Disciples of Chaos

by M.K. Lobb

Genres: YA Dark Fantasy

Synopsis

In this thrilling sequel to Seven Faceless Saints, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Kerri Maniscalco, Roz and Damian must face their destiny as the world crumbles around them.

Damian Venturi isn't aware of it yet. But as small shifts start to crack the foundations of the Ombrazian power structure after the Rebellion's attack, cracks are beginning to show in Damian's own facade. Uncontrollable anger is bubbling to the surface and can't always be pushed down. Can he keep everyone safe, even from himself?

Rossana Lacertosa should feel victorious. She accomplished everything she set out to do, and more. The Rebellion's attack set countless prisoners free and brought attention to the unfairness in the Palazzo's structure. And Damian is back by her side where he belongs. Yet the war with Brechaat rages on and government officials are hellbent on keeping the status quo.

Then an Ombrazian general arrives from the front lines, and orders dozens of arrests, shipping Roz and Damian's friends up north. Determined to free those who matter most, Roz and Damian set their sights on Brechaat. But their journey is dogged by strange magic, and Damian shifts further from the boy he used to be.

The complications of love, magic, faith, and war will keep readers eagerly turning the pages as they head towards the gripping conclusion in the Seven Faceless Saints duology.

Release date: February 20, 2024

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 384

Sample

As a child, Damian Venturi had always longed to be more story than boy.

He’d cut his teeth on tales of the saints and the disciples blessed with their magic. He’d dreamed of glory in the northern war, gripping weapons in hands that didn’t shake. He’d envisioned captaining ships across star-studded waters and standing at the edge of the world, shoulders squared in holy righteousness. He’d imagined falling in love.

He’d pictured it all with Strength at his side, certain that his father’s patron saint would one day bless him, too.

The thought made Damian’s lips twist as he knelt beside Battista Venturi’s gravestone. The glistening slab of marble was longer than his father had been tall, opulent and unnecessary. A grand bit of rock for a man who’d thought himself quite grand indeed.

No matter how many times he came here, Damian couldn’t shake the haze of bitterness. His frustration was an unforgiving thing. When his father had died, Damian had known despair. He’d watched crimson spread across the stark white of the Palazzo floor and felt the dull, inescapable thrum of that despair in his bones. It was as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice. Now, though, he was shedding layers of misery like ill-fitting clothes and replacing them with years’ worth of repressed anger.

He tented his fingers in the lush grass, nails scraping the dirt. The saints, if they were out there somewhere, weren’t in the business of liberation. Disciples died like any flesh-and-blood creature. Death made equals of them all.

Damian should know. He’d buried a bullet in a disciple himself. And perhaps that was the reason he kept coming here: to make himself suffer. To endure some sort of penance for the fact that he’d killed yet again, and this time had been the worst. Worse even than the swift deaths he’d carried out during his time on the northern front.

Because this time it had been so fucking easy.

“I bet you wish you’d seen that, don’t you?” Damian murmured to the gravestone, gaze sweeping the familiar epitaph: BATTISTA VENTURI—ESTEEMED GENERAL, HONORED BY STRENGTH. His father would be remembered not as a loving husband or doting father, but by his role and status. Given the man he’d become by the end, Damian supposed it was apt.

He brushed off his hands and pushed himself to stand, swallowing the acrid taste in the back of his throat. As he shifted, sunlight glanced off the flat stone. It felt like a mockery.

“I wondered if I’d find you here.”

Roz Lacertosa drew up beside him, mouth set in a hard line. She was as beautiful and unruffled as always: high-necked black shirt baring only a glimpse of her slender throat, long dark hair drawn into a tight ponytail. She stared at Battista’s grave, her expression of vague distaste unwavering. Damian couldn’t very well blame her.

“How long have you been out here?” Roz trailed her fingers up the small of Damian’s back. Her touch made him shudder, and he shrugged.

“Not long.”

It was a lie, and the weight of her cutting gaze told him she knew it. Her fingers found his chin, and she turned Damian’s face to hers in a grip that demanded no argument.

“He doesn’t deserve this… vigil. Besides, Enzo killed him—not you.”

Damian gently removed her hand from his face and pulled her into his chest, inhaling the scent of her skin. He pressed his lips against the side of her neck.

