glass from falling to the tiled floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador—the \u003cem\u003eprince\u003c/em\u003e—wore long, loose emerald green pants and a white, silver, and pink robe tied even looser at his muscled waist, barely\n hanging off both smooth shoulders. His long jet hair was pulled half away from his face, and the rest spilled down his neck and back free of combs and\n jewels. One corner of his mouth tilted up in weary amusement, but his eyes regarded Vincent steadily.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent did not feel steady. “What are you doing here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is my house.” Reza padded on bare feet to join Vincent at the liquor tray. With a smooth, precise motion, he poured himself a glass, then offered\n Vincent more. Silently, Vincent nodded. His throat was dry and hot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I mean in this land,” Vincent said, staring as Reza put the cut-crystal edge of the glass against his bottom lip, but did not drink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e doing here, Vincent?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were alone in the room; the fire flared to life. The last departing servant shut the door quietly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” was the swordsman’s hoarse reply.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza took his sip, then set the glass down again, and put his hand on Vincent’s cheek. “But you always know what you’re doing, my heart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent closed his eyes, focused only on the gentle heat of Reza’s fingers at his temple, palm hovering against his skin. \u003cem\u003eChoose\u003c/em\u003e, he told himself.\n “This is my place,” Vincent said. “My land and home. I’m not yours here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You were never mine in Chartil.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A trace of bitterness wound through the words, a thin vine of wicked thorns. Vincent opened his eyes. “I wanted to be.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re shaking.” Reza was clearly surprised. He let go of Vincent and leaned away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Vincent wasn’t afraid of the tremors rushing up and down his spine; nothing scared him when he recognized the source. His tongue tasted like sweet\n Chartil whisky, and this was what he wanted now. Reaching out, he took hold of the silky tie of Reza’s robe, tugged swiftly and exactly right to open the\n robe entirely. It clung to Reza’s tan shoulders, and Vincent crept his hands up Reza’s belly, over his ribs and hard chest, along Reza’s strong collarbones\n to slip his fingers under the hem. Reza’s lips parted; his breathing deepened. Those fingers were the only points of contact as Vincent slid the robe off\n Reza’s shoulders. It dropped to the floor, landing in a crescent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They stared at each other: Vincent overwhelmed by a storm of memories and this moment, everything else a dream; Reza’s flash of dangerous triumph barely\n contained in his eyes. The prince slowly knelt, taking Vincent’s heavy sword belt firmly in his hands, tugging it, and then, tilting his head up to smile\n slowly at Vincent, began to unbuckle it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent fell to his knees, knocking Reza’s hands away, and caught Reza by the shoulders and kissed him. He kissed Reza like a master swordsman, with all\n his experiences, all his skills and desires, the give and take, the dance of it, the joy of violence and gleeful nature of dangerous men amassed behind the\n singular purpose: to win.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza groaned, tearing at the unfamiliar pieces of Vincent’s long jacket and vest, scouring his palms trying to strip Vincent naked. But Vincent was not\n interested in his own nakedness; he was interested in Reza and what he could take. With a little growl, he put his hand on Reza’s throat, pressing under\n the ambassador’s chin, and pushed Reza back to the floor. Vincent threw off his own jacket, urgently flung his belt free, only barely noting the place\n where his sword landed against the delicate curved foot of a settee, then lowered himself to the ground. He put his mouth against Reza’s thigh, breathing\n hotly through the thin silky pants, and crawled up Reza’s body.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador moaned through his teeth and grasped at Vincent, who caught one of Reza’s hands and lifted it over his head; he spread his chest against\n Reza’s, pinning him down. Vincent kissed him again, opening Reza’s mouth wide, and tasted and took and thought of nothing else. Reza arched, pressed for\n more, gripping Vincent’s hips. He bit Vincent’s lip, jerked at his pants, and Vincent shifted enough so that they both had access to exactly what they\n wanted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They melted together on the wood-tiled floor, no pillows or blankets or softness between them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess the Hand curled in a pile of threadbare blankets and one well-maintained quilt near a fire all turned to embers, a single bright candle shining pure\n light onto the contents of her father’s miniature compartment chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was late, and even Riverside had tucked itself into bed—or gutters or under filthy tables—to sleep through until the sun was high in the sky. Tess had\n needed her father’s most delicate scraper for this job: forging the number on a bank bond. It was the sort of work that had gotten her father caught and\n hanged, and Tess only did it for one client.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By rights, it was her scraper now, but this single tool she couldn’t stop thinking of as Papa’s. The blade was flat and narrow, difficult to sharpen, and\n the handle molded of the same steel in the shape of narrow branch coiled with thin ivy vines. Tess held it between her thumb and forefinger; it was so\n light and balanced. The nub of heart-shaped ivy leaf where her forefinger pressed for work was rubbed darker from two decades of forging.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Setting the scraper down, she slid open the long, thin bottom drawer of the chest. Nostalgia called her name, in her father’s voice. Always it was so,\n after sherry with Everly in the heart of the Salamander’s lair, surrounded by treasures and expensive fakes. Tess had returned a completely renumbered\n accounting book to the fence tonight, having worked on it almost exclusively the past week. Much of her most intricate work came from Everly, as had Tess’s\n father’s. This bank bond was no exception; only one small change need be made, but one moneymen were trained to spot. In all the city, only Tess could do\n it, and nobody asked it of her but the Salamander.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nTess had only been eight years old when her father introduced her to Everly. \u003cem\u003eBe curious, Tess\u003c/em\u003e, he said, \u003cem\u003e but smart. The Salamander will decide.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Decide what, Papa? \u003c/em\u003e\n Tess had asked, holding onto his two best fingers as they descended the spiraling iron staircase.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eIf we make you special.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d been terrified after that, despite the labyrinth of distractions made perfectly to tempt children: shelves of dolls and keys, strange instruments,\n sheaves and sheaves of curling paper, ink and paints, and breakable cups. The Salamander had stood waiting for them, beside a narrow table of polished\n blackwood. Tess had felt even smaller than she was, wearing her favorite red skirt and a repurposed velvet gentleman’s jacket her mama had patched in the\n shape of stars. Her big copper hair tucked under a cap. The Salamander wore trousers and beautiful polished boots, but a bodice tied up like a lady with\n long peplums making it half a skirt. Tess smiled nervously and curtsied as her father shook the Salamander’s hand as he would a man’s. Tess was confused,\n but found the Salamander entirely beautiful.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Salamander did not smile at Tess, but eyed her through the flickering shadows, and spread a soft-looking, elegant hand over three items resting on the\n blackwood table. “Tess, which of these would you like to take with you when you go?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Releasing her papa’s hand, she approached carefully. The table edge touched her chest as she leaned in, pressing tiny pinkish fingers to the edge. A\n delicate doll that appeared to be made of bone and wheat and corn silk slumped like a weary dancer; an intricate wooden box carved so Tess could see a box\n inside that one, and perhaps another box inside that; and a gleaming dagger just slightly too big for her hand, with a dark green hilt her already\n practiced Riverside eye told her was malachite. “All of them,” she whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her father laughed, tapping her shoulder with his fist, in an echo of how hard he usually hit. The Salamander did smile now, leaning gracefully to put her\n face nearer Tess’s. “Only one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess bit her lip. “What sort of test is this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A clever sort,” the Salamander replied.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWhich of these would you take with you when you go?\u003c/em\u003e\n Tess had never seen anything like the doll, and unique things had their own value. The box she wanted to pick apart, to understand how to put it back\n together again. The knife could protect her, or she could sell it for a good amount. “Where am I going when I go?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where would you like to go?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cool, musical whisper of the Salamander’s voice shivered along her spine, like a summer breeze or a dawn chantey as the riverboats moved out. “I\n suppose I’d like to stay here a while longer, Lady Salamander.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Salamander surrendered all three items, and whispered her true name in Tess’s ear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her father had been so incredibly proud. Tess sighed into the empty darkness of her rooms. Papa was dead now, and the last few years of his life Tess had\n not made easy on him. From the long drawer in the chest, she pulled out an old, yellowed piece of paper covered with her father’s name. Adam Hocking,\n called the Lip. Line after line of Lip Hocking, Lip Hocking, Lip Hocking, again and again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d written them herself, hundreds of times during the first year apprenticed. Practicing his very name was the best way, he said: If she could fool him,\n who knew himself and all the tricks, she could fool anybody.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The forger startled, nearly tearing the parchment. Kaab’s steps hurried up the stairwell after her voice, excited, burning with something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For once, that heat warmed Tess not at all. She’d not seen Kaab in two days, almost.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tess!” Kaab cried again. It was certainly exaltation in her voice, not panic. Tess remained curled at the hearth, parchment in one hand, the other\n gathering blankets to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In here,” she said softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab appeared in a waft of alcohol fumes, aglow with some triumph, a torn jacket, and dried blood smeared on her face. Her hair was a terror, falling in\n tangles from its looping braids.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Mercy, Kaab!” Tess exclaimed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I did it! I solved it.” Kaab flung herself to the ground beside her lover, her knees hitting the wooden floor hard enough to rattle the chest of drawers.\n “I couldn’t have without you! You brilliant forger, Tess the Hand! You gave me the key, or I’d never have thought to look down that avenue. I was here two\n hours ago for you, but you were gone! Where did you go? You’re always here at night. I ran all over Riverside looking! And half-limping like a drunk! Damn\n that thieving cutthroat!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Something was wrong with Tess; she could not smile, or even feel very much. Maybe she was tired, or maybe it was the old sadness smothering her heart with\n memories. “What happened to you?” she asked Kaab, eyes falling down the warm brown cheeks to the slice along Kaab’s jaw.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That villain Shade! And Florian!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There: A flash of anger shot through Tess’s breast.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab rushed on, “They’ve been stealing from my family! Those idiot bastards, I saw them! I saw them in the warehouse that night I waited there, saw them\n being distracted by a fuck! Do they do anything but kill and thieve and fuck?” Glee spread across her face again. “Florian admitted it to me! I’m going to\n have him thrown in some pit of a jail, and maybe call out Shade.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re not . . . dead?” Tess asked hollowly, trying to follow Kaab’s trajectory.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Will you write it all for me, official like you can do?” Kaab pulled at Tess’s hands, and the paper crackled. “All the details down, and my formal\n accusation? I can report to Saabim in the morning, and write something up for the Batab with her. Then we’ll take your report to the City authorities! Oh\n my maize-flower, my glorious pinnacle star, my ship of truth, you made this possible.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess looked at the paper in her hand. A smear of Kaab’s blood marred two lines of her papa’s name.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s so much to get down,” Kaab continued. “That little weasel Ahtul’s testimony, and maybe the Salamander? No, he—she?—won’t sign a thing like that,\n but I certainly saw the Twins outside their shop, and probably the Salamander is involved right at the heart of it. What a triumph that would be, not only\n solving our warehouse thievery, but taking down one of the greatest fences of Riverside!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stop!” Tess cried.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab froze. Her flailing hands fell to her knees. Tess knew her own face was filled with devastation, and struggled to conceal it. She stared at her hands\n as she carefully folded the name-lined parchment and pressed it into its home among other old letters and a thin linen scarf her mother had worn in her\n hair. Tess shut the drawer with purpose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You will not attempt anything against the Salamander,” she said coldly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very . . . well.” Kaab dipped her head down, trying to catch Tess’s eye. “But the rest? I have enough to ruin Florian Larue, and I’ll enjoy it, too, for\n how he terrorized you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess was weary, worn, and lonely, despite her lover right there, touching her wrists, touching her face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab continued almost gently, which was still loud for any other person, “Tess, my flower, pretty Tess, tell me what’s wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I won’t help you go to the Watch or any authorities, and I won’t write anything down for the law, Kaab. I thought you would know better than to ask such a\n thing of me by now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But this is why I’m here! To catch these thieves!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought you were here for me, too? Here because your family won’t allow me to be \u003cem\u003ethere\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes! Xamanek’s light! Both! I am a woman of many talents, and having more than one goal is easy enough! We’ve been through this before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tess nodded. It was true: there was no point in discussing this yet again. Nothing would change. “Yet you ask questions you should know the answer to. I\n belong in Riverside; it’s in my family’s blood. We do things a certain way here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is about my family, too, you’re right,” Kaab said. “I can’t just kill Florian! Or—or have him shunned or shamed in Riverside. I must take legal\n action, here with the \u003cem\u003eCity\u003c/em\u003e’s justice. Riverside justice matters not at all to the Kinwiinik.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kaab, I understand your family needs this, I do. And when you say your family, you mean that whole network of the Kinwiinik. Well, when I say my family, I\n don’t only mean my father and mother or blood, either. I mean Riverside. This place isn’t a garbage heap where runaways and cutthroats manage to coexist.\n It’s families and a family. Some of us born to it, and others who come here, who truly come here to join us, they become our family, too. You wanted me\n to—to marry into yours, but would never have even thought I had one you could marry into instead.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I . . . oh.” Kaab’s mouth pulled down. Something Tess had never seen turned her eyes darker: fear. This Kinwiinik spy, swordswoman, and brightest lover\n Tess had ever had was suddenly afraid of what came next, and Tess could see it. This was a power she didn’t want, but couldn’t turn away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You need to leave,” Tess whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the last glow of the candle set atop the chest of drawers, Tess leaned in and kissed Kaab, soft, only mouth to mouth, no other part of them touching.\n She lingered for a moment. \u003cem\u003eThe heart’s a liability here.\u003c/em\u003e Tess truly understood now. “And I think we’ll both—we’ll both be happier if you don’t\n come back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stood, gathering the blanket around her like a robe of state, and went into the bedroom alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The blank paper shone in the late morning sunlight through Diane de Tremontaine’s study window. Diane glared at it, as if her wrath might cause her missive\n to write itself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d not slept all night, staring at the fall of her bed curtains, then out at the inky black sky, standing, a woman in white, ghostly and dreadful at the\n balcony window. She’d seen the dawn arrive in silver streaks and violent pink and orange, lighting the tops of the University buildings across the river\n and gilding the ribbon of water with pale flames. Daylight crept up the Hill from the docks, reaching for her with the sharp promise of a nightmare;\n inexorable and binding.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was no possible outlet she could see to this trap but to drape herself in bald lies. To agree to Lord Davenant’s blackmail, become duchess fully, in\n her own right, and then, when she had to, break with him finally and forever. In the meantime, she would find all the tiny ways at her disposal to make him\n regret this.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her eyes flickered back to the paper. All she’d written on it was a salutation: \u003cem\u003eLord Arlen\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Surely the Serpent Chancellor knew what she did not: how to halt Davenant in his tracks. Desperation had put her at this desk, had her writing his name in\n her perfect, practiced script. But the moment she finished the last swoop of letters, her blood had run cold.\u003cem\u003e Impress me,\u003c/em\u003e the Serpent had said.\n This would be the opposite of impressing Arlen. What if he withdrew his support of her because she could not defeat Davenant?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane unleashed a harsh little sigh. How she would like to hit something, or—or saddle a horse and race and race until the wind and hard hooves scoured her\n fresh. Instead, she set her pen in its cradle and took this almost-letter between her fingers. Slowly, relishing the sound, she tore the paper in two. Then\n she laid the halves atop each other, and rent that in two, then again, and again, until it was too thick to tear without great effort.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The pieces of paper fluttered off her desk like pale autumn leaves.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She felt slightly better.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sitting back in her firm, cushioned chair, she touched the bright cream and yellow dressing gown she wore. A gift from Esha, made in her homeland’s style.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment, Diane considered sending for the woman, in secret, of course. Esha would help with Davenant, even if it was only by listening. How might it\n feel to close her eyes and explain how his possessiveness sickened her, perhaps allow Esha to hold her hand? Merely hold her hand. The woman would\n understand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But no. This was a thing Diane must manage on her own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And if she could not tolerate obsessing over it a moment longer for now, there were certainly other things to occupy her, such as all that dangerous\n information gleaned from Arthur Chel last night, before she firmly had him put to bed in one of the smaller guest rooms to sleep off his harsh edge of\n melodrama.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The most important of which was the knowledge that Ixkaab Balam was still investigating Tremontaine, despite the break from her family, and despite the\n agreement she and Diane had made this summer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As if Diane would steal from her business partners, when she’d spent all that effort establishing the trade relationship in the first place, and when the\n Balam held Diane’s darkest secret in their hands.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Outside her study, a commotion erupted. A commotion! Of all things. Diane stood, wrapping her dressing gown tighter, and strode toward the thud of rushing\n footsteps and cries of surprise. Just as she reached the door, it flung open and there stood a footman, sweaty and wild-eyed. She did not recognize him,\n but he wore the swan bright on his chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My lady,” he panted, and behind him her maid Lucinda and Tilson crowded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane put on a cool facade. “Yes? What is the purpose of this disruption?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tilson said, “This man has come from Highcombe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWilliam\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fear plunged Diane into silence. Death and devastation were the only things that could bring this man so fast, in such a state. She sharply gestured for\n the man to come in, along with Tilson, but kept everyone else outside. When her heart beat again, it was loud and painful.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She did not want to know, suddenly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Turning her back, she went to her desk and skimmed her fingers along the edge as she faced the footman again. “Give me your news,” she commanded, leaning\n her hip ever-so-slightly against the desk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A man called Fenton broke in and tried to steal Duke William from us, my lady,” he said in one breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s fear flared into a welcome rage. \u003cem\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/em\u003e. “Did my swordsman kill him?” she asked, relishing the idea of that handsome, ruinous brat\n spitted on a Tremontaine sword.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, no, lady, he’s been locked up, and the girl, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Girl?” Her voice was tight now, with disappointment and that coiled fury. She stood fully off the desk, rigid with purpose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Some youngster, an accomplice or an innocent, no one knows.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And when was this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yesterday—no, the day before, now. I come as fast as I could, my lady.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You did well to come quickly,” Diane managed to say. The man stood there, sweating and wringing his hands. A country man, a Highcombe servant, pressed\n into this journey by Wickfield, who hadn’t known who else to send. She turned to Tilson. “Fetch Applethorpe, and have my carriage readied. Send Lucinda in\n to dress me. I’ll be leaving immediately. Feed this man, and send him back when he’s ready, with a fresh horse and silver for his pains.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tilson gave a tight bow and ushered the footman out, and Lucinda hurried in, following Diane through to her bedroom. Diane’s hands shook as Lucinda removed\n her dressing gown to put her into her green traveling costume. Rafe Fenton was to blame for \u003cem\u003eeverything\u003c/em\u003e. From the beginning, drawing William’s\n loyalty away from her, so that necessity demanded she seek out Davenant to represent her on the Council. The twisting negotiations with the Kinwiinik might\n not have gotten so deep if William had remained hers!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe Fenton would not leave Highcombe alive.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Dressed and ready, Diane swept down the long curve of stairs to the front of her house. Tilson waited with a bite for her to eat. She waved it away, gaze\n searching the other servants assembled there for the handsome, comforting profile of Vincent Applethorpe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nothing. She looked inquiringly at Tilson. “I believe my sword was summoned?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Applethorpe is not here, my lady, nor appears to have been here since yesterday afternoon. I’ve sent out a few runners, if you’d like to . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll not delay,” she snapped, unaccountably hurt. Diane barely contained herself, trembling with the effort of remaining still as she heard a few quick\n reports on her household as she waited for her bags to be packed and her carriage readied. She bit out a few commands for the four days she’d be gone—four\n days! That would leave her less than three before Davenant’s damned Council vote.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could handle this alone, for alone she’d always been.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In a different house, much farther down the Hill, Vincent Applethorpe stretched his long, naked body, relishing the comfort of the bed beneath him, the\n pillow on his cheek, and Reza’s hair tickling his chest and stomach.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza lined his fingers up with Vincent’s ribs, digging slightly into his flesh. Vincent groaned gently, tired, satisfied, and reluctantly aware this was\n the end. “I must go,” he said softly, in Chartili.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You do not \u003cem\u003ehave\u003c/em\u003e to, not ever, beloved.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was the same endearment the Chartil warriors used to name their god, reserved for the most intimate of relationships. Vincent closed his eyes. “Nothing\n is changed from two years ago.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ambassador leaned up onto his elbow, his hair sliding along Vincent’s chest, falling away. “We are both changed, greatly. Our circumstances. You are a\n famous warrior among your people, and I am here, where you do not have to worry about the blade of some assassin finding me, or poison, or any of the\n things that drove you from me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That isn’t why I left.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then why?” Reza’s brow tightened, his dark lashes fluttered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent skimmed a rough finger along the delicate lines spreading from the corner of one of Reza’s solid brown eyes. He was older than Vincent by some\n eight years, and it showed as it hadn’t in Chartil.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tell me,” Reza insisted. “You owe me that, and you loved me once.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI still do\u003c/em\u003e, Vincent wanted to say; he wanted to pull Reza down to him again, kiss the concern away. He flattened his hand along Reza’s jaw, slid it into the\n straight, soft hair, and combed his fingers through it, spreading the hair like a long raven’s wing. “I have told you, though: I am a swordsman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza scoffed. “We appreciate the sword far better in Chartil. We honor it, and warriors, while here you are paid to fight the battles of other men.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ve never understood, Reza. It isn’t honor, it isn’t . . . a warrior’s code. It’s only the sword. There’s nothing built up around it, not for a real\n swordsman. The rules we follow aren’t part of the sword, they’re only the rules made by men who do not fight. The sword is . . .” Vincent sat up, shaking\n his head. He was no poet. “It’s raw, pure. Nothing but itself. Nothing but what it is.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Everything is only itself, in the end.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Reza.” Vincent put his hand on Reza’s shoulder, his forearm crossing Reza’s chest as the Chartil warrior leaned nearer. “This is all there is. All I am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is all I want.” Reza wrapped his hand around Vincent’s wrist. Their faces were so near.