Quill let out a heavy breath. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not the end of the world.”

Bitterlich’s whiskers twitched with his curiosity. There was always a relic brought out on the Feast of Saint Cynessus. Bitterlich had seen it a dozen times. What was so special about this one? Alas, the conversation did not return to it.

The city’s bell tolled the hour. Gretl’s gala would have started by now. Isabelle would be there. He weighed the odds of Quill doing anything else interesting, and decided to risk letting him go. Perhaps Isabelle could help him make sense of what he’d witnessed. He took wing in owl form and swooped over the darkening city. He imagined dancing with Isabelle, her hand on his shoulder and his on her hip, her big smile and her rose-and-lavender eyes flashing … but no. To court her would be to lead her away from the family she desired and strand her on a dead twig.

He should make his intentions clear to her. Or rather, his lack of intentions. Yes, she’d ask why, and the mere thought of that conversation left him cold—“I am not a man” were impossible words to say—but putting it off wouldn’t make it easier.

He winged it to the agonesium cum medical school and drew back on his ordinary shape, startling a pair of Sanguinaire just climbing the short flight of steps from their coach. In the narrow antechamber just inside the doors was set up a gated mirror for the use of visiting Glasswalkers.

Bitterlich paused there and adjusted his cravat and the fit of his scarlet dress-uniform jacket. He was careful not to let his gaze rise above his own collar. He knew what his face looked like, covered in short, tawny fur with dark dapples and stripes, feline eyes and feline whiskers: an animal. The Célestial court had spent years reminding him that his Seelenjäger sorcery made him less than human.

But the clothes make the man. The uniform demanded respect. The rank gave authority and provided enough social elevation that his many detractors no longer dared attack him directly. They hated a target that could fight back.

Satisfied with the state of his social armor he strolled past the door wardens into the great hall, into the flow of bodies, saintborn nobles and clayborn gentry in their finery, swirling like white and red leaves in the eddies of a rill, with servants like water striders darting between them.

He scanned the room for Isabelle. Was she still here? She might have left early. Since picking up her mental stowaways, she’d been leery of crowds where there were already too many other voices.