“Damian, please,” Roz said, gripping his bicep. The words, though, were tinged with humor. “Not in front of your father.”

He snorted, pulling her away from the Palazzo’s sparse graveyard. His spirits were already lifting. The summer wind was warm, a trailing caress through his hair, and he could hear the crashing waves of the sea in the near distance.

“Your hands are dirty,” Roz observed, holding up their intertwined fingers. The revelation didn’t appear to bother her, but Damian cringed, attempting to disentangle himself.

“Sorry.”

She held fast. “What were you doing?”

He gave up, not wanting to let go of her regardless. “The chthonium Enzo had left on each of the victims’ bodies? I buried it beside my father. I didn’t want to have to look at it anymore.” Truly, he didn’t know why he’d kept it as long as he had. He would never forget the way it had been shoved into the empty eye sockets of those the disciple had murdered.

“You should have thrown it in the sea,” Roz said, squeezing his hand tighter. “But good—I’m glad. Some things are better buried and forgotten.”

Damian didn’t bother telling her he could never forget what Enzo had wrought in their city. He changed the subject. “How did your meeting with the rebels go?”

She seemed to consider the question as she walked at his side, boots tapping against the cobblestones of the wide path leading up to the Palazzo.

“As well as could be expected, I suppose.” She gave a haughty toss of her ponytail. “Some of them are still hesitant to trust me. They’ll be at the meeting, though.”

“You mean they’re hesitant to trust me.” Damian was, of course, referring to how Roz’s friends hadn’t been at all pleased to discover she’d been working alongside a security officer.

She blinked against the late afternoon sun, lashes casting long, delicate shadows on her cheeks. “They trust you enough to guarantee their safety at the meeting. Besides, they know you helped solve the murders, and that we’re friends.”

“I’m sorry,” Damian said, thrusting an arm out to stop her in her tracks. “Did you say we were friends?”

Roz’s blue eyes darkened in feral amusement. “We’ve always been friends, Venturi.”

“I think you know that’s not what I meant.”

She made a low hum in the back of her throat, glancing skyward as she feigned consideration. “So we’re not friends?”

“Rossana…,” Damian growled. They’d reached the side of the Palazzo, and Roz shoved him over to the wall until his back was flush against the cool stone. He could have resisted, of course, but he didn’t.

“Do you want them to know I can’t stand to be away from you?” she murmured, hands exploring the planes of his chest. There was wickedness in the curve of her smile. “Do you want them to know I’m obsessed with the sound of your laugh and the feel of your skin?”

Damian meant to answer, but Roz claimed his mouth with hers. It might have been a chaste thing, had she not been in the process of slipping her fingers beneath the hem of his shirt. A single touch of her lips, and he was consumed by fire. He never tired of kissing Roz. The press of her body against his, the familiar sweet scent of her hair, the way their mouths fit together as if they’d been created solely for that singular contact… But she pulled away too soon, taking with her the gasp she’d drawn from somewhere in his chest.

Her eyes lifted to his again, and Damian knew they were battling the same unspoken thoughts. They had been for days, and yet something kept them from voicing the subject. It was easier that way. Easier for Damian to go about his work at the Palazzo, trying to force some semblance of order following the deaths of Battista and Chief Magistrate Forte. Easier for Roz to spend time with her mother in the apartment that used to be Piera’s and focus on what came next for the rebellion.

“Just say it,” Damian said hoarsely, arms dropping to his side. “I can tell you keep putting it off, so just say it, Roz.”

She scanned his face, her own expression hard. Not suspicious, but searching. “I thought it might upset you.”

“That you can see what’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Roz, please.” Damian dragged a hand down the side of his face, still warm from kissing her. He remembered her words from last week: I see you. Even the dark parts. “When I killed Enzo, I felt good about it. There’s something… bad inside me.”

She gave an obstinate lift of her chin. “You thought he’d just murdered me. I’d be pissed if you didn’t feel at least a little satisfaction.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Damian waited, wondering if she would say more. If she would admit she’d noticed the flashes of wild fury that sliced through him when he wasn’t expecting it. He’d felt it that night, and it had been happening more frequently in the days since. After nearly three years at the front, he was accustomed to flashbacks, but this was something else altogether. There were strange, terrifying moments during which he felt too big for his skin. As if he wanted to rip free of his own body the way Enzo had stepped out of the chief magistrate’s form, letting the illusion of flesh fall to bloody pieces around him. Nothing about the feeling was right. When a disciple of Chaos was stalking Ombrazia’s streets, Damian had thought he was losing his mind. Now that Enzo was dead, shouldn’t that fear have died with him?

