The back hallways of Lord Kinross's country estate were as grandiose as the more public ones. Wallpaper dominated behind the door set into the side of the ballroom, but it was almost thick and detailed enough to be counted as yet another tapestry. The only real difference was that the wallpaper didn't move. A gaggle of men burdened down with trays of delicate amuse-gueule shuffled up against the wall to make way for Mirk and Renly, Kinross's djinn servant. They were all very particular about not brushing against the wallpaper.

  "Right this way, seigneur," Renly said, stopping just past a set of double doors wide enough to accommodate a lady's skirts without mussing them. They came open at the touch of a rune worked into the wallpaper's firebird and peacock motif.

  "Thank you, monsieur," Mirk said, nodding to him as he passed. The powder room of a high-born mage's country estate bore only a passing resemblance to those of mortal noblemen. As, with mages, refreshing powdered faces and wigs was usually the least of their worries. A slipping glamor or misfiring enchantment could have much more catastrophic results both to one’s reputation and the host’s household decor.

  There were several padded benches in the room, arranged before a wide mirror. A counter hung beneath it, on which every conceivable magical device for primping and prodding jostled for position alongside helpful potions and spell papers. There were even a few healing ones, Mirk noticed, potions to settle excited nerves and balms to ease blisters and chafing. It oddly put him very much in mind of the back room in Fatima’s bordello. Mirk sat down on the bench closest to the room's taps — magicked, without question — and, for the first time, seriously considered the state of his new suit.

  He'd seen worse. The wine and the suit's original color wasn't terribly far off from one another. Though it'd be a nightmare getting the stain off the gold embroidery. It would have been a much greater disaster if the officer had hurled his glass all over his new cream-colored summer suit. Then again, no stain could challenge the will of a determined Destroyer. And Mirk had no doubt Genesis would rise to the challenge out of sheer annoyance once he noticed it.

  Renly, on the other hand, seemed deeply troubled. He studied the stain from a distance for a time, hands still clasped behind his back, then set to work at the taps, drawing a shallow bowl full of steaming water that he added judicious amounts of various powders and potions to. Rather than wearing a collar around his neck, Renly was burdened with heavy bracelets on both wrists. More like pieces of armor, really, extending up underneath the sleeves of his coat. They were made of a brassy metal rather than the iron favored by Seigneur d'Aumont.

  "You don't need to trouble yourself too much on my behalf, monsieur," Mirk said to Renly, propping the staff up against the edge of the bench. "Just getting the sticky bits off will be fine, methinks."

  "As you wish, seigneur," Renly replied. But it didn't keep him from tinkering with the concoction in the potion bowl for another five minutes. Mirk lowered his mental shielding as he watched him work. He could feel very little from Renly, as was the case with most djinn who weren't in terrible pain, but he did notice that Renly periodically used his magic to warm the water in the bowl by pressing a palm flat against its side.

  "You're very distinctive, monsieur," Mirk said, trying to keep his tone light, conversational. "Methinks you must not be an Am-Djinn like most of the others I've met. Thoug I don't mean to pry, of course."

  Renly paused, staring down into his bowl of cleaning potion, gripping by its sides. Then he abruptly whisked a clean handkerchief off the counter and hurried over with the bowl. His stride was so even, so measured, the water inside barely rippled. "It's no trouble, seigneur."

  Mirk hated to press. But he was too curious, too concerned for the man who knelt beside him and began to dab at his justacorps, to hold his tongue. "And methinks you can't be an Er-Djinn either. Unless that kinship doesn’t look so much the same like the Am-Djinn do."

  "What I was on the home realm isn't important, seigneur," Renly demurred, continuing to work at the stain. He was using his magic on that too, Mirk noticed. Just a touch. And though he was making use of water more than any of his other elements, at least as far as Mirk could tell, his magic felt much hotter than that of Er-Izat and Am-Hazek. Much less ephemeral. As if he was accustomed to using it for making and doing rather than abstract magic or for bolstering his physical strength.

  "I suppose not. But it feels rude not to call you by your real name. Unless you chose Renly for yourself?"

