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finished in time for the Presentation. Whatever panic had been in the guildhall, whatever rage Morada had expressed on the scaffold, it had been worthwhile, for that rush and fury had created this perfection.
    As Rani glanced up at the window, something caught her eye. A year ago, she would not have seen anything out of place in the careful leaded design. A month ago, she would not have recognized the outline of a bow against the glass. A week ago, she would not have realized that the bow was not part of the intricate armature. But only yesterday, she had white-washed the table that had borne the drawings for this window. She had scrubbed for hours, wiping out Instructor Morada’s charcoal lines; she had studied the precise pattern of lead and glass that created the masterpiece. Rani knew that there was no need for lead in that precise arc.
    An archer’s bow leaned against the window.
    Even as Rani recognized the danger, the bow was pulled away from the glass. She could imagine an assassin stepping back on the scaffold, moving the tip of a carefully fletched arrow to a single missing pane of glass. Rani thought she could hear the arrow nocked to the string; she could feel the tension of calloused fingers pulling the string to the archer’s ear.
    And all the while, Prince Tuvashanoran lay before the altar, unknowing. Rani struggled for breath in the suddenly close cathedral, clambering to her feet. In the silence of the praying congregation, her voice rang out, piercing and shrill. “Your Highness! To arms!”
    Guards leaped forward before she had completed the four words. Tuvashanoran jumped into a fighter’s crouch, all holy ritual forgotten as he grasped the ceremonial sword from the altar. The motion tore him around in a half-arc, already searching for the threat carried on a child’s voice.
    For one instant, there was nothing. Utter stillness gripped the congregation, the priest, the prince. Then, with the impossible momentum of a swooping hawk, a flash of light cut through the cobalt pool. The silence was cloven by a man’s outraged bellow, and Prince Tuvashanoran whirled around to face his people. Even as the crowd surged toward the altar, Rani could see the black-fletched arrow blooming from the socket of the prince’s right eye.
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    Chapter 2
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    Rani threw herself against the guildhall’s majestic gates, hitting the wrought iron with enough force to make the posts screech in their stone moorings. “Brother Gatekeeper!” she panted, trying to force a scream behind her ragged breath. “Brother Gatekeeper, let me in!”
    She looked behind her with a wild eye, desperately trying to fill her lungs. She had been running for nearly two hours. In the stunned silence following her shout in the cathedral, Rani had not even tried to make her way down the endless nave. Instead, she had ducked out the transept portal, using all her strength to push open the heavy oaken doors.
    Even with adrenaline pumping in her veins, she had nearly been unable to get by, for the wooden mass of Morada’s scaffold blocked the door’s full swing. As it was, she needed to scrape sideways to edge through, and she did not spare a thought for the short black cloak that she left snagged on the doorframe.
    The crowds near the cathedral had still been thick with disappointed citizens hoping for a glimpse of the Presentation, and the hordes became even more resistant to passage as rumors began to fly. When Rani finally cleared the Cathedral sector, she sprinted in panic in the opposite direction from the guild, winding through the Soldier’s Quarter for a solid hour before she could untangle the streets.
    By the time she worked her way to the familiar byways of her childhood home in the Merchants’ Quarter, a dust of panic had sifted over the City. Twice, she saw platoons of soldiers jogging down the narrow cobbled roads, grim rage scarcely suppressed as lieutenants