“How many?” Bernard whispered.

“They need thirty-six,” she replied, still counting. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four.

Valerius added his hands to those raised.

“Thirty-five,” she hissed.

“Those who would vote yes?” Valerius asked.

Hands began to rise—and trumpets began to howl.

A wave of worried whispers washed up around Amara. Heads began to turn. One distant trumpet was joined by another, and another, and another. The whispers became a murmur.

“What is that?” asked a matron seated behind Amara of her husband. “The signal?”

The old gentleman patted her arm. “I’m not sure, dear.”

Amara turned to Bernard, her eyes grave. He met her gaze, his own face calm but resigned. He recognized the standard Legion trumpet call just as well as she did.

The Legions outside the southern wall of the city of Riva were sounding a call to arms.

“They can’t be here,” Amara said. “Not already.”

Bernard gave her a half smile and rose. Around her, other Citizens were doing the same thing, moving with brisk, worried efficiency toward the amphitheater’s exits, the matter before the Senate forgotten. “They seem to have formed a habit of surprising us. Let’s prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

She took his hand and rose. They were just leaving the theater when a young woman came rushing toward them through the crowd, being jostled roughly several times in her haste. She was a slender young woman, with a long, rather serious face and long, cobweb-fine hair of pale gold. “Count Calderon!” Lady Veradis called. “Count Calderon!”

Bernard caught sight of her waving hand and waded through the crowd, moving through it easily enough by dint of pure mass. Amara stayed close to him, in his wake, avoiding the minor collisions that would otherwise have rattled her.

“Veradis!” Bernard called. He took the girl by the shoulders, a supportive, steadying gesture. She was clearly shaken, her face pale, her eyes wide. “What happened?”

“The First Lady, Count,” she sobbed. “It’s chaos over there, and I can’t find the Placidas, and I don’t know whom to trust.”

Bernard looked around for a moment, and followed Amara’s pointed finger to an alley between two buildings, an eddy in the stream of humanity flowing around them. Bernard moved them over into the relatively quiet space, and said, “Slow down, Veradis. Slow down. What happened?”

The girl gained control of herself with a visible effort, and Amara remembered that Veradis was an extremely gifted watercrafter. The emotions of the frightened crowd were probably an ongoing torment to her. “Your sister, sir,” she said, her voice steady. “Your sister’s been taken. Araris, too.”

“Taken,” Amara asked sharply. “Taken by who?”

The horn signals continued to blow, growing louder and more numerous.

“I don’t know,” Veradis said. “When I got back to her chamber, the door had been broken down. There was blood—probably not enough of it to have killed anyone. And they were gone.”