This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Bryn Neuenschwander and Alyc Helms

Excerpt from The Phoenix King copyright © 2021 by Aparna Verma

Excerpt from The Jasad Heir copyright © 2023 by Sara Hashem

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Cover illustration by Nekro

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Carrick, M. A., author.

Title: Labyrinth’s heart / M.A. Carrick.

Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2023. | Series: Rook & Rose ; book 3

Identifiers: LCCN 2023000580 | ISBN 9780316539739 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780316539753 (ebook)

Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Novels.

Classification: LCC PS3603.A77443 L33 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20230109

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000580

ISBNs: 9780316539739 (trade paperback), 9780316539753 (ebook)

E3-20230721-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

1. Cover

2. Title Page

3. Copyright

4. Dedication

5. Map

6. Dramatis Personae

7. A Note on Pronunciation

8. The Story So Far

9. Prologue

10. PART I

1. Chapter 1: The Welcoming Bowl

2. Chapter 2: Three Hands Join

3. Chapter 3: Jump at the Sun

4. Chapter 4: Pouncing Cat

5. Chapter 5: Sword in Hand

6. Chapter 6: The Mask of Worms

7. Chapter 7: River’s Blessing

8. Chapter 8: The Friendly Fist

9. Chapter 9: The Mask of Bones

11. PART II

1. Chapter 10: One Poppy Weeps

2. Chapter 11: The Face of Ages

3. Chapter 12: Coffer and Key

4. Chapter 13: The Mask of Ravens

5. Chapter 14: The Ember Adamant

6. Chapter 15: The Face of Balance

7. Chapter 16: The Face of Song

8. Chapter 17: Warp and Weft

9. Chapter 18: Drowning Breath

12. PART III

1. Chapter 19: The Mask of Knives

2. Chapter 20: Seven as One

3. Chapter 21: The Mask of Ashes

4. Chapter 22: The Mask of Unraveling

5. Chapter 23: The Face of Weaving

6. Chapter 24: The Living Dream

7. Chapter 25: The Peacock’s Web

8. Chapter 26: Labyrinth’s Heart

9. Chapter 27: Pearl’s Promise

13. Epilogue

14. Acknowledgments

15. Discover More

16. Glossary

17. Extras

1. Meet the Author

2. A Preview of The Phoenix King

3. A Preview of The Jasad Heir

18. Also by M. A. Carrick

19. Praise for the Rook & Rose Trilogy

For our families, both birth and found

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Dramatis Personae

Ren—aka Renata Viraudax, aka Arenza Lenskaya, a con artist

NOBILITY

House Acrenix

Eret Ghiscolo Acrenix—former head of House Acrenix, Caerulet in the Cinquerat (deceased)

Carinci Acrenix—his stepmother

Sibiliat Acrenix—his daughter and heir

Fadrin Acrenix—a cousin

House Coscanum

Faella Coscanum—sister of the head of house

Marvisal Coscanum—her grandniece

Bondiro Coscanum—her grandnephew

House Destaelio

Era Cibrial Destaelio—head of House Destaelio, Prasinet in the Cinquerat

House Extaquium

Eret Sureggio Extaquium—former head of House Extaquium (deceased)

Parma Extaquium—a cousin

House Fintenus

Eret Giuppero Fintenus—head of House Fintenus

Egliadas Fintenus—a cousin

Avaquis Fintenus—a cousin

House Indestor (disbanded)

Eret Mettore Indestor—former head of House Indestor, former Caerulet in the Cinquerat (deceased)

Mezzan Acrenicis—his son and heir, adopted into House Acrenix

Breccone Simendis Indestris—married in from House Simendis (deceased)

House Novrus

Eret Iascat Novrus—head of House Novrus, Argentet in the Cinquerat

Sostira Novrus—former house head and former Argentet

House Quientis

Eret Scaperto Quientis—head of House Quientis, Fulvet in the Cinquerat

House Simendis

Eret Utrinzi Simendis—head of House Simendis, Iridet in the Cinquerat

House Traementis

Era Donaia Traementis—head of House Traementis

Leato Traementis—her son (deceased)

Giuna Traementis—her daughter

Letilia Traementis—her former sister-in-law, originally called Lecilla

Tanaquis Fienola Traementatis—an astrologer and inscriptor working for Iridet

Meppe Traementatis—a cousin, formerly of House Indestor

Idaglio Minzialli Traementatis—a cousin

Nencoral Fintenus Traementatis—a cousin

Colbrin—a servant

House Vargo

Eret Derossi Vargo—crime lord and upstart nobleman

Alsius Acrenix, aka Master Peabody—a nobleman in a spider’s body

DELTA GENTRY

Agniet Cercel—a former commander in the Vigil

Ludoghi Kaineto—a lieutenant in the Vigil

Rimbon Beldipassi—a rising success

Toneo Pattumo—Renata’s former banker

Orrucio Amananto—a ubiquitous gentleman

THE STADNEM ANDUSKE

Koszar Yureski Andrejek—former leader of the Stadnem Anduske

Ustimir Hraleski Branek—his rival and new leader

Idusza Nadjulskaya Polojny—loyal to Andrejek

Dmatsos Krasnoski Očelen—loyal to Branek

Tserdev Krasnoskaya Očelen—his sister, head of the Crimson Eyes knot

VRASZENIANS

Grey Serrado—a duelist for House Traementis

Kolya (Jakoslav) Serrado—Grey’s brother (deceased)

Alinka Serrado—Kolya’s widow, an herbalist

Yvieny and Jagyi—their children

Jakoslav Szerado—father of Grey and Kolya

Laročja Szerado—mother of Jakoslav, an influential szorsa

Dalisva Mladoskaya Korzetsu—granddaughter of the Kiraly clan leader

Mevieny Plemaskaya Straveši—a blinded szorsa of the Dvornik

Zlatsa—Tanaquis’s maid-of-all-work

Ivrina Lenskaya—Ren’s mother, an outcast (deceased)

THE STREET

Nikory—one of Vargo’s lieutenants

Pavlin Ranieri—Tess’s sweetheart

Arkady Bones—boss of the biggest knot in the Shambles

Dvaran—keeper of the Gawping Carp

Oksana Ryvček—a duelist

Kasienka Ryvček—her niece

Stoček—a former aža dealer

Tess—Ren’s sister

Sedge—Ren’s brother

Simlin—a former Finger

Esmierka—a former Finger, now a thief in the Oyster Crackers

Ondrakja—former leader of the Fingers, also called Gammer Lindworm (deceased)

FOREIGNERS

Diomen—a Seterin inscriptor, leader of the Illius Praeteri (deceased)

Kaius Sifigno—aka Kaius Rex, aka the Tyrant, conqueror of Nadežra (deceased)

Varuni—sent to safeguard an investment in Vargo

The Rook—an outlaw

A Note on Pronunciation

Vraszenian uses a few special characters in its spelling: č is pronounced like ch in “chair,” š like sh in “ship,” and ž like the z in “azure.” The combination sz is pronounced like the s in “soft,” and j has the sound of y.

Liganti names and terms have the vowels of Italian or Spanish: a = ah, e = eh, i = ee, o = oh, u = oo. The letters c and g change before e and i, so Cercel = cher-CHELL and Giuna = JOO-nah; ch and gh are used to keep them unchanged, so Ghiscolo = gee-SCO-loh.

Seterin names share the same vowels as Liganti, but c and g are always hard, and the ae vowel combination sounds like the English word “eye.”

The Story So Far

(Or, this is their past, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither…)

Ren infiltrated the noble House Traementis hoping to make a better life for herself and her sister, Tess. Investigated by the Vigil captain Grey Serrado, courted by the upstart crime lord Derossi Vargo, and partnering with the hooded vigilante known as the Rook—who was, in fact, Grey—she soon found herself caught up in the lethal politics of Nadežra, when Mettore Indestor attempted to destroy the Wellspring of Ažerais, the most holy site in all of Vraszan.

When Leato, the Traementis heir, was killed in the magical disaster known as the Night of Hells, Ren—or rather, the Seterin noblewoman “Renata Viraudax”—found herself adopted into House Traementis as their new heir, but her successful con began to weigh on her as her fondness for her adopted relatives grew. Trapped in Renata’s life, Ren sought escape in her Vraszenian persona, Arenza Lenskaya. She tracked her friends from the radical Stadnem Anduske group to the house of Grey Serrado’s widowed sister-in-law, Alinka… bringing her into dangerously intimate proximity with Grey. Despite the risk that he might recognize Arenza as Renata, she was reluctant to abandon the warmth growing between them.

In contrast, her relationship with Vargo grew colder. Having learned that Vargo sold her out to Mettore Indestor, Ren began to investigate him. As Renata, she accepted an invitation from the astrologer Tanaquis Fienola to join a numinatrian mystery cult, the Illius Praeteri—a cult Vargo showed particular interest in. As the Black Rose, the mystical guise Ren created to save the wellspring from destruction, she began to work alongside Vargo, hiding her distrust and hatred behind the Rose’s mask.

The Black Rose was recruited by the ziemetse, the leaders of the Vraszenian clans, to oppose the new and more violent leadership of the Stadnem Anduske. With Vargo’s aid, she captured a key target, and Vargo snared an enemy of his own: Dmatsos Očelen, brother to one of Vargo’s most dangerous Lower Bank opponents. Unfortunately, Vargo’s attempts to help the ousted leader of the Anduske, Koszar Andrejek, went wrong, and Andrejek was arrested. Even though a Praeteri ritual led Renata to openly turn against Vargo, vilifying him for his betrayal, Ren (as the Black Rose) had no choice but to team up with Vargo and the Rook to free Andrejek from the Dockwall Prison.

This tangle of relationships drew tight the night of a ball celebrating the adoption of Renata, Tanaquis, and others into House Traementis, when a letter from House Viraudax in Seteris arrived in Whitesail. Fearing it would expose her lies, Ren donned the Black Rose’s mask to steal it, but she was caught by Vargo. To her surprise, he burned the letter without reading it, letting slip his regret that he had hurt Renata.

Their encounter saved Grey’s life. That night, an ambush laid by Ghiscolo Acrenix caught and nearly killed the Rook. Ren was forced to temporarily don the Rook’s costume in Grey’s place, and in the aftermath, her only hope for saving him from the lethal curse draining his life was to take him to Vargo for aid. Vargo recognized the curse as the one used to assassinate Alsius Acrenix years ago—the same Alsius who became his spider companion, Master Peabody. At the risk of his own life, Vargo was able to save Grey from the curse.

With her identity revealed to both Vargo and Grey, Ren learned the deeper truth of Nadežra’s problems. The Tricat-inscribed medallion she stole from her old mistress, Letilia, was one of a set of artifacts that used to belong to the Tyrant, Kaius Rex. It was the power of these medallions that the Rook fought against, and with Ren’s help, Grey was closer to destroying them than any Rook before him. But after Vargo retrieved the lost Tricat from the realm of Ažerais’s Dream, Tanaquis revealed what none of them had realized: The medallions called on the unholy and corrupting force of the Primordials.

And as dangerous as one medallion could be, the full set was worse. Ghiscolo Acrenix had a scheme to gather and join them together once more, giving himself the power Kaius Rex had used to conquer Vraszan. The trio successfully stopped him… but when the spirit of the Rook was willing to let Ghiscolo’s ritual kill the medallion holders to destroy the malevolent artifacts, Grey defied that spirit to save Ren’s life. In so doing, he broke the Rook, severing all connection to the spirit and its power.

Now Ren, Grey, and Vargo are each burdened with a medallion of their own. And they must find a way to destroy them before the Primordials corrupt their hearts…

Prologue

The world held three kinds of fear. There was the kind too strong to fight; if you were smart, you ran, hid until it passed you by. There was the kind you stood up and faced, because if you didn’t, then you’d spend your whole life hiding.

And there was the kind you lived with. Because once it seeped into your bones, it never truly went away.

Grey knew he was supposed to enjoy the Festival of Veiled Waters. It was a time of celebration, from the Upper Bank to the Lower, when fog shrouded the city for a solid week, and everyone ran around in masks. There were singers and jugglers and plays about the fall of the Tyrant, and most people looked forward to it all winter.

But the week of unrelenting fog made him feel like someone might step out of it without warning, like he might vanish into it and never be seen again. His grandmother was Kiraly born and wed, but in Grey’s mind she was as crafty as a Varadi spider, her influence and power stretching out like a sticky, entangling web. “We’re safe,” Kolya always said, when Grey shared that thought. “Two years we’ve been here; if she and Dodač were coming after us, they’d have done it by now.”

Kolya didn’t understand how deep the fear ran. He did everything he could to ease it, though, treating every trouble his little brother brought to their door with patient kindness—as when he returned to their Kingfisher lodging house on the first day of Veiled Waters and found Grey spattered with walnut dye, more of it seemingly on his hands than in Leato’s once-golden hair. “When Eret Traementis sees you—” he groaned.

“It’s a disguise!” Grey said, sticking his guilty hands behind his back. “So Leato can with us go around the Lower Bank.”

“I want to see the performing monkeys,” Leato said. “And the peddlers and the puppet shows and drink spiced chocolate and—”

Grey and Kolya couldn’t afford half those things. Although House Traementis had given Kolya steady work, that only covered their lodgings and other necessities, not extravagances. The lift of Kolya’s brow asked, Is it Leato you invited, or his purse?

The tiny shake of Grey’s head answered that question. His friend might be a wealthy Liganti altan—not that he looked very rich or noble, with walnut dye staining head, hands, and half his borrowed clothes—but Grey wasn’t hoping to sail a river of gold tonight.

He wanted someone with him, to chase away the fear brought by the fog. And he didn’t want Kolya to carry that burden all night.

And Kolya nodded. Because even if he didn’t understand, he never questioned. He just protected Grey, against any threat that might come.

