“Would that I could,” whispered Meralda.

Shingvere grinned. “And I’d tell old windbag there to leave the Tower’s shadow be.”

Heads turned toward the Eryan. “Shhhh,” hissed a Tirlish courtier.

Shingvere made a gesture, and the man’s hair stood suddenly on end.

“Shingvere!” said Meralda, as the wide-eyed courtier lifted his hands to his head.

Shingvere glared, and the man’s hair fell. “Mind your manners,” grumbled the Eryan.

Applause broke out as King Yvin bade the Eryan court to rise and be made welcome.

Shingvere rolled his eyes and remained seated. “I’m meeting Fromarch this evening,” he whispered, as the applause died. “You’ll come too, won’t you? I’m sure the doddering old skinflint will have a supper meal of some poor sort.”

Meralda nodded.

Shingvere grinned. “Good. You’re old enough to have a pint with us now, you know. Never drank with a Tirlish woman before. Might be fun.”

Again, applause rang out. Meralda caught sight of the captain’s back as he slipped through the furthest west doors. Soon, three of the captain’s staff and a handful of black-clad Secret Service officers followed.

Yvin’s welcome speech droned on. Within moments, Shingvere was snoring.

Meralda settled into her chair, gazed up at the stained glass murals and Tim the Horsehead’s toothy equine grin, and wondered just how he would have reacted to a fleet of Long Dragon five-masters sailing up the Lamp.

“Pardon, ma’am,” said Kervis, “But what’s a Long Dragon five-master?”

Their waiter hovered near, fussing with napkins and forks on a recently cleared table while he eavesdropped. Meralda brought her finger to her lips, and Kervis nodded and fell silent.

Orlo’s sidewalk cafe was bustling. Diners were being seated on the knee-high walls of Orlo’s sputtering three-tiered fountain, on the backs of parked cabs, on upturned milk buckets, and, in one instance, on a wrought-iron trolley-stop bench hauled away from the curb by a bevy of brawny Builder’s Guild bricklayers. Waiters ducked and bobbed, arms laden with plates and drinks, their movements more dance than stride.

A trio of skinny black-clad bankers darted like crows for the empty table beside Meralda’s. The waiter bade the newcomers welcome, promised them tea, and then, with a backward glance toward Meralda, he darted away.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Kervis.

“No matter,” said Meralda. “It’ll all be in the papers tomorrow anyway.”

Meralda swallowed the last bite of her ham on rye and washed it down with ice-cold Phendelit day tea.

“A five-master,” she said, wiping her chin, “is a ship. A Great Sea ship, half as long as the Tower is tall. The Long Dragon is the flag of the Chentze, which is the Hang equivalent of the house of a king.”

The Bellringers simultaneously lifted their right eyebrows.

“Big ship,” said Kervis.

Meralda took another long draught of her day tea. “They cross the Great Sea,” she said. “I suppose they have to be.”

Tervis frowned. “No one but the Hang has ever crossed the Great Sea,” he said. “Is that right?”

“It is,” said Meralda. “Eryans, Phendelits, us, the Vonats. Everyone has tried. But the ships either turn back, or vanish.” Meralda put down her glass. “Current thinking holds that the sea extends at least twenty thousand miles from every coast,” she said.

“Fly it,” said Kervis, matter-of-factly. “Why not send an airship?”

“It’s been tried,” said Meralda. “The ones that made it back all told the same story. No land past the Islands. Not a speck. Just sea and storms and it goes on forever,” she said. “That’s a quote, from the master of the airship Yoreland. They were aloft for more than two months.”

Tervis whistled. “Two months?”

Meralda nodded. “No one has tried since,” she said. “At least, no one of the Realms.”

Tervis shook his head. “These Hang,” he said, after a furtive look around. “What do they want?”

Meralda wiped her hands on her napkin. “People have been asking that for nine hundred years, Tervis,” she said. “I wish I knew.”

The palace bells struck twice. Meralda covered her plate with her napkin, and after a moment, Kervis and Tervis did the same. Meralda smiled.

“Well, gentlemen,” she said, as their red-haired Phendelit waiter appeared. “Time to go.” She dropped a small silver coin into the waiter’s hand and grinned into his astonished face. “A Hang fleet is heading for Tirlin,” she whispered, as the man blushed furiously. “Fifty ships, each longer than five Towers and each laden with forty thousand four-armed, two-headed, venom-spitting half-wolf Hang warriors. When you tell the penswifts, do try to get the numbers right.”

Kervis raced around to Meralda’s side of the table and pulled her chair back. “You probably shouldn’t mention the war dragons or the marching ogres, ma’am,” he said. “Might cause a panic.”

Meralda nodded solemn agreement, turned, and bade the Bellringers to follow. The Phendelit waiter watched for a moment, shook his head, and darted off to refill another round of tea glasses.

The Thaumaturgical Library buried deep within the palace cellars held little in the way of research concerning directed refraction. Instead, Meralda found page after page of intricate, improbable spellworks intended to render mages and kings invisible.

“Nonsense,” she muttered, skimming past the last ten pages of an entry listed as “Mage Mellick’s Wondrous Optical Void.” Frowning, she decided the only thing this Mellick ever made vanish was a monthly portion of the crown’s purse.

Disgusted, she rose, closed the heavy wood-bound volume, and padded barefoot on the cool stone floor back toward the library stacks. The foxfire she’d cast followed her, maintaining its station just above her left shoulder, sending shadows darting and bobbing down the long, high ranks of books arcane.

Boot steps sounded down the corridor outside the library, causing Meralda to frown until the footfalls turned and ended with the slamming of a door. She’d practically had to threaten the Bellringers to make them stay out of the library. The last thing she wanted now was an apprentice wizard from the college pestering her with sidelong looks and first-year questions.

Meralda shoved the heavy tome back into its place and stepped back. “Oh, for an index,” she muttered. “Four thousand eight hundred volumes reaching back six hundred years and not a table of contents in the lot.”

The library replied with silence and darkness. Meralda sighed, closed her eyes, and plucked another name from her memory. “Mage Heldin,” she said aloud. “Thaumaturge to King Roark II. Originator of Heldin’s Suspended Mirror. 1740, I think.” Meralda stalked down the stacks, squinting at the dates embossed on the spine of each book.

Tirlin’s history fled past. Meralda wondered what was hidden there, within the brittle pages. Oh, rubbish, for the most part, she mused, but no doubt a few gems as well.

“Perhaps even a shadow moving spell,” she said aloud. “Or am I the first to try?”

Heldin. Meralda slowed, urged the foxfire brighter. 1738, 1739–1740. “Here you are,” she said, pulling the book gently out of the chest-high shelf and brushing away the worst of the dust and spider webs. “Let’s see if you were worth looking for.”

Pages crackled as they turned. Page One contained a faded but still legible List of Works, With Page Numbers. Meralda smiled and began to read, ticking off spells as she went. “Spinning Colored Lights” held little interest, as it was merely a simple variation of the foxfire charm that hung above her shoulder. But what was “Seeing in Circles”?

Meralda turned fragile pages and returned to her desk. Part of her mind wrestled with Mage Heldin’s abysmal penmanship, but the rest was occupied with Hang five-masters.

In nineteen days Tirlin will be crowded with the royal houses of all the Five Realms. The Phendelit king, The Alon queen, the regent of Vonath, the king of Erya. All together, all vulnerable. Meralda frowned.