By the end of the next half-hour, Isaiah suspected it was a good thing they had planned a second meeting for the following day. The conversation devolved into food the moment the snacks arrived, returned to patterns of disappearances, veered into stories about past necromantics in the Ring of Thirty, fell down a long and fascinating recounting of historical events, was hauled back to the topic at hand, and then derailed again when Niccola grew too curious about the bird Isaiah was felting, and had to ask what it was. It was a cliff swallow, recreated from memories of the tame one he'd once held at an aviary in Madeira.

"An aviary?" asked Niccola, puzzled.

"Like a rookery, but for other birds. Some rich noble keeps it because she's in love with birds, and rescues ones she finds caught and sold on the black market, if they're unable to return to the Talakova."

Niccola lit up immediately. "I didn't even know that was a thing that could exist. What was it like?"

Their love of birds was shared. Niccola preferred corvids for their intelligence, a stance that made complete sense for one as sharp as her. Most people Isaiah spoke to picked favorites among birds they thought were prettiest in plumage, flight, or song, leaving little space to name what he loved about them. The delicacy of their frames and softness of their feathers, the sharp inquisitiveness of their motions, and just how well-suited each seemed to its habitat. Niccola was also the first he'd ever met who shared his admiration of starlings.

"There was one in the aviary that had learned to sing the tune of a dozen different instruments," he said. "And two dozen other bird calls, and a range of animal and domestic sounds besides. I cannot tell you how many times my father checked his pocket that visit because he thought he'd lost his pocket-watch, only to find it was just the bird ticking away in the corner. To this day, I think she thought it was funny to watch him search."

"Where in Madeira was it?" said Niccola.

"Do Varnic citizens have authorization to cross the border? I thought they'd not yet lifted those laws from Dinah's era."

"They haven't. Maybe I need Calisian citizenship, then." Her voice turned sly. "How do your laws work on that front?"

This sidetracked into Calis legislation. The answer to the question, of course, was legal partnership through marriage or a similar means, but the two of them showed such propensity for diversions that they soon ended up on the topic of Crow Moon celebrations—or lack thereof. Here lay one of the most striking differences between their realms, despite similar size and relatively close proximity.

"I had no idea it was such a positive occasion in Varna," said Isaiah. "People here would never spend so long in the Talakova on a Crow Moon, nor bring their families. They grieve even to bury their barrower dead between the trees. Most have two cemeteries, just so they do not have to consign non-barrower loved ones to the same fate."

"Two cemeteries! We would never imagine splitting a family like that. Is that why there are cemeteries at the Talakova's edge? So they might be as close as possible?"

Isaiah was about to answer yes when footsteps shuffled heavy on the other side of his door. He recognized his father's gait a moment later—a moment of panic that it had been his mother instead.

His father's heavy knock was followed by his voice. "I hope you plan to sleep tonight, son."

Isaiah's good mood burst like a soap bubble. He did not respond.

His father knocked again. "Isaiah?"

"I will."

"Good."

He shuffled away. A long silence followed, until Niccola ventured, "I should leave, then."

"What time is it?"

"I don't have a watch. But after dark."

That much he could tell from the songs of the crickets outside. These were quieter than they'd been before, backed by a cold draft from the window, which was propped open a crack. It was late.

Isaiah sighed. "I'll walk you to the gate. Do you have all your things?"

She did, so they walked together to the palace exit. Isaiah kept a sharp ear out for his mother's footsteps, but—blessedly—she seemed to have retired to bed already.

Niccola did not speak again until the door beside the palace's front gate stood open before them. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

Isaiah forced a smile. "Market entrance at noon."

She paused a moment longer, then said, "Good night," and walked away. Isaiah would have stood and listened to her retreat had there not been a guard still present. He knew Niccola's footsteps would be out of earshot long before she reached home, but his worry that she would make it safely was not assuaged by his inability to ensure as much. He had to wonder whether Varna suffered more from the Talakova's predators because they did not fear the forest, or less.

Either way, none of that would apply to the threat of a necromantic.

He returned to the palace. They had not gotten to talk about nearly all the things they'd wanted to today. It was a good thing they had planned the date already, or he'd have misstepped by not asking Niccola what house she was working in. It was tempting to imagine walking down to that manor and demanding her employer release her for the day. The thought was either a desperate one, or selfish. He could not tell which.

"What has you smiling this morning?" said Isaiah's mother the moment he entered the dining hall for breakfast.

Isaiah promptly wiped the smile. To say "nothing" would rouse her desire to meddle in his life, and she seemed in an amiable mood this morning. He would get out of the palace more easily if that was allowed to last.

"Just Pekea's antics," he replied, dropping to a seat that would present his mother with only a profile view of his face. She asked more questions when she could look at him head-on.