  Renly didn't argue the point. He frowned, pressing harder at the stain. "I am Li-Darat, seigneur."

  "For now, yes. But I thought being a Li-Djinn was only a temporary thing. Or that was the way things used to be, methinks. Though I could be mistaken."

  The djinn froze. Then, with a sharp inhale, he lifted his head and met Mirk’s eyes rather than looking properly off to the side or at his forehead. "Did Seigneur d'Aumont send you?"

  Mirk smiled at him, shaking his head. It was a gamble. But considering everything else he'd taken a chance on that night, this seemed to be the most important. "No, not at all. I'm a friend of Monsieur Am-Hazek. If you know any of the djinn staying in London currently."

  For a second, a reddish gold light flared within the depths of his dark eyes. "Am-Hazek. That..." He sighed, wetting the handkerchief once more, after pressing the side of the bowl to warm it again. "...is not surprising. Seigneur."

  Mirk struggled to remember all the things Er-Izat and Am-Hazek had told him, the tangle of kinship lines and rivalries that made up djinn society. Again, he felt the warm, deeply ordered press of the djinn's magic brush against his chest. Fire. Making. "Are you a Ra-Djinn?"

  The djinn’s whole body stiffened, tensed, as if he was preparing to jump up and bolt. Then he let a sigh of resignation escape through his nose and closed his eyes. "Yes, seigneur. I...was once Ra-Darat."

  It only posed more questions than it gave answers. If Mirk was remembering everything correctly, it was the Ra-Djinn who were in control on the djinn home realm currently, the ones who had begun selling Li-Djinn to the humans to keep them from causing trouble. The ones who all the other djinn he'd met were opposed to, because they found it intolerable that the Ra-Djinn would sell their fellows off to humans who showed such little respect for djinn life.

  So what was a Ra-Djinn doing as a servant to an English lord, burdened with a different kind of binding magic than the kind used by Seigneur d'Aumont? It was plausible enough that the Ra-Djinn might not only sell to d'Aumont, Mirk supposed. But that raised the horrible question of whether or not the whole world was riddled with d'Aumonts, men embedded in every mage society who had no qualms against selling djinn to whoever had the necessary gold. Without asking any questions about what their ultimate fate might be. Or if the practice was even right to begin with.

  "Monsieur Ra-Darat, then," Mirk said, dipping his head. "I'm sorry for being so rude. Maybe it's because I only learned English a little while ago, but...well. A name like Renly doesn't seem right for a djinn. And methinks it's better to call people by the names they like instead of the ones other people give them. I don't exactly get the impression Lord Kinross gave you that one out of any respect or affection, though I could be mistaken."

  "There are much worse masters than Lord Kinross," Ra-Darat said, his expressions precisely controlled. Mirk thought he caught a glimpse of a reddish glow circling about the ends of his bracelets.

  "I have to agree with you, monsieur. I'm sure you've heard of what the K'maneda's djinn are going through."

  Ra-Darat paused, as if waiting for something, settling back on his knees as he evaluated the results of his efforts to remove the wine stain from the front of Mirk’s justacorps. "Indirectly, seigneur, I have heard of this."

  "It's terrible. If I can feel all the magic that's been stolen from them hanging around...euh, him, I'm sure it must be even worse for you. And he doesn't dare bring them out into society, otherwise there'd be a scandal over how thin and hurt they are. Though I've been trying to do what I can for them every time he lets one of them come to the infirmary."

  Again, Ra-Darat hesitated. Then he continued, as he picked up dabbing at his coat, unsatisfied by the reddish stain still clinging to its embroidery. "He once did. Several years ago, at this point. When he was feuding with Lord Kinross. It was a show of force, I believe. Or that is what the result of it was."

  Mirk leaned forward, reflexively, though he immediately apologized for crowding into Ra-Darat's space and sat back. "I got the impression that there was something between them. But I didn't know it went that far."

