Still thoughtful after what I’d seen, I drifted across the city to Brightstone with half-formed plans of scouring the Bowmore Bridge neighborhood for him. But as I passed through the Silver Market, a gaggle of young Akorosian ladies in Skovlan-themed clothing jolted me out of my reverie.

Ye gods, was that really an entire, cage-crinoline-type skirt constructed from screaming yellow, pink, and orange tartan silk? The Lampblacks would have opinions, no, the entire province of Skovlan would have opinions – of the variety where you didn’t want to be on the wrong (i.e. pointy) end.

Hastily purchasing an overpriced wool cloak to fling over my threadbare gown, I scurried after the girls like a friend who’d gotten left behind.

When I caught up at a jewelry stand, Tartan Skirt was holding a crude gilt brooch to her bosom while her friends teased, “Hoping you’ll impress Finnley tonight?”

The target blushed and giggled, but determinedly asked the vendor, “Are you quite certain this is authentic, Master Goldsmith?”

Might I suggest the section on Skovlan in the Charterhall University Library for some light background reading?

Sensing a victim, the artisan adopted an ingratiating tone. “But of course, my lady! May I?” Taking the brooch, he held it up to the electroplasmic bulb. “Do you see how elongated the dragon is? And how it’s set against a background of interwoven vines that form a classic knot?” All the girls clustered around him, craning their necks and bobbing their heads eagerly like so many painted geese. “This style is all the rage in Skovlan right now.”

He pinned the brooch to Tartan Skirt’s bodice and held up a mirror so she could preen to her heart’s delight. Edging through the gaggle, I pretended to admire the effect. “That goes so nicely with your hair!” I praised. (Well, gold matched any color hair, even muddy brown.) “Whoever he is, I’m sure he’ll be utterly entranced when he sees you.” The girls all teetered, and I cast an arch glance at them. “So who is this mysterious someone?”

Tartan Skirt turned as pink as the stripes on her dress and elbowed her nearest friend, who dodged and blabbed, “Why, it’s Lord Finnley Tyrconnell from Skovlan, of course! Ooh, he’s soooo hot! He’s just the perfect height – you know, tall enough to make you feel protected, but not so tall he makes you feel like a dwarf – and you can tell he’s a sportsman, but he doesn’t bulge like a common docker – ”

Another girl, who was wearing an orange, turquoise, and black tartan cloak, cooed, “And he has hair like spun gold and eyes the color of – of what they say was the color of the sky before the Cataclysm…. He’s just sooooo dashing….”

If we were talking about the same man, then regrettably I had to agree. Donning a dreamy expression of my own, I sighed, “Isn’t he just?”

“And he’s so mysterious, too!” put in a chubby girl, at whose waist pouffed a pink tartan bow the size of which might have impressed even Faith. “He’s always the consummate gentleman – not even the Dowager Lady Dunvil can fault his manners, and you know she hates everybody under the age of twenty-five – but he never gives any woman a second glance.”

Tartan Skirt stage-whispered, “I heard from Mara, who heard from her sister’s friend’s cousin’s fiancé, that Lord Finnley came to Doskvol to forget a girl who broke his heart.”

“But you’re going to un-break it, aren’t you?” I teased, but my voice didn’t come out quite naturally.

She didn’t notice. She was too busy disclaiming her intentions.

Tartan Cloak lowered her voice. “They say he threw himself into politics to distract himself, you know. They say he got mixed up with all these political dissidents in Skovlan and that’s why his family sent him here.”

Tartan Bow piped up triumphantly, “Except it didn’t work. I heard that he’s been meeting with Hutton of the Grinders and that terrorist Ulf Ironborn and Bell Brogan the union organizer and even Odrienne Keel.”

Tartan Skirt glared. “He’d never!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Finnley would never betray the Imperium!”

“And he’s met with the supporters of Ian Templeton too,” Tartan Bow finished with relish. “What, scared your family will disinherit you if they find out you’re setting your cap for a Skovlander dissident?” she taunted.

Tartan Skirt tossed her muddy-brown curls. “My family would never disown me. And Finnley is no dissident!”

Her friends all laughed. “He’s just a lost man in need of gentle female guidance and redemption, right?”

Tartan Skirt ignored them and addressed me, the only sympathetic party in sight. “Anyway, he lives next door to us and chats with my father all the time, and my father says that Finnley is on good terms with the Skovlander and Iruvian Consuls. You can’t accuse Brynna Skyrkallan or Elstera Avrathi of treason, can you?” she concluded triumphantly.

Weeeeell, that depended on what the three of them were plotting, didn’t it? Regardless, I had the information I needed. Winking at Tartan Skirt and wishing her luck (I didn’t say what kind) with her conquest, I bustled away to track down my agents.

As it turned out, Elstera’s footman confirmed that on six separate occasions, one Finnley Tyrconnell had been present at meetings between Elstera and Brynna. Unfortunately, he had no idea what they discussed.

The Skovlander Consulate was a little harder to crack, but eventually I recruited a minor clerk. Unfortunately, he wasn’t important enough to attend the Consul’s conferences, but he did know that Elstera was trying to bolster relations with Skovlan due to recent tensions between Iruvia and the Imperium. Intriguingly, the clerk got the impression – although he couldn’t quite say why – that Brynna had also been giving Finnley and Elstera a pretext to meet.