With Leato at his side in a spare panel coat and paper mask, Grey could relax and enjoy the flash of bright clothes sweeping through swirls of mysterious fog, the real world seeming like a dream even in the off years when Ažerais’s wellspring slumbered. Leato wanted to try everything: They feasted on toasted foxnuts, fried honey cakes, roasted crickets that crunched like embers and burned like fire. They shared a cup of spiced chocolate while watching a juggler catch and throw torches that burned away wisps of fog. That polished off, Grey dragged Leato into a Vraszenian dance, all stamps and claps, jostling shoulders and friendly mockery.

“Ugh, we’ve lost Kolya,” Grey said once the dance shook them loose and they sat on the fringes, drinking great gulps of air and sweetened citron water. His brother leaned against a nearby barrel of millet beer, talking to an upriver girl. “Yesterday he met that one—Alinya, Gulinka, something like that—and an hour I had to stand there, listening to them flirt. Badly.”

“Could be entertaining,” Leato mused, laughing when Grey slumped as though he’d been run through by that betrayal. “But that’s a show we can watch any day. Let’s go get our patterns read.”

“No.”

Grey didn’t even realize how cold and sharp it came out until Leato recoiled. With effort, he eased his voice. “At festivals like this, most likely they are frauds. Better ways there are to spend your money.”

He could see Leato wanting to ask but swallowing it down. “Then what now?”

The bells rang third earth. Grey grimaced and said, “I would not have you in trouble with your family.”

Leato tugged at his dyed hair. “I’ll get a smack from Father no matter what time I get home. Might as well have all the fun I can first.”

He said it so casually, as if a smack were nothing to fear. Pushing back his envy, Grey said, “Coster’s Walk. You will like this, I think.”

The embankment itself was full of slumming cuffs, but a troupe of Stretsko performed sword dances in Horizon Plaza every hour. To get there in time, Grey took back ways, dragging Leato through narrow alleys and across half-hidden bridges.

He went too fast, and the fog was too thick. Near the plaza, someone staggered backward out of an ostretta, directly into him.

“Watch it!” the other snarled, shoving Grey back. The light spilling from inside shone on an older Liganti boy, still in the gawky phase of growth, with straw-colored hair impeccably groomed behind his starred mask.

The boy’s gaze flicked over Grey’s panel coat and dark hair, and his lip bent in a sneer. “Oh, look. I stepped on a gnat.”

Bow and apologize, Kolya always said. It isn’t worth the fight. But it stuck in Grey’s craw, when these cheese-eaters came to his side of the river. “Into me you ran,” he said coldly. “On the Upper Bank are there no manners, that you apologize not?”

“What was that?” The boy cupped one hand to his ear, as two others followed him out of the ostretta. “All I heard was some buzzing.”

Three of them together tipped the odds straight over to bad. When Grey tried to slip past, though, the boy shoved him back. “Where do you think you’re going? Kneel and apologize.”

Grey’s heart drummed faster. He should have known better than to enjoy Veiled Waters. His grandmother wasn’t the only threat hiding in the fog. And his brother—older, bigger—wasn’t there.

“If anyone apologizes, it should be you.” Leato stepped up to Grey’s side, sounding every bit like the cuff he was.

The other boy only laughed. “A second one! Gnats always come in swarms. Shall we swat them?”

Pulling off his mask, Leato said, “Mezzan Indestor. It’s me, Leato Traementis.”

Grey’s blood congealed in his veins. He knew that name. House Indestor held the Cinquerat’s military seat: the foot inside the boot that kicked Vraszenians to the ground.

The flicker of surprise said Mezzan recognized Leato. But all too soon, the boy’s sneer returned. “Dirty hair, dirty skin—no, you look like just another gnat. Don’t you know it’s illegal to impersonate nobility? I could take you to the Aerie right now. Wouldn’t even have to bother Eret Traementis with this crime against his name.” He grinned at his friends. “Assuming old Gianco could be dragged from the gambling tables long enough to care.”

Grey recognized Leato’s flinch all too well, the hurt of a bruise that never went away. Seeing it in his friend balled his hands into fists. “Leave him alone!”

Mezzan ignored him. Clamping one hand on Leato’s shoulder in a gesture that looked friendly but bent Leato with pain, he said, “You should be more careful, Traementis. Don’t want to court disease, keeping vermin around—your family’s had enough bad luck already.”

Bad luck. Words Grey had heard over and over again, for as long as he could remember, until they stuck like a splinter under scarred skin. The fear that his grandmother was right: that he was a curse, that he brought ill luck to everyone around him.

Snarling, Grey charged headfirst into Mezzan’s stomach, ramming him against the wall. Leato tried to follow, but one of the other boys got him in a lock, pinning his arms. The third grabbed Grey—or tried to. Grey was weedy and fast and he didn’t care if it hurt when he squirmed free, not if it meant he could plant his muddy shoe in Mezzan’s pearls.

The third boy cursed. And unlike the others, he wore a sword.

Run, a voice in Grey’s head said: Kolya, or his common sense. They sounded a lot alike.

But that would leave Leato at their mercy. Leato, who had stepped up to defend him like a brother.

As Mezzan curled on the ground, hands cupping his crotch, the third boy drew his blade and lunged. Grey retreated, skidding on the muddy cobblestones. Then again. But there was no room to keep withdrawing; he hit a stack of crates, rattling with empty bottles. Grinning, the boy circled his point in the air. “I think I’ll carve a piece off you, to teach you a lesson.”

Grey shucked out of his panel coat while the other boy was talking. When the lunge came, he whirled the cloth like a Ghusai veil-dancer to snag the sword.

It took the boy by surprise, yanking the weapon free of his grip. As it clattered to the ground, Grey thought, Grab it—but this was Nadežra. Here, the likes of him wasn’t allowed a sword.

No laws against kicking it away, though. But before he could, a loop of rope fell, caught the boy around the middle, and hoisted him into the air.

Like a counterweight on a crane, a mass of fluttering black dropped into the street. Silver flashed, followed by two sharp smacks and two cries of pain. Leato stumbled free of his captor—then fell on his ass when he saw his rescuer. “Oh shit,” he whispered.

Leaping forward, Grey planted himself in front of his friend, glaring up a length of steel into shadows without a face.

The Rook.

He felt none of the awe he’d heard in the voices of other kids on the street. Until he came to Nadežra, Grey hadn’t even heard of the Rook. The outlaw wasn’t a campfire tale, not like Constant Ivan and Clever Natalya.

But one thing he’d learned in the last two years: the Rook hated the nobility.

“Leave him alone,” Grey said, flapping a hand behind his back. A futile gesture; Leato wouldn’t run any more than Grey had.

“What do you think I’d do to him, little gutter cat? I came fishing for carp, not guppies.” Stepping back, the Rook used the flat of his blade to herd the three larger boys into a clump. “The worst I might do is toss him into the river to grow some more. They don’t all turn out poisoned.” The glance the Rook gave Leato made Grey shiver.

Leato scrambled to his feet. “If you must do something to me, so be it. But let my friend go first.”

“Such a pair you make,” the Rook mused, eyeing them. “Almost a matched set—mismatched as you are.”

“Better with a mismatched friend to stand than alone.” Grey waited, tense and ready. Some fears you ran from, and some you faced. The Rook didn’t scare him half so much as his grandmother, or his own cursed fate.

A smile glimmered inside that depthless hood. “You’ve got courage… but a lamentable lack of skill. With a proper teacher, you might do well.”

Leato made a sudden, thoughtful noise. When Grey risked a glance, Leato whispered, “My teacher could train you. There’s nobody better than Oksana Ryvček.”

The Rook’s barked laugh startled them both. “You, young Traementis, should watch what promises you make for other people. Now off with you both, before more trouble finds you.”

With a flick of his blade, the Rook tossed Grey’s panel coat back to him, only a little sliced by the Liganti boy’s sword. Slinging a brotherly arm over his shoulders, Leato pulled him toward the light and sound of the plaza. In an awed whisper, he said, “What a night! I can’t believe I survived the Rook!”

“Nor I,” Grey said absently. His attention was all directed behind, at a figure shrouded in mystery, dragging three noble bullies to justice.

1

The Welcoming Bowl

Ossiter’s, Eastbridge: Equilun 5

After so many years of desperation, misery, and loss, Donaia hardly knew what to do with happiness.

Or, for that matter, with dancing. “Rusty” did not begin to describe her skills: In the middle of a figure, she missed her cue to cast off and had to scramble out of the way of the pair of dancers hurtling up the set. Rather than find her place again, she ducked to the safety of the mingling crowd, chuckling at the thought of how Leato would tease her for abandoning her partner.

The laugh felt rusty, too. Memories of her lost son were everywhere, always… but she was trying to take joy in them instead of leaving her heart mired in sorrow. Giuna had come of age; guests had gathered at Ossiter’s to celebrate her elevation as heir of House Traementis.

Looking through the atrium, one would never guess that a bare year ago, their house had been on the brink of financial and familial collapse. The tables groaned under the weight of pastries filled with stone fruit jam, soft cheeses rolled in dill and caraway, orange-glazed duck and spit-roasted boar fragrant with spices from all along the Dawn and Dusk Roads. Red wines poured from silver ewers carried by smiling servers, while bottles of white nestled into buckets chilled with numinatria.

But it was the people Donaia marveled at the most. Six months before, the silence of the Tricatium had almost swallowed the bare scattering of friends at Renata’s adoption. Now that scattering had multiplied like silken scarves in a street performer’s hands. Many delta families and all the noble houses had sent guests; even Octale Contorio was there, recently released from the Dockwall Prison and regaling a small audience with the poetry he’d written during his captivity.

Almost all the noble houses, she amended. Not a single member of House Acrenix was present—Faella Coscanum had made it clear they were no longer welcome in polite society. Without a word of explanation as to why… but given that Ghiscolo Acrenix was dead; his putative heir, Sibiliat, was at the family’s bay villa “for her health”; and his adoptive mother, Carinci, had succeeded him as the head of their house, there was more than enough fodder for rumors. The most widespread held that Sibiliat had murdered her father—but if that were true, wouldn’t the Cinquerat have put her on trial?

From the swirling, silken crowd came Scaperto Quientis, one fluted glass in each hand. “I wasn’t certain if you would need fortification, or refreshment,” he said, holding them both out.

Brushing flyaway wisps of hair from her face, Donaia reached for the chilled lemon water. “No wine for me tonight; I wouldn’t want to put you through a repeat of our adoption ball. Nobody likes caring for a drunk.”

“I didn’t mind,” Scaperto said, sipping the one she’d refused.

Despite the cool glass in her hand, warmth spread through Donaia. At first she hadn’t been sure how to interpret Scaperto’s kindness. But the days she spent at his villa had not only lessened the weight on her heart; they had cleared the fog from her eyes. While she wasn’t quite ready for more than friendship, that shore was in sight. And she trusted that Scaperto would wait there until she arrived.

Meppe and Idaglio swung past, clumsy and laughing as the latter tried to teach his husband the steps. She was glad they were having fun. Tanaquis had fled as soon as etiquette allowed; lately she’d had her nose even deeper than usual in books and scrolls, pursuing some project she refused to discuss. Meanwhile, Nencoral looked none too pleased that the progression of the dance had forced her to join hands with Ucozzo Extaquium. Although his half sister Parma had retreated into mourning seclusion after Sureggio’s suicide, the rest of their house was ready to go on indulging themselves as usual. Another bit of meat for the rumor-mongers to chew on, given the close timing of Sureggio’s death and Ghiscolo’s.

Donaia savored the lemon water and tried to banish those thoughts. You’re looking for trouble. Can’t you just be happy?

But how, with the curse on her house still unexplained and Ghiscolo’s mysterious death hanging over them like Ninat’s sickle?

And where that latter was concerned… “Have you had any luck prying information out of Faella?” When Scaperto shook his head, Donaia sighed. “Of all the times for that squawking seagull to close her beak.”

“Era!” Scaperto feigned shock at her rudeness, but clinked his glass against hers. “Every time I try to draw her out, she just raises the question of who will fill the empty seat. If you won’t take it, perhaps another from your house? Nothing in the law says Cinquerat members have to be the heads of their houses.”

As if he meant any old relation, and not one in particular. A rush of amethyst silk and embroidered dragonflies swirled into view; the dance had brought her niece near. “Renata!”

Too late, she realized who Renata was partnered with. With a courtly bow, Derossi Vargo led her off the floor. The deep cobalt of his coat echoed the blue flash of Renata’s dragonflies, complementing without matching, and Donaia worried that they’d planned it that way. Lately it was as if their previous falling-out had never happened. And Renata had mentioned wanting to speak with her tonight about an important matter: a conversation Donaia had avoided so far, dreading the possibility of having her worst suspicions confirmed.

The two promenaded over to Donaia and Scaperto as if they were still dancing, and Renata dropped into a curtsy as she arrived. A year in Nadežra hadn’t softened her crisp Seterin accent, but her tone was playful as she said, “You called?”

Donaia gestured with her lemon water. “Scaperto wants to toss you into Ninat’s maw. Will you refuse him yourself, or shall I do so for you?”

That set him sputtering. “I meant no such thing! I only thought—”

“That two Caerulets have died in the past year, so why not recruit someone with incredible luck to replace them?”

The accusation carried an edge Donaia hadn’t intended. But after losing so much to the curse on House Traementis, it didn’t take much to make her worry. And she worried about Renata quite a lot.

Tanaquis wasn’t the only one whose thoughts seemed to be elsewhere these days. Renata hadn’t shirked her duties in the slightest, but she’d resisted Giuna’s repeated suggestion that she could remain heir awhile longer. The girl seemed to swing between nestling into the warmth of House Traementis and holding herself aloof, as if she herself wasn’t sure what she wanted. Or, perhaps, whether she could allow herself to have it.

By the sharpness of her laugh, Renata certainly didn’t want what Scaperto was offering. “I’m afraid I’d be very ill-suited for Caerulet. I know nothing of military matters.”

“Very few of us do,” Donaia said. “Indestor had that seat for generations, and they granted hardly any charters outside their own control.”

“House Coscanum holds one,” Vargo mused, his kohl-lined eyes narrowing.

Scaperto cleared his throat. “Not even Faella can convince her brother to claim the seat. And I hope you won’t take offense, Eret Vargo, that the Cinquerat is not considering you for it, either.”

