“Amalia!” Marcello grabbed my shoulders. “Are you all right? Did he hit you?”

“No, but he hit you!” I brushed torn fabric back from his side, but the bloodstain hadn’t spread.

“Just grazed me. Thank the Graces you’re well.”

He hadn’t taken his hands from my shoulders. He gazed into my face, as if seeking reassuring signs there. I realized my hand was still on his side, my fingertips damp with his blood. I snatched it back. “Marcello …”

I wanted to thank him—and scold him—for protecting me. I needed to check whether the man in the leather apron was alive, and if so, to see to his capture for questioning and get us all to a safe place until the reins of power could be forcibly removed from Leodra’s hands. But Marcello’s name lingered in my mouth, and no other words seemed willing to take its place.

Approaching footsteps sounded on the stones. Hard, disciplined, forceful steps, of at least a dozen people. I whirled to face them, ready for another fight.

A squad of the Imperial Guard marched up to the tavern. At the center of their formation, like the flagship of an armada, sailed La Contessa, resplendent in an emerald brocade gown.

Her gaze swept the gathered soldiers, lingered on the body in the street, and landed at last on me and Marcello. I took a self-conscious step away from his side. Balos bowed, which triggered a hasty wave of bowing from everyone else. Except Ciardha, who stood alert at La Contessa’s side, ready as a drawn blade.

“Report,” La Contessa said crisply.

Marcello saluted. “The colonel sent us here to capture Orthys, following information gained from a prisoner. But we found him already dead, killed in some internal squabble with his crew.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed. “There was no prisoner. Who gave Colonel Vasante her orders?”

Marcello stepped back from the danger radiating from her like heat. “I understood they came from the Council of Nine, Your Excellency.”

“I am here,” she said with icy precision, “to learn why a contingent of Falcons landed in the part of the city to which our efforts have traced Orthys, without my command, before we have received intelligence as to his exact location.”

“Mamma.” I dropped my voice so it wouldn’t carry to the gawkers peering out windows or craning their necks past the soldiers blocking the ends of the street. “It was a trap.”

“I am not surprised.” She looked me over sharply, as if verifying I was intact. “Tell me.”