After that, I hunted down Tartan Skirt’s address and skulked in the shadows across the street from her well-maintained, three-story townhouse. That particular neighborhood was a favorite of nobles who rented for a season or two – just the sort of place with high turnover rates that he’d choose. As I waited and watched, there was a flurry of activity in front of the townhouse to Tartan Skirt’s left, and servants in elegant livery brought around a polished carriage. I studied their movements, wondering how convincingly I could impersonate a footman.

And then the front door opened and he emerged.

As the Tartan Girls had said, he was tall. Slender. Graceful. Undeniably, heart-stoppingly handsome.

He looked just as I remembered from that last night in U’Duasha, when he sat, composed and remote, on the dais beside the Patriarch.

He was in disguise, of course. Playing Skovlander nobleman, he wore a waistcoat in a shade calculated to highlight the gold of his hair and the frost blue of his eyes, and downplay the faint Iruvian cast to his cheekbones.

Next door, a portly middle-aged man bumbled out of Tartan Skirt’s house and hailed him loudly. He raised one elegant hand in greeting, tipped his silk top hat in the most dashing way, and exchanged a few polite words. As he started down the steps towards the waiting carriage, the clasp on his cloak caught the light.

It was the clasp I’d given him for his birthday three years ago.

I swallowed hard. Should I approach him? What would he do? What would he say?

He’d be happy to see me, wouldn’t he? For reasons beyond fulfilling his mission to recover Grandfather and haul me back to U’Duasha?

He must have missed me, right?

Before I could finished wrestling with myself, he cast a quick glance up and down the street, his eyes skimming over my corner. Then he swung lightly into his carriage and drove off to the next party and the next gaggle of girls vying for his favor.

I felt simultaneously crestfallen and relieved.

Hiding my face in my cloak, I wandered aimlessly until my footsteps brought me to Crow’s Foot and Bazso’s townhouse. I looked up at the façade – so nice for Crow’s Foot – and saw only the peeling paint, the warped shutters, the overwhelming ugliness of the design.

I walked away.

I was back in Crow’s Foot the next day, of course, for a follow-up visit with Sawbones before my fencing lesson. As he undid the bandages on my legs in the back room of the Leaky Bucket (I’d bet that his townhouse never leaked), a perfunctory knock interrupted us, and Bazso strolled in. I met his eyes, so much like his eyes, and looked away.

“So?” I asked the doctor, determinedly ignoring Bazso. “Can I go back to a normal activity level now?”

Sawbones studied the curving lines of claw marks that circled my calves. He jammed a dirty fingernail into the shiny, pink skin. “Does that hurt?”

I stifled a gasp. “No.”

Beside me, Bazso radiated disbelief.

Sawbones shrugged. “Then yes.” Clearing away the bandages, he advised, “Try not to tangle with any more demons. They’re bad for your long-term health.”

A yelp of laughter escaped me, but cut off as soon as Bazso asked, “Sawbones, can you give us a minute?”

In answer, the doctor left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Avoiding Bazso’s gaze, I pulled down my pants legs and slid off the table. “Well, I should get going. I have class in fifteen minutes, and I should get there early so I can review what I taught last week – ”

“Isha, wait.” Bazso put a hand on my arm. Sounding concerned, he asked, “Is something the matter? You haven’t been around much lately.”

I still didn’t meet his eyes. “I’ve been busy.”

He waited for a minute. When I declined to elaborate, he said, “I’ll let you get to the sword academy then. Have dinner with me tonight.” He raised an eyebrow in a roguish gesture that I normally found charming. “We can compare scars,” he invited. “I have some interesting ones, even if they’re not from demons.”

What could I say? “Sure. I’ll meet you here after class.”

The putative Lord Finnley Tyrconnell wasn’t the only one in need of distraction. To purge the vision of silly girls decked in Skovlander-inspired attire flinging themselves at him, I met Mylera after class for our weekly coffee chat and reported the Skannon Vale business. I made sure to stress Bazso’s competence in identifying the Hive’s activities as a threat to the gangs of Crow’s Foot and the Docks, and contracting the appropriate assassins accordingly.

“The Hive nearly had enough space to dock a leviathan hunter!” I exclaimed, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary.

Mylera nearly choked on her coffee. “A leviathan hunter?” she sputtered. “I can’t imagine what they’d do with one.”

“Me neither. But now we don’t need to worry about it, because thanks to Bazso, we’ve dealt with that problem.”

Setting down her cup, Mylera fixed me with a serious stare. “Glass, it’s not his competence that I question,” she reminded me.

“I didn’t mean – ”

She interrupted. “Do you do the same thing to him?”

A range of options flashed through my mind – play dumb, play innocent, play outraged. In the end, I settled on playing the little sister who’d just gotten caught messing around in Big Sister’s jewelry box again. “Maaaaaybeeeee?” I pouted.

She wasn’t fooled. Sternly, she said, “I hope you’re not spending so much time over there that you’re losing objectivity and getting fond of the man, Glass. I need information untainted by emotion.”

Since playing cute had failed, I brought out my true self. Straightening until I sat ramrod straight, I lifted my chin and replied icily, “You know what family I come from. Have you ever known any of us to let our reports be tainted by emotion?”

It was a fair question.

But Mylera responded regally, “U’Duasha is far away.” Just when I’d begun to wonder whether that was a threat, she added a little more gently, “We all change here, Glass.”

Emphatically, I shook my head. “Not that much.”

She gave a single, curt nod. “Good.”

After that, I deemed it wisest to beat a hasty retreat. After all, the man I wasn’t supposed to get fond of was waiting for me.