Donaia had forgotten that Vargo administered that charter on Coscanum’s behalf. She expected a sharp reply, but he looked like he was suppressing a full-body shudder, one hand rising toward the hideous spider pin on his lapel. “That saves me having to find a polite way to say no.”

Renata touched the watered silk of his sleeve, and Vargo flashed her an expression that was more grimace than smile. It seemed that seat’s cursed reputation was enough to dampen even his ambition… for military power, at least. But Donaia didn’t like the closeness—unspoken words, unreadable gestures—developing between the two.

Before Donaia could say anything, a small commotion at the door drew her attention. She’d rented the entirety of Ossiter’s for tonight, only her guests permitted in, and one of the footmen was blocking a pair of people from entering.

“Excuse me,” Donaia said, and hurried across the atrium.

“—servants’ entrance, alongside the canal,” the footman was saying, but he stopped as Donaia approached.

Grey Serrado snapped her a bow, as crisp as if he were still a Vigil captain. He wore the split-sided coat favored by duelists, a sword belted to his hip. At his side, Alinka looked practically Liganti in a surcoat of palest green. Apple blossoms picked out in cream and pink fluttered down the front from shoulder to hem, like she’d just come in from a springtime walk—Tess’s work, and Donaia’s gift for this special occasion.

Alinka’s expression didn’t match the carefree youth of her ensemble. She had one hand on her brother-in-law’s sleeve, ready to retreat, but released him to curtsy to Donaia.

Stepping around the footman, Donaia took Alinka’s arm in her own and gave the footman her most scathing look. “What do you think you’re doing, interfering with my invited guests?”

The footman’s bow was every bit as correct as Grey’s. “My apologies, era. It was a misunderstanding.”

As if he couldn’t see they weren’t dressed like servants. With a pointed sniff, Donaia led them past the footman and into the atrium. “I’m so glad you two could join us. Come, let’s see where my daughter has gotten to.”

She’d hardly spoken to Giuna all evening; with Sibiliat Acrenix and her dubious attentions removed from the field, quite a few prospective suitors were eager to parade themselves before the new heir. Donaia couldn’t find her now, until Alinka said softly, “There, by the planter.”

Giuna was off to the side rather than dancing, letting Tess re-pin her hair. An effort she promptly undid by pulling free without warning so she could hug Grey. “You came!”

He returned the hug, then stepped back and bowed. “Of course, alta. We couldn’t miss your celebration.”

At heart, Giuna was still the girl who’d spent most of her childhood mewed up in the manor of a dwindling family, with very few people to call friend. She swatted his arm. “Why so formal? If anybody takes offense at you skipping the courtesies, I’ll just have you duel them.”

Giving him a long-term contract as their house duelist had been Renata’s idea. They didn’t need one nearly as badly as they had in past years—when they couldn’t afford to hire one at all—but it was a kindness after he quit the Vigil. Donaia only wished she’d thought of it first. She still remembered the starveling boy who’d shown up on her doorstep with his older brother, begging for work. A nearly familial friendship had grown between him and Leato, despite the differences in their stations, and she felt more than a little affection for him herself.

Grey said mildly, “I’d prefer not to mar the night with swords. Good evening, Alta Renata.”

Donaia hadn’t noticed her niece approaching. Fortunately she’d rid herself of Vargo. Renata’s nod to Grey was friendly, but nothing more; Donaia had a feeling she’d embarrassed them both by drunkenly shoving them together at the adoption ball. To Giuna, Renata said, “Orrucio Amananto was looking for you.”

“Oh, please no,” Giuna moaned. “Nothing against Orrucio—but if I don’t rest, I’ll collapse!”

“If the alta would take her seat again,” Tess said, gesturing at an empty chair by the porcelain planter. “And stay there. Your hair still needs fixing; that should give you a moment to breathe.”

Giuna plunked herself into the chair with obvious relief.

“Do you need Tess to see to your dress?” Donaia asked Alinka when she noticed the young woman tugging at the bodice of her surcoat. The gift had been a surprise, and while Tess had claimed confidence that she could take Alinka’s measurements well enough from sight alone, Donaia still fretted.

“No, it’s fine. You were very kind to have sent it,” Alinka said in her soft, accented voice. “Only I’m… not accustomed to wearing such things.”

“Ah, yes. I remember when Giuna and Leato were Yvie and Jagyi’s age. I never had time for myself, either,” Donaia said. Alinka merely gave a wan smile and murmured her agreement.

Clearing his throat, Grey said to Alinka, “Let me get you some wine. Era, altas, would any of you like some?”

All three of them waved the offer away, so he bowed and departed. In his absence, Renata drew Donaia to the side. “When everything is done tonight, we do need to talk.”

So much for avoiding the news she feared. Donaia turned to watch the dancers, to mask the tightness of her smile. “It might need to wait until tomorrow, if this runs as late as it looks to. But you shouldn’t waste time with me when you’ve admirers waiting. Egliadas Fintenus was hoping to dance with you.”

Renata’s amusement looked strained as she said, “Matchmaking, are you?”

Trying to steer you anywhere other than Derossi Vargo. “It’s an old woman’s privilege and duty to try and pair the young off well. Especially since your mother isn’t here, and likely wouldn’t care even if she were.” Letilia would be too busy trying to draw every eye to herself, married or not.

She hadn’t even spoken the name. But like the tale of the sorcerer who appeared whenever someone said “Argolus,” the high vault of the atrium rang with a voice that twenty-four years were not enough to scrub from Donaia’s mind.

“My darling daughter! At last, we are reunited!”

Donaia went cold. A nightmare. We’ve all been pulled into that dream realm again, and my worst nightmare is coming true.

But no: She was awake. This was reality. Letilia Viraudacis—formerly Lecilla Traementis—was posed with arms wide in the grand entrance of Ossiter’s, in a gown so thick with multicolored embroidery that it strained the eye to follow.

A strangled sound came from Renata.

With a mouth gone dry in horror, Donaia whispered, “I think I need that wine.”

Ossiter’s, Eastbridge: Equilun 5

She’s supposed to be in Seteris.

For one mad instant, a laugh almost forced its way past Ren’s strangling horror. She’d told the lie so often, she’d started to believe it herself. But Letilia had never made it to Seteris after she ran away; she’d gotten stuck in Ganllech. Ren never dreamed that she might leave the comforts she’d arranged for herself there and come back to Nadežra.

Why is that Mask-damned woman here?

The musicians were still playing, but the dancers had straggled to a halt. Letilia swept past the footman trying to block her path as if the music were her fanfare and the dancers her audience. With a grand gesture, she spread the overly broad foreskirt of her surcoat: Seterin lines, but with a Ganllechyn flair tacked on. Literally. The multicolored embroidery, usually only hinted at on hidden plackets and underskirts, had been flipped to the outside instead. A menagerie of elongated hinds and hounds tangled down the front panel in an orgy of clashing colors. It drew every eye. It was impossible to look away.

Through the mental link that joined Alsius and Vargo, Ren heard Alsius’s awed whisper. ::I understand now why embroidery is outlawed in Ganllech.::

His comment snapped Ren back to her senses. Did Letilia recognize—

“You’ve been gone from Seteris for so long,” Letilia cried as she drew near. “With nary a letter to tell me how you were faring. I simply had to take ship to visit you, poppet.”

And then, before Ren could react in any way acceptable for Renata, Letilia was embracing her. But it was the kind of embrace Ondrakja used to give, the sort that was cover for fingers digging hard into her arms and a voice whispering venom in her ear. “Hello, Ren.”

As if it had stopped, Ren’s heart thudded painfully back into motion. Yes, Letilia knew exactly who she was.

“Letilia.” Donaia’s voice could have frozen the Dežera; her smile could have carved the ice into blocks. “Whatever are you doing in Nadežra? Having taken such pains to scrape our delta mud off your shoes, I can’t imagine why you would set foot here again—even for your beloved daughter.”

“The one you adopted out from under me, you mean?” Letilia didn’t let go, but she transitioned the hold so they were side by side, Renata clamped there with one arm. “Really, Donaia, how could you.”

“It was entirely Renata’s choice. You haven’t answered my question.”

Ren could read the threat in the hand tightening on her arm. Deal with this, or I will. “Aunt Donaia, please. Let’s not ruin Giuna’s night with bickering.”

“Giuna, yes! You’ve stolen away my daughter, Donaia. Perhaps I’ll steal away yours. Where is she?” Letilia’s gaze swept the nearby people, dismissing most of them without consideration. Tess had already ducked behind the planter, and the tension in Ren’s gut eased by half a hair. Her sister had never been part of Letilia’s household, but the woman might remember the Ganllechyn girl her maid used to spend so much time with.

Grey had stopped a short distance away, wineglass in hand. Ren met his gaze long enough to shake her head minutely: Don’t step in. He knew how much of a disaster this was… but in Letilia’s eyes, he would only be a filthy Vraszenian. Unless Donaia challenged Letilia to a duel, he had no grounds to intervene.

Giuna was Traementis in looks as well as name, easily spotted. Releasing Renata, Letilia dragged the frozen girl out of her chair and kissed both of her cheeks. “I’m your aunt Letilia, dear, though you’ve never met me.”

“‘Aunt’ is a term reserved for those in the register,” Donaia said, pulling Giuna under her arm much as Letilia had done with Renata. “And this party is reserved for our invited guests.”

Ren had performed this dance at Ondrakja’s side too many times not to know her role… and the consequences if she failed to play it. “Surely we can host one more, when she’s come all this way. How long have you been in Nadežra, Mother?” She had to force the familial term out of her mouth, and it tasted like rot.

Letilia affected a yawn. “Oh, I only just arrived today.”

The pretense of exhaustion dropped away when she spotted Faella Coscanum, the old woman’s face not remotely concealed by her fan. “That can’t possibly be Alta Faella, can it? She doesn’t look a day older than when I left! Renata, you simply must introduce me around. Or reintroduce, rather! I’m so eager to see all my old friends again.”

Giuna silenced any protest from her mother with a touch to her arm. Although she looked like she’d swallowed a toad, Donaia said, “Yes, you’re welcome to enjoy our party. I’m sure your friends haven’t forgotten you.”

Either Letilia didn’t pick up on the veiled cut, or she didn’t care. Ren was just as glad to separate the two before any blood was shed, and before Donaia could ask any questions Letilia didn’t have an answer for. Because while clearly the woman had picked up the broad outlines of Ren’s con, she couldn’t possibly know every thread in the intricate tapestry of falsehood that was Renata Viraudax’s life. Conversation with other people would be marginally safer.

With help, anyway. Dragging herself back into persona, Renata made a point of introducing Letilia with salient details: “my mother, come all the way from Endacium,” or “my mother, wife of Ebarius Viraudax.”

At least no one would wonder if the smile she troweled onto her face looked as fake as it felt. It was no secret that Renata harbored few warm feelings for her mother. And given how atrocious Letilia’s attempt at a Seterin accent was—Lower Bank street performers would have drowned themselves in shame—any gritted teeth on Renata’s part could be chalked up to that.

Letilia was in the midst of marveling over how many daughters Cibrial Destaelio had produced or adopted in the last twenty years when the crowd eddied and Renata caught a glimpse of Vargo leaning against one of the atrium columns. The nature of his bond meant he had to direct his thoughts to Alsius, perched on his lapel, but they were meant for Ren. ::If you need her taken care of, let me know.::

Vargo’s notion of “taking care of” Letilia would probably end with her in the river, breathing optional. But there was no way for Ren to respond in kind and tell Vargo this wasn’t a problem to be solved with murder.

She just wished she knew how it could be solved. What did Letilia want? How could Ren get her out of the city—and how quickly?

“Is that Scaperto Quientis? He and I used to be betrothed, you know. Renata, you simply must bring him over to speak with me.”

Cibrial and her daughters had escaped while Renata was distracted. Scaperto talking to Letilia would be almost as bad as Donaia or Giuna; Renata didn’t know how much of her story had been passed along to him. There were too many ways this could go wrong—too many opportunities for Letilia to make a mistake Renata couldn’t plaster over.

“You must be so tired, though,” Renata said, her voice dripping with concern. “Have you found a hotel yet? Why don’t I take you there, and you and I can catch up on everything you’ve missed.”

Letilia’s gaze swept the atrium. Renata recognized that look all too well: a calculation of how many people were talking about her. Ren had made the same calculation at the Autumn Gloria, a year and a lifetime ago.

“As I recall, Ossiter’s has private salons, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t mind resting for a bit.” Patting the hand she had trapped under her arm, Letilia said, “Yes, poppet—come along and let’s talk.”

Ossiter’s, Eastbridge: Equilun 5

Under any other circumstances, it would have been funny to watch Letilia’s facade of merriment fall away like a discarded mask as soon as the door closed behind them. Ren didn’t let her own guard down, though. Letilia might know perfectly well who she was, but keeping Renata’s poise was important for the confrontation that was sure to follow.

So her words were still crisply Seterin as she said, “Why are you here?”

“You can quit with that ridiculous accent. How anyone believes you’re Seterin is beyond my understanding.” Sinking onto a lounging couch, Letilia stripped off her gloves and tossed them aside. “Ugh, I’d forgotten how confining these things are. I can’t pick up anything without dropping it. Perhaps I’ll start a fashion for glovelessness. Oh, stop gaping, girl. Fetch me some wine!”

It was like the past year hadn’t happened. They might still have been in Ganllech, with Ren as Letilia’s maid.

Ren gritted her teeth and picked up the carafe a servant had left on the table. Knuckling under galled, but most of the information she’d used to sell her con had been gleaned from the meandering monologues between Letilia’s snapped orders. Still, she made a point of sipping from her own cup before handing the other to Letilia. “Do you want someone to overhear us and wonder at my voice?” Alsius was keeping watch outside, ready to warn her of eavesdroppers, but Letilia didn’t need to know that. “I presume you don’t intend to unmask me; otherwise you wouldn’t have embraced me as your daughter.”

