The “lightning party” at Extaquium Manor went through multiple versions, largely borne of us trying to maneuver in a constricted space: we added these scenes in during the editorial revisions of The Liar’s Knot, and had to figure out how to stage things as satisfyingly as possible without running over the length limit for the book as a whole. What follows is not sequential; instead it’s assorted stabs at the material, most of them built around the idea, eventually dropped, that we would involve Giuna in this plot.

These deleted scenes come complete with an example of the sort of bracketed notes we leave for each other at the end of the current text!

* * *

Isla Extaquium, Eastbridge: Canilun [date]

Giuna had heard about the shaven-headed man who came to visit Renata at the manor. When she saw him escorting her cousin down the hallway with one hand at the small of her back, it set off every bell in her mind, even before Renata’s gaze met hers with a brief, urgent message.

She waited until they had passed, then leapt up without excusing herself and hurried after them. They went into the library and, as Giuna peeked around the door frame, stopped next to the far wall.

They weren’t alone, but the man retching into a vase in the corner paid them no heed as the one with Renata knelt and turned several pieces in the marquetry floor, in a precise sequence. He stood as a bookcase swung out of the way, then escorted Renata through.

If that wasn’t the meeting of a secret society, Giuna would eat her gloves.

One Renata hadn’t wanted to attend. By the looks of it, though, she was going whether she wanted to or not.

Miming the sequence of marquetry pieces moved by the bald man to open the hidden door, Giuna returned to the terrace. The urgency of Renata’s request — backed by the memory of the unblinking intensity of the man’s gaze as he looked at her — drove Giuna’s steps faster, until the skirts were a swishing tangle set on impeding her. She forced herself to slow, set a hand on her belly to calm her breathing. Discreetly, Renata had said. Giuna mustn’t do anything to attract attention.

Arriving at the doors to the terrace, Giuna scanned for Vargo. Just look for the best-dressed man here, she told herself wryly. She spotted him not by the cut of his coat, but the color. If Renata bucked fashion’s preference for pastels by dressing in bold colors, then Vargo drew the eye by playing a peacock among the squabs. The swirling cobalt and emerald brocade of his coat drew her eye. Drew everyone’s eye.

And that was the real challenge of Renata’s request. Vargo was a walking invitation for gossip, and Giuna was aware enough of her reputation to know what gossip would arise if she approached him alone instead of in the shadow of her mother or Renata.

Even then, she might have dared it, but a nearby laugh cut through the eels writing in her gut, familiar in its bright mockery.

Sibiliat stood between her and Vargo, holding court with Marvisal, Bondiro, Parma, and Egliadas. Only Leato was missing — and Mezzan. And Giuna, perched like a wren at the edge of their group, waiting for crumbs of acknowledgment.

They’d notice if she tried to approach Vargo. Sibiliat would try to draw Giuna back into her orbit. And while Giuna would rather throw herself into the Lumen, she wasn’t as skilled at the dance as Sibiliat.

But there was one person who could approach Vargo without drawing Sibiliat’s attention or exciting anything beyond the usual gossip, and he was standing alone under an arbor without even his aunt nearby to raise a disapproving brow.

“Iascat.” Giuna tugged at his sleeve as she passed, pulling him further back into the shadows of the arbor. “I need your help with a dare, but you can’t say anything or I’ll lose.”

They weren’t friends, exactly, but Iascat Novrus had been a fixture in Giuna’s life for as long as she could remember, even before Era Sostira officially named him her heir. Just one of the luminaries of the next generation alongside Leato, Sibiliat, Mezzan.

Bemused smile softening a mouth that had grown harder this past year, Iascat brushed aside a drooping [peony] that bopped against his brow. “Gambling already, Giuna? Should you at least wait until your cousin has passed the ledger for the Traementis accounts to you?”

“Nothing like that.” Giuna waved the banter aside impatiently. If she was Renata, perhaps she could laugh and make this all seem natural. As it was, she could only rely on the honesty of her nerves and Iascat’s good nature. “I just… I need you to lure Eret Vargo to the [east library] to meet me, but you can’t let anyone else know or follow you.”

The teasing grin hardened at the edges. Iascat cast a glance across the terrace, to where Vargo stood chatting with a group of delta gentry.

“I don’t like this dare of yours. Stick to the shallows, Giuna. Eret Vargo’s current is faster than you can swim.”

Resisting the urge to press her gloved fingers to hot cheeks, Giuna nodded. “I know it. I just tire of everyone thinking I should stay out of the water entirely. This will shut them up. And Eret Vargo isn’t a danger to me. He knows Renata would kill him if he took advantage.”

“If she got to him first,” Iascat muttered.

“Please do this for me?” Giuna dusted off the look she used to give Leato to cozen him to do something that would awaken their mother’s protective ire.