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s impossible. Your family . . .” Vincent doubted any in the City realized Reza was a nephew of the Chartil emperor. Royalty. His title, Far-Reza, was\n given only to those who shared blood with the ruling family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am here because of my family.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent laughed. The first time an assassin came for Reza, it was because he had refused his family’s arranged marriage, preferring Vincent. “Go home,\n marry, and make babies, Reza. This world could use more of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza reared back, haughty. “Don’t dismiss me like that. I deserve more. We deserve more. We could make a life here, together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A life,” Vincent murmured. He shook his head. “Every day I wake up and it might be my last. Every duel, every swordsman I cross.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s the same for all men of action, all people who want something and seek it out. Any day could be my last, as well. But I’m seeking \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e, I’m\n seeking happiness and love, comfort. What an old age we could have, if you would choose the same.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It wouldn’t make me better.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Better than what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Than I am now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Better and better until suddenly someone else is better. That is all you want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even through Reza’s scorn the thought made Vincent’s blood hot, made his breath even out into that deliberate, far-reaching pace of a duel. “It isn’t\n want,” he whispered. “It’s need. It’s what I am, and what I’m for.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could be for me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do love you,” Vincent said, unable to raise his voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I’m not a challenge anymore? You need something new, some\u003cem\u003eone\u003c/em\u003e new, to make you feel like you’re dying?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the Chartils’ beloved god, it was a sharp, deep hit. Vincent stopped breathing for a moment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent,” Reza said softly, as if in apology.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I should go. I didn’t leave word with my lady.” He forced himself to stand, stiff and aching from holding tight to this furious pain in his heart. Here\n his pants, there his shirt, his sword belt, pulled from the floor into a tangle around his wrist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reza pulled on a wide-sleeved, embroidered robe, tying it in angry jerks. He did not say what was so clearly splashed along the lines of his nose, his thin\n lips, his high cheeks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t regret coming here,” Reza finally said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Neither do I,” replied Vincent, softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The pale stone facade of the Tremontaine manor house at Highcombe rose out of the morning fog, the bright slate of the new roof a crisp gray. Diane’s\n memories of coming here in the earliest days of her marriage were gilded with cheer. William had always loved Highcombe, where he had spent the happiest\n days of his childhood; it was why she had tucked him away here—that, and its relative proximity to the City, from whose machinations Diane hated to be gone\n for too long.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane let the carriage curtain flick closed, allowing herself a final moment of calm. She’d managed to lower her panic and anger during this long ride,\n smoothing her thoughts into something of a plan.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Highcombe’s steward, Wickfield, greeted Diane with repeated apologies and confirmed Diane’s suspicions about exactly who had accompanied Fenton here—the\n student Micah. Diane’s strategy settled into place: she would win this battle here and now, for she always found a way to use the tools presented to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane threw off her traveling coat, determined to go directly to Fenton. But her treacherous feet took her to their bedrooms, toward William, instead. She\n stopped outside that simple oak door, and put her palm against it for a moment. She longed to look at him, to see his handsome, carefree smile, but it\n would not be so if she opened this door. He would be lost and vapid, or, worse, caught up in one of his spells. He would say terrible things, either with\n troubling, dream-like insight, or as angry as he’d been that day before she had given him the shadowroot, when he’d accused her of—of . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane closed herself to the memory.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She slid her fingers down the warm, polished wood, then moved on. “Take me to the prisoners.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield hesitated, but at a sharp glance from the duchess, led her down a back flight of stairs, and on down into the store rooms.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Give me the key,” Diane said softly, holding out her hand. She curled her fingers around the heavy iron as if curling a fist around her heart.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She slid the key into the old lock, and opened the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAfter a visit to Micah's family farm and an encounter with a highwayman, Micah and Rafe’s attempt to rescue Will went wrong, leaving them at the mercy of Highcombe’s staff. Locked in a storeroom, they awaited Diane and her decision as to their fate. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Tessa Gratton\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.96","slug":"tremontaine-s2e09","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E09.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101179_TremontaineS02E09.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101179_TremontaineS02E09.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101179_TremontaineS02E09.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e0034cada6e25bbf6d135c","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":10,"title":"The Coming Night","released_date":"2016-12-21T12:36:02.540+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Diane offers Rafe a deal as Kaab attempts to bargain with Tess.","byline":"Joel Derfner","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e10.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2016-12-21","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n Diane de Tremontaine hesitated before the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had been angry before starting out, angry at Applethorpe, at Fenton, angriest of all at Davenant, and the long ride from the City to Highcombe had done\n nothing to quell her fury at any of them. Applethorpe had failed her and Fenton had interfered with her plans yet again, but Davenant, far worse, had her\n trapped; it was either accept his repulsive proposal or give Tremontaine up to Honora’s mewling brat. She had less than a week to slip the snare, and she\n still had no idea how to do it. Yet, rather than sit in her bower at Tremontaine, with all the ducal resources—of which money was the least—at her\n fingertips, ready to be deployed, she had been forced to come here, to the country, to deal once again with a mess that Rafe Fenton had made.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But none of this was what caused her to hesitate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No, the reason she stood in front of the door of an upstairs bedroom at the Tremontaine estate in Highcombe was that, no matter how furious she was, Diane\n de Tremontaine was never one to pass up an opportunity. And to take advantage of this one she was going to have to do something \u003cem\u003every\u003c/em\u003e unwonted.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For nigh on forty years, implication had been her compass as she navigated the squalls and stony reefs through which the gods had chosen to direct her\n course, and she was more adept at its use than any other on the Hill, in the City, in the Land. Bargains, promises, refusals, commands, threats—tools for\n lesser men and women. Diane could accomplish them all with a smile, a phrase, a glance. Words left unspoken were her meat and drink, the garment she wore,\n the air she breathed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the colloquy in which she was about to take part, however, Diane de Tremontaine was going to have to say exactly what she meant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She opened the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot begin to express,” she said to the curious girl who sat at the table worrying at paper loops, “the horror and abject shame I feel at the\n treatment to which my servants have subjected you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perhaps not \u003cem\u003eexactly \u003c/em\u003ewhat she meant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah was sure Rafe must have made a mistake.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d told her that he needed to rescue his boyfriend from some people who weren’t nice. Rafe was very smart about some things—a lot of things, actually—but\n he was very stupid about other things. He was smart about the stars, for example. And he was smart about how to make Micah feel better when she was feeling\n bad, which was one reason she liked him. But he was stupid about math, and he was \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003estupid about what Joshua called “the real world,” which,\n when Micah had asked, Joshua had defined as “anything that involved other people who were clothed.” And so, although Micah had been \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003enervous\n about the not-nice people, it had been obvious, since Rafe was her friend, that she needed to come with him on his trip, because rescuing Rafe’s boyfriend\n definitely fell into the category of things Joshua called “the real world,” and she didn’t want Rafe to hurt himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And he \u003cem\u003ehadn\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e’\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e hurt himself, mostly. He would have a little bump on the head, probably, from where Norris had hit him, but that\n would go away before long, and the man hadn’t even hit him that hard. One day on the farm when Micah had been milking the cows, she hadn’t been paying\n attention and she had squeezed too hard and Bessie had kicked her. It hadn’t been a hard kick, but it had hurt a lot. Bessie’s kick was harder than what\n Norris had done to Rafe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So that was all fine, though Micah was very angry at Norris for hurting her friend. But there was still one thing that confused her, and that was what Rafe\n had said about the not-nice \u003cem\u003epeople\u003c/em\u003e, plural. He had told her it was important that none of the not-nice people find out that they were there. But\n everybody Micah had met here was very nice, except Norris, and it was obvious from the way everybody else talked about him that \u003cem\u003enobody \u003c/em\u003ethought he\n was nice. Even Dilkins was nice. So Micah was thinking that maybe Rafe had gotten it wrong and that there was only one person who wasn’t nice. To be sure,\n Norris was \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003enot nice, but still. It made sense, though, because, as much as it annoyed her, Rafe \u003cem\u003edid \u003c/em\u003esometimes exaggerate.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She just wished she could see him. She had asked, but Wickfield had explained that Rafe was sick. This had worried her, because Rafe had seemed fine when\n they were in the cellar together before Thea had brought Micah upstairs, but Wickfield said that Rafe was only a little sick, and that Micah needed to wait\n until he was better to see him, or else she’d get sick too. That made sense; Freckles had gotten the pox once and they’d had to separate her from the other\n cows so that they didn’t get it from her. So Micah had decided to wait until Rafe was better, and spent her time wandering around the house instead and\n talking to people and learning from Wickfield about the gardens (though whenever she tried to explain to him why he should plant turnips, he suddenly had\n something important to do in another part of the house) and listening to Dilkins talk about how much harder he worked than Olive and listening to Olive\n talk about how much harder she worked than Dilkins. Thea was her favorite, though, because they had two conversations a day, one after breakfast and one\n before dinner. Micah talked about Bessie and Trigonometry and Rafe and Joshua and Doctor Goodell, and Thea talked about how she’d learned to take care of\n sick people and how in love she had been with her girlfriend up north when she was Micah’s age. Well, Thea didn’t talk, because she couldn’t, but she wrote\n on her slate, and made gestures Micah didn’t find hard to understand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The only real problem was the food. Everything they brought her had either mushrooms or lentils, and the mushrooms and lentils here were just as mushy and\n made her gag just as much as the mushrooms and lentils Aunt Judith always tried to persuade her to eat, and she had had to pick through every meal to find\n anything she could stomach at all. What she really wanted was tomato pie—she usually ate it every other day, and it had now been four days—but none of them\n knew what it was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the meantime, until Rafe got better, she was content where she was for now. At first Olive and Wickfield and Vera had told Micah she needed to stay in\n her room, but when they’d told her about Rafe she had made it clear that she wasn’t going anywhere without him, and after that they let her alone and she\n came and went as she pleased.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d grown bored two-thirds of the way between lunch and dinner two days ago and then she’d persuaded Thea to bring her some paper and scissors and paste,\n and after that she spent most of her time engrossed in her loops, and the other things—the awful food, when Rafe would get better—went away. This morning,\n she’d had an idea, and since then she’d been—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot begin to express the horror and abject shame I feel at the treatment to which my servants have subjected you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned around and there was Diane Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah felt her stomach tighten. She had last seen this woman in Rafe’s rooms, and Micah had been very uncomfortable because Diane Duchess Tremontaine kept\n saying nothing for long periods of time and then asking really strange questions. The time before that had been much worse, when Micah had gone to the ball\n and everything had gone so horribly wrong. Her heart began to beat very quickly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But if Diane Duchess Tremontaine thought the servants had treated her badly, they might be punished. Pressure engulfed her at the thought. “No,” she\n blurted. “Everyone is nice.” She wanted to say more, but somehow she couldn’t.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine gave a big sigh and a smile. “Oh, I am \u003cem\u003eso \u003c/em\u003ehappy to hear that! I was worried you had been mistreated.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” said Micah, “not \u003cem\u003eeveryone\u003c/em\u003e has been very nice. Norris is mean. He scares me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine’s eyes went very wide and she put her hand to her chest. “How \u003cem\u003edare \u003c/em\u003ehe? Please tell me what happened.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We were rescuing Rafe’s boyfriend and Norris stopped us and hit Rafe on the head with the fist part of his sword, and it knocked Rafe out. That’s not\n right and now Rafe is sick and I’m worried about him.”\u003cem\u003e\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Norris shall not do such a thing again.” The duchess went over to a rope hanging in the corner of the room and tugged on it. Olive came in and curtseyed.\n “Send Norris in,” the duchess said in a brisk voice, “immediately.” Micah stiffened. She did \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003ewant to be in the same room as Norris. Diane\n Duchess Tremontaine glanced back at her and then stopped Olive. “No,” she said. “Wickfield. I do not wish my friend to be forced to suffer Norris’s\n presence.” Micah relaxed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, ma’am.” Olive curtseyed again and left, and before long the door opened and Wickfield came in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wickfield,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine, “can it possibly be true that Norris had the unspeakable audacity to strike Master Fenton?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m afraid it is, ma’am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will not brook the abuse of a guest of Tremontaine. You are to dismiss him without a character.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wickfield gave a big smile. “Happily, ma’am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I want it done at once. Never again will his head rest on Tremontaine down.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very good.” Wickfield bowed and left, still smiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine turned around. “I am only sorry I could not have prevented this from happening.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s insides swelled with joy and comfort, as if the world had suddenly become just a tiny bit more balanced, and she was so overcome that she stepped\n forward and wrapped her arms around Diane Duchess Tremontaine and squeezed. Micah didn’t usually like touching people she didn’t know very, very well and\n trust very, very much. But Micah’s first impression of Diane Duchess Tremontaine must have been wrong. Or maybe when she had met Micah earlier she had just\n been in a bad mood or something. Diane Duchess Tremontaine hugged Micah back, tight, and Micah melted into it and felt as safe and free—as safe and free as\n she did with Rafe, and with Aunt Judith.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah finally let go and stepped back. But by now Diane Duchess Tremontaine was looking over Micah’s shoulder at the loops on the table. “What are you\n working on over there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Those are my loops. Doctor Goodell showed them to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They look fascinating. Please tell me about them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Absolutely!” Micah said. “They’re amazing!” She ran to them, dragging Diane Duchess Tremontaine after her. She explained the basic idea, demonstrating as\n she went, and then started talking about the new things she’d figured out this morning. “I was making some loops with paper and paste, and then one of the\n loops accidentally got stuck to another one, and \u003cem\u003ethat \u003c/em\u003egave me the idea to start cutting two loops glued together rather than just one at a time,\n and it’s fascinating.” As she went on, about the twisted squares and the strange boat-like shape that gluing loops with opposite orientations gave you,\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine’s smile got bigger and bigger. “And when you came in I was in the middle of cutting two loops twisted in the same direction.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By now Diane Duchess Tremontaine’s smile was huge. Micah had never seen a smile that big on anybody before. “That sounds fascinating, indeed,” said Diane\n Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So let’s see what happens!” Micah said, and finally cut the loops twisted in the same direction apart, which was what she had been doing when Diane\n Duchess Tremontaine first came in, and what it became was . . . two heart shapes, linked around each other. “Oh, wow,” said Micah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is . . . astonishing,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now we have to find out what happens when you cut them down the side as opposed to in the middle. There would be four different ways to cut them,\n depending on which ones you cut in the middle and which ones you cut on the sides, but we’ve already done one of them, so that would just be three, times\n four different orientations, so that would be twelve different arrangements. I’ve got seventeen loops ready, so let’s start with—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you know,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine, “as truly enchanting as these loops are, I would like you to show me the rest later, for I find that I am so\n famished I can hardly concentrate on what you are telling me. Are you hungry?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At these words Micah realized all of a sudden that she was \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003ehungry. “Yes!” she said. “The food they brought me was \u003cem\u003edisgusting\u003c/em\u003e. The\n mushrooms made me gag and I had to hold my nose when there were carrots and when I asked for tomato pie nobody had even \u003cem\u003eheard\u003c/em\u003e of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At the words \u003cem\u003etomato pie\u003c/em\u003e, Diane Duchess Tremontaine’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. “But I \u003cem\u003elove \u003c/em\u003etomato pie! It was my\n favorite meal when I was a child, but no one else here enjoys it, so I never have anyone to eat it with.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can eat it with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How wonderful! I’ll summon Vera so you can tell her exactly\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003ehow you like it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So Diane Duchess Tremontaine told Olive to bring Vera up, and Micah explained to Vera \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003ecarefully what was on tomato pie, and that it was no\n good if there was too much sauce, and she and Diane Duchess Tremontaine\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003ewent downstairs to the dining room, which was very fancy, and though the\n crust wasn’t thick enough, Vera had sprinkled some sort of herb on top that Micah had never tasted before; it was a slightly bitter taste that made the\n cheese even more delicious, and even though she had always thought tomato pie was perfect she understood now that there had been something missing from it\n the whole time. She said so, and Diane Duchess Tremontaine told her the herb was called oregano and said she would give Micah some to take with her so she\n could put it on all her tomato pie from now on. Micah felt so happy at this idea that she thought she might burst. She took another slice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine ate her pie with a knife and fork, which seemed strange, but the chicken likes the feed it likes. At one point she didn’t realize\n that she hadn’t cut all the way through the cheese, so when she brought a bite to her mouth there was a long string of melted cheese attached to it, and\n she looked like she was having real trouble figuring out how to eat it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why are you using a knife and fork?” asked Micah. And to show her how, Micah tore the string of cheese off near the pie end and offered it to Diane\n Duchess Tremontaine, who looked at her fork, looked at the cheese, looked at her fork again, put the fork and knife down, took the cheese from Micah’s hand\n with her fingers, and popped it in her mouth. “The strings of melted cheese are the best part about tomato pie,” said Micah, reaching eagerly for another\n slice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine said, “I do believe you are right.” And then she left the knife and fork where they were and ate with her hands like a normal\n person. And after she had gotten the hang of it, she made sure that every bite she took made a string of melted cheese, and then they got into a contest\n about who could stretch the cheese out farthest before it broke, and Diane Duchess Tremontaine won, but Micah didn’t mind. They were both laughing, and she\n was feeling more and more relaxed. But it wasn’t just \u003cem\u003efun\u003c/em\u003e. Diane Duchess Tremontaine understood her—Micah didn’t have to be so careful around her.\n Micah felt \u003cem\u003ehappy\u003c/em\u003e.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While they ate, Diane Duchess Tremontaine asked Micah about living in Rafe’s rooms with Joshua and Thaddeus and Larry, and Micah explained how noisy they\n were and how annoying it was to be distracted when they came and went, giggling and shouting and doing whatever. She told Diane Duchess Tremontaine about\n how Rafe and Kaab had both thrown up on the floor and it had smelled awful, and Diane Duchess Tremontaine made a face. “Micah,” she said, “it seems to me a\n terrible shame for you to have to work amid such noise and chaos.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It \u003cem\u003eis\u003c/em\u003e! I like how quiet it is here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you wish, you might come and live in \u003cem\u003emy \u003c/em\u003ehouse on the Hill,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine, “instead of in Rafe’s rooms. It’s a very quiet\n house, and I’ll make sure you have tomato pie with oregano whenever you want it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah thought.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine had sent Norris away, and she was interested in Micah’s loops, and she was very nice to eat with. But . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Last time I was at your house,” Micah said, “I had a \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003ebad time. There was just so much happening, and so many people crashing and banging and\n shouting, and loud music, and it was so overwhelming, and I couldn’t take it, and then Kaab tripped me and I fell and a lot of people fell on top of me. It\n was \u003cem\u003eawful\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine quickly, “but that was at a \u003cem\u003eball\u003c/em\u003e. You would \u003cem\u003enever\u003c/em\u003e have to go to balls unless you wanted to.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah sat up straight. “I \u003cem\u003edon\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e’\u003c/em\u003e\u003cem\u003et \u003c/em\u003ewant to,” she said severely.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then you shall not! I don’t have them very often, and when I do they are so far from where your room would be that you would never even hear them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She breathed a sigh of relief; even thinking about that night made her stomach clench. “That’s good.” And then something else occurred to her. “And Doctor\n Goodell could come visit so we can do math together?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why, certainly!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And Joshua and Rafe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane Duchess Tremontaine didn’t say anything for a little bit and Micah started growing uncomfortable again. What if the answer was no? If Rafe couldn’t\n come visit her, then as wonderful as the ideas of eating tomato pie with oregano and working on loops in a quiet house were, Micah would have to say no.\n Would Diane Duchess Tremontaine get upset?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But then Diane Duchess Tremontaine said, “I will be just as glad to see Rafe Fenton as he will be to see me.” She gave her happy laugh. “Invite all the\n scholars you like. It will be wonderful to make my house a center of learning on the Hill!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah wanted to bounce up and down. “Like Rafe’s school!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Exactly like!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When Micah calmed down, she rearranged the pieces of the offer in her head again, trying to examine all its corners, but she couldn’t come up with any\n other problems that she might face. “All right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, how delightful!” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine, and clapped her hands. “We can travel back to the city together tomorrow to get your things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But what about Rafe? Isn’t he still sick?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine. “Rafe is feeling much better, though he is not yet entirely well. But you will see him soon in the City!” She smiled\n again. “And as you make more mathematical discoveries in Tremontaine House—about the loops, about navigation, about anything else exciting—I do hope you’ll\n share them with me! I may need to ask a scholar to join us sometimes, to help make sure I understand, as you are so much more intelligent about math than I\n am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure!” Micah was growing excited again. “But you don’t need to be good at math to understand how amazing the loops are! Let’s go back upstairs and we can\n start cutting again!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane gave a big frown, which Micah knew meant she wasn’t happy. “I am crestfallen to have to say that we must wait for another occasion to explore them\nfurther,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine, “but the demands placed upon me as duchess sometimes leave me little time to pursue the things that \u003cem\u003etruly \u003c/em\u003einterest me. Know, however, that I am very, very happy we will be seeing more of each other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Me, too,” said Micah, and was reaching for the last slice of tomato pie when she realized that Diane Duchess Tremontaine had only had one slice, and she\n had to want more. Micah pushed the serving plate over. “Here,” she said. “You have it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, no,” said Diane Duchess Tremontaine. “The one slice has brought back all my childhood happiness, and that is enough for me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you like it the way I told Vera to make it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A pause. “I believe that this slice of tomato pie was the best thing I have ever tasted.