I tucked the book into my satchel and hurried out of the musty shop, almost skipping with excitement. I couldn’t wait to get home, retreat to my bedroom with a glass of wine, and dive into Muscati’s timeworn pages. My friend Domenic from the University of Ardence said that to read Muscati was to open a window on a new view of the universe as a mathematical equation to be solved.

Of course, he’d only read excerpts. The university library didn’t have an actual Muscati. I’d have to get Domenic here to visit so I could show him. Maybe I’d give the book to the university when I was done with it.

It was hard to make myself focus on picking turns in the mazelike streets rather than dreaming about runic alphabets, geometric diagrams, and coiling wirework. At least I was headed in the right general direction. One more bridge to cross, and then I’d be in polite, patrician territory, safe and sound; and no lecture of my mother’s could change the fact that I’d completed my errand without incident.

But a tense group of figures stood in the tiny plaza before the bridge, frozen in a standoff, every line of their bodies promising each other violence.

Like so many things in Raverra, this had become complicated.

Three broad-shouldered men formed a menacing arc around a scrawny young woman with sprawling dark curls. The girl stood rigidly defiant, like a stick thrust in the mud. I slowed to a halt, clutching my satchel tight against my side, Muscati’s edge digging into my ribs.

“One last chance.” A burly man in shirtsleeves advanced on the girl, fists like cannonballs ready at his sides. “Come nice and quiet to your master, or we’ll break your legs and drag you to him in a sack.”

“I’m my own master,” the girl retorted, her voice blunt as a boat hook. “And you can tell Orthys to take his indenture contract and stuff it up his bunghole.”

They hadn’t noticed me yet. I could work my way around to the next bridge, and get my book safely home. I took a step back, glancing around for someone to put a stop to this: an officer of the watch, a soldier, anyone but me.

There was no one. The street lay deserted. Everyone else in the Tallows knew enough to make themselves scarce.

“Have it your way,” the man growled. The ruffians closed in on their prey.

This was exactly the sort of situation in which a young lady of the august and noble house of Cornaro should not involve herself, and in which a person of any moral fortitude must.

Maybe I could startle them, like stray dogs. “You there! Stop!”

They turned to face me, their stares cold and flat. The air went dry in my throat.