“Oh, I’m sure they’re all guilty of something.”
“For who might be trying to incite a war.” I pushed the words out through my teeth. “I’m asking because I think you’re observant and intelligent, no matter how you may try to convince me of the contrary.”
“I’ve never tried to convince you of anything. I don’t give a damn what you think.” She frowned. “But no, I don’t think any of them are trying to start a war. They’re ready to piss themselves like little babies at the thought.”
I nodded. “They seem far too eager for Ignazio to solve their problems for them. They wouldn’t be turning to him for help if they were ready to fight.”
“Who’s ready to fight?” came a loud, slurred voice behind us.
I turned to find a broad-shouldered reveler staring at us across the echoing foyer. He listed off center like a breached ship, his beard bristling, more than a little drunk. Anger smoldered in his bleary eyes, and his hands made uneven fists.
He stared at Zaira. “I’m plenty ready to fight.”
Chapter Eighteen
Excuse me?” I tried to turn the interrupting gentleman away with my cold tone, but he was too drunk to hear it, let alone care.
“You’re the warlock.” He glared at Zaira. “The bitch threatening to burn down Ardence.”
Zaira snorted. “If I ever threaten you, you’ll know it.”
“First you sharks bankrupted me. Then you took my nephew.” His voice broke on the word, threatening to slide from rage to pathos. “Now you want to set us on fire.”
I recognized him, belatedly. Lord Ulmric, a member of the Council of Lords, on which Domenic also sat. “No one wants to set you on fire,” I said.
“Yet,” Zaira muttered.
“Seems to me if I break your neck here, we don’t have a fire problem anymore.” He took a menacing step toward her.
Zaira’s knife flashed out. “Try it. I’ll gut you like a fish. I don’t even need to cook you.”
“Stop it!” I stepped between them, one palm out in either direction, tensed for a blow. This wasn’t some dockside ruffian. This was a lord of Ardence. If Zaira murdered him, she’d kill our last hope for peace as well.
“Please.” I addressed this to the drunkard. “We’re not your enemies. Have the grace to respect your host. Don’t defile his home with blood.”
I suspected it would be his blood, not Zaira’s, but I let him think what he would.
Confused emotions struggled across the lord’s face, as if he couldn’t decide whether to punch me or spit.
Finally, his face crumpled into despair. “Give me back my nephew.”
“We don’t have your nephew.” I willed him to believe me, staring into his reddened eyes. “I’m trying to find the children. I swear it to you. We want nothing more than to return them to their families.”
His watery glare searched my face. “If you don’t have him, who does?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.” Graces help the boy, wherever he was.
Pain twisted his features. “Then you’re no cursed good to us.” He turned away, half lifting a hand that faltered and dropped before it could form a fist. “Go back to Raverra, harpies. Leave us alone.”
And with that, he wove his way off into the party, muttering to himself.
Zaira sheathed her dagger. “See? Even drunk as a disgraced shrinekeeper, they don’t have the will to fight.”
She had a point. Despite the broadsides and graffiti we’d seen from the coach, this wasn’t a city on the verge of rebellion. Whatever danger Baron Leodra had tried to warn me about, it wasn’t a simple matter of angry mobs in the street howling for Raverran blood. It was a more deeply hidden threat: an unseen knife waiting in the darkness at my back, not a ruffian coming straight at me in a rage.
“You’re right,” I said. “They don’t. But someone’s trying to give it to them. We need to find out who.”
As we left Lord Waldon’s mansion, stepping out into the vibrant lamplit night, I spotted an unlikely and familiar figure waiting at the shadowy edge of the plaza. Prince Ruven of Vaskandar, complete with trailing servants, resplendent in a showy fur-lined coat that hung to his ankles. Bold, angular embroidery in Vaskandran designs traced paths like jagged violet lightning down his chest. A jeweled rapier rode at his hip.
“What is he doing here?” I murmured to Zaira.
She peered across the square. “Is that your skin-shifting suitor? Nice legs.”
“Ugh. He’s not mine.” I frowned. “I should find out why he’s here, though.”