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Which, though Micah had no way of knowing it, was the most honest thing Diane de Tremontaine had said in a very long time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab bounded up the stairs of what she still thought of as her house in Riverside, taking them two at a time. She had not been this happy in a long while.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had not wanted to admit how right Tess’s accusations were, but alone—sleeping in Vincent’s new rooms, Tess broken with her, her family angry, nothing\n but her own mistakes for company—she had been forced to see it.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAnd once she had seen it, the solution was obvious. \u003cem\u003eI think about you all the time\u003c/em\u003e, she had said once, and Tess had shot back, \u003cem\u003eExcept when \u003c/em\u003eanything\u003cem\u003e else occurs to you to think about! Your family, the chocolate thieves, a spot of rust on your sword.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s family was her life. To elevate Tess above them was impossible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the sword—she could do something with that to show Tess how important she was to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And once Kaab had seen what that something was, her other worries had subsided like the tide as the evening approached. With Tess hers once again, it would\n be easy to win back her family’s love, easy to counter Rafe’s threat to harm the Kinwiinik position in the City—not that he would ever be in a position to\n carry it out. He could no more rescue his duke than Kaab could perform one of the ridiculous dances the Xanamwiinik seemed to learn so hungrily and abandon\n so casually.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She knocked on Tess’s door, very soon to be her own door again, at least until they were both safe in the Kinwiinik compound where they belonged, and\n knocked again, all but bouncing on her feet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door opened. Tess stood before her, half dressed, glorious. “Kaab, what are you—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Kaab was already on her knees, her head bowed. “Tess. My queen with hair of flame and the passion of the sun. I am unworthy of you. I have used you\n ill, my love, and I offer you my heart in apology.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I have spoken such words before, and, though I meant them, I did not understand what it was that you wanted. What you deserved. And now I choose to\n make room for you.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot put my family aside. I could more easily put aside the precious water that flows through my veins.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But there is something I \u003cem\u003ecan \u003c/em\u003eput aside.” She drew her sword, held it out to Tess in supplication, still not looking her lover in the face. “The\n blade in my life has cut you too many times, my love, and too deeply. And you are worth far more than any blade. So I vow, by my mother’s name and her\n mother’s before her, that I shall never again wield a sword.” Her heart was breaking to say it, but how much stronger, how much fuller would it be with\n Tess in it! “Take my weapon from me, Tess, and you will replace it in my life. For what is metal next to fire? What is a blade next to love? Tess Hocking,\n I renounce the sword—for you. May I have the judgment, in the future, to see the path that Ixchel has laid for me more clearly, and never stray from it\n again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her blood surged. She had done it. Tess would be hers again, and forever. She looked up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n To see blonde Jenny’s pale face in the doorway next to Tess’s. Connected, indisputably, to Jenny’s lithe body and to Jenny’s light arms weaving themselves\n around the woman who had been her lover.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vinegar filled Kaab’s nostrils and the world turned green. Tess and her new lover faded in and out of her vision. Finally she leapt up, ran, ran, ran as\n fast as she had ever run, down the stairs, through the streets of Riverside, ran from the shame, from the hideous shame, from the anger, from the\n sourness—but run as fast as she might, she could never outrun her own foolishness, her own \u003cem\u003estupidity\u003c/em\u003e, oh, Xamanek’s light, who did she think she\n was, who, \u003cem\u003ewho\u003c/em\u003e, she had no lover, no family to turn to, she had nothing to show for her vainglorious boast of a sojourn in Riverside, her wounds\nfrom the fight with the thieves not yet healed enough for her to attempt another attack, she had nothing but names—what were names?\u003cem\u003eAfter a month in Riverside, \u003c/em\u003eshe might say, \u003cem\u003e I am pleased to tell my wise aunt that the thieves who imperil our monopoly are named Shade and Florian\u003c/em\u003e, as if that gave the Balam any way to\n stop them, and she, she, the great Kaab, who had gone into Riverside so sure of herself, so confident, who was she now? Pray Ixchel and Ekchuah in the deep\n that Rafe failed in his mad quest to rescue his duke from Highcombe, because if he succeeded he very well might carry through on his threat and the Balam\ncould lose their monopoly, or be thrown out of the City entirely, and once again it would be her fault, who was she, who, \u003cem\u003ewho\u003c/em\u003e?\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eShe \u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eran past tilting houses and taverns with filthy windows and urchins up to the gods only knew what, she had separated herself from her own blood\n out of pride, and that was over, \u003cem\u003eover\u003c/em\u003e, no more, she would go back to her kin, back to the Kinwiinik compound, and beg forgiveness from Saabim and\n Chuleb, and obey them in all things from here on out, she need only retrieve her few belongings from Vincent’s rooms. She finally arrived at the house and\n came, panting, to a stop.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She slammed the door behind her. “Try a little harder next time,” said Vincent. “One of the hinges is still on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do not test me.” She stepped over to the chest, began to gather her clothes, her breeches, her shirts. Shoved the drawers closed viciously as she emptied\n them. “And where have you been? When one’s friends disappear in Riverside, one begins to worry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve found other quarters,” he said, indicating a bag he held. “I’m here to pick up the last of my things. Just like you, apparently.” Here was her coat,\n here the hat Tess had bought for her in a silly mood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He paused. “I’m now Tremontaine’s first swordsman.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab gasped. “Vincent! How can you take such a job when—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not up for discussion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” His voice was tight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s face hardened. She shouldn’t have been surprised; the gods had given her every sign that they wanted her alone. She turned back to the drawer until\n all her things lay in a pile in the middle of the floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you don’t like it in my rooms?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do not like it,” said Kaab, “in Riverside. I do not like it in the City. I do not like it in the Land. I wish I were back in Binkiinha, swimming in the\n cenotes or decking the temple steps with jacaranda flowers or flirting with Ixkaax or her sister. But since that is not yet possible, I am returning to my\n family’s home.” If the duke did indeed return, Saabim would know how to neutralize him. “Where I \u003cem\u003ebelong\u003c/em\u003e. Not here, among you barbarians with your\n disgusting food and your complete inability to understand what is important. My career as a Riverside swordswoman is over. The other swordsman at this\n week’s entertainment will have to entertain the guests alone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then his hand was on her upper arm, tight, tight. “You have a fight this week?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I \u003cem\u003ehad\u003c/em\u003e a fight this week. I have one no longer. I will not be there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nVincent backed her up to the wall, and he was as angry as she had ever seen him. “Oh. Yes. You. Will. Or you will find someone to go for you. But you will \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003eback out of a fight without making arrangements.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can take it, then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t want it. Kaab, do you not understand? If you have been engaged to fight and you do not go, you deal a mortal insult to every swordsman in the\n City. Not least to me. And though \u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003ewouldn’t kill you for it, I can think of a dozen swordsmen off the top of my head who would. Go to this fight\n or your life isn’t worth the breath it takes to live.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine,” she spat, and ripped her arm from his grasp. She kicked her things toward a corner, furious, succeeded only in strewing them all over the floor. “I\nwill stay here until my fight is done. And then I am my family’s, and my family’s alone. Riverside can . . .” She groped for the word. “. . . Riverside can \u003cem\u003efuck \u003c/em\u003eitself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent laughed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She did not. “Yes,” she said. “That is exactly what Riverside can do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it could do so without her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” said Vincent, “I’m off, then.” He opened the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And there, on the doorstep, lay a leather cylinder. Vincent regarded it for a moment and then stepped over it on his way to the stairwell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is this?” said Kaab.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A useless gesture,” said Vincent as he reached the stairs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She picked up the cylinder, ran to put her hand on Vincent’s shoulder before he had gone three steps. The hall was dark around them. “From whom?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He said nothing. Then: “From a man who wants me back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And do you want him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “More than I have ever wanted anyone in my life.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Xamanek’s light, how could he be such a fool? She offered him the cylinder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You take it,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She undid the clasp, and pulled out a scroll of fine paper tied with a silk ribbon and perfumed with the scent of a berry she did not recognize. As she\n unrolled it, she saw light blue deepening into cobalt, flaked with gold, powdered with silver, stamped with red blossoms. Strokes of black ink covered the\n paper in a script unknown to her. This was a letter from someone who meant whatever it said with his entire being. “Vincent, you \u003cem\u003emust \u003c/em\u003eread this.”\n How could she make him understand? “You must return to him. You must not break his heart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’s fine without me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He is fine, yes, but he is not alive. He breathes, but his heart-spirit does not. If you want him, and he wants you, you must be together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not that simple,” said Vincent, his voice thick with frustration.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am intelligent enough to understand complicated things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked at her curiously for a while and then led her back into his rooms. They sat, and she gazed at him while he remained silent. Finally he asked,\n “Have you ever seen a Chartili sword?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s called a tach. It’s curved, and only sharp on one edge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So it is for slashing, not for stabbing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His eyes had unfocused, and Kaab understood that the room around them was not what he saw.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I left Riverside for a few years,” he continued, “after a bad kill. Ended up in Chartil and accidentally joined the emperor’s guard.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Accidentally?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I didn’t speak the language very well.” Kaab laughed. Vincent did not. “The man who sent that letter is the emperor’s nephew, in town now as the\n ambassador. He oversaw the guard, and he and I . . . grew close.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But the shape isn’t the only thing different about the Chartil tach. For them it’s—I don’t know. It’s a way to become somebody else’s instrument. I fought\n in the army for him, twice.” He fell silent. Kaab knew he would continue. “It was awful. I became part of the emperor’s body.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The moment I put on that lacquered armor and that helmet, I gave up my own will, my own self.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab did not understand how such a thing could be possible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then again, she had encountered many things in this Land that she would never have imagined possible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I love him.” Vincent shook his head. “But here in the City, with my blade I am myself and myself only. I choose to put myself at the service of men and\n women who hire me because I am me.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If his heart-spirit doesn’t breathe without me, mine doesn’t breathe \u003cem\u003ewith\u003c/em\u003e him.” He shook his head. “Swordsmanship is my soul, Kaab. And if my\n choice is between him and my soul . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab slowly nodded. “Then that,” she said, “is no choice at all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had not always hated Highcombe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Once, indeed, it had been her favorite of the Tremontaine estates, its gardens more abundant than those at Chatterton, its wine cellars better stocked than\n those at Valency, more comfortable than Aldersyde, more calming than Fernway, more luxurious than Stonefield. It had been William’s favorite, too, the\n site, he said, of the happiest times in his youth, when he would burn entire tapers reading books through the night, and the morning sun would greet\n candlesticks thick with wax. She remembered with pleasure the summer they had spent here the year young Fitz-Levi had thrown over Lord Godwin’s daughter,\n and then of course there was the summer Hartsholt had come and made such a dreadful fuss.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But that had all been before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before Rafe Fenton had slithered into her life to rob her of her husband. Before Ixkaab Balam had torn her secrets from their hiding place and threatened\n to expose every one of them. Before she had been left no choice but to reduce her husband to what he was now and bring him here, in the hope that, if he\n could not be who he was, he might at least be a shadow of a self he had once been and still secretly longed to be, a self who felt no call to pull his head\n from his books and his maps and his research, where he was happy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now she could not bear to look on this place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But here she was—thanks, naturally, to Fenton, who threatened once again to dash her carefully laid plans to pieces at her feet—and, though there were\n perhaps things Diane de Tremontaine was unwilling to face, the consequences of her own actions were not among them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So she reached up to adjust the ringlets falling behind her ears, squared her shoulders beneath the deep blue silk, knocked, waited a few moments, and\n entered her husband’s bedchamber.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The curtains were open but the day overcast, so she could not read his face as he sat at the window. At her entrance, however, he turned, and a fierce joy\n seemed to come over him. “Diane!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A fluttering pulse at her throat. Would this be one of the few—the precious few—times when he was as he had always been? When he was truly William, and\n hers once more, even if only for ten minutes, fifteen?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He rose, strode over to her, folded her into his embrace. “You are late. I had begun to worry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Forgive me,” she said, willing him to be who she wanted him to be.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There is nothing to forgive.” He stepped back and took her in. Concern flooded his features. “But what is this? You come on foot? And your gown ripped?\n With no baggage? And your hair! What has befallen you? Who has done this?” She said nothing. \u003cem\u003e“Who has done this to my bride-to-be?”\u003c/em\u003e His lips thin,\n his cheeks haggard, his eyes ancient, seeing all and nothing at the same time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She bowed her head. She knew her lines well. “I was set upon, my lord, on the road.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The villain!” So magnificent in his ruined rage. “He will swing before week’s end!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is nothing, my lord.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You must not call me that. I am William to you—and then only when you are cross, for at all other times the only name of mine on your lips must be ‘my\n love.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could barely speak the words. “My love.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But so sad! And on our wedding day!” He flung the door open. “Tilson! Duchamp! Bring wine, bring chocolate, bring ladies’ maids and all comfortable\n things, for the only tears shed by Diane Roehaven this day must be tears of joy!” He turned back to her. “All will be well, my love, and soon you will be\n safe, in my arms, forever.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, my . . .” She could not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She ran from the room. And if she wept for the next half hour—well, there was no one to see her do it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When she was finished, she called for Wickfield and bade him do the only thing that could be done.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Behold, my love, what I will wreak for thee!” With those words, the jealous sister pulled back the curtain to reveal fair Rosamund in the Young King’s\n embrace. “For who is fair that hath a wizard’s hate?” And in rushed the Wizard Guidry in a swirl of colorful smoke. He froze before the lovers’ tableau in\n an attitude of exorbitant rage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The air filled with the sound of applause. Lionel, sitting next to Esha, joined in with an enthusiastic shout.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha was glad \u003cem\u003esomeone \u003c/em\u003ewas enjoying the play. She wondered whether Diane de Tremontaine had known just how onerous a task she had assigned Esha,\n bidding Lionel accompany her to the theater while the duchess dealt with matters elsewhere.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For, although it was true that the tawdry little entertainments the City trotted out for the people’s amusement seemed lackluster at best compared with the\n spectacle and pageantry that was the theater of Zeren, impoverished without the deep drums, the crimson and daffodil fabrics whirling in the dance, the\n incense and the gestures that set men to sobbing, it was not the numbing tedium on the stage before her that gnawed at Esha’s mind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No: That honor was reserved for her debt to the Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For she had no doubt that Diane would, sooner or later, call upon her to repay that debt, and if that request required Esha to do something she did not\n wish to do, she would yet have no choice but to comply. Esha had not become what she was today by doing anything she did not wish to do.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And so ever since Diane had rid her of the blight that was Nathan Filisand—in a duel that had been messy enough to cost Diane more than expected—Esha had\n been searching for a way to repay the duchess on terms of Esha’s own choosing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was nothing the duchess wanted, unfortunately, to which Esha had access.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the expiring actor finished breathing his last—Esha had difficulty imagining it possible to give such an \u003cem\u003eextended\u003c/em\u003e speech after being stabbed\n through the heart, but it was evidently a trifle for de Lys—so she politely brought her hands together a few times, trapping her thoughts between them.\n Lionel, meanwhile, clapped as if he would raise the villain from the dead by it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What a fine play!” he said, his face bright. “You wouldn’t think, with a title like \u003cem\u003eFair Rosamund\u003c/em\u003e, it would be so thrilling.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” said Esha faintly, “you wouldn’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I declare myself quite satisfied so far. It’s ever so much more exciting with you than it seemed in the company of old Aunt Lucille, the dear.” Esha\n nodded gracefully to accept the compliment. “I am afire to see what the second act brings. In the meantime, would you care for a bag of nuts?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Indeed,” she said, “that would suit me wonderfully.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel caught the eye of the very attractive vendor making his way through the pit, who seemed preternaturally gifted at knowing which of the hands\n reaching out to him wanted nuts and which delights of a softer kind; he rebuffed the latter as deftly as he suffered the former. Esha appreciated a man who\n could resist even entertaining distraction. The nut vendor made his way toward the stairs to the box.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door opened, but when Esha turned she saw not the nut vendor but Gregory, Lord Davenant. She graced him with a smile; her time as his paramour had been\n not at all unpleasant, and if she had eventually wearied of his peremptory manner and contrived a graceful conclusion to their affair, she did not\n appreciate his generosity any the less for it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How utterly charming to see the two of you together!” he said, bowing to her and then to Lionel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It can’t be more charming,” she demurred, “than to see you at all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel gave a slightly deeper bow in return. “As it is impossible to do anything more elegantly than Esha, I will confine myself to remarking that I agree\n with her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant gave a hearty laugh and clapped him on the back. “I simply wanted to pay my respects,” he said. “Even if that duel with Filisand was botched by\n your poor old swordsman, well, we know they can be temperamental rogues. You’re handling it well. Keep showing flair and initiative like that, mixed with\n equanimity, Chesney, and there might be a place for you on my staff.” Esha felt rather than heard the intake of breath this produced in Lionel. “Halliday’s\n excellent, of course, but that sort always have higher goals in mind. Which I assume you do, too—but everyone has to start somewhere!” He smiled at Esha,\n and his smile was possessive enough still to make her feel a twinge of discomfort. “So I hope that you will consider letting me give you a hand. Esha will\n tell you that I’m very good at finding ways to be helpful to my friends.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She laughed as Davenant left; he was replaced almost at once with the nut vendor. She longed for a tamarind ice, but ice in the theater was apparently too\n much to ask for here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I just wish she’d tell me what she has in mind,” said Lionel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who?” Esha knew perfectly well he meant Diane de Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The duchess. She’s got them all in the palm of her hand except him, and she won’t tell me how she plans to do it.” Esha cocked her head, a polite question\n in her face. “Forgive me. Diane has decided she wishes to be Tremontaine in her own right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eOh, my.\u003c/em\u003e\n “I have no doubt that, if any woman is capable of such a thing, it is she.” And perhaps, if Esha found a way to help her do it, the outstanding debt would\n be discharged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ll find no disagreement from me on that point. Apparently it requires a unanimous vote of the Inner Council, and she’s managed to sway all of them to\n her side with the exception of the Dragon. And she refuses to tell me how she intends to manage it. Her time is running short.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Surely,” said Esha in a tone tinged with the slightest disapproval, “the lady is under no obligation to expose her plans to you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lionel flushed, bowed. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have spoken so.” Good. Davenant would either have missed—or ignored—the reproof. The more time this boy\n spent with the duchess, the better equipped he seemed to be to maneuver through the world. “But I have learned so much from what she’s chosen to share with\n me that I long to consume every scrap of knowledge. I’m not so naive as to think I’ll enjoy her favor forever. I want to take advantage of it while I have\n it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was impressed. “You say the vote is next week?” Esha had her own ideas about why Diane might not have unveiled her plans regarding Davenant to the boy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. It was scheduled for months from now, but for some reason it’s been moved up.” He checked himself. She waited to see if he had done so for the right\n cause. “Listen to me. ‘For some reason.’ That’s a thing I might have said this spring.” Esha smiled. Why, Diane was turning him into an actual adult!\n “Would you mind terribly if I worked it through with you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not at all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are the facts? First, I saw the duchess three evenings ago in this very theater, and it was very clear she was not well pleased with Davenant when he\n told her the vote had been rescheduled; she became positively frosty. Second, it is the Crescent who schedules such votes. Third, when I asked why she was\n displeased, she said nothing about the Crescent; only that it meant she would have to put her plan for Davenant into action sooner than she had expected.”\n His speech had begun to slow, and now he stopped, a smile filling half his face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha answered his smile. “I’m glad you see it.” Diane really \u003cem\u003ehad \u003c/em\u003etaught him a great deal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. She has not told me what her plans are with regard to Davenant because she doesn’t yet \u003cem\u003eknow \u003c/em\u003ewhat her plans are with regard to Davenant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course there are many other possible explanations,” Esha offered, “but that does seem the most sensible. And the most like her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By now, however, the musicians were striding onto the stage and taking their places to introduce the second act.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, dear,” said Lionel. “I do hope she figures it out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I feel confident,” said Esha, sitting back to bear the tedium of \u003cem\u003eFair Rosamund \u003c/em\u003efor another hour, “that she has the wherewithal to accomplish her\n aim.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it was with a smile that she went into the next act of the play, for even if it meant sitting through this city’s wan excuse for theater, she could do\n so knowing that a solution to her more pressing problem lay within her grasp.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If Diane did \u003cem\u003enot \u003c/em\u003ehave the wherewithal to accomplish her aim—well, Esha might be in a position to offer it to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What have you done to Micah?