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keeps to the Borders. He’s, what, three or four years the younger—it’s the sister who’s much younger, isn’t it? Is he solid?”
    “He’s no Shadowhunter,” Claudius admitted. “In all truth, Janus, I’d be less happy about it if it weren’t for Strumheller’s—Ishmael di Studier’s—having organized the defenses for the last decade. But I recommend you send the ducal order to Reynard. Even if nothing comes of it, you’d find out what he’s made of.”
    “Except Dimi promised it to Ishmael di Studier,” the archduke said, with a sigh. “Well, he’s overstepped himself there, and I’ll have to have that out with him when he’s fit for it. I’ll write the ducal order for Strumheller to Reynard di Studier, and I’d best send an agent after Ishmael di Studier. Get him back here to sort out the legalities, and keep him out of trouble in the Borders.”
    Telmaine, forgotten, waited in suppressed fury until they had left the room. “That rat bastard,” she breathed. “How dare he! Ishmael’s spent years, blood, and pain in his service.” Just in time she stopped herself for reaching out for Ishmael with her magic; he’d have no protection from her rage.
    I might change his mind , came the thought, half bidden. Horrified, she rejected it, but it crept back into her mind like a foul smell. She might indeed change the archduke’s mind, but would he know it? Would anyone else guess it? Claudius? Balthasar? Ishmael? A shiver passed through her, with the sense of how corrupt she had already become, how much magic had already degraded her, if only the thought that they might catch her stayed her from forcing the mind of her ruler. No matter that it was for the sake of those she loved.
    All that she had to her credit was that she would not , even for the sake of those she loved.
    But she must warn Ishmael that agents would be waiting for him in Strumheller. She paused a moment to pass her mage sense carefully over the palace. She had been taken by surprise at the train station; she must not be so again. Nothing seemed out of order. Then she made her way along the corridors to the rooms that had been her and her family’s refuge.
    It had been most thoroughly cleaned out, even to her own dresses and toiletries. The purge was the mark of Merivan, at her most officiously efficient. Telmaine would cordially detest her eldest sister if not condemned to understand her. Had Merivan been a man, she would have been a superb barrister and no doubt, in time, a judge. As a woman, cleaving to propriety as a principle, she seethed with boredom unrelieved by childbearing and the endless social round.
    Merivan ought to have a secret, Telmaine thought. It would make her life ever so much more interesting.
    She rustled over to the armchair and sank into it. Sitting, she realized how weary she was. She could not sit long, or she would fall asleep. She swept her mage sense out again, finding Lord Vladimer, and the archduke, close by each other now. Both their vitalities were distinctive, yet more alike than their very different temperaments would suggest. Was blood relationship evident in the texture of vitality? She had never thought to wonder. She turned her head slightly in the direction of Merivan’s home, a mile distant, and extended her senses, seeking, and finding, the two living presences more familiar than any other, her little daughters. Those seemed quite distinct, Florilinde in her boldness, Amerdale in her curiosity. Both marred now with unhappiness and anxiety in a way that hurt her to sense. She caressed them gently, unfelt, making them a soft, unheard promise: soon. Soon I will be there. Soon we will go home. Soon this will all end. Soon.
    Ishmael di Studier on the Borders Express seemed but a little farther away, so distinct was his presence to her. His spirit still had that banked-ember heat she had warmed herself against, though her sense of his magic was dim, crumbled charcoal. There was no justice that