  Ra-Darat nodded. "He was not invited into English society. He forced his way in. I hesitate to spread rumors, but I think in this case it's appropriate, seeing as how you are new to English society, seigneur. The English were on cordial terms with the K'maneda when their representatives were men such as Lord Ksyr and Lord Percival. Although Lord Ksyr was not from among the English originally, like Lord Percival, he...understood. Lord Ksyr was a man of a certain grace. He knew his place. The present representatives, Lord Percival excepted, have no sense of where they belong."

  Though Ra-Darat was leaving much unsaid, French and English mage society were similar enough for Mirk to close the gaps. And he'd seen the point of contention arise on its own himself, out in the ballroom. None of the K'maneda who trailed after Ravensdale, who cluttered around him, always searching for an opening or an advantage, were of noble birth. They might have found wealth by sticking close to Ravensdale, by mercilessly cutting down their opponents, but gold alone was not what determined one's standing in mage society. It could open most doors, but it left a few locked. He'd seen himself the proper way to pry those last few open. It took generations. It took service, honorable and selfless deeds that the others would benefit the most from. And it took grace.

  His grandfather had undone the first lock with all he'd done for the good of French magecraft, never asking directly for compensation, merely doing what needed to be done. Then he'd turned the key in the second with his marriage to Enora, who came from a family that was beyond reproach. It was up to him, Jean-Luc’s grandson, to undo the final lock. With the benefit of further service and another propitious marriage, alongside more decades of study in courtly grace — in how to submit but never be cowed, in how to control, but never dominate — Mirk could push open the door to high-born society for generations of d'Avignons to come.

  Ravensdale had skipped the hard work. He'd battered down the door that stood between him and high society with brute force and stolen djinn. And once he'd barged into the noble balls and parlors, rather than respecting the people he found there, he lorded over them with a brutish swagger that no amount of glamors or proper speech could conceal. Though Ravensdale was too useful to the English mages in some way that Mirk didn't understand for them to get rid of him outright, he got the impression that none of the high-born English would raise a finger to stop anyone who might decide to rid them of their little problem. And put a K’maneda who understood back in Ravensdale's place.

  "I'm afraid that's the best I can do, seigneur. I apologize for my incompleteness," Ra-Darat said, drawing Mirk up out of his thoughts as he rose onto his feet and stepped back to study where the stain had been from a distance. Mirk looked down at his chest. Unless one knew exactly where the stain had been, it was hard to see the remnants of it. He was certain the lighting in the ballroom, forgiving and warm, would hide them well enough.

  "Thank you so much, Monsieur Ra-Darat," Mirk said, bowing to the djinn once he'd grabbed Jean-Luc's staff and used it to help lever himself back to his feet. "It's a much better job than I could have ever done."

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  "Perhaps if you were willing to remove your coat, I could do more for it. But it would also take a half hour or more for the treatment to work, and I would not want to keep you away from the ball that long. I'm certain the man who accosted you doesn't have the means to offer compensation for ruining a suit of this quality. I will speak with Lord Kinross."

  Mirk shrugged, offering Ra-Darat a warm smile accompanied by a faint projection of good-humor, reassurance. "There'll be no need for that, methinks. I have a friend back in the City who's even better with stains than you are. Not because you aren't skilled, of course, but because he has an unfair advantage." He peered down into the cloudy bowl of potion water, breathing in deep. Ra-Darat's magic had kept it steaming the whole while. Though there were all kinds of unfamiliar scents in it, there was enough bitter orange for Mirk to guess that Ra-Darat and Genesis's knowledge of cleaning potions were at a similar level.

  "Very well, seigneur."

  "Though...please do give Lord Kinross my warm regards. I'll do my best to thank him myself, but you know how hard it can be to get a word in with a busy man like him. And...hmm, I don't want to be presumptuous, but let him know that if he ever wants an invitation into French society, I'd be happy to make the arrangements. Or if there's anything else he'd like to discuss. I have a feeling we might share the same opinion on some matters."

  Not on the morality of keeping a man like Ra-Darat under the influence of binding spells, to be sure. But if striking up a friendship with Lord Kinross could make it easier for them to deal with Ravensdale, Mirk was willing to make concessions. Temporarily.