“I’ll unmask you in a heartbeat if it suits me,” Letilia said, entirely predictably. But what followed was an unpleasant surprise. “And don’t entertain any thoughts about getting rid of me. I’ve made arrangements for the truth to get out if I go missing for so much as a day.”

“I’m not a murderer.” The Seterin accent let Ren bite her words off very satisfyingly.

“You’re Vraszenian, a liar, and a thief. How am I to know where your crimes end?” Letilia toyed with her wine, but her gaze didn’t waver. “So long as you’re no threat to me, though, I don’t see any merit in exposing you—if you do as I say.”

As though you’ve given me any choice. At least until I uncover these inconveniently prudent arrangements of yours.

Letilia might be canny enough to keep an eye on Ren, but she wouldn’t know to watch for Grey. Or Vargo. Or Sedge. Or Tess. The line of people ready to help declaw Letilia would stretch out the door.

And so Ren forced herself into a curtsy. Not the elegant Seterin version, one hand sweeping up to the opposite shoulder; this was a servant’s bob, a veil for her real intent. “What is it you’re after?”

“The life you stole from me would be a start.” Letilia lowered her voice to a hiss. “You ruined everything when you ran away! I took pity on you, gave good work to a foreign brat with no friends or prospects, but did you show me any sort of gratitude? No, you smeared your filthy hands all over my things and took whatever stuck to them. Including my hen brooch!”

She slammed her wine cup onto a side table, hard enough to splash her hand, then shook the droplets off like a slap. “Do you have any idea how jealous Prince Maredd is? He accused me of selling it, or giving it to some other lover! Everything started going wrong after that. It’s been one disaster after another, until I had no choice but to come back to this mud pit of a city. All because you helped yourself to my jewels!”

Her jewels. Letilia’s continuing rant sounded distant, muffled. Ren’s pulse was louder, drumming a fast beat in her ears. Tricat.

The medallion. A piece of Kaius Rex’s chain of office, broken when he died, its components divided up among his followers like dogs tearing apart a carcass. For generations House Traementis held the Tricat medallion, using its power to strengthen their position in Nadežra. Power drawn from A’ash, the Primordial of desire, one of the terrifying forces sealed outside the cosmos by the gods at the dawn of time.

Ren doubted Letilia had any idea what she’d stolen from her father, Crelitto. No more than Ren had known, the night she cleaned out Letilia’s jewelry box, medallion and all, and ran. But that didn’t matter.

Pain cracked across Ren’s cheek. Letilia had just risen and slapped her. “You stupid gnat—you aren’t even listening to me!”

Ren’s street instincts had dulled. She didn’t reflexively twist Letilia’s arm behind her and slam the woman’s face into the nearest wall. She only touched her cheek, distantly wondering how much of a mark the blow would leave.

“Here’s what will happen,” Letilia said, her tone sweet again, like icing over her anger. “You’re going to take care of your darling mother. You’ll pay for my hotel, my clothing, all the comforts I need… and you’ll get me back into a register.”

Disbelief shattered Ren’s shock. “You want to rejoin House Traementis? A house you ran away from—now led by a woman you loathe, who loathes you in return?”

“I want the life I deserve. Even in Ganllech, there’s been talk of House Traementis’s change of fortunes, all due to their wonderful Seterin cousin. Imagine my surprise when I got here and discovered that cousin was my daughter, and that daughter was the Lacewater trash who used to scrub my pisspot. You should thank me for not spreading the truth from the Pearls to Floodwatch.”

There was no way Letilia had discovered all of that tonight. She’d come to Ossiter’s already aware of the situation, which meant she’d been in Nadežra for days, at least. Ren’s allies would be able to track down where, and from that, what trap she’d set to reveal the truth.

Retrieving her wine, Letilia took a healthy swig. It left her lips wet and her cheeks flushed. “It doesn’t have to be House Traementis. If you can’t talk Donaia around, any noble house will do. And in return, I won’t tell everyone you’re a worthless Vraszenian criminal.”

Or I could destroy you instead.

Ren didn’t even have to do anything. Losing Tricat had clearly left Letilia cursed enough to turn her fortunes in Ganllech. Sooner or later, her own desires would be her downfall. It might take a while; Letilia had never worn the medallion that Ren had seen, disdaining the heavy piece of bronze as archaic and unfashionable. She’d only taken it to anger her father, and kept it as a trophy of her escape. But that wouldn’t stop the curse from reaping her.

There was a faster path, though. If Donaia knew the curse on House Traementis could be laid at the feet of Letilia’s petulant greed—that the death of her beloved son was, in a way, Letilia’s fault…

For an instant Ren could taste it. The beautiful vengeance of seeing Letilia struck down, repaid at a stroke for years of misery and abuse.

Vengeance: an impulse associated with Tricat.

Her unsteady backward step had nothing to do with Letilia, and everything to do with the sudden recoil from that internal precipice. Letilia, however, smiled in triumph. “I see you’re not completely mud-brained. You’ll do what I say, girl, or I will see you—what’s the idiom here, again?—drowned in the Depths.”

Ren’s throat ached as she swallowed. For over a month she and the others had been seeking a way to destroy the medallions, without killing those who held them. So far they’d met with no luck. Until they did, Ren had to question every desire she had that fell under the auspices of Tricat. Even the ones she probably would have had anyway, she had to resist. Otherwise the Primordial’s power would seep further into her soul. Changing her. Corrupting her.

I don’t have to actually do it. Merely threatening Letilia might be enough to frighten her, familiar as she was with Donaia’s temper.

But that would bring its own problems and complications. And if Ren frightened Letilia too much, the woman might bolt… and then the curse would destroy her. However deep Ren’s revulsion of Letilia ran, her revulsion of Primordial power ran deeper. Nor was she alone in that. Tanaquis had purified everyone she could—all the Acrenix, the remaining survivors of the former House Indestor, Octale Contorio—because everyone agreed that letting a Primordial’s fury run free wasn’t a good thing. Even among their enemies.

Which meant Letilia would need to be uncursed, too.

Ren’s shoulders straightened. So I wait. Letilia wouldn’t expose her yet; she needed Ren’s assistance. That meant Ren had time to figure out a better way of dealing with her. And if at any point it seemed like Letilia was getting ready to use the knife she had at Ren’s throat…

Then Ren could reveal her own knife, poised for use.

“I can pay some of your expenses, but there will be limits,” Ren said, with calculated meekness. “I can’t skim much off the accounts without being noticed; believe me, I’ve tried. And if Donaia revokes my access, I won’t be able to cover so much as a bed in a Froghole flophouse.”

No killing and no whoring. Her two rules. And now, no embezzlement.

Or was that, nothing that would hurt the Traementis? And could she trust that instinct? Tricat was also the numen of family. That might even be why Letilia wanted back into a house she’d cut herself out of a quarter century ago.

The show of obedience appeased Letilia. Huffing, she dropped back into her seat and crossed her arms. “Oh, fine. Once I’m in a register, I won’t need your help anyway. But work fast, or I might grow bored and look for ways to entertain myself.”

Ren hadn’t forgotten the sort of entertainment Letilia enjoyed. She only waited, silent, until Letilia sighed and patted the chair next to her. “Have a seat, poppet. It’s time you told your mama everything she needs to know about her life in Seteris.”

2

Three Hands Join

Traementis Manor, the Pearls: Equilun 6

Even the Traementis kitchen’s blackest, bitterest tea couldn’t stop Renata’s yawns the next morning.

Hardly anyone spoke. Last night Donaia had ranted herself dry, alternately exhuming Letilia’s past crimes and assuring Renata, “Only say the word, and I’ll ship her back to Seteris.” She’d forgotten entirely that Renata had wanted to speak with her. Which was a relief, because Ren couldn’t face the prospect of confessing her true identity right now. Not until she had a better grip on the situation with Letilia.

She yawned again. Giuna’s spoon tinked too loudly against her teacup. Meppe and Idaglio were making their fourth doomed attempt to start a conversation when Colbrin entered and said, “Era, Alta Letilia Viraudacis is in the salon.”

Like a trap springing shut, Donaia shot to her feet. “Now she has the nerve to show her face here? If she thinks she can come abuse my new family like she did the old, she’s every bit as stupid as I remember. Don’t trouble yourself, my dear; I’ll deal with her.”

Everyone wanted to deal with Letilia for Ren. Grey was ready to hood up and abduct Letilia; Vargo, according to Grey, had the same plan, sans hood. “Rook or Lower Bank rat,” Grey had said in the early morning hours, as they sat together atop the roof of Traementis Manor, “one of us can remove that threat.”

Ren wished it were that simple. Taking Letilia off the board was easy; the problem was whatever fail-safe she’d arranged. Until that was neutralized, they couldn’t risk antagonizing her. Ren had talked Grey around, and he’d promised to talk to Vargo, Tess, and Sedge in turn. “We’ll figure something out,” he said, and sealed the promise with a kiss.

Now, Giuna caught her mother’s sleeve before Donaia could storm out the door. “Perhaps it would be better if I handled her.”

A muscle worked in Donaia’s jaw, but she cupped Giuna’s cheek in wordless thanks and sat back down.

Renata caught up with her cousin just outside the dining room. “Giuna, I need your help. Whatever else Letilia is now, she was once Traementis. If I was cursed, then likely she is as well.”

Giuna had paused to tug on her gloves; with the second only halfway on, she caught a gasp behind her drooping fingers. “You’re right. Oh, Lumen—yes. Whatever else we might say about your mother, she doesn’t deserve that. How should we handle this, then?”

“I don’t want to have to explain about the curse,” Renata said. “But I need her to come to Whitesail with me. Anything you can do to help with that will be wonderful.”

Letilia’s lip curled in disdain when she saw that only the heir, not the head of the house, had come to greet her. But she was too canny to burn the ruins of a bridge she might need to rebuild; she was on her best behavior as she exchanged stiff greetings with Giuna and followed them into the parlour. Unfortunately, even her best behavior left something to be desired. Every compliment on the furnishings sounded like condescension; everything she said about her supposed life in Seteris turned into a boast.

Renata cut her off before the latter could lead into dangerous waters. “You met our other cousins last night, but I should introduce you to Tanaquis. I was thinking of visiting her in Whitesail this morning; why don’t you come with me?”

“Whitesail? Oh, definitely not. I never go north of the Pearls. Unless it’s to Seteris, of course!” Letilia’s titter scraped like sandpaper.

Giuna pressed one hand to her chest and managed a very credible simper. “Oh, but Tanaquis is an inscriptor—the best in Nadežra! Iridet relies on her advice in all matters. Her birth charts are practically a requirement for anyone who wants to enter into a contract.”

Or a register, Renata thought, wondering if Giuna had guessed Letilia’s aim. Meanwhile Letilia huffed, arms crossed. “I don’t see why I must go to Whitesail for that. I’ll just send her the information.”

“You could try that, but…” Giuna aped Letilia’s habit of emphasizing every other word. Had she picked up that technique from Renata? “She refuses so many requests. It would be so embarrassing if it got out that she’d refused yours, like you were some stranger. I thought it might help for you to charm her in person.” The suggestion faded with a wave of her hand. “But perhaps you’d rather send a letter.”

Giuna’s guileless innocence was worthy of Tess at her best—and it struck home with the precision of her needle. Letilia rose to her feet, but it was hard to loom over someone who smiled as if this were a friendly conversation.

“You think she’d refuse me?” Letilia demanded. Seizing Renata’s arm, she dragged her to her feet. “Come along, poppet. I’d very much like to meet this cousin of ours.”

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Equilun 6

By the time the sedan chairs set them down in Whitesail, an idea had coalesced in Ren’s mind. She didn’t like it—Letilia didn’t deserve such generosity—but given her fears about the medallion’s influence on her decisions, that might be a very good argument in favor of its merits.

“Ganllech was never your goal,” she said, using one gloved hand to hold down wisps of hair the wind was trying to blow askew. “Seteris was. What if you could have that?”

Letilia eyed her with suspicion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m willing to set you up there. His Elegance, Iascat Novrus, has many contacts in Seteris. He’s on good terms with Eret Vargo, and Eret Vargo owes me some rather large favors. I’ll pay for your passage and a stipend. So long as you don’t expose me, the stipend will continue.”

“Last night you claimed you couldn’t skim much from the accounts without Donaia noticing. Now you think you can support me in the style I require?”

Renata’s smile didn’t reach her eyes, and wasn’t meant to. “Donaia may be a clutch-fist, but to get you out of her hair? She’ll let me have whatever I ask for.”

Letilia’s gaze drifted, as if she were seeing Seteris rather than the shipping insurance office in front of her. If I knew inscription, Ren thought, I could make her want it. Tricat wasn’t the numen best-suited to manipulating Letilia—Quarat would be better, feeding her greed—but the prospect was nauseatingly tempting anyway. She understood why Vargo and Alsius had flatly refused to learn the preparatory inscriptions needed to control people’s desires with the medallions. Knowing would open the gate to doing.

She could only rely on Letilia’s innate desire. Which flared briefly, as if she could already imagine herself at court in Seteris… but then died away. “I can’t trust any promises you make,” Letilia sniffed. “No, I’ll remain in Nadežra, where I can keep an eye on you.”

So we do this the hard way, Ren thought. Heading for the street that held Tanaquis’s townhouse, she said, “Then let’s not waste time.”

For once, her cousin’s disorganized household worked in her favor. Renata was able to leave Letilia in the parlour while she went upstairs to the garret, snatching a few precious moments to explain the situation.

She wasn’t sure at first if Tanaquis was even attending to her words. The room was covered in numinatrian diagrams, the debris of multiple failed attempts to separate the medallions from their holders without any transfer to a new holder. Tanaquis and Alsius had hoped that would allow them to destroy the artifacts safely. With that hope now gone, she was pursuing different approaches, and Renata suspected the frown on Tanaquis’s face meant she was mentally grappling with some tricky metaphysical problem.

But it turned out she was listening. “Yes, better not to tell her about the curse—don’t want her asking where it came from. Will she sit still for the ritual?”

