Zaira jumped a bit at Terika’s name. Then she settled back onto her bench with a sigh. “You’re hopeless.” She turned deliberately to Ignazio. “Where was I? Oh, right, so the shrinekeeper arrives at the beach, still without trousers, and realizes there’s no bridge to Raverra, and takes it into his head he wants to swim there …”

Istrella flipped her bicolored glasses down and picked up a bead. “And now the hard part. Have you ever seen someone try to thread a double helix in a moving carriage, Amalia?”

“I can’t say that I have.” I watched Istrella’s nimble fingers. It was a relief to focus on the familiar intricacies of artifice. We chatted about the techniques she was using, our heads bowed together over her practice jess; occasionally secrecy compelled Istrella to remain apologetically mute on the theory behind some cunning twist of the wire, or why she positioned the beads where she did. Zaira cast glances our way now and then, an odd, wistful expression sliding over her face.

But as I watched Istrella work the golden wire, I remembered why the doge was sending her to Ardence. Those busy fingers could unleash a destructive force nearly as great as Zaira’s balefire. And we had one last chance to keep that force from being turned on a city full of innocents.

I couldn’t sleep that night. My inn room was comfortable enough; they’d given me their finest feather bed, with lavender-scented pillows and tall posts carved with twining vines. But I lay awake staring at a crack in the ceiling until it became as familiar as the curve of the Imperial Canal. My thoughts traced the same path over and over, like the fissure I stared at: I had to find a way to keep Ardence from burning.

With Duke Astor refusing to receive the Serene Envoy, I didn’t have much faith she could persuade him of Raverra’s innocence—no matter that her advice was supposed to be just short of imperial command. To have a chance of thwarting our unseen enemy, we needed to track down the missing children. And unless the Empire managed to capture and interrogate Baron Leodra, our best avenue of information might well be Domenic’s connections to the Shadow Gentry—if I could persuade them to talk to me. And if Domenic’s brother wasn’t one of the guilty parties himself.

I rose, leaving the coverlet in a tangle, and shrugged on a jacket over my nightgown. If I stared at that ceiling any longer, I’d go mad. I needed sky above me.