Six days after Niccola's encounter in the marketplace, one letter in the day's mail landed in the mail basket with a thunk that could be heard from across the house. Niccola dropped her cloth in the sink and scrubbed her hands dry on her dress as she made for the front door. She couldn't look like she was in a rush, but she also had to see what that was before anyone else in the house got it.

Sitting amidst run-of-the-mill correspondence in the mail basket was an envelope with a red wax seal. Niccola scooped it up, her heart thudding. The paper was so fine, she could see the faint blur of the letter inside, hand-written on a card whose luxury was already detectable through its creamy white sheath. The address on the front was also hand-written.

To the ladies of the Bel Ilan household.

It was an invitation. Niccola didn't need to open it or read further to know; she had seen enough like it back home to recognize the trappings of mail sent out from the palace.

"Oh, what's that?"

Leah's gasp made Niccola jump. She had managed to approach from behind without any of her usual tromping, and snatched the letter from Niccola's hands. She broke the seal, yanked out the invite inside, gasped again, then squealed. "Esther! Esther! Come here; you need to see this! Hurry!"

Niccola tried to move to an angle where she could see the invitation, too, but Leah was already gone, bounding up the stairs to meet her sister.

Lady Selah poked her head from her office room. "Whatever is going on?" she demanded.

"A masked ball, mother," said Esther, while her little sister bounced and clapped her hands. "At the palace. The prince is meeting women from all across the realm."

Lady Selah sniffed. "Who all is invited?"

"Noblewomen," said Leah, with a drawn-out lilt that told Niccola she was lying. Leah looked far too pleased with herself. Seeing Niccola watching her, she tipped her head and held a hand beneath her chin, smiling.

Heat seethed through Niccola's body. She could not let her anger or desperation show on her face; Leah was trying to get a rise out of her, and it would work if she gave it the chance to. Instead, she spun on her heel and strode back to the kitchen.

Leah's voice echoed after her. "Aww, upset that you won't get to meet the prince? He's quite lovely, you know. It would be such a shame to see him marry someone who didn't deserve him."

Niccola ignored her. She had met the prince, and that fact gave her strength to stave off the urge to run up the stairs and snatch that ball invite from the youngest Bel Ilan. But that didn't disarm the sting of the taunts. She needed to see that invitation. Verde had tangentially confirmed that all women were invited to the ball. Niccola could not see it being any different, if the prince who walked around lowland markets in plainclothes had any say in his own marriage process. And even if it was only nobility, she still qualified. Just not in her current station, under her current mask.

That rankled more than anything. For three moons, Niccola had been waiting for a chance like this: the chance to meet the person she was looking for, or get right to the heart of their family. She needed information. She needed connections. She needed something that wasn't endless cycles of gossip and scanning market crowds for familiar features that she now understood she'd never have found there anyway. If her target was born into royalty, she would not have caught them in the markets, or even among the upper-class gatherings she'd infiltrated in her search. It was pure, dumb luck that she'd met the prince, a fortuitious encounter that would never have occurred if he was any less disposed to wandering around incognito.

She had to stay in the sisters' good books if she wanted any hope of getting a look at that invitation. The information in it was precious. Niccola could guess from experience where the ball would be and what kind of dress code would be expected, but she did not know when it would be happening, what paces to practice beforehand, nor what—if anything—to bring. She did not know if royal balls in Calis required gifts at the door, whether masks were provided, or how late she should expect to stay. But greater even than that was Calisian paranoia. Verde had informed her that the royals screened their guests with a code known only to those who'd received a formal invite, and that it changed with every ball. Niccola would not be able to fake her way in without it.

Niccola stood at the sink with a knife in one hand and a potato in the other, both forgotten almost as soon as she'd picked them up. Should she pose as a serving-woman? She would have to scout the palace walls beforehand to find the servants' entrance, then. Sneaking in would require reliance on both her skills of deception and the goodwill of any servants she had to befriend. That might have worked back home, but if Calisian paranoia extended to the palace serving quarters, it would be a tough sell.

Or she could wing it. Show up with a guess of what she needed, and lie her way around any additional requirements. She'd be fine if only she could get inside. She had already met the prince. He seemed well-liked enough to be trustworthy—common folk had a way of sniffing out sour rulers—and he would be taking the most dances at the ball. If she could get one with him, she might be able to leverage their conversation in the market to get him talking about things more relevant to her mission.

