Mosca must have looked impressed, since the chambermaid’s haughty expression thawed a little.

“Here, you can’t see anyone like that.” With a superior air, the maid pulled Mosca’s bonnet ribbons loose, looped them across through a set of hooks under the crown, doubled them back, and tied a bow beneath Mosca’s chin. “There. That’s fashion. Now you won’t look a disgrace when you meet the housekeeper to give her your references.”

“I’m not here to meet the housekeeper! It’s got to be Lady Tamarind!”

“She won’t see you. She won’t see anyone today.” The lavender maid gaped at Mosca’s ignorance. “Today’s the first day of the Assizes. She’s getting ready right now to walk with the Duke to the Courthouse for the Grand Opening.”

The lavender girl walked away, while the ground beneath Mosca became a raft and bobbed on a hidden sea.

The Assizes. Mosca had forgotten about it. The chiaroscuro image of Clent stooped over the body of Partridge had driven everything else from her mind. She had forgotten the pale-eyed Locksmiths, nursing vengeful thoughts in their prison cells. She had forgotten the guild war, and the disaster stalking Mandelion.

Lady Tamarind would not see her. The footman would return and show her back to the gate. She would have to return to the marriage house and Eponymous Clent. If she tried to run away now, it would look like guilt, and the constable would send the hue and cry after her for Partridge’s murder. Mosca felt as she had in her dream when the glistening thread had snaked away from her through the black water, taking all hope with it.

No. If the Lady would not see her, she would find the Lady. Peering out cautiously from her appointed post, she slunk from column to column, scanning the gilded multitude.

Excited snatches of conversation reached her ears.

“. . . rather a pity to waste such a charming refrain on that miscreant, but all of a sudden it seems that every song is dedicated to Black Captain Blythe . . .”

“. . . how terrible that the treason trial of the Locksmiths takes place in the second week, when I am promised in Pincaster . . .” Indeed, here nobody seemed to be interested in the murdered body at Whickerback Point. In the Courts the story of the moment was the arrest of the Locksmiths.

Suddenly, beside the fountain, Mosca saw Lady Tamarind.

“Your Ladyship!”

The woman turned. She had bulldog jowls under her white powder. Age creased her neck like an accordion. It was not Lady Tamarind.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mosca saw the footman who had brought her through the gates hurrying toward her with a look of thunder. She snatched a snuffbox from the hand of a passing notable, and flung the contents in the footman’s face. As she ran, she heard the false Tamarind squawking in outrage at the black spattering her gleaming gown.