The Masquerade had conspired to steal the Ashen Sea trade ring from Oriati Mbo. For that they needed a southwesterly port. So the Masquerade had come for Taranoke, and from Taranoke Baru had gone into the Masquerade. And they had sent her to Aurdwynn, to execute the will of the Throne, and that execution had made an enemy of Juris Ormsment. In the name of her dead, Ormsment mutinied and chased Baru across the face of the world.

But the wake of her mutiny was wide, and if it touched her comrades, she could destroy the very navy she loved.

And so here, as close as she had ever come to her prey, she could not kill.

Baru walked within concentric wards of power. The seal of diplomatic privilege. The Emperor’s mark. The force of the embassy guards. The etiquettes of Falcrest which said you will not begin a bloodbath at a reception: that is neither subtle nor hygienic.

Barber-General Love laughed unctuously at something Juris had said. No—Baru corrected herself—he wasn’t unctuous, she was being unfair: Juris was apparently very funny. Even Thomis Love seemed like a man who might have been decent, if he hadn’t become a barber-general. But Baru hated to trust these impressions.

Together the traitor-admiral and the Kyprist governor wandered west around the perimeter of the courtyard, pretending not to see Baru. Thomis had requested a treat for Juris—Scheme-Colonel Masako went ahead to fetch it. Here it was now, wheeled out by a pair of Oriati stewards, a glass-faced cabinet bearing the legend THESE WHISKEYS ARE OF HISTORICAL VALUE, FOR DISPLAY ONLY.

Juris Ormsment smashed the cabinet’s glass face with the butt of her knife.

The watching crowd gasped. Juris reached through the wreckage, seized the neck of a bottle of Grendlake City Fire, and raised it, turning, in salute to Baru.

“Agonist,” she said, with relish. “That’s what they called you at the Elided Keep. What a name.”

“Hello again, Juris.”

The traitor-admiral reversed her knife. She stabbed the cork, extracted it, and dropped the cork-tipped blade on the grass. “Hello, Your Excellence,” she said. “It’s been a while since our dinner. A winter and a spring.”

“I hope I’ve impressed you with my primal vitality.”

“I did say I was afraid I’d overlooked something about you, didn’t I?”

“You spoke of my whole race, actually.”

“So I did.”

“Miss Plane?” Governor Love blinked in confusion. “Province Admiral, what’s happening here?”

“That’s not her real name,” Juris told him. “She is Baru Cormorant, a renegade and a traitor. And I’ve come to arrest her.”

“Province Admiral!” Masako feigned shock. “This is Oriati ground! Our guests are under the protection of the Mbo!”

“So they are.” Juris clapped Thomis Love on the back. “What do you say, Governor? These are your islands. Willing to let the Oriati protect a traitor to Falcrest?”