Marcello stopped, his shoulders tensing. “What kind of orders?”

“Deployment orders. We’re moving Falcons to the Vaskandran border.” The colonel’s lips thinned with distaste. “And to Ardence.”

The colonel gave me an assessing glance when I followed Marcello into the same small side room she’d pulled him into before, but she didn’t stop me—whether because I was my mother’s daughter or because she wanted me to hear the orders too, I couldn’t guess. No ornament graced the room’s white-plastered walls, and its only furniture included a scattering of wooden chairs and a stained oak table. It was the sort of place guards might wait while on reserve gate duty.

Colonel Vasante closed the door, then slapped her papers down on the table. “Nothing drastic, Lieutenant; you can stop bracing like I’m going to punch you. A Falcon or two to each of the major border forts, as a precaution, and a couple more to move into the garrison outside Ardence. The full details are in there.”

Marcello spread the papers out and started skimming over them. I caught Vasante’s eyes. “Why Ardence?”

She snorted. “Why do you think? Duke Astor Bergandon is refusing to see the Serene Envoy. That’s a slap in the face the Empire can’t ignore. If they keep defying imperial authority, the doge wants to end this war before it starts. We don’t have time to humor Ardence’s tantrums when Vaskandar is knocking at our border, my lady.”

I gripped the edge of the table as if the floor might buck me off, and leaned in over the papers next to Marcello. I knew too well which Falcon could end a war most quickly. “Who’s on the list?”

“Not you. I don’t give you orders.” The colonel’s clipped voice severed a line of tension in my back. I sighed with relief. At least things hadn’t gotten so bad the doge was ready to use balefire.

But Marcello’s palm struck the table, startling me with a loud bang.

“Istrella’s on this list.” His voice strained as if it stretched over rough stones.

I glanced at the page, alarmed.

Sure enough, the second name was Istrella Verdi.

Chapter Thirteen

Colonel Vasante barely glanced down at Istrella’s name.

“Yes. Relax, Verdi. You’ll be back here soon. I told him I needed you.” The colonel pulled another set of papers out from under the deployment orders. “The doge wants her to pay a brief visit to Ardence to build a few of these. When she’s done, you can both come home.”

Marcello sighed with relief. But I stared down at the schematics Vasante had revealed, tracing the lines of wire that coiled around metal rings, the connections for a vast power supply, and the clever focal lenses.