Chapter Three

The Vaskandran woman rose to her feet, drawing a second dagger to pair with the first.

“Lady Amalia Cornaro.” Her eyes met mine with the readiness of a cat preparing to spring. “How convenient.”

My pulse jolted, and I grabbed my flare locket. But at that moment, Zaira burst into the room.

Istrella’s attacker cursed and bolted for the window in a swirl of dark coat and blond braid.

I didn’t care. I threw myself down by Istrella and laid a hand on her neck. Warm and alive, with life pulsing and breath flowing. Dizzy relief washed through me.

Zaira bounded to the window, knife in hand. She threw back the curtains and leaned out into the night air. “Demons take you, coward!”

An oarsman called back something rude from the canal below.

“Can you still see her?” I asked, my chest tight. “Should I release you?”

“No.” Zaira spat on Lady Aurica’s rug. “She’s gone.”

Marcello arrived at the door, pistol out, and emitted a strangled cry, his eyes locked on his sister.

“She’s fine,” I assured him quickly. “Just knocked out with some sleep potion.” I chose not to mention that I’d heard this was common practice among assassins who didn’t want their targets’ screams to give them away.

He came and cradled her head off the floor. “I should have gone with her.”

“Into the ladies’ dressing room?” I clasped his shoulder; his muscles were rigid under my hand. “She’s all right. Nothing happened.”

But it would have, in another minute. She might have been dead as poor Anthon, a week in the water. A shudder traveled down my spine.

I had no doubt Marcello was thinking the same thing. I’d never seen him so pale. He shook his sister gently. “Come on, ’Strella, wake up,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

A thin trail of drool trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t stir.

I crouched down beside him, then hesitated. What was the appropriate thing to do to comfort an upset friend, when that friend was someone you’d kissed but declined to court? The space between us had once been charged with forbidden possibility; now any attempt to navigate those few inches presented a maze of complications.

I settled for patting his shoulder. “She’ll wake up soon. She’s all right. You’re taking care of her.”

He nodded, his lips thinning to a determined line. “Do you know who did it?”

“Vaskandar. And there’s more.” I uncrumpled the list I still clutched and spread it out on a nearby vanity. The plain, clear pen strokes spelled out name after name, some of them more than a little familiar.

Jerith Antelles. Terika. Istrella Verdi …

I swallowed. “You’re on here, Zaira.”

She crossed from the window to see. “What? Where?”

I pointed to her name. She couldn’t read yet, but Terika had been teaching her letters and a few words, so I was reasonably certain she’d recognize it.

Zaira frowned. “Is that Terika’s name, higher up?”

“Ah, yes.”

She swore. “Nobody threatens Terika. I’ll burn them till their teeth melt. Who else?”

“High-value Falcons. All the warlocks are here, and the Master Artificer. Marcello, you should check to make sure these people are well and accounted for.”

“As soon as we get safely back to the Mews,” he promised, a grim edge to his voice.

I scanned down the list, recognizing Falcon after Falcon, to the last name. My eyes stopped as if they’d hit a brick wall.

Amalia Cornaro.

Zaira must have seen something in my face. “What is it?” she demanded.

“I’ll tell you later.” I kept my tone as light as I could, despite the alarm singing its piercing song in my veins, and glanced meaningfully at Marcello. He didn’t need more to worry about quite yet. Zaira grunted acknowledgment.

I folded the paper up and stuffed it in my pocket. “How’s Istrella?” I asked Marcello. “Any improvement?”

He didn’t lift his eyes from her face. “Maybe a flutter. She’s still asleep. Whoever crafted this potion had some power.”

“You stay with her, then.” I straightened my jacket and checked the flare locket hanging at my throat. “I need to have a little talk with the Vaskandran ambassador.”

Zaira and I stormed out of the dressing room, past our uneaten seafood bisque, between tables of diners craning their necks to see what all the fuss was about, and straight up to the ambassador’s table. He faltered in the middle of telling his companions some anecdote as he saw us coming; the grins slid off their faces, and they inched their chairs back from him.

Good. Let him be afraid.

He attempted a strained smile and half rose. “Lady Amalia Cornaro! What a pleasure.”

I leveled a hard stare at him. “Ambassador, we need to talk.”

His features stilled to a wary blankness. Then his shoulders slumped, and he let out a long sigh.