“Yes, let’s. I’d love to meet him.” Zaira’s grin was less than reassuring.
More disturbing was the delight in Prince Ruven’s face as we approached. He bowed extravagantly, forcing me to return a curtsy.
“Lady Amalia! What a pleasure. And this must be the Lady Zaira, I presume?”
“I’m no lady.” Zaira didn’t bow or curtsy. I wondered if the lack of manners was deliberate, or if it came naturally.
“What brings you here at this hour, Your Highness?” I asked.
Ruven’s eyes flicked to Lord Waldon’s door, where more guests still trickled out, in various stages of inebriation. “Oh, waiting for someone. But the Grace of Luck has smiled on me, to meet you instead.”
“I’ve heard you have many friends in this city.”
“The Ardentines seem eager for allies these days.” His eyes traveled to Zaira. “I hope you, too, will accept my hand in friendship, my lady.” He reached out toward her.
I wanted to lunge between them, but Zaira had matters under control. She curtsied now, late, both hands too full of skirts to take his. “That depends.” She laughed coquettishly. “I’m a practical girl. What do you do for your friends?”
“Why, for one thing, in Vaskandar, we do not let our mage-marked be kept as prisoners or pets.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You are more than welcome to join me there at any time. You would be raised up as a great lady, above the common throng.”
“Tempting.” Zaira held up her wrist, the jess glittering in the lamplight. “But I’m stuck with Raverra so long as I’m wearing this.”
Ruven shrugged. “That could be taken care of.”
A hunger came into Zaira’s face. She took a half step toward him. I tensed.
“You can remove it?” Her voice strained like a taut rope.
“I have my ways. Do you wish a demonstration?”
“No,” I said. “No demonstrations, thank you.”
But Ruven had already lifted a lazy hand to beckon one of his servants forward. A man-at-arms, tall and fair, like all Vaskandrans, stepped forward. “Your Highness?”
“Your wrist,” he commanded.
The man swallowed, going milk pale. But he pulled back his sleeve and stretched out his arm.
“No, really.” I waved both hands, as if I could somehow fan Ruven away. “This isn’t necessary.”
He laughed. “Of course it isn’t necessary. My goodness, Lady Amalia, what a tedious world it would be if we only did necessary things.”
He clasped his servant’s arm with one hand, then drew a long dagger with the other.
“Your Highness,” the guardsman began nervously, “with all respect, what are you—”
He stopped moving. His chest rose and fell, and he stared at the knife with fear still shining in his eyes, but the prince had taken his ability to move or speak, just like that.
Ruven laid his dagger’s edge against the guard’s wrist.
“That’s enough,” Zaira said harshly. “Getting the jess off isn’t worth losing my hand.”
“You won’t lose anything,” Ruven promised. “This won’t even hurt.”
And he pressed the knife into his guard’s skin.
I choked back a scream. There was no blood. The man’s eyes strained wide against the paralysis that held him, but there was no pain in them, only terror. The dagger pushed through his wrist slowly, like a cord through butter, and the flesh knit again around it aft
er it passed. The blade emerged clean on the far side of his arm, gleaming in the darkness. No mark scarred the guard’s smooth, pale skin.
Zaira’s face had gone positively green. I edged closer to her, in case she fainted or threw up. I didn’t feel much better. I’d rather swallow a cup of live snails than watch that again.
Ruven released the guard, who snatched his arm back and stumbled away from his master, gasping.
“See?” Ruven spread his arms wide, still holding the knife. “Did it hurt? Tell them.”
The man rubbed his wrist, trembling. “It … There was no pain, Your Highness.”
Ruven sheathed his dagger with a flourish, smiling as if he’d given us a wonderful treat. “I hope you will think about my offer, Lady Zaira.”
“I’ll think about it,” she promised. She grabbed my arm with unsteady force. “But now I have to get Lady Heiress here home. It’s past her bedtime.”
“And I must greet my friend. Good night, ladies.” He bowed.
