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Predictably, the scholars of the Tower arrived at the worst possible time.

“They are late,” said Sir Justenin as Lady Verr executed hasty improvements to Ophele’s costume, tying jeweled ribbons at her sleeves and throat and plopping a lace-trimmed cap on her head. “They were supposed to arrive earlier this month, before His Grace departed, and if they are expecting devils now, we will disappoint them. But we cannot rebuke them. All protests to the contrary, we need the Tower of Scholars, my lady. We need more healers, engineers, naturalists, alchemists. It took a year just to find a tutor for the pages.”

“Will we receive them, sir knight?” asked Lady Verr, stepping back critically to examine her adjustments.

“Briefly. They cannot show up in the harbor and expect to be granted the hospitality of the duchess,” said Sir Justenin, with an edge. “But Her Grace will take a moment from her busy schedule to greet them.”

There seemed to be some deeper message here. Ophele blinked.

“Yes? I will,” she added, when it came out like a question.

“And you have a copy of your work on the devils that I can furnish to them?”

No. She would rather set it on fire. But Ophele nodded and went to retrieve the pages from her desk, every questionable phrase exploding into her mind all at once. She had finished it days ago, but then she had picked and picked and picked, questioning every nuance of the words she had chosen.

Her eyes met Sir Justenin’s as he held out his hand, silent confirmation that he thought the work was worthwhile.

“Thank you,” he said, sliding the pages into an oilskin satchel. “I will meet them down at the harbor and bring them up so you may welcome them to town. On no account invite them to tea.”

“Bring them up? Here?” Lady Verr objected. “I did not know you meant to bring them upstairs, sir knight. It would be quite impossible to bring unrelated strangers into a lady’s chambers! Even the solar would barely be acceptable.”

“I suppose we cannot,” Sir Justenin said grudgingly. He glanced at the windows, his lip curling. “His Grace will not approve these games, Lady Verr. But it’s a fine afternoon for a drive.”

“He would still less approve if scholars from the Tower can describe his wife’s bed draperies to the capital,” Lady Verr said tartly. “I will send Jaose for a wagon. Thank you, sir.”

Much of this exchange went over Ophele’s head, and she could not even ask for an explanation with both Sir Leonin and Lady Verr listening. Meekly, she allowed Lady Verr to locate her outdoor slippers and usher her into the upper hall, with calls for Emi to fetch her cloak. Ought she to ask? Was this something she should already know? Under the voluminous folds of her cloak, her hands twisted anxiously as they waited, while Lady Verr chattered breezily about how pleasant it would be to get out of the house for an afternoon.

At least Davi looked equally puzzled. Standing on either side of the arched entry to the family wing, he was listening to Lady Verr with a slight frown, while Sir Leonin might as well have been a suit of armor, eyes front and motionless as he listened to everyone tell the Duchess of Andelin what to do.

“Ah, there they are,” said Lady Verr, starting for the stairs, and Ophele scuttled after her, with Sir Leonin and Davi trailing behind.

Her timing was excellent. Sir Justenin was bringing the crowd of strangers up the front steps of the manor just as Ophele was exiting it, wading into a sea of multicolored robes. Halting, Leonin and Davi cleared a space around her as everyone else bowed .

“Your Grace,” said Justenin, sounding believably surprised. “I beg your pardon. The Masters of the Tower have just arrived and hoped to offer their greetings.”

“Yes. Of course,” Ophele said, immediately self-conscious. “Oh, please rise.”

“Master Uvgene Torigne of the Library of Alchemy and Master Hayas Forgess, of the Library of Beasts,” Sir Justenin replied, gesturing. “And their journeymen.”

“Welcome to Tresingale.” Ophele’s voice squeaked. “I hope your journey was not too difficult?”

“Not at all, Your Grace,” said Master Torigne. He was tall and lean with a thatch of thinning gray hair, and offered another neat bow. “We only regret that it could not occur sooner.”

“There will not be so many devils to look at now,” Ophele agreed regretfully. “They burn in the sunlight, you see, so with so many leaves gone, there aren’t many places for them to hide during the day—”

“But the Masters will at least be comfortable in their labors,” said Lady Verr, so smoothly that it hardly seemed an interruption at all. “Master Ffloce sends word that their quarters in town are ready, Your Grace.”