“Very well, very well. Come, Lady Amalia; let us have this discussion in private.”

I closed the door to the side room myself, to make sure he didn’t slip an artifice seal on it. Ambassador Varnir bowed us toward the chairs, bending nearly in half.

“Please, my ladies. Make yourselves comfortable.”

I put my hands on my hips. “I think I’ll stand. What is the meaning of this assault on Istrella Verdi?”

“Why, I have no idea what you mean.”

“Don’t spout bilge at us,” Zaira snapped. “We know you were chatting up that ice-eyed bitch in this room right before she attacked.”

He grimaced. “Ah, that assault. Such a terrible thing. It failed, I hope? Yes?”

“If it hadn’t, you’d be on fire now,” Zaira growled.

“Of course.” He swallowed. “I believe Lady Aurica keeps a bottle in here. Do you mind if I …? Would you like some?” He turned toward a decorative cabinet and rummaged in it, coming out with a bottle and three glasses. His bald spot gleamed with sweat.

“Ambassador Varnir,” I chided, “you’re stalling for time.”

“Of course I am, Lady Amalia. As would any gentleman contemplating how best to keep his head on his shoulders.” He poured himself a glass of red wine, took a long draft, and then filled it again. “I did not endorse any action against your Falcon friend. In fact, I opposed it most vigorously. But you must understand, I have no power over what a Witch Lord sends her own agent to do.”

“So you admit Vaskandar has stooped to assassinating Falcons.”

“Vaskandar? Oh, no, not at all.” He passed me a trembling glass of wine. I took it, pressing it against a certain ring wrapped in wire and graven with artifice runes; the ring stayed cool on my finger, and its central stone remained dark. No alchemy present, but that said nothing about mundane poison.

“Don’t lie to me,” I said sharply. “I know that assassin was sent by the Lady of Thorns.”

“Ah.” Varnir wiped sweat from his brow. “Such a bold accusation! I wouldn’t dream of saying yea or nay to it. However, if you think the action of one Witch Lord represents Vaskandar as a nation, I fear you’ve fallen prey to a common misunderstanding about my country.”

“I’m aware that the Witch Lords are each separate sovereign rulers of their own domains,” I said icily. “You don’t need to school me in the basics of Vaskandran government.”

“Then perhaps you realize,” Varnir said, “that every action you ascribe to our country—from the unfortunate and ill-advised attack on your friend, to trade deals, to the troops gathering on your border—is in fact the doing of one particular Witch Lord or another. Or a cabal of them, sometimes. But you cannot ascribe credit or blame to Vaskandar as a whole—or, thus, to its ambassador, I hope.” He laughed nervously.

I frowned. “Wait, even the troops on the border? Are you telling me that’s a single Witch Lord’s gambit, and Vaskandar isn’t preparing for war with the Empire?”

“Oh, my lady, as to that, I couldn’t possibly say.”

Zaira pushed back her lace-trimmed sleeves. “Say the word, and I’ll light him up.”

He raised his hands, wine sloshing out of his glass, eyes wide. “No, please! I’m not trying to be coy! I couldn’t say because they haven’t held the Conclave yet.”

I exchanged glances with Zaira. “Conclave? Isn’t that the Vaskandran ruling council?”

“No, no.” Varnir pushed the idea away with both hands. “You Raverrans always want it to be like your Council of Nine, but Vaskandar has no ruling council. No one stands above the Witch Lords; their rule over their own domains is absolute. But when they need to resolve disagreements or band together for a common cause—such as war against the Serene Empire, for instance—the Witch Lords call a Conclave. Nothing will be decided until it takes place, about a month from now.”

I set down my glass lest I squeeze it too hard. “So this Conclave might decide not to invade us at all?”

“Oh, no, no, no.” He laughed politely, as if I’d made a dull joke. “There are a sufficient number of Witch Lords set on a course of conflict to render it inevitable, I fear, as I have tried to advise your doge. There are others who have asked me to assure Raverra of their commitment to peace; but each Witch Lord controls their own army. Those who wish war require no additional backing.” He smiled indulgently. “You Raverrans seem to enjoy your certainty that Vaskandar cannot threaten you, but your Empire has never faced all seventeen of our Witch Lords at once. What you call the Three Years’ War, that took place fifty years ago? That was three Witch Lords attacking on their own, with no support from the other fourteen.”