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had never seen anyone sit as stiffly as Rafe Fenton sat now, across from her on a settee, against the red and blue damask of which his pallor was\n actually attractive. She was glad he had cut off his ridiculous hair; it would be easier to take University men seriously if they looked less silly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the boy was so bitter! It was a shame, really; turned to useful goals, Fenton’s energies would have been a great asset. “Ah, Micah. Yes. Such a curious\n girl. I confess I am growing to like her a great deal.” Fenton was almost vibrating with tension. “I have done nothing whatsoever to Micah except feed her\n a delicious dish I am now considering introducing into Hill society. As soon as this conversation has reached a satisfying conclusion I will have her\n brought downstairs so you may see her safe and sound, and then you will be free to go. I will happily provide you a horse, in fact, to spare any itinerant\n merchant in the area the fate of having to treat with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane sipped her chocolate delicately and set it down, watching him start at the click of porcelain against porcelain. For the Land’s sake, he was in a\n state. This would take some doing on her part.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No matter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She glanced at his exquisite cup, which he had made no move to touch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He almost spat the words. “Any belief you cherish that I am capable of consuming a substance to which you have set your hand proceeds from a woeful\n misjudgment, on your part, of my powers of discernment.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So much the worse for him; this was the finest of Kinwiinik chocolate. If he believed her resources so meager as to force her to poison him—well, if women\n refused to deal with men who underestimated them, there would never be any congress between the sexes and dinner parties would be reduced to elegantly\n dressed men and women grunting around a table.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In lieu of a response, she offered him a shrug and a small smile tinged with just enough compassion to madden him. The corner of his mouth twitched. Then\n she lifted her cup again, her eyes on him as she drank. Then she spoke. “How little you understand me.” A small sigh. “Then again, I cannot claim to have\n been always innocent of the same fault where you are concerned. And look how much suffering has befallen us both as a result of our mutual\n misunderstanding.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Suffering,” he said, in something like wonderment. “You speak of my \u003cem\u003esuffering\u003c/em\u003e. You, whom suffering has never dared touch.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She paused. “If you truly think that,” she said finally, “then you understand me even less than I thought.” He emitted a bark of laughter. She waved it\n away. “No matter.” It was time to begin. She relished the moment. The creature before her had wreaked such havoc in her life, had destroyed her husband,\n had very nearly brought her world to wrack and ruin around her. But that had been months ago, and now he was in her power.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Woe to him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fenton,” she said, utterly without rancor, a pleasant smile on her face, “I loathe you.” He started. Good. Keep him on his toes. “Not, perhaps,” she\n continued, “quite as much as you loathe me, but certainly enough.” His eyes narrowed. “You suspect me of saying this to weave some web in which to trap\n you. Nothing could be further from my thoughts. It is true, I am not often given to speaking so openly. However, your . . . let us call it your ability to\n surprise, shall we? Your ability to surprise leads me to believe that the best course here is perhaps, as they say, to lay my cards on the table.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He sneered. “Excepting, of course, those you have up your sleeve.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She sighed again, the faintest expression of boredom wafting into the air on her breath. “If you wish to make this difficult it is no concern of mine. It\n will take a great deal longer, however, and require you to spend a great deal more time in my presence.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The words had a clear effect. He gave a grudging nod.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good.” She sipped her chocolate again. “Now: Having dispensed with the pretense that we are friends, why should we not comport ourselves as two people\n who, being in a position to inconvenience each other greatly, might come to an agreement that, if it is not amicable, then is at least acceptable to both\n of us?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked at her as if she were a scorpion. “On one condition,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what is that? I will grant it, if I can.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vow upon all that is holy that the shadowroot you have been feeding Will for months will never again pass his lips.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This time it was Diane who was shocked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The poison William had been regularly imbibing since the spring was not a thing the boy in front of her had \u003cem\u003eany \u003c/em\u003eway of knowing about—it was not a\n thing \u003cem\u003eanyone \u003c/em\u003ehad any way of knowing about. How on earth could this information have come into his possession? No one on her staff knew that\n William was taking anything but medicine prescribed by a doctor. The swordsman who had procured the stuff for her was dead, his throat slit by the\n Kinwiinik girl, who—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Kinwiinik girl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How very clever she must think herself, with her swashbuckling and her swagger and her insolence. How she had found out, Diane could not imagine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No, Ixkaab Balam had not violated the letter of the dangerous agreement the two of them had reached that afternoon in the spring, the agreement that kept\nthem safe from one another. But she had very much violated its spirit. Diane, of course, wanted that agreement preserved just as much as Ixkaab did. \u003cem\u003eNevertheless\u003c/em\u003e, thought Diane, \u003cem\u003ethe offense must be answered\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not, however, at the moment. And ultimately what Fenton knew and what he did not know were irrelevant; his earnestness in all things made him so laughable,\n at least as far as the Hill would be concerned, that he could shout from the rooftops that she was a murderess and nobody would listen. Her plan for him\n need not change in the slightest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This all passed through her mind in the space of a single beat of a hummingbird’s wings, and of course she allowed Fenton to see none of it. “Ah,” she said\n merely. “I see that I am not the only resourceful one in the room.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “By the Seven Hells, how is it \u003cem\u003epossible \u003c/em\u003efor a human being to be so cold? Snow is nothing compared with you; ice, nothing, Arkenvelt, nothing—next\n to your heart they are the balmiest day in Chartil!” Something in his voice was fraying.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was the way to do it, then. Allow him to release himself. If he wanted melodrama, she would allow him melodrama. If he needed to feel fire, she would\n provide him frost so he could believe himself to be melting it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Take care,” she said softly, “how you address me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“\u003c/em\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI will not\u003c/em\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e!”\u003c/em\u003e\n He flung himself up out of the chair in which he sat, seized the chocolate cup, and hurled it at the wall to his left, where it shattered, chocolate\n pouring down the wallpaper. Good. “I do not know by what power you are able so to enchant every man, woman, and child in the land; perhaps you are a demon,\n or a curse sent from the gods to punish us all for wrongs so old our grandfathers never knew they were committed. But you are a monster, a \u003cem\u003emonster\u003c/em\u003e\n , and acid runs through your veins, you breathe bile, you level cities with a wave of your hand and crush armies in your sleep! You have destroyed my love\n while at the same time rendering me as powerless as an infant to do anything to you!” He stepped toward her. “You make me doubt the existence of the gods!\n If they were as we believe them to be, they would long ago have caused the earth to gape open beneath your feet and devour you whole!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now he was panting, his face flushed with rage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There, now,” she said, and smiled, and her next words were so sweet, oh, so sweet, her tongue caressing the syllables as they fell from her lips. “Don’t\n we feel better?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At this he gave a shriek, turned to his chair, lifted it clumsily and unsteadily over his head, and started toward her, and still she did not move, because\n the door opened and she knew her guard stood under the lintel, sword at the ready. A commotion sounded from some distant room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fenton dropped the chair. Righted it. Sat down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You want me to vow upon all that is holy,” she said finally. The door closed. “What a curious creature you are. You call me a liar of the first order and\n then you ask me to give you my word.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” he said, his voice hoarse from screaming, “I harbor no illusion that you will honor any commitment you make to me today. But I wish the gods to hear\n you make it, that they might create an eighth hell for you to inhabit after your death. The seven we have already are all far too good for you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said nothing. Stood, walked to the wall, tugged on the bell pull. Sat back down on the divan. This was getting better and better. Her anticipation grew\n as the moments passed until finally she heard the door open behind her. She spoke without turning, her eyes not leaving Fenton’s. “Wickfield, did I give\n you instructions an hour ago?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You did, ma’am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what were those instructions?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You told me that the duke was no longer to take his medicine.” Fenton’s mouth dropped open. It was only with difficulty that she kept herself from\n laughing with joy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What else did I tell you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You told me to pour out whatever was left.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have you done so?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have, ma’am. I’m happy to say that the carrots in the side garden will never fall prey to the duke’s malady.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That will be all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, ma’am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door opened and shut behind her. She and Fenton regarded each other in silence. “Does that satisfy?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Explain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Only the truth would do here, even though he would not accept it. “I saw him earlier today,” she said, “and could not bear it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He remained silent for several moments. Then he frowned. “It does not satisfy.” She inhaled, about to speak. “But,” he said, cutting her off, “nothing you\n said would satisfy, so let us pretend that it does.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you.” A scornful puff of air escaped his nose. She shifted on the cushion. “Now. I have a proposal to put to you, and I would very much like you to\n agree.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What does your proposal entail?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot have you galumphing about in my affairs like a cow in its cups. You have already robbed me of my husband twice over, and surely you know that,\n without your meddling, I would never have had to resort to the shadowroot in the first place. It is you who have made him what he is today, not I.” He\n flinched—more than flinched. Oh, yes. She had touched something very deep in him. She resisted the desire to seize it and twist; she needed him in control\n of his reason. “And now you break into my house like a burglar, putting your friend’s life at risk in the process, and require me to come to Highcombe at a\n time when my presence in the City is absolutely vital to the accomplishment of plans that have nothing to do with you and your ridiculous posturing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But if I do not give you a reason to stop, you will \u003cem\u003econtinue\u003c/em\u003e to galumph about, growing ever more oafish, until you break something that\n I cannot find a way to repair. And so I will offer you two inducements to mind your own affairs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The first is that I will find a way to keep William safe, a way that even you can trust. Your continued belief that I wish him ill is a sign of just how\n poorly you comprehend my character, but I can do nothing to dispel that belief, so I will accommodate it. I do not yet know how, but I will find a way to\n put him where he can live beyond my reach.” If, that is, the Inner Council vote went her way. She could not part with Will before she became Tremontaine.\n If she ever became Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Might I suggest—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. He will be beyond your reach as well. You will never see him again.” She emphasized her next words. “But neither will I.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A bird suddenly flashed past the window, a dark crow, startling her, but Rafe, silent, did not notice. Finally he spoke: “And the second inducement?” His\n words were a whisper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You will enter my employ.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had been prepared for incredulity, but the cackling laughter with which this suggestion met unnerved her. There was something in it not quite human.\n The door opened again, but she waved her hand behind her and it closed. Fenton’s convulsions continued. Very well. Let him perform. She had seen better.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Perhaps,” he said—croaked, for his voice was all but shattered by this time—“I have taken your measure incorrectly. If you believe that the universe \u003cem\u003eexists\u003c/em\u003e in which I would willingly enter your house as your secretary, then you have already slipped out of reality, and I need but wait a short\n time until you go completely mad, at which point I will simply walk into this house and liberate Will from his bondage.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She gave a sigh of slight irritation. “Once again, you misunderstand me. I should have known better than to offer you a position as my secretary. It was\n beneath you, and I knew it. I allowed my emotions rather than my reason to guide my actions, and that, if I may say so, is beneath me.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me be clearer. William said, if I remember correctly, that you hoped to start some kind of school. Something to prepare the poor for a University\n education they would never be able to afford.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It would take someone from the Hill to see it that way, but yes. A school open to all, that would allow everyone to benefit from the sort of tutoring\n available today only to those blessed with means.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She nodded. “And why have you not opened such a school already?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because it will take a fortune.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you also believe the stars are actually ghosts or candles and the earth a lump of cottage cheese, or something mad like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He could not, it seemed, keep the scorn from his smile. “Or something mad like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But you are at present working for your father, a merchant, as some sort of clerk.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Might I ask why?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, that’s rich. I signed on as a clerk to my father to gain the resources to learn where you had spirited Will off to and to begin to save money for the\n school you so flippantly mock.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You mistake my meaning. I think the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge a noble thing indeed. Otherwise we would be surrounded by fools, and there would\n be no hope in the world for anything better. No, I think your school is a fine idea.” Oh, this would be the best of all. “And that is why I wish to fund\n it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His face filled with confusion. This was not what he had expected. “You wish to . . . what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will buy you a house—I presume you want it to be as run-down as possible; who could respect an academic working in comfort?—and I will buy supplies and\n equipment and I will pay your teachers’ salaries. If you intend to accept penniless students, some of them will be starving tatterdemalions; I will happily\n feed and clothe them. We can even name the thing after William.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will require you to share with me any interesting discoveries you make, of course, but unless I find them damaging to Tremontaine or to the City, I will\nhelp you propagate them. I’m sure there must be a publisher somewhere willing to risk the University’s disapproval and print \u003cem\u003eOn the Pirouetting of the Spheres\u003c/em\u003e or whatever you wish to call it. I’ll make sure it has a pretty cover.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The tumult on his face was more satisfying than the finest chocolate, than the brightest satin, than the deepest cut into a rival’s breast.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And if I choose not to assent to your proposal?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You do not yet know all. Your friend, Micah, has agreed to come live with me in Tremontaine House.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fenton jerked as if someone had punched him in the stomach, and the color drained from his face. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She put faint surprise into her voice. “Oh, has the child become your ward without my being made aware of it?” He clenched his jaw. “As I thought. She has\n agreed to come live with me in Tremontaine House, where I have no intention whatsoever of harming a hair on her strange little head. Nor will there be any\n cause for me to do so, provided you and I come to an agreement.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I thought you had already sunk as low as it was possible for a human being to descend.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It has occurred to me that her mathematical talent might in the future be of some use to me. I do not yet know to what end, though I see intriguing\n possibilities already.” For instance, if the Kinwiinik girl needed to be slapped down, it might be useful to have a reminder that the key to navigation to\n the west would now lie in Diane’s hands. “But that is neither here nor there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shook his head. “I want to see Micah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A knock on the door. Really, she was beginning to think herself a sorceress. “Enter.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah came barreling in. “Rafe! Rafe! I’m so happy you’re better!” She ran to him and embraced him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fenton hugged her fiercely. “Me, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Micah knows,” said Diane lightly, “that you have been ill for the last few days. She herself, as you can see, is in fine fettle.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry we couldn’t rescue your boyfriend.” She took his hand. “And I’m going to go live with Diane Duchess Tremontaine and I won’t have to listen to\n Larry and Thaddeus and Joshua being so noisy all the time and I can work on my loops in quiet and eat tomato pie all the time and you can come over\n whenever you want!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe looked to Diane, then to Micah. “That,” he said, and Diane could hear him being very careful, “sounds wonderful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She spoke to the girl. “Micah, Rafe and I have some things that must be discussed in private. I would like you to go show Wickfield your loops.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl smiled. Diane was not at all sorry that she would be moving to Tremontaine House. She had quite enjoyed their meal together. “All right.” And with\n that, she left.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane looked out the window, where the sun made its way lazily toward the horizon. She turned back to Rafe. “So, Master Fenton, the sun is setting fast,\n and I am in haste to return to my own affairs in the city. I require your answer now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Now?” Rafe laughed, or tried to. “Only a fool agrees to a business deal so quickly. I’ve learned that much from my father, at least.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But now is all the time you have, I’m afraid. Let me sweeten the offer: If you agree to my proposal, I will allow you to spend the time between now and\n sunset in William’s company. Alone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy’s eyes widened. Narrowed. “With Micah as surety that I will say nothing to him of your treachery.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If that is how you wish to put it. I cannot promise you, of course, that you will find him lucid; my servants tell me that he slips in and out of sanity\n several times a day.” She had merely been unlucky enough to choose the wrong moment. Another flash of dark feathers in the window, but this time she was\n prepared for it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And if I refuse? And keep my independence, in order to continue oafishly galumphing about in your affairs?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think that would be most inconsiderate of your friend Micah’s safety.” Diane drew her finger around the rim the chocolate had left on her cup. “And, to\n clarify, whether you accept or refuse, this is the last opportunity you will ever have to see my husband. So: What is your answer?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fenton said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I require it now, I’m afraid.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His voice was that of a ruined man. “I was wrong before. You are not a monster. You are a torturer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am who I am,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I cannot make this choice.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The sun, I fear, may not find that a persuasive reason to delay setting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As the moments passed, a curious battle was being waged on Rafe’s face. Fury, love, terror. Despair. Finally something seemed to break in him. He spoke,\n though he could not look at her. “I accept.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She rang the bell pull again, and a servant appeared in short order.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s voice was steady. “Take this man to see the duke.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe braced himself. He had seen Will just four days before, but only briefly, and Rafe had been so terrified he could hardly count the number of fingers\n on his own hand, much less take in the face of the lover who had been torn from his side months ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He did not know what he would meet on the other side of the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Would Will rave? Would he even be human? Would Rafe see in him the man he loved?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Would Will see in Rafe the man he\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eloved?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No matter. What Rafe saw was irrelevant. He knew what he felt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He opened the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will sat by the window, reading. At the noise of the door he looked up, saw his lover, and smiled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His face had changed over the summer. It was leaner, more lined. The eyes had deepened, drawn by the sight of things Rafe could not imagine. The hair was\n longer—not quite University length, but enough to bring a smile to Rafe’s face when he thought of their first afternoon together, when Will had so envied\n his hair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But this was indeed the man he loved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will rose, strode toward Rafe, and embraced him fiercely. “My love,” he said, his mouth warm near Rafe’s ear. Rafe returned the embrace, his arms wrapped\n around Will as if he could shield him thus from all the danger that lay beyond the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally the embrace loosened, and Will stepped back. “You look well,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “God,” said Rafe, “how I have missed you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will reached up, caressed his lover’s black locks. Raised an eyebrow. “I preferred your hair the other way. I assume you have cut it to punish me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe chucked him on the chin. “On the contrary. I have cut it to remind myself that without you I am not myself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will drew back in mock alarm. “Oh?” he said. “If you are not yourself, then who have you become?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the Seven Hells, this hurt. “A man you would not recognize. I am a fuddy-duddy, denying myself all pleasure until my love returns to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Which was to say, never.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will yawned. “How terribly dreary that sounds. You have become uninteresting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s just as well,” said Rafe. “Being interesting was frightfully hard work, and I was beginning to tire of it.” And Will laughed, and, oh, it was good to\n hear that laugh, and once he left this room it would never sound in his ears again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But why are we still standing?” Will took his hand, pulled him over to the bed. Rafe resisted, Will pulled harder, Rafe acquiesced. They lay, nuzzled\n together. “Your book must be half done by now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hardly. I decided that the University would not find the ideas in it nearly heretical enough, so I am casting about for something that will upset them\n more.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will kissed him, his lips thinner but no less warm, the hand on his cheek thinner but just as flowing with life. “I must see to it that I recover in good\n time to watch their reactions when you publish it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, no, you must recover much more quickly than that; else how, without your influence, will I ever persuade anyone to risk their ire by printing it in\n the first place?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will threw his leg over Rafe, sat up, held his wrists to the bed. Leaned down. “I suspect,” said Will, “that you would be able to think of something. You\n have a great many talents, as I recall.” He pressed his mouth onto Rafe’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe rose into the kiss, drawing strength from his lover’s body. Will pressed harder, took Rafe’s face in both hands, began exploring, noses touched,\n tongues, a hand in Rafe’s hair—shorter now than it had been but long enough to clutch in a greedy fist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe broke away. “My lord—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, good god. I \u003cem\u003ehave \u003c/em\u003ebeen away for a long time. Have you forgotten that I forbade you to call me that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have not,” said Rafe. “But you are—” His voice faltered. “You are not well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am better now that I have seen you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe wrenched his wrists from his lover’s hands, pushed him away. Though not very far. “Will,” he said, very serious. “I would not take advantage.” He\n could barely get the next words out. “We must . . . wait. Until you have recovered, and we can be together again.” His voice broke on the last words.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will attacked him fiercely, his lips hungry, and Rafe submitted. “Believe me, Rafe. I know perfectly well that I am not always myself these days—or,\n rather, that the self I am is not always the self that sees what others see. But in this moment I am absolutely the man you seduced that day in my\n library.