Chapter 21

CHAPTER

21

New children of Huna’s Houses were welcomed with harp strings. The songs differed between births and naming-days, between adoption and marriage, but the instrument was the same. There was a story about the affinity of materials, looms and harps both being wooden frames with something strung between.

Matti had always liked the wedding song best. There was a very simple joy in it. He tried to concentrate on the notes, to centre himself, as the procession arrived at the front of the Guildhall and arranged themselves there: Matti and Sofia, their wedding parties, and Rowain Duvay in the black-edged red ceremonial robes of the Deputy Guildmaster. Their parents and siblings formed a standing bracket around them, bowed—Matti met his mother’s eyes and she twitched her nose at him, the equivalent of a wink—then stepped down from the dais. Now it was just them. The green and gold.

A hand touched Matti’s shoulder.

“You’re tensing, Mr. Jay,” said Luca’s sword master voice.

Matti forced his shoulders up and back—held them there for a count of three—then dropped them, feeling everything loosen. Luca’s fingers pressed into the material of Matti’s wedding coat, approving. It was easier to centre himself on that touch than on the music.

Matti glanced at Maya. She was standing between Cecilia Cooper and Sofia’s friend Anne, just as Luca, Wynn, and Roland were standing behind Matti, and she gave Matti a tiny, determined nod.

Sofia’s mass of curls was loose, held back only at one temple with an emerald-studded clip. The pale olive of her skin glowed against the complex wonder of the dress: cut wide across the shoulders and tight at the waist, a sweep of skirts layered upon one another in various shades of gold and white and an eye-catching flash of verdigris.

She looked even more determined than Maya. When Matti met her eyes, she grinned at him, and all at once the rest of Matti’s tension settled down to a manageable simmer of excitement.

This might actually be fun, said a voice inside him that sounded a lot like Luca’s.

“Children of Huna and guests to her hall,” said Duvay. “Friends and witnesses. I call blessing.”

The wedding ceremony was short, and the part of it that took place before the invitation for blade-challenge was shorter still. Most of the business of Sofia being released from her own Guild and House, and welcomed into Matti’s, would take place after the vows had been made. Duvay called the blessing and shook out the promise-cloth, displaying it to the gathering before folding it over his forearm in anticipation. He named the parties involved. His eyes strayed to the audience and he took a deep breath before saying, “Sofia Cooper and Mattinesh Jay stand here with the intent to marry under the eyes of the gods. Does anyone wish to challenge against the marriage?”

Silence, long enough for Matti to choke on the idea that perhaps Adrean wouldn’t, that perhaps all of this—everything from Matti’s first tense conversation with Hardy Tolliver onwards—had been unnecessary.

“I do,” said Adrean.

Matti had never thought he’d be so relieved to hear it.

There was a rustling of curiosity and anticipation from the crowd in the hall, but nothing that sounded like surprise. Adrean walked up the centre aisle, slow enough to be looked at. He was dressed all in black, accentuating his slender height. He held himself proudly and the hilt of his sword gleamed as he stepped forward: not the polished shine of new metal, but something well used and kept in good condition. He looked like someone about to win a duel.

“Mattinesh Jay,” said Duvay. “Will you answer the challenge yourself, or will you name a best man?”

Matti opened his mouth.

“Yes,” called Adrean. “Why don’t you name the man with the sword, Matti?”

“Mr. Vane.” Duvay frowned. “You’ve made your challenge. Very well. Now—”

“Or, better yet, why doesn’t he name himself?”

Matti went cold within his clothes. He could have cursed aloud. It was easy to make plans, four people in a room, and blithely assume that everyone not in that room would play their parts as expected. Allowing for the other party to have wits and impulses and plans of their own was one of the most important lessons that Matti’s parents had taught him, and he’d let it slip last night, seduced by the profundity of his own happiness.

“Don’t worry,” Luca murmured into Matti’s ear. He stepped forward, placing himself a pace in front of Matti. Duvay frowned even further at this departure from the script.

Matti decided to go ahead and worry anyway.

“You sound like you have something to say to me, sir,” said Luca.

“Luca Piere.” Adrean rolled the name in his mouth. “The midrange duellist from nowhere.”

“The people of Cienne wouldn’t like to hear you insult their city in that way,” said Luca, with faint reproof. That won a few laughs from the crowd. Most likely they were starting to wonder if this whole thing had been arranged as a kind of unusual entertainment.

