Niccola snapped her notebook shut on the map contained therein as a door slammed on the second floor of the Bel Ilan manor. A chandelier in the sitting room tinkled as the heavy footsteps and pitched laughter of Lady Selah ve Marama Bel Ilan's two daughters cascaded down the stairs. Lady Selah huffed in her sitting-room chair.

"Ladies," she said as the staircase discharged Leah and Esther onto the main floor. "You are not elephants."

"That was Esther," said Leah with a simpering smile. "You know I walk quietly, mother."

Safe behind the kitchen wall, Niccola grimaced at the end of her half-hour of peace. She itched to open the notebook again. It would be a welcome distraction from whatever inane conversation was about to fill the sitting room, but the risk of getting caught now surpassed her tolerance threshold. She slid the notebook into a drawer instead. Better to resume the pretense of cooking before either sister breezed through to pillage the biscuit tray on the counter beside her.

Getting to her feet, Niccola dropped a pot beneath the tap and set about pumping water.

"And both of us are quieter than that, see?" she heard Leah say from the sitting room.

Lady Selah's reply was lost over the gush of water. Niccola pushed herself until her arms burned. With a comment like that, it took all her self-control not to make more noise just to take back the situation as it slipped from her fingertips, leaving a bitter sting in its wake. But getting into the Bel Ilan household's bad books would sabotage everything she'd spent three moons building, and she couldn't have that just yet. At least this noise alone might still keep the sisters out of the kitchen.

Her reprieve didn't last long. All too soon, water lapped at the line past which the pot risked boiling over, and Niccola was forced to stop filling it. It was incredible, really, how well one could get to know each pot after three moons in a kitchen. Maybe she should start naming them.

"Boil fast, Joah," she muttered, hauling the pot from the sink to the stovetop. There was a vindictive pleasure in seating Leah's boyfriend on the red-hot stove. The real one would benefit from such a searing.

"What are you laughing about?" said a petulant voice in the doorway.

"The bird in the apple tree," lied Niccola. This distracted Leah immediately, as intended. She wandered to the window with a frown as Niccola retrieved more stovewood from the stack by the back door.

Leah's dismayed voice rang from the kitchen. "Niccola! That's a crow!"

Niccola leaned against the wall with a hand over her face. She had not seen the crow arrive. This was what she got for improvising excuses.

"No, there was also a songbird," she said. She grabbed the wood and returned to the kitchen. "The crow just got here."

Leah glared at her. "Well, then I hope it didn't see you laughing at it."

Niccola wanted so badly to say crows hated shrill voices more than they cared about being laughed at, but that truth would do her no favors, either. Also, she was too tired to argue. It would only give Leah more excuses to make her life miserable anyway. She shrugged and crouched to thrust a fresh log into the stove. Sparks and ash billowed out. Leah beat a hasty retreat with her elaborate skirts clutched close. Niccola almost hoped she was gone when she popped her head in the door again.

"Oh, and Esther made a mess in the painting room again," she said. "We're going shopping, and I don't want crumbs on my new shoes when I try them on later. Go clean it up when you're done. And then I want a red kerchief from Phineas's in the marketplace. If you want to talk to crows, you can go do it outside." 

Leah and Esther made just as much commotion leaving the house as they had coming down the stairs. For all its inconvenience when she was sneaking around at night, Niccola had to thank the house's symphonic build for the way it informed her of the sisters' locations. The slam of the front door echoed through the paneling like a ceremonial gong.

The moment her daughters were gone, Lady Selah made a point of striding up to their bedrooms and flinging their windows wide. She returned with the huffy stride of one frustrated by her adult children. She did not share the same suspicions that led them to seal their rooms off like autumn canning, then draw heavier curtains than Niccola had ever seen back home. It was remarkable how different two realms could be in that respect. Niccola and her sister had never locked their own doors nor closed their windows during the day, outside of wintertime.

Lady Selah made for the entryway with the haste of one late for her next engagement. "Niccola?" she called as she went. "Did you find the chores list I left for you this morning?"