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “\u003cem\u003eI\u003c/em\u003e seduced?” Rafe laughed. “\u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003eseduced \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e? Oh, you are a \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003efunny man. It was \u003cem\u003eyou \u003c/em\u003ewho seduced \u003cem\u003eme\u003c/em\u003e,\n with your chocolate and your hands and your . . .” He trailed off, and then their lips were melting together again, as if they were part of the same body,\n and now Rafe felt warm, wet tongue, now sharp teeth, now fingers against his neck, now fumbling at his shirt, and he could not assist quickly enough, he\n was surging with need, and the heat, but it was a tender heat, a slow heat that spread through him and he knew it would always be in him and he would never\n forget, and this, this, yes, oh, his hands on Will’s body as if they had been destined for it, and Will’s for his, and then the height of joy, and tears\n came to his eyes, and he gasped, once, twice, again, and Will gave a long sigh, and he was home, home for the first time in months, and he would never\n leave, no matter what the demoness downstairs did to him, he was here and he would always be here, and—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A knock on the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s stomach twisted, his throat closed. He said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another knock.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But it is time,” he said finally, “for you to rest.” He rose, leaving Will sprawled on the bed, his hands clasped under his head, a grin on his face. Rafe\n straightened his clothes, made himself presentable again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will allow you to leave me now,” said the duke while Rafe dressed, “but only on condition that you visit me again tomorrow. And again the next day. And\n again. And that you never again leave my side.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe formed assent in his mind, shaped the words on his lips, but to speak them felt like a betrayal that would crush them both. Instead he bent down,\n kissed Will once more, trying to send all of what he felt into him, even as he knew that such a thing was not only impossible but unimaginable. He broke\n the kiss and turned quickly, lest Will see his face as it cracked apart. He walked to the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Until . . . until we meet again,” he whispered, and left behind the room, and the house, and his lover, forever.\n\u003c/p\u003e","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nKaab’s conversation with Arthur yielded information that forced Tess to confront her own divided loyalties. Vincent and Reza explored unfinished business. After side-stepping Davenant, Diane was summoned to Highcombe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Joel Derfner \u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e\n","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.97","slug":"tremontaine-s2e10","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E10.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101186_TremontaineS02E10.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101186_TremontaineS02E10.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101186_TremontaineS02E10.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e0037bada6e25bc06d1d75","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":11,"title":"In the Shadow of Riverside","released_date":"2017-01-04T12:56:55.495+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Vincent is forced into a confrontation; Kaab offers Diane an opportunity.","byline":"Tessa Gratton","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e11.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-01-04","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n It was a small attic room in the Middle City, accessible only by a trapdoor from the servants’ hall of the grand Larue townhouse below or, if a person were\n cunning and strong, the window.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade was both cunning and strong.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He crouched on the slate roof outside that window under a thin moon, clad in only trousers and shirt; a small, dark shadow looking toward Riverside. Peaked\n roofs and the blocky whitewashed houses of the Middle City obscured his view of the island, though he knew, of course, it was there. Calling him home. For\n three days Shade had remained shuttered inside this attic with Florian Larue, pacing tight quarters, eating food filched from the family kitchens below,\n sleeping reluctantly, making love.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eLaying low\u003c/em\u003e, Florian called it, but Shade knew: They were hiding. Running away. Slinking off like wounded animals.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A small sneer curled Shade’s pale nose. He would hide no longer, and if his pretty, gilded lover preferred waiting until the fire of danger had banked\n itself, that had never been Shade’s specialty. Besides, this quiet existence was not living: The only place to live was Riverside. Shade refused to be\n driven out by a foreign princess, too hot-tempered for her own good.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ends of his long black hair flicked in a slight breeze, bringing with it predawn smells more pleasant than he preferred: baking bread, clean laundry,\n flowers. Where was the river-rot, where the sour wine, the sharp breath of moss and pine? He’d been born in Riverside, and never before spent so many hours\naway from it that the scent had a chance to seep out of his skin and blood. Florian once told him, \u003cem\u003e You’re a dark, slinking shadow of Riverside, my Shade, and when I taste you I taste the soul of the island\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian had always been melodramatic with his compliments; it was part of the appeal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When he’d first met Florian Larue it had been the bastard’s compelling mélange of vibrant Middle City shine with dangerous sensibilities that attracted\n Shade, as if Florian were a bright yellow lily blossoming out of the deepest Riverside gutter. Impossible, but perfect. Shade had never been more than one\n thing, and couldn’t get enough of his lover’s slippery masks and sharp, lying smiles.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Glancing into the open window, Shade peered through the dimly lit attic toward the low, messy bed where Florian sprawled naked. His white shoulders heaved\n slowly in very deep sleep, and one leg was wrapped in the faded red blanket. A bruise still scrawled down his hip, and the knife slash on his cheek was\n going to scar: a lovely, thin line, but a scar nonetheless. Rage, cold as snow, pricked along Shade’s spine. That Kinwiinik princess might’ve murdered\n Florian, and might still. Florian thought letting her temper calm could lead to a multiplicity of opportunities, but Shade had looked into the woman’s\n eyes: She was a killer, like him, and had chosen Florian as her enemy. She’d not stop without a very, \u003cem\u003every \u003c/em\u003ecompelling reason.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade meant to give her one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d spent the last hours of the night mulling the problem over.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Killing Ixkaab Balam would be difficult, and her connections in Riverside complicated the matter. If he assassinated her, Tess the Hand could make their\n lives difficult, with her myriad friends and clients, many of whom liked the Hand better than they liked Shade and Florian. Things were rough already, with\n a few of their side projects fizzling out thanks to that blasted forger gossiping about them. But that was Riverside politics, and Florian would charm them\n back around eventually. No, the best solution was to find a person the Kinwiinik princess cared for, and kill them in her place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not the Hand, obviously, and Shade suspected he’d never be able to penetrate the Kinwiinik compound; therefore it was unlikely he could reach her family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But he did recall the ferocious protectiveness with which the Lady Chocolate had defended the little girl from the University in that card game at the\n Brown Dog several weeks ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What had the girl called herself? \u003cem\u003eMicah\u003c/em\u003e.\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The name shivered Shade’s skin into cool goosebumps. It felt right. A way to wound Ixkaab Balam, and nobody in Riverside would care that an errant student\n died.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Smiling very slightly, Shade climbed into the attic room for his boots and coat. He snuck to Florian’s side and kissed the air over his lover’s lips,\n feathering his fingers against Florian’s tangled blond waves, and wishing he could sink his teeth into the meat of Florian’s shoulder, to wake him up with\n lust. Anticipation was the only thing that put heat in Shade’s belly: anticipation of murder or of Florian’s wet mouth, it didn’t matter, and moments like\n this he longed sharply for both.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But no; if he woke Florian, this hunt would be delayed, because Florian would never agree to it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Folding his patchwork coat around himself like a shield of cool, calm resolve, Shade slipped back out the window and climbed silently to the street below.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane de Tremontaine’s head throbbed in precise rhythm with the pace of the team of horses drawing her carriage up the winding length of the City back to\n Tremontaine House. She’d miles ago forbidden herself to continue thinking at all, as every problem and interaction of the past days and weeks threatened to\n shatter her. Or so it felt. Her skull was paper-thin porcelain. They’d made this return journey from Highcombe in one long stretch, riding all the long\n hours of a day and into the night, only changing horses at a posting house by torchlight, before finally entering the City’s maze in the luminous predawn.\n Diane had not slept at all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At least her new—ward? prisoner? leverage? student? friend? Ha!—appreciated silence. Once over her initial surge of interest in exploring all the parts of\n the carriage and an analysis of its speed, the young mathematician appeared content with her own thoughts except for the occasional outburst; those\n seemingly random questions or statements of discovery rarely required much answer from Diane. It was obvious the girl had never ridden in a carriage so\n fine before, or in a carriage at all. Unfortunately, the motion upset Micah, and the girl insisted that only riding face-forward would keep her from\n throwing up. So Diane obligingly rode backward herself, preferring that indignity to sharing the same cushioned seat for such a long journey. At their\n midday pause for refreshment, Micah had rather anxiously asked after any paper and Diane allowed her to search the velvet-lined container under the bench\n for letter-writing materials or a book kept there against boredom. Several hours later, Micah’s seat was covered in a layer of very fine paper upon which\n she’d scrawled a tangle of numbers with the nub of a pencil from her pocket. Staring at them too long made the duchess feel rather nauseated herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl had been sleeping fitfully for some hours now, bent along the seat opposite. If only Diane herself could give over to the peace of sleep, even if\n it were an illusory peace. But Davenant’s vote was tomorrow, and she’d lost all this time to Rafe Fenton’s wild temper. At least she’d won this round. And\n she did consider it all a triumph: William safe again for now, and a school in their name would further expand Tremontaine’s reputation as charitable and\n entrepreneurial, as well as allow her to keep tabs on the Fenton brat. Who knew what such a school might produce for her in the future?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n William would have approved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane breathed carefully, hands folded in her lap though she’d have preferred to grind them against her sleep-starved eyes. She closed her eyes instead and\n leaned her head against the cushion at her back. What would she do about William? To keep him safe and far from here? Undiscoverable, but at peace. Where\n to put him, who to trust with him? Diane could never, \u003cem\u003enever\u003c/em\u003e have William killed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This cushion bit me!” exclaimed Micah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane opened her heavy eyes to find the girl had tugged free a tiny white feather that must’ve been pressing up through the velvet. “Swan feathers,” she\n soothed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah touched the soft edge to her cheek, then pinched the spines between her fingers. “Are we nearly there? I’m hungry, which is distracting, and sleepy,\n and even if it wasn’t so dark, the bumping makes my writing worse than usual and I might have to tear some pages out of this book, or work in the margins,\n before I forget the rest of this equation. It’s really quite interesting—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My dear,” Diane said softly. “We’ve been in the City for some time, and I’m sure we’re nearing Tremontaine House.” She leaned awkwardly forward, craning\n her neck in a way it was quite unaccustomed to doing, to peer out the window from her unfamiliar perch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah eagerly pressed her face to the window, gripping the edge for balance like the bumpkin she was. Sudden affection squeezed Diane’s heart, and she\n worried she might be coming down with an illness of sentiment she could hardly afford.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The view kept the girl occupied during the final stretch of the Hill, and soon they were slowing through the Tremontaine gates onto the deliciously\n familiar crunch of the circle drive. After being assisted out into the torchlit courtyard, Diane turned to Micah, who gazed up at the grandeur of\n Tremontaine House with wide eyes and lips slightly parted: the proper awe, indeed. Even in the darkness, burning with lanterns at the doors and lowest\n windows, it was a magnificent property. With heroic effort, Diane gently patted the girl’s wrist with her gloved hand. “It may take time to become used to\n this place, but shall be well worth it. Come.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane swept up the stone staircase and through the doors that parted as if by magic, though it was only the perfect timing of her perfectly trained staff.\n As her cloak was removed and she stripped off her gloves, she inquired of Tilson, “Any emergencies?” When he bowed his head in the negative, Diane offered\n a pleased—but tight—smile. “Good. Have Lucinda prepare a bath. I shall retire for a few hours’ sleep, then take all my messages when I wake. This, Tilson,\n is Micah Heslop. She’ll be our guest for the foreseeable future. Please set her up in the Red Room with anything she needs. Begin with a bath and fresh\n clothes, some reams of paper and new pen nibs for the escritoire, as well as, ah, a tomato pie?” This question she angled toward Micah, whose eyes focused\n on Diane for a moment as she nodded slowly, chin tilted to take in the arched ceiling of the entryway. Yes, the Red Room would suit her very well. Diane\n hadn’t redecorated it since the first few years of her marriage, and it remained rather decadently appointed and out of fashion. It would not matter if\n Micah changed or ruined anything; one could hardly make the room less appealing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With that, Diane made her way quickly but gracefully toward her own rooms, there to scrape the dust of travel from her skin and collapse into sleep.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was all too easy for Shade to discover the sleeping place of Ixkaab Balam, the deadly Lady Chocolate. He hadn’t even needed to part with any brass to\n suss her out: A few of Florian’s friends at the Brown Dog had seen her stumbling drunkenly through the side entrance to one of the leaning Riverside\n townhomes. She’d been living there for a few days, they informed him, tossed out of the Hand’s bed, and until very recently the townhouse had been the\n haunt of the swordsman Vincent Applethorpe. Shade should watch himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He delighted in the news of Ixkaab’s downtrodden state, wondering if he might find the opportunity to murder her after all, now she’d been cast from the\n inner circle of Tess the Hand’s heart.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade leaned in a shadow as the sun rose, silent and still, playing a long rhyming game with himself that his useless poet father had taught him, and\n waited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And waited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Kinwiinik princess emerged hours after the sun, blinking and bruised and limping. Shade smiled: He’d given her that limp when she cut his lover. Her\n clothes were bold, despite her bloodless grimace, and the sword at her side shone nicely at her hip. She would be oh-so-easy to track today.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rolling her shoulders in a stretch, Lady Chocolate headed slowly for the Bridge, and Shade slipped behind her, wondering how long he’d be allowed to enjoy\n this game before she led him to the girl Micah, his true target. Or before he decided to slit her pretty brown neck after all and take a strip of that\n brilliant red vest as a patch for his coat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The shutters were thrown open to late morning sun pouring fresh and bright across the window seat of Diane’s bower, enlivening the dusky pink, green, and\n cream of the thick rug. Just being here smoothed the edges of her headache, which had survived even six hours’ heavy sleep. Diane breathed the crisp,\n flowered air; upon a delicately carved cherrywood table rested a fresh vase of blossoms from the garden beneath the window. This was her favorite room, and\n though she should perhaps be receiving her messages and chocolate in her study, right now she desperately needed the solitude and sanctuary of this high\n perch. Especially in this disheveled state, hair lazily twisted up, still in her night rail and dressing gown and thin gray slippers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A slight knock alerted her to the arrival of a maid, who handed Diane a bundle of notes and letters, then retreated immediately. Sinking with a soft sigh\n onto the silk cushion of the window seat, Diane flicked through them. Invitations, gossip, thank-you notes, the like. Seven from darling Lionel Chesney,\n though she’d been gone slightly less than four days. One from Davenant, and the very sight of his Dragon seal brought a rush of pain back to her temples.\n She suppressed an urge to tear it into pieces, unread. Setting it carefully aside, Diane first opened an intriguingly rolled note from Esha Jayasuriya, on\n very fine sherbet orange paper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eMadam Duchess,\u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n It is my hope I might have a word with you, in person as is our usual way, at your earliest convenience. There is no reason to worry, please do not,\n but I would discuss with you a matter of delicate urgency I believe you’ve found yourself embroiled in. I may have a solution.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eIn friendship,\u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eEsha Jayasuriya\u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her head throbbed. She set the scroll down. Diane needed chocolate before she could possibly work through the ramifications and potential double meanings\n of this mysterious missive.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still avoiding Davenant’s note, she opened one of Chesney’s. The young man wrote as he spoke: eagerly, dearly, and occasionally in a rambling manner. A\n small portion of her mind began planning to arrange for him some training in oratory, in case that tendency to ramble might spill over into Council\n sessions. He mentioned twice a hope that he might see her, however briefly, at Lord and Lady Condell’s soiree, where it was rumored there would be a\n challenge by the sword played out. Diane paused a moment, thinking back: Yes, indeed, she recalled the lovely blue card inviting her to the celebration. It\n was tonight, and she would have to check with her secretary, as she could not recall whether she’d agreed to attend or not. Perhaps more information about\n the challenge would appear in another piece of her correspondence. She set Chesney’s note down and moved on. Lady Berowne invited her to have chocolate the\n next afternoon, and naturally Vivica was kind enough to fill in the gossip for Diane: Speculation put the challenge by sword to be between Lord Teodorus\n Talbert and his cousin Stephen, over some sort of money issue—it was very hushed, naturally, for a noble’s finances were seldom honorable cause for a\n challenge (unless over a gambling debt, which was really a debt of honor), and more shocking was the suggestion that the challenge would be one to the\n death! At the poor Condells’ anniversary party. \u003cem\u003eAll very exciting\u003c/em\u003e, Vivica Berowne wrote,\n \u003cem\u003e\n and the Condells are certain to be the talk of the town regardless of the sort of challenge this turns out to be, especially as it seems S. Talbert’s\n swordsman abandoned him and he’s having terrible luck finding a replacement!\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Exciting, indeed\u003c/em\u003e, Diane thought, longing for such troubles to be the height of her own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Davenant’s letter glared at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She lifted it and relished breaking the seal with her fingernail.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eDiane\u003c/em\u003e, he addressed her, as if he had the right.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane shuddered and crumpled the note in her fist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Just then, a maid brought in a silver tray laden with a delicate chocolate pot and small cup, cream, and spoons, and set them upon the cherrywood table.\n With a curtsy, she removed a slender package from her apron pocket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My lady, this just arrived for you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane accepted it and the girl poured her chocolate. Davenant’s relentless crest marred the corner of the thick envelope. She bit down on the inside of her\n lip to keep herself still. Folding her hands over it, Diane waited until the girl withdrew before opening the package with shaking fingers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A note, and a neatly folded pair of kidskin gloves embroidered at the cuff with a row of white swans.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane carefully set them on the chocolate tray, rather nauseated at the thought of their touch upon her skin, and sick, too, at even the smell of the\n faultless chocolate. She unfolded the note.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eDiane, my darling, \u003c/em\u003e\n\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Now that you have returned to town, accept this token as if by my own hand, gloves fit for your fingers, soft and fine as your skin. I would see you in\n them soon.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eAnd in nothing else\u003c/em\u003e, the short line implied. Diane could hardly bear to read on, so furious and disgusted she was at his presumption, at his daring, at his—at his . . .\n domination. His assumption of victory.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was trapped. Not only did he expect her acquiescence to this marriage scheme, shame her by sending intimate gifts, but he proved he was watching her\n and her house, watching her every move as if she were his prey. He would snare her and gild her and she would be nothing to him or anyone but delicate bird\n in a cage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Yours, \u003c/em\u003e\n he signed it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane stood with a tiny shriek of rage. She crumpled the note and whirled to the chocolate service, desperate to fling it away and see the arc of rich\n chocolate spray violently across the room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The gentle creak of the door opening startled her out of her temporary madness. She stood frozen, hands at her throat, squeezing back another cry. Holding\n her embattled heart in place. Willing herself calm, calm, \u003cem\u003ecalm\u003c/em\u003e!\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My lady?” said a soft, low voice, full of tender concern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was Vincent Applethorpe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still shivering with anger, Diane faced him. “I am not to be disturbed when I am in this room,” she said with all the quiet menace she could muster.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The swordsman had the grace to flinch. He’d come dressed well, at least, boots polished, vest in place, dark brown jacket the image of Middle City\n simplicity. And he was clean. His bow to her was elegant, though closely controlled. “I apologize, Duchess, for the intrusion, and for my absence three\n mornings ago, when you sought my services.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The point of a \u003cem\u003ehouse\u003c/em\u003e swordsman is that you be here, in my house, and ready when I \u003cem\u003edesire\u003c/em\u003e it.” She could not keep the anger from heating\n her voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His hazel eyes remained steady on hers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A wicked thought whipped through her, that she’d like to make Vincent Applethorpe afraid, as she could not make Davenant afraid. This man owed her; he’d\n taken her sanctuary and then abandoned her when she needed him, when crisis struck at Highcombe. “Where were you?” she demanded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Applethorpe swallowed, though his mouth did not shift from the calm line of politeness, and his eyes did not flicker. He barely—barely—shifted his stance\n defensively. But oh, how Diane could read a man.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Walking to him, neither fast nor slow, Diane smiled. She stopped just at the edge of his reach, and tilted her face toward his. “I am not like your\n ambassador,” she murmured, aiming for the jugular.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A hit! His nostrils flared, his eyes darkened with the intensity she’d first noticed all those weeks ago: Here was her predator swordsman. She took the\n final two steps and touched her bare hand to Vincent Applethorpe’s chest. He was warm through the linen shirt and vest. “Does he wish to control you?” she\n murmured, both sharp and sympathetic. She’d spent time with Ambassador Reza; she could guess his flaws. “Does he refuse to understand who we are here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Applethorpe said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know what you are,” Diane whispered recklessly, rising onto her toes as if to kiss him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What am I?” the swordman asked, voice rough. His hands came up and gripped her elbows.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane allowed it. “A swordsman, of course. I saw you fight de Maris. I heard what you did to that puppy Filisand. You are a dangerous, vicious killer, and\n it gives you life.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is what I need, Vincent Applethorpe.” She lowered her voice. “\u003cem\u003eYou\u003c/em\u003e are what I need.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My lady,” he whispered, appearing slightly shaken. He was hers in that moment. She could do anything: strip him, kiss him, gut him . . . and he would not\n stop her until it was too late.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane clutched at his vest, staring into his eyes; he was hungry, ready for all of it. She put her lips nearer to his and said, “Kill Gregory Davenant, the\n Dragon Chancellor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His lips parted to breathe it in. “A challenge to death,” he whispered. “When?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She slid away, turning like a sweet summer breeze toward her window seat. There, the crumpled letter from Davenant sat like an ugly egg upon the velvet\n cushion. “No. Davenant has threatened me,” she said, clutching it and spinning to face the swordsman. Blood throbbed in her temples, roaring through her\n ears. “I want him stopped. I do not want his swordsman killed, I want \u003cem\u003ehim\u003c/em\u003e dead, himself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Silence dark and strange settled between them in the sunny bower.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Murder?” he said with disgust.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You want to,” Diane whispered tightly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ve killed before!” she hissed, gripping at her skirts in frustration, then carefully smoothed the wrinkles, drawing herself back into control. “What\n does it matter to you? I will protect you, if you do this for me. We will say it was a challenge, I will swear to it in the Court of Honor—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The swordsman studied her with a frown that plumped his bottom lip appealingly. But his brow was a storm, his eyes unforgiving. “You’re better than this,\n Diane de Tremontaine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She felt it hard, as if he’d struck her. “How dare you,” she said, her only defense. She was not better than this: Her entire life was built on murder, on\n a secret moment of surrender to that worst urge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not right, and it’s unworthy of you,” he pressed. “I know what you are, too, I think, Duchess, and this is not it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane said nothing. She realized suddenly he meant to say: \u003cem\u003eI am better than this; I am more worthy than you if you ask this of me\u003c/em\u003e. But she had\n seen the murder in his eyes when he fought de Maris, she had heard it when Ambassador Reza said, \u003cem\u003eVincent!