“He did,” Ophele agreed, confused. Master Ffloce had reported that three days ago. Why was Lady Verr bringing it up now? “They are very nice.”

“With your permission, I will escort them there now, Your Grace,” said Sir Justenin with another bow, and Ophele nodded, feeling like a fool.

“Yes. Sir Justenin will look after you,” she said, trying to think what Remin would say. “Please let us know if anything is lacking.”

“Thank you, my lady,” they all said, bowing again, and Mionet moved aside so Ophele could be herded toward the wagon, where Jaose was waiting to boost her into the box seat.

“Where to, Your Grace?” he asked, as everyone climbed onto the benches.

“The market?” Ophele suggested, glancing back to find the party of scholars following on foot. And they were going to the market, too, ought she have offered them a ride? Lady Hurrell would have left them to find their own way through a blizzard, but she was supposed to be making friends with them so the Tower would send more scholars …

The oilskin satchel passed from Sir Justenin’s hand to Master Torigne’s, and Ophele whipped around to face front, her heart pounding. Well. It was too late to go back now.

It was a very pleasant afternoon for a drive, at least. The fleeting glimpse of the market was just a tease, with all the new signs and bustle and Noreveni glass going into the shopfronts. Paralyzed by the presence of Lady Verr, Ophele could only look at the fascinating motion in the window of the weaver’s shop as Mistress Roscout plied her art, treadle hammering out the open door. There was a whole family moving into the tavern, the Tregues come to open it at last, and Ophele craned her neck, trying to spot the tavern mistress. Sir Miche had warned that she seemed the type to topple tyrants, based on her letters.

If Remin had been there, they would have stopped to help them move in. Ophele sighed. It made her feel like everything was happening without her, from the framing of more houses in the craftsmen’s quarter to the final stones being laid on the towers of Shepherd’s Gate, just visible to the northeast. Tresingale was slowly being enclosed in sturdy stone walls, and Sir Bram had reported at supper last night that the palisade was coming down as the city wall extended, with the wood being burned for charcoal or repurposed for construction, depending on how much the devils had chewed it.

All too soon, Jaose turned back to the manor, where Master Didion was waiting to pounce as soon as she came in the door.

“I heard that our esteemed scholars have arrived,” he said, eager as always to share the gossip. “Come to appreciate our learned duchess, have they not? Now I understand why His Grace was so insistent upon a library, to support the aspirations of so singular a lady!”

“I might not be right,” Ophele protested for the hundredth time. Inside the echoing front hall, Master Didion beckoned them over to his work areas, consisting of several tables to unsteady for any other use. “I only talked to four hundred men out of ninety thousand, that’s not even one percent—”

But no one ever wanted to hear about the math.

“There is no other lady in the world that could boast such an accomplishment,” Master Didion declared, which was hard to argue. “It is an honor that you will trust your books to my care, Your Grace, to guard as well as the tools of my own trade! Aubin, Matissen, if you please… ”

And with that, he got down to his real business, as his assistants shuffled forth, laden with a large stack of plans for the house for Ophele to review and approve. Beginning with the bedchamber, which would not be nearly so large and bare when it was done.

“The room must serve multiple purposes, especially as the house grows,” Master Didion began, turning to an overhead view. “His Grace said you would like a place to read, and even after there is a dining room, perhaps you would like to continue breakfasting privately. A discreet washstand, this sitting area by the fire, and this space for His Grace’s armor and weapons. Apparently,” he added, darting a glare at Remin’s armor stand, which was not only aesthetically displeasing but quite ruined the tone of the entire suite.

But Master Didion had managed the space cleverly, with smooth golden-brown beams breaking up the vast sections of wall and supporting the arched ceiling like elegantly branching trees. Those beams would also frame the promised paper murals, and Ophele drew her breath as his assistants paged through the designs.

“You’ve used them as screens, too,” she said, bending to look closer. “To hide the washstand, and Remin’s armor…it looks as if it’s part of the wall, doesn’t it? But you can move them about.”

“It is an inspired notion,” Master Didion agreed, puffing with satisfaction.

“One I am sure you will claim credit for, Sousten,” said Lady Verr. “Paper murals?”