"Yes, ma'am." It had been hard to miss it; the damn thing was almost as long as her hand.

"Please ensure those are completed by tonight. Several are in dire need of doing."

"I will, ma'am."

Without so much as a goodbye, Lady Selah bustled out the door. The moment she was gone, Niccola returned to her stool and pulled out her notebook again. Before she could return to her map, its worn spine fell open to a more-visited page.

On the paper was a drawing of a woman's face. Dark eyes glittered beneath a brow just a shade lighter than Niccola's: a warm tone midway between black walnut and palisander. The woman was not smiling. Her expression was more sharp than severe, but it was the kind of sharp that sent a shiver up Niccola's spine. It spoke of ruthless intelligence and intelligent ruthlessness; of the kind of person who could kidnap Niccola's little sister without a trace of penitence.

This was the last person who'd had contact with Phoebe before she disappeared seven moons ago.

The woman was not from Varna, Niccola's home realm. Her high cheekbones were the first hint of it: such a feature was prevalent here in Calis, and though the two realms were neighbors, they'd scarcely shared citizenry since their fallout two generations prior. But that was not what gave it away in the end. The diviner who'd drawn this picture had filled in the background. It was a hazy scene, showing what could be a house and what could be a road, but dotted up and down with the unmistakable forms of chickens. These swarmed the streets of both Calis and Varna. The resplendent tails of the roosters in the drawing, though, were Calisian and Calisian alone.

With a sigh, Niccola thumbed through the rest of the notebook to return to her map. The pages between were packed with notes, the frustrated scribblings of an investigator whose last lead had ended three moons ago. Niccola had crossed the border into Calis then, and the woman's trail had gone cold. Niccola's jaw clenched. Reaching the map, she set about annotating the corner of it she'd walked this morning. She'd spent almost every spare hour walking since arriving in Calis. On each trip, she sought out the places where people gathered, searching the crowd for any sign of the woman's face. She'd found analogues among the populace, but none similar enough to suggest even an extended-family relation.

Niccola lowered her pencil again when she'd filled the map's corner with names, notes, and crossed-out houses. This morning's trip had been a failure, just like all the rest. She searched the map for her next destination, only to find every nook and cranny of it written on. Only the block at its top remained empty. Short of citizens abroad and hermits in the Talakova, the palace was the last place she had left to search.

It was also the only part of the map she could not under any circumstances let the Bel Ilans catch her showing interest in. The Calisian upper class were all as paranoid as their royals. Any investigation into Niccola's intentions was liable to get her pitched back across the border, if she didn't end up in jail first. Priceless as the fear on Lady Selah's face would be, getting caught was one risk Niccola could not afford to take. She thumped the notebook shut. It tumbled to her lap and fell open to the page with the drawing again. Niccola closed it properly and put her head down.

It was a damn fine time for the Calisian palace to halt its balls. The royals used to hold them every other moon from what Niccola had gleaned in the marketplace—to maintain their royal image, because of course Calis would deem that worthy of such extravagance. Niccola had missed the last one by days when she'd first arrived in the realm. The next was supposed to have been a moon ago. It never came. The market gossip mill had been churning for weeks.

And as much as she would rather stew over the notebook and her situation for the rest of the evening, she had tasks yet to finish if she wanted to keep this roof over her head. Niccola had no intention of leaving or getting kicked out yet. That was her plan for a moon from now, if nothing else yielded results.

In the meantime, Lady Selah had done her a favor and left the windows of the sisters' rooms open.

Niccola hid her notebook in her room, then checked the front windows to make sure nobody had come home early. Nobody had. She returned to the kitchen. The pot on the stove was boiling, so she dropped a ham bone in it before opening the window.

"Friend?" she called softly. Her tongue thrummed down the pitch of the crow-word as easily as her own language.

A heartbeat of wings preceded the crow's arrival. She'd been perched on the roof. Niccola slid the window shut to just a crack as the beautiful, glossy black bird landed on the windowsill outside. She cocked her head inquisitively.

"Not here," said Niccola with a smile. "Meet me upstairs at the back of the house. I have snacks and a task for you."