“You will require at least some training,” he said. “We can’t have you accidentally saying the release word and burning down the Mews.”

Release word? Now I was afraid to say anything at all. The doge saw it, and laughed again.

“Report to the Mews at your convenience tomorrow morning, and we will make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Your Serenity, with due respect, I cannot move into the Mews.”

“Perhaps you cannot. But you can pay a brief visit there, to receive some simple training.”

That seemed reasonable enough. “Yes, Your Serenity.”

“Until we meet again, Amalia Cornaro.”

I stood alone in the grand salon as they escorted the doge to his boat with proper honor and pleasantries. My legs trembled as if I’d ridden twenty miles.

Before he’d been gone long enough for me to consider sitting down, my mother glided into the room.

“That will do,” she told me without preamble. “You didn’t lose us any ground, and that’s what matters.”

“You were listening? You eavesdropped on our conversation!”

“My dear child, of course I listened. Your great-grandfather didn’t go to all the trouble of building secret spying chambers into this palace so his heirs could respect the privacy of others. Now, we need to determine our next move.”

Our next move. My mother had never included me in her machinations. I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or afraid. Probably afraid.

“Mamma … What about the Falcon?”

“It shouldn’t compromise our control over the Falcon for you to take some lessons at the Mews. Just don’t let them order you about or give you a military rank.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I struggled to put into words a worry that had been growing in my mind like a gnawing caterpillar. “No matter what happens, this girl and I are linked for the rest of our lives. She can’t leave the Mews without me.”

“True,” my mother agreed. “It’s an awkward situation.”

“If she doesn’t like me, it could be very awkward.”

“Then,” she said, “make her like you.”

Make her like you. For my mother, no doubt it was that easy. But I was not, as I had proven on numerous occasions, my mother.

To be sure, most people I knew acted as if they liked me. The Cornaro name drew throngs of admirers at each genteel party my mother pulled me from my books to attend. But even with my scholar friends from the Imperial Library or the University of Raverra, there was a certain unctuous note to their smiles as we bent over books together, an oil of flattery and fear lubricating their words. I’d had to travel to Ardence, where not everyone realized I was that Amalia Cornaro, before anyone would point out flaws in my artifice designs or argue with me over the causes of the Three Years’ War.