“It was the lady’s idea,” Master Didion corrected, placing a hand over his heart to offer Ophele a bow. “Though we must credit Benkki Desa with its invention.”

“Perhaps they know what they are about,” Lady Verr mused. “They would be a sensation in the capital—oh, and look, you have designed them seasonally?”

“Yes, this might be Her Grace’s reading corner,” he explained, as his assistants produced yet another page. It showed the same squashy armchair, table, and lamp with four different murals behind it: flowers, butterflies, and jewel-bright hummingbirds for spring, green leaves and curving golden lines like sunshine for summer, a mural for every season .

“Oh, I love it,” said Ophele, entranced. She could just picture herself sitting in that chair and looking out the window, sipping tea and reading a book.

“It may be a little feminine,” Lady Verr cautioned, casting quite a different light on the matter. “Like Lady Houvrin’s parlor.”

“It most certainly is not,” Master Didion said indignantly.

“Lady Houvrin?” Ophele echoed.

“She was a newlywed in Segoile a few years ago,” Lady Verr explained. “And her husband was much older, and indulgent, so he let her do as she liked with their grand parlor while he was away hunting. You might not have heard of Lord Houvrin, he is one of those rugged gentlemen that likes to tromp about in heavy boots and vanish for weeks at a time into the forest after some poor beast or other. Enjoys his brandy. Very whiskery.”

“Lady Verr does paint a picture,” Master Didion observed, looking as if he would have liked to draw up a chair and join the gossip. “Imagine that sort of gentleman, Your Grace, and then imagine that he finally arrives home bearing the carcass of his latest victim and walks into his new parlor to find—”

“—pink carnations,” Lady Verr concluded gravely, and made Ophele burst into giggles. “It was a motif of carnations centering on a theme of carnations with an underlying message of carnations, if you like.”

“No,” Ophele said, covering her mouth. “What did he say?”

“I am told he located the least pink object in the room to sit upon and fled the moment it was polite, never to venture into that room again,” said Lady Verr. “She could not have barred him from it more effectively than if she had barricaded the doors.”

“And you will note there is not a single carnation to be found in any of these designs,” Master Didion added sternly.

“No, but it is Remin’s home, too…” Ophele said, chewing on her lower lip as she looked regretfully at the beautiful reading corner. She could see herself there so clearly, Master Didion might as well have painted her into the design, but the image of Remin frowning among the hummingbirds was rather jarring.

“Well, that is where the fun begins,” Master Didion replied, and it turned out that it was rather fun, searching through samples for a warm tortoiseshell leather for the chairs that was soft enough for herself and sturdy enough for His Grace, with a bumblebee hassock she liked very much as an accent. And she was greatly impressed when Aubin bent over with quill and ink to show her how the curving, intricate woodwork she favored could be weighted down and simplified so that the Duke of Andelin wouldn’t look as if every chair in the room were in danger of collapsing beneath his weight.

“That is quite good,” Lady Verr said approvingly, watching as the designs evolved for eventual dispatch to Hara Vos, who was famous for its woodwork.

Master Didion was pleased to leave the bulk of the designs and the promised design books with Ophele when he left, looking eagerly at her as if he expected the entire contents of the bedchamber to spring fully formed from her head tomorrow.

And maybe that was exactly what he thought would happen. Ophele thumbed through the pages as she clambered back up the stairs, her smile fading. Somehow, she had survived another day without betraying her ignorance, and neither Lady Verr nor Sir Leonin had seemed to think anything of her interlude with the scholars. No one would have guessed that she had never met a Master from the Tower before, or that the only house she had ever seen was Aldeburke.

But what might they expect of her tomorrow?

* * *

Things could not have gone more perfectly if Mionet had planned it.

From the great house on top of the hill, it was like the very air had changed, a lightening in spirit as if an exorcism had occurred. The great, grim, glowering presence of the Duke of Andelin had loomed over all of Tresingale by night and day, as if some part of him had been mortared into the stones. And that presence did not look with favor upon Lady Mionet Verr.

She wasn’t sure why. But she wasn’t about to waste this opportunity.

Every day was another chance to make a bosom friend of the duchess, and Mionet began the moment her lady rang the bell in the morning, sailing into the bedchamber with Emi and Peri at her back and a smile painted on her face .