A creak on the stairs forestalled any reply. “What an interesting room!” Letilia said brightly as she came in, but her gaze was on Renata, not the garret with its skylights and star charts and prismatium circle in the floor. She clearly suspected Ren was plotting behind her back… and since the plot in question was for the woman’s own good, that was more than a little infuriating.

“This is where Cousin Tanaquis does her best work,” Renata said, ushering Letilia forward for introductions. “She’s been pioneering all kinds of new methods—including something to cleanse one’s chart of any baleful influences. Tanaquis, I know it’s an imposition, but do you think you could spare a few moments for my mother?”

“Of course!” If the agreement sounded a touch too brittle and bright, that was only to be expected from someone whose life wasn’t steeped in lies. “Alta Letilia, take your shoes off. Renata, could you draw three cards for me?”

Renata had brought her deck, but Tanaquis handed her a different one—a deck so new, the cards were still stiff and sharp-edged. She wasn’t surprised that her cousin had acquired her own, and it meant Letilia was less apt to ask questions. Ren had forgotten to mention the pattern-related part of her lies last night.

Stepping to the side, Renata shuffled and drew three cards. Hare and Hound, The Face of Flame, and The Face of Roses. Adaptability, creativity, and health. Trying not to think of Letilia as the evil sorcerer in the story referenced by Hare and Hound and herself as Clever Natalya, she turned back to the room.

Letilia had utterly refused to sprawl on the floor making chalk birds, so Tanaquis was grumbling and setting up a more conventional numinat. When that was done, she placed the cards at equidistant points around Letilia, then said, “I’m closing the circle now.” Her eyes narrowed as Letilia squirmed. “Remember, this outside figure is similar to an incendiary numinat. Too much movement will reduce you to ash.”

“What?!”

Letilia’s screech cut through the hum of energy as Tanaquis swiped her chalk to activate the numinat. But the warning served its purpose: She didn’t twitch so much as a finger, even when the cleansing was done.

Which meant Tanaquis was able to step up behind her and snip off a bit of hair before Letilia realized what she was doing. That elicited a second screech, and Renata had to intervene. “It’s part of her research, Mother. She did this for me as well, and for Donaia and Giuna. No harm will come from it.” Tanaquis could use the hair to test whether the curse truly had been removed.

Letilia, fuming, demanded a mirror to check the damage to her coiffure. Tanaquis said vaguely that she thought her maid owned one, and that sent Letilia storming back downstairs. “I have one here,” Tanaquis confided in Renata, gesturing at a trunk in the corner, “but—well. I see why you fled Seteris. Before you go, could I ask you to pattern me? With my deck, that is; I want to see whether using someone else’s cards has any effect on the results.”

Of course she did. Renata’s vision of the szorsa who first helped Kaius Sifigno link the medallions into a chain had only intensified Tanaquis’s interest in pattern. When numinatria had failed to sever the links between the medallions and their holders, Ren had tried in the dream, with no more success; the threads were too strong for her to break. Still, Tanaquis was convinced that if she just understood pattern better, she would find a way.

Unfortunately, her approach was very much that of a Liganti inscriptor, accustomed to clear rules and mathematical precision. “I don’t think the deck has all that much influence,” Renata said. “And testing the hair should tell you if the cards I drew worked.”

“Yes, but—”

“I don’t want my mother asking questions about me and pattern,” Renata said quietly. “Not after she tried to burn the deck I found in Seteris.” Another lie to brief Letilia on.

So many lies. How can she possibly remember them all?

Renata laid a hand on Tanaquis’s arm before her cousin could protest. “Later, I promise. Right now, I have other problems to worry about.”

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Equilun 9

Grey took perverse pleasure in the harried look Vargo wore as he opened the door to his Eastbridge townhouse, his dark hair still rumpled with sleep. “You’re early,” Vargo said, in the half-irritable, half-confused tone of a man who was flat unconscious not long before.

“My apologies.” Grey might not wear a hawk’s uniform anymore, but he still offered a crisp bow. “I’m afraid it’s my habit, in preference to being late.”

He could hardly admit the truth, which was that he’d climbed out Renata’s window just before dawn and had been skulking around the Upper Bank ever since. A foolish risk, spending the night with her like that… but now that Alinka and the children were home, and with Letilia clinging to Renata like a leech, he and Ren had to sneak time together when and how they could.

Besides, he enjoyed needling Vargo with the mask of the Very Proper Hawk. It was entertaining to watch the man bite back his first three replies.

The fourth was for him to wave Grey inside. “Then I guess you’re also used to waiting. You know where the parlour is. I’ll dress quickly.”

It wasn’t the first time Grey had been sent there to wait. Although he no longer had access to Vigil resources, he knew the Lower Bank well. So did Vargo, in his own underhanded way. The man they’d seen with the Ninat medallion had been well-dressed and had worn a sword—which might mean he was a gentleman—but some of the delta houses had their roots on the Lower Bank. There were also mercenaries, duelists, and plenty of places for a man to hide after he escaped a ritual meant to kill him. It made sense for Grey and Vargo to lead the search on that side of the river.

It also made for a great deal of awkwardness. Vargo didn’t know that Grey no longer entertained visions of dropping him off a roof—that he’d had his chance, and passed it up. His behavior toward Grey was that of a man in the presence of one of the Vigil’s attack dogs: Although it might not be savaging his leg now, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t, the moment it slipped its leash.

Vargo only left him waiting two bells before returning. His coat’s indigo shade snubbed Liganti fashion, even as the tailoring cleaved to it as snugly as it clung to Vargo’s frame. His damp hair had been finger-combed into place, the ends curling against his high collar. Dabbing a handkerchief against his freshly shaved cheek, he frowned at the streak of scarlet on the white cloth.

“If you keep taking the handkerchief away, the bleeding won’t stop,” Grey said in his best avuncular tone. “You need to apply continuous pressure.”

“I know how to—” Vargo’s teeth snapped shut on the rest of that response. The replacement came out through them. “Thank you. Your concern is appreciated.”

Amusing though it was to make Vargo trot through the paces of courtesy, Grey had other reasons for arriving early. “I’m wondering if we should try a bolder approach in finding Ninat’s holder. Print something in the broadsheets, asking after him in coded terms only he will understand.”

“Wanted: Survivor of Event Nobody Talks About? Seeking Man in Possession of Lead Disc and Thoughts of Death? Show Us Yours; We’ll Show You Ours?”

“I imagine that last would get many responses, but not the sort we’re looking for.”

Vargo sighed, balling up the handkerchief. “Iascat and I have discussed it, but we couldn’t come up with an approach that avoided arousing interest we don’t want. And besides, not much point in digging the man up before we’ve figured out how to destroy what he’s got.”

Tanaquis was working on the numinatrian side of that question; Ren was working on the pattern side. Too many problems, and no solutions to any of them yet.

That was a lie. They knew one way to find Ninat. Parma Extaquium had gone into ascetic seclusion; the suicide note she’d found along with Sureggio’s Noctat medallion had sent her bolting for Utrinzi Simendis, who was only too happy to help her lock herself away from every sensuous desire she had. Noctat could draw Ninat to them, if they used the same eisar-based numinat Ghiscolo had employed in his damned ritual.

All they had to do was call on a different Primordial to do it. And that would never be an option.

“Any news from the Rook?” Vargo was preoccupied with a buttonhook, fastening his kid gloves at his wrists. A relief, since it meant he didn’t see how Grey tensed.

The silence carried on too long, though. Vargo abandoned his buttons to study Grey with uncomfortable intensity. “No? That might be for the best. I think we can trust the Rook to do the right thing; I’m not so sure about the man under the hood.”

“What makes you say that?” Grey asked. The question sounded stiff to his own ears, a shield over his guilt. There was no man under the hood anymore—or rather, there was only the man, and no Rook any longer.

And that was Grey’s fault.

Vargo grimaced. “You weren’t in the temple, but… He was willing to let everyone die to destroy the medallions. Willing to let Renata die. The Rook stopped him.”

Grey choked on a bitter, ironic laugh. Swallowing it down felt like swallowing a blade. It was the Rook who was willing to let them die. I broke him to prevent that.

Snatching at the one topic that might knock Vargo off course, Grey asked, “Do you think that’s what happened the night you lifted that curse from me? The man in the hood was more concerned with Beldipassi’s medallion, so he left me to die?”

Now Vargo was the speechless one. Grey pressed his advantage. “Renata didn’t spill your secret. I figured it had to be you or Tanaquis, and she wouldn’t have dropped me on my doorstep in someone else’s clothes.”

“Blame Varuni for that,” Vargo muttered.

“I’d rather not antagonize her. She made it clear she blames me for you killing yourself.”

“She told you?” Groaning, Vargo rubbed his face. The nick from his razor hadn’t just scabbed over; it was almost completely gone. Unnaturally fast. “The Isarnah are big on blood debts. A life pays for a life. She probably hoped that would settle our differences and save her the trouble of watching my back around you.”

Shifting his weight, Vargo glanced toward the doorway like it was the Lumen’s own light. “We should get moving.”

“I was early. We have time.” And Grey wasn’t about to let him escape that easily. “So what do you think—are we even now?”

A brief flicker of contempt crossed Vargo’s face. For Grey? Or for himself? “Don’t go thinking it was more than an inconvenience for me. I’m harder to kill than most people.” By way of demonstration, he tugged his collar down, baring the scar that raked his throat. “My life is bound to a… a spirit of sorts. It’s why Tanaquis chose me to go into the realm of mind when Renata was ill; I had an anchor. Same thing let me lift the curse on you without any real danger. I knew I’d be fine.”

Grey hadn’t expected him to admit to Alsius’s role. And while Vargo spoke with careless confidence, the hand that released his collar pressed briefly against his chest on the way back down. In the same place as his numinatrian brand—and the burn on Grey’s own chest, from whatever started his heart beating again.

Even with an anchor to pull him back, dying was no small thing.

Vargo stalked toward the door. “The Night Moths are allies, not one of my knots. If we’re late, they might decide they don’t want a houseguest after all. We should go.”

This time, Grey let him escape.

Nightpeace Gardens, Eastbridge: Equilun 9

After springing the Anduske from the Dockwall Prison, responsibility for hiding them had fallen to Vargo. The Lower Bank wasn’t safe, so he’d struck a deal to put them in the last place the hawks would think to look: at the heart of the Upper Bank.

Nightpeace Gardens might be closed for the season, but Tiama Capenni herself let the two of them in via a side gate. “Follow that path around,” she said, nodding at a dirt track not at all like the beautiful, sculpted areas open to the public. “And, Master Serrado, I’ll have to ask you to surrender that weapon.”

She made a small, mocking curtsy to Vargo as Serrado unbuckled his sword belt. “Your cane, too, Eret Vargo.”

He wasn’t at all surprised she knew about his concealed blade. With an equally mocking bow, he handed it over, then led Serrado down the dirt path.

::Should we be taking time for this?:: Alsius fretted. ::I know this Andrejek was helpful before, when you needed information on the Crimson Eyes, but we’ve learned all that’s useful there. And we have bigger concerns.::

By which he meant the medallions. Vargo didn’t disagree—but what else was he supposed to do while he waited for progress on that front? Tanaquis knew more about Primordials than the rest of them put together, while Alsius flat-out refused to learn any more on that topic than he had to. He was eager to assist with crafting a numinat to destroy the medallions, but not to grapple with the blasphemy of how Primordial power had come to be bound inside them to begin with. Vargo had, with great reluctance, gone pawing through the books of the late, unlamented Breccone Indestris, snagged at auction after the man’s death; after all, he’d been a high-ranking member of the Illius Praeteri. If he’d owned any esoteric texts on heretical numinatria, though, he must have kept them somewhere other than his house. Maybe in Diomen’s library, a cache none of them had been able to track down.

But he worried that Alsius’s fretting was about more than just the medallions. For sixteen years the two of them had worked together to bring down Ghiscolo and the Praeteri. It had been Alsius’s driving purpose, his reason to continue after he found himself trapped in the body of a spider.

Then they succeeded. And suddenly the driving purpose was gone.

Now they had the medallions instead, a blight Alsius was determined to wipe from the world. If all went well, though, soon that would be done with, too. What would they do then?

This wasn’t the moment to have that conversation—though Vargo wasn’t certain what a better moment would be. All he said was Andrejek is interested in hamstringing Branek. Hamstringing Branek will take a club to the knees of my Lower Bank rivals. I’m all for destroying the medallions, but I’d rather not lose everything I built while we do that. So yes, we’re taking time for this.

Up ahead, Idusza Polojny sat under some trees, tossing pattern dice with a woman dressed like an ordinary laborer. Mažylo’s Night Moths kept their own form of order in the gardens, regulating the night-pieces and the pickpockets who worked its grounds and protecting them against guests and the Vigil, but Tiama was pragmatic enough to put them to work weeding and hauling mulch in the off season.

Koszar Andrejek’s safe house was a shed that ordinarily held groundskeeping supplies for the gardens. A narrow opening between wall and roof let in some fresh air, and the daylight filtering through was enough to see by. Someone had even brought a few chairs for visitors. It made the space cramped, but that was preferable to standing the whole time.

At least Andrejek was capable of standing now. He’d taken a hell of a beating after his arrest, and that on top of the one the Anduske traitors had given him during Veiled Waters. But Alinka, Serrado’s sister by marriage, was a skilled herbalist, and Vargo had donated a few Quinat numinata to increase the effectiveness of her tinctures. With medicines and a safe place to rest, Andrejek was finally back to something like good health.

He greeted them both in Vraszenian. “Grey. Ča Vargo. Thank you for coming.”

“If here you have called us,” Serrado said in the same tongue, “then I suspect you have a plan at last.”

Andrejek rubbed ruefully at the back of his neck. “‘At last’ is all too apt. Szorsa Arenza’s cards advised me to be patient and wait, but I think not that she meant for it to be this long. Already Ča Vargo’s gratitude must wear thin.”

Serrado sat in one of the chairs like he was about to give a report to his former commander. It made Vargo want to lounge even more loosely than he would have otherwise. Everything Serrado did felt like a rebuke, and Vargo had never responded well to scolding.

