Ruven sheathed his dagger with a flourish, smiling as if he’d given us a wonderful treat. “I hope you will think about my offer, Lady Zaira.”

“I’ll think about it,” she promised. She grabbed my arm with unsteady force. “But now I have to get Lady Heiress here home. It’s past her bedtime.”

“And I must greet my friend. Good night, ladies.” He bowed.

I dipped a curtsy and fled. Zaira all but hung onto my arm, nausea twisting her face. Our shoes tapped a rapid rhythm on the cobblestones, almost a run.

“I’ll think about it, all right,” Zaira muttered. “When I’m trying to sleep tonight. Grace of Mercy.”

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “So you won’t be moving to Vaskandar?”

She shuddered. “Only if it’s to set him on fire.”

A grim weight settled on my shoulders. “Depending on how things turn out on the border,” I said, “that could be arranged.”

Zaira and I met Venasha and Foss the next morning in the public gardens opposite the River Palace. Marcello had promised to join us there after riding down from the garrison.

Sunshine set the gardens to glowing. The sky shone heartbreakingly blue, and the wind moved dappled patterns of shade across the winding paths Venasha and I walked, side by side, between careful arrangements of statues, flowers, and fountains. Foss ranged both ahead and behind, chasing after little Aleki wherever his stumpy two-year-old legs took him. The boy’s curls bobbed up and down as he ran, with Zaira at his side half the time, laughing and trying to teach him tricks as if he were a dog.

“So what do you think of the Situation?” I asked Venasha. “Is everyone in Ardence truly ready to rebel against the Empire, after all these years?”

“Graces, no.” Venasha waved a bug away from her face. “People grumble about it, but no worse than usual, despite all the Shadow Gentry’s efforts to rile us up. It’s only the Council of Lords and the nobles of the court who are so serious, because of the children.” She cast a worried glance toward her son. “I can’t entirely blame them. I’d be ready to chew down the River Palace if anything happened to Aleki.”

It all came down to the children. “Who do you think took them?”

She cocked her head. “Well, it must have been someone who knows the city, to make them disappear without a trace despite everyone searching for them. Someone with a lot of resources and connections, to create such a convincing deception with the false Falconers. I have to admit, I assumed Raverra was playing games, first claiming to have them and then not, until you told me otherwise.”