Even before the duke’s departure, the duchess had had little to say for herself. Seated in her chair by the fire, she wore only her chemise with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and no way of telling whether she had been awake for ten minutes or ten hours. There were shadows under her eyes.

“Good morning, my lady,” Mionet said, absorbing all of this at a glance and acknowledging none of it. “Would you like to be dressed now?”

“Yes, please,” said the duchess, moving toward the dressing room with all the animation of a doll.

It was tempting to think of her that way, when she was in this morose mood. She looked like a doll, tiny and exquisite and utterly lacking in expression. But that was not at all the same thing as a Segoile society mask, and Mionet had noted it with interest. As a veteran of the capital’s highest society, she had an unerring instinct for the presence of secrets, and there was something hidden under that blank doll’s face.

Secrets were currency. Secrets were power. And though the Duke and Duchess of Andelin were irrelevant rustic nobility now, who could say what might happen in future? They would go to Segoile. And if she played her cards right, they would be very useful indeed.

“What would you like to wear today?” Mionet asked with determined good cheer, opening the wide double doors of the wardrobe closet. The dressing room was the only place where she had the duchess to herself, and she was determined that today she would find an opening in the lady’s armor. “It’s so gray and dreary out, perhaps something bright? The light blue, or one of the pinks?”

“Either is fine,” the duchess replied, without turning her head.

“This one, then.” Mionet handed the better of the pink gowns to Peri and went to retrieve the matching slippers from the back of the closet. Never mind closing the gap between them, it would be progress if she could just stimulate an opinion from the duchess. “There is a new hairstyle that was just coming into fashion in Segoile when I left,” she added. “Out of Sachar Veche, a very sculptural style. Shall we try it?”

She set out the key words like bait. By now she had learned that the duchess’s interest was piqued by new usages for words she already knew, and anything at all about foreign places .

“If you like,” Duchess Andelin said indifferently, moving toward the dressing table and reminding Mionet so much of Chloe, her childhood doll, that she couldn’t resist giving her Chloe’s six curling ringlets.

“You see how it is shaped to your head,” she explained as she worked, twisting the long maple-colored locks over the top of the duchess’s head. “These coils are meant to look like a seashell.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to explain that Sachar Veche, being an island nation, often adopted an oceanic motif to their clothing and jewelry. But when the duchess chose to contribute to a conversation, it was most often with that sort of trivia, so Mionet made room for it in the hopes that she would, and internally writhed in the silence.

“They like to include such details, in Sachar Veche fashion,” she was finally forced to explain. “It is funny how styles travel, isn’t it? We are so far away, yet their styles pass over the sea to us in a matter of weeks. Or perhaps it would be months? I am never sure of my geography.”

As a lure, this rarely failed. In less than a month’s acquaintance Mionet had heard Edemir consult the duchess on mileage no less than five times and the duke had asked her twice, as if she were a mobile atlas.

“Aren’t they on the other side of the Sea of Eskai?” Emi asked helpfully, and subsided in confusion before Mionet’s death glare.

All further gambits died the same ignominious death, and the duchess retired afterward to her desk, leaving Mionet to embroider with outward serenity and great internal wrath.

This was a problem. Her entire plan rested upon gaining the duchess’ trust, a task that should have been child’s play. After eight months with only men for company, Duchess Andelin should have been perishing for female companionship. A lady-in-waiting was meant to be a friend and confidante, and somehow Mionet suspected that she had a lot to confide.

There must be a way to get her to divulge it.

When it came, the solution was so obvious that she was ashamed she hadn’t thought of it sooner. But then, it wouldn’t have occurred to Mionet Verr that the absence of one’s husband was cause for anything but celebration.

“Perhaps you would like a cold compress, my lady,” she offered sympathetically the next morning. A servant must pretend not to notice if their mistress’s eyes showed signs of prolonged weeping, but a lady-in-waiting could offer consolation. “I remember being quite low in my spirits, whenever my husband was away.”

This was a flagrant lie, and Mionet watched the duchess’s reaction carefully, wondering what she might have been told of the deceased Lord Verr. But Duchess Andelin only looked up with a little surprise.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said, an actual reaction. Peri went to make the compress and Mionet went into the closet, encouraged.