But he kept his own Vraszenian polite as he said, “You bought a lot of hospitality with the information you gave me against Tserdev Očelen and her Crimson Eyes. And I’m still holding her brother, Dmatsos; so long as they can’t find him, my leverage over her is secure. But I’ve had no news of Branek. Man’s gone as thoroughly to ground as you have.”

“Branek I must find, yes. The longer he controls the Anduske, the less it matters that his knot was not cut when he ousted me. But the more I hear of the strength he gathers, the more I realize I must look outward for aid.” Andrejek laid his cane across his knees and ran one hand over the carved owl at its head. “Grey. After the Night of Hells, you worked with the ziemetse. Would you now be able to get a message to them?”

The clan elders? Judging by Serrado’s twitch, he was as surprised as Vargo. “Able, yes. Should I? The ziemetse want your head almost as much as Branek does.”

“This is why I ask you, rather than sending one of my own. But my ill future in the szorsa’s pattern was The Mask of Ravens: the card for hatred and strife and division. I thought… perhaps not all divisions are unalterable fact.”

He lifted one hand before either Vargo or Serrado could point out the risks. “It is likely they will hear me not, but if any you can find among the ziemetse who will speak with me—peaceably, under truce—then I wish to try.”

Serrado ran one hand through his lengthening hair, as if that helped him put his thoughts in order. “Anoškin you are, so to the Anoškinič you must appeal. Otherwise you’ll offend him. As for who might listen…”

His hand tensed subtly. Andrejek probably didn’t see, but Vargo was starting to recognize the moods that ran beneath Serrado’s mask. “The new Kiralič is known to be a fair man. And to be interested in pushing for more rights in Nadežra, rather than meekly accepting what the Cinquerat allows.”

Andrejek brightened. “Yes, your own ziemič! Of course. With you at my side—”

“No,” Serrado said. “That would help you not, I fear. The meeting I will arrange, but better if I am not there.”

Vargo could guess why. More than once, he’d heard Vraszenians refer to Serrado as “the slip-knot captain,” sneering at his willingness to cut his hair and grovel before his Liganti masters. A reputation like that wasn’t easily shed.

And yet… as Andrejek said, Grey had worked with the ziemetse last year. So far as Vargo knew, that had gone well. At the time, though, the Kiraly had been without an elder, theirs having been killed during the Night of Hells. So maybe Serrado’s current reluctance was more personal, a grudge with the new Kiralič.

Vargo could see Andrejek preparing to argue, and he cut in before the man could prod what might be a very sore spot. “Another there might be whose voice the ziemetse would listen to. I understand that the Black Rose has become quite the folk hero—and she’s helped you in the past.”

Alsius twitched under his collar. ::Oh dear. I hope he wasn’t planning on asking Arenza to the meeting as well.::

If he was, Vargo thought, amused, Ren will find a way out of it.

Andrejek sat up like somebody had offered him a fresh honey cake. “No love she has for Branek, certainly, and many favors has she done for the ziemetse. They say Ažerais speaks through her. Perhaps the ziemetse will listen. If you have a way of contacting her… think you that she would agree?”

“I know someone who can convince her to lend her support,” Vargo said blandly. “But it’ll still be up to you to convince the ziemetse there’s any difference between you and Branek.”

With a decisive tap of his cane, Andrejek said, “My best I will do to prove that I am the Face, and he the Mask.”

Redgrass and Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Equilun 10

There was only one world in which it made sense for Sedge to play diplomat, and it was a world where the alternative was Varuni.

“Those two don’t look nothing alike,” the man in front of him said. He was the second-in-command of an off-charter mercenary company almost as well-known for banditry as it was for protecting traders; if the mercenaries weren’t paid well enough, they could quickly become the bandits instead. Only the desperate sought out such companies.

The desperate, and those searching for them. “Yeah, we know,” Sedge said, taking back the two sketches Vargo had provided. “You seen either of ’em?”

Around them, the stables bustled with outriders unsaddling their horses and guards bragging how they were going to spend their pay. This was farther west than Sedge had gone in his life, clear out on the edge of Nadežra where the butchers did their bloody work and people who wanted to avoid the city took lodgings. Varuni stood at his shoulder in stone-faced and silent intimidation, but her gaze was alive, searching the face of every man with a sword at his belt.

The lieutenant must be good at fighting, because he didn’t have much intelligence to recommend him. “Thought you said it was only one you was looking for,” he said, scratching a beard powdered dun with weeks of road dust.

Sedge was going to twist the paper into a garotte. “It is just one. Look, has anyone joined your company recently? Or paid to leave with one of your caravans?”

The lieutenant flipped the decira Sedge had given him. “Nothing like that. But the fellow on the right looks something like a man I met a few weeks back.”

“Who? Where?” Sedge did his best to rein in his excitement. Looking too eager would label him an easy mark, and if he emptied their purse on excess bribes, Varuni would play knucklebones with his actual knuckles.

The coin rasped through the mercenary’s beard as he scratched his chin with it. “Didn’t take his name, just his money. Down at the Wailing Plum on Ship Street. Can’t be sure it was your man; I was pickled in zrel. Oi, you! Who taught you to saddle a horse?” He was off to harangue one of his men before Sedge could ask more.

“Ship Street.” Sedge met Varuni’s eyes with rekindled hope. The lead was thinner than a single dog hair, but if they followed its scent… “That’s Moon Harpy territory. They report anything?”

“No.”

Not even that curt response could dampen Sedge’s excitement. “Might be they en’t asking the right people. Or the right people en’t talking to them. We should check.”

But Sedge’s enthusiasm had fizzled by the time they’d walked the breadth of Kingfisher and spoken to everyone in the old gamblers’ den on Ship Street. He ducked under the hanging sign of a split plum leaking juice, glowering at the two sketches sweaty and wind-crinkled in his hands. They really didn’t look much alike: both were of men with large ears, but that was about where the resemblance ended. “You think there was some magic at work?” he asked Varuni as they walked. “Imbuing or numinatria or, hell, pattern—something that made it so people couldn’t really see his face?”

She snorted. “No, people are just terrible at remembering that sort of thing. They think they remember, but they don’t—not unless they’re really paying attention. And sometimes not even then.”

“This asshole’s probably weeks gone,” Sedge groaned. “He got compelled to walk into a secret temple, found himself there with four-fifths of the Cinquerat and the Rook, then watched Vargo smash Caerulet’s head in with a brazier. If I were him, I’d be halfway to Xake by now.” Sedge didn’t even know where Xake was, but it sounded suitably far away.

“Might beat you there, if we don’t find him.”

Varuni sounding grim was normal. Varuni cracking jokes, now that unnerved Sedge. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she sounded scared.

He tried for a laugh, but it was weak. “No need to cut and run just yet. Nadežra’s survived a few centuries with these things floating around. Not like it’ll get worse.”

“Wonder if they thought the same, in the days before Fiavla fell.” They parted around a cluster of canal scavengers going through salvage dug out of the Lower Bank muck. When they came back together, Varuni said, “You know, Fiavla sat on the best pass into Isarn?”

Sedge cast her a look, as surprised by her starting a conversation as he was by the geography lesson. “Guess I do now.”

“Some of the Isarnah merchants got out before it got really bad. We have stories, passed down.” Her jaw tightened, the sweat on her dark brow reflecting the light like silk. “A Primordial’s influence can only ever get worse. Sometimes more quickly than anyone could imagine.”

Ice ran down his back. And Ren’s holding one of those things. Vargo, too, and Grey. He didn’t want none of them within a thousand miles of this shit.

His forced laugh echoed hollow off the canal walk walls. “Well, we don’t find this guy, maybe we all run off to another country.”

How a grim look could come in so many shades, Sedge had no idea, but the one Varuni wore now seemed to be aimed a thousand miles south. “I’d rather not leave this kind of trouble behind me when I go home.”

Another salvage pile loomed as they worked along the edge of Kingfisher to avoid Crimson Eye territory. Vargo had ordered his knots to clear the canals in preparation for the activation of the new river numinat. It was an order the local scavengers had taken advantage of, happily picking through piles for trash they could sell.

But the scavengers weren’t the only ones clogging the canal walk. Beyond them, a gang of Vraszenians clustered under the deep-hanging eaves of an old courtyard house turned tenement. Red ribbons streamed through their braids like dripping blood, and their lashes were lined with kohl and crimson. Their carefree chatter quieted into silent menace as they noticed the intruders taking a stroll down their street.

“Speaking of trouble,” Sedge muttered, slipping his hands inside his coat and around the hilts of the knives resting there. “En’t this Moon Harpy territory? What’s a bunch of Crimson Eyes doing this close to the border?”

“Things change,” Varuni said, almost as softly as the clink of the chains dropping from her sleeves.

Sedge grunted. To the Crimson Eyes, Sedge himself was probably just another fist… but Varuni was well-known. Maybe enough so to be valuable as leverage.

“Fight or run?” he asked. He was good in a brawl, but he didn’t relish the idea of ending the day bloody unless Varuni wanted it that way.

Then a clay bottle sailed through the air and shattered on the tenement’s wall. The distracted Crimson Eyes shot to their feet, exclaiming in disgust, as the reek of piss washed over the other unpleasant scents of canal mulch and old sweat.

“Run,” Varuni said, and they bolted back the way they’d come.

Sedge was only slightly surprised when they turned a corner and a pair of pity-rustlers beckoned them into an alley. They ducked behind a curtain of laundry just in time for a half dozen angry Crimson Eyes ripe with the stink of piss to charge past.

And he wasn’t surprised at all when a familiar sparrow of a girl slid down from the roof a few moments later, a grin splitting her narrow cheeks and four puffy red claw marks crossing her brow. She led them through a laundry, the air thick with humidity from the vats and stinging with the scent of lye. The autumn air on the far side was sweet and crisp as fresh cider.

“Hah, I knew those pisspots was genius. Betcha we get more cats, we could sell ’em for profit. You two get any on you?” Arkady Bones leaned close enough to take a sniff of Sedge and Varuni. “Nope. Good thing. Once you’re doused in cat piss, en’t nothing getting that smell out of your clothes.”

Given that she wore a new coat of piebald velvet in place of the patchwork one she’d favored before, Sedge suspected she’d learned this from experience. He knocked wrists with her, his knot charm against the wad filling out her sleeve. “Thanks for the distraction.”

“That pot’s been sloshing in my pocket all day waiting to get chucked. Figured I might as well save your ass so Chains could keep admiring it.” Arkady’s grin widened at Varuni’s scowl. “Don’t glare me to death! Might’ve found something for you. My kids heard some night-pieces talking about a big-eared guy with a nice sword holing up in a Lacewater flophouse. Could be they was just talking about his Noctat-given gifts, but…”

Odds were it would be like the Wailing Plum lead. But Sedge had already walked the length of Nadežra six times on this mission, and he would walk it six hundred times if that was what it took to end these medallions.

When he looked at Varuni, she gestured to a bridge that led east. “Lead the way.”

The Pearls, Upper Bank: Equilun 15

Ren had plenty of practice at sneaking out of Traementis Manor via her suite’s balcony. But not all of her business could be conducted at night, and these days, leaving the manor at normal hours meant acquiring an unwanted shadow.

That shadow wasn’t even subtle about it. “I hear you know absolutely everyone,” Letilia had said breezily. “Like mother, like daughter! But it’s been so terribly long since I was here. You absolutely must introduce me to your friends.” The friendly arm she looped through Ren’s was, as usual, cover for her fingers digging in.

Ren knew what Letilia was doing: trying to ensure Ren had no chance to hatch a conspiracy against her, while reestablishing social connections. But all it truly meant was that Ren couldn’t do the things she wanted. Like slipping away to see Grey, or spending time at Vargo’s house just being herself. And it wore her patience to a thread.

Though on this particular occasion, she almost didn’t mind. “You remember Faella Coscanum, of course,” she said to Letilia. “She’s invited me to tea—”

“Wonderful! I’ll come along. Dear Faella was always so kind to me.”

Faella wasn’t “always so kind” to anybody. But Ren had confidence that Faella expected Letilia to tag along, and she was curious to see what the old woman had planned. Pulling herself properly into Renata’s head, she set out across the Pearls to Coscanum Manor.

The day was for intimate visits rather than social gatherings, so the majordomo led them to an upstairs solar. Outside the open windows, the River Dežera stretched like a shining ribbon, with the Old Island a stained cameo at its center.

Faella wasn’t quite alone. Her grandnephew Bondiro sat with her on the pale velvet couches, wearing a jonquil-striped coat somehow comfortably rumpled despite careful pressing and tailoring. He did a reasonable job of not looking bored with the small talk as he poured tea. Renata might have been bored herself, if she weren’t strung tight with worry that Letilia would, despite coaching, make some error in discussing her supposed life in Seteris. But Letilia’s biggest mistake was her continual attempt to do a Seterin accent, which made Faella’s eye twitch.

Eventually Bondiro said, “Alta Letilia, your daughter has such a fine eye for art, she must have inherited it from you. If you wouldn’t mind, I have a collection of Seterin crossroads idols that I simply must get your thoughts on.”

He wasn’t adroit enough to make it sound like anything other than a transparent attempt to get her to go with him, leaving Renata and Faella to their conversation. But Bondiro was also young, handsome, and unmarried, and Faella—who was that adroit—gave him the sort of indulgent smile one might expect from a fond great-aunt encouraging her grandnephew’s courting.

Letilia took the bait. Once they were alone, Faella flicked her fan open and said, “He’ll do a very good job of annoying her for the next few bells. I’m not about to let that tick dig into Coscanum flesh. Tell me, what plans do you have for shipping her back to Seteris?”

“I’m sure she’ll tire of Nadežra soon enough,” Renata said.

For all her skill at lying, she couldn’t quite sell that line. Faella tsked. “If she’s here, it’s because something drove her back. Problems at home, I imagine. Has she shared those with you? No? Well, you’re a clever girl; you’ll winkle them out soon enough. In the meanwhile, we have business that is none of your mother’s.”

