Jerith relaxed into Balos’s chest, bringing a hand up to meet his. “Not as cruel as what she’ll do if she won’t listen. She’s tough. She’ll get over it.”

That evening, I couldn’t chase worries about Ardence and the missing children out of my head to focus on my luminary-coil design. I leaned over my desk, the Muscati book vying for space with loose pages of notes and my elixir bottle. The strains of a trio sonata issued from a symphonic shell on my shelf, similar to the one I’d seen at the pawnbroker’s, but tonight the music failed to help me focus as it usually did. My formulae blurred like faulty courier-lamp glass.

I leaned back and rubbed my forehead. There was no sense in fretting. The whole incident was staged—a lie. Once Lady Terringer explained the truth, surely the Ardentine nobles would calm down and see that cooperation with the Empire was the fastest way to find out who had really taken their children. And with my mother pressuring Baron Leodra to keep his mouth shut, there was no reason to expect anyone on the Raverran end to push for an unduly severe response to Ardence’s misplaced demands. Someone had tried an audacious gambit to set Ardence against the Empire, but truth would prevail.

If Duke Astor listened to Lady Terringer. If the anxious parents were willing to take her word over the evidence of their own eyes and the supposed imperial seal. If the Shadow Gentry didn’t do something foolish to cross a line the doge couldn’t ignore.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and a knock came at my door.

“Lady Amalia?” Old Anzo’s voice called.

“Yes?”

“A Lieutenant Verdi is here to see you, my lady. He says it’s quite urgent.”

That couldn’t be good. The facades of the town houses across the Imperial Canal lay in shadow; soon night would fall, and the luminaries would kindle. Whatever brought him here at this hour was likely an emergency.

I rose from my half-finished calculations. “Tell him I’ll be right down.”

Marcello paced in the foyer, which meant he must have refused Ciardha’s relentless hospitality. The half cape of his uniform swished behind him, and his rapier and flintlock gleamed at his hips. If the hour were less urgent, I might have paused to admire the effect.

“Zaira’s gone,” he said before I could greet him.

My hand went to my falcon’s-head brooch. “Gone? You mean she ran away? How?”

“It’s my fault. She locked herself in her room after Jerith pushed her so hard this morning. I hoped to earn her trust, so I called off the guards I had watching her.” He punched his own thigh. “I should have known better. I thought the Mews walls and wards would be enough, but they’re meant to keep enemies out, not to keep Falcons in.”