I did not get ten lira, in the worst possible way: Paffuto was there too.


    I paid little attention to Paffuto’s conquests, or attempted conquests. No one in our suite did, despite his best efforts to bait us into inquiring. I had managed to cultivate my ignorance on the matter to the point where I was only vaguely aware that his success rate was middling to low, a result that he invariably lay at the feet of the women themselves. They were too stuck up, or else so slatternly that he could not possibly bring himself to be with them, or, on several occasions: both. It was never clear how they had managed to accomplish such a dichotomy.


    As soon as I saw him sitting there in the parlor, perched awkwardly on a tufted ottoman, the unwillingly-overheard fragments of his latest pursuit came back to me: he, too, had found Miss Lucrezia’s grace quite compelling. He had been far less poetic in his praise, however. And he had brought his own companion; a pinched and sour fellow whose name I had never bothered to learn, as I had no intention of ever speaking to him.


    And now we were all here, together, in a small and very floral parlor.


    I almost turned around and walked right back out.


    But Francesca was already seating herself comfortably in a wingback chair, resting her hat on the armrest and crossing one ankle over her knee in a well-practiced fashion. She had actually cut her hair; it curled in loose waves to the bottom of her earlobes. I could hardly believe it. Carlo must have done it last night. Her utmost pinnacle of vanity. Either she was far more committed to her quest for a husband than I had given her credit for, or she was absolutely besotted with Miss Lucrezia.


    Paffuto was too genteel for a scowl, but he managed to be very communicative via eye contact alone. He stared daggers. Francesca smiled back affably. This was, I recalled, not her first time going mano a mano with the competition.


    I looked at Miss Lucrezia. She sat quietly on the sofa next to Lady Contarini, apparently unaware of the storm brewing on her behalf.


    Lady Contarini, meanwhile, was looking at me.


    There was nothing for it. I nodded politely. She nodded back with a small smile. Here in the daylight of the parlor, without a hawk-mask covering her face, I could see that she was dark-haired and blue-eyed, with a spattering of stubborn freckles across her nose that I was sure must drive her maid to distraction trying to lighten but she had made no attempt to cover up. I thought they were rather charming, like the speckles on a song thrush’s eggs.


    And then, very deliberately, her eyes flicked to Francesca, then to Paffuto, and then back to me, while she gave a very slight tilt of her head towards Miss Lucrezia. I inclined my head in return. Her smile widened.


    I wished I could enjoy the show as much as she was evidently preparing to. I felt like I’d had worms for breakfast.


    The salon progressed entirely without incident, however, or at least as smoothly as could be expected with Paffuto involved, shoehorning himself in as he did after every third comment. The topic was one of little interest to him; stewardship of natural resources. Several of the ladies in attendance had very strong opinions on the matter, which they expressed with a high degree of articulation, both verbal and gestural. When Francesca revealed that my family’s wealth arose from mining, I was pulled into the fray. And truthfully, I enjoyed it. Paffuto, who was far less knowledgeable on the topic and very aware of this fact, looked put out. He began to glare at me, as though his ignorance were my fault.


    I was glad to be interrupted by the tea-cart; Paffuto’s glares aside, I needed a moment to debrief with Francesca. We both excused ourselves to the bathroom.


    “Not Lord Solini,” she murmured.


    “Who?”


    She stared at me. “Your roommate!”


    “Oh.” Right. “We all just call him Paffuto.”


    “Why?”


    “No idea.”


    “Childhood moniker, no doubt. I can see why everyone in his environs has conspired to continue to torture him with it, however. What a boor.”


    “Well, he’s not the type you’re seeking anyway,” I replied. “And I don’t care if his friend is—”


    “He isn’t,” Francesca interrupted, “he’s here after the Maharani. You can tell by how he looks at her.”


    “—even if he were, no friend of Paffuto’s should be wed. By anyone. Ever.”


    Francesca gave a small, somewhat insincere sigh. “Oh dear.”


    My sigh was far more genuine. “Please, please do not get yourself in trouble. Or me, for that matter.”


    “I don’t think you need the help, Lord Fountain.”


    She was right, but not for the reason she thought.


    When we returned to the parlor, we found Paffuto in a heated debate with one of the ladies—so heated, their tea sat forgotten at their elbows, growing cold.


    “Do you have any experience whatsoever in these matters?” the lady snapped, leaning forward.


    Paffuto, conversely, was leaning backwards, in a deliberately arrogant sprawl. He laughed. “Do you?”Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    “My family has owned pastureland abutting timber forests since the fall of the Roman Empire,” the lady replied acridly. “I saw my first Satyr when I was five.”


    Paffuto raised his eyebrows suggestively. Several of the nearby women stilled in shock—although whether it was in response to her statement, or Paffuto’s horrible response, I couldn’t say.


    Francesca grabbed my arm warningly.


    The lady, fortunately, seemed either unaware of his insult, or immune to it. She continued. “It was a little girl-Satyr, not much older than I was. She had no horns, and the fur of her legs looked all soft and silky, like a kid’s. She was sitting on a little rock by the stream, and do you know what she was doing?”


    “Please enlighten me.”


    “She was having a tea party with her dolls.”


    Even Paffuto looked momentarily surprised before schooling his face back into a mask of condescension.