“I know it is hard, but it does no good to fret and worry while he’s away,” she said, selecting several dresses to offer. “I used to spend hours with my gowns when I was first married, to discover what I liked and what was most becoming. The day is brighter when you feel beautiful. And won’t he be pleased to come home and find you so?”

“I suppose…” the duchess replied, with mild interest.

“As you wore the pink yesterday, perhaps the blue today?” Mionet began with spirit. It was not easy to build a bridge made of gowns, but those were the materials she had to work with. “Or the violet, the lace in the bodice is so lovely…”

That was it. The single distinction between the violet and the blue was the lace in the bodice, and as she held the two gowns up, groping for something else to say, anything else, there was literally no other possible remark. The chilly October air meant it was too cold for any of the duchess’s more ornate silk gowns, and that left them with plain violet wool, plain blue wool, plain green wool, and plain red wool.

And the duchess knew it. The thought flashed between them through some horrid, unstoppable telepathy, and the shock of embarrassment in those clear, amber-colored eyes was as explicit as if it had been written down.

“And we can have a rummage through your ribbons,” Mionet concluded bravely, but this battle had already been lost. Peri’s arrival with the cold compress just put them all out of their misery.

There had to be a way. Forging social connections was a slow, patient process, especially between such dissimilar characters. In Segoile, there would have been a thousand diversions with which to woo the duchess into friendship: carriage riding, shopping, dances and teas, art, music, and the theater. A hundred different salons. And though Mionet was bursting with tales of these pleasant pastimes—how else was she ever going to tempt the duchess into the capital?—there was little opportunity to share them.

Every moment of Duchess Andelin’s day was spent in some form of drudgery. As soon as she was dressed, she went back to her desk, to scratch away with her quill for hours on end. At lunch, she gave lessons to a vulgar pageboy, and in the afternoons she either went to the offices above the storehouse or watched as Mionet explained sewing to an unenthusiastic Elodie.

As often as she could, Mionet tried to move the subject to Segoile and its many wonders, but the duchess always politely shifted it right back again, as if Mionet had traveled to the far end of the Empire for the express purpose of teaching embroidery to a rude peasant girl.

Who wasn’t even grateful.

“You know what we might do today,” Mionet said, as she and Elodie stood outside the storehouse, waiting for the duchess. “Perhaps we might persuade Her Grace to go into town again. I hear there are more shops opening soon, and I’m sure she could use some fresh air.”

“Why?” Elodie asked suspiciously.

“Well, I think she has been very sad, with His Grace away,” Mionet replied, leaning down in a conspiratorial fashion. “Wouldn’t you like to cheer her up?”

“My Uncle Auber went too,” Elodie said, missing the important part of the sentence entirely. She had been pacing back and forth before the office, heel-to-toe, and gave a hop as she about-faced. “They’re going to kill the devils.”

“And aren’t you sad that he’s gone away?” Mionet asked, hoping to wring some sympathy out of the little monster.

“Nah.” Hop. Elodie’s arms stretched out for balance. “My uncle is one of the Knights of the Brede, they’re the best knights in the whole world. And they’re going to go kill all the devils and Uncle Auber said he’s going to bring back one of their teeth for me and Pirot, and Mama will bake a chicken pie. That’s his favorite.”

“Well, the duchess misses His Grace now,” Mionet said firmly. “What if we thought of something nice to do to surprise her?”

“Like what?” Hop .

This was clearly barren soil. Elodie was nothing like the polite and well-spoken aristocratic children she had known in Segoile. The peasant girl’s idea of a pleasant surprise was probably an extra crust of bread at supper, or finding a shiny rock. But there were things Elodie could do that Mionet could not, excused by her youth and ignorance, and it would have been incredibly convenient to be able to overstep a few paces with the excuse of indulging the child.

As things stood right now, Elodie was more likely to look the duchess dead in the eye and disavow all knowledge of any scheme Mionet concocted.

There was one other possible opportunity. The next day, Mionet worked assiduously to maintain a friendly atmosphere, aided by the appearance of a dozen dainty éclairs sent up from that odious cook. She would never have imagined that he was capable of such work.

