New Amsterdam

Wane

(March, 1902)

Garrett lowered her gaze from the beaten-copper diameter of a rising moon to regard the soft-eyed wampyr beside her. The dark fabric of his sleeve lay smooth under her fingertips. A breeze still tasting of winter ruffled the forensic sorcerer's carefully arranged hair and shifted the jewels in her earlobes. "Thank you for coming, Sebastien."

"On the contrary, Abby Irene," the Great Detective murmured through lips that barely moved. "What man could refuse your company of an evening?" A lifted eyebrow made the double entendre express. The moonlight lay like a rush of blood across his cheeks, making Sebastien look almost alive. "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/ And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"

"Perhaps in my youth."

"To a connoisseur, value increases with time."

She permitted herself an unladylike snort. Sebastien waited until it was plain she wouldn't answer. "In any case, I'm flattered by the invitation. Although I fear we must be home by dawn. From what I hear of her Grace's parties, we'll miss the best part. Shall we go inside?"

"I suppose we must. The Mayor will be here."

"Simply everyone will be here, my dear. On all sides of the issue—come to fawn on the Prince, or spit on his back." Sebastien handed her up the sweeping front steps of the Duke of New Amsterdam's palatial residence, and she presented her invitation to the butler.

"Detective Crown Investigator Abigail Irene Garrett," the Duke's gentleman said. "And Don Sebastien de Ulloa. Be welcome in my master's house."

"Lady Abigail Irene will do tonight, Seamus," Garrett replied with a formal smile. "Unless you plan to host a murder."

"Oh, no—" But Garrett was already tugging Sebastien over the threshold. She might stumble or bolt if she delayed, so instead she forged ahead to the ballroom. She knew the way.

Sebastien chuckled and hurried to keep up. "What a time for a ball," he said into her ear. She felt the coolness of what passed for his breath.

"The eve of war seems to you a strange time to celebrate?"

The wampyr smiled sideways at the dryness of her tone, leaning close enough that she could smell his skin, like dead leaves in autumn. "Exiles must celebrate where they may."

Shaking her head slightly, closing her eyes in rue, Abigail Irene Garrett entered her rival's den. Jacqueline, the Duchess of New Amsterdam, was renowned for her velvet soirees, for fantasies and folderols, for balls and banquets. Renowned for making the most of whatever society the New World had to offer, and making it her own.

She was the wife of the man Garrett loved.

"You're flushing," Sebastien whispered into her hair. "You need champagne, I think." He led her across to the ballroom and fetched a glass, collecting another that he retained untouched.

"The guest of honor isn't here yet." She let her hand drop from his arm and turned to observe the room, raising the flute to lips incarnadined with paint.

"Ah, yes." Sebastien cocked his head to one side, listening. "His Highness Prince Henry of Britain, brother and heir to King Phillip and favored emissary, on his tour of the Americas. At least once a decade whether they need to or not. The dirigible arrived from Tenochtitlán yesterday."

"I'm surprised you didn't come to view the landing. It was spectacular." The colonies didn't see as much airship travel as the cities of Europe, even in the dawning years of the 20th century. Peter Eliot, the Lord Mayor of New Amsterdam, had been there with his wife in her French gown and her diamonds, every artifact of dress a political statement in these days of near-open warfare between the Empire and the French. Mohawk sorcerers might have been blamed for the massacre at St. Johnsbury in the Green Mountains, but Garrett knew that the Native warriors must be supplied with modern weapons out of Quebec. The Mayor, she suspected, would cheerfully turn to the French if it meant home rule for the colonies.

"In the balmy afternoon sun? Abby Irene, I believed you thought more highly of me." He took the empty glass from her hand and replaced it with his own. Lightly, so quickly she didn't think anyone in the room would have noticed, he brushed a fingertip across the scarlet sorcerer's tattoo over her breastbone, just visible in the décolletage of her gown. Daring for an older woman, but Garrett believed in getting away with whatever she could. "There. A much more becoming flush, I think. You're upset for your Duke, señora?"

The light laughter sounded forced even to her. "It's not the Duke, Sebastien. And you know I never married."

"Señorita." He awarded her the point with a smile. "Or the Duchess either?"

She sighed. "It's the Prince."

"Abigail Irene. You do impress."

"Long over," she replied. "I came to America."

"I wondered why. Does Richard know?"

She finished Sebastien's champagne. "Duke Richard?" The lightest possible emphasis. "I rather imagine he wouldn't have let his wife invite me, if he did. He has an eye for propriety, our Duke. Shall we dance?"

