She slid the dagger back into her vest.

She took the wings from inside the closet and stepped into the hallway. Brydda was asleep in a wing chair under a tall leaded-glass window. Venera walked past her to the servant’s stairs and headed for the roof.

Gold-touched by the awakening sun of suns, she took flight in the high winds and lower gravity of the rooftop.

Venera rose on the air, losing weight rapidly as the wind disengaged her from the spin of the town wheel. High above the buildings, among turning cables and hovering birds, she turned her back on the apartment and on the trade delegation of Buridan. She turned her back on Garth Diamandis, and flew toward the residence of the ambassador of Slipstream.

Various scenarios had played themselves out in her mind as she flew. The first was that she could pretend to be the estranged wife of one of the sailors on the Rook. Wringing her hands, she could look pathetic and demand news of the expedition.

Venera wasn’t good at looking pathetic. Besides, they could legitimately ask what she was doing here, thousands of miles away from Slipstream.

She could claim to be a traveling merchant. Then why ask after the expedition? Perhaps she should say she was from Hale, not Slipstream, a distant relative of Venera Fanning needing news of her.

These and other options ran through her mind as Venera waited next to the tall scrolled doors of the ambassador’s office. The moment the door lock clicked, she pushed her way inside and said to the surprised secretary, “My name is Venera Fanning. I need to talk to the ambassador.”

The man turned white as a sheet. He practically ran for the inner office and there was a hurried, loud conversation there. Then he stuck his head out the door and said, “You can’t be seen here.”

“Too late for that, if anyone’s watching.” She closed the outer door and walked to the inner. The secretary threw it open and stepped aside.

The ambassador of Slipstream was a middle-aged woman with iron-gray hair and the kind of stern features usually reserved for suspicious aunts, school principals, and morals crusaders. She glared at Venera and gestured for her to sit in one of the red leather wing chairs that faced her dark teak desk. “So you’re alive,” she said as she lowered herself heavily on her side.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Venera was suddenly anxious to the point of panic. “What happened to the others?”

The ambassador sent her a measuring look. “You were separated from your husband’s expedition?”

“Yes! I’ve had no news. Just… rumors.”

“The expeditionary force was destroyed,” said the ambassador. She grimaced apologetically. “Your husband’s flagship apparently rammed a Falcon dreadnaught, causing a massive explosion that tore both vessels apart. All hands are presumed lost.”

“I see…” She felt sick, as though this were the first time she’d heard this news.

“I don’t think you do see,” said the ambassador. She snapped her fingers and her secretary left, returning with a silver tray and two glasses of wine.

“You’ve shown up at an awkward time,” continued the ambassador. “One of your husband’s ships did make it back to Rush. The Severance limped back into port a couple of weeks ago, and her hull was full of holes. Naturally, the people assumed she was the vanguard of a return from the battle with Mavery. But no—the airmen disembarked and they were laughing, crying, claiming a great victory, and waving away all talk of Mavery. ‘No,’ they say, ‘we’ve beaten Falcon! By the genius of the Pilot and Admiral Fanning, we’ve forestalled an invasion and saved Slipstream!’

“Can the Pilot deny it? If Fanning himself had returned, with the other ships… maybe not. If the airmen of the Severance hadn’t started throwing around impossible amounts of money, displaying rich jewels and gold chains and talking wildly about a pirate’s hoard… Well, you see the problem. Falcon is supposed to be an ally. And the Pilot’s been caught with his pants below his knees, completely unaware of a threat to his nation until after his most popular admiral has extinguished that threat.

“He ordered the crew rounded up, on charges of treason. The official story is that Fanning took some ships on a raid into Falcon and busted open one of their treasuries. He’s being court-martialed in absentia, as a traitor and pirate.”

“Therefore,” said Venera, “if I were to return now…”

“You’d be tried as an accessory, at the very least.” The ambassador steepled her hands and leaned forward minutely in her chair. “Legally, I’m bound to turn you over for extradition. Except that, should I do so, you’d likely become a lightning rod for dissent. After the riots…”

“What riots?”

“Well.” She looked uncomfortable. “The Pilot was a bit… slow, to act. He didn’t round up all of the Severance’s airmen quickly enough. And he didn’t stem the tide until a good deal of money had flowed into the streets. Apparently, these were no mere trinkets the men were showing off—and they’re not treasury items either, they’re plunder, pure and simple, and ancient to boot. And the people, the people believe the Severance, not the Pilot.

“Our last dispatch—that was two days ago—says that the bulk of the crew and officers made it back to the Severance and bottled themselves up in it. It’s out there now, floating a hundred yards off the admiralty. The Pilot ordered it blown up, and that’s when rioting started in the city.”

“If you returned now,” said the secretary, “there’d be even more bloodshed.”

“—And likely your blood would be spilled as an example to others.” The ambassador shook her head. “It gets worse, too. The navy’s refused the Pilot’s command. They won’t blow up the Severance, they want to know what happened. They’re trying to talk the crew out, and there’s a three-way standoff now between the Pilot’s soldiers, the navy, and the Severance herself. It’s a real mess.”

Venera’s pulse was pounding. She wanted to be there, in the admiralty. She knew Chaison’s peers, she could rally those men to fight back. They all hated the Pilot, after all.

She slumped back in her chair. “Thank you for telling me this.” She thought for a minute, then glanced up at the ambassador. “Are you going to have me arrested?”

The older woman shook her head, half smiling. “Not if you make a discreet enough exit from my office. I suggest the back stairs. I can’t see how sending you home in chains would do anything but fan the flames at this point.”

“Thank you.” She stood and looked toward the door the ambassador had pointed at. “I won’t forget this.”

“Just so long as you never tell anyone that you saw me,” said the ambassador with an ironic smile. “So what will you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you stay here in the capital, we might be able to help you—set you up with a job and a place to stay,” said the ambassador sympathetically. “It would be below your station, I’m afraid, at least to start…”

“Thanks, I’ll consider it—and don’t worry, if I see you again, I won’t be Venera Fanning anymore.” Dazed, she pushed through the door into a utilitarian hallway that led to gray tradesmen’s stairs. She barely heard the words “Good luck,” before the door closed behind her.

Venera went down one flight, then sat on a step and put her chin in her hands. She was trembling but dry eyed.

Now what? The news about the Severance had been electrifying. She should board the next ship she could find that was headed for the Meridian countries, and… But it might take weeks to get there. She would arrive after the crisis was resolved, if it hadn’t been already.

There was one man who could have helped her. Hayden Griffin was flying a fast racing bike, a simple jet engine with a saddle. She’d last seen him at Candesce as the sun of suns blossomed into incandescent life. He was opening the throttle—racing for home—and surely by now he was back in Slipstream. If she’d gone with him when he offered her his hand, none of her present troubles would have happened.