“Cienne,” said Adrean. “Yes. It must have been something important that brought you to Glassport.”

“A change of scenery?”

“Name yourself,” Adrean hissed. “Tell the man whose wedding you’re pretending to defend what you’re really doing here.”

“Adrean—” Matti started.

“Why should I?” Luca cut across him. “You seem so set on doing it for me.”

“There must be representatives of Harte House here in the Guildhall today.” Adrean swept an arm towards the audience. “I’m sure they’re surprised to see Jacquelle Harte’s son standing up here, in a position he hasn’t earned and a name that isn’t his own.” His voice had risen in triumph by the end. He paused, arm still outstretched, clearly awaiting the impact of his blow.

He wouldn’t have been disappointed by the crowd. Voices rose. Heads bent together. People farther back in the hall stood, craning on tiptoe to try to get a better look at Luca, who was smiling faintly. Matti felt a tug on his sleeve and looked over his shoulder to where Roland looked aghast and Wynn was mouthing, What the fuck?

Matti waved them down, trying to promise explanations with his eyes. He wanted to focus on what was happening.

A frown flickered on Adrean’s brow as he looked first at Luca and then at Matti; clearly he’d been expecting a stronger reaction from that quarter. Matti stood very still, waiting to see where this would go. Perhaps Adrean would take him as too stunned to say anything.

“A strange kind of spy you are,” Adrean said. “ Lucastian Harte . But I suppose it was an easy way for you to get access to a House like the Jays. Member of the wedding party. Invited to all the dinners. Listening to all their talk.”

Matti looked at his parents. Tomas Jay was pale-faced and clearly moments from stepping forward; Matti managed to catch his eye and made with one hand a gesture from the negotiating table that he’d not had cause to use for years, as Tomas moved into Guild and city business and Matti’s faith in his own abilities began to erode like a sea cliff beneath his feet.

The gesture meant wait. It meant trust me.

And because Matti had parents worth his love and his effort and, yes, worth the awful fight and draining stress that had been the last five years of his life… Tomas went still. Held Matti’s gaze. And then, stiffly, nodded, and turned to whisper something in Nessa’s ear.

Luca spread his hands in a gesture of elegant surrender. “How did you find me out?”

“The true duellists of Glassport are my friends,” said Adrean. “Servicemen, you’d say. Beneath your notice. Once Hardy Tolliver found out who you were, the word began to trickle out. Oh, I’m sure you’ve enough skill to stand swordguard for children, but you’re a dabbler. You’re not a proper duellist. How could you be? Heir to a House, ” he spat. “Just like the rest of them. You think you can have whatever you want. Whomever you want.” He was looking at Matti now. An ugly playfulness entered his tone. “I’m afraid your best man isn’t going to be worth the fortune you paid for him, Matti.”

“I was afraid of that, too, for a while,” said Matti. “But I’m starting to think he was a bargain.” He raised his voice. “I name Lucastian Harte, my trusted friend, as my best man. Will you stand up for me, Luca?”

Luca’s smile spread out across his face. “It would be my honour, Mattinesh.”

And he drew his sword, the scrape of it loud and silvery in the expectant quiet of the hall.

Matti could see Luca favouring his sprained ankle, but it was no more than a faint hitch in his step as he walked up, saluted, and fell into ready stance opposite Adrean, who had drawn his sword in return. The injury might not be obvious unless you were looking for it.

Adrean looked comfortable: eyes sharp, body loose. He sprang forward, the two swords engaged—the clash loud and chaotic—a few quick motions, strike and parry—the two of them moving in a tight circle and then breaking apart again.

Matti wished he knew more about duelling than he did, or that he’d had the chance to watch Luca fight someone else before now. All he knew was how to move through the forms while his thighs screamed at him, and the names of a few moves that he could execute in slow motion. One of them might have just been demonstrated, but it wasn’t like he’d have been able to tell. It had happened so fast. Adrean had clearly been hoping that surprise and speed would allow him a quick victory.

Luca, following suit, didn’t allow them more than a couple of breaths before engaging again. His feet were incredibly fast, his whole body moving like a ribbon snapping in a breeze, to avoid the force of a blow and catch Adrean’s blade at the midpoint with his own. Not enough leverage for it to be an easy graze. It looked smooth, the way he turned the trajectory of the strike, but a grunt escaped him and betrayed the effort required.

