The pistol shook so badly now I feared he’d pull the trigger by mistake. “I can’t make promises for my mother,” I said. “But if you give me the information, if you tell me who’s plotting against Ardence and the Empire, I’ll do everything I can to save you.”

“I’m not telling you everything. Not now. You can’t win the game without cards in your hand.” He passed a hand over his brow. “But I’ll tell you enough to show I’m no traitor. As soon as I realized what they were doing, I refused to help them anymore. I’m here, warning you, because I’m loyal to Raverra. You tell your mother and the doge that.”

“Yes.” I wasn’t going to argue with him while he was talking rather than shooting. “Tell me.”

“This plot isn’t what you think it is.” He licked his lips. “If you go to Ardence, you’re in danger, Amalia Cornaro.”

My skin went tight and cold across my scalp. “Me?”

“Yes.” He took a deep breath, his pistol listing off center. “They plan to—”

An earsplitting bang echoed through the night, and Leodra staggered. His hand flew to his neck, trying to stop the sudden dark flow of blood. His mouth worked in silence.

I scrambled to my feet, unable to suppress a shriek. Before the crystal shards of fear stabbing through me could spin me toward the sound of the gunshot, Leodra collapsed across the wall.

“Amalia!” It was Marcello, sprinting across the courtyard in his nightshirt, smoking pistol still in hand. “Are you all right?”

Lights moved and flickered in the windows of the inn. A dog barked madly, and voices called out in alarm.

“For love of the Graces, Marcello, he was about to tell me something important!” All my nerves jangled like cracked bells. Blood soaked Leodra’s neck and shoulder. He moved feebly, still sprawled facedown across the wall, but there was no sense or hope in it.

I tore my jacket off and pressed it to his neck, trying to staunch the blood, but it was no good. Grace of Mercy, he was dying in front of me.

Marcello stared, pale and wide-eyed. “He was pointing a pistol at you. I thought he was going to kill you.”

Leodra’s drowning eyes swallowed all my attention as I held my sodden jacket against his awful wound. “Tell me who took the children,” I pleaded.

His blood soaked my hands, cooling rapidly in the night air. He reached a trembling hand up toward me, trying to pull a gasp through his shattered throat. I squeezed his fingers. “Tell me how to find them!”

But the desperate, terrified spark dulled in his eyes. His feeble, frantic movements went still.

I bowed my head. His life’s blood stained my trembling arms.

“What …” Marcello swallowed. “Who was he?”