“Here we see the problem exactly as General Camjiata described it to me,” I remarked, gesticulating with the wooden spoon. “You have to recognize an actual place or piece together the meaning of disparate images to form a message. Then you have to fix a date to it. The cat in the shadows could be me. The most likely person we know who would be in a tailor’s shop is Vai. The snow suggests some time between October and April.” I allowed myself to hope that I would rescue Vai and thus end up in a tailor’s shop waiting for him.

She flipped through the pages, scrutinizing several sketches of the academy. “The general told me the same thing. He is better at interpreting my dreams than I am. The Taino behiques were going to teach me what they know about dream walking after Caonabo became cacique. But of course instead I had to leave. Ah! Look.” She displayed a drawing of the headmaster’s study, with its mirrors, bookshelves, and chalkboards. The long table was usually piled with books and scrolls, but in the sketch the tabletop was set with five place settings, as for dinner. Seen from the back, I was dressed in a fashionably cut jacket and skirt. Bee pointed to a murky reflection of me in a mirror that also showed a red wreath hanging on the back of a door. “Here is a festival wreath with the sword of Mars, today’s festival. There is a lit lamp. Five people will be invited to dinner in the headmaster’s study after dark this evening, and you’ll be there.”

“I don’t recognize the clothes I’m wearing. Still, I suppose this will act in the nature of an experiment. We’ll have time to go to the law offices first.”

Rory strolled into the room wearing nothing but a towel and a smile. “Mmmm. I like porridge! Can we have some more of that sugar on it? Someday I want to pour sugar all over an attractive body and then lick it off—”

“Rory!” cried Bee, clapping her hands over her ears.

“Blessed Tanit!” I muttered as my cheeks flamed, for my thoughts did stray to my husband. I busied myself handing over a sober waistcoat and jacket of an ambivalent but sophisticated gray. “You’re not to wear any of Vai’s other dash jackets unless you ask me first. You can wear this one and the one you ruined.”

He gave me a look as reproachful as if I had called him a dog. “I’m not carrying that cursed chest if I’m not to be allowed to wear any of the extra-fine jackets.”

“Hush, you two,” Bee said. “While we’re gone, we’ll hide our things under the floor in the carriage house.”