After a standoff of about thirty seconds, the ball of fire — now so dense it shone like a mini-sun — convulsed and began to dim. Slowly the flames died down, revealing Limu’s shape underneath, now pale yellow all over.

Rage and humiliation were plain on his face. Clearly, he’d been bested, and he hadn’t expected it. He didn’t say anything, just stared at Cordus, shot me a venomous glance, then stalked out.

I think the Seconds arrayed behind us were as surprised as he was. Everyone just stood there. With a sharp crack, the warped steel bars of the flambéed coffee table snapped, and the thing collapsed. Everyone jumped, then started murmuring.

Cordus sat silently for a moment, pondering the burned remnants of furniture in front of us. Then he turned to me.

“Miss Ryder, if Ambassador Cra of the First Kingdom is still present, I would very much like to speak with him again.”

He must mean the green man.

Fresh out of words, I nodded, and went to find the repugnant little bird-creature. Funny how much less frightening the prospect of speaking to Cra seemed than it would have an hour earlier.

I was less uncomfortable on the ride home than I had been on the way to court. It wasn’t that sitting in a plush limo with Cordus had become routine. I just had bigger things to think about.

Cordus had interrogated Cra about the item Justine supposedly stole from Limu.

I’d been only marginally less surprised than Cra when Cordus included me inside the barrier he set up to keep the conversation private.

Leaning back nonchalantly on the remaining couch and using a cool, bored tone, Cordus had hypothesized that the green men surely wouldn’t have agreed to send one of their hunters on such a risky mission — risky both individually and diplomatically, Cordus pointed out — without understanding something of the stakes.

At first the ambassador had maintained ignorance, but under Cordus’s silent stare, it eventually allowed as how it might’ve heard a few rumors — wholly unsubstantiated, of course. The scuttlebutt was that Limu had been working on a powerful weapon. Justine had wormed her way into his affections and stolen it from him. Then she’d disappeared.

After Cordus had gotten this information out of Cra, he’d spent a while circulating, but guests started dropping away quickly. I got the feeling they all wanted to get home and hit the Second equivalent of Twitter to tell others about Limu’s humiliating defeat.

I sat in the limo, pondering the idea that Justine was some sort of master thief. It was almost beyond belief.

When Cordus spoke, I jumped.

“Miss Ryder, I am remembering something the one you call Ghosteater said to you when describing the scent of Mrs. Ryder.”

“That she was ‘unfinished.’”

“Yes, and ‘fragmentary.’ I ask you again, are you certain those are the terms he used?”