“Please tell me you’ve found the stranger.”

Faella dashed her hopes with a sigh. “No—and it would help if any of us had taken a good enough look at the man to make a decent sketch. I suppose we were all distracted by Ghiscolo’s attempt to murder us, though that’s hardly an excuse. But I would know him if I saw him. You wouldn’t believe the array of nobodies I’ve invited to my house, hoping to lay eyes on that man.”

“Then what business did you have in mind?”

“Your own, my dear.” Faella leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with delight. “Rumors have been hanging at your hem for months that you’ve a secret lover, but a Vraszenian? How shocking.”

Renata’s breath stopped.

“And it’s more than just an affair of the body, isn’t it?” Faella said, sounding not at all shocked. “The night your mother arrived, after you came out of that salon where the two of you talked… I saw where your eyes went. Oh, don’t worry. You’re far better at hiding such things than most—well, as long as you two aren’t dancing. Your turn around the floor the night of the adoption ball was practically indecent. But when you were in trouble, it was Master Serrado your gaze went to.”

Caught so badly off guard, Ren couldn’t find words. “I—”

Faella patted her hand. “I’m not threatening you, girl. I’m offering my assistance. If you want to bring him out of the shadows to stand at your side… there might be a way.”

Ren was still fumbling for coherence. What she’d thought was her private life had suddenly slammed into her masquerade, and all she could think was that Faella never offered her help for free. “In exchange for what?”

As though Renata had already agreed to her terms, Faella chose a puffed pastry filled with sweet cheese and took her time savoring it. After she’d swallowed, she said, “Marvisal’s happiness.”

Marvisal, whose best friend in Nadežra had been Sibiliat Acrenix. Marvisal, whose betrothed had been Mezzan Indestor—a man now damned twice over. Renata hadn’t seen her at any social events for weeks.

“We’re hardly friends,” Renata said. “If she wants company—”

“She doesn’t. In fact, she refuses to leave her room. Nor will she talk to me; believe me, I’ve tried.” Faella’s manner was polished smooth by decades of practice, but the noise of frustration she made sounded real. “She’s cut herself off from society, and I’m the last person to understand that.”

It was more than just a statement of personality. Faella had held the Illi-ten medallion since her youth. Tanaquis, in one of her conversations with Renata, had likened that numen to pattern. Illi, the None That Is Many, was the connection between all things: death and rebirth, ten and zero. And society, an influence that had seeped into Faella’s very bones.

Yet it sounded like Marvisal, subject to that influence through the numinatria of their family register, was rejecting all connections. Renata said, “That’s it? You simply want me to help Marvisal?”

Faella skewered her with a glare. “Don’t sound so dubious. I never had much inclination to marry, and none for bearing children; I really don’t understand the appeal. But I adore my Marvisal and Bondiro. I would snuff out the Lumen to make them happy.”

Renata bowed her head in apology, and Faella went on in a brighter tone. “As I said, you’re a clever girl. Find out what Marvisal wants—help her, if you can—and I’ll help you get your man. In fact, I’ll make it so the city throws flowers in your honor.”

“Forgive me for doubting again, Alta Faella, but I’ve seen the attitude toward Vraszenians here. What could overcome that?”

Faella pressed her palms together, looking almost as giddy as Tess confronted with a new bale of cloth. “A story, my dear.”

She didn’t keep Renata waiting for an explanation. “Tell me, did anyone ever hold the Trials of the Volti while you were in Endacium? There hasn’t been one in Nadežra in decades… though I recall your mother tried to have them called for herself.”

The name was faintly familiar, but Renata couldn’t place it fast enough to cover for her ignorance. “I’ve never seen one, no. How do they work here?”

“It all depends on what virtues you want to test. The first trial is usually a dueling tournament; strength and courage are time-honored virtues, after all, and it makes for a good show. After that, it’s up to you. Diponne Contorio had a maze cut into a rice field for his suitors. Watching all those women slosh around in the muddy water was entertaining, but the bugs were dreadful.”

She leaned forward, putting one hand on Renata’s knee. “But at the end… nihil peto sed gratiam. Or as my grandfather always phrased it when he told the tale, ‘No favor do I ask but your favor.’”

That phrase allowed Renata to pin down the memory. It was an old piece of Seterin folklore, the story of how a humble shepherd had won the hand of a princess, in the days when Seteris was ruled by kings. She’d promised a boon to whoever passed her trials, and he’d asked only for permission to court her. Seterins and Liganti had made a tradition of it since, though not in Nadežra, not in Ren’s lifetime.

“Just imagine the spectacle!” Faella said, when Renata still hesitated. “Don’t you think we could use something to bring us together, after everything this city has been through lately? Those Anduske rebels, the Night of Hells, upheavals with Caerulet… ordinarily the trials would only be open to nobility and delta gentry, but for Master Serrado to enter, you’ll have to open them to everyone. The Lower Bank will love you for that. Especially if you offer secondary prizes at the earlier stages—money, charter administration contracts, clothing from that maid of yours. Whatever suits your fancy.”

She was pushing a touch too hard, but not without effect. “You realize,” Renata said, her thoughts gaining speed as she weighed the notion, “this will only help me if Master Serrado wins.”

Faella wheezed a laugh. “Oh, my dear. People assume these trials aren’t being played fair. Half the fun comes from trying to guess who the intended winner is! The other half comes from watching ambitious contenders try to upset those plans. But don’t worry: With me arranging things, all will go according to your wishes.”

The possibilities unfolded like a flower in Ren’s mind. Dueling, Grey would have no difficulty with. And she could craft the other trials in his favor, give him hints and aid to ensure he won.

If she were still the heir of House Traementis, this would never work. But that was safely transferred to Giuna’s hands now. And to Seterins, Vraszan was an exotic place, sitting at the heart of the trade routes that made up the Dawn and Dusk Roads. Alta Renata was known to frequent Vraszenian restaurants, to patronize Vraszenian merchants. This went a large step further… but the glamour and popularity she’d earned over the last year might be enough to buy such an audacious move.

A move she wanted so badly, she ached at the thought. Grey at her side, with no more sneaking about.

A burst of shrill laughter drifted through the open window, falling from above like broken glass. Letilia. If she thought for one moment Ren was putting personal concerns above her demands…

“I’ll need to involve my mother,” Renata said. She held up one gloved hand before Faella’s smile could curdle into objection. “It’s that or have her interfering at every turn.”

“I suppose needs must—for Marvisal’s sake.” Faella sniffed. “I don’t understand how you’re related to that woman. You must take after your father.”

It was possibly the highest compliment Faella had ever paid her. Let the old woman think Renata’s smile was for that.

3

Jump at the Sun

Floodwatch, Upper Bank: Equilun 19

The Rook could go where Grey Serrado dared not—even if there was no Rook anymore, only Grey Serrado in a hood.

He tried to find a pearl of benefit in that as he and Ren sheltered behind a cow shed in southeastern Floodwatch, where the city petered out into the vegetable gardens and dairy farms that supplied Nadežra. The Rook was made to fight against the corruption of the medallions, and those instincts had always railed against being put to an unrelated purpose. If the Rook weren’t broken, Grey would have had a difficult time coming here tonight, to a meeting where his job was to help two medallion-holding nobles mediate a dispute that had nothing to do with Kaius Rex.

Doesn’t it, though? he thought, kneeling to tug open the mouth of his knapsack. The Stadnem Anduske fought to take Nadežra back from its Liganti overlords, and those overlords held it because of the Tyrant—with the help of the medallions. Just because tonight’s meeting wouldn’t get them any closer to destroying those artifacts didn’t mean it wasn’t an important step in picking apart that knot.

Assuming it went anything like well.

Ren helped him unpack the bag, draping items over her arms like a gentleman’s valet. He was perfectly capable of getting dressed on his own, but her quiet presence was a balm, reminding him of what he’d saved by breaking the Rook.

He wasn’t the only one who’d lost the Rook. It wouldn’t answer to anyone. Ryvček had tried; Ren had tried; even Sedge had tried, hands trembling in awe as he donned the hood. It was nothing more than a piece of wool, silent and inert.

Which left Grey making use of the costume Fontimi had once worn to impersonate the Rook. Tess had made some improvements, imbuing it where she could to guard the wearer’s identity, adding pins to ensure even the strongest wind couldn’t tear the hood away. If it was a weak substitute for the real thing, she couldn’t be blamed. Whatever had made the Rook went beyond normal imbuing or numinatria.

Ren reached around him to buckle his sword belt. Then lingered, fingers digging under the leather to pull him close. Her nose found the soft skin under his jaw, breathing in his scent. Coffee, probably; even out of the Vigil now, he found he still craved it. Leather and wool. Whatever she found, it pleased her. Her smile was soft against the stubble of a long day.

“That tickles,” he said, stealing the smile away with a kiss.

Her grip tightened, and her breath came soft and fast and sweet. “Payback for what you took.”

Stolen kisses, stolen moments. Fitting that he also had a stolen blade. The Rook couldn’t be seen carrying Grey Serrado’s sword. To get around that, they’d staged a confrontation last month, with Alta Renata wearing the Vicadrius-forged blade taken from Mezzan Indestor—a blade the Rook had once thrown into a canal. Doing his best impression of the voice the magic used to give him, Grey had declared that so fine a blade didn’t belong in a cuff’s hands, and they’d dueled. It had taken all his will to keep the flirtation at a reasonable level, especially when his disarm brought them body-to-body, her face mere inches from his.

That memory hummed through him, coiling low and hot—and then a sudden noise from the other side of the shed wall made Ren yelp and leap back. Grey fought the urge to laugh. “It’s only the cow.”

She gave the shed a deeply untrusting look. “Animals should not be so large.”

There was so much of the world she hadn’t seen. Nadežra, Ganllech, and the waters between: that was all Ren knew. Perhaps someday, once the medallions were destroyed, they could see more together. The broad, beautiful valley of the River Dežera; the mountains that ringed the edges of Vraszan. Forests thicker than the groomed stands in Nightpeace Gardens. Things Grey himself hadn’t seen in years.

A strand of hair had escaped her coronet braid; he tucked it back behind her ear. Ren caught his hand and brushed her cheek against it. “Grey… I have an idea. Well, Faella Coscanum had it, but I think it could work. Although—now that I’ve started, I realize—no chance have I had to ask—”

She sent the words out in a rush. “Wish you to marry me?”

Her words caught him flat-footed, and he stood, staring, speechless. Fixing the Rook, or finding Ninat’s holder, or destroying the medallions: Those were all topics he expected. Something about the Anduske, even. This…

Ill luck, his grandmother whispered in his head. Since before you were born. You bring ill luck to everyone around you. No one would marry a man cursed by the Masks.

Ren would. Ren didn’t believe he was cursed.

He hadn’t spoken. She dragged her gaze up, blushing. “If you wish it not…”

“I do.” His voice was rough, and he cleared his throat. “Of course I do. But what of your life as Renata?” She’d said something about Faella. How did Faella figure into this?

She shook her head. “This is a plan to have both that and you. Faella has guessed about us—not who I am, but that I’m in love with you. And she suggested I stage the Trials of the Volti.”

He listened as she outlined the idea. It was absurd, of course—but Faella was right; its absurdity might be its greatest strength. A romantic tale of a suitor overcoming all challenges and refusing all other rewards for the chance to win their beloved’s heart…

“Stacking the deck for the intended victor is traditional,” Ren said, grinning. “Already I have some thoughts.”

Grey drew back in mock offense. “Believe you not that I can demonstrate my merit for real?”

One eyebrow arched. “Have you not called me Clever Natalya? Cheating is how she plays.”

Not in the tale where Constant Ivan won her heart. For him, she’d been honest. But Grey had better reasons than folklore and pride for wanting to compete fairly. “If it’s tradition to stack the deck, people will be on guard. I must win despite your intentions, and charm you with my victory. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise they will see me cheating to help a Vraszenian.” Ren grimaced, and he could see her spinning and discarding different possibilities. Between the two of them—and wily old Faella—they might be able to cheat and not get caught. But Grey had confidence in his own skills.

That thought sent a thread of ice through his veins. Although he didn’t carry the Quinat medallion on him, he was still bound to it. And excellence fell under Quinat’s purview. Is it feeding my desire to prove myself? Or would I feel this regardless?

Ren cupped his face in her hands, her kiss scattering his thoughts. “Then you shall play fair. And we shall hope the plan works as intended.”

They had no more time for side matters. Ren helped him pin the hood securely into place; he caught her hand as she drew away, stole a final kiss, lips brushing her bare fingers. Then, shifting his posture and mannerisms as best as he could, Grey went to be the Rook.

Floodwatch, Upper Bank: Equilun 19

“You going to tell me why we’re getting our boots muddy over Vraszenian business?” Varuni asked as the carriage they were tailing passed the upper foot of the Floodwatch Bridge.

If he hadn’t been so tense, Vargo wouldn’t have jumped at Varuni’s unexpected question. His plan for getting Koszar Andrejek and his followers safely to this meeting and back was a good one… at least, he hoped so. Anyone keeping an eye on Nightpeace Gardens would have seen Tiama Capenni—or someone dressed like her—board the carriage with her maid and a footman. Anyone who noticed it passing would see the Capenni coat of arms on the sides and think twice before hassling the occupant.

But he didn’t trust much where Branek was concerned.

“Not out here in the open, I en’t,” Vargo said, lifting his sleeve as an ineffective ward against the stink of chickens and dung fires. Everything all right up there? he asked Alsius, standing sentry atop the carriage.

::All’s quiet around us. I can’t quite make out what Koszar and Idusza are saying; it’s some southern dialect. I really must improve my Vraszenian.::

Varuni’s chains clinked softly as she fiddled with them, a nervous gesture that was as unlike her as the ill-timed interrogation. “But there is a reason.”

“What’s going on?” Vargo asked, keeping his eye on the vegetable gardens around them. If Varuni was off her feed, someone needed to make sure the cabbages weren’t going to attack.

