I did. My mother’s mask never cracked, even when I got to Leodra’s involvement and when Marcello gasped in shock at my side. She stopped me once to nod to Ciardha, who performed an efficient search of the dead man in the leather apron, turning up the seal of the Council of Nine. She took that with a gentle hand, but her face went grim and full of death. I remembered it was still judgment day.

“Very well,” she said when I was done. She turned to Marcello and then to the officer of the Imperial Guard at her side. “Come with me.”

“To your palace?” Marcello asked tentatively.

“No. To the Imperial Palace.” She tucked the seal into her sleeve. “You too, Amalia. I want you at my side until we’ve settled matters with Baron Leodra. We have work to do.”

Chapter Fifteen

Our boats formed a veritable flotilla as we headed for the Imperial Palace. People leaned over bridge railings to gawk at the long line of small military craft in Falconer red and imperial blue. I sat with my mother in her personal boat in the center; its golden prow, carved to symbolize the winged horse of Raverra, cut the canal waters as cleanly as an assassin’s knife.

“I can’t believe Baron Leodra is a traitor to the Empire,” I said.

La Contessa kept her eyes fixed toward the Imperial Palace, her face a grim mask. “I doubt he set out to be one.”

“If Orthys sold children to Vaskandar, and his father let him use the imperial seal …”

“I know what you’re thinking.” My mother cast me a sidelong glance. “The abducted heirs of Ardence. The Falconer deception. Be careful about jumping to conclusions.”

“It doesn’t seem like much of a jump.” Everything made sense now. Leodra wanted the Empire to take a stronger hand in Ardence; what better way to force the issue than to trigger a war he knew full well Ardence couldn’t win?

“Leodra doesn’t have any people in Ardence,” La Contessa said. “He’s new to the Council, and his power base is in Raverra. So far as our investigation has been able to tell, Orthys passed through Ardence regularly on his way up the River Arden to Vaskandar, but had no significant contacts there either. Neither of them would have had the connections or resources in the city to stage so precise, delicate, and ambitious an operation as the kidnapping of the Ardentine heirs.” She shook her head. “It’s possible Baron Leodra was involved, but if so, he didn’t act alone.”

That made sense. Leodra couldn’t have used imperial agents to abduct the heirs, or the rest of the Council would have learned about it. If he didn’t have his own hirelings in Ardence, that meant someone else had taken the children. And still held them, frightened and alone.