“No one outside of the gentry is allowed at this concert. You’ll understand why.”

“Need I remind you I am not gentry?”

“But you are my very special guest, and no one enjoys telling me I cannot do things.” He smiles confidently, and we walk through mingling clumps of people. I do not mind that I stand out so horribly this time, but I can feel many eyes on me.

Several people greet Finn as “Lord Ackerly,” and he nods in acknowledgment but stops to talk to no one. He stays at my side, a hand at the small of my back, and leads me to our seats. We’re on a private balcony overlooking a grand ballroom. People are drifting toward the seats set up on the floor. Two chairs beside us are open, and I wonder if anyone will fill them. The vantage point feels both privileged and exposed. I can see everyone, which means everyone can see me.

A small, raised stage in the center has a semicircle of chairs about a dozen in number, but no one is there yet. The walls of either side of the room are lined with guards—one group in the royal purple livery, the other in blue and gold.

Finn feels both too close and too far away, sitting with our arms nearly touching. I need something, anything, to cover my inner flutterings.

“What symphony will they be performing? Am I terrible if I admit I find Alben music dreadfully dull and somber?”

“I am terrible right along with you, then. But have no fear. It’s an international group of musicians from the royal families of several continental countries.”

“Ah. Thus the strangely liveried guards. I’ve always been partial to art and music from Gallen.” The country immediately east across the channel from Albion, Gallen seems to suppress passion less.

“Spirits below,” Finn says under his breath, shifting in his seat and angling himself toward me so half my view of the room is cut off. He smiles, but it is too bright, too forced. “I am so sorry. I had it on good authority that he wasn’t coming tonight. Still, there is not a safer room for you in all of the city at the moment.”

“Downpike?” I startle forward and there, in a balcony directly across from us, sits the nightmare man himself.

He raises a glass filled with bloodred wine in mock cheers and then takes a dignified sip, his eyes never leaving me.

My hand aches, spasming into a fist, and I want to flee, be anywhere but here with that man so close. I nearly ask Finn if we can leave, but the expression on Lord Downpike’s face is too smug. It’s not even a challenge. I’m not worth it in his estimation. Sitting straighter in my chair, I meet his horrid gaze from across the room and raise my right hand in a cheerful wave, being certain to wiggle all my fully functioning fingers. Then I fix my eyes firmly on the stage, resolving not to look that direction again.

“Well done,” Finn murmurs.

Another couple joins us, the man maybe ten years our senior, handsome with reddish-brown hair. His wife is dripping in ostentatious jewelry, her face neither pretty nor plain, rather severe but offset by heavily curled blond hair. She gives me a slight nod and then settles in the farthest chair.

“Lord Ackerly,” the man says, and I recognize his voice—Lord Rupert, Eleanor’s uncle the earl. “I did not know we would have the honor of sharing a box this evening.”

“The honor is mine. Might I introduce Miss Jessamin Olea?”

Lord Rupert takes my hand and inclines his head, but his eyes are shrewd, and he obviously knows who I am. “Charmed to make your acquaintance.”

“Thank you, my lord. I am fortunate enough to count your niece, Eleanor, as a friend. She is a credit to your family name.”

“Quite, yes.” He sits next to his wife, whose chin is already bobbing into her pearls. Apparently, I am not the only one who thought to use the symphony as an excuse for a nap.

There is a strange sensation from my hand, and I look down to see the fingers of my right glove tugging free of their own accord. Finn clears his throat loudly, slamming his cane down against the floor, and immediately the tugging ceases, my glove no longer possessed.

“Now he is simply being petty,” Finn says with a scowl, covering my hand with his own.

“It would appear Lord Downpike is intent on getting your attention,” Lord Rupert says conversationally.

“I had noticed.” Finn’s tone is polite and unconcerned.

“Have you given any more thought to what he is proposing?”

“I cannot say that I have. What was wrong two years ago is still wrong today, and you will find my position unchanged.”

“Yes, but the good of the country . . .”

“Is the good of the country, and I will always do my part to protect it. Why should we stretch further than needed? We have been independent and strong for decades now. The Continent holds nothing we cannot do for ourselves. I find myself perfectly satisfied with the amount of power we currently hold. Aggression would lead to war, which would benefit no one, least of all our own citizens. Oh, look! They’re about to begin.”

Finn still has not moved his hand from where it rests on mine. My stomach does not know how to feel about this development. Fortunately, I’m soon distracted as the lights dim and the music begins.

The symphony is like nothing I have ever seen. Six women and seven men in glittering black sit with their instruments, but when the first note—a long, deep pull across a cello—sounds, it is accompanied by a wavering flash of deep blue light. A violin joins, its light dancing up to join the cello’s, on and on up to the drunkenly flickering pink hue of the flute. As the song progresses, the lights shift in and out and around each other, a dance as complex as the marriage of notes from so many instruments. A man on the end has a drum beneath his legs, which emits bursts of brilliant white when hit with his foot pedal, and cymbals that crash together and send all the colors popping like Queen’s Day fireworks.