But it hadn’t. If anything, it was worse than ever.

“We went through a lot,” Roz said, interlacing their fingers and using her thumb to stroke the back of his. Although the action was intended to comfort, the words were not. They were simply a statement of fact. Roz rarely tried to soothe—she spoke what she perceived to be the truth. “You’re spending too much time worrying about how you ought to be reacting, instead of just letting yourself work through it.”

Damian wanted to believe her. But he’d known all manner of horrors in his life. Things that stayed with him, the guilt and misery forming a gradually tightening noose around his neck. This was different in a way he didn’t know how to describe. He could feel himself unraveling, yet couldn’t muster anything more than indifference when it counted. He felt violent. There was no other word for it. Unhinged and incognizant of consequences during those brief interludes where he was certain he’d lost hold of his sanity. He couldn’t shake the sensation that something horrible clung to him like an invisible shroud.

“You’re right,” Damian told Roz, because he couldn’t bear to continue the conversation. Perhaps sensing his dismay, she pulled him in the direction of the Palazzo.

“Come on. I want a good seat for the meeting.”

Damian wasn’t sure there was such a thing as a good seat for an event like this, but he didn’t bother saying so. He followed Roz to the Palazzo’s heavy front doors. The ancient stone building seemed to gather up the sea-tainted wind, compelling it to hush. Above them, metal-tipped spires rose to pierce the gray sky, the tallest of them hazy within the press of clouds. Once, Damian had thought the Palazzo beautiful. A shining refuge from the mud-laden front where he’d lost his friends and his innocence. Now, though, the very look of it sent cold threading along his bones. Death had followed him here, and he could not shed her. She lingered in the echo of his boots across the marble floors and peered at him from the eyes of the statues lining the main entrance. Every time Damian crossed the threshold, he could see his father’s body at the bottom of the stairs and smell the acrid scent of rust and gunpowder.

But he forced himself to nod at the officers on duty—Matteo and Noemi—before allowing the cool, quiet air of the marble entryway to envelop him.

The silence didn’t last long.

Damian’s surname rang through the foyer, a nasal bark of impatience that dragged a sigh out of him.

“Salvestro.” Damian turned to face the disciple of Death, casting his name like a whip through the space between them. “What can I do for you?”

Despite being the newest Palazzo representative, Salvestro Agosti had taken to leadership as though he’d been bred for it. Perhaps he had—it wouldn’t be unusual for a powerful disciple. Blessed by Death, he could glean the final moments of the recently deceased with a mere touch, but his air of superiority seemed to suggest he could read the living just as well.

Salvestro descended the staircase, his eyes on Roz. He looked impeccable as always: suit perfectly pressed, dark hair coiffed, obsidian rings glinting on his long fingers. His mouth stretched into a wide smile, though the rest of his face was set in icy composure. He walked as though balancing a crown atop his prematurely lined brow.

Damian had not known the man long, but he knew enough to hate him.

“Now, Venturi,” Salvestro said with an air of false pleasantry, “you told me no one would be allowed in the building until the meeting commenced.” The words were for Damian, but his gaze never wavered from Roz’s face. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, although not hard to guess.

Damian kept his spine straight, jaw tight. “Thank you, Signor Agosti. I’m well aware of the security plan. Signora Lacertosa is my personal guest.”

“Is that so?” Salvestro proffered a hand. “Salvestro Agosti the third, disciple of Death.”

Roz curled her fingers around his in a grip that looked painful. “Rossana Lacertosa the first. Disciple of Patience.”

Salvestro’s lips twitched. “An honor.” His voice was clipped when he finally bothered to look Damian in the eye. “Speaking of security, I’ve decided you were right. Too much of an officer presence will make the unfavored ill at ease.”

Damian frowned. They’d had a brief argument about this two days prior, when Salvestro had asked about his plan for the meeting’s security detail. The disciple had said it wasn’t nearly sufficient, ignoring Damian’s assertion that too many officers might make the unfavored feel scrutinized. “Double the numbers,” Salvestro had snapped. “That’s an order.”