"Unless you care for another glass of champagne." A kiss of irony as he lifted the glass from her fingers and set it aside.

She felt eyes upon her as she straightened a hothouse rose in his buttonhole. The damasked petals felt like silk. She imagined they matched the flush marking her cheeks. "I'm giddy enough," she said, and glanced up, expecting Richard's gaze pale under bark-brown curls or a fish-eyed glare from Peter Eliot.

Instead, dark eyes glittered in a sailor's deep lined squint as Henry, Prince of England, looked back at her and offered up a slow, deep, self-possessed smile. He wore a goatee now, she observed—even as her breath jammed in her throat and tore—though his curls were still black as Japanese lacquer. He stared at her over the shoulder of her lover, Duke Richard, who bent close to whisper in his ear. The Prince laid tapered fingers on the Duke's shoulder, shook his head once gently to end the conversation, and came down the steps. A cool breeze from some open window brushed Garrett's cheek.

"Excuse me," Garrett turned to whisper to Sebastien, but the wampyr had already slipped away. She smelled citrus and ambergris and bit the inside of her cheek until her eyes stopped stinging. It was only a moment, but by the time she looked forward again, Henry of England was bowing over her hand. She would have thought herself numb enough to feel nothing, but his fingers tickled her skin through kid; she almost closed her eyes. "Your—Highness."

"Abby Irene," he answered, and now she felt the Mayor's eyes searing the nape of her neck, felt Richard's and Jacqueline's gazes on her face like hands raised to her cheek in question. "The New World has been kind to you."

"Intermittently. Champagne, your Highness?"

"I think I had better not." The smile carved deeper furrows beside his eyes. A green jewel dripped rakishly from his left earlobe. "I recognize your escort, by the way. Do you know—"

"It's a well-kept secret, but yes."

"Ah."

He stared at her throat. She was glad she'd worn the low-cut gown and suffered her hair to be piled up tall. The small white scars weren't on her neck: Sebastien was considerate. She smiled through the numbness. "He's a friend. How's your wife?"

"Pregnant again. May I call on you in private tomorrow, Crown

Investigator?"

The title drew her back. Henry never said anything he didn't mean to carry several meanings. This is official. "Highness? Could I deny you?" Would I, if this were a personal visit? She didn't know the answer, even now. The Atlantic, it seemed, hadn't been as wide as she had thought.

"Anon, then." A quick bow, and he was gone, leaving Garrett to hide her urge to stand and stare after the Prince's retreating back like a terrified doe. She turned in time to catch the Lord Mayor's eye still on her, his lanky red-haired wife posed beside him in marten and gold and emeralds. The fabric falling back from her fashionably pale hand was a royal blue so dark it was almost violet, and Garret wished she had a wine glass to raise in a silent, mocking toast. Instead, she twined fingers in the jade moiré silk of her skirts and let her steps carry her toward the Eliots, Peter and Cecelia. A blonde head moved through the crowd: Duchess Jacqueline trying to intercept her, but Richard's wife would not be quick enough.

Cecelia had evaporated by the time Garrett reached her goal, but she succeeded in catching up with the Lord Mayor. She reached past him to liberate a canapé from the refreshment table. "This must be quite uncomfortable for you."

"Crown Investigator?" His expression gave her to understand he had no idea what she might be insinuating.

She licked a crumb free of her lip varnish. "A party in His Highness's honor. I'm surprised you found it appropriate to attend, given your politics."

"Because a man is loyal to the needs of his own home over the demands of a distant emperor, does not mean that that man doesn't wish the op-

portunity to discuss matters discreetly and in a mannerly fashion. Or

perhaps I'm just here to flirt with the lovely Duchess." Eliot smiled his fishy smile, and Garrett winced as she swallowed the second bite of canapé. Creamy goat cheese tasted like crumbled lard and ash, but she managed

with dignity.

"She's lovely enough to warrant it."

Eliot leaned forward. "I had no idea you were so intimate with the Crown."

She let herself laugh; she had practice. "It's my job. To uphold the Crown and the law."

"Even when the Crown is above the law?"

"Parliament would disagree with that contention, Lord Mayor." The Duchess came up beside them at that moment, and Garrett saw Eliot smile thankfully. Interesting that his hatred for Richard doesn't extend to Richard's wife. Garrett excused herself, refusing to squirm under Jacqueline's raised eyebrow, and went looking for the Duke through the gentle swirl of music drifting across the floor.

