A great deal of trouble. The words lingered like the scent of smoke on my coat as I climbed the marble stairs to my mother’s study. My hand throbbed on the cool banister. Dark oil portraits of great Cornaros of the past watched me from the walls, with my mother’s shrewd eyes.

I tucked my book behind a silver urn in the hallway, to give myself a better chance of glossing over exactly where I’d been. I considered going to my room to change, but La Contessa placed more value on timely information than on appropriate dress. I had no excuse to put this conversation off.

Still, I stood for a few minutes outside her study door. I stared at the gilt-carved doorframe, picking out the same familiar shapes I’d found as a child, while I practiced my opening line under my breath.

Finally, I knocked.

“Enter,” she commanded from within.

I opened the door. Warm sunlight caught on the baroque moldings and bright frescoes of my mother’s study. A huge map of the Serene Empire of Raverra hung on one wall, and a bookcase ran up the full fifteen feet to the ceiling on another.

My mother sat at her writing desk, her back to me, quill moving as she worked. I loved that writing desk. It was full of secret drawers and cubbies, and my mother had asked me to help her test it when I was a child, offering me sweets for each hidden compartment I could find. Her auburn hair cascaded artfully over rich emerald-velvet shoulders. When the doge himself might call for her at any time, or the Council of Nine convene for an emergency meeting, La Contessa believed in always looking her best.

I cleared my throat. “I saved Raverra from burning today.”

“That would explain why you smell like an unswept chimney.” She kept writing, without a glance in my direction.

“Yes.” I shuffled my soot-stained boots. “There was an out-of-control fire warlock, and I … I helped. A Falconer gave me a jess, and I got it on her.”

The scratching of the quill stopped. My mother turned, slowly. She wore her business face, beautiful and unreadable, with penetrating eyes.

“You put a jess on a rogue warlock.” Her voice was flat as a slab of marble.

“Yes.” My mouth stretched, from sheer nerves. I shouldn’t smile; I twisted it to a grimace instead. “It, ah, seems it won’t come off.”

The moment lengthened. My mother didn’t move. Finally, the pen in her hand twitched, the feather quivering, as if she stuck a decisive period at the end of her thoughts.

“I knew you’d gone shopping in the Tallows,” she said. “I didn’t realize you brought me back a Falcon.”

She already knew where I’d been. Of course.