I dipped a curtsy and fled. Zaira all but hung onto my arm, nausea twisting her face. Our shoes tapped a rapid rhythm on the cobblestones, almost a run.
“I’ll think about it, all right,” Zaira muttered. “When I’m trying to sleep tonight. Grace of Mercy.”
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “So you won’t be moving to Vaskandar?”
She shuddered. “Only if it’s to set him on fire.”
A grim weight settled on my shoulders. “Depending on how things turn out on the border,” I said, “that could be arranged.”
Zaira and I met Venasha and Foss the next morning in the public gardens opposite the River Palace. Marcello had promised to join us there after riding down from the garrison.
Sunshine set the gardens to glowing. The sky shone heartbreakingly blue, and the wind moved dappled patterns of shade across the winding paths Venasha and I walked, side by side, between careful arrangements of statues, flowers, and fountains. Foss ranged both ahead and behind, chasing after little Aleki wherever his stumpy two-year-old legs took him. The boy’s curls bobbed up and down as he ran, with Zaira at his side half the time, laughing and trying to teach him tricks as if he were a dog.
“So what do you think of the Situation?” I asked Venasha. “Is everyone in Ardence truly ready to rebel against the Empire, after all these years?”
“Graces, no.” Venasha waved a bug away from her face. “People grumble about it, but no worse than usual, despite all the Shadow Gentry’s efforts to rile us up. It’s only the Council of Lords and the nobles of the court who are so serious, because of the children.” She cast a worried glance toward her son. “I can’t entirely blame them. I’d be ready to chew down the River Palace if anything happened to Aleki.”
It all came down to the children. “Who do you think took them?”
She cocked her head. “Well, it must have been someone who knows the city, to make them disappear without a trace despite everyone searching for them. Someone with a lot of resources and connections, to create such a convincing deception with the false Falconers. I have to admit, I assumed Raverra was playing games, first claiming to have them and then not, until you told me otherwise.”
“I suppose this is what we reap from our reputation for deviousness,” I sighed. “No one believes us when we’re being straightforward.” Not to mention that someone on the Council had been playing games—but I wasn’t going to tell even Venasha about Leodra.
Aleki came trundling back, a fistful of bedraggled flowers held before him with great purpose. Foss followed him, a shy smile on his face as he locked eyes with Venasha, and I suspected I knew who had given Aleki the idea to bring flowers to his mother. A warm glow melted some of the worry clumped in my chest as Venasha scooped her son up into a tight hug to thank him and pulled Foss in as well, all three of them beaming.
“Be a shame to set them on fire,” Zaira whispered in my ear.
I cast a despairing look at her. She stared back a flat challenge.
“Amalia!” Marcello’s voice called.
He approached us along the winding garden path, striding along with fluid energy. The sun caught the clean lines of his face and set a glow in the dark waves of his hair. Grace of Love, he looked good.
“Sorry I’m late.” He seemed slightly out of breath as he joined us, and I caught the scent of horse lingering from his ride to the city. He leaned in, glancing at Venasha and Foss to make sure they couldn’t overhear. “We were discussing methods to trace the false Falconers, to find out who exactly was wearing those uniforms. I had to speak with an intelligence officer over the courier lamps.”
“Do you have any leads?” I asked.
“Not yet. It seems likely they must have been hired criminals, but whoever they were, they’re keeping quiet.” He shook off gloom like rain, turning with a smile to Venasha, Foss, and Aleki. “But enough of that. Why don’t you introduce me to your friends, Amalia? I’d love to meet—” He broke off, staring at Aleki.
I followed his gaze. Venasha and Foss were talking to their son about the flowers, their backs mostly to us. Aleki’s serious face showed between them as he explained something in his tiny voice, poking at the flowers his mother now held. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at his eyes, with all the running around he’d been doing.
A faint but distinct vermilion ring surrounded his pupils.
He was mage-marked.
Chapter Nineteen
Fingers like iron bands dug into my wrist as Zaira pulled Marcello and me aside.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed to Marcello.
Trouble weighed down his brows. “You saw his eyes, Zaira. You know the law.”
