Zaira flung herself down in a chair at last, as far from us as possible, with an attitude of exhaustion. “No one. It doesn’t matter. Grace of Mercy’s tits, can we skip my life story? Once there was a girl named Zaira, who lived just fine in the Tallows until some stuck-up morons shut her up in the Mews and bored her to death. The end.”

“All right.” Marcello sighed. “There are more questions I’m supposed to ask you, but we can move on to training instead.”

Zaira straightened, her eyes glittering. “Oh? You’ll have to loose my fire, if you want me to practice using it.”

I glanced at Marcello. That sounded like a terrible idea, especially when she said it so eagerly.

He leaned on his elbows, meeting Zaira’s gaze. “Before we get to any practical training, we have to first build a partnership between you and your Falconer.”

“Partnership,” she said flatly. “Is that what you call it?”

“An equal partnership,” Marcello affirmed. “Your Falconer can’t give you orders. Only your superior officers can do that. Some of whom, I will point out, are Falcons.”

“Oh, so I suppose they can just order their Falconers to come with them whenever they want to leave the Mews?” Zaira raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“They don’t need to order anyone. They can just leave when they want, and their Falconers accompany them. Because they trust each other.” Marcello put his hand over his heart, straining forward as if he could will Zaira to relent and believe him. “The first thing a Falcon and Falconer must learn—the first and most important—is trust. That is the foundation on which any partnership stands. Without it, we can’t move on.”

Zaira’s lip curled. “I suppose now you’ll expect me to sit here and listen to a lecture on how you can’t count on a Tallows brat like me.”

Marcello’s brows dug a groove between them, and for a moment I thought he’d argue with her. But he shook his head. “No. I’m saying I can’t expect you to trust someone who brought you here by force. Not yet. We have to earn your trust. By the time we’ve done that, we’ll already know we can rely on you as well.”

“Well, you’re out of luck, then. Because I don’t trust anyone.” Zaira stood and turned her back on us, staring out the window at the sea.

“You could learn,” I said.

“This lesson is over.” Her voice was flat and hard as a dagger blade. “If you want trust, go buy it in the market with your mountain of gold, rich brat. Mine isn’t for sale.”

Out in the hall, Marcello slumped against the wall like a sail when the wind dies. “She’s impossible. I don’t know what to do.”