“I lack the mind of a Power, but something tells me that the Necromancer was and perhaps still is working toward either escape from here or reconciliation with the will. Perhaps both.”

“Even God has rebel angels,” Gabriel said. He shook his head. “So the Patriarch is the puppet of the will?”

Kronmir spread his hands on the table in the weird, shimmering light-dark of the shield. “Maybe. I want to go south with Ser Alison and make contact with . . . my network. I need more information.”

“What do you fear?” Gabriel asked.

“I fear a terrible surprise on the day the gates open,” the spy said. “I fear that we are dupes playing, not for ourselves, but for some other power.”

Gabriel scratched at his beard. “I fear to lose you. After myself, you may be the next most important man in the empire.”

Kronmir flinched. “Sire!” he said.

Gabriel shrugged. “Knowledge is power, Jules. And you hold all the threads of knowledge in your hands.”

Kronmir nodded. “Your wife . . . is adept. The messenger birds all know her. Ser Michael is very competent; if he were not a great lord, I would employ him to gather intelligence, and to read it.”

“You know, Jules,” Gabriel said, “There is something terrifying about having you, a man who tried to kill me several times, telling me that my wife and my best friend are . . . competent.”

“They are,” Kronmir reassured him.

Gabriel laughed. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Eventually, his sides aching, he paused, wiped the tears from his eyes, and blinked at his chief intelligencer. “Very well. You can accompany Sauce; I want regular reports.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“But first,” Gabriel said, and he smiled. He tapped a wand and in the aethereal, in his palace, he waved at Mortirmir, who snapped his aethereal fingers.

The shimmering black shield fell.

Everyone in the hall was looking at them. You cannot raise a shimmering black globe in a crowded room without drawing attention.

Francis Atcourt entered, in armour, at the head of a file of knights and squires. They moved to stand like an aisle of steel in front of Gabriel’s chair. Toby brought a low wooden stool with an elaborate stool whose cushion was embroidered in the ancient arms of Arles.

Blanche reached up and unpinned the simple gold circlet she was wearing. Gabriel nodded to the Archbishop of Arles, who was in on the plot.

“Lady Clarissa de Sartres, please approach the imperial throne, such as it is,” Gabriel said.

There was a steady buzz of talk, occasioned by the shimmering black globe; now the hall was silent.

Lady Clarissa, acting Duchess of Arles, rose, walked down the aisle of knights, and knelt on the cushion.

“By the ancient power of my office, I restore the crown of Arles, falsely seized by Galle, to you in token of which I give this circlet,” he said. He rose, bowed deeply to the archbishop, and handed the man the circlet.