Roxa’s finest riding boots made little crunching sounds on the crushed gravel as she strode up a winding driveway, lined by a regal procession of sycamores. She gritted her teeth at the faint clop-clop of yet another carriage approaching from behind.

Here at the north end of Harmine’s sprawl, the expanse of graystone and the muted claybed browns and reds of brick fell away as the crowded buildings and courtyards were outpaced by rolling green manicured lawns, rose gardens, wrought iron fences and carefully trimmed hedges. Through the sycamores, she glimpsed the turreted and gabled residences of provosts, deans, sorcerers and eugenicists, as well as private stables and carriage houses, reserved gymnasiums and club halls.

Roxa frowned and walked faster. She avoided this area for a reason—best to just get this over with as quickly as possible. Even on her best days, this place could sour her mood and curl her upper lip, but coming here straight from her fight with Mila in the Archives, it felt particularly nauseating, a festering reminder of her split loyalties.

“Is that some military officer talking,” Mila retorted, “or is it you?”

Roxa tried to suppress her flinch as the memory sliced her again, sharp and fresh. Nor was Mila wrong. No, she had hit far too close to the mark.

Roxa sighed heavily. In the span of their short, intense friendship, she had never actually told Mila of the assignment her mother had given her, never explained all that her duty to her home entailed. And if Mila found out, would all the cold disgust that the Opali girl reserved for authoritarians be directed at Roxa?

“I have the understanding of sharks? Well I can sure smell it on you.”

Roxa chewed her inner lip, as a familiar voice rose inside her thoughts. You know what she would think of you, if she knew what you really were.

An image of Mariah, shaking her head in contempt, flashed before her.

And who you still are.

Mariah’s penetrating gray stare. Roxa groaned and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get her ex out of her head.

Roxa hadn’t lied to Mila exactly—

Self-deception is a terrible look on you, really.

—but neither had she been completely honest about the purpose of her presence her at Harmine, nor the nature of her encrypted communication with her mother, nor the disloyal plans and secret contingencies brewing in the back of her mind, the ones that were hidden even from the Countess.

If Roxa didn’t take care of the Penelope problem soon, she would be forced to make choices that would land her in plenty of trouble when she returned back home. And while she was prepared to bear any tongue-lashing or punishment from her mother, up to and including a full court martial, it was the fear of coming clean to Mila about her true nature that haunted her.

But even though the cost of bearing her secrets was literally nightmarish, even though Roxa’s gut twisted with shame every time she imagined the moment of revelation, the look on her friend’s face, the betrayal in her liquid dark eyes—it was still a small price to pay, compared to the alternative.

For Roxa refused to blind herself any longer to the increasingly obvious truth: Mila’s life was worth less and less with every passing term she spent here. As the Hierophancy solidified its grip on the levers of Imperiat power in Drago, and the loyalists at Harmine became more more open and brazen in their naked reign, the protections Mila was afforded by her status as a student wore thinner and thinner.

Especially with Penelope Caul hunting her for bloodsport.

All your fault, of course. Can’t keep even your supposed best friend safe. No, you actually put her life in more danger, somehow.

Roxa winced. Her mother had been right—Roxa needed leverage, she needed more powerful cards up her sleeve, she needed an exit option that would hold when everything came tumbling down, but most of all she needed to neutralize Penelope and that meant having her own operative at her disposal.

Mila would object stridently to the power plays Roxa had to make, the games within games she had to play for this to work. If she knew, she would try to dissuade Roxa, even interfere with her plans.

“This is a half-cocked, self-sacrificial, blustery bird crap of a plan,” Mila insisted. “And I’m not letting you throw your life away on it.”

Roxa had to deceive her friend. That much was clear to her, now. If worse came to worse, she would drag Mila to the loading docks and bundle her aboard a barge or into a waiting carriage to save her life, and hex her unconscious without hesitation if need be.

Waiting for an alternative to present itself was too risky—why couldn’t Mila see that? Her life was far more valuable than Roxa’s integrity, more important than their friendship, even.

Roxa ground her teeth and tugged on the hem of the rakish slashed doublet she’d thrown on—silver and blue, the colors of the Duchy.