A delicate chill tiptoed between my shoulder blades. Raverra had definitively won the Three Years’ War, but it had wreaked devastation on the border lands that had lasted for decades. “And how many are bent on war now?”

Ambassador Varnir raised his eyebrows. “The Witch Lords do not include me in their councils, my lady. They merely each convey their will to me, and I do my best to fulfill their commands and negotiate their agreements without incurring anyone’s ire.”

“That’s a rat’s ass of a job,” Zaira observed. “But don’t expect mercy from us. One of your people just tried to kill our friend.”

“Terrible idea, that. But I had no part in it.”

“I can tell you were shaken up about it,” Zaira said. “Fumbled that joke you were telling your friends. Barely had appetite for your soup. Forgot to warn us, even.”

“I couldn’t.” He licked his lips. “Some of my masters are more reasonable than others. The Lady of Thorns would have me dragged back to her domain and impaled on a briar tree if I interfered directly with her plans.”

I remembered where I’d heard of the Lady of Thorns, now. My paternal cousins in Callamorne, a client state of the Serene Empire, which bordered her domain, had kept me up staring sleeplessly into the darkness as a child with their grisly stories about what happened to children who strayed into her forests. I’d pulled the quilt of their guest bed up over my head and told myself that the Lady of Thorns wasn’t real. But Ambassador Varnir apparently took orders from this creature of my childhood nightmares.

“Then I suggest some indirect interference now, if you wish to avoid being sent home in disgrace.” I kept my tone reasonable, and refilled his glass for him. “Why would the Lady of Thorns target a fourteen-year-old artificer?” Istrella was an uncommonly strong artificer—one of the Master Artificer’s rare apprentices, in fact, and one of only a handful who could craft the Empire’s most powerful weapons—and her brother was now second in command at the Mews. But Vaskandar shouldn’t know all that.

Ambassador Varnir accepted the glass gladly enough but shook his head. “I don’t know. The Witch Lords don’t confide their plans in me, my lady. I am what you would call a vivomancer, but I do not bear the mage mark; as such, they consider me beneath them. And I’ve found that a professional lack of curiosity into the affairs of the Witch Lords is a vital quality for a man in my position.”

“You’re lucky your position isn’t in the dungeon,” Zaira growled.

“My ladies, please. I have no power to stop the Lady of Thorns from carrying out her plans.” He spread his hands. “I’ve given you all the information I can. That is the preferred currency in Raverra, yes? Was it not enough to buy me some consideration?”

“Enough that I’ll permit you to walk out of here alive and free.” That had as much to do with my urge to get back to Marcello and make sure Istrella was all right as any sense of gratitude, but let him think what he would. “The rest is for my mother to decide.”

The ambassador paled. “La Contessa,” he breathed. He groped for the wine. “Perhaps I’d better finish the bottle.”

“Ambassador Varnir is a man with a great deal to lose,” my mother told me the following evening, over a plate of buttery pauldronfish polenta. “It’s making him both eager to cooperate with us and terrified to do so effectively.”

Dinner with my mother had once been an uncommon occasion. She often stayed at the Imperial Palace late, coming home past midnight to find the artful meal our chef had prepared for her cold on the dining table under a silver cover. Or she’d eat while hosting some assorted handful of the most powerful people in the Serene Empire, making life-and-death decisions between bites of crab risotto or roast pheasant stuffed with mushrooms and herbs. Since I’d taken on more responsibility as her heir after last autumn’s incident in Ardence, however, La Contessa had made dinner our near-daily information and strategy meeting, though it sometimes meant I had to eat at strange hours or join her at the Imperial Palace.

“So has he given you any useful information?” I tried to make my question casual, as if I didn’t care what my mother thought of how I’d handled him.

“Some.” She sipped her wine. “I am curious as to why you chose not to inform Lord Caulin that you had identified a Vaskandran assassin at the dinner party.”

I supposed it had been too much to hope that she could have simply said, Yes, you did well.

“I didn’t want to betray his identity to Marcello and Zaira. It wouldn’t make any sense to bring in the doge’s legal adviser.” I hadn’t actually thought of that until after the party, but there was no need to mention that. “Besides,” I added, with more honesty, “I remembered what you said, about people tending to turn up dead when Lord Caulin involves himself in a matter.”