Passing a hand over his face, Iascat stifled a sigh. “Fine, but I’m warning him why.” Without waiting for her refusal or agreement, Iascat batted his hands against the pear-blossom pale skirts of his coat and strode off across the terrace. Sibiliat didn’t give him so much as a blink as he passed.

And Giuna made her quiet, unassuming way to the [east library] to wait.

* * *

At first Giuna was surprised that Renata was going to the party at Extaquium Manor, much less that she’d invited Giuna along.

It wasn’t Renata’s kind of event. She might have connections all across the Upper Bank, but over the last year those had rapidly evolved from the kinds of social frivolities common among the younger set to more thoughtful, substantial pastimes. And even at her frivolous height, she hadn’t seemed like the type to attend the type of party Eret Extaquium was infamous for — the type of party Donaia tried to keep Giuna from even knowing existed.

But her mother was still out in the bay, and Renata had invited Giuna to accompany her. Which could mean only one thing.

“You’re up to something, aren’t you,” Giuna said as she and her cousin alit from the Traementis carriage. “Can I help?”

Renata’s plucked brow rose in pleased surprise. “Yes, I am. And yes, you can.” Under the guise of adjusting the burned-out velvet draped across Giuna’s shoulders, she murmured, “This has to do with the group I mentioned to you before — the one Tanaquis recruited me to. I’ve heard there will be a more select party tonight, for only a few of Sureggio’s guests. Parma and Bondiro may be among them. Can you keep an eye on those two, and let me know where they go if they part from you?”

Giuna frowned and straightened a ribbon that had gotten folded in Renata’s hair. “Are you trying to get into that party?”

Standing that close, she could feel her cousin’s shiver. “No. Only to find where it is. There . . .” She pressed her lips together. “There may be trouble tonight, Giuna. Not of a serious kind — I hope — but if noise starts, promise me you’ll get out of the way.”

Now the shiver transferred to Giuna’s skin. But the warmth in her beat it back: Renata was finally beginning to understand. They were Traementis; that meant they were a team. “I will.”

[Can have an interaction with Sibiliat, but for the moment I’m inclined to keep this short because we don’t know how much wordage the caper proper will take up. We can always expand this later if we have room for it.]

* * *

“You’re up to something, aren’t you?” Giuna said as the Traementis carriage rattled across the final bridge to Extaquium Manor.

Renata paused in the act of straightening her gold filagree mask. “What?”

“You don’t want to be here tonight; Eret Extaquium’s parties aren’t your kind of event. So if you’re attending, it’s for a reason. Can I help?”

Renata had been questioning her decision to bring Giuna in the first place. She couldn’t bring Tess; Sureggio Extaquium prided himself on making his servants attend to his guests’ every whim. And she knew better than to walk in alone, when she might need to send a message — or need someone to notice when she had gone missing. She felt bad putting Giuna in such a situation, though, when gossip had told her plenty about what to expect.

But she knew what Giuna would say to that. “You can,” Renata admitted. “This has to do with the group I mentioned to you before — the one Tanaquis recruited me to. I’ve heard there will be a more select party tonight, for only a few of Sureggio’s guests. Parma and Bondiro may be among them. Can you keep an eye on those two, and let me know where they go if they part from you?”

The carriage drew to a halt in front of the manor. “Are you trying to get into that party?”

Even before she’d known what power lay behind Praeteri numinata, Ren would have been reluctant. Now . . . She suppressed a shudder. “No. Only to find where it is. And if you can’t find me, tell Eret Vargo — but discreetly.”

“I promise.” And that was all they could say before the Traementis footman opened the door and handed them out into the plaza.

Dampness hung heavy on the air, laced with the sharp tang of an oncoming thunderstorm. Rather than being an impediment, the storm was the reason for the party — and for the charge of anticipatory chatter among the arriving guests. Thunderstorm viewings weren’t the sort of thing that could be scheduled; the last minute nature of the invitations and the need to drop all other engagements to attend heightened the excitement of the crowd. Giuna had even suggested that was the point.

The boredom that came from wealth was almost as baffling to Ren as the entertainments the wealthy devised to stave it off.

Despite the bite of cold and rain rolling in from the north, Renata felt smothered by the warmth and cloying scents wafting out of Extaquium Manor. Inside, it was worse. The lights were all dimmed to a suggestive glow, shining off servants who wore more body paint than clothing. Before she’d gotten out of the entry hall, those servants had offered her half a dozen ways to heighten or blur her senses to better enjoy the storm, from aža to papaver. And judging by the behavior of the guests, more than a few of them had accepted.

Somewhere in all of this, later tonight, the Praeteri would be holding a ritual. But where?