\u003c/em\u003e, and now this man dared pretend his\n heart was more righteous than hers? He was a swordsman; he was a mercenary. He could not know her. None knew her. None ever would.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go,” she whispered. “Get out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Applethorpe hesitated, and for a moment she thought he might try to touch her, and that if he did, she might allow it and everything would change. But his\n frown remained; he shook his head, and left her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane knelt, alone, on the elaborate pastel rug, faint and ill. She would show Vincent Applethorpe, somehow, exactly what he was, and exactly what he was\n worth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe Fenton arrived home wondering how there was room at all in his wailing, messy heart for this treacherous spark of hope. His every attempt at\n self-loathing was ruined by a pervasive delight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Will was lost to him, forever. Rafe had struck the final blow himself, with this bargain he’d made. He was an ingrate. A fool. But his school! It had been\n a dream Will had shared—or at least understood. Rafe was building that dream for the both of them! In its halls he would keep Will’s spirit here, with him,\n and in the City, forever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If he could trust a single word spoken by Diane de Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Though his mother and sister both called after him, Rafe brushed past, ignoring them, and was able to make it to his study and close the door before\n burying his face in his hands. Sore all over from the long horse ride from Highcombe, he wished to simply curl in a ball and sleep. Sleep, at least, might\n bring him back to Will in his dreams.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His study was tiny, decorated with dark wood and fine blue details, with one small window overlooking a clean alley between this townhouse and the walled\n garden of the next. A mess of papers covered the desk, several fallen aside, fanning the floor in a chaos like what Micah made when he—she, dammit—was\n caught up in a passion of calculations.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah, ah! Rafe dug his fingers into his hair. Trapped with the Duchess Tremontaine against Rafe’s good behavior! Drawn into all this by Rafe’s selfishness\n and single-minded determination.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d only had a moment to speak with her before he left, and Micah, being Micah, had frowned at his apologies, tilted her head, and explained to him as if\n obvious, “This was all to help someone you love, so next time we should bring more muscle, but I think it was worth it. We’re friends.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If Rafe weren’t such a dried-out husk of a man, he might have cried just remembering it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Though it made him sick, he’d have to set foot in Tremontaine House again, not only to do his business with the demoness Duchess, but to visit Micah and\n make sure she was not only taken care of, but happy. He’d give her something. Something extravagant. Something she’d always need and . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe frowned. Hadn’t Micah given\u003cem\u003e him\u003c/em\u003e something? He tromped to his desk and fiddled with a few piles of papers, overturning a stack of receipts.\n Where was it? That parcel Micah had given him months ago, at the start of summer, the day Rafe \u003cem\u003efirst\u003c/em\u003e sold his soul to the duchess.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There! Papers that months ago had been carefully tied, but were near falling out of their ribbon now from all the times he’d shuffled them out of his way.\n Rafe lifted the bundle and spilled the sheaf of papers into his other hand. Immediately he recognized them: Micah’s navigational calculations.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How clearly Rafe recalled the passion with which they’d pursued that quest last year! As if it could change the world! And it could, Rafe supposed, with\n the right time and effort. But the stars weren’t his calling. Will had cared about it, for the sake of pure knowledge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He thought of Will’s smile and the tenor of his voice when he said, \u003cem\u003eMy love! \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How long before Rafe could no longer recall that voice?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How long until he forgot the touch of Will’s hand? Marking the shape of his ribs, digging into his hip; the soft tongue, the . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe collapsed into chair behind his desk. His head fell back. He stared at the wooden beams of the ceiling as tears pricked the corners of his eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eNever again leave my side\u003c/em\u003e\n , Will had said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then Rafe had done so. Forever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What would that monstrous woman \u003cem\u003edo\u003c/em\u003e with Will? Could Rafe survive without knowing? Could he possibly lead this school under Will’s name, reminded\n every day of this devilish bargain?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A knock sounded at the study door. Rafe didn’t answer. He clutched the navigation papers to his chest like a child’s blanket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The knock came again, and the door opened slightly. “Rafe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sagging in relief, Rafe dropped the papers, strode across the room, jerked the door open, and dragged a stumbling Arthur Chel into the study.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe hugged Arthur as if to let go would mean his death.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After a stilted, frozen moment, Arthur wrapped his arms around Rafe, too. He kissed Rafe’s cheek, and said something soothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Forgive me, Arthur,” Rafe said, breathing in the unique smell of Arthur: some City perfume and the rich Kinwiinik spice on his breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Forgive you?” Arthur squeaked. His surprise put the first true smile on Rafe’s face in days. “You were only gone a few days. I’d have liked a note, but I\n . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Listen,” Rafe said. Gently cupping Arthur’s face, he confessed. To everything. To leading Arthur on, to being in love with an impossible man, to the wild\n rescue mission. To being an absolute shit to Arthur’s cousin Kaab even though he understood why she didn’t trust him. “I didn’t deserve her trust,” he said\n sadly. He confessed to all the plans for his school that had driven him so hard at University, to giving them up for William, and letting the duchess\n manipulate him again and again. “The duchess is using you, too,” Rafe told Arthur. “So be sure, if you keep working with her, that you’re using her back.\n And don’t love her.” Bitterness flavored his words now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Through it all, Arthur listened silently, his hands an anchor at Rafe’s waist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When he finished, Rafe felt better, though slowly realized his confession had likely made Arthur feel much, much worse. Clearly, Rafe remained the most\n selfish friend who ever existed. “I won’t hold it against you if you go,” he said. “If you go back to her, or leave me. Kaab won’t forgive me, either. She\n was . . . ah, damn. She was just doing what I was doing. Protecting the people she loves.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think,” Arthur said carefully, in his perfect Landish, crisp and Middle City-bred, “I think you are a mess, Rafe Fenton, but I still want to kiss you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And so Rafe kissed him. He kissed him, holding tight to Arthur’s face, and took comfort in Arthur allowing him all the lead. There was nothing complicated\n or painful here, just a kiss. Then he put his forehead against Arthur’s. “Maybe someday we can . . . When my school is started and I’m standing on my own,\n and I don’t need you, I just want you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That sounds fair,” Arthur said breathlessly, “though I don’t want to wait very long. Build your school quickly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A small, painful laugh burst from Rafe. He stared into Arthur’s dark brown eyes, at his brown skin, warm like sunlight and the golden fields surrounding\n Highcombe. “You’re better than I am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur shrugged, and a tiny bit of arrogance like nothing Rafe had seen before in the Kinwiinik’s expression appeared. “You don’t know how good I can be.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sun glared on the winding, narrow streets of the Middle City, hiding Shade better than any shadow: The brightness kept people’s heads down, squinting, hats\n tilted to block eyes. He’d turned his coat lining-out, so it was merely a sleek old brown from wide collar to sweeping tails. Less memorable, and if Ixkaab\n Balam happened to catch a glance of him, she might not immediately notice who followed her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His quarry kept great attention on all her surroundings, hunting for a tail despite the lack of danger in this neighborhood, despite the sag of her\n shoulders and the slight limp Shade was proud to have given her. Though he was forced to hold far behind thanks to her vigilance, tracking her was no\n difficulty, as she stood out from the Middle City residents with her bold coloring and garish clothes: a sash and vest quite intensely red, over black\n City-style trousers and her sword belt, of course. If he ducked too long around a corner, everyone showed him where she’d turned by chatter and body\n language.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a better way to spend his day than stuck in an attic, even if trailing her from Riverside didn’t bring him near the University and young Micah. He\n was learning quite a bit about dangerous Lady Chocolate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They weren’t too terribly far from the Larue townhouse now, and Shade flicked a glance toward it, assuming Florian had woken an hour or two ago, furious\n and frustrated to find himself alone. He’d make Shade pay for this outing—the thought thrilled Shade from his scalp to the soles of his feet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab Balam slowed as she approached a low, wide merchant’s house with beautifully glassed, tall windows. Shade did not know it, but why should he?\n Skulking against the side of an alley wall, he watched her wait as another of her countrymen emerged. Short black hair, young brown skin, and a fine\n City-style suit that showed just enough money and even better taste. Together the young man and Ixkaab spoke, tension rife between them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The young Kinwiinik man was familiar. Narrowing his black eyes, Shade shuffled through memories, and it struck him, here in this neighborhood of merchant\n families, so near Florian’s: This was that pup who had followed Florian two years ago, infatuated with him. Arthur. Florian had told Shade all about him,\n when he’d come up with the warehouse scheme at the beginning of the summer. \u003cem\u003eHe’s an eager young thing\u003c/em\u003e, Florian had said with predatory fondness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At the front gate, Ixkaab clasped Arthur’s shoulder; the young man startled, staring down at her hand, then said something else, brow wrinkled with worry.\n Ixkaab seemed to promise something, then pulled away to head through the open gate of the merchant’s house.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade had only a moment to choose as the young Kinwiinik man stepped into the street.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it was no contest: Arthur was the link between Florian and Ixkaab. He had to be how the princess had discovered they were stealing from her people. And\n he was a part of her beloved family. Right here, laid out like a feast.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade had always enjoyed eager young things.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab took a strengthening breath at the door to the Fenton compound, and asked the servant to see Rafe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her face was a mask of calm and confidence she did not feel, and the man who answered the door clearly assumed she’d come from the Balam to see Master\n Fenton’s son on business.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Heart pounding, she followed the servant back through the house, glad she’d had Arthur’s warning—she’d been so grateful to hear Rafe was home and alive,\n and apparently alone, she’d nearly embraced her City-loving cousin. That, and by this point, Kaab would accept even Arthur’s company or smile, simply\n because he was family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab was not good at being alone. She wasn’t supposed to have to be: Kinwiinik were never alone because of their family and their blood in the earth and\n the gods always with them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And yet, so Kaab had found herself. Alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d been sleeping poorly since Tess kicked her out, unable to recall her dreams. Her head was not with her. Passion had been her perennial distraction,\n not a weak head, not this constant weariness. There were stories of girls losing their head-spirits to sleep, to dream wandering, but Kaab had rarely\n worried such a thing would be her downfall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now, after seeing her lover taken up with Jenny, after her flight and conversation with Vincent, she wasn’t so certain. She didn’t know what she longed for\n most, what her path forward should be. She would fight the duel, as she’d promised Vincent, then return to the family. But empty-handed? With the thieving\n and Rafe’s wild mission hanging over her? What could she bring home that was solid, and true? She’d taken to muttering prayers to Ahkin in His Brightness,\n that the Sun might direct her head home again, since Kaab did not have access to the Balam shrines or their touch or family laughter. Last night she’d lain\n on the pallet in Vincent’s old rooms, staring at the dusty beams overhead, trying to coax her heart into providing an answer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And all morning she’d only been able to think about Rafe, and the state in which she’d last seen him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant knocked on her behalf, and from inside the study came a groan of irritation. “What now?” called Rafe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab smiled and said softly, “Let me be the one to earn his ire,” before pushing in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe looked devastated, just as Arthur had warned. Hollow, blue shadows under his eyes, mouth tight, his short hair unwashed and lank around his ears. He\n was missing a jacket, and his shirt was torn, one button of his embroidered vest absent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you doing here?” he asked with more horror than anger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took it as a good sign, shutting the door firmly behind her. “I’m glad you’re alive.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Flinging out his arms, Rafe knocked over a scatter of papers. “Does this look like living to you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A tiny, startled laugh bubbled in her heart. She did not allow it free, but something must’ve shown in her eyes because Rafe narrowed his own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They stared for a moment, and then Kaab did smile, and Rafe did, too, self-deprecating and weary and relieved. He ran fingers through his hair. “I’m glad\n I’m alive, too,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you succeed?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No? Yes? I . . . I just told your cousin Arthur about it,, but not everything, nothing about the poison or \u003cem\u003eyou. \u003c/em\u003eSo you don’t have to cut out his\n tongue or anything.” Rafe’s voice turned nasty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But it was a familiar nastiness, and Kaab sneered right back, “Too messy and ineffective, besides.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Better things to do with tongues.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab smirked, and Rafe offered her a drink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Taking her cue from him, she shoved some papers off the chair and onto the floor, sitting. But the papers caught her eye. She recognized Micah’s sheets and\n sheets of numbers, of . . . calculations. \u003cem\u003eXamanek’s light! Could it be?\u003c/em\u003e Kaab stared up at Rafe. He grimaced and knocked back one of the cups in\n his hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Micah’s work on navigation. Still out here, floating around dangerously, and worse: Diane de Tremontaine had not kept her promise to lock down all this\n information. A pleasant wash of anger heated her liver, revitalizing her better than any shot of alcohol. Better yet, she felt her head settle into place,\n too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Take them,” Rafe said darkly. “Just do it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re safe enough in this mess,” Kaab replied slowly, taking the cup Rafe offered. It smelled like sweet, thin wine. “So tell me, my friend: What\n happened? Did you see him? You look terrible, and you’ve been gone for days.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe slouched in the upholstered armchair behind his desk. “I saw him. And I think . . . I think I even saved him. The duchess swore to find a way to keep\n Will safe, to stop poisoning him, but he’s never going to recover.” He stopped, took half a breath, then let it all out in a formless sigh. “There’s so\n much of him gone, so much of his mind. One moment clear and remembering, full of his amazing wry humor, at me, at the situation, then the next murmuring\n about talking birds.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “His head is wandering even while he wakes.” Kaab sighed into her cup, and sipped. She stretched out her legs, too, matching Rafe’s indolent pose. In\n Binkiinha, there were priests who trained themselves to release their head-spirits while waking, who dreamed with the Bird Between Worlds. But Rafe’s duke\n was no priest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m taking her money,” Rafe said suddenly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane de Tremontaine. She’s going to give me everything I wanted. My school, my dreams! In return for never seeing Will again. And for keeping him safe\n from her. I sold him out! And I don’t even know if she can keep her end true. \u003cem\u003eAnd\u003c/em\u003e I’ll be hers forever. Her—her toy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You bargained with her?” Kaab gently pushed. “She went after you to Highcombe?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was terrible and embarrassing, Kaab. We were caught and imprisoned, very—very dramatic, actually and—did you know Micah is a girl?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab laughed through closed lips, desperate not to be too insultingly loud. “You—you didn’t?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe scoffed and waved a lofty hand. “I’m above caring about such things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The snort was so strong it shook Kaab’s entire body, nearly spilling her wine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In response, Rafe sniffed haughtily. Then he smiled again, that same soft, sad smile. “The duchess has Micah, is setting her up in Tremontaine House as her\n own pet mathematician, and Micah seems completely fine with it! But she doesn’t understand Diane’s threat—against me. If I do anything to disrupt her\n plans, Micah is her leverage.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab pressed her lips together. Micah was the only person in this City who could complete those navigation calculations, and now she was in Tremontaine’s\n clutches? A perfect way for the duchess to keep the information from threatening the Balam . . . unless, of course, she secretly set Micah to complete the\n calculations, holding it for leverage to use at her convenience someday.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Which was more likely? Kaab needed to understand her opponent. Understand the reasoning behind Diane’s choices, figure out every motive that guided her\n hand as she played this game.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe,” she asked quietly. “Why do you think the duchess doesn’t simply have her husband murdered? Is it only because she’s not secured her political\n future yet? She will have soon, and might’ve kept you hostage until she could use you as a scapegoat. Jilted student kills lover in jealous rage? Anyone\n who knows your reputation could be persuaded of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe reared back, dropping his cup, which fortunately was empty. “That’s not . . . that’s madness, Kaab. She . . . well, I suppose, yes, I do think she’s\n capable of it. There’s nobody colder than Diane de Tremontaine. She \u003cem\u003ehas\u003c/em\u003e been poisoning him. But it would be a terrible scandal. It would be . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yet she’ll keep her husband a prisoner for the rest of his natural life? That might be decades, whether she stops feeding him shadowroot or not. If she\n plays a long game—and I assure you she does—she needs to be rid of him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. No!” Rafe shuddered. “She swore she would not hurt him, only keep him safe, apart from us both.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab said nothing, concerned by this puzzle. She picked it up in her mind and looked at it from every angle, and there were no benefits to keeping the duke\n a prisoner indefinitely that she could see. There had to be some game, some angle. Could it have to do with Kaab’s family? With navigation? Or was it about\n the “duchess in her own right” business? Ah, if only Kaab could discuss this with Aunt Saabim! What if it was a piece of some puzzle Saabim, too, was\n confounded by? They should be working together! Frustration bit at Kaab’s liver. And so too did the throbbing sorrow that plagued her whenever she thought\n of her family. But she forced it away to focus: Why keep Duke William alive?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was but one true, simple reason, Kaab realized. It seemed impossible. She lifted her eyes to Rafe, and found him staring at her, dumbfounded,\n apparently experiencing the same epiphany.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe whispered, “She actually loves him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They poured another drink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Kaab did not taste it. She’d had enough of drinking, of giving in to that wasting hunger. Her head had only just returned to her, she’d not scare it\n away again, or push off these whirling thoughts. Besides, she had a duel to fight tonight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Everything felt sharply, suddenly clear. “Rafe, my friend,” she said, smiling with all her teeth, “I have a very excellent idea.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had come to realize that \u003cem\u003edelicate\u003c/em\u003e was her least favorite way to feel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A long bath, her softest undergarments and most forgiving pale gray day dress, chocolate and a small but hearty meal had restored her rather well, though\n she chose to skip the Condells’ soiree. It would be large enough that none would note her absence, and she refused to be in a place where Davenant might\n show his snake face, too. She’d send her regrets in the morning.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One evening of peace, to herself, to relax with a warm brandy posset and remember why she had the power she did: careful plotting, a tenderly crafted mask,\n and unwavering ambition. Here in Tremontaine House she was cradled by the luxury she’d earned time and again for nearly twenty years.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Here was her meditation:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She \u003cem\u003ewould\u003c/em\u003e find a way to rid herself of the Dragon Chancellor, and a way to remind her swordsman of his place. She \u003cem\u003ewould\u003c/em\u003e discover how to\n keep William safe, once she was duchess in her own right. She \u003cem\u003ewould \u003c/em\u003econtinue to enjoy the company of Lionel Chesney and somehow lay threads to\n back that smart, competent Lord Basil Halliday more fully. She’d deal with all the mess her silly daughter Honora cared to cause, whenever she chose to\n cause it, and she \u003cem\u003ewould\u003c/em\u003e keep up this odd friendship with Esha. She \u003cem\u003ewould\u003c/em\u003e make Rafe Fenton’s school a shining example of charity and keep\n her agents considering all the produce of Tremontaine lands whose profit might be expanded. Perhaps select an agent to open up further conversation with\n Chartil, though never openly, of course, just as she’d found a shadowed way into the Kinwiinik trade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yes. It made Diane feel stronger to think of all the immediate avenues spread before her, with which she might pursue her ambitions once she was truly\n Duchess Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The only thing that stood in her way was Gregory, Lord Davenant. \u003cem\u003eDamn him.\u003c/em\u003e And damn Vincent Applethorpe, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was late for a visitor when Duchamp came to her in her study, for all fashionable folk would have returned to their homes in preparation for the\n evening’s dinners and entertainments. Diane braced for a new emergency, and when Duchamp said, “The young lady Ixkaab Balam to see you again,” as if her\n previous visit had been only yesterday, Diane hung for a moment between extreme worry and relief. The Kinwiinik had nothing to do with her current\n problems. Then she recalled that it was Ixkaab who had informed the brat Fenton about the shadowroot. Diane had a score to settle with the little spy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “East drawing room, please,” Diane murmured, allowing none of her eager irritation to show, and stood. “No chocolate this time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very good, my lady.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane pressed her finger to her right temple and glanced down at her dress. It was simple, loose, and hardly the finery with which she should meet a guest\n who was not a dear friend. Yet, the color painted her like ice and snow; an elegant, firm winter sky. The opposite of that brash, trouser-wearing Kinwiinik\n swordswoman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After waiting a brief, respectable interim, Diane wafted silently throughout her house to the east drawing room, with its blue and ivory fittings, austere\n portraits, and grand, old-fashioned hearth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ixkaab was a spot of fire in the calm splendor of the room. Braids outlandishly looped, the bright slash of a bold scarlet vest and foreign sash, and\n rather attractive black trousers tucked into a proper swordsman’s boots all came together in a clear statement that this woman was well on her way to\n finding a place here in the City, formed of both her world and this world.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane was impressed despite herself. The empty sheath at Kaab’s sword belt was an elegant touch of danger, reminding Diane that the blade had only been\n left outside for the sake of courtesy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have you come to blackmail me again?” she asked, letting the words do her biting for her as she sank easily onto one of the matching velvet sofas. Let\n Kaab see Diane was not afraid.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab widened her dark eyes and flicked her lashes. “Why, Duchess, can I not be here in the name of the friendship between our two peoples?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Offering a rosebud smile, Diane nodded her head. “Do have a seat, if you like.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab did, perching at the edge of the same sofa as Diane and leaning forward to put her elbows on her knees. It was casual and intimate, but allowed them\n both to avoid constant eye contact.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I understand you’ve offered my friend Micah a position in your household?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane lifted her brows, unconcerned. “Would you like to visit her room before you go? I assure you there’s no dungeon at Tremontaine House.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab laughed once, bright and audacious. “You’re not holding back this time, are you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m afraid, my dear Ixkaab, I haven’t the temper tonight for delicacies or dancing. Given the difficulties of your own recent adventures with—and\n without—your family, you can understand. What do you want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Pulling an impressive grimace, Kaab leaned back and now held Diane’s gaze with her own. “I want to save your husband.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane actually gasped, though it was a tiny sound, the sudden brush of air through silk. “I beg your pardon?” she whispered, regretting now that she did\n not have a cup of chocolate to hold as a focus.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s a narrow ledge you’re walking with our previous agreement, Duchess,” Kaab said. “Holding the keys to navigation in your power: Micah in your attic\n and Rafe Fenton under a new contract where you’ll encourage him to pursue . . . old ideas.