“I don’t want to betray them! I want to find out who’s manipulating them.”

Zaira’s eyes narrowed. “By spying on them yourself?”

“Zaira, do you understand what will happen if we can’t figure out who took those children?” I slammed my fist into my palm. “Ardence will burn, and it will be our fault!”

“No, it won’t.” Zaira smiled. “Because for Ardence to burn, you and I both must agree to do it. And we won’t. Will we?”

Despair clogged my throat. The smile faded from Zaira’s face as she stared into my eyes.

“You would,” she whispered. “You would do it, wouldn’t you.”

“I don’t know,” I said miserably. “Zaira, I’m a loyal daughter of the Serene City. If the doge and the Council of Nine give me an order …”

Her face twisted in anger and contempt. “You’re a damned coward.”

“It’s not that simple!”

Zaira stripped off her glove and threw it down at my feet. She brandished a fist, the jess shining on her wrist. “I wear this, and I still make my own choices, for Graces’ sake. You do, too. If you’re going to burn a city, take responsibility and burn it. Don’t give me that milky piss about doing what your mamma says.”

“Zaira—”

“No. Don’t say another word. I can’t even stand to look at you anymore.”

She turned on her heel and strode off, skirts swishing.

I bent to pick up her glove, taking a deep breath to hold in my anger. Who did she think she was, to speak to me like that?

It was easy for her to say she wouldn’t do it, but she’d been willing enough to burn Raverra when threatened. Zaira was a survivor. She might not like it, but I suspected she’d loose her balefire on Ardence if her life depended on it. And if the doge commanded, it did.

I straightened, holding the glove, words marshaled on my tongue, but Zaira was gone. The fading echoes of her fashionably blocky heels disappeared down a side street that led in a different direction than we’d been heading.

Hell of Despair. Some Falconer I was.

I hurried after her, and at once came to a cross street. I peered down each way, but neither saw nor heard her. A whiff of garlic and wine beckoned down one street, and faint music down another; the third lay dark and silent. I hesitated, then followed my nose. Zaira was always hungry.

I passed a pair of drunken merchants heading home, singing a duet, and a rather disreputable-looking cat. I tracked the wine and garlic to a town house that still had a few candles burning, but there was no sign of Zaira. There were plenty of cross streets she could have taken, though.