A compact, strong-shouldered man in evening clothes intervened. She studied him without seeming to—as was her habit—as he bowed and handed her a bit of parchment sealed in violet. "Compliments of his Highness." He had an aquiline, pockmarked face and grass-green eyes, strange in mahogany skin but matching the beryl in his cravat-pin. She took the note, imagining the crisp oiliness it would have on her flesh. Gloved fingers brushed hers. "You are as lovely as your reputation, Lady Abigail."

"Please," she said, feeling something—a chain?—shift inside the packet as she touched the corner to her lip. "Abigail Irene. May I know your name, sir?"

The smile rearranged his face under the terrible scars. "Nezahualcoyotl. Michel Nezahualcoyotl. Charmed."

"Aztec! Are you an ambassador from the Emperor?"

"I am." His accent was slight and cultured. "Five years in the court of King Phillip. This has been my first chance to visit my home, however. And my first time in your fair city: very lovely by moonlight."

"I saw it rise," she said. "Gorgeous indeed. Nearly full."

"On the waning side." His smile gentled the correction. "My father's people say the shapes on its face make the outline of a rabbit, but my mother taught me it was an old man. What do your New Amsterdam people see?"

"I'm from London." She changed the subject. "You have very charming eyes. I've never met an Aztec before: I had thought you would have eyes as dark as a Mohawk."

"My mother was white." A trace of coolness in that? "It's why I survived the smallpox, and why I was sent to England when a diplomat was needed."

"It is no doubt to his Highness' eternal benefit that you did." She

shook the packet again, lightly, to hear it rustle. "Were there instructions with this?"

"He only asked me to deliver it. My Lady." And he bowed slightly and turned away.

Garrett took a half-step after him, squinting as her skirts belled forward and then settled, swaying, about her hips. She tilted the parchment once more, again felt some weight slide within it. A note? Something I need to open now? Or is it best kept for home? She raised her chin to search for Richard and saw him in wary conversation with the Lord Mayor.

And where has Sebastien gotten off to?

That breeze touched her face again, and she turned to seek its source. Bellied draperies revealed some passageway beyond them, and Garrett chose to investigate.

Rather than a window, the draperies concealed a doorway to a tiny balcony, just large enough for two. It was unoccupied, and Garrett pushed weighty silk velvet aside and stepped onto pale marble gleaming blue in the moonlight. She drew her right glove off and draped it over her arm before lifting the seal on the packet with her fingernail. Night wind scarfed her skirts and petticoats around her thighs. She tilted the packet and the contents slid and dropped.

A gold chain fine as a breath of wind fell across her hand. She closed her fingers quickly, before the swinging weight of the pendant could drag it loose, and raised it to the light. A dark stone shaped like a tear swayed in a shaft of moonlight. "Henry."

There was writing inside the parchment. She slipped the jewel into the cuff of her glove, forgetting to replace the other one, and folded the letter open.

For fondest remembrance, it said, and was unsigned. A peace offering, then, and not a deeper gesture. A breath she had not known she was holding hissed between her teeth; the perfume of forsythia and daffodils filled her throat, dizzying. She clutched the rail, not knowing if what she felt was grief or gratitude, and didn't notice until she opened her eyes again that her glove had slid down her wrist and dropped over the railing.

"Bother." Garrett tucked the note into her remaining glove, collected her wits, picked up her skirts, and—when another quick glance around the ballroom showed no trace of Sebastien—began her descent into the gardens to retrieve it. She was halfway down the sweeping stairway when she heard the scream.

DCI Garrett was something of an expert on screams. She placed this

one as female, aristocratic, and as the discoverer rather than a victim of an atrocity. She turned on the stair, somehow managing her gown, and sprinted back up as fast as she could run.

Cecelia Eliot lay across the striped silk divan in the ladies' lounge with her head pillowed on the scrolled mahogany arm, pale and empty in a way that made Garrett think of a discarded stocking. A torn discarded stocking, ripped from heel to hem. . .for Eliot's chest was torn open, her throat slashed from ear to ear, and her royal blue gown as spotless and dry as the silk of the couch. Jacqueline stood beside her, trembling, pale hands clutched white-knuckled in front of her mouth.

The little room smelled of cloved oranges, lavender and face powder. Garrett almost gagged. She kicked a vanity bench in front of the door to hold it open and laid her ungloved hand on the Duchess's arm. "Your

Grace, come away." Jacqueline looked at her, but Garrett didn't think the woman saw her. "Come away." She heard running footsteps—servants,

the Aztec ambassador, the Lord Mayor, and—God bless—the Duke.