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Recovering fast, Diane realized this had all come to Kaab through Rafe: The two were closer than she’d first guessed. Diane said, “They are both under my\n control now more than ever. I will always know what both of them look toward, and it will be my support, my money, my household that shapes their pursuits.\n You can see that, a child could—now tell me what this has to do with my husband.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I told you, I’d like to save him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Holding her expression hard and fierce and cold, Diane said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab smiled, and behind the arrogance was sorrow. “We honor shadowroot in Binkiinha,” she said gently.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane could not keep her lips from drawing tighter. But she had, after all, begun this blunt way of speaking herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me send your husband home, to my home,” Kaab said, still gentle. “Our priests can keep him not only safe, but give him new life, where he can devote\n himself to his head and heart, where he can wander dreams and be a new man, an honored one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So he . . .” Diane paused to swallow, flooded with contradictory emotions and a damned thread of hope. “William would be your hostage.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab shook her head. “Once sailed, he would be beyond my touch, too. While the duke traveled, his life would be held by Ekchuah, he who dives deep, and\n once with our priests his spirit would touch the wing of the dreamer, blessed Zamye, the Bird Between Worlds.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane did not speak for several long heartbeats. Kaab’s words lulled her with their strange poetry, and she wanted to believe the intensity in this woman.\n But she could hardly afford such a risk, not when everything was at stake, from William’s life to Diane’s own future. “Why, Ixkaab Balam, would you do such\n a thing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “For my friend Rafe Fenton, and for a spirit who may be searching for release with the spirits of my own people. No matter what brought the Duke\n Tremontaine to this moment, it is our duty to usher him on toward his ultimate balance. And . . . maybe I do it for you.” Kaab added the last softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane glanced toward the hearth surmounted by beautiful porcelain Cham plates, and the rolling hillside of the massive landscape painting above. “I would\n never see him again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nKaab did not answer, and Diane was glad. It was only what she had promised Rafe: that neither she nor he would be with William. Yet the urge to cry, \u003cem\u003eNo, never\u003c/em\u003e, to send this youth away, evict her from this room and her place in Diane’s life, was great.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Once, in this very room, Kaab had said to Diane, \u003cem\u003eI see you\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not in so many words, but Kaab had told a story about Diane’s life and ambitions, and it was a true story. Kaab promised her the Kinwiinik recognized who\n and what Diane de Tremontaine had made herself into, and unlike anyone else in this city, they valued it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me understand, Ixkaab.” Diane pronounced the name carefully, gently. “For nothing in return, you want to spirit my husband away forever, where he may\n learn to . . . balance this madness that has set upon him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” the Kinwiinik woman said immediately.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your aunt agrees to this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She will.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Meeting Kaab’s fire-filled brown eyes, Diane understood this offer came from only Kaab, not all the Balam. She began to frown, and Kaab reached out,\n touched her hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess stared down at the warm brown fingers so carefully placed against her white knuckles. The nails were not cared for, the skin rough, and yet\n they were handsome fingers, and strong. Diane thought of all the violence in her life these past days, both violence directed at her, and that she had\n committed; she thought of her plans and potential futures, of what would happen when she defeated Davenant, and what she wanted most to happen. Here was\n this glorious young woman offering to help her, with seeming kindness, despite knowing the worst of her secrets. Diane asked, “How can I trust you? You\n might kill him, or you might poison his mind further, or only against me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I might, but not our priests. Not our holiest folk, who serve the Bird Between Worlds and dreams. And I already have enough to hold over you, remember.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess lifted her eyes again. Yes, Kaab and her Aunt Saabim could out Diane as a murderess and fraud if ever they wished to. The balance between\n herself and the Kinwiinik had held for these months; why muddy it with this? Could the seed of this be exactly what Kaab claimed? Compassion?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Diane,” Kaab said, urgently and inappropriately.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane withdrew her hand from beneath Kaab’s, but slowly, turning her hand over so the final touch was palm to palm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was dangerous to play at friendship or tenderness between them. And exciting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She nodded, even as she immediately began spinning plans to get out of it. “It must be a secret, always.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We would not have your people think they are welcome in our land.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I could say you kidnapped him, if you ever tried to use it against me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We will not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A long pause stretched.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Take a drink with me.” Diane stood. It was a command, but a gentle one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab stood, too, leaning languorously on one hip. “I would like to, but I have a duel to fight later tonight. Perhaps I shall return for that drink, when\n arrangements are made with my family? Or another time at your convenience?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I would like that.” Diane smiled politely. “And best of luck at your duel. Do tell me where?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Condell party. I fight for Lord Teodorus Talbert. To the death.” Kaab said the final word with a thirsty grin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane was taken aback at the abrupt shift from seduction to an eager hunter’s readiness. And yet she was again surprised at how it pleased her: What a\n habit it seemed to be of hers lately, to see flashes of a fellow monster in a man or woman’s eyes and experience a rush of possessiveness. It had nearly\n caused Diane to lose herself in flirtation! Ixkaab Balam was too dangerous, too wily and smart and beautiful to bear. For the secrets she knew, and for\n this terrible spell she seemed always to cast upon Diane.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” the duchess murmured. “Another time, then, when our other business has successfully concluded, and we can focus on our . . . mutual attentions. I\n wish you the strength and speed of a great cat tonight, Ixkaab Balam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will bloody my sword,” the Kinwiinik answered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSo shall I\u003c/em\u003e\n , Diane thought suddenly, viciously.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thelonious Fenton was not a terrible man.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That’s what Rafe reminded himself again and again as he walked down the hall to his father’s office. He’d timed it so that his father was finished with the\n day’s dealings, but not quite moved upstairs where the rule was No Business Unless There’s a Fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe was feeling strangely nostalgic, and he blamed Kaab. It was a bittersweet hope she’d offered, but hope nonetheless, and one that was true to William’s\n needs instead of his own. As this spark of altruism worked its way through Rafe, it pulled at other frayed heartstrings, like nostalgia and the reluctant\n guilt he felt that he was about to betray his father. Again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eBetray\u003c/em\u003e\n was a strong word, he supposed, but Rafe wasn’t yet capable of ending his life-long melodramatic streak.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father?” he said softly as he knocked on the heavy wooden door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe! Your mother told me you were home! Good. How was your friend’s farm? Come in here, let me . . .” Thelonious frowned massively, making him seem older\n than his fifty-two years. He’d rolled up his sleeves and abandoned his jacket sometime in the afternoon, unbuttoned his vest to sit at his wide, well\n organized desk. “You look terrible, son.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe smiled. “I know. I . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” Thelonious moved faster than usual. “You have bad news. Is it the warehouse stock again? Or you heard about that damned Wallander and his—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no, Father.” Rafe heaved a sigh and sat hard on a plain wooden chair. “Though I do know more about the warehouses; I forgot I hadn’t told you, in all\n the . . . But first I . . . you’re going to be so disappointed, and I deserve it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Coming around the desk, Thelonious dragged a matching plain wooden chair closer and took his son’s arm. “Tell me now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m starting my school,” Rafe said in despair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Silence fell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Son.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry, I know I said I wanted to work here, to take my—my place and work hard, and you gave me a chance. I wanted to, I meant it, you have to believe\n me I meant it, but . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rafe Holland Fenton.” His father’s voice brooked no argument. Rafe fell silent, lips slightly parted in apprehension.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thelonious frowned. “How are you starting your school? You need money. You need a building. What are you doing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe pinched his face shut, eyes and mouth, and wished he could pinch his nose too. “I have a patron. A noble patron.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tremontaine,” his father sighed. Then hummed a worried note.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Rafe choked a terrible laugh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Son . . . look at me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He obeyed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is there a contract?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe shook his head, not understanding.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then we will have to make one. Your duke—no, duchess, it must be, unless what I’ve heard about the duke isn’t accurate—your duchess will have a lawyer for\n that, but I’ll work with him, and we’ll make sure all the rights and legal issues are resolved between her patronage and your ambitions.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Rafe’s jaw was not working: it would hang slack for all time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thelonious Fenton smiled grimly. “You tried, son, but you’re not yourself here, and I see how you mope around even as you try, never arguing—who knew I’d\n miss your damnable arguing? You’re a shadow of your former self. So maybe we’ll build a different empire. You’ve the smarts, and all the gods that ever\n existed know you’ve got the passion.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Th—thank you, Father,” Rafe whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can name it after me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I doubt . . .” Rafe stopped to swallow a slightly hysterical giggle. “I doubt the duchess will allow that, but certainly one of the classrooms, or a—a\n scholarship.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thelonious proudly clapped a wide hand on his son’s shoulder, nearly knocking Rafe out of the chair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If only Rafe could believe it would all be so simple, or turn out so well. But with his father at his side—or, more accurately, at his back . . . Rafe\n permitted himself one brief, small sigh of relief. Thelonious Fenton was no fool, even if his son was sometimes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab dashed through the kitchen entrance of the Lord and Lady Condell’s townhouse, euphoric and ready to fight. She grinned ferociously at the cook and\n scatter of maids and footmen carrying out trays of snacks and pink sparkling wine. Stopping, Kaab bent her leg in an elaborate bow, hand on the hilt of her\n sword. “I am Ixkaab Balam, here for a challenge. Where do I go?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They ushered her quickly down a side hall tiled with worn old marble, to a library where Lord Teodorus waited, sniffing at the knuckle of his glove. “Ah,\n yes,” he said, nodding smartly to her. “Cousin Stephen managed to acquire a replacement swordsman last minute, so do kill the fellow for me, won’t you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still soaring from her triumphant visit with Diane de Tremontaine, Kaab put her fist over her heart and swore it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They set her up in the front hall, beside a life-size marble statue of a woman draped in scant marble cloth. At a signal from the steward across the foyer\n from her, she’d step out and make her challenge, and this would be their stage. Kaab’s blood rushed with mounting excitement. As she waited, she decided a\n good test for a daughter of the Trade would be to devise new and better reasons every week to visit Diane de Tremontaine. To watch out for Micah and Rafe,\n naturally, but also to continue playing this delightful, delicious game. Kaab’s mouth curled in a secret smile that made not a few of the nobility shift\n away, uneasy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There! The liveried footman flicked his finger and looked toward a nobleman in cream and dark green, some thirty years old, with a thin beard. Lord Stephen\n Talbert.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab strode to the center of the foyer, positioning herself with a flourish beneath the chandelier, exactly where her voice would best carry. “I am Ixkaab\n Balam, and I bear a challenge to Lord Stephen Talbert, to fight until a conclusion is reached!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The words lifted high and hung like stars. What a ridiculous way to phrase a death-duel, Kaab thought, but she did not care. Her body thrummed with\n anticipation. This would mark her finally, indisputably, as a fully-fledged swordswoman.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No reply came for a long, heavy moment, just long enough that the crowd of sparkling nobles shifted uncomfortably, eyeing Stephen Talbert, who did not even\n carry a sword. Where was his swordsman? They’d said he found one, at the last moment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Deliberate movement caught her eye and she turned to see Vincent Applethorpe, his frown so grim it cast its own shadow. What was he doing here? She’d seen\n him an hour ago, briefly, as she dashed out of Tremontaine House, and waved, but . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent stared at her with his green-brown eyes. Carefully, he said, “I am Vincent Applethorpe, and I claim the challenge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the darkness of her bower, Diane curled upon the window seat, wondering if a conclusion had yet been reached.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As far from the Hill as it was possible to go, physically and spiritually, in sight and smell and need, Arthur Chel allowed the slight, pretty man to tease\n him across the Bridge into Riverside. Shade’s pale hand tugged at Arthur’s, and his smile was dangerous. A glint of teeth, the flick of pink tongue, and\n the brush of silky black hair against Arthur’s cheek.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane did not \u003cem\u003ewant \u003c/em\u003eeither of them dead, but it was too late for regrets. She’d seen Kaab wave delightedly at Vincent as she darted out of the east\n drawing room, and she’d seen, too, the encouraging look in her swordsman’s eyes. They were friends, Diane had realized, and hated them both. For their\n friendship, for pushing at her and resisting her, for \u003cem\u003eknowing her \u003c/em\u003eor thinking they did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And suddenly she’d remembered that, according to Vivica Berowne, Stephen Talbert had misplaced his swordsman, and letting Talbert owe Tremontaine a favor\n was enough of a reason for her to offer the loan of her own swordsman to Lord Stephen. Especially a swordsman who needed a lesson in viciousness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One of them would be dead by now. Or nearly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane hugged her knees, leaning like a little girl against the window, surrounded by darkness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThis way\u003c/em\u003e, the pretty assassin murmured, lifting Arthur’s wrist and kissing the delicate brown skin. He flicked his tongue, and pulled Arthur nearer, biting him\n just a little. The Kinwiinik boy smiled nervously. \u003cem\u003eAre you sure?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade said, \u003cem\u003eI’m sure\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Pressing her temple to the cold glass of the window, this highest window in Tremontaine House, Diane almost wished her headache would return. But she was\n clear-headed and calm now. Empty. Perhaps she’d be empty forever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Stars hung dull and far away, and below her the garden of Tremontaine rolled itself out in gray, shadowed rainbows, in crescents and rows, in long open\n lawns, down and down toward the glinting black river.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur was drunk, tilting happily against Shade. It had only taken a few drinks in a Middle City tavern near the Bridge to make the boy pliable enough to\n shake off his wariness of Riverside, of cutthroats and violence. A few drinks and several caresses against the nape of his neck, fingers walking along his\n thigh under the table. The promise of \u003cem\u003eFlorian \u003c/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003eWe have information\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eYour cousin\u003c/em\u003e. Then the eager boy belonged to\n Shade’s kinetic black eyes, his compelling sharp smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How much of Diane’s life would be waiting like this? Here, in the center of her power, the core of luxury and danger where the threads she spun connected.\n A silver spider cocooned in her web, listening for the touch of results and consequences to shiver along the delicate silk threads toward her?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Was it done?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She closed her eyes and saw a splash of blood. A too-bold red, brash against the white feathers of Tremontaine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Whose blood? Would cries and mourning wails rise from the Kinwiinik compound at dawn? Or would the ambassador from Chartil pour white banners out his\n windows in grief?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane stared out into the night, refusing to bargain with herself, or make any promises before morning. She had only herself and the darkness now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent Applethorpe had never stalled a fight in his life as he stalled this one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He and Kaab moved in tight circles, close and tense, like one of their old practice bouts in that ruined courtyard at the start of the summer, when he’d\n first begun teaching her. His heart pumped hard but evenly, and he concentrated on keeping loose, a relaxed grip, knees flexed, his body ready like a\n spring, not rigid. \u003cem\u003eMore give than take, \u003c/em\u003ehis first swordmaster had frequently said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And Vincent gave. He gave ground, and he gave Kaab openings, because she wasn’t taking either. Sure, from the outside it was impressive for their audience,\n he knew, and Kaab knew, but neither of them had committed yet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Striking suddenly, Vincent made a risky twist, and Kaab blocked, spinning, too. Any other time, she’d have grinned at him. But not now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She attacked, he blocked. This was a dance of simple steps, one a moderately talented swordsman could keep up with.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent knew Diane de Tremontaine had done this on purpose. Though he might forgive some other woman, try to pretend she hadn’t known exactly where she\n sent him, whose challenge he was meant to accept, Vincent did not doubt for a moment that the duchess had done this with elegant, terrible purpose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eYou’re better than this\u003c/em\u003e, he’d said to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Here was her response.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Anger burned in his chest, but Vincent quashed it. Diane de Tremontaine deserved it, not Ixkaab Balam. He would not give in to anger, not unleash it,\n uncontrolled, the way she wanted him to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Surprising, he thought bitterly, that she’d not come to this party to witness the results of her handiwork.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab’s eyebrow lifted, and Vincent realized his mouth had curved into a sneer. He shook his head, clearing it all. Kaab dabbed sweat off her cheek with her\n sleeve.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With that, Vincent attacked again, harder, got inside her defense and could have sliced up her collar; he did not. But she saw it, clenched her jaw. “Come\n on,” she hissed at him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But come on, \u003cem\u003ewhat?\u003c/em\u003e He held her eyes, then shook his head once. There was no way out of this.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were prisoners of the sword. Of the rules binding this ritual. Until a conclusion was reached.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Until a conclusion was reached.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another flurry of give and take, and Kaab’s sword caught his; they locked together, struggling close, breathing hard, then they tilted and crashed into the\n sideboard. Cries from the crowd broke through Vincent’s concentration, but he ignored it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI know what you are\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent growled to banish her soft, perfect voice. And the part of himself that wanted to meet her expectation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab came in, panting. Her dark eyes burned, but she too held back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shouldn’t.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent knew he could kill her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eYou are a dangerous, vicious killer, and it gives you life.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \n “No,” he muttered. That woman had set a spell on him, and he’d started to listen! To welcome her challenge, the intensity, the subtle allure of Diane de\n Tremontaine’s power.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eYou are what I need.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWhat I need\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI need.\u003c/em\u003e\n \n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e Need.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n Candlelight flickered through the crystal chandelier overhead, catching his blade and Kaab’s, turning them to elegant lines of fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab was not fighting for her life.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent shifted back, then left, gave her an opening he used to offer when they’d trained together. As he expected, she went for it, because she knew him\n too, and was relaxed! Vincent cut in hard, and his blade hissed close enough to her throat to slice the underside of her jaw.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gasps all around as blood welled in a thin line, dripping onto her collar. Vincent settled into his legs, calm washing over him at the sight of it. He had\n to end it. This is what he was for: He’d spent lifetimes, it felt, trying to convince Reza that a duel exactly like this was his destiny. He wished Reza\n were here, right now, to witness this final proof. Life and death with a worthy, brutal opponent. If he couldn’t do this, if he refused, his entire life\n had been one long lie.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Meeting Kaab’s eyes again, he nodded once, slowly, a final acknowledgment, and attacked again before she could react.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This time, he held nothing back. He slipped in fast, pressing hard, forcing her back pitilessly. Kaab tripped and he struck at her throat for a clean killing blow; she avoided it with a twist and scrambled away. She’d not manage to do so a second time. Vincent parried her response easily, for she’d gone wild and loose. He hit her sword with his near the grip, a jarring blow that no doubt vibrated painfully up her arm. Her distraction cost her another\n bloody wound; this time a slash across her ribs she barely avoided losing her guts to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You won’t,” she gasped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent said nothing, moving in again with a solemn, perfect certainty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab screamed in frustration. “This is stupid!” she cried, chopping at him with her sword, temper snapped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fight,” he said harshly. “You called the challenge, you knew you were killing tonight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not you!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am only a sword, Kaab, so kill me. If you can.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The words fell from his lips as if some other man spoke them. Kaab glared, and there she was!—Kaab’s shadow-self, the violent, pristine jungle cat! The\n predator, Vincent’s dangerous equal. He stared her down; his skin flushed then chilled, leaving him standing there clammy and ill and exhilarated. This was\n it. He began to smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But the fire suddenly vanished from Kaab’s eyes. She leaned back, head reared, and lowered her sword. “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All around, the nobility bearing witness shuffled and gasped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t say no,” Vincent said, gruff and sad.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is not worth it, Vincent! You truly would—would kill me? We’re friends! Tess would never forgive you, and if I killed you . . . no.” She shook her\n head, took a step back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is how it ends for all of us, if you’re good enough,” Vincent said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From the audience, a russet-haired nobleman said, “Look here, I hired you, girl, and this show is all very well and good, but do your damned job.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab whirled to him, sneering. “Ridiculous Xanamwiinik traditions! If I walk off now, how would you stop me? You cannot even defend yourself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Color splotched the nobleman’s cheeks and Vincent reached out. He grasped Kaab’s elbow and flung her back to face him. “This is the way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” Kaab jerked free, and strode toward the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kaab, stop!” Vincent yelled. She did, but held her quivering back toward him. “If you leave, you’ll never be hired again, or respected; you’ll never be a\n real swordsman.” He poured all his anger and disdain into the next words: “I did not think until now that training you had been a waste of my time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With a cry, she lifted her sword and attacked: savage and uncontrolled, and it was all he could to do block and not give ground. Her teeth were bared, and\n tears flashed in her eyes. Vincent moved fast, barely surviving the onslaught upright. She was a power! Ferocious and livid, and Vincent loved her in that\n moment more than anything in his life.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d have been proud to die with her sword in his heart.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But he fought just as hard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A few thrusts and parries too quick to track, and they locked together again. Kaab did as he’d taught her, using her whole body to shove away, but Vincent\n was ready: he caught her crossbar and with a twist and jerk tore her sword from her hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab screamed and cut at him with the knife from her boot. It drove hard into his off-arm; an unconsidered, amateur move, but her blade cut through his\n coat and shirt, digging into his muscle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent grunted at the pain, and blood slicked her blade.