  "As you wish, seigneur."

  "If he has anything to say in return, methinks it might be best if you looked for Monsieur Am-Hazek in the London mage quarter rather than sending anything through the City of Glass's post. He's employed by my godmother, Madame Beaumont. Both of them can be trusted without exception."

  A troubled furrow creased Ra-Darat's brow, just for a moment. Then his expression smoothed and he bowed again. "Of course, Seigneur d'Avignon. I will keep it all in mind."

  - - -

  Mirk was heartened to see that no one had challenged anyone else to a duel while he'd been away from the ballroom. But things were still not going terribly well.

  Seigneur Feulaine was a smart man; he'd made it a point to keep Laurent and Yvette well away from the K'maneda contingent still loitering in the far corner of the ballroom. But Mirk suspected that Yvette had still been hard at work undermining Ravendale's romantic ambitions while he'd been out nevertheless.

  At the last ball, Ravensdale had danced with almost no one but Catherine, coming back to her again and again every second or third dance. At present, Catherine was being handed off from the young master from the dark magicians' guild who had stopped to speak with them at Lord Emerson's ball to one of the older unmarried gentlemen from the crafting guilds. Not one who had any particular interest in Catherine’s hand in marriage, Mirk thought, but one who was meek enough to be bowled over by a woman as insistent as Yvette.

  She was still working at arranging more dances for Catherine, circulating among the young eligible mages with Laurent on her arm, to make it clear to them that she had no untoward intentions. To Mirk's surprise, most of the men she floated among didn't seem opposed to chatting with her. Either her game wasn't as transparent to them as it was to him, or the distaste among the English for Ravensdale had to run deeper than even Ra-Darat had implied.

  Ravensdale himself was sulking over by the windows, putting on a good show of ignoring the cheerful cavorting out on the dance floor, highlighted by ornamental spells that were much flashier than those Mirk had seen the English mages put on display at Lord Emerson's ball. Although Ravensdale had a drink in hand, he wasn't sipping from it. Not like the other K'maneda, who were surreptitiously topping off their glasses with flasks when the servants failed to make the rounds fast enough for their liking. Instead, he was staring at Catherine, the resentment plain to be read on his face as kept track of each and every new man he had a score to settle with.

  Mirk had no desire to join the others on Ravensdale's list. It'd be a gamble, but with Lord Kinross still keeping a close eye on Ravensdale from across the room, where he was trading quips with a group of the oldest mages in attendance, Mirk knew Ravensdale wouldn't try anything too violent. The ball was the best chance he'd have at speaking with Ravensdale safely. And of allaying any suspicions Ravensdale might have about his motives. Fixing a cheerful smile on his face, Mirk walked across the room to Ravensdale’s side, careful to keep his posture graceful, but not threatening, his grip on Jean-Luc's staff loose. "Comrade Ravensdale? May I have a word, please?"

  Ravensdale turned his sullen gaze on Mirk, frowning down at him from a glamour-conjured height that was a good hand and a half above his own head. Mirk let the man think he was intimidated, allowing his smile to dim. "It's not as if I can stop you. For now," Ravensdale said, flatly.

  "I'm afraid we got off on the wrong foot. You must forgive the Feulaines. They're very...hmm, spirited? Methinks that’s the word the English use…"

  "You seem to enjoy keeping spirited company, as you say," Ravensdale countered. "You're the Seventh’s personal healer, according to Cyrus. You’ve learned to heal its monster."

  Mirk knew very well who Ravensdale meant by monster. Mirk sighed, resisting the urge to fuss with the pockets of his justacorps. Putting on a show of uselessness was one thing, but letting the genuine worry he felt show was a whole other matter entirely. "I'm a Christian, comrade. And the Lord told us to first help those who others turn away from."

  "A papist," Ravensdale said,\ with a curt laugh, his eyes flicking to something going on over Mirk's shoulder. Percival, perhaps, considering Ravensdale's words. "I don't care either way, but plenty of others do. It'll be hard going for you with the English unless you convert."