When they disengaged that time, Adrean looked wary, his knees soft in anticipation.

Luca pushed back his hair. When he smiled it wasn’t his bright, wicked, usual smile. It was something unfamiliar, proud and grand. Even with the sword in his hand, that smile made him look like what he was: the son of a rich House, heir to authority.

“Are you feeling inadequate enough yet, Mr. Vane?” It was the cool, merciless voice that had found Matti’s raw wounds when they’d been shouting damage at each other, and part of Matti wanted to shrink from the sound of it, even as the rest of him felt like cheering. “Finding it harder than you’d hoped to trounce this particular dabbler ?”

Adrean’s lips drew back over his teeth. He made an aborted motion with his foot, but managed to stop himself. Like any good fighter, he clearly knew that anger would make him unwise. But it was very hard, Matti knew from experience, not to be angry when every part of you was howling for the ruin of the person responsible for crushing your dreams.

“I am Lucastian Harte,” Luca sang, “son of Jacquelle Harte, and heir to her House. I expect I could buy everything you own with the spare change shaken out of my second-best coat. Do you own anything? Or do you lease a damp, cheap house in a bad neighbourhood, and fill it with the mediocre scribblings of a weak creative mind?”

Matti had less than a second to admire the precision of that attack, the sheer informed ruthlessness of it, before Adrean snarled and threw himself back into the fight. This time the bout was longer, a messy and savage exchange. When they pulled apart, Luca was laughing, but the laugh caught on a gasp as his ankle rolled beneath him. It lasted only a moment. His head rose again at once, smile intact.

Adrean’s eyes had narrowed. Matti swallowed a curse and took hold of his coat hem instead, rubbing it between his fingers in silent prayer.

Adrean started a series of blows that forced Luca to shift his weight quickly, constantly. The smile was faltering on Luca’s face, his eyes tightening with concentration. Watch the feet, said that voice inside Matti that was Luca’s voice. Matti looked at the distance between Adrean’s feet, the wide and advantageous stance. He watched Luca lean on the sprained ankle, again and again, each time a little shakier.

And then Luca’s recovery took a moment too long, too much of his weight sagging onto his good leg, and Adrean was ready. His blade flashed high, descending through the top corner of Luca’s summer quadrant. Luca would have to strain cross-body to meet it, leaving himself unstable and open, unless—

Unless he lunged low, the full force of the movement landing firm on an ankle that suddenly didn’t shake at all, and came up inside the reach of Adrean’s arm, turning Adrean’s height against him, Luca’s own sword already flicking a subtle and unstoppable curve to finish, motionless and sure, with the tip just beneath Adrean’s arm, ready to shove between his ribs.

Survival froze Adrean’s body in place.

“Withdraw your challenge,” said Luca, breathless but firm. It was a formality.

Adrean, face slackening in disbelief, lowered his sword.

Luca lowered his as well, and sheathed it without even bothering to flourish. The businesslike nature of his victory was probably as infuriating as anything else.

Luca extended a bare palm towards Adrean. “Will you shake?”

Adrean’s years of training must have propelled him forward. He looked like he’d rather have grasped a snake by the tail, but he put his hand in Luca’s, shook once in a jerk, and then released it.

“My Sofia,” said Adrean then, turning to her. “Know that I tried. Know that I would have fought a hundred duels, to save you from being treated as a bargaining piece in this way.”

“I’m not yours,” said Sofia. “I’ve never been yours, Adrean. Sit down.”

“Are you still afraid to speak plainly? After what I just did for you?”

“Do you want me to speak plainly?” Sofia’s hands were fists in the front of her skirts. Her voice rose. “Fine. I have spent more hours of my life than I care to think coming up with ways to avoid you in the street, and trying to be polite when you shoved yourself into my path anyway. I don’t want you. I didn’t want you the first time you asked me, or the third, or the fifth. And if you’d done me the courtesy of taking me at my word, you could have saved yourself the humiliation of everyone here knowing it.”

“Sofia.” Adrean was white-faced, his voice a throb. “I never thought you were cruel.”

“I’m not,” said Sofia. “Cruel is when you decide that what someone wants doesn’t matter, just because you want them and you think that means you’re owed something.”