Iridet couldn’t strike against them in the hidden temple, not with it warded against intruders. He needed to catch them in the act of a ritual — the more the better, and preferably those highly placed. Renata wasn’t far enough into their circle to receive this invitation, but Tanaquis was. “Pain,” she’d told them. “Sureggio prefers his pleasures, but sometimes he likes to cleanse his palate with suffering. I don’t know who will be joining them, but the ones there should be the most dedicated. Pain is not a gate easily chosen.”

All Renata had to do was find them, and pass the word to Vargo. Then his chosen force could swoop in, catch them in the act, and give Iridet the grounds he needed to prosecute their heresy.

It would have been easier if Tanaquis had come. She could have found out where to go much more easily. But Utrinzi Simendis was still angry at her for not telling him the true nature of the Praeteri, and he’d flatly forbidden her to attend tonight, lest anyone connect his protegé to the cult.

The curtains of the ballroom were thrown wide open, as were the doors to the garden terrace. In addition to the warming braziers, an awning of thinnest net spread above the scattering of divans and couches, papaver pipes and wine carafes. The numinat worked into the net was meant to shield the partygoers from whatever fell from the sky — rain, hail, or even lightning, should the Lumen choose to strike them with blue fury.

Obedient to Renata’s request, Giuna separated from her with a soft press against her arm, heading over to the circle of cushions where Parma was playing voyeur to a languid kiss between Bondiro and Orrucio. Giuna waved off the arm of the pipe that Parma offered in greeting, casting a nervous glance back at Renata. Whatever she said won a loud guffaw from Parma before Giuna was invited to join them.

Renata doubted Parma and Bondiro wanted to experience suffering tonight. But at least now she didn’t have to worry about watching them, too.

Moving through the party felt like her days in Lacewater, without the stinking canals. She had to revive every trick she knew to cut short unwanted suggestions and fend off wandering hands, even to the point of putting a discreet joint lock on one gentleman too drunk to recognize her as more than an attractive female body. She spotted Vargo across a smoke-hazed room and saw him fumble a chilled drink into the lap of an aggressive suitor from House Cleoter. No sound or sign of Alsius; presumably the spider was off conducting his own search.

Where would the Praeteri withdraw to? They wouldn’t want observers, but practically every room she looked into was occupied. Somewhere in the service rooms, perhaps, where the staff could be told to stay away? She didn’t have a disguise that would let her traverse those areas unnoticed.

Who needs a disguise, when you can pretend to be out of your wits?

The doors to the servants’ passages were hidden enough to be discreet, not to be unfindable. She nudged open a panel, put on a vacant expression, and slipped through —

— and came face-to-face with Diomen.

“Alta Renata.” He swooped down on her, pushing her back into the hallway with the force of his presence. The servant’s door snicked closed behind him. “What a blessing, that the promise of the Lumen’s light lured you here this evening. I was given to understand you held Eret Extaquium’s gatherings in some distaste.”

Folding his hands behind his back, he leaned forward to study her with that unnerving, unblinking gaze. His coat of deep plum hung in loose folds, resembling the robes he favored when he was playing Pontifex at the Praeteri gatherings. With his shorn head and a collar of pale winter foxfur bristling against his neck, he looked like a fen vulture waiting to pick apart his next meal.

She made a snap decision, meeting his gaze squarely. “We never finished our conversation in the temple, Pontifex. I heard a rumor that our illustrious circle was gathering tonight; I hoped might find you here, and ask how you might help me retrieve what I have lost.”

“Ah, did you.” His gaze drifted to the middle-distance, long fingers stroking the fur of his collar thoughtfully. “Your enthusiasm is heartening, but after your reaction to the previous gate, I’m loath to make you feel rushed again. Tonight’s gate is not for the weak or unwilling. Or the uncommitted.”

His brows furrowed in apology when he met her gaze again, “I think you might be more comfortable enjoying the storm from the terrace with the other guests.”

It was an invitation for her to push, to prove her interest and hand herself over willingly to his guidance. If Ren hadn’t learned the same tactic at Ondrakja’s knee, perhaps she might have fallen for it.

Why fall when you could jump?

“You’re right, Pontifex, and I apologize for my short-sightedness. I was so worried that I’d been forced to confess my innermost thoughts that I didn’t immediately realize how much my anger was holding me back from forging true friendships. Without your help, Eret Vargo and I might never have deepened our relationship.” Flattening her hands over her stomach as though bracing herself for a difficult step, Renata said, “I am afraid, just as I was with the gates of ignorance and zeal. Yet looking back, I realize now how much I learned thanks to those experiences. I want to learn more, even if it is frightening to consider.”

The smile that spread across his face was not pleasant — but it was victory. “Follow me, Alta Renata.”