Jean-Claude sat across a small table from Impervia in her receiving room. It was a casually decorated space with embroidered chairs and bookshelves filled with a selection of books, knickknacks, and conversational artifacts, assuming one wanted to start a conversation about foiled assassination attempts, cloak-and-dagger diplomacy, or the efficacy of various types of poisons. There was a portrait of Impératrice Sireen on one wall, signaling Impervia’s allegiance to the new reine, and wide pastoral scenes on the other three walls, compensating for the fact that the room had no windows.

Impervia glowered at Jean-Claude over the top of the dram of emberwine she’d been nursing for the last half hour. “So you managed to burn down a temple, lose a true reliquary, and let Hasdrubal escape with no hint whatsoever where he’s gone or what he means to do, and you have the nerve to walk away and dump the whole thing in my lap.” Her bloodshadow rippled like a restive snake.

With Impervia it was hard to tell if she was actually angry with him or just practicing. In either case, it did no good to shrink before her. The thing she liked, the thing she needed, were people she couldn’t intimidate.

“I wouldn’t want you to get bored,” he said. “Besides, without me, you wouldn’t know the true reliquary was in play.”

Impervia’s half-moon eyes narrowed. “You have no idea how much I long to be bored. My excitement means danger to my empire and my reine.”

Jean-Claude laughed. “If you couldn’t find a conspiracy, you’d invent one just to keep yourself occupied. What I want to know is what the local Skaladin are saying about it.” Despite the fact that the Tyrant of Skaladin was the great enemy, the penultimate evil just below the Breaker herself, the tyrant still managed to have agents all around the Risen Kingdoms. Impervia’s counterspies kept track of them, and they usually provided some insight into the tyrant’s plans: cloak, dagger, shadow, and whisper.

“Surprisingly little,” Impervia said. She frowned. “I got the impression that the Maze’s spymasters weren’t informed of Hasdrubal’s part in Lael’s coup, which doesn’t really surprise me. The Master of Eyes had every reason not to involve them. If they’d been exposed, it would have revealed Lael as a pawn of the tyrant and shifted the balance against him.’

“Speaking of the tyrant, I have received word of a great stirring in the City of Gears. The tyrant has called in his banners and there is word of a fleet assembling in the Sundered Isles. I’ve already passed this on to Fleet Command, but I thought you should know.”

That news sent a shiver down Jean-Claude’s spine. The Sundered Isles were Skaladin strongholds in the Hoary Gyre, well within striking distance of Isabelle’s intended flight path.