Mosca sprinted through a gilded arch onto a slender lawn where Playing Card Makers were painting portraits of court ladies. And there, adjusting the lily in her elaborate coif, was Lady Tamarind! But no, this Lady Tamarind had a weak and dimpled chin, and she gawped when Mosca grabbed her arm.

Tamarind after Tamarind bewildered Mosca’s vision as she ran. Every other lady aped the brilliant white of Lady Tamarind’s attire. Every other cheek was painted in imitation of her scar. Mosca wondered if they would be so eager to imitate her if she had lost an eye.

Ahead of her, a lady was passing through a gate. Her bombazine gown had enormous “panniers,” so that her hips stuck out two feet on either side. Crouching behind this prodigious dress, Mosca managed to avoid detection for long enough to slip through the gate; then she pelted away. As near as she could judge from memory, she was heading toward the spire.

She reached a dead-end courtyard, bordered by a stone lattice wall in which the faces of many Beloved were carved. Through the holes in this wall she could see another courtyard, its hexagonal tiles gleaming with white marble and gold paint.

“Vocado, I must entreat you.” It was the voice of Lady Tamarind. “Let me send for my men.”

Peering through an aperture, Mosca glimpsed a woman in an immaculate white mantua gown. She had vividly envisaged finding Tamarind dressed as in the coach and in her dream, and for a moment she thought that this was yet another lady imitating Tamarind’s style of dress. The next moment she saw the scar shaped like a snowflake on the woman’s cheek.

Beside her stood a storybook prince. He seemed taller than any mortal man, aided by the raised heels of his wine-red shoes and the stately proportions of his gold-dusted wig. His floor-length frock coat and waistcoat were patterned with eyes like those on butterflies’ wings. It could only be the Duke.

“Goshawk has escaped,” Tamarind continued in the same level, urgent voice. “He has almost certainly sent for that boat of Locksmith troops waiting upstream. The Watermen have agreed to delay them, but that buys us only a little time. The ship with my troops is some distance down the coast, and the roads to the ocean are slow and overgrown. Even if we send a messenger now, it will take ten days for the ship to reach us. Vocado—we must send for them now.”

“Very well, Tammy. I shall sign the order.” The Duke’s voice was light and musical, but somehow a little off-key.

A young man tripped forward and held out a scroll while the Duke signed it. Mosca was just wondering why he looked familiar when two strong arms seized her around the middle.