Adrean looked bewildered. It still hadn’t sunk in for him, Matti could see, and maybe it never would. He was still stuck in whatever story he was telling himself.

“Sit down, Adrean,” said Maya. “It’s done.”

Some part of Adrean knew the value of retreating with dignity, and thankfully, it prevailed. He sheathed his sword and turned his back. His footsteps rang on the floor as he walked back down the aisle. Matti didn’t watch to see if he stayed in the hall.

“Done, indeed.” Duvay took a deep breath. “The challenge has been met, and answered. Now—”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Luca. “The question should be repeated. A formality.”

“The question? Oh. Does anyone wish to challenge against the marriage?”

There was a whisper of silk on wood as Maya stepped forward, and as her skirts settled around her.

“Yes,” said Matti’s sister. “I do.”

An extraordinary net of threads tightened around Matti’s heart. He tried to exchange a look with Sofia, but Sofia was carefully smoothing the creases from where she’d taken hold of her dress.

A new, delighted murmur, like the slow startling of a large flock of birds, spread from the front of the Guildhall all the way to the back. Duvay blinked at Maya from behind his glasses. “Miss Jay?”

“Though I find myself in need of a sword,” said Maya. She walked quickly to the back corner of the hall and picked up something that had been left there: a sheath, folded in a blanket. The sword she drew out looked like one of the practice blades from Tolliver’s agency.

Sofia finally met Matti’s eyes. With a calm deliberation that made Matti want to laugh even through his incredulity, she raised her hand above her shoulder and flicked the fingers wide. She didn’t have the trick of it, but she was close. Her expression held the faintest edge of apology, but no surprise at all.

“What is happening, ” said Roland in a plaintive whisper.

Maya stood where Adrean had been standing. She looked deeply odd and yet somehow glorious, holding the sword aloft, her arm smooth and dark against the white lace that edged the short sleeves of the dress. Her stance was stiff but her grip was not, and Matti remembered belatedly: Luca shutting himself away with Maya before dinner. Luca saying, that morning, I’m giving a sword lesson.

Matti said, very soft, “I suppose that’s one way to do it.”

“Shh,” Luca said, and strode out to meet Maya’s challenge.

If the duel with Adrean had been like listening to the twins speak Yaghali—a few words comprehensible, here and there, but none of the overall meaning—then the one with Maya was like the first page of a familiar book. Ready stance. Take guard. Slowly, carefully, Maya engaged Luca’s blade at the end and angled her own, stepping closer.

Slowly, Luca let her.

Metal spoke against metal. A Sugeen Graze. It should have ended with Luca’s—no, it should have ended before it even began, because Luca was an expert.

Luca’s sword tipped, tipped, and then Maya did something with her wrist that Matti couldn’t see because Luca’s body was blocking his view of it, and then—

The clatter of Luca’s sword against the floor was followed by silence.

Matti heard a quick indrawing of breath from either Roland or Wynn, standing behind him.

“My goodness,” said Luca. “How embarrassing.”

Maya set the point of her sword to the base of Luca’s neck. The alarmed way Luca’s glance flicked between her wrist and her face told Matti that this part had not been rehearsed in advance.

“Lucastian Harte,” she said. “This seems a good opportunity to warn you off.”

Luca let out a delighted laugh. “Do you think you can?”

“I suppose not,” said Maya. “I tried once. It clearly failed.” She moved her eyes reprovingly to Matti, and then back to Luca. Her arm was starting to shake. Matti could have told her that holding anything at arm’s length was the most tiring of all.

“You can’t,” Luca said. “I’m not sorry.”

Maya nodded. “Hurt him again and I’ll give you bruises worse than the one you’re wearing now.”

“Deal,” said Luca.

Maya lowered the sword with an exhalation of relief. She held Luca’s gaze. After a moment she shifted the sword to the other side and held out her hand; Luca did the same, and shook. They sheathed their swords.

Duvay looked utterly perplexed. Matti’s mouth was warping itself into a helpless smile. He looked at his parents; Nessa had her hand over her eyes and was leaning against Tomas’s side, shaking in what Matti very much hoped was laughter.

Luca bowed to Matti, then turned on his heel and repeated the action in the direction of Matti’s parents. “My deepest apologies for failing to defend against this challenge. I realise the implications for Jay House. But I may yet be able to make amends, if the Deputy Guildmaster will indulge me for a moment…”

Matti bit his lip. Of course, of course Luca was going to make a theatrical production of it.

