The glass ampoule clicked against the iron tray, its rim smeared with tincture of arnica. "Keep still," Elias Vance muttered. His knuckles were raw from scrubbing boiler soot off his cuffs, but his touch along her forearm remained remarkably steady. He dipped a square of linen into warm mineral spirits and pressed it over the bluish lace spreading beneath her skin. "The cold isn't natural. It smells of river-silt and brass. If I cut into this, Amadea, I won't find blood; I'll find ice shavings." Amadea tilted her head back against the horsehair sofa of his canal-side dispensary. Overhead, the low hum of gas pipes rattled the plaster. Her silk gown was torn at the hem, caked with dry chimney ash from the rooftop flight, but she smiled—broad, empty, and bright as cheap carnival foil. "Don't be dramatic, Doctor! A pinch of cellar draft never killed a girl who knows how to dance. Though I suppose my embroidery might suffer if my thumb goes black and drops into my tea cake." Elias stopped. The linen hovered between them, dripping aromatic oil onto her sleeve. His gaze was dark, stripped of the polite distance he maintained during society calls. "Stop it," he said, his voice flat. "Not with me." Her smile faltered at the edges, the corners stiffening. "The carriage out of Ondanza leaves from the northern dock on the dawn tide after the solstice," Elias said, setting the cloth down. He took her palm in both of his, chafing the grey-white pallor of her knuckles until friction forced color back into the grain. "I have two tickets stamped for the glassworks across the gulf. New records. Clean ledgers. You don't have to burn with them, Amadea. Let them swallow their own poison." She looked down at their joined hands. The heat of his fingers pressed through her skin, checked by the winter rot running along her wrists. The ache behind her ribs sank lower. "A clean ledger doesn't undo the snow in my lungs, Elias," she murmured, the girlish lilt stripped entirely away, leaving the dry rasp of an executioner. "I don't get to run. I stay until the reel finishes spinning." "Then I wait until the lights come up," he replied, pressing a brass token into her palm—the pass-key to his river skiff. "When the cathedral empties, find the pier. Promise me." She slipped the token into her stays, pulled her velvet half-mask over her nose, and stepped out into the fog of the lower docks without a backward glance. *** Beneath the rib-vaulted cellars of the Old Salt Exchange, the Red Oar Syndicate took its recreation behind masks of papier-mâché and cured pigskin. The air hung thick with pipe-tar and tallow. Fiddlers scraped bow-hair across warped wood while smugglers, back-alley couriers, and disgraced counts poured pear brandy down each other's throats. At the far end of the barrel-lined vault, Ignazio Morante reclined upon an improvised dais constructed entirely of iron-banded munitions crates and crates of rifled carbines. His wolf-hide coat was thrown open to the waist; he picked his teeth with an ivory toothpick while a scarred dockhand counted neat stacks of gold sovereigns into an open chest. Amadea parted the rabble, tossing her feather-trimmed fan to a gaping bruiser at the cordon. "Oh, goodness! What an terribly loud parlor!" she chirped, batting her lashes beneath her gilded mask as she hopped onto the lowest crate. "Ignazio, darling! You simply must tell your associates that black powder clashes horridly with my complexion." Ignazio didn't flinch. He spat the toothpick onto the flagstones. "You're loud, Amadea. And you smell like clinic lye." She dropped the simpering tone the instant she leaned into his ear, her fingernails biting through the wool of his lapel. "Cosima's gold looked heavy in your pockets, traitor. Did you think Gaddo and I wouldn't drag ourselves out of the smoke?" Ignazio chuckled, a dry sound like gravel under a boot. He reached down, lifted the lid of the nearest munitions box with his toe, and tipped it so the candlelight caught the interior. It wasn't packed with shot. Inside lay two dozen ceremonial halberds, brass buckles bearing the ducal seal, and iron skeleton keys tagged for the Basilica of Saint Jude. "Cosima's dowry gold bought the cathedral provost's loyalty three hours ago," Ignazio said evenly. "The west gallery projection booth is cleared. The private guard roster for the nuptials has been replaced with my lads from the dry-docks. When your little film starts whirring, no one opens the sanctuary doors. No one cuts the generator lines. She paid for her own cage, little mouse. I merely handled the courier fee." Amadea stared into the crate. Amadea drew a quiet breath, tracing the brass seal of the ducal tags. "You let them burn Gaddo's lenses." "Gaddo needs fewer toys and better discipline," Ignazio retorted, standing up. "Besides, the master reels were in my coat before Cosima even finished counting her coins. We play on the solstice. Not an hour before." Before she could reply, the iron grille at the cellar entrance groaned inward. A hush rippled through the vault, moving like grease over water. The fiddlers trailed off into a discord of sour notes. Tullio Vancetti stepped down the mossy stairs, his black wool traveling cloak gathered tightly around his throat to hide the fine lace of his necktie. He was pale, his mouth set in that familiar, defensive sneer he wore whenever he was forced to step outside the gated boulevards of the upper ward. Behind him trailed three hired cutthroats from the river patrol. "Morante," Tullio called out, his aristocratic accent grating against the vault's stone arches. "I was told your crew could supply four dozen carbines and discreet escorts for the Basilica square tomorrow. The streets are unruly. Common scum crawling out of every gutter." Amadea turned toward the stairs, settling her shoulders against the edge of the munition crate as the frost beneath her skin hardened. She snapped her fan open with a loud, theatrical flutter, adopting an exaggerated, tipsy sway. "Oh, my! An actual gentleman down in the damp!" she squeaked, spinning on the heel of her satin slipper and stumbling directly into Tullio’s path. "Do tell, sir, do you know the quadrille? These ruffians only know how to step on a lady's toes!" "Out of my way, wench," Tullio snapped, bringing a leather-gloved hand up to shove her aside. Amadea did not yield. She caught his wrist in a feigned stumble, letting her lace sleeve brush the heavy signet ring on his finger—the ring bought with her dead father's dowry. Through the painted slits of her mask, her gaze locked squarely onto his. Tullio’s hand went completely rigid. His chin dipped, his mouth parting as gray took the hollows beneath his cheekbones. The draft between them smelled of salt marsh and stagnant canal water. He leaned closer, his voice cracking into a dry, horrified whisper: "You have my dead wife's eyes."

The Syndicate's Ball