“From Wen?” Duchess Andelin said, taking the basket with surprised pleasure. The cook might have made them, but Lady Verr had already read the accompanying note that made it quite clear that the Duke of Andelin had forced Wen to disgrace himself as far as choux pastry.

The pleasant mood persisted through Sousten’s visit that afternoon, intended to discuss the décor of the dressing rooms. Sousten Didion was the only person in this benighted place that could speak fluently about the capital and its many diversions, and Mionet seized every opportunity to entice him to stay and do so.

“No, the first time I came to the capital was for my debut,” she replied the next time he visited, having successfully maneuvered him into asking the question. “I was sixteen, and the nearest large town to my father’s country house was half a day away. I had never seen anything so thrilling. We arrived two months before the start of the season, but it still took weeks to find a seamstress for my gown. Have you given any thought to your debut, my lady?”

“Not really,” the duchess replied, glancing between them. “His Grace said we aren’t going to Segoile next year.”

They would see about that, Mionet thought, but outwardly offered only a beaming smile .

“It’s just as well, for you would never get everything done in time,” she said. “Can you not imagine the splash she would make, Sousten? The debut of Princess Ophele, Duchess of Andelin! They would all go mad for you.”

That was all it took. Sousten’s imagination went off like fireworks.

“My stars, it would be an earthquake!” he exclaimed, turning toward Duchess Andelin with shining eyes. “We are too pent in this valley sometimes, but Lady Verr is right, Your Grace, you ought to begin planning straightaway. Your gown, your jewels, your house in town, your presentation to the Emperor! Oh, what a spectacle that will be!”

“Why would it be a spectacle?” Duchess Andelin asked, and Mionet and Sousten all but tripped over each other in explaining the delightful festivities, the necessity of finding the perfect atelier, and the thousand and one other details that it would be social suicide to overlook. The duchess listened with rapt attention.

“You will be fêted within an inch of your life,” Mionet said with satisfaction. “Every noble House in the city would be fighting for your attention. To say nothing of the artists and clothiers and jewelers—oh, you will need a secretary to manage them all. And the patissiers, and the vintners offering up their rarest wines and spirits…I once had a honey wine from the south that was so light and sweet, it was like drinking sunshine. I wonder if it could be found again.”

“From Khartamu? I had it at a banquet, quite the perfect finish for the evening,” Sousten agreed. “Earl Yvenot’s wife discovered it. She always was such a skilled hostess, I never missed one of her events.”

“Why do you say she was skilled?” Duchess Andelin asked, with a guileless flick of golden eyes that prompted Sousten to expound at length about the qualities of a truly exquisite banquet.

“If you would like, my lady, we could begin planning your debut together,” Mionet suggested when the time was right, and the duchess agreed so readily it felt almost too easy.

“What was your debut like?” Duchess Andelin asked, with that same innocent interest, and soon Mionet found herself struggling to remember details she hadn’t thought of in years, everything from how the musicians had been selected for her presentation ball to what color the tea roses had been.

“Oh, no, most noble houses have their own dancing master,” Sousten said, in answer to another question, and Mionet found herself eying the duchess and wondering how they had gotten on this subject. “The dances change every season, you know. But once you have mastered the basics, it’s only the matter of learning a different combination.”

“Did you learn them after you went to Segoile?” Duchess Andelin asked. Sousten was the son of a wealthy merchant and had been educated accordingly, though his rise to fame had been on his own merit.

“No, indeed. I began learning when I was eight,” he said jovially. “Dancing is one of the high arts of the Empire, I should be ashamed to step onto the floor otherwise.”

“Do you enjoy dancing, my lady?” Mionet asked, angling her head toward Duchess Andelin. Somehow it felt as if she were circling in the vicinity of…something.

“I do,” the duchess replied, her lashes veiling her eyes. “But I haven’t gotten to very often. Did you begin early as well?”

There was nothing suspicious about this reply. Like most things the duchess said, it was polite, noncommittal, and deflective, shifting the attention of the conversation away from herself. But alerted by keen, predatory social instincts, Mionet was watching as something flashed through the duchess’s doll face, so quick she would have missed it if she blinked. Something worse than sadness. Something that was not longing for her absent husband. It was an emotion that Lady Mionet Verr knew so well, she recognized it in a single glance.

Despair.

Like a bloodhound, Mionet scented a trail.

* * *