Damian had bit his tongue to keep from pointing out the obvious: Salvestro was not chief magistrate, and therefore not in charge of him. But he’d complied nonetheless, knowing that doing so would put Salvestro in a better mood come the day of the meeting.

Now Damian was perplexed.

“That’s not what you said the other day.” He tried to keep his tone from venturing into accusatory. “What changed your mind?”

Salvestro waved an impatient hand. “I want this meeting to go smoothly. The fewer unfavored running their mouths, the better.”

Damian knew Roz would speak up before she uttered a word.

“If you’re hoping for this meeting to go smoothly,” she said, voice dripping with false sweetness, “best to keep your own mouth shut as much as possible.”

The look on Salvestro’s face would have been priceless if it hadn’t made Damian’s stomach plummet. Whatever interest the disciple might have shown Roz moments before was now replaced by disbelief and derision.

“Soft for the unfavored, are we?” Salvestro’s nostrils flared. “I’d say I expected better from a fellow disciple, but then again, you’re already in bed with them.” His cool eyes flicked to Damian, who ground his teeth until his jaw ached.

One of Roz’s brows ticked upward, a barely perceptible movement. Her smile was scornful. “If you’re jealous, Signore, you can say as much. Who could blame you?”

Damian wished vehemently for the earth to shudder open and swallow him whole. He wasn’t sure whether Salvestro could fire him, and he wasn’t keen on finding out. If the man was a shoo-in for chief magistrate, as many seemed to think, this could end very badly indeed.

“Forgive us, mio signore,” he muttered, the apology sticking in his throat. Heat flared behind his cheeks. “We’ll stick to the original number of security officers, then.”

His attempt to bring the conversation back around was a miserable failure. Salvestro drew himself up in a single, fluid motion, smile broadening as his gaze met Damian’s. “I bet it’s nice for you, isn’t it, Venturi? Wearing a fancy uniform, a disciple girlfriend on your arm… I bet it’s almost too easy to forget you’re unfavored. That you’re nothing.”

“Who the hell are you to—” Roz started, but Damian cut her off with a furious shake of his head.

It was too late. She’d taken the bait. Salvestro placed a hand over his heart, rings clinking. “Did you train her to speak up for you, or does she do it out of pity?” He tsked. “It’s embarrassing, I imagine, being unable to fight your own battles. But it’s your job to hold your tongue, isn’t that right, Venturi? And we all know how important this job is to you.”

Roz had frozen, finally catching on. Still Damian said nothing. Fury clouded his periphery and gathered at his center. It was a vicious thing, unfamiliar in its ferocity. He had the sense that it was scratching at his composure, clawing at his resolve, urging him to crack. His fingers longed to clamp around Salvestro’s neck, his nails eager to sink into flesh and coax forth hot blood. He yearned to feel the ineffectual pulse of the man’s throat as he fought for air.

“I said,” Salvestro repeated slowly, as if speaking to an imbecile, “it is your job to hold your tongue. Correct?”

“Yes.” Damian forced the lone syllable through gritted teeth. It tasted like bile.

Salvestro waited.

“Yes, mio signore.”

With an air of infuriating smugness, the disciple clapped Damian on the arm. “Such a good soldier.” He cut a glance to Roz, who was stone-faced. “I do so look forward to this meeting.”

Salvestro’s echoing steps were quickly swallowed up by the hallway, but the smoldering wrongness at Damian’s core remained a living, visceral thing.

“I’m going to kill him,” Roz declared as she and Damian made their way to the council chambers.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Damian didn’t look at her when he spoke. Was he angry, or was he still thinking about what Salvestro had said? Everything that had gone wrong was her fault, yet Salvestro had made them both pay for it by humiliating Damian in front of her. Saints, Roz hated that man. His smug smile was emblazoned in her mind, and she longed to see it slide from his face. Preferably through force.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think that he would—”

“Let’s not talk about it.” Damian’s mouth was a rigid line as he wrenched open the wooden doors to the council chambers. He used more force than necessary, and the motion stirred the air. “You can wait inside. The unfavored are to sit on the far side of the room.”

Of course he knew she wouldn’t want to sit with the rest of the disciples. But Roz hesitated, brows drawing together. “You’re not coming?”

