Ruven leaned closer to me, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Be aware, though: when a Witch Lord chooses an enemy, they use every advantage at their disposal to defeat them. They leave no weak spot unexploited, no vulnerability untargeted. Even if they are also friends.” He beamed, as if this were a lovely and endearing custom, like putting flower crowns on small girls at the May festival. “I look forward to becoming your most cordial opponent, Lady Amalia.”

He bowed with a flourish and departed the library. He left his book open on the table behind him, the great, complicated eye of the artifice circle staring up at me like a challenge.

“I’d bet anything Prince Ruven stole your book,” I told Domenic.

Venasha and I had found Domenic attempting to escape a meeting of the Council of Lords and had pulled him into a back room of the Ducal Library to discuss Ruven’s reading habits. He slouched against the wall, between a stack of bookbinding-supply crates and a shelf full of manuscripts in various stages of repair.

“That bastard.”

Venasha hopped up to sit on a worktable. “I remember the volcano chapter of Interactions of Magic. It didn’t make much sense. Kept referring back to concepts in the first volume without explaining them, and frankly, the artifice design seemed dubious to me.”

“It might make more sense if you had volume one,” Domenic said darkly.

I turned to Venasha. “Hide that book. Don’t let him find it again.”

She nodded vigorously. “I can shelve it in the wrong place. Behind something else. In the erotic-poetry section.”

“Perfect.”

“I never did like that man.” Domenic picked at a loose splinter on the edge of a crate. “No matter how much Gabril insists he’s brilliant and can save Ardence. My brother has terrible judgment sometimes.”

Gabril. With a pang, I remembered his name on Lady Savony’s list of suspects. “Domenic, exactly how bad is Gabril’s judgment?”

Domenic blinked. “Well, he once wore a Loreician periwig with a Vaskandran-style robe …”

Venasha winced. “That’s pretty bad.”

“No, I mean, could he have been involved in the Falconer ambush yesterday? Not that I think he would do something like that,” I quickly added, “but the attackers were wearing Shadow Gentry masks and cloaks.”

Domenic sighed and threw his splinter on the floor. “Gabril says the Shadow Gentry didn’t do it. I asked him as soon as I heard about it. But in all honesty, it could have been a few of the Shadow Gentry acting on their own. Some of them have stooped to such levels in the past, assaulting Raverran merchants and the like. Gabril doesn’t know about everything they do.”

Venasha hugged herself, worry pinching her face. “I heard the Falconers came to bring in a new Falcon, and the Shadow Gentry fought them off to keep them from taking the child.”