I didn’t know how to tell if someone liked me, let alone encourage them to do so if they were not already thus inclined.

La Contessa often brought a gift the first time she paid someone a visit. I’d lay a wager the ragged, starving-thin girl from the Tallows hadn’t gotten many presents in her life. So on my way to the Mews, my valiant oarsman battled the morning market traffic to secure me a spot to disembark and visit a jewelry booth. I bought the first trinket that caught my attention, a pretty amber necklace. A bespectacled woman wrapped it in silk for me with careful fingers.

Back in my golden-prowed boat, I wondered what she was like, this woman I was bound to for the rest of my life. Spirited, certainly. Clever, perhaps, to have hidden the mage mark for so long. The sort of person I’d want as a friend, if I hadn’t destroyed all chance of that the minute I slid the jess onto her wrist.

The sort of friend my mother would never approve, if she weren’t a Falcon.

My boat escaped the exuberantly congested Imperial Canal and navigated the short distance across the green waters of the lagoon to Raptor’s Isle, nudging up against the visitors’ dock between rows of sleek military cutters. The gray walls of the Mews loomed above, forbidding despite delicate stonework and pointed arches. Protective artifice runes ringed every door and window, sealing them against assassins and arrows. Armed guards with muskets and sabers watched me. No one came forward to hand me out of the boat. Thank goodness I’d worn boots and breeches again today, though the embroidered brocade bore as little resemblance to what I’d worn in the Tallows as a peacock’s plumage did to a sparrow’s.

Just as I started to become uncomfortable under the assessing stare of the guards, the bronze doors flew open. Lieutenant Verdi strode out to meet me, a relieved smile on his face.

I stared. A black eye shone gloriously purple from beneath his wavy bangs.

“Lady Amalia Cornaro.” He bowed. The guards, hearing my name, stood straighter. “I’m so glad you came.”

He did sound glad. Too glad, with an edge of desperation. “Is something amiss?”

Verdi grimaced. “Come in, my lady, and I’ll explain.”

I had never been inside the Mews before, though I’d seen its fortresslike walls and irregular scattering of towers across the water all my life. I’d always imagined it to be a moody, brooding place full of mad sorcerers, and was disappointed when Verdi led me through the outer fortifications into a lovely garden.