Luca cleared his throat. He skimmed the crowd, perhaps looking for the agents of his own House, in whose faces he was about to light an unexpected firework.

“Harte House has acquired the rights and the means to import gallia worms into Thesper,” said Luca.

The firework exploded around the entire Guildhall. Luca raised both hands imploringly and managed to wave the crowd into something that was, if not silence, at least a softer morass of whispers. He went on to explain what Matti already knew from Jacquelle’s letter: that the Hartes had made a contract with one of the major fashion houses in Cienne, to sell them gallia silk—exclusively—for a period of five years.

And in exchange, that same House would buy highest-grade wool fabrics from Jay House.

Exclusively. For five years.

This was the bargain Luca had won for Matti, by returning himself to Harte House. Throwing a duel, before witnesses, had just been merrily burning the bridge to ashes behind him.

“The details are in here.” Luca pulled the much-read letter from his pocket and handed it to Nessa. “It bears my mother’s seal. The contract is yours.”

Nessa unfolded the letter. Tomas read over her shoulder. Luca had lost control of the hall’s volume again, but he didn’t seem to care. He stood in front of Matti’s parents, fingers tapping against his thigh, waiting.

If Matti had any remaining doubts about springing this on his parents as a public surprise, they vanished at the slow creep of disbelieving joy that was lighting their faces.

“Mr. Harte,” Tomas began, but Luca was already moving back to the centre of the floor, the centre of attention. Duvay threw an imploring look at Matti, as if to ask about his chances of reining in his best man before this turned into an absolute farce. Matti spread his hands. Duvay huffed.

“I have another story to tell, as part of my apology to Jay House!” Luca said. “This one is a bit longer.”

The fibre fraud. The ledger of betrayal in Corus Vane’s study. Matti readied himself to step forward as needed. He didn’t know how Luca was going to talk around the fact of their housebreaking escapade, but he found himself fully confident that he would, somehow.

“It begins,” Luca said, “with a ship called the Isadonna .”

The breath stopped dead in Matti’s lungs.

Matti was watching Corus Vane’s face, waiting to see what would happen when the Keseys were unveiled and his own double nature was revealed. So Matti saw plainly the sudden freezing of the man’s expression when Luca spoke the name of the ship, and the split second of incredulous dread before Corus mastered himself again.

The Isadonna.

A tiny seed of something almost too small and too strange to be called hope planted itself around the level of Matti’s knees. Luca threw Matti a smile over his shoulder. The seed put out a shoot, and unfurled.

It’s something good. Matti had been expecting—he didn’t know what. He still didn’t know what.

He remembered how to breathe.

“The Isadonna, ” said Luca, finding his theatrical cadence, “was a ship hired by Jay House from the shipping House of Lior, to carry a cargo of black libelza fleece bought at auction in the Drakan city of Hazan. It sailed from Fataf. It never arrived in Glassport—it was reported lost with all hands.” A pause, to let everyone keep up. “But it wasn’t lost. It was stolen.”

The vine of hope was everywhere in Matti now. Maya didn’t even look surprised. Of course: Luca had already told her.

Luca went on: “It’s hard to make a boat disappear. The Isadonna ’s captain and crew were recorded in Lior House’s books under false names. They were instructed to divert to Elluthe Harbour with the cargo. It’s a lot of people, to keep a secret that large, but I expect they were told that the House employing them wanted to avoid a certain type of import duty. They would have thought themselves smugglers, not thieves. And paid well enough not to breathe a word when their own ship was reported missing, and their false selves along with it. It all must have cost a large sum in bribes, to someone very senior at Lior,” Luca finished, with an unpleasant smile. He raised his voice. “I admit I’m curious. How much exactly, Mr. Kesey?”

“Fuck me, ” breathed Wynn.

Matti felt like he’d taken three glasses of jenever all at once.

Heads turned. Simeon Kesey was standing. “How dare you—”

“How dare I?” Luca’s whip of a voice recaptured the thread. “I know how you dared, and what, and why. Lior retrimmed and renamed their own ship, pretended to have bought it anew, and recorded a false contract with Jessamy House. The Lady Jenny sailed into Glassport and nobody suspected who she used to be. And then you simply unloaded the wool and stuck it in a warehouse to wait for memories to dim. For Jay House to slip into debt through the loss of that profit. Someday soon you were going to pretend that you’d made a similar purchase—expensive, luxury black libelza—and start to process it. Stolen goods .”