“I’ll be back once I make sure everything is in order. I need to brief the extra officers—let them know they’re no longer needed.”

Roz studied Damian closely. She felt she was seeing him for the first time that week. After everything, she would have expected him to look thinner, more strung out. Instead, the opposite appeared to be happening. His chest strained beneath the fabric of his navy uniform, and he somehow looked bigger, all muscles and broad shoulders. His jaw was hardened steel, set so aggressively that a tendon in his neck stood out. She was reminded of how he had looked in the vision Enzo showed her. Where she’d seen the disciple of Chaos carrying out every facet of his plan, right up to his own death—before it happened in reality.

She traced her disciple’s ring with an impatient finger. Right before the illusion had ended, she’d been looking at Damian. He’d been shrouded by the oppressive darkness of the Shrine, pistola in hand. She could only watch as Damian’s eyes turned to darkest obsidian, an unrecognizable smile ghosting his lips.

“All right,” Roz said, because there wasn’t much else to say.

Damian inclined his head. “Your friends are already here.”

Then he was gone. Roz turned to see Nasim Kadera and Dev Villeneuve looking her way. She approached them, passing the security officers stationed at the perimeter of the enormous room. A table longer than the entirety of Bartolo’s tavern dominated the center, though additional seating had been set up wherever there was extra space. The deep crimson walls were lined with colorful tapestries and portraits of people Roz assumed were previous Palazzo representatives, and an intricate chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, cut glass glittering like gems in the light.

Behind Nasim and Dev, Alix, Josef, and Arman sat huddled together in conversation. Farther back still were Rafaella and Jianyu, then Nicolina with Zemin and Basit. Alix smiled at Roz, their friendly face full of cautious optimism. Arman merely nodded, and Josef gave a half-hearted wave. Nobody was happy to be here, Roz knew. The unfavored—rebels in particular—didn’t trust the Palazzo or its disciples. But they’d come because this was what they’d been fighting for: a place at the table.

A seat had been left open for her beside Nasim, who was sitting in the first row. Roz sank into the hard-backed chair as if it might assuage the turbulence inside her.

“What’s wrong with you?” Nasim demanded. Her inky hair hung loose around her face today, freed from its usual braid. Dev leaned across to better hear Roz’s reply, his shoulder pressing into Nasim’s.

“Nothing’s wrong with me. Salvestro Agosti, though, has a number of things wrong with him—the first being that he’s a complete and utter bastard.” Roz crossed her arms, glaring at the door as though the disciple of Death might appear there.

“You met him?” Dev’s brows shot up.

“I wish I hadn’t.”

His mouth twisted in a wry grin. Dev had fallen into a deep, self-destructive grief after his sister’s murder, but knowing Enzo was responsible seemed to have made things better. His face was still gaunt, his eyes dulled by weeks of sadness, but at least he’d pulled himself out of his ongoing drunken stupor. “I can imagine this is going to go well then.”

“He’s not the chief magistrate,” Nasim pointed out.

Roz pursed her lips. “He seems to think he is, though. You should have heard how he spoke to Damian. But with any luck, there won’t be a chief magistrate going forward.” If they were going to make meaningful changes to Ombrazia’s political system, it was time to wipe the slate clean and start over. A handful of disciples in charge of the entire city, led by a chief magistrate believed to divine the will of the saints, had historically not been kind to the unfavored. Given that they had no magic with which to contribute to the economy, their needs were rarely considered at all. Regular blacksmiths and masons would never be as efficient as disciples of Patience and Strength, respectively. Tailors and alchemists couldn’t hope to compete with disciples of Grace or Cunning, and nonmagical healers were useless when one of Mercy’s disciples was available. Ombrazia had long decided what skills were to be rewarded, and the unfavored possessed none of them.

Dev wrinkled his nose. “You think the current representatives will be willing to step down?”

“No. I think they’ll have to be convinced. After everything, though, they’re definitely scared. They’ve seen what the rebellion can do, and they won’t want it to happen again.”

“And you’re certain Damian will have his officers under control?” Nasim asked for what must have been the fifth time this week. Roz knew Nasim wasn’t the only one who’d entertained the prospect that this might be a trap. Inviting rebels to the Palazzo, where law enforcement darkened every hallway? If Roz hadn’t known Damian and his friends the way she did, she might have doubted it herself. With both the general and the chief magistrate dead, however, the Palazzo was weak. Its best option was to make peace with dissenters before it splintered completely.