  He gave a casual shrug, turning to the side a fraction so that he could keep an eye on both Ravensdale and the ballroom. Percival was indeed glaring daggers at him over Esther's shoulder, who also looked like she would have rather bolted than suffered through another dance with her probable fiancé. "Methinks the others would take back my position if I converted," Mirk said. "Besides, I'm here to...hmm, make friends? Not become English."

  "Make friends, is it? Is that what you people call what you're doing with Catherine?"

  The rest of Ravensdale's barbs, Mirk had been expecting. But this new one took him by surprise, so much so that he didn't manage to check his expression in time. "Euh...methinks I must not understand, Comrade Ravensdale. She was kind enough to get me an invitation. I'm only returning the favor by being a support to her."

  "I've seen how she looks at you," Ravensdale said, his voice lowering. "All smiles for you, she is. And not those nice ones she gives to the guild mages. Or those fake ones she gives us."

  Ravensdale was genuinely upset by it. Mirk could feel the leading edge of the emotion through the haze of stolen magic around his mind. And he could hear it in how his affected high-born accent slipped back into the sort that Mirk was accustomed to hearing among the English low-born fighters. When Ravensdale made threats, Mirk thought, he still had the impulse to make them in the language he best understood, even if the situation didn't call for it. "I promise, Comrade Ravensdale, there's nothing between us at all. My family wouldn't benefit from marrying into a K'maneda or an English line. We're only acquaintances."

  The coupling of two truths, one of much greater importance to Mirk than the other, seemed to grudgingly satisfy Ravensdale, for the time being. He scoffed and took a sip of his drink as he looked back out over the ballroom. "She'd be wasted on a man like you anyway," he said. "The most potential of any woman on offer this year. Best in a whole decade. She's wasted on all of them. You need to stack like potential if you want a good son. She belongs with a chaotic dark mage."

  Mirk hardly knew what to say to this, what to make of such unabashed judgment. Did Ravensdale really think him so unimportant that he was willing to be so cruel in front of him without hesitation? Or was it some kind of threat? Either way, it made Mirk's stomach churn to hear Ravensdale speak of Catherine in such a way, with such a domineering and proprietary air. It was clear to Mirk that Catherine's own opinion of Ravensdale and his ambitions didn't matter to Ravensdale in the slightest. And the fact that Casyn treated his wife and daughters in such a similar fashion didn't bode well for any of them.

  He was spared the awkwardness of having to come up with something to say by the quartet drawing out the final strains of the present song, the couples out on the dance floor parting as the music faded. Mirk could feel Ravensdale's resentment spike again as Catherine was led by her current partner over to the next. And he caught sight of Yvette throwing a spark of her magic onto her fan to catch his attention as she waved it leisurely at the curve of her neck.

  Mirk sighed, turning back to face Ravensdale fully as he bowed to him -- low, but not groveling. "I'll have a word with Mademoiselle Feulaine, Comrade Ravensdale," he demurred, as he lifted his head. "I'm sure Comrade Catherine will be free soon."

  Ravensdale didn't reply to him other than with a nod. But from the way his glamour-sharpened jaw was set, Mirk could tell it would be to his benefit to be true to his word. Mirk retreated across the ballroom, doing his best to walk to Yvette's side at a slow and graceful pace rather than scuttling like he wanted to. Laurent was still by her side; he was so fed up with being hauled around the ballroom by Yvette that he didn't even have the energy to scowl at Mirk as he approached. Mirk didn't want to hope that Laurent had had a change of heart about him.

  "What did the brute say?" Yvette asked him in French, as she flicked off her translation charm. "He doesn't look happy."

  "Good," Laurent grumbled, snatching a glass of wine off the tray of a passing servant who was doing quick rounds before the next song began.

  "It's...not good, not really," Mirk admitted, though he did his best to keep his air of defeat from seeping into his posture, in case anyone else was watching him at the moment.

  "Dear," Yvette said, turning to her fiance with a sweet smile, her fan still undulating in her free hand. "Do you have something you'd like to say to Seigneur d'Avignon?"