Richard! Garrett stopped her cry just in time, as Sebastien came up the

front stairs four at once. Garret bent her attention to Jacqueline. "Duke Richard. Your Lady needs help." Gently but firmly, she placed Jacqueline into his care and focused on Nezahualcoyotl. "The Mayor," she said, and Nezahualcoyotl turned to intercept the man before he could see his wife in such disarray.

Garrett turned back to the body, crouching beside it. She raised her hands before her as if drawing in a net, but she did not touch. "Don Sebastien." She didn't need to look up to know when he knelt at her side.

"Crown Investigator." Her title now, and his voice rose cool and professional over the sound of a woman's sobbing.

"Detective, what do you notice about the scene?"

She saw the slight smile quirk the corner of his mouth, heard the low resonance of Nezahualcoyotl's voice as he led Peter Eliot away. Jacqueline had recovered herself and was speaking to Richard in a voice that carried soft, urgent command.

The wampyr's gaze swept the bloodless body, the terrible wounds.

A thoughtful pause, and then: "Her jewels are gone."

Garrett nodded and waited, knowing there would be more.

"And there are no marks on her arms or hands. Also, the blood is

missing—"

Richard's voice interrupted them, as he leaned between their close-

bent heads. His words stopped Garrett's heartbeat in her throat. "So is the Prince."

* * *

The burgeoning moon had long drifted into slumber, the sun was

well-risen and Sebastien had fled the morning hours before Abigail Irene, exhausted, managed to return to her townhouse. Her servant Mary snored in the chair by the door, and did not awaken at Garrett's key in the lock. Mary wore yesterday's apron and her wiry coils of hair had frizzed free of her bun. Garrett was reaching out a hand to shake Mary awake when she

realized that her dustmop terrier, Mike, was nowhere in evidence. A reflexive check of her wards told her no-one had entered the house uninvited,

but revealed a presence upstairs.

Garrett's carpetbag lay in the front hall closet beside her umbrella,

but her wand was in her boot, and from there quickly in her hand.

Without wakening Mary, she first checked the lower level and then crept

up the stairs to her bedroom door. She was about to turn the smooth,

hard doorknob stealthily when the scent of oranges and musk tickled her

memory.

She opened the door. Her bedroom drapes were drawn to muffle any sunlight, and Mike came bounding to her from the corner by the fire where she kept two leather-covered chairs. She scooped the patchwork dog up and held him tight to her breast, unmindful of the green silk of her gown. "Your Highness," Garrett said into the darkened room. "We've been tearing the city apart." Henry. What ever possessed you. . ..

"I imagined you would think your wampyr awaited you." The tall black-haired Prince came out of the shadows towards her, and she saw that he had slept—if at all—in snatches. The darkness under his eyes lay as hollow and black as that rimming her own.

"I recognized your cologne." She shut the door behind her and threw the bolt. "Henry—"

"I know." He closed the space between them. She turned away and laid her wand on the French-waxed half-round table by the wall, still holding Mike close. The wallpaper in her bedroom had a narrow silver stripe and subtle traceries of wisteria; she studied it as he spoke. "I vanished. New

Amsterdam is in an uproar. I had a reason—"

"Let me see your hands."

"Pardon?"

She set Mike down by her feet. He gamboled around her ankles for a moment, and then went to sniff the gleaming shoes of his long-absent friend the Prince. "Let me see your hands, Henry."

Wordlessly, he held them out to her, and she took them in her own—her left one clad in kidskin, the right one bare. She'd forgotten her glove after all. Henry had bourbon on his breath—not much, a trace, from the decanter on her washstand—and as she examined his manicured nails he leaned close as if to breathe the perfume from her hair. "How have you been, Abby Irene? Really?"

His hands were clean, undamaged. She let them fall. Mike whined by her ankle and Henry crouched to tousle his fur, like brown-and-cream milkweed fluff across those capable fingers. A breeze stirred the draperies and a shaft of morning sunlight glittered on the pirate gemstone in the Prince's ear. "I've been well," she said. She took two steps back and sat down on the edge of her bed, patchwork counterpane dimpling where her hands clenched. "Well enough. I—I like the earring."

"A royal gift from our Aztec friends. Phillip had a fit." Same eyes, same smile. The creases a little deeper.

"Phillip will put up with it unless he gets a son."

A low chuckle trickled out of his mouth. "He will at that. He's had no luck yet. Fortunately, I have three. The sorcerer-midwife tells Elaine it will be a daughter at last, this time."

