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“My dear, I promise you needn’t fight any duels over my honor.” Smiling wryly, he swept her through their next turn, neatly avoiding their closest neighbors. “I’ve been frustrated in my investigations, no more. You see, I had assumed that any other supernaturals would be willing to reveal their natures in private conversation if I simply made my own clear from the start...but I clearly underestimated just how unspeakable such a revelation is in this current environment.”

“It wasn’t like that in Paris.” For all the personal discomfort that Margaret had felt there, the French court held far too close a link to its British counterpart ever to disdain the supernatural; aristocratic intermarriages across the Channel had led to a significant amount of overlap across the centuries.

“No, indeed.” Lord Riven lifted his shoulders in a shrug that didn’t disrupt his even steps. “But here we are in a new city and empire...and am I to understand that someone here has been offensive to you?”

His tone was light, but she knew that dangerous glint in his eyes. Narrowing her own, Margaret considered the matter.

Unleashing all her own woes might feel soothing in the moment, but her husband had a mission of his own in this city—one which required his usual charm rather than his rare, protective ire. At any rate, she had learned to fight her own battles early in life. She didn’t need him to step in now and remind her sniggering detractors how dangerous a British gentleman could be.

Accordingly, she released only the safest part of the truth. “It was a professional irritation. The emperor sent one of his equerries to keep me trapped outside the ballroom at the most significant moment of the evening.”

For the first time in her experience, Lord Riven faltered in his dance steps. “A gentleman led you out of the ballroom on your own?” he demanded. “Without even summoning me to accompany you?”

Margaret snorted as she nudged him back into the rhythm of the dance. “It was hardly the impropriety of the matter that concerned me.”

“I’m well aware of that,” he said grimly, “but, as your husband, it’s your safety that’s of most concern to me.”

“Oh, nonsense!” Margaret rolled her eyes. “I very much doubt that the Habsburg emperor is going to order the assassination or kidnapping of a visiting British noblewoman at a ball held in his own palace. That would inspire far too much furor and scandal for a man so publicly committed to etiquette.”

“But privately more than willing to ignore it, apparently.” Her husband’s voice remained too soft for anyone else to overhear, but she felt the tension in every line of his body as he held her. “What was his excuse for requiring you so urgently?”

“He claimed to desire a word with me in private, but as he never actually arrived...” Margaret wasn’t graceful enough to shrug without losing her place in the dance, but she tilted her head meaningfully towards the reticule that hung, swaying and brushing against her husband’s shoulder, from her wrist beside her broken fan. “Fortunately, the special aid I’d brought meant that I was able to view the waltz itself, but I missed the aftermath. How did everyone recover so quickly? By the time I returned, it was as if nothing had happened. Was there some amnesiac effect afterwards?”

“Hardly anything so subtle,” he said dryly. “In fact, there were a number of bellowed accusations amidst all the uproar in the first minute or two—but after some internal squabbling, the rulers came together as one to point out that it would only give in to the transgressors if we allowed our evening to be disrupted by their attack. Therefore, they ordered everyone to continue as usual, with no more thought upon the matter. Replacement dancing slippers were provided to everyone who needed them, and the matter was officially forgotten.”

“Just one more uncomfortable fact of life hidden behind a veil of silence in this city.” No wonder the conductor had refused to answer her questions, if even the highest aristocrats didn’t dare discuss it! “How is anyone to solve this matter if everyone refuses to witness the plain truth?”

“That, I do not know.” As the waltz drew to a close, her husband drew her to a halt, still maintaining their light embrace. “But may I please beg you not to leave the ballroom again without sending any word to me first?”

“You needn’t worry about me for the rest of tonight.” Margaret’s mind was already racing onwards, making plans well past this first, frustrating evening of lost chances. “Only focus on your own investigation, and I’ll see to mine.”

She had already decided on the next step...and it would begin in the Imperial court library tomorrow morning, with or without the emperor’s permission.

The first hiccup in her plan arrived when she sat down on their bed in the new apartment, far too many hours later, and re-opened her reticule to properly inspect the gold leaf she had plucked during the waltz.

It was nowhere to be seen. Only a small pile of minuscule gold crumbs sat atop the folded cloak of illusion. When she poured them into one hand, frowning, they ran inexorably through her fingers, growing thinner and smaller with every moment until at last, they too vanished entirely, without so much as an audible pop of air to accompany their disappearance.

“What’s that?” inquired Lord Riven from his corner of their bedroom, where he was currently engaged in removing his cravat.

“An illusion.” Clearly. And yet...

Margaret frowned down at the empty space where that so-solid leaf had lain.

What kind of illusion lasted so long? Or worked on all the senses?

I need to get into that library.

When it came to the traditional supernatural denizens of this area, she was comfortably familiar with current research on species such as the lorelei, the krampus, and the almost-certainly-now-extinct lindwurm. After the last few months of research in the Black Forest, she could already safely consider herself to be the world’s foremost human expert on the vanishingly rare tatzelwurm, which had also been witnessed in the Vienna Woods. She was also becoming more and more confident in her understanding of the Black Forest’s nixen, who had allowed her unprecedented access to their community...partially due to the ongoing romance between her own nachzehrer assistant and a beautiful nixe maiden from the nearby lake.

However, none of them held any illusory powers that she knew of—and last night’s ball had been a useful reminder that the Habsburg empire, despite any recent territorial losses, still stretched to include an enormously diverse population. Many of them congregated here in the capital, leaving behind their home nations to jostle for influence and power at the highest level. It only made sense that supernatural citizens would do the same, hiding their true natures in public for the sake of Viennese ‘civility’...which allowed all sorts of scandalous activities just so long as they were kept politely veiled behind a curtain, whether literal or metaphorical.

It was intensely frustrating that whichever unknown helper had given her the cloak of invisibility on her first night had not been thoughtful enough to return Margaret’s commonplace book from the cloak they’d taken in exchange. Luckily, the book itself had been newly purchased for this journey, so the only notes she had made in it as yet were from her first meeting with King Thomas.

Those details remained perfectly fresh in her head. However, the number of questions she had accumulated since then necessitated an urgent shopping trip.

That morning, for the third time in the past four and twenty hours, she took a hired fiacre down the broad ring road to the first central district. However, this time, instead of stopping at any of the many entrances to the Hofburg, she directed the driver to leave her in the maze of small streets that branched off from the bulk of the palace to lead through the heart of the city.

For the sake of her husband’s nerves, she had requested a maid to accompany her for the first part of this journey. For the sake of her own guilt, though, as the girl followed her obediently through the narrow streets, Margaret promised herself to make a stop later at one of the frilly-curtained konditoreis whose café windows—full of luscious-looking cakes on tempting display—the maid’s wistful gaze landed upon again and again. The poor child really would certainly deserve a treat for her patience.