Girodaia looked down at the book, ran a finger down the spine. “But you’re not forbidding me to sell it?”

Rathe sighed. “You know I can’t. Just consider it a friendly warning.”

Girodaia frowned, shook her head. “I’ll take my chances, I think, Nico. You understand.”

“I understand,” Rathe answered, and touched b’Estorr’s arm. “Istre?”

The magist started slightly, turned to follow the other man with a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”

“What is it?” Rathe asked.

“Verifiable is an interesting word,” b’Estorr said. “Verifiable by whom, is what I’ve been wondering. Not by the university, we haven’t seen anything of it.”

“No copies in the great library?”

b’Estorr snorted. “Even if someone donated a copy at some point, I wouldn’t know where to find it. The cataloging in the older sections leaves much to be desired. But my point is, it’s not the word we would use.”

“How about certifiable?” Rathe asked, and b’Estorr laughed.

“You’re likely to become so, with all these flooding the market. But, no, the word the university would use is provenanced.”

“So?”

“So,” b’Estorr said slowly, “if it exists, it’s unlikely to have ever been proved by the university. Which means that even this ‘verifiable’ edition may in fact be more dangerous than we thought.”

“Everybody knows how to make gunpowder,” Rathe said.

“Do you?” b’Estorr answered. “Do you really?”

Rathe blinked. “Charcoal, nitre, and saltpeter…”

“In what proportions? And how do you mix it?”

“Very carefully,” Rathe answered. “All right, point taken.”

“And to use gunpowder once you’ve made it, generally speaking you also use a gun and ball or shot of some sort, and you stand there and take your chances, seen or unseen.” b’Estorr shook his head. “This would be something very different.”

Rathe blinked again, looked up at the taller man, seeing the breeze ruffle his straw‑pale hair. “Istre, do you believe in the Alphabet of Desire?”

“I’m very much afraid that I’m afraid not to.”

There was nothing to be said to that. Rathe looked away, kicked a stone from his path with more force than was needed, wishing the other hadn’t put into words what he himself had already begun to fear. Fourie was right, as he so often was; the Alphabet was potentially very dangerous–if, he reminded himself, it actually existed. But b’Estorr was right, they couldn’t afford to believe it didn’t.

The market clock struck then, a fraction before the larger clock at the guildhall, and b’Estorr swore, more violently than Rathe could ever remember hearing him. The Chadroni shook his head, looking utterly disgusted. “Sorry, Nico, I lost complete track of the time. And I have a class in less than an hour.”

Rathe couldn’t repress the grin. “Let me guess in what subject.”

“Don’t bother. Look, if you learn anything more about this, let me know, all right?”

“If you do the same,” Rathe answered. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?” b’Estorr paused, looked honestly curious.

“The look that says you’re going to track down a puzzle and strangle it.”

“Must be why it’s like looking in a mirror,” b’Estorr answered, and turned away.

Rathe made his way back to Point of Dreams, pausing twice more to check printers’ shops for the Alphabet of Desire. There were at least two further editions, and a promise of a third, more elaborate volume keyed to the play itself, and all of them, Rathe thought, with disgust, equally likely to be harmless. But not guaranteed, and that was why Trijn, and every other chief point in the city, would be spending hard‑earned favors or even the stations’ close kept funds to make sure they had copies of everything.

Dreams was dark and chill in spite of the fires in three of the stoves, and he freed himself only reluctantly from the bulk of his jerkin, hanging it with the others beside the fireplace. The duty point cleared her throat uneasily, and Rathe controlled his annoyance with an effort. Yres Falasca had been passed over, at least in her view; she was doing her best to live with her disappointment.

“Yeah?”

Falasca pushed a package wrapped in brown paper across the desk toward him. “This came for you, this morning.”

Rathe suppressed a sigh, recognized Gasquine’s seal: the script, then, of The Alphabet of Desire. Just what he needed to finish a perfect morning, he thought, and tucked it under his arm. His own workroom was mercifully warmer–the duty runner had remembered to light his stove, and there was a fresh pot of tea on the hob–and he settled himself at his table with cautious relief. The package, unfortunately, was still there; he sighed, and broke the seal, peeling back the wrapping. The script was there, loosely bound with what looked like kitchen string, a copyist’s tidy hand filling the pages, but he put it aside for the second item. This proved to be a list of the lottery winners, the nobles who would take part as members of the chorus. After the morning, he could hardly read the script with any equanimity; the nobles were far preferable. He read the list through once, then again, more slowly, and a third time, more closely still. He refolded the paper, and tipped his chair back so that his head could rest against the rough plaster wall. He could not, he told himself, couldn’t possibly be seeing what he thought he was seeing. On the other hand, sheer luck could not possibly account for it, either. He took a deep breath, unfolded the paper again, and stared at the names, making the connections explicit in his own mind: yes, at least half of the dames and seurs were somehow related to a claimant to the throne.

“Sweet Sofia,” he said, and started for Trijn’s office at a pace just short of a run.

Trijn met him on the landing, anger turning to understanding as she saw what he held. “My workroom,” she said. “You, Hina! Go to Laneten’s, get two plates of whatever’s going for lunch, and a jug of beer. A large one.”

The runner bobbed a curtsy, eyes wide, and Trijn waved her away. “My workroom,” she said again, and Rathe obeyed.

The chief point said nothing more until the door was closed firmly behind them, then shook her head. “All right,” she said, “you first.”

Thanks. Rathe took a breath. “Dumb chance couldn’t possibly account for this,” he said, and held out the paper. “More than half of the members of the masque chorus are directly related to one of the claimants to the throne.”

Trijn waved for him to take a seat, and he obeyed automatically. Trijn’s copy of the list lay facedown on her table, and she turned it over again before she spoke. “Half? I make it more like three‑quarters, myself. Shit.”

“What do you think it means?” Rathe asked cautiously. He was still wary of Trijn’s temper. “It’s not making a lot of sense to me. If the lottery was rigged, why? And by whom?”

“By whom is probably the easy part,” Trijn said with a snarl. “There’s only one person in Astreiant–hells, in Chenedolle–who could manage it, and that’s Astreiant herself.”

“The metropolitan?” Rathe shook his head. “Why?”

Trijn gave a humorless smile. “I know you like her, Rathe, but she’s a consummate politician. At least, I would have thought so. This–” She lifted her copy of the list, and let it fall heavily to the tabletop. “I would suspect this was done at Her Majesty’s behest. As to why… Rumor’s a wonderful thing, Rathe. It runs on so many levels. There are rumors you hear that I probably never get wind of, even in this station, to say nothing of the rumors that run in your part of southriver, as opposed to my part of northriver. The rumors in Point of Knives will always be different from those running in Temple Point, or anywhere else in the city. And University Point rumors are like no other in Chenedolle. Neither are City Point rumors. And the most recent City Point rumors are extremely interesting.”