"Your wife must be pleased." She made herself stop twisting the counterpane before it tore. "Why did you leave the ball?"

"I was told my life was in danger, and—" He stood, boots silent on

her thick, layered carpets as he measured and re-measured a path from bed to wall.

"And."

"—not mine alone, if I stayed. This was the safest place I could think of. I've not been in New Amsterdam before."

It twisted her strings to think he would come to her for protection. After everything. After she had come to America when his mother, the Iron Queen, died and he became heir, when their relationship became a potential embarrassment. She was a Crown Investigator, beholden—only—to the Crown. She had gone to King Phillip without telling Henry.

She had gone without saying goodbye. "Not your danger alone if you left, either."

He stopped mid-stride, turned from his pacing, fixed her on a look. "What do you mean?"

"The Lord Mayor's wife is dead."

* * *

Garrett woke Mary and sent her for Richard's carriage, knowing the Duke's men would recognize the Crown Investigator's housekeeper and do as she bid. She put Henry to bed in a guest room—it amused him—to get what rest he could, and cast a minor working over herself to ensure wakefulness. She didn't remember the necklace until she drew hot water and began to undress. When she dropped her one remaining glove on her vanity, a golden chain slipped from the pale kid like a serpent from its den. The stone clinked on marble, and when she picked it up and held it to the light it glittered green, the twin of the one in Henry's ear.

She lifted the long chain over her head and let the stone hang against the crimson sigil between her breasts while she bathed. She was dressed again, decent in a high-necked blue-grey linen gown, by the time Mary returned perched beside the coachman on the bench of Richard's carriage, and with Richard inside.

Garrett waited for the Duke inside her door. "The Prince?" he asked. Before he even had his hat off.

"Asleep," she answered. Richard bent to kiss her and she turned her face away so that his lips brushed her cheek. She gazed up the stairs. "He felt unwell."

"I imagine. And you?"

She shrugged and hung his hat. "Concerned. How is Eliot bearing up?"

"Badly. He insists on the arrest of the Prince."

Garrett swallowed and staggered. Richard caught her arm before she could fall over the hem of her dress. "The—Henry?"

"Yes."

"But—"

Richard lead her to a chair. "There was a similar crime in London six months gone, before the airship departed for Tenochtitlán. The woman killed was—a favorite of his Highness'. It's rumored, anyway."

Garrett was pleased that she did not flinch. "What would the Prince want with Cecelia's emeralds, Richard?"

The Duke seated her and released his grip on her arm. Gently, he smoothed a disarrayed blonde strand back from her eyes. "Misdirection?

It's easily explained away. Given the Prince's disappearance just before the murder, when the guests were accounted for and questioned. . .Telegrams have been sent: Parliament approves the action."

"I am not in the pay of Parliament," Garrett said quietly. "And neither are you, your Grace. What does his Majesty say?"

"His Majesty is silent," Richard replied, bending his head low over hers. "But in the absence of a better suspect. . .."

"I can offer one, Richard."

Garrett's head turned, as did the Duke's. Henry stood at the foot of the stair, his hair combed and the shadows under his eyes somewhat lightened. "Your Highness!" She hastened to her feet, Richard's hand still resting on her shoulder.

"Sit, Abby Irene," the Prince said kindly, and Garrett heard Richard's breath stop short, felt his fingers clench on her arm. "I can see you are unwell."

She glanced at the Duke but he would not look at her. His forehead was white: she imagined his flesh must feel as cold as if all the blood in his body had run down into his boots. And now you know, as you've often asked me, why I left London, my love. She obeyed her prince, and sat. "Another suspect, your Highness?"

Henry nodded and crossed the intricately tiled entryway to stand before them. Richard drew his hand off Garrett's arm. "Forgive me for eavesdropping. I overheard what you said, Richard, about the similarities to the murder in London. I was not even in London at the time: I had the details from a friend."

Richard nodded; his throat worked, but he didn't speak.

Garrett felt a strange tautness in the skin of her face, as if it stretched toward a shout. No. Henry. No.

"One of the guests at your ball, New Amsterdam, had both motive and opportunity for the crime. The Spaniard, de Ulloa. It was my contention that the crime in London was the work of an unclean beast. . .and here we find another such crime and another such creature in close proximity. The coincidence is unnerving."

"Beast? The 'Great Detective'?" Richard glanced down at Garrett, a knife line drawn between his eyes. "DCI?"

