Blackcurrant Fool — Victoria Goddard

Magic is out of fashion. Orio City is where that's decided.

When his best friend Mr. Dart unexpectedly needs to make an urgent trip to Orio City, Jemis Greenwing's immediate response to ask when.  He's willing to make up to his grandmother so she will lend them her falarode, he's willing to offer to run the errands of half the barony, and he's certainly willing to spend a week or so away from the gossips of Ragnor Bella.

It's such a pity that Jemis and Mr. Dart are more than halfway to Orio City before Jemis remembers that his vindictive ex-lover Lark is a rising star in the criminal courts of Orio City.  It's an even greater pity when they realize just what her new position is in the legally instituted court there.

What with the dragon Jemis slayed a month ago, his consequent ascension to the position of Viscount St-Noire, and his father's very recent second return from the dead, to say nothing of that still-famous play from the summer, Three Years Gone: the Tragicomedy of the Traitor of Loe, it's really too much to hope for that Jemis will be able to spend even three days in the old capital incognito.

University students. Bear baiting. Unexpected relations. Wild magic. Literary criticism. Kittens. And always that whisper from the highwaymen of the Arguty Forest that someone's death is on the line ...

Book Four of Greenwing & Dart, fantasies of manners--and mischief.