  Before replying, Laurent downed the whole of his drink, making Yvette give a throaty laugh. "You handled that bastard well enough. Though I'd have handled him differently, the dress got saved all the same," he concluded with a deep sigh, as if spitting up the words had put him under great strain. "Will you dance the next number with Yvette? I need to step out. Alone," he added, quickly, when Yvette shot him a skeptical look. "Just for air."

  "Of course, Monsieur Laurent," Mirk said, bowing to both of them as Yvette held out her hand.

  "Yes! I have so much to tell you, Mirk! You were away for too long. Though that djinn did excellent work on your coat."

  They went off to the middle of the ballroom together, keeping close to the edge of the crowd of couples preparing to dance, away from the part of the floor enchanted for mage dancing. Yvette tucked her fan away into her skirts, backing away and performing a hasty curtsey to him as the song began, eager to come back close so that they could gossip. "Mademoiselle Catherine is a delight! All the men want to dance with her, even though having that brute glaring at them all night has been scaring off the shy ones. She could have her pick of them, I think, as long as they are bold enough to try."

  Mirk nodded as the dance began — a slow number, too slow to match Yvette's usual enthusiasm, but well suited for talking. "It really is a shame that she's K'maneda,” Mirk said. “It's been a trial finding men willing to take a chance on her. I'm in your debt for setting her up so well tonight. You've done far better than I did at the last ball. Though I'll have to ask you to leave a few numbers at the end for Ravensdale. She'll have a worse time if he doesn't get a few more dances from her."

  Yvette shot Mirk a skeptical look as he led her into a sedate turn. "Are all the men you spend time with now such terrible people? It would break my heart to see you turn into one of them."

  "Oh, no, not at all. It’s just this particular group, really. I've made excellent friends otherwise." Granted, they were all low-born fighters and healers, most of them foreigners who might be too strange even for Yvette. But she didn't need to know the finer details of what circles he'd been moving in.

  "What you really need to do, Mirk, is to go make more excellent friends among the ladies," she retorted, flashing him one of her pointed, toothy grins. "I'd like it better if you chose a good French woman for yourself, of course, but you've been turning heads all night! Strike while the iron is hot. Or come back to France before our season is over."

  Mirk paused, scanning the ballroom as surreptitiously as he could. There were a few people watching the current selection of dancers at the moment, Ravensdale aside, but Mirk couldn't tell in the hubbub of conflicting potentials and emotions if anyone was watching him in particular. "I have?"

  "Oh, yes! The ladies are very impressed. To save one of us from embarrassment with such grace instead of making a scene! And that suit of yours is catching all the eyes. But that’s not hard with how dull the men here dress. Though, if you ask my opinion, whatever they have you slaving away at in that terrible City of yours is doing wonders for your stature. Your arms! And your calves! You should tell me what you're doing so that I can make Laurent do it too."

  Mirk sighed, forcing a smile onto his face. In light of all the other troubles he'd had that night, catching the eyes of any of that season's debutantes should have been the least of his worries. But the knowledge of where his affections truly lay made the news trouble him all the same. "I don't think Laurent would much enjoy giving patients their weekly baths. Though the calves are mostly from a lot of walking."

  Yvette chortled, shaking her head. "But I'm serious, Mirk. You need to take advantage of things while you can. What other man here can say they hold their family's ledgers at such a marriageable age? And who else among all these tedious Englishmen does it with such style? Most ladies would jump at one or the other. But both? You could have your pick of any of these Englishwomen. It's a pity that men don't get their own debuts. It'd make it all so much easier. Though I do have a few recommendations for you, if you're interested..."

  He wasn't. But saying so, Mirk felt, would be a bridge too far. And he might be able to learn a bit more about the web of friendships and animosity that made up English mage society in the process. That aside, if it weren't for the fact that his heart was already set on an impossible other, gossip about potential fiancées made for a much lighter topic of conversation than dwelling on Catherine's plight or Ravensdale still glowering away in the corner. "If you're so inclined, I'd be glad to hear all about it."