Once, when I was fishing with my father, we’d hooked a juvenile sea serpent. He’d pulled it up into the ship, his face dismayed. In the Empire, juvenile sea serpents were sometimes eaten – a delicacy enjoyed by the wealthy. But the Poyer did not eat sea serpents. “They’re smart,” he’d explained to me. “You wouldn’t eat a person, so we don’t eat sea serpents.” It writhed on the deck, the luminescent spots on its sides flashing, the frill on its neck standing on end. But as soon as my father approached, it calmed. He reached into its mouth, full of tiny, sharp teeth, and worked the hook free.

This palace felt like the mouth of a sea serpent, and without any assurance its jaws wouldn’t close on my fingers. Even with the lamps lit, I thought I saw shadows around every corner.

Lin was silent as we followed the servants to the guest rooms where her remaining guards were waiting. Mephi and Thrana seemed unbothered, both their stomachs having been filled at dinner. But the dinner itself had been even more uncomfortable than the one we’d had at Riya. There was something odd going on here, and I wasn’t sure what.

Lin waved me toward her room. “Jovis, with me. I need to speak to you a moment.” Her maidservants exchanged a glance, one hiding a smile behind an upraised hand. I wanted to protest: it wasn’t what they thought it was. But what was I going to do? Disobey an order from the Emperor? So I followed her inside. The room was spacious and beautifully appointed, but I didn’t have the chance to admire the decorations. She rounded on me as soon as she’d shut the door.

“What was that? All the servants are afraid, the family is hiding something and Wailun herself doesn’t seem to care at all what her people want. She seems content with the Tithing Festival as it is. Why?”

“I’m as puzzled as you are.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t care,” Mephi said, leaning against my knees.

Thrana piped up eagerly. “A bad? A very bad?”

“More like a strange,” I said.

“A strange,” Thrana cooed.

“No,” Lin broke in, “we don’t say it like that. We say that the situation is strange. We don’t just label things as ‘a strange’.” She threw up her hands. “Oh, what does it matter? What matters is that Wailun is hiding something. I don’t know how to gain the support of Hualin Or if the return of the shards doesn’t impress them. They’re worried about the construct army – and they should be – but seem uninterested in helping. We’ll need to make a stand at Gaelung, which is the only reason I brought Ragan with us.”