So be it. She would walk this path as far as was necessary. Even if it meant re-enmeshing herself in everything she despised.

Ahead of her loomed an ostentatiously wrought iron gate. She flipped the porter a coin and gave him her most arrogantly bored stare, and he hastily swung open the gate, bowing and scraping with a little obsequious murmur of “Madame.”

She brushed by him, towards the manor house beyond. On either side of her, arbors trailed tangled vines and stonework archways opened onto labyrinthine gardens. Drifting snatches of conversation and muffled titters reached her ears through the thick greenery.

Roxa bulled ahead, towards a line of carriages that were disgorging packs of boisterous merchants’ sons, already drunk. She skirted a tinkling fountain, and wove around a smartly dressed squad of grooms, hostlers and footmen. As she passed a stamping, blinkered horse team, the driver yanked his reins in a way that made her want to simultaneously wince and scowl. Instead, she followed the swaying new arrivals up the sweep of broad marble steps to the Avalon Club’s crowded entrance, and slipped into the great hall.

Inside, the polished floor buzzed with the young, bored, horny and just-out-of-class spawn of nobles, merchants, speculators, and Ministry officials, flocked by their friends and social parasites. A spiral staircase twirled up to a generous wraparound balcony overlooking the first floor, replete with little tables and servants circulating with trays of drinks and morsels.

Among the second floor crowd, Roxa’s sharp eye caught Penelope Caul, her expression flat and distant, surrounded by her little inner circle of sycophants.

Roxa grimaced. Time to stir up some trouble.

A steward was waiting in the wings, and she caught his eye in a way that made him straighten and scurry over.

She palmed him a heavy coin. “Squire Countess Roxa Monir, Duchy of Waterfalls,” she said in a low voice, her heart suddenly growing ten times heavier. “Announce me.”

He blanched. Such formal announcements were either not currently in vogue, or, more dramatically, perhaps he had heard of her raging enmity with the Cauls, or both. He knew, perhaps better than she did, that he was about to pour cold water into hot oil, and upon whom the hissing, spitting droplets would land.

If this is what it will take to protect Mila, she thought, steeling herself. Making a splash was necessary. There was someone she needed to draw out.

The steward’s staff rapped on the smooth marble floor, quieting the room, and then his voice boomed out her name and title. He stepped hastily aside as the announcement rippled out into the crowd, turning even more heads and halting conversations in their tracks. The air tensed.

Roxa felt the collective gaze of the hall swing down onto her like a dissecting beam of force. Thrusting out her jaw, she set out towards the bar on the far wall, her mother’s voice echoing in her head.

Never let them see you falter, Roxa. There is nothing—nothing at all—that will infuriate them more than unflappable dignity.

The crowd parted before her, the murmur of their conversations returning with a fresh buzz of excitement. She didn’t look up towards Penelope’s roost on the second floor, but she felt the lines of tension, the tone of gazes, the pointed gossip pulling the room’s attention taut between them.

Inwardly, Roxa marveled at the veneer of social peace that reigned here, like the surface of a pond that barely registered the ruffle of wind. She knew that if she were to be so foolish as to find herself unarmed in the woods, at night, with this crowd, that veneer would tear like gossamer and her life would be worth less than spit. And yet the very social mores she scorned, with all their detestable baggage, protected her here—at least from overt violence. For now.

She sauntered up to the bar, caught the eye of a server, ordered a showy drink. Turning to lean against the counter, Roxa wondered idly about the threshold of open social conflict. Obviously it would change from one context to another, probably based on a hundred factors—who was watching, the nature of the provocation, the likelihood of retribution. If she miscalculated where that line was, it could mean her life.

There was a polite cough from her elbow, and Roxa smiled thinly. That didn’t take long.

“I don’t suppose you saw the look on Penelope’s face when you waltzed in?” remarked the trim dandy with the pencil mustache who’d just inserted himself next to her.

Roxa waited a beat. “I didn’t think to look, actually.”