Simeon Kesey had turned a puce shade. “You fucking little—”

“It’s a good scheme,” said Luca. “It took me a while to find all the pieces. And it was mostly luck that I heard the names of the ships spoken together in the first place.” He kissed his fingers and ran them along the hem of his green jacket. Nobody would have mistaken his meaning, here in Huna’s Guildhall. Luck was the voice of the gods.

Matti’s father was staring at the Head of Kesey House. “Simeon?”

“Absolute nonsense,” said Kesey. “He’s lying to you, Tomas. Nessa. This absurd Harte spy is making up stories. What kind of proof could he possibly have?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” said Luca, bright as stars.

His hand went into his pocket again. Matti couldn’t see what was in it, but again Luca went to Tomas and Nessa and held it out to them.

“The warehouse is on Tar Lane,” Luca said. “It’s leased in Kesey’s name. I broke in, two days ago. They’ve not even bothered to remove the batch labels from the wool. You should be able to match them to your own auction receipts.”

Tomas looked down at Luca’s hand. Whatever was in it was small.

“This is. This is black libelza.” Tomas stared at Luca. Then at Kesey. A growl hid in his voice. “Was this the only way you could think to compete with us, Sim?”

“This is pure fantasy,” Kesey sputtered. “Smuggling—bribes—Tomas, you know we don’t have that kind of money.”

“No,” said Matti suddenly. Everything had fallen into place. “But Martens House does.” He didn’t know where Lysbette was sitting, but he didn’t have to. A new ripple of murmurs and head-turning began, and at the centre of it was a blond head. Matti was part of Luca’s theatre now, but part of him was still in the sitting room, facing Lysbette directly. “ This is what you paid for. To break us. To get my father off the council so that Glassport’s money can go to building that godsdamned canal.”

Luca didn’t give the room a chance to erupt, or Lysbette a chance to defend herself. He said, swift, “And I expect if we searched one or both of their offices, there’d be a contract of debt with payment promised—from the libelza profits, perhaps? Guildmaster Martens might be shy of leaving a paper trail proving interference with another Guild’s business, but she’s a famously untrusting businesswoman. There’s no way she’d lay out that kind of expense without guaranteeing her return on investment in writing.”

For a moment Matti could see Lysbette’s face in the crowd, white and blank.

“I’m just guessing, of course,” Luca added. Matti looked at his sparkling eyes and knew it to be a gorgeous lie. He tucked it away on the long, long list of things to ask Luca about later.

Simeon Kesey was still on his feet. Almost audibly, his nerve snapped. He spun, furious, towards where Lysbette was sitting. “You—I told you! Didn’t I tell you? If you’d just accepted my word ,” he shouted, “there’d be no proof .”

There was a long silence. Lysbette’s voice rose into it like smoke against a clear sky. “And if you’d just managed to keep your mouth shut,” she said, “you fucking imbecile, we could have claimed it was an outlay on raw marble to build you a country house.”

This was what Lysbette had been calculating, in the sitting room. When she realised that Matti didn’t know about the ship and that he thought she was just another person putting wages in Corus’s pocket.

Speaking of which. It was time for the last truth to come out.

“Who liaised with Lior House, Dad?” asked Matti. He had to raise his voice and repeat the question before the chatter settled; he didn’t have Luca’s easy command of the room. “Who was responsible for putting in the insurance paperwork that was too late?”

Tomas had been staring at Lysbette. Now he looked back at Matti and frowned.

“Corus?” said Matti. “Will you come up here for a minute?”

Luca moved aside. Now the eyes of the audience were on Corus Vane, who paused in his seat for long enough to realise that pausing was impossible. Corus stood, slowly, and came up to stand on the dais. A renewed hush fell over the hall. This was a different kind of duel, but it had been recognised as one nonetheless.

“None of the business with the ships would have worked without you,” said Matti. “Your masters put a lot of trust in you, Corus.”

Corus searched Matti’s eyes. He was weighing his loyalties, such as they were, and Matti saw the moment when he decided to make a play for the wrong one. “Whatever sins of others you think to pin on me, Matti—”

“ Pin? You’ve worked against us for years,” Matti snarled, all his composure deserting him at once. “I will list your betrayals one by one, if you ask me to. Shall we start with the inflated cost of Haxbridge mordant? What about undermining our bid to the city quartermaster by slipping our terms to our primary rival? Shall we stand here and calculate exactly how long you’ve been in the pay of Kesey House?”