Or maybe it was arrogant of her to assume he would recognize her. She would be in completely different dress, after all... no, that wouldn't matter to him. He couldn't see her outfit at all. The brief hope that realization brought her withered as the second half of her dilemma crushed down. She didn't have a dress worthy of a royal ball.

She didn't have a dress, could not afford a good one, the mute crow had not returned in days, and even Lady Selah had taken to shutting windows in the chill of the season. Niccola wished for the thousandth time that she'd learned to pick locks. She could step outside and call another crow, but that would only work if she was here alone. The chances of achieving that anytime soon had just plummeted with the arrival of the invitation. Her errands would all take her to public places. And she'd be wanted here, too. She had made a calculated gamble in her servant's interview and revealed that she was familiar with the process and art of highborn fashion. Helping the sisters into their dresses had gotten her into their rooms on more than one occasion, but it was back to bite her now.

The weight of it all threatened to suffocate her. She didn't have enough time left to miss this chance.

As if on cue, Leah's voice echoed down from the mezzanine. "Niccola? Come help me put on this dress! We're picking outfits."

Niccola set aside the unpeeled potato and washed her leaden hands. She found the two sisters trying on outfits in Esther's room. Niccola's eyes darted around in search of the invitation. It wasn't here. Her gaze skipped next to the rows upon rows of dresses hanging in the wall-length closet that occupied Esther's wall. Could she manage to steal one? There was enough fuss in the room already that it might just be possible.

That thought was undermined the next moment by Lady Selah's arrival. She was clearly tickled pink by the prospect of both her daughters going to a courtship ball to meet the prince. She cooed and fussed over their outfits with such single-minded force that she shooed Niccola off on more than one occasion. This might have made ideal conditions for a dress heist, but Lady Selah had too sharp an eye. Niccola didn't dare try her luck.

Then the errands list began. By the end of an hour, Niccola's next two days were booked solid with tailoring runs, ribbon shopping, show-minding, and other tasks that would leave her no time to get out of the crowded lowlands on her own—and certainly none to steal a dress. She began to wonder whether this was intentional. Esther was absorbed in her own interests and Leah was an airhead, but Lady Selah had always distrusted Niccola. With good reason, but still.

Or maybe this time, Niccola's desperation was showing.

Finally, dinner preparations gave her the excuse she needed to flee the room. Niccola returned to the kitchen with all her anxieties tugging at the hollow space in her chest. She needed to see that invitation.

After the secret entrance code, she'd determined that the date of the ball was the most important factor. She would need to be down in the Talakova when the next Crow Moon came round, and the maintenance price of magic came due. If the ball was planned for next week, the two might coincide. It would be poor planning: a hampering of every magic-using woman in the realm. Yet Niccola would not be surprised if that was leveraged on purpose. The Cantor royal family had no magic of its own, and remained staunchly against gaining any. The Catastrophe had only reinforced that. Niccola would not be surprised if they wanted to lower their chances of a barrower marrying into the family and passing her lineage to her kids.

Niccola would offer no such risk, provided aversion to having kids was an acceptable stance for a woman to take here. It certainly was back home. She had no proper read on the prince yet, but she did have a strange, inkling feeling that he might feel similarly. Something, at least, had been weighing on him during that conversation in the marketplace, and it hadn't been the disappearances.

She was thinking like a marriage was even on the table. Niccola made a face, disgusted with herself for even entertaining the idea. Back home, thoughts of partnership had swept her away on more than one occasion. The fantasy of finding someone perfect for her and staying with them for life had propelled her through many a date in her teen years, until it proved clear that a match for her criteria would be exponentially harder to find than she had hoped. She'd dropped the search, but never stopped hoping.

Yet for all the hollows that hope still carved out inside her, this was not the place to look for a partner. Least of all one who was set to inherit Varna's enemy realm. Least of all in the middle of a search for her missing sister. She had other things to focus on.

Even if the prince made excellent conversation.

The tangle of Niccola's thoughts was sufficient to keep her distracted for the rest of the evening, a welcome thing while she bore the sisters' chatter about the prince and the ball for the entirety of dinner, dessert, and evening tea. By the time the Bel Ilans locked their doors for night, Niccola was exhausted. She pushed it aside. Returning to her room, she slipped into warmer, darker clothing. The streets of Calis would empty fast at this hour, and the Talakova's edge would, too. It was time to take matters into her own hands.