“That’s true.” My mother set her glass down and regarded me across the table. “And in this case, I don’t fault you for leaving him out of it. But you can’t avoid getting blood on your hands, Amalia. Not once you join the Council of Nine.”

“I know.” I dropped my eyes to my plate so she wouldn’t see my instinctive rejection of the idea. “I’d just like to put it off until it’s necessary.”

“Hmm. Well, Ambassador Varnir has at least agreed to set up meetings with some influential Vaskandrans who might be swayed against war during the Festival of Beauty next week.” She sighed. “I’ll take it. We don’t get much intelligence out of Vaskandar.”

I swallowed a bite of polenta. “Why not? I know we trade with them.”

“And I assure you that a full third of Raverran merchants in Vaskandar are spies,” La Contessa said. “But the Witch Lords have little use for those without magic, save as serfs toiling in their fields. Our people can’t get close to the centers of power.”

“What about actual Vaskandrans who are already in place? Can’t you bribe existing servants for information, put pressure on nobles and advisers, that sort of thing?”

“You’re learning.” My mother lifted her glass to me. I fiddled with my fork to try to hide my flush of irrational pride. “But few fish in the Vaskandran pond will rise to such bait. Everyone is too afraid of the Witch Lords. Their power is absolute, and their whims are capricious and frequently cruel.”

I remembered Ruven using his vivomancy to push a knife through his own guard’s wrist as if it were butter, while the man stood paralyzed and silently screaming, and shivered. I could understand why Vaskandran servants wouldn’t dare risk the wrath of their mage-marked masters.

I speared a piece of pauldronfish, thinking. “This upcoming Conclave Varnir mentioned …”

“I’ve been trying to get a spy into a Conclave since before you were born.” My mother ran a finger along the edge of her glass. “What they decide there could determine whether this war lasts three weeks or three decades, and whether a hundred people die or a hundred thousand. We need to use every Vaskandran connection we have to influence its outcome.”

Her voice had sharpened slightly on the word every. I lowered my fork.

“Surely you don’t mean Prince Ruven.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “He did give you a standing invitation to visit him.”

“During our last interaction, we threatened each other with death,” I pointed out.

“Nonetheless, he seems to hold you in high regard.” My mother’s mouth quirked. “I’m not saying you should drop in on him for tea. But your association is a card you have in hand; whether you play it or not, it must factor into your strategy for the game.”

“Fair enough.” I had no desire to come near Ruven again, with his razor-edged smiles and magic that could melt bones or stop hearts with a touch. But that was doubtless no excuse, in my mother’s eyes. If the good of the Empire required me to dance with him at the doge’s birthday gala, she would expect me to pick out a dress that would look fashionable with long gloves and practice my minuet.

“Especially,” my mother added, her eyes narrowing, “because Prince Ruven and his father, the Wolf Lord, appear to be the primary allies of the Lady of Thorns.”

I nearly sprayed my mouthful of wine across the table. “What?!”

“The Wolf Lord and the Lady of Thorns rule neighboring domains. Their relations were uneasy back when I was courting your father, near their borders.” She mentioned their famous courtship as casually as if he had been a country farmer rather than a prince, and their marriage a mere personal milestone instead of a historical event that brought the nation of Callamorne into the Serene Empire as a client state. “But in the past few years, thanks to your old friend Ruven’s efforts, the two Witch Lords appear to be working together quite closely.”

I stabbed my polenta with needless vigor. “If that snake is involved in this scheme, we’d best unravel it quickly.”

He’d made more than one reference, when our paths had crossed last month, to not being ready for war with the Empire—yet. Perhaps after the Conclave, he would be.

“Indeed,” my mother agreed. “And thus, caution in your dealings with him, for certain. Especially with your name on the list his closest ally gave her assassin.”

I felt my way into a question that had been bothering me. “Mamma, every other person on that list is a Falcon.” No other Falconers. No political or military targets. Just twenty or so carefully chosen mage-marked, and me. “I don’t fit. Why is my name on there?”

For three ticks of the mantel clock, four, five, she said nothing. Old Anzo came and cleared away our dishes, then brought out a main course of tender beef medallions in blue cheese and tartgrass sauce, a dish my mother had developed a taste for during her time in Callamorne. Our plates sat gleaming and untouched between us, and still she stared at me, her expression gone pensive and brooding.

“Mamma?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “And I don’t like that at all.”