Corus’s mouth opened. Matti stared him down.

“Oh, please ask if we have proof,” said Luca. It was the mocking, infuriating voice that Luca had used to drive Corus’s son to failure, and it worked on the father with much the same ease.

Corus stalked forward, face working in anger. Matti had no idea what he intended until Corus was standing in front of him; Matti set his jaw to receive insult and was taken aback when Corus reached for him instead, hands like claws taking clumsy hold of Matti’s lapels as if to shake him.

Matti had a long, odd moment in which he wished for a sword.

And then Corus was dragged back, away from him.

“ Vane, ” snapped Roland. He’d grabbed hold of Corus’s arms, forcing him back, and now speared him with a look of deep dislike. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I won’t stand to have my name smeared with filth,” hissed Corus. “You’ll hear what I have to say, Matti.”

Matti nodded to Roland and let Corus step close again, moving away from the others. Trying to have a conversation in whispers felt ridiculous, given the hundreds of eyes that were upon them, but he was prepared to let this play out.

“You’ll retract all of that,” said Corus, very low. “You’ll do it now. Did you think I would hesitate to take you down with me? I know all your secrets. I will tell this Guild, this city, that your House is doing business on a ruined name. That you’re failing.”

“But we’re not,” said Matti. The sheer size of that truth was still expanding in his heart. “Not anymore. Not after today.”

Corus snorted and opened his mouth, a dismissive curl already shaping it.

Matti said, “No. You will hear what I have to say, Corus. I can’t stop you, if you’re determined to expose us. And we’d cope with it.” A twitch of his mouth. “We’re good at coping, we Jays. But consider your own reliability as a witness, after what everyone in this room has just heard.”

That struck. Corus drew himself up, breathing hard through nostrils flared with anger, but he wasn’t interrupting anymore.

Matti said, “Consider that it’s entirely up to me, now, how many of your crimes Jay House might consider taking in front of a magistrate.”

“Don’t play coy, Matti, it’s never suited you,” Corus said coldly. But there was fear at war with weakness in his eyes.

Matti looked sideways. If Simeon Kesey was still here, he was making himself difficult to find. “I don’t know if you still have an employer, but right now you’re free. You can always run away. Move to another city. I hear that’s a popular solution when you make a mistake of this size.”

“I—”

“In fact, perhaps you should consider changing your name.”

“You’re offering to buy me off with mercy, to save your own skin.” In Corus’s face was the dawning awareness of exactly how cornered he was.

“Why not? Now I know you can be bought.” Matti didn’t smile. “Think of your future. Think of Adrean’s future.” That was a blow Matti didn’t realise he’d been saving, and a good portion of his vicious anger dissipated as he delivered it, waking him up to himself. He’d won. He didn’t need to be cruel.

Corus was staring at Matti like he’d never seen him before. Matti leaned close. “Be smart, Corus. Limit the damage.”

It seemed an age before Corus so much as blinked. Matti was bracing himself to deal with Corus calling his bluff, bringing them all down together out of spite, when Corus cleared his throat and gave a small, stiff bow.

“I apologise, Mr. Jay, for assaulting you in such an appalling manner. I hope you can forgive me.”

Matti nodded. Corus’s eyes were full of the molten fury of his own surrender; pushing any further would be a mistake. Just as stiffly, Corus walked back to his place in the Guildhall, in the row behind the Jays, and—sat down. That took a kind of absolute, metallic courage. Matti couldn’t help admiring it.

“If the gentlemen are quite finished,” said Sofia.

Her timing was superb. Laughter crackled through the room.

“Apologies for the interruptions, Mr. Duvay,” Matti said, returning to his place. “Please”—he waved a hand around the wedding party—“continue.”

“Continue? But—wait,” said Duvay, a man struggling to pull the ceremony back into order with his own two hands. “Continue with the wedding?”

“Matti, it breaks my heart to say it, but I don’t believe that would be auspicious,” said Sofia, with very wide eyes. “The gods were not behind your best man’s blade.”

