Atre didn’t even look abashed. “And how could it not be a lucrative investment, with me as the principal actor? We are constrained by our current location, though. So many nobles won’t go there, and it’s so small we’re having to turn people away …”

“That’s too bad. Have you come up with a solution?”

Atre completed a stately turn and faced him again. “I have been looking at a larger venue in Gannet Lane.”

“Gannet Lane? How ambitious of you!” Seregil chuckled. It was on the outskirts of the Noble Quarter, close enough to attract rich patrons. “Well, I am getting a bit bored with trade.”

As the music ended, Atre bowed over Seregil’s hand. “My lord, your servant.”

Seregil kept his expression neutral as he tightened his hand on the actor’s and murmured, “I do hope you mean that, Master Atre.”

The actor blinked, caught off guard at having his polite blandishment taken literally. “Of course, my lord.”

“Good. We’ll talk soon. I’d like to see this place in Gannet Lane before I decide whether to invest in it or not.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Atre bowed again and went to find another partner.

“He’s a fickle one,” Kylith murmured as she took Seregil’s hand for the next dance.

“I hope you don’t think I encouraged him too much.”

“No matter. He’s handsome enough that I can forgive him a bit of flirting, although men aren’t really his sort.”

“But he knows they are my sort,” Seregil noted. “And he is an accomplished actor.”

“You are going to invest in his theater, aren’t you?”

“Are you?”

“We simply must get him out of that dreadful place they’re in now! And admit it, he charmed you.”

Seregil gave her a gallant smile. “You’re a wicked woman, my lady.”

Alec smiled and nodded to everyone, and gave the simpering youths and girls enough attention to be polite but not encouraging—which, to his continual surprise, seemed to make him all the more alluring—and let the older ones fuss over him or regale him, as the case might be. When he’d had enough, he escaped to the dancing, which he’d come to enjoy very much since those first awkward lessons at Watermead.

He’d just finished a reel with Illia, and was about to make his way through the press to seek out Selin when a bit of conversation caught his attention.

“I’m as fond of Seregil as anyone,” Duchess Nerian was saying to Duke Malthus as they stood with heads together near the servants’ passage, “but this is different. The Aurënfaie know they have us over a barrel and they’re taking full advantage.”

Alec lingered inconspicuously, listening carefully as Nerian harangued Malthus about the price of Aurënfaie steel. Her name had been on Marquis Kyrin’s list, together with Malthus’s.