alongside Jad. Carullus has proposed to Kasia and their wedding draws together most of the influential people of the city through the help of their friends. Upon arriving in Sarantium, Rustem's servant (who is secretly his guard and protector) is murdered by a young aristocrat. In the process of fleeing for his life through the city, Rustem meets Crispin, who brings him to Kasia and Carullus's wedding. There Rustem discovers that the murderer of his servant is Cleander, the son of the Master of the Senate. He approaches the family and subtly blackmails the Senator with this information to secure himself a home and protection in the city as compensation. It is revealed that Rustem was the second person Zoticus had told Crispin to meet - somehow knowing the Bassanid would go to Sarantium long before his arrival. Rustem quickly establishes himself practicing medicine in the city but is disturbed when he receives an order from the King of Kings to assassinate a woman. Emperor Valerius II makes it known to a few that he intends to wage war to reclaim Batiara in the name of Queen Gisel. Crispin, while at the house of Leontes, allows himself to be seduced by Styliane this time, and escapes through the window when Leontes returns. Styliane tells him of the upcoming invasion of his homeland and also warns him not to become attached to his work. It is revealed that Empress Alixana was the woman who approached Crispin at the end of the first novel. She again comes to Crispin as he finishes his wife's image in the mosaic and is about to begin that of his daughters. She takes him on a boat ride under the premise of showing him dolphins, which she wishes him to put in a mosaic for her private chambers. This depiction is a dangerous one for the Empress to request due to dolphins' association with the god Heladikos, who some worship as the son of Jad but has been declared paganistic and heretical by the Patriarchs of the faith. The boat arrives at an island where Lecanus Daleinus, the oldest son of the assassinated Flavius Daleinus, is imprisoned; he was hideously burned and blinded by Sarantine Fire during the assassination. Alixana impersonates Styliane's voice to try get information from him. Crispin hears the thoughts of yet another mechanical bird talking to Lecanus in his head and realises