He was in luck this morning. His mother huffed and said no more. Isaiah attempted to read into the brief sound to gauge her response: it was either lack of belief in his answer, distaste for Pekea's antics, or disappointment that the answer had nothing to do with a suitor. After his father's visit, Isaiah had no doubt his mother knew he'd had a woman in his rooms from ten in the morning until midnight the day before. It would be good to let her believe what she wanted to about that, but part of that balance hinged on her not prying too deeply. The questions would turn invasive the moment she did.

Blaming Pekea's antics was not entirely a lie, at least. Niccola had at one point stuck a tuft of felting-wool to the dragon's head, and she had backed around the room like a cart in reverse until she dove under a chair and relieved herself of her impromptu headdress. Niccola and Isaiah had both laughed themselves to tears, too incapacitated to help her.

Isaiah ate quickly, then pushed his chair back and excused himself.

"Off to the lowlands again?" said his mother. Isaiah tensed. He might be imagining a shade of the same disgust into her voice, but it was impossible to tell for sure. Equally unsure was how she would respond to his terse nod. He'd been visiting the market at least twice weekly for a decade, but his mother's reaction to that habit had never become predictable.

"Make sure you dress properly," she said with a sniff.

That was all he needed. Without another goodbye, Isaiah left the table and the room as quickly as he could without appearing hasty. In another half-hour, he was outside the palace walls.

The tension that locked up his muscles did not even start to ease until the first ornamental trees of the upper city cast their shade around him. Isaiah slowed his walk. This was the farthest he'd ever gotten before being called back, on a day eight years ago when his mother had abruptly changed her mind on letting him out to the city. She'd sent a palace guard on horseback to retrieve him. She'd had no justification. Isaiah suspected it was because he'd talked back to her the night before.

When she'd tried the same thing again two years later, he'd refused to come. There was nothing the guard could do, but it had earned Isaiah a fearsome punishment when he'd returned home again.

There was a very real risk of being called back this time, after the fight he'd had with his mother about Varna just before the ball. It wasn't until he was halfway through the middle city that Isaiah finally relaxed. Still, he kept his ears trained for hoofbeats all the way to the lowlands, where the crowd finally thickened enough that he could blend into their midst and feel truly safe. He arrived at the market entrance before noon. Isaiah allowed himself an internal grimace. Waiting for someone prompted the questions of passersby, both curious and obviously laced with jealousy. He refused to care.

The sun's heat struck his upturned palm dead-on when Isaiah next gauged it, just as he detected someone's presence behind him. It was an eerie instinct, but one he'd learned to rely on. The next moment, Pekea tensed and whipped around. She chirred happily.

"Busted," said Niccola. "Hello, pipsqueak."

"You made it," said Isaiah, and the smile he'd been forcing for others turned effortless.

"With a promise of harvest sweetbreads dangled in front of me? Who do you take me for?"

Isaiah laughed. "We're wasting time here, then. Let's go, before Zina sells out."

"How's your navigation?"

"Less strained if I might make use of your arm as we walk."

"That won't be such a burden."

Niccola slipped smoothly in beside him, just as she had at the ball. Their paces matched—she was nearly as tall as he was—and the buzz of the interested crowd was at least tempered by that crowd moving out of their way. Or maybe that was thanks to whatever look Niccola was giving them. She walked confidently, bordering on fearsomely, and had never seemed like the type to step around strangers.

This was as good as confirmed when one particularly inattentive specimen crossed their path. "Excuse me," said Niccola, and the man leaped out of their way with profuse apologies.

Niccola caught Isaiah's stifled laughter. "I'm not that intimidating."

"I wouldn't know. Bakery ahead."

"By the Talakova, that smells good. What is she making?"

"Hazelnut-butter stuffed pastries, if I'm not mistaken. That will draw vultures."

"They're converging. Shall we run?"

She tugged his arm playfully, and the temptation to simply throw poise to the wind ran up against the small voice in Isaiah's head scolding him on how he ought to act in public. The voice was his mother's.

Niccola sensed his hesitancy. "If I don't get a hazelnut-butter stuffed pastry today, I will put wet moss on your floor and make you think you've stepped on a crow pellet."

That was enough to snap the narrative in his head. "Don't run me into anyone," he said, and they broke into a run together, dodging pedestrians who leaped out of their way, and subject to the irate chatters of Pekea. Both of them were laughing by the time they arrived at the bakery stall. Niccola nipped into line, pulling Isaiah with her.

"Let me catch my breath," he protested.

"Don't run much, do you?"

"I walk plenty."

They were both jesting; she was just as out of breath as he. The line moved quickly. They nabbed two of the last pastries and stepped away, cradling the warm paper bags and practically drooling.

"Where shall we go to eat these?" said Isaiah.

"I know a place."

"That sounds cryptic."

"Very," said Niccola coyly, then dropped her voice. "But we're going to want space away from prying ears, are we not? It is private enough to qualify."