“Yes. Indeed.” Duvay coughed. “Mayanesh Jay, you have challenged against this marriage, met the best man named by Mattinesh Jay, and… won.” Visibly, he was trying to remember a barely used protocol. “Were you. Uh. Were you challenging on your own behalf?”

Matti laughed and looked at his sister, waiting for her to share the joke. But Maya was looking at Sofia, and she wasn’t laughing at all. She looked like someone hungry in a dream, hesitant to reach out and take the food for fear of waking.

“One moment, please!” Sofia said brightly. She stepped down from the dais, skirts in hand, and went to talk to her parents. Matti watched the resulting gesticulations for only a moment before returning his gaze to Maya, willing her to look back at him. When she did, he raised his eyebrows. Maya echoed the motion that Sofia had given him earlier: What can you do? Her eyes were like sunlit dew.

Matti wondered how many things he hadn’t been seeing, while his gaze was fixed on his worries and on Luca.

Sofia ascended the dais again and cleared her throat in a self-conscious way. Every eye in the Guildhall was upon her.

“Yes, Miss Cooper?” said Duvay.

“If Mayanesh Jay was challenging on her own behalf,” said Sofia, clear and loud, “then I offer her my hand and my family’s blessing. And I offer myself into the named service of Jay House,” with a quick, self-effacing smile, “if it’s still prepared to have me.”

More delighted uproar from the audience. Now Maya was the one to throw an imploring expression at Tomas and Nessa. Next to Matti, Luca was vibrating with what was obviously going to turn into laughter at any moment. Matti reached out and took firm hold of Luca’s wrist.

“Er. Tomas?” said Duvay. “Nessanesh?”

Matti’s mother dug an elbow into his father’s side. When this failed to produce a change in Tomas’s stunned expression, Nessa cleared her throat. “We are prepared,” she said.

Luca turned to Matti. “You’re standing in your sister’s spot, Mattinesh.”

A small amount of shuffling later, Matti—who had the giddy sense that he’d been swept up in a current, with no choice but to enjoy the ride—was standing in what was now his sister’s wedding party. Luca had grandly volunteered to join Sofia’s, to balance the numbers out. The entire colour scheme was a mess.

“Does anybody,” said the Deputy Guildmaster, in a tone of faint desperation, “wish to challenge against this marriage?”

The silence in the Guildhall was an excited one, half-hopeful, as though everyone were waiting for the third act that would complete this particular drama. Luca tapped his hand on his sword hilt, a gesture that looked more meaningful than his usual restlessness.

Nobody spoke.

Duvay exhaled in visible relief. “In that case—” And onwards the ceremony swept.

When it was over, Sofia was Sofia Jay after all. In less than an hour she had turned from Matti’s betrothed into Matti’s sister. She had not dropped the promise-cloth. She had not missed a beat. Now she kept bursting into little gulps of laughter, as though she couldn’t believe what had happened. Some of Maya’s dark red lip-paint was still on hers, an ombre dab like a wine stain.

“I think I need to get drunk,” said Wynn morosely. “Drunk enough that when Matti explains what just happened, it might make some kind of sense.”

Roland laughed at him. “I think we can arrange that. Think of the wine, Wynn. Cooper House just married off their daughter.”

The Coopers, along with Matti’s parents, were converging on the dais, the first in what would be a long stream of people offering formal congratulations to a different couple to the one they’d arrived here expecting to see married.

“People will talk about this forever,” said Luca, echoing Matti’s thoughts. He sounded pleased at the prospect. “Every other wedding they attend will seem dull in comparison. Epic poems will be written about it.”

“Not by Adrean, I hope,” said Matti.

Luca laughed. He was gazing and gazing at Matti as though Matti were the only thing worth looking at in this hall hung with the most beautiful fabric in the world. He dug in his pocket and held something out. “Here.” It was the handful of raw wool. It was unmistakable, when Matti closed his fingers around it. “Call it a wedding present. Or a non-wedding present.”

“A warehouse full of black libelza. Is this the interest you owe me?”

Luca’s eyes were nearly silver, and they blazed with happiness. “I’m buying you this time. You’re mine, Mattinesh Jay.”

The smile on Matti’s face felt like it would split his lips. “Yours to command, Mr. Harte.”

“Really?” Luca’s hand slid around Matti’s neck. People were probably staring at them. Nothing could have made Matti care. Luca said, “Kiss me.”

And Matti did.