My petticoats swept the marble floor as I finished the curtsy. My mother uttered words of greeting, and I made appropriate noises. Servants swirled around like dancers, offering him wine and refreshments, which he waved away. The hall stretched too large around us, built to host masquerade balls and the occasional state ceremony. I spent little time in this room, with its frescoes showing the accomplishments of Cornaro doges and its gilded molding overwrought almost to the point of hysteria. It was meant to impress guests, not to live in.

When the doge settled into the chair we offered him, it was with an air of dissatisfaction—not with our hospitality, or even with me, but with the entire situation.

“I wish to speak to my new Falconer alone,” he said.

The servants discreetly withdrew from the room. My mother smiled, all grace and poise. “Surely there is nothing you would say to my daughter I could not hear as well.”

I couldn’t help but notice the emphasis they both placed on my.

The doge raised an eyebrow. “Is she a child, to hide behind her mother’s skirts?”

Stung, I opened my mouth, but a sharp jab at my shoulder stopped me. My mother’s hand lay there, casual and relaxed; but she’d reversed a ring so the stone pressed into my skin in warning.

“Amalia is fully capable of standing on her own,” she said, with more confidence than the collected history of our prior conversations would suggest. “But what could you have to discuss that must be kept private from her mother, and your old friend?”

The corner of the doge’s mouth quirked. “Nothing. But you know as well as I, Lissandra, that if you are in the room, it will be a conversation between you and me, not with your estimable daughter.”

There was a silence. The ring still dug into my shoulder.

La Contessa laughed, and dropped the doge an ironic curtsy. “Very well, Niro. I can’t deny you’re right. I’ll leave you two unchaperoned, then.”

My mother’s velvet skirts swished. The salon doors opened and closed. I was alone with the doge.

He gestured me to sit, his eyes lingering on my overbandaged hand.

I settled onto the edge of a chair, as best as I could in my corset; between the plunging waist and stiff stays, it seemed designed for ladies who never sat down. Layers of gathered silk and petticoats rustled and bunched beneath me. This was why I preferred a jacket and breeches.

The doge raised his brows. “Well, Lady Amalia. You have chosen an … untraditional method to become one of my Falconers.”

Every word he chose staked a careful position on a playing board I couldn’t see, counting points I couldn’t reckon. My gauze-wrapped palm grew damp.

“Your Serenity, I assure you I had no intention of doing any such thing. My only aim was to protect Raverra from balefire.”