    “She had three of them, made of bright cloth; a baby, a mother, and a father, with little curling clay horns. They were very well crafted. And they were eating a meal of grass on little stone plates and drinking from acorn cups.”


    “Acorn cups,” scoffed Paffuto.


    “The very same type of acorn cups my own dolls drank from.”


    “So they can ape their betters,” Paffuto sneered. “There’s a large gap of civilization between dolls and deliberate forestry.”


    “The quality of our timber is unparalleled,” the lady replied bluntly, “precisely because we permit habitation by the Satyr. The only difference between our holdings and those of our neighbors is Satyrs, but our output is twelve per cent greater and nearly forty per cent stronger.”


    “How can you possibly make claims as to timber strength?” Paffuto said haughtily. “It’s just wood.”


    The lady looked at him as though he were exactly as stupid as he was. “Cantilever and compression testing,” she replied bluntly.


    “The keepers of the palace grounds never drive off the Naga they find after monsoon,” the Maharani piped up, dark eyes earnest. “They say it is bad luck to disturb a Naga, of course, but the real reason is because they eat the corpses of the drowned animals before they can putrefy and poison the wells.”


    “They say it is good luck if a Winged One lives in your tower.” The words were out before I could stop them. Everyone looked at me.


    Too late to back down now.


    I nodded at the Maharani. “The reasons are similar. They eat bats, which are a frequent carrier of hydrophobia.”


    The Maharani smiled up at me from where she sat, prompting Paffuto’s saturnine companion to direct his glower at me. “That must be very useful,” she said brightly, “with all your mines.”


    “Yes.”


    “Even if they the Naga weren’t so useful,” the Maharani went on, “we would never disturb them anyway. My mother wouldn’t allow it. Her beloved nurse was Nagavanshi.”


    I had never heard the word before, and I doubted many of the other attendees of the salon had either, but its meaning was patently clear from context. At first, I thought perhaps the Maharani did not understand what conversational chaos she had just sowed, but then I saw the glint in her eye. She knew. And she was looking at me very, very intently.


    She knew.


    Francesca’s hand tightened on my arm.


    I could do nothing more than pray that my face wouldn’t give me away.


    I forced out a thin chuckle. “I’m afraid you’ve quite shocked my suitemate, Maharani.”


    She caught my meaning immediately. I saw a flash of compassion in her eyes before she turned back to the suitemate in question, who was straightening up from his aggressively casual recumbency. He looked highly affronted. “I’m not shocked,” Paffuto objected. “I am aware of such tolerances in—other cultures.” He took a sip of tea and made a face; it was now very cold. “I’m worried about the sensibilities of the ladies present.”


    “Well, the Maharani’s sensibilities seem robust to the topic,” Lady Contarini said behind me. “Unless you’re implying she’s not a lady?”


    I turned to look at her, breath shallow. Both she and Miss Lucrezia were carefully avoiding my eye—or perhaps they were simply enjoying watching Paffuto squirm.


    Did they know?


    Did they all know?


    Francesca finally let my arm go. “Well, for the lords’ sake, then, if not the ladies’, let us turn our attentions back to the topic at hand—or else these excellent sandwiches. How on earth have you managed fresh strawberries at this time of year?”


    I tried to slow my racing heart as the conversation returned to safer topics, but I was not successful. I did not speak for the rest of the salon; I merely stared at the flowers climbing the curtains and sprawling over the wallpaper. Pansies, I thought. Or possibly violas. I could never tell the difference without Renella there to point out what were, to her, obvious differences.


    And perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought Lady Contarini kept glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.


    Francesca had to elbow me back to the present when it was time to leave. It took a titanic effort to make my way out gracefully, rather than simply hurtling out through the garden doors headlong.


    The only bright spot was, upon bending over Lady Contarini’s hand, she responded with a surprisingly warm grasp on my fingers.


    “Please,” she said, smiling up at me as I straightened, “call me Teresa.”


    I laughed nervously before replying, voice low enough that it would be unlikely to be overheard in the general hubbub of farewells, “I’m afraid I’m not that bold, my Lady. I hear your brothers are excellent swordsmen.”


    “Oh, them.” She reclaimed her hand and waved it dismissively. “They’re off making nuisances of themselves in France for the foreseeable future. I would very much like it if you called on me again.”


    There was no way to say no to this. “It would be my honor, my Lady,” I replied weakly.


    “It would, wouldn’t it?” she said cheekily. I smiled back despite myself. I was still smiling rather stupidly at her when Francesca hooked my arm to draw me away with a convivial, “Come now, Leo, let’s not pester the ladies any further.”


    I felt light as a feather walking back.


    Paffuto did not. He was sulking. “I don’t think that finishing school is quite finished with that crowd yet,” he said.


    “Well they certainly finished you off, didn’t they?” said Francesca cheerily. “Miss Lucrezia invited me back tomorrow; I think I shall take her up on it!”


    Paffuto began to turn pink.


    “Won’t that interfere with your business?” I asked pointedly. Her voice already sounded a shade lighter than it had this morning.


    “I’m quite good at multitasking,” Francesca replied.


    “What is your business, Mr. Luomo?” Paffuto asked roughly.


    Francesca placed her hat smartly on her head. “Shipping.”