She closed her hands on the carved wood of the chair and stood,

forcing herself to steadiness. She raised her eyes to the Duke's and made her voice strong. "Sebastien's a wampyr, Richard. That's what his Highness is

so gently insinuating. Did you expect—what? Stoker's Dracula or Dumas' Gosselin?" She smiled bloodlessly at the Prince, the jewel burning between her breasts like a star. "I suppose we can place Prince Henry and Sebastien both in protective custody. Just until we get things sorted out. We'll have to wait until nightfall to collect Sebastien." She pinned Henry with a look. "Your Highness, consider it a gesture to reassure your people that you do not consider yourself above the law."

The Prince opened his mouth, met Garrett's steel-blue gaze, and subsided with a curt, ungracious nod. Henry had always been the smarter of the two royal brothers. Garrett glanced at the Duke: the look Richard gave her was startled admiration, and she kept her gaze on him because she couldn't stand to meet Henry's.

* * *

After they had seen to the Prince's comfort—which mostly involved feeding his Highness and seeing him drawn a hot bath—Garrett found herself in the salon with Richard, relaxing on a velvet-covered couch and sipping brandy while his Mastiff laid a head that weighed more than a stone upon her foot and sighed. "Did anyone happen to collect my glove from the garden?"

"I'll ask Seamus." He swirled cinnamon-scented liquor in his glass and leaned against the arm of the curved couch they shared. "Will Don Sebastien come if we send a messenger?"

"I don't see why not. He'll need a darkened room for day."

"I can't just lock him in the wine cellar?" But Richard half-smiled and Garrett's startled retort faded.

She let the brandy roll over her tongue, savoring an almost creamy texture. "Where's Jacqueline?"

"The Duchess—" Richard frowned. "Spent the night at her siser's. I

expect she'll be home after dinner. The Lord Mayor, I am told, has taken to his bed." Richard's opinion was plain in his voice. "You never told me you had an affair with the Prince."

"I never told the Prince I had an affair with you. When you have Sebastien in your clutches, my Lord, will you see to it that the house burns down and be rid of them both?"

"If only I could get away with it." But he smiled. "Can you link the criminal to the crime? If we have them both in the house, can you eliminate them as suspects through sorcery?"

"I can try," she said. "It depends whether the assassin kept the device used to commit the murder far away from himself until it was needed, and then discarded it, or if he kept it close. Perhaps if we can discover what

became of the poor woman's blood. . .." She shook her head. "It wasn't Sebastien, Richard. For one thing, he came up the stairs behind me, and if he had gone down so close in advance I would have seen him."

"He could have leapt from a balcony. If he's what you say?"

"He could. But—"

"A wampyr wouldn't kill, if the mood took him?"

"That's prejudice, Richard, and utterly unfair. Or is it just jealousy?"

"I. . .." He reached down and smoothed the dog's velvet ears. Sipped his drink. Fiddled with a stick-pin she hadn't seen before. "Yes," he said sharply. "Would you rather I didn't care?"

Something wild flared in her breast. "Sebastien," she said with utter clarity, "doesn't need to take."

Her words seemed to hang between them for an hour. Richard stared into the depths of his glass, and spoke very slowly, as if he had no heard her at all. "We have to—Abby Irene. We have to prove the Prince's innocence. If there is any doubt. Any shade of doubt—" He left the thought unfinished. The Lord Mayor will turn it into another article in his endless list of reasons the Colonies must secede from the Empire, and throw ourselves on the mercy of the silk-fisted French. Not just neglect, taxation, King Phillip's desire to build his Empire eastward.

Not just neglect, but malevolence.

She stood and finished her drink, gently extricating her foot from under the dog. "Send the message to Sebastien now: his servants will see that he gets it. Send another servant for a scrap of Cecelia Eliot's dress. I'll need it tonight. When I check on the Prince. Or the prisoner, if you prefer."

"As you wish," Richard said, his foot flipping restlessly. He set his own glass aside, fingers lingering on the mouth-blown glass. She shivered in an almost-physical recollection. "You should rest beforehand, Abby Irene."

"Where is Mr. Nezahualcoyotl sleeping?"

"The ambassador? He's got rooms on the fourth floor. In the East Wing, near the Prince's suite."

"I need to speak to his Highness before I rest: I need some items from him. I'll take the south guest bedroom, after. The green one." Down the hall from Richard's room, connected by a side door to the third-floor library. A pair of three-hundred-year-old elms screened the windows. Richard cocked his head at an angle and arched his eyebrow at her—a silent question.

Garrett forced one narrow smile before she left.

* * *