Shock curdled any words I might have spoken. Venasha’s baby, mage-marked? She hadn’t said any of this, in all the silly stories she’d told me about him. But she must know. She couldn’t have missed that bright circle, or not known what it meant.
“I don’t care.” Zaira glared at Marcello. “You can’t take that brat away from his parents. Look at them. Look how happy they are.”
“They could come with him.” Marcello’s voice hung low and uncertain. “We don’t take children from their families, Zaira. We just—”
“Haul them off and lock them in a fortress on an island hundreds of miles from their homes. Yes, I know.” She waved a furious hand at where Venasha had put Aleki down and was showing him how to weave his flower stems together into a bracelet, while Foss smiled at them both. “He’s not hurting anyone. No one is hurting them. They have a good life here. Don’t destroy it.”
Marcello cast an anguished glance at Aleki, then at me. “He has to join the Falcons, Zaira. The Serene Accords provide no exceptions.”
“Pretend you didn’t see him,” Zaira urged.
Marcello’s brows set in a stubborn line. “That would be high treason.”
“And it wouldn’t accomplish anything.” I let out the ache in my chest as a long sigh. “His mage mark isn’t subtle like yours, Zaira. It’s just forming, but soon it’ll be visible from across the room, with a bright color like that. He can’t hide.”
Zaira showed her teeth in a snarl. “He shouldn’t have to.”
“Um, I hate to interrupt, but I can hear you,” said Foss.
The three of us whirled. He stood there, hands behind his back, hanging his head sheepishly. “I have good hearing,” he apologized.
Venasha stepped up beside him, Aleki gathered once again in her arms, face solemn and worried. “You saw.”
I nodded, my eyes stinging. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She adjusted Aleki, who’d started squirming; he grabbed a jeweled pin from her hair and seemed content to turn it in his hands, examining the way the light caught in the stones. “I wanted to ask your advice, Amalia. I don’t know what to do.”
The fear in her voice stabbed at my heart. I stepped closer and squeezed her shoulder. “Whatever happens, I’m here to help you. We’ll keep him safe, and keep you together. I promise.”
Her shoulder, rock hard under my touch, relaxed a bit. “His eyes started changing around when those children were stolen. I knew that wasn’t how Falconers worked, but still … I didn’t want to admit what it meant. Especially with the Shadow Gentry giving speeches and posting notices about fighting the Empire if it comes for our children again. But now I can’t deny those flecks have formed a circle.”
Foss put a protective arm around Venasha’s shoulders. “He’s my sunny little boy,” he said softly. “I won’t give him up. No matter what.”
Zaira’s hands formed fists. But Marcello gave Venasha and Foss a surprisingly gentle smile. “You don’t have to. You’re welcome to come stay in the Mews, for visits or permanently. And if you don’t want to move to the Mews, he can visit you in Ardence for months at a time with his Falconer, so long as it’s safe. We may even be able to get him stationed in the garrison here, once he’s old enough.”
Venasha’s eyes widened at the talk of moving to the Mews, and her lips tightened.
Foss gave her a concerned glance. “Venasha has been, ah, working toward her position in the Ducal Library for, well … It’s been a dream of hers for a while. And most of our friends and family are in Ardence.”
“But you won’t leave Aleki,” Venasha said to him firmly. “And I won’t leave either of you.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m confident I can get you a position in your choice of Raverran libraries.” The offer felt weak and awkward in my mouth, but it was what I had to give. “The Imperial Library, the Grand Temple of Wisdom, the Raverran University Library …”
Zaira snorted. “It must be nice to have all the friends money can buy.”
Marcello ignored that. “We’ll all do everything we can for your family. The Empire does well by its Falcons.”
Zaira’s brows raised until they seemed likely to pop off her forehead. She put her hands on her hips, but after a glance at Venasha and Foss’s anxious expressions, she said nothing.
“It’s still …” Venasha sucked in an unsteady breath, holding Aleki tight. “It’s a lot to take in. And I can’t deny it’s not what we wanted.”
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