“Yes,” Roz said. “You can trust Damian.”

Nasim said nothing, but anxiety rolled off her in waves.

“It’ll be fine.” Roz squeezed Nasim’s wrist. “If things start going sideways, I’ll speak up on behalf of the unfavored. I’m a disciple—they’re not going to do anything to me.” Besides, if an argument started up, she wouldn’t be able to sit quietly. She needed to be involved, or there was the distinct possibility her head would explode.

“Roz.” Nasim’s voice was firm. “Just because you no longer live in Patience’s sector doesn’t mean you can side publicly with the rebellion. What if the guild kicks you out? How are you going to make money?”

“I live above a functioning tavern,” Roz reminded her, but her skin crawled. Could Patience’s guild kick her out? She’d never heard of it happening to a disciple before, unless a crime had been committed. She tried to keep her true beliefs a secret from the rest of the disciples, but it was foolish to think she could do so forever. Now was as good a time as any to give up the charade.

Dev was focused on his fingernails. “The tavern does okay, but it doesn’t make that much money. We can speak for ourselves, too, you know. We don’t want you to sacrifice everything.”

Nasim nodded, and Roz ground her teeth. We, Dev had said, making it painfully clear Roz wasn’t one of them. She had been, though. She’d been unfavored most of her life. She knew what it was to suffer under this regime—her father had died at its hands. Now that she was a disciple, was that supposed to just… go away? Was she supposed to forget, and be thankful for the blessing? To embrace her new status and simply move on?

She couldn’t.

They quieted then, as a number of people began to file into the council chambers. Disciples took their seats on the other side of the room, and Roz straightened as Vittoria entered alongside a group of friends. Her ex-girlfriend and the other disciples of Patience shot her curious looks when they saw where she was sitting. Roz offered a bland smile in return, as though nothing was unusual. She’d always felt separate from them, but now the proverbial line was a true one. Her days of creating metal weapons in Patience’s temple were over.

Palazzo representatives and guild leaders began arranging themselves at the table. The representatives were clad conspicuously in red coats with embroidered gold stars, but Roz’s gaze snagged on Salvestro. He sat at the place of honor, as comfortable there as if he’d already been put in charge. His hands were clasped before him, rings glinting in the light of the chandelier. The neck of his shirt dipped to reveal the pale hollow of his throat. He must have felt the weight of Roz’s attention; his eyes met hers for a moment before he turned away, utterly dismissive.

The representatives scoured the room in vague surprise. Despite the open invitation to the rest of the city, they obviously hadn’t expected so many to attend. The space was packed, and the differences between the two sides of the chamber were blatant. The disciples were well-dressed in clothing made by Grace-blessed tailors. There was no other explanation for the way their attire fit so seamlessly, flowing like silk regardless of fabric or texture. If any of them appeared ill at ease, it was only due to the proximity of the unfavored.

The unfavored themselves appeared tense. Though most had worn their best, evidence of poverty was obvious in frayed threads and worn shoes. There was a harshness about them that the disciples didn’t possess. Most were likely veterans of war. Roz couldn’t blame them for being uncomfortable in the presence of those who had sent them there.

On Salvestro’s right, an elderly man in a gray suit cleared his throat.

“As I’m sure many of you know,” he said, “I’m Mediator D’Alonzo. As an adviser to the representatives, I often head meetings in this very room. It is my honor to do so today, despite the circumstances being rather more grim than usual. I hope that, like myself, you have all been praying for the departed souls of those recently lost.”

Damian sidled into the room as the mediator spoke. He wore what Roz called his officer face: expression impassive, jaw wired tight. He tilted his head slightly, gaze pinned on Salvestro’s back. Dark fury still lingered about him like an unrelenting storm.

A moment later, Kiran and Siena slipped into the council chambers. Kiran shot Roz a small grin as they passed.

“Why are they late?” Nasim murmured.

Roz shrugged. Her focus returned to Salvestro, who kept glancing at the door as if he expected someone else to appear there. Unease thrummed beneath her skin, but she couldn’t pinpoint why. Anyone in Ombrazia worth worrying about was p. . .