Halfway up the stairs he passed a young man with a warm and open face who gave him a look of guileless curiosity but did not question him. Caveat climbed the stairs, his pistol barrel chilling him through his shirt.

Lady Tamarind sat at her dressing table, mending her face. A tiny crack in the powder had appeared at the corner of one eye. The blemish was so small that it would probably have been invisible to any eye but hers, but she plied a tiny cat’s hairbrush dipped in powder and smoothed her skin back to perfection.

How had her mask of powder cracked? Had she winced at something, crinkling her eye? What was there to wince at? Her Birdcatcher spies had informed her of the standoff between the Laurel Bower and the Duke’s men. She was sure that the Duke would soon lose patience and rain fire upon the coffeehouse, and let the little convoy burn or scatter. Soon the highwayman Blythe, Pertellis’s radicals, and the Locksmiths on board would be nothing but a sad and sooty memory. Soon the ship carrying her Birdcatcher allies would slide into Mandelion, ready to take control.

On the dressing table lay two letters, which her forgers had written in the handwriting of the Twin Queens, just like the others. She had sealed them with the false signet ring she had brought back with her from the Capital. The letters thanked the Duke for his faithful service. They also included a list of men and women who should be arrested immediately. It was a short list, for Tamarind was patient. Later letters would contain longer lists.

There was no need to falter or fear now. Her plans were perfect.

In the glass she surveyed the face that she had made hers, looking for any hint of a flaw. Perfect.

Lady Tamarind reached out to lay her brush next to her powder tin, and stayed her hand. The smooth white perfection of the powder in the tin was marred by a struggling blackness, battered black armor, dull shards of wing glass. It rucked and ravaged the creamy surface, scrambling a trail. It was a fly.

There were footsteps on the stairway outside her door, and a pulse fluttered beneath the scar on her cheek.

Through ear slits like buttonholes in its leathery hide, the crocodile heard the silvery chuckle of key in lock. It heard the swish of skirts as Lady Tamarind stood up hastily. As the door opened to let in four men, the crocodile’s mouth opened to let in the taste of the air. The men brought smells that meant nothing to it: ink, pipe smoke, by-the-way mud. But they definitely smelled of strangeness and of fear, and the crocodile was fairly sure that this meant it was allowed to eat them.

Its belly scales rasped against the mosaic floor as it slithered from its basking place.