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But instead of taking advantage, instead of using his surprise to pierce his neck or heart, Kaab flung herself away with a triumphant grin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I could’ve taken a death shot there,” she called to the audience, to her hired lord. “It’s over. I won. He only lives by my great mercy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Slowly, Vincent shook his head, and negating murmurs agreed with him. Kaab lifted her chin arrogantly and cursed in her own language. She stepped away,\n sneering at them all, and Vincent stepped after her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He lifted his sword and struck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Kaab crumpled to her knees, then listed forward, landing hard and dull against the marble floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A. Conclusion. Reached,” Vincent whispered harshly between panting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Silence reigned for a long moment—even the nobility did not breathe—until Kaab’s ribs gasped to life, as her shoulders moved; she could not get up.\n Unconscious. Gone. It had been a solid hit with the pommel of his sword, direct to her skull. She’d survive. Probably. Definitely. Vincent stared down at\n her, calming his heart and ignoring the stream of blood soaking the sleeve of his shirt. Someone pestered him with an offer of water, another congratulated\n him on the unorthodox win, some joked about skewering the wench, and another reminded him he really must see to the wound on his arm just as someone came\n and bound it tightly, so that the blood finally stopped dripping on the Condells’ floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent crouched, touched his hand tenderly to the braids looped around Kaab’s head. Then he stood and stalked out of the noble house, away from the Hill\n and Diane de Tremontaine, toward Riverside, where he belonged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This way,” Shade murmured, holding Arthur Chel’s hand. The boy glanced over his shoulder nervously, and Shade wound their fingers together. “I can protect\n you, sweetheart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Reluctant, but brown eyes shining with drink, thrill, and a slick of desire, Arthur followed Shade down the damp stone stairs that led to a narrow ledge\n along the river wall, where skiffs were often tied, or children hunted crabs and gathered fibrous water grasses. “How can this be where he’s . . .” Arthur\n trailed off. “Do you really have—have information about the thieves?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was the full of night, and the lapping river water smelled dank here, of cold rocks and rotten plants. The Bridge spread black shadow arches overhead,\n spanning toward the Middle City. Shade leaned against the river wall, pulling Arthur to him. He cupped the boy’s face and kissed him sweetly, softly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur gasped and returned the kiss. His hands were shaking. He pulled back to whisper, “Florian isn’t here, is he?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He did tell me you hungered for adventure, and tasted like innocence.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tasted like . . .” the boy frowned, offended, and Shade did not smile. He let expression fade from his face, all facade of feeling drop away from the\n blackness of his eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, Xamanek protect me,” Arthur whispered. “He said he knew what a murderer tastes like.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade smiled now, well pleased. “Is that what he said?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arthur stepped back, but Shade had him by the jacket, and Shade’s knife appeared in his other hand, then disappeared again, the glinting blade hidden in\n the fold of Arthur’s jacket, buried in the curve of his flesh, between the ladder rungs of his ribs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Dragging the knife free, Shade sunk it in again, higher, angled now, and Arthur could not even scream.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade embraced him, lowering them both to their knees, and he leaned Arthur back like a lover, to spread him along the narrow, black landing. While the boy\n gasped and choked and finally died, Shade caressed his pretty embroidered vest—a rich russet etched with simple lines of blue embroidery—and cut free a\n patch that was not yet stained by blood.\n\u003c/p\u003e","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eTremontaine\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nWith varying levels of satisfaction, Micah and Rafe both took Diane up on her offers. Kaab’s attempts to woo Tess back failed, while Vincent explained why he could never return to Reza. Lionel and Esha discussed Diane’s plans regarding Davenant. \n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDiane, Duchess Tremontaine\u003c/strong\u003e: A trendsetting noblewoman with a mind for politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIxkaab Balam\u003c/strong\u003e: Spy, swordswoman, and daughter of the Kinwiinik.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRafe Fenton\u003c/strong\u003e: Scholar, lover, and revolutionary struggling to change the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMicah Heslop\u003c/strong\u003e: Farm girl and brilliant mathematician trying to make sense of new opportunities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTess\u003c/strong\u003e: A talented riverside forger who has caught Kaab’s eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVincent Applethorpe\u003c/strong\u003e: Swordsman, protector of Tess. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Tessa Gratton \u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Kathleen Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Juliet Ulman\u003c/p\u003e\n\n","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.98","slug":"tremontaine-s2e11","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/audio/season2/Tremontaine_S02E11.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101193_TremontaineS02E11.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101193_TremontaineS02E11.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/ebooks/season2/9781682101193_TremontaineS02E11.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"","number_display":null},{"id":"57e00396ada6e25bc06d1d76","issue_id":"57dffb57ada6e25bc06d1d41","number":12,"title":"Smoke and Ashes","released_date":"2017-01-11T12:58:00.842+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Diane seeks help; Kaab and Vincent face their duel’s consequences.","byline":"Mary Anne Mohanraj","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/covers/season2/TremontaineS02e12.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/tremontaine/dividers/tremontaine_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-01-11","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n Esha contemplated the selection of blades laid out before her, each with\n its purpose, specifically designed to most efficiently and elegantly\n achieve its task. She had had them imported from Chartil; the tools of the\n Land were not as well suited to her desires. Oh, they were functional\n enough, but lacked a certain elegance, the grace of a thousand years of\n refinement in design. Her hand hovered over one, gold-embellished, with a\n winding pattern of thorny vines along the curving blade. But that scythe\n was more appropriate to slicing swathes of weeds than the precision Esha\n currently sought. Sometimes, what you wanted was a steady hand, and a\n single sharp cut to the heart of the matter. For that, the long-bladed\n scissors worked best, though they were not as ornately dressed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was pruning bougainvillea this early morning, the last pruning before\n bringing her sun-lovers inside for the autumn, winter, and spring. It had\n cost more than was wise, to bring Esha’s favorite plants here from warmer\n climes, but it was one of her few indulgences. In this little back patio,\n south-facing and drenched in sun, a bevy of tropical bloomers grew, and one\n could almost imagine oneself . . . elsewhere. Five different shades of\n bougainvillea cascaded from hanging baskets, a riot of pinks and reds and\n purples—if she blinked and blurred her vision, she could dream they covered\n the walls of the house in a thick tapestry, as they had her parents’ home.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The blooms had grown abundantly there, luxuriously; her father’s servants\n worked tea grounds and onion skins into the soil at their roots, needing to\n take no more care than that. Here, Esha babied the blossoms, giving them\n all the care that she had chosen not to give to children. The bougainvillea\n survived, but did not quite thrive. Most years, she lost one plant or\n another, and had to start afresh. It was the best that could be managed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The jasmine did better, blooming a few times a year in starry scented\n bursts, which she had Serissa braid into ropes for her hair. Mandevilla\n thrust its crimson flowers boldly forth, and duranta dripped tiny purple\n blooms and bright orange berries. Hibiscus blooms lasted only a day, so\n each morning, she chose some to pick, floating them in a copper bowl for\n the pleasure of her guests. Esha’s scissors made swift work of any ailing\n blossoms, encouraging more growth, more flowers. Snip, snip. Darting in,\n then out again. With enough careful attention, Esha might manage to extend\n the season, force a little more beauty, a little more delight before the\n inevitable winter dormancy. Sometimes she worried that she pressed them too\n hard—but no. Sharp cuts had sliced her from her home, her family, her land.\n Esha had survived, and so would the flowers. Sometimes cuts were necessary.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Serissa came out to the patio, curtsying as she announced the expected\n visitor. “Duchess Tremontaine,” she said, her voice softer than the birds\n chirping overhead. Esha nodded acknowledgment, and the girl slipped back\n into the house, no doubt relieved to be freed from the necessity of more\n speech. Her prior master had been a brute, and had used her most cruelly.\n In two years of gentle service, Serissa had gone from absolutely mute to\n whispers—Esha counted that a triumph. One day, she vowed, she would teach\n the girl to sing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Duchess.” Esha bowed slightly as she placed the scissors on the table. “It\n is good to see you again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, this is delightful.” Diane’s eyes were bright, taking in every\n aspect of the small garden area. Her gown was the palest pink, and almost\n too wide for the patio, given the proliferation of potted plants. But she\n moved through the space deftly, bending her head to drink in the rich\n fragrance of a gardenia, to examine the tiny green limes, heavy on a\n tabletop tree.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is my heart,” Esha said simply. The duchess would not understand, of\n course. “Would you take chocolate? Or tea?” She gestured toward a small\n tiled table where the accoutrements had been laid out. “It was very good of\n you to come to me here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane frowned. “Well, better here than at Tremontaine, of course. Your\n message sounded quite urgent, or else I would not have made the time.\n Events are moving quickly, running in directions I had not quite\n anticipated. I have much to do before tomorrow’s Council meeting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane was still startlingly lovely, of course, but she did look just the\n tiniest bit tired. Not that Esha would ever intimate that to \u003cem\u003eher\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess went on. “I regret that we cannot spend a suitable time on the\n usual pleasantries, but I am in the midst of some delicate negotiations . .\n . is there something you need from me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha shook her head. “Actually, my lady, I think I may be able to be of aid\n to you. I was spending time with young Lord Lionel . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh?” Diane raised an arch eyebrow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As we’d discussed. Attending a theatrical performance; deadly dull, I’m\n afraid. We ran into Lord Davenant, and in the course of our later\n conversation, our Lionel mentioned that you were somewhat entangled in\n difficulties with the Dragon Chancellor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane frowned. “Lionel should be more discreet.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha nodded. “Undoubtedly. He is young. I am sure you will teach him\n better. But in this particular instance, perhaps it’s just as well that he\n wasn’t. You see, Lord Davenant and I spent some time together, a few years\n ago.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s response was abruptly dismissive. “I do not see how that would be\n of any relevance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha pressed on determinedly. “He is well-chosen for his position, is he\n not? A mighty serpent; perhaps he should have been made Serpent Chancellor\n instead. Though Dragon is close enough.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The duchess blushed, a delightful pink rising to grace her porcelain\n cheeks. For a moment, Esha thought that perhaps she had pushed too far—but\n then Diane laughed and said, “Indeed. But surely that isn’t what you wanted\n to speak of.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, milady.” So she and the Duchess Tremontaine had shared \u003cem\u003etwo\u003c/em\u003e\n men between them—in some circles, that would practically constitute an\n invitation to share much more. Probably not in this land, alas. Esha would\n abandon any thoughts of releasing those golden curls from their intricate\n binding . . . for now. “I have found it prudent, in my liaisons, not to\n rely overmuch on the kindness of gentlemen. They will offer a thousand\n beautiful promises under the dark tent of the evening which fade with the\n mist in the morning light.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Diane concurred. “I have also found some men to be rather volatile.\n Not what I’d hoped for from them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A wise woman ensures that she has insurance against the feebleness of the\n manly temperament.” Esha hesitated. “My lady, may I trust you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was risky, admitting this, but Diane had been kind to her—kinder than\n she needed to be. And it would not hurt to have such a grand personage in\n her debt. “I have long made it a practice to keep my own accounting—and my\n own copies—of any interesting documents that a client may have on\n hand. When a man is \u003cem\u003eproperly\u003c/em\u003e exhausted, he sleeps soundly, and it\n is a matter of a few hours to locate and duplicate any useful material that\n may be found in his chambers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What an intriguing notion,” Diane said. “Such handiwork would be difficult\n to complete, surely?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha shrugged a delicate shoulder. “There are those in Riverside who can\n perform this service for a suitable fee. They will even re-create the\n binding, weather it appropriately—do all that is needful. I merely smuggle\n the material out, and smuggle it back in again. The men have never\n noticed.” Esha was more than a little proud of that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane’s gaze sharpened. “Are you telling me that you have something of this\n kind from Lord Davenant?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Esha turned and opened a drawer in the small potting bench, removing the\n red ledger that waited inside. “I do not know of what use it may be. The\n Dragon is cautious—he burns most of his correspondence in the fire. But\n there was a notebook he didn’t burn, one I thought might prove of\n interest.” Esha had watched him, when he’d thought her asleep, slit-eyed by\n firelight. Night after night he’d come back to this book, his elegant hand\n scripting endless forms, copied from a sheet of foolscap that he invariably\n burned afterward, hooded eyes intent on the curling flames.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It holds only numbers, with no hint to their meaning—but Davenant seemed\n to take great care with it. Weeks passed before I had a chance to secure\n it.” She pressed it into Diane’s small hands, their fingertips touching for\n just a moment. “I am so grateful, my lady, for everything you have done for\n me. I hope this may, in some small way, repay you for your kindnesses.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From his spot alongside the muddy riverbank, leaning against a stack of\n abandoned planks no one had yet made off with, Florian gazed at the murky\n water. They were several streets upstream from where Shade had left the\n boy’s body last night, and the water showed no sign of disturbance here, no\n echo of the churning in Florian’s gut. A strip of embroidered russet linen\n fluttered gaily around his lover’s left arm, tied there for now, until\n Shade found the opportunity to sew it to his coat more securely. Florian\n turned, the sail of his own coat flapping gently in the breeze.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We had a \u003cem\u003eplan\u003c/em\u003e.” It was a grand plan, one that would have elevated\n their positions, taken them to a new echelon of Riverside status. “We were\n supposed to lay low, concentrate on the warehouse scheme. I thought you\n understood that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not stupid,” Shade snapped. His face was flushed, and his hands\n clenched defiantly at his sides. Florian would be much happier when the two\n of them were back in sync, hands moving together, hearts beating as one.\n But truthfully, Florian was angry right now. It wasn’t that he objected to\n murder, per se. But there was no point to murdering the Kinwiinik boy, no\n purpose to it. And it might put the plan at risk. What if the Kinwiinik\n increased the patrols on their warehouse? They might hire more guards,\n better guards, if they felt they were in danger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian frowned, his nostrils flaring. “You couldn’t have taken some\n Riverside brat? The streets are littered with them.” He gestured back up\n the stairs to the street above, from which the noise of the evening\n carried, a cacophony of voices raised in cheer or irritation. Or both, it\n being Riverside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade shrugged. “This one mattered to the Kinwiinik girl; we needed to\n teach her a lesson. I’m tired of \u003cem\u003ehiding\u003c/em\u003e. And I’ve never killed a\n foreigner before. Wanted to see if it was more of a challenge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian asked, “And was it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His lover shook his head, hair sliding over his eyes in the way that always\n made Florian want to brush it back. “Nah. A few drinks and then gutted him\n like a fish, same as the others. They’re all so damn easy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian laughed. He knew he shouldn’t, knew it gave away that he was\n already letting his anger slip. But it was funny, wasn’t it? The rue in his\n lover’s voice, the regret and irritation. He was tempted to just let his\n simmering affection bubble up to the surface. “You should take on a\n swordsman sometime. One of them’d give you more of a challenge. I’m\n surprised you didn’t go for the girl herself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade frowned. “More trouble than she’s worth.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian smiled at this. “So what happened?” He stepped forward, putting a\n hand on Shade’s buttocks, pulling him close. Shade came to him eagerly,\n longing, no doubt, for forgiveness. Words spilled out of him, faster than\n usual.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was following the Kinwiinik girl; trailed her all day, from Riverside to\n the Fenton house. Thought I’d do that student she liked, the little girl.\n But then I saw the boy, coming out the door. You remember how that moony\n pup followed you around two summers ago, your own pretty City shadow?”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, I remember. His kisses were so eager. And was he still a pretty boy?”\n Florian dipped his head, bit the soft spot at the side of Shade’s neck, the\n spot that always got him hard. Sure enough, there it was, rising, trapped\n between the two of them. A bare inch from Florian’s own swelling need, with\n only thin fabric between. Shade tried to bring them together, but Florian\n pulled away. Not far, just enough to let Shade know that he wasn’t quite\n forgiven yet. He’d have to work for it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade said eagerly, “Very pretty. So sweet—his skin was soft and brown as a\n bruised peach.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hard to resist.” Florian cupped fingers around Shade’s chin, tilted him in\n for a kiss. Fast and fierce, teeth nipping at lips, at tongue. Released him\n again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The boy walked fast, like he was going somewhere, somewhere important. It\n was up to me whether he got there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, I bet you liked that.” Florian slid a hand into Shade’s trousers,\n working at the laces until they gaped open, sliding around his hip to dig\n fingers into the curve of his ass. “I suppose it was too much to resist.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was—it really was,” Shade breathed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian shook his head sadly. “Oh, wrong answer, love.” He released his\n partner, stepping away, his own pulse racing. He didn’t want to let go; it\n was wrenching, to pretend to be so cold. But it was important to get things\nclear between them. “Next time you want to kill someone, you talk to me \u003cem\u003efirst\u003c/em\u003e. Or you and I, we’re done. Understand?” The full width of a\n body between the two of them—the boy’s body, and for a moment, there was\n murder in Shade’s eyes. Florian felt a shiver run down his spine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade moved suddenly, and a knife pricked Florian’s throat. Shade\n whispered, “Only if you promise the same, Florian. You’re a very pretty boy\n yourself. And nearly impossible to resist.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Panic and lust made Florian pant. He didn’t want to die, here on the\n slippery riverbank. Although better to die at Shade’s hand than another’s,\n if it came to that. But then he realized Shade was breathing hard, too.\n With the same rhythm as Florian.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He relaxed; he smiled with his bright teeth. “Glad to hear it, sweetheart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shade pressed his blade just enough to cut a tender kiss to the underside\n of Florian’s jaw. “That scar will be mine,” he said. “Mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Florian was relieved to have that behind them. He carefully grabbed the\n front of Shade’s murder coat. “By now, that foreign jade has gotten your\n message; hopefully, she’ll be smart enough to leave us the fuck alone.\n Let’s go home. I’ve had enough of talking; we can find better uses for our\n mouths.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, paced back and forth along her elegantly\n paneled east hallway, the Dragon’s notebook held tightly in her hands,\n taking a moment to compose herself before entering the Red Room, where Rafe\n Fenton was visiting with Micah at her request. She could hear the low\n murmur of voices through the heavy wood; apparently, they had much to talk\n about. The two of them had shared mid-morning chocolate; now it was\n approaching midday and time for luncheon. Diane longed for some chocolate\n herself—but it was not the moment for rest, not with such urgent business\n at hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It had been a most trying set of days. Here, in this long hallway,\n tapestries hung depicting dukes of Tremontaine long gone, their feats\n remembered in bright threads and fireside tales. Might her own figure be\n depicted there someday, or would her great successes be forgotten? The\n tapestries were meant to soften the chill, and it was barely the earliest\n days of autumn. Yet Diane had been cold since she’d left her bed, despite\n the fine woolen shawl draped gracefully over her shoulders. On her return\n from her morning appointments, Diane had ordered the fires stoked, but to\n no avail. Their crackling flames seemed to give off no warmth, as if panes\n of glass separated her from their heat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane had, perhaps, gone a step too far in arranging last night’s duel\n between Kaab and Vincent. She could see that now; it had served no real\n purpose, except to satisfy her own frustrated spite. Oh, it had been\n satisfying to set them on each other, and when she’d received the report of\n the fight, the recounting of those two critical moments—when Kaab bloodied\n the arrogant swordsman and when Vincent had knocked out the upstart\n Kinwiinik girl—it had felt \u003cem\u003egood\u003c/em\u003e. But Diane had gained nothing\n tangible from the maneuver, and she had been foolish to engage in such a\n distraction with the vote mere footsteps away. Her time was running out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Diane was so close. She had fallen asleep counting the lords to herself,\n had woken with their names on her lips. Lassiter, Galing, Karleigh,\n Hartsholt. Hartsholt, Karleigh, Galing, Lassiter. She had spent the whole\n morning visiting—from Esha’s, she had gone on to each lord’s home, had\n reassured herself of their support. The vote would be held tomorrow, and if\n it weren’t for Davenant, Diane could have stridden into the Council chamber\n with confidence that she held Tremontaine in the palm of her hand. A small\n and delicate hand, but one with the strength to take what she deserved, and\n to hold it close. Under Diane’s watchful stewardship, Tremontaine would\n grow and flourish. That was the bright dream, and all that stood in its way\n was the Dragon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ah, but now—now she had Davenant’s ledger. It might be nothing. But it was\n something precious to him, dear enough to be worth keeping close, and that\n thought sent her heart thudding in her breast. The numbers were crabbed and\n confusing, but she had a merchant and a mathematician at her command,\n waiting beyond the closed door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All she had to do was open the door and walk in. She would. But the ledger\n trembled in her fingers, and that they must not see. Diane, Duchess\n Tremontaine had triumphed over lords and ladies of the realm. Two\n children—for Fenton \u003cem\u003ewas\u003c/em\u003e barely out of childhood, despite his\n pretensions—could be no match for her. In just a moment, she would go in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent Applethorpe ached. He’d stumbled back through the streets of the\n City unseeing, Kaab’s stricken face before him. Diane had done it\n deliberately, he was sure. He’d lain sleepless on the narrow mattress for\n hours, mind whirling to come up with some plan whereby he could extract his\n revenge, but how could one blade hope to topple Tremontaine? He was only a\n swordsman, after all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sleep had come late, and his dreams were full of dark blades and grey\n looming shapes. This morning, he’d woken just long enough to pour some\n water down his parched throat, change the dressing on his wound. A\n swordsman couldn’t afford to be careless about such things, not if he\n wanted to be a living swordsman for long. He’d heated water to boiling on\n the hearth, poured it over a fresh cloth, wrapped it around the arm,\n twisting awkwardly to get the fabric positioned. Madeline, his friend who\n was renting him the room, was out, working; he’d been tempted to go to\n Tess, ask her for a helping hand. But he’d just knocked out Tess’s\n ex-lover, and Vincent doubted she’d appreciate that, even if they were\n fighting right now. They were always fighting; maybe this battle would be\n the end of them, maybe not. A wise man wouldn’t place bets on it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Vincent? You don’t look so good.” Madeline looked in on him that\n afternoon, when the early autumn sun stretched through the single small\n window, drawing a square of light on his bedclothes. Dust motes danced\n within the shaft. Vincent had been sleeping, trying to regain his strength.\n A fitful sleep, from which he’d been jarred awake by her voice, the door\n opening. He couldn’t seem to get warm, despite the sunshine; he’d managed\n to awkwardly pull on a heavy woolen shirt, then dragged all the covers he\n had over his body, fully dressed, but he still felt chilled. Madeline\n frowned, coming over to lay the back of her hand against his forehead. “Do\n you want me to get a surgeon?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vincent shook his head impatiently, shaking her off—and then stopped,\n because that made it ache. “Stop fussing, Maddie. I’m fine.” His voice had\n gone raspy from the silent hours, and he coughed, clearing it. “I’m going\n to get up and practice—I’ve just been lying abed too long. My body’s not\n used to such laziness.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She pursed her lips worriedly. “All right, if you say so. I’ll be back in a\n few hours; I’ll bring some soup and bread back with me.” Madeline left, the\n door swinging shut behind her. “All swordsmen are mad,” he heard echoing\n back from the hall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The thought of food made Vincent’s stomach roil. It took more effort than\n it should have to swing his legs out from under the covers, but at least he\n was