“Well, rather,” he tittered. “It was marvelously louche. I’m Bernando DeGraf, son of Elkorn DeGraf, of DeGraf Venture Company?” He managed to turn it into a question

Roxa’s shrug oozed nonchalance of the first class, but inside she was all shrewdness. The last era of Imperiat power had seen the creation of sudden and fabulous wealth through the close alliance of the Navy with the joint-stock concerns of Drago’s ascendant mercantile class. Perhaps some of those same merchants had no cause to celebrate the recent towering rise of the populist Hierophancy?

Still, even if there were rifts here to exploit, Roxa knew that the enemy of her enemy was not her friend. This boy seemed a mercenary gossip, and nothing more. A carrion eater, drawn to the lure of spectacle. Perfect for her purposes.

The bartender returned with a teal drink in a chilled glass and she tipped him generously, then toasted Bernando with a wink and a coy smile. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

“Have you met my very dear friend, Fanalia?” he asked, all innocence, and then there was a girl at her other elbow, a perfectly coiffed minx in a gorgeous dress.

Roxa almost guffawed out loud at how badly they had misjudged her tastes. This was such excellent comedy—if only Mila were here (her stomach twisted), they could have laughed about it later.

“So dashing of you,” uttered Fanalia throatily. “How brave.”

Roxa noticed a little flurry of activity on the second floor, as a young man in messenger’s attire bent to whisper into Penelope’s ear. As the Prefect cocked her head to listen, her gaze wandered across the room and locked onto Roxa’s, her eyes instantly lighting with venom. For a moment they simply watched each other in a silence of hatred.

Then Penelope rose and swept down the staircase, her gaggle of clucking followers in tow. She marched across the hall and out the gilded double doors, pausing only to throw a sneering look over her shoulder, which ignited a little stir of hushed whispering. Roxa made sure to guffaw extra loudly at her retreating back.

And so it went.

Over the course of the next hour, Roxa accumulated a little coterie of amused onlookers and gossipmongers, clouding around her like flies, drunk on the promise of blood.

As the light from the tall windows overhead began to darken into purple dusk, anyone who was paying attention couldn’t fail to notice that Roxa was talking louder and laughing louder, in general. She continued to drink, and even sway noticeably in place, sometimes leaning on Fanalia’s bare shoulder.

When she crossed her feet and stumbled a bit, there was Bernando at her elbow, steadying her.

“My dear!” lilted Fanalia. “Are you well?”

“I wanna lay down,” Roxa responded, slurring a little.

“Come on, then,” smirked Bernando. “Let’s get you some air, shall we?”

Roxa nodded blurrily and let them lead her towards a side door. Halfway there, Roxa ostentatiously spat a mouthful of her drink onto the floor, to a chorus of jeers and titters.

There, let her mother’s agent pass up that bait.

Fanalia and Bernando guided her outside, into yet another fountain court, on the far side of which reared a towering maze of dark hedges. The door to the great hall swung shut behind them.

“My coat,” Roxa mumbled, pointing back inside.

Whispering something under his breath to Fanalia, Bernando tried to tug her onwards, but Roxa dug her heels in.

“I canna go without my coat,” she insisted, slinging her arm drunkenly around Bernando’s shoulders and leaning on him.

“Of course, of course,” he smoothed. “Fanalia will get that for you, won’t you dear? And she’ll have them bring my carriage around the front, so we can give you a ride home.”

He threw a meaningful look at Fanalia, and she scooted off.

“Thass good,” mumbled Roxa, and lurched towards a stone bench tucked into the shadow of the nearest hedge, pulling Bernando haplessly along. “Wanna sit.”

“Yes, yes,” he winced, trying to surreptitiously pry his way free of her grip, “In the meantime, we’ll just have a seat here on this—”

As they reached the bench, Roxa tripped him artfully, palmed the base of his skull and blasted a disconsciousness hex into it just as he hit the ground.

Rolling her eyes, she crammed his limp body deep into the dark gap under the hedge, then stood and walked briskly along it for a few paces until she reached a carefully pruned opening.

Beyond it, a curving path led deeper and deeper into the dusky twilight of the maze garden. With a quick glance behind her, she slipped through the gap and crouched to wait, hidden from view.

Roxa didn’t have to wait long for another figure to appear, quiet and alert, in the fountain court, but she was wholly unprepared for who it was.