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“You have?” Fern raised both eyebrows in surprise, then smiled. “I’m afraid I’ve not written many.”

Josefa nodded enthusiastically. “Only three, to be precise, and I referenced them all in a paper of my own based on your research.”

“You did?”

Perhaps it was the warmth of the room, or the excitement of drinking and dancing after the stress and pressure of the assignment, or perhaps it was simply the joy of her work being appreciated, but Fern’s cheeks were flushed with heat.

“Yes,” Josefa said proudly. “Modern Alchemy and its Debt to Sumbra.”

“I’ll have to make sure I read it as soon as I can.”

“You should do no such thing,” said Josefa, shaking her head with a sigh of a laugh. “After today’s assignment, I’m sure you will not wish to hear so much as the mentionof Alchemy ever again.”

Fern laughed. “A third cup of champagne and I won’t remember even the first of the symbols I drew today.”

Fern danced twice withJosefa, once with Edmund Ferrow, once with his sister, and once with Ravi Srivastav, but she only realised that she’d had a little more to drink than she’d ought to when Josefa bid her goodnight and her figure swayed as it walked away.

Fern, standing by the table of canapes she had barely touched, blinked as she watched the historian disappear up the stairs. No, Josefa wasn’t swaying—Fern was tipsy.

Time to follow Josefa’s suit and go to bed.

But before she could follow her, a figure appeared in front of her, too close to sway. Fern blinked, and wished idly that there was a plate of marzipan truffles she could nibble on, and looked up into a pale face strewn with freckles and pretty brown eyes.

“How can I help you, Mr Lautric?”

Like her, he wore the same clothing as he had during the assignment: the black trousers and azure wool. The bruise Baudet had marked his cheek with had faded from his face surprisingly fast, and his hair had grown since she had first met him outside the Carthane gates. Now, the black strands curled lushly against his forehead and around the shell of his ears.

He looked, Fern thought, as exhausted as she felt, though her tiredness was something she envisioned as something sharp and bothersome, and his manifested as something dreamy and soft.

He responded to her abrupt question by raising his hand. “I hoped you might grant me the honour of a dance.”

Fern hesitated. She glanced at his fingers, which were long and stained with ink.

She said, “I’m a poor dancer.”

His smile was amused. “Yes. So am I.”

Remembering what she had witnessed, Fern tried to appeal to Lautric’s preference. She pointed to the beautiful Vittoria Orsini, who was sitting on a couch with Dr Essouadi with her head resting on a cushion.

“Miss Orsini is a fine dancer, I’m sure she would be delighted to dance with you.”

“But Raphaël won’t stare daggers into my back if I dance withyou.”

Fern suppressed a sigh and placed her hand in his fingers. “Very well, Mr Lautric.”

He rested his other hand on her back, his thumb pressed in the dip of her spine, and whirled her lowly onto the star-adorned floor.

“Please,” he said. “Call me Léo.”

With more belligerence than she might have customarily allowed herself to display, Fern said, “I don’t think I will.”

He fixed her with a placid look, which felt frustratingly calm in the face of her open hostility.

“How did you fare in the assignment?” he asked. “Well, I hope?”

“Like everybody else today, I did my very best.” Fern leaned forward. “I should think you would be hoping for your rivals’ failure, not their success?”

Lautric smiled slightly. His eyes, limpid brown and long-lashed, crinkled with the movement.