Still at the winery, our heroes make arrangements to buy some wine under their cover as merchants, including being on the waiting list for a case of special reserve. As mere merchants, they are later on the list than any kings and dukes that might want some, but they're early in the season.
That night they break into the wine master's house to get his bottle. This involves Sasha breaking in while Ivar distracts the guard dogs of the winery with some meat pilfered from dinner. Sasha is able to break in easily enough, but has a run in with the wine master's little mop dog. She feeds it and then has to carry it out of the cellar when it follows her down and falls asleep down there, but she prevails and recovers the wine, leaving a fake bottle in its place. Section Unicorn then gets while the getting is good.
Back at the capital, they are greeted by a long letter from their cousin, which when decrypted is a short message from the Group:
M. escaped, freed special prisoner, may be heading for you.
Everyone is of course thrilled to learn this. They spend a little while in the capital trying to find out where the king keeps his wine, and find out that new vintages, not expected to be drunk for several years, are being shipped to his new palace out of town: a palace made of glass, huge panes manufactured through arcanology, complete with a wine gallery with arcanological cooling rather than a cellar. They quickly change covers to look more skeevy and head out there "looking for work".
The local hamlet is surrounded by an encampment of workers who are trying to complete the palace by the summer - which isn't going to happen - everyone from shrubbers to carpenters to gilders to framers to Daran bath specialists. Finding these last, Lucia is able to get them to hire these newcomers who speak Daran, simplifying the annoying process of explaining to Pennisian help the subtleties of tile shading (one of the unskilled jobs being to sort lots of allegedly identical tiles for their actual color).
They spend a few days as bath workers and find out some things about the palace. It's well-guarded even during construction, but easy to approach unseen through the trenches of the gardens under construction. There are secret passages inside, and a cellar, and the guards don't mind a little looking around by the workers, but clearly don't like to be pushed. The wine gallery itself is in the entertainment wing, two stories tall with glass walls to the surrounding rooms, a complex lock, guards day and night, and a rose-colored skylight. Additionally, it is hard to see into because it is arcanologically cooled and water condenses on the walls.
Finally, there has been a big Havonian in town recently, but no one has seen him lately. Could be any Havonian, right?