Although it had only been a week since she left Knockaine, Wren had nearly forgotten the noise in the heart of it, the suffocating press of the crowds. Crashing down over her was the chatter of pedestrians and the nicker of horses; the clatter of carriage wheels on cobblestones; the screech of brass bands; and cabbies’ shouted conversations from across the road.

Wren followed the flow of traffic along the narrow streets, carried along in a sea of petticoats. She swore as she dodged out of the way of a carriage that nearly crushed her foot, earning a scandalized look from the woman in front of her.

She was already sweating beneath her itchy tunic and traveling cape. This city was always bustling—a gift, sometimes, to melt into a crowd as faceless and blank as fog—but this struck a new fever pitch. The air thrummed with an infectious, almost ecstatic energy. One she hadn’t sensed in what seemed like years.

Danubians hadn’t had much cause to celebrate lately.

It wasn’t a holiday, as far as Wren could remember, and it couldn’t be the snow, as rare as it was. Thick flakes fluttered down from the cracked slate of the sky, black with soot and acrid with pollution.

All along Sroth Street, brassy-voiced boys sold papers from overturned crates and the heavy bases of iron streetlamps. People thronged them, as hungry for today’s news as they usually were for the mulled wine peddled in the market barrows farther downriver. As Wren craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the headline, someone hurrying by checked her shoulder. Her bag—red letter and all—landed with a wet slap in the slush. Wren readied an insult while she straightened her habit’s coif, but the man dipped down to retrieve her bag for her.

“So sorry, Sister.” He grinned at her from beneath his mustache. “Have a blessed day.”

Wren stared incredulously at his retreating back. No one was ever that nice here.

Clutching her bag close, she continued toward the harbor, where the North Tower turned its watchful glass eyes over the sea. It was a monstrosity of a building, all jagged spires and imposing black stone. It was by far the tallest building in the city, reaching into the snow-laden clouds as if it meant to pull the Goddess herself to the earth. Wren understood why the queen had made it her home. From the window in her office, she could see all of Knockaine stretched out beneath her like a chess board. Isabel had fashioned herself into a goddess in her own right, removed and all-seeing.