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from the Tarovic Era.”
    “Yes, as I said, a dust-collecting knickknack holder. And the black doohickey?”
    “I have no idea, but your sister-in-law sent me to pick it up for her. She’s collecting them, I gather.”
    Lita reached for the sphere. Maldynado stifled the urge to snap his fingers shut about it, and she plucked it from his grasp.
    “It’s interesting, I’ll admit,” Lita said, “but I don’t see why one would want a collection.”
    Not unless that collection included a super powerful aircraft with firepower that would make Turgonia’s best warship roll over and cower under the waves. “I have six sisters-in-law. Which one did you say is collecting?”
    “Mari.”
    “Ah.” Ravido’s wife again. Maldynado might have found his information for the emperor. “You know, Lita, I think you may be right. If there’s a chance to reunite with the family, I
should
take it. After all, one never knows how long one’s parents will be around. You don’t want to later regret missed opportunities to make amends.”
    Lita blinked a few times and peered up at Maldynado’s face. Maybe he’d slathered too much icing on the cinnamon bun.
    “I’m not going to rush to do as Father pleases, but maybe I’ll stop by the estate when I return to Stumps.” Maldynado gave the sphere an indifferent wave. “If you wish, I could give that to Mari in person. You were simply going to post it, I assume?” Inwardly, he shuddered at the idea of a potential weapon going through the mail.
    “Actually, Mari’s on her way down,” Lita said. “I’m expecting her to arrive on the
Glacial Empress
in a couple of days.”
    Maldynado’s fingers twitched. He wanted to get that sphere. If he could give it to the emperor along with this information, it could prove that he had good intentions. But if he seemed too desperate to snag it… The last thing he wanted was for some cousin to tell Ravido that he might be angling to thwart his plot. He had enough to worry about already.
    “Is she?” Maldynado asked. “And Ravido is coming as well?”
    “No, he’s busy with something in the capital. Did you hear? He was reassigned to Fort Urgot recently.”
    “I
had
heard that. I wonder why they moved him. Wasn’t he a post commander somewhere down south?”
    “The machinations of the army are beyond me.”
    Maldynado had a feeling he’d gotten as much information out of Lita as he would. As it was, she’d probably relay the details of the meeting to Mari, who might mention Maldynado’s appearance to Ravido. Maybe he should have kept walking and pretended not to see his cousin after all. Still, he might be able to find out more about these black artifacts from Mari. If he was brave enough to visit her. The last time they’d been alone in a room together, she’d tried to take his pants off, no matter that her husband had been in another part of the house.
    “As long as she’s going to be in town, I’ll have to stop by and visit her,” Maldynado said.
    “Do you know her well?”
    “Not as well as she’d like,” Maldynado muttered.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Where’d you say she’d be staying?”
    “Rabbit Island. The
Glacial Empress
stops there upon request, so that its warrior-caste clientele needn’t mingle with the commoners at the city docks.”
    “Yes, of course.”
    Maldynado exchanged a few parting words with Lita—and foisted a couple of the boutique’s business cards on her—before walking away, but he was already thinking of the ramifications of their meeting. With the luck he’d had lately, he might end up in more trouble than ever. Busy worrying over that possibility, he almost crashed into someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
    Yara. After her dismissal, Maldynado had assumed she’d left town without him. He hoped she hadn’t been close enough to hear the conversation—he hadn’t been so oblivious to his surroundings that he wouldn’t have noticed her leaning against the wall behind