“That’s what I’m asking you,” Varuni said, gesturing at the carriage ahead of them. “Tserdev’s under control as long as we hold her brother, so why are you riling things up? You’ve gone well beyond the deal you made. That’s not like you. Especially when you’ve got bigger issues. Primordial-sized ones.”

Her voice faltered, and Vargo wrenched his neck looking for whatever threat she’d sensed, but there was nothing. Just the creak of the slow-moving carriage, the rush of the river, and the indignation of local livestock. Somewhere to the east, away from the river, a fox must be hassling a henhouse; muffled squawks of outrage, punctuated by the bleating of sheep, broke the stillness of the night.

Taking a deliberate breath, Vargo forced his fingers to relax around his sword cane. “There’s nothing we can do about those bigger issues. Not until we find…” He waved toward the shadow of the Point, and by extension the temple beneath it. Where ten medallion holders had been drawn together, and one had escaped. “In the meanwhile, I’m helping with this because the Black Rose asked.”

He hadn’t told Varuni about the Black Rose. That was Ren’s knot to untangle, the Black Rose, Arenza, Ren… Vargo had been trying to keep his promises to Varuni, trying to tell her what was going on instead of shutting her out, but some secrets weren’t his to share.

This was why he avoided swearing knot oaths. They demanded a level of trust he wasn’t certain he was capable of.

Varuni deserved answers, though. She’d just picked a damnably bad time to ask for them. “Let’s just get through tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I can… or I’ll tell you why I can’t.”

“You’re only saying that so I don’t toss you in the river on my way back to Isarn.”

He shot a wary glance at the black water. Darkness hid the murk of farm runoff, but it couldn’t hide the smell. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

::Vargo? We… have an unexpected problem,:: Alsius said, as the carriage slowed to a stop. The distant squawking of chickens had been replaced by the muffled jangle of bells and more bleating. Hip-high, ambulatory fleeces drifted across the road, engulfing the carriage like a low-lying cloud.

“Just what we needed,” Vargo groaned into his palm. Varuni stifled a noise that from anyone else would have been a giggle.

The carriage door opened, and a black-braided head peered out. “Were you not meant to protect us from ambush?” Andrejek asked, his voice laced with humor.

“I didn’t plan for sheep,” Vargo said, coming forward and waving his sword cane at the beasts. They paid him about as much mind as Arkady’s kids—which was to say, none at all. “We’re almost there anyway. You up for walking the rest?” He held out a hand to steady Andrejek down from the carriage…

… and that was when the attack came.

Floodwatch, Upper Bank: Equilun 19

Once Grey had departed, Ren took out her own mask and ran the black lace over her fingers, thinking.

Even before the Rook was broken, Grey could only access echoes of the memories that lingered in the hood. He didn’t know the specifics of how the vigilante had been made, only the general outlines. But it had been made—the different pieces crafted one by one, before something bound them together into a greater whole. Not like her own disguise, which she’d pulled from the dream, and which contained no imbuing or numinatria to assist her in her work.

But they shared this one aspect: When Ren drew on the mask, the rest of the Black Rose followed. As the hood had once done for the Rook.

Surely that similarity could guide them to repair the Rook… somehow.

Not tonight, though. Dalisva and Mevieny waited on the unpaved lane between the vegetable gardens. Ren made her footfalls audible so as not to startle the two of them. The blind szorsa, her empty eye sockets veiled with an embroidered cloth, heard her first; she tapped Dalisva’s arm, and they both touched their hearts in respect as Ren approached. “Thank you both for agreeing to come,” she said in the Black Rose’s voice, melodious and Nadežran. “I suspect you two will be needed to keep the peace.”

“The ziemetse come under truce,” Dalisva said, sounding a little defensive. “They will not hurt Andrejek.”

Mevieny’s snort was more pragmatic. “Hurt, no. Toss overboard, perhaps. The current Anoškinič is… not a flexible man. And others blame him for Andrejek’s misbehavior.”

“We’ll do what we can to soften him. Shall we?” Ren offered Mevieny her own arm.

Vargo’s people had a cordon along the eastern bank, keeping away anyone who might interfere with the meeting. Sedge grinned and knuckled his brow in a show of respect when he saw Ren—followed by a more serious show when Vargo came up behind, trailing Koszar and his bare handful of supporters.

“Problem?” Ren asked when she noticed Vargo’s windblown hair and flushed cheeks, the crookedness of his neckcloth, as though someone had grabbed him by it.

::I should say so!:: Alsius huffed. ::This lack of a Caerulet is making all manner of ruffians think they can get away with—::

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Vargo said over the telepathic complaints. To Sedge he added, “Varuni’s questioning the ones that are still conscious. We’ll find out if Branek hired them.”

That smoothed the worried furrow from Sedge’s brow. “Dock’s this way,” he said, gesturing them toward the river.

With both moons dwindled to new, the brightest lights were the lamps edging the Floodwatch Bridge downriver, a string of gold beads across the Dežera’s satin-dark throat. It meant Grey didn’t need magic to be a shadow within a shadow, lounging against one of the posts used to tie up boats along the bank. He bowed to Ren, then said to Vargo, “You have people on the western side as well?”

“Of course,” Vargo said, clearly miffed—though whether it was for the Rook questioning his precautions or getting past his cordon, Ren couldn’t tell. “And here come our hosts.”

Two more lights were drifting downriver, lamps at the bow and stern of an approaching barge. It was an ordinary cargo vessel, indistinguishable from the boats that brought rice and other staples into Nadežra. To Ren’s eye, though, it wasn’t carrying much in its hold; it rode too high in the water for that.

A whispered protest behind Ren was Idusza making a last-ditch argument that she should accompany Koszar on board. “If I return not,” Koszar said, “then you must carry on our cause.”

So he was prepared for this to go badly wrong. Ren vowed to get him off the barge if that happened—somehow. Despite Tanaquis’s lessons, she could barely keep herself afloat, let alone someone else.

A lift of Vargo’s ungloved hand sent his people back with Idusza, away from the immediate vicinity of the bank. He, Ren, and the Rook would form Koszar’s entourage, with Dalisva and Mevieny as mediators. No other guards: the ziemetse had insisted. Ren couldn’t blame them, however little she liked not having Sedge or Idusza or Varuni at her back.

They boarded the skiff tied up at the bank, and Vargo and Dalisva worked the oars to take them out to where the barge had dropped anchor.

Although the ziemetse had brought their own guards, those were courteous as they helped the visitors on board and directed them toward the cabin at the center of the deck. They didn’t even object when the Rook said, “The sword stays with me.”

They know they aren’t his enemy, Ren thought. Grey had refused to attend as himself, but the Rook lent Koszar the legitimacy of his own crusade against Liganti control.

The interior of the cabin was much finer than the rest of the barge implied. The beds folded up against the walls, making room for cushions on the floor, each one richly embroidered. Numinatrian lightstones shone behind glass shields, deepening the shadows and whorls of the carvings that flowed over each beam and support. But luxurious or not, it was notably cramped once everyone was inside: six visitors, four guards, and the ziemetse who’d agreed to meet—the clan elders of the Anoškin and the Kiraly.

The last time Ren had seen the Anoškinič, at the Ceremony of the Accords, he’d been wearing the ghost owl mask of his clan. Tonight he wore an expression of disdain, which only deepened when Mevieny introduced Koszar with full formality, as Koszar Yureski Andrejek of the Anoškin. “Bold of you to claim clan and kureč,” he said, interrupting, “with no shame for the disrepute you’ve brought upon us.”

Koszar was unfazed. “Cast out I have not yet been. Until that changes, I will remember my people—though I confess, I have not valued that connection as I should. Too long have we allowed ourselves to be divided, fighting each other with one hand and the Cinquerat with the other.”

“So now you join hands with such as these?” The Anoškinič gestured at Vargo with a contemptuous flick. “That man has the stamp of one whose blood mingles with the invaders.”

Ren was glad of her mask, hiding her half-northern ancestry. Only as the Black Rose would she be heard by these people.

The Kiralič laid one hand on the arm of his fellow elder. “‘That man’ is Derossi Vargo, who saved the Wellspring of Ažerais during Veiled Waters. He has earned the right to speak here.”

To Ren, the Rook murmured, “It’s like the two of us weren’t even there.”

It earned him a bow of apology from the Kiralič. “No one disputes your presence. To us you gave the blasphemer Mettore Indestor; we have not forgotten.”

“If I have the right to speak,” Vargo said, “then I give my voice to Ča Andrejek. Whether you agree with him or not is up to you, but at least hear him out. And maybe we can sit while you do?”

Much of what Koszar said after they settled onto the cushions was old news to Ren: the truth of how Branek and the others had betrayed their leader, without first cutting their knots, and the increasing violence they’d engaged in since then. She couldn’t tell how much of it the Anoškinič already knew; he sat so still, even the ribbons and knotwork charms braided into his hair didn’t tremble. The Kiralič nodded along, though, with the expression of a man willing to be convinced.

When Koszar paused for breath, the Anoškinič said, “After the Night of Hells, when compensation we demanded, the Cinquerat cited your crimes as reason they should not make restitution. That you are less dangerous to us than Branek, I will grant—but that is a weak argument for supporting you.”

Dalisva spoke up unexpectedly. “Please recall, elder, that the Rook and the Rose freed Ča Andrejek. One has fought the Liganti nobility as long as we have; the other to us is sent by Ažerais herself. Surely that must speak in his favor.”

::It’s like I wasn’t even there,:: Ren heard Vargo say sardonically, over his mental link to Alsius.

::Didn’t we want to remain—oh. You’re peeved about the Liganti blood thing.::

::I don’t remember my own parents, much less who fucked who a century ago. I’m Nadežran. Why do we matter less to the fate of this city?::

As Ren’s heart squeezed with odd warmth, Koszar said, “I ask not that you support me. Our only hope is to work together—against Branek.”

“Against our own?” the Anoškinič scoffed. “For you this is a different tune, Andrejek. Are not the invaders your enemy?”

Koszar pressed his hands palm-to-palm, as if to keep them from clenching into fists. “A szorsa recently laid The Mask of Ravens as my ill future. Rather than fighting the enemy who betrayed me, I seek to protect our people. And Branek threatens that directly.”

The Kiralič leaned forward. “How?”

“The specifics I have not learned—not yet. Allies I still have among those who follow Branek, though, and they send me word. Others he gathers to him, not only from Nadežra, but from all of Vraszan. They hide themselves among those who prepare for the Great Dream… and I fear the reason for which he gathers them.

“A moment ago you spoke of the Night of Hells. We all remember the anger among our people after the old Kiralič died, after Szorsa Mevieny was blinded. To Branek’s way of thinking, no better way there is to put them in motion against the Liganti than to light another fire of outrage.”

By the expressions in the room, Ren wasn’t the only one who saw what Koszar meant. She was just the first to give it voice, in a horrified whisper. “An attack against Vraszenians, during the Great Dream itself… he would profane even that?”

Not just the Great Dream. Every forty-nine years, the two moons waxed full on the same night, completing what Vraszenians called a Grand Cycle. The last one came long before Ren was born, but she knew that many saw the ending of a Grand Cycle as an omen for the decades to come.

Koszar’s jaw clenched tight. “In Branek’s heart, any blasphemy is justified, if in the end it brings freedom for our people.”

“But who counts as ‘our people’?” Ren said, over Vargo muttering similar words. “Plenty of Vraszenians in Nadežra don’t follow clan ways. Those who have become untethered from their kretse. Those whose lineage is mixed beyond untangling.” Like Grey. Like Vargo.

And like herself. She fought to keep the ache from her voice as she asked, “Are we not all Ažerais’s children?”

Koszar bowed in acknowledgment. “The Black Rose echoes the szorsa’s wisdom.”

Ren couldn’t tell if the muffled cough she heard was disguising Grey’s laughter or Vargo’s, but the dismissive snort came from the Anoškinič. “A child’s wisdom—Face to the Stadnem Anduske’s Mask. One would have us embrace our enemies; the other resists any compromise. Both lack an understanding of political nuance. The ziemetse protect our people’s interests here—”

“The ziemetse protect their own interests here.” Koszar slapped the deck, the frayed knot of his temper unraveling. “When with the Cinquerat you bargain, who benefits? Can you say honestly that it is those who live in Nadežra?”

“Peace,” Mevieny said, raising her hands.

Such was the respect she commanded that even the Anoškinič subsided. In the quiet, Mevieny said, “Ča Andrejek. ‘Alliance’ is a word with no more substance than mist. And no force from outside can turn the Anduske from Branek back to you. What hope you to achieve here?”

He exhaled slowly, shoulders relaxing. “I have many hopes, Szorsa Mevieny. But your presence here gives life to one in particular. It is untrue that no outside force can return me to the leadership of the Anduske; there is one that could. Ažerais herself.”

A puff of air escaped Vargo. “You’re on speaking terms with a goddess?”

“Not me,” Koszar said, looking at Mevieny. “But the speaker for the Ižranyi can oversee a judgment by ordeal.”

Ren felt cold under her layers of leather and silk. She knew what Liganti judgment by ordeal looked like; it had featured in one of the plays she attended as Renata. The contesting parties were both required to walk “the path of the Lumen”—barefoot over a stretch of red-hot coals. She had no idea what form such a thing took in Vraszenian society. But the Black Rose, of all people, couldn’t reveal her ignorance.

Vargo could. “How is that different from—” he started, when a sudden burst of shouting interrupted from outside the cabin.

Ren recognized the clash of metal, the sound of a scream. She was on her feet, moving for the door, and Vargo and the Rook just ahead of her, as the warning cry came too late.

“River pirates!”

River Dežera: Equilun 19

Vargo was perfectly happy to let the Rook go through the door first, in a low roll that carried him under the cudgel waiting there. As the attacker turned to follow the swirling black coat, Vargo got him in the back with a knife, then burst through onto the deck—a deck that now swarmed with utter chaos.

People seemed to be everywhere, and Vargo didn’t need to see the color of their knots to guess what was happening. Anduske. Stretsko. Branek. While his Fog Spiders had dealt with what they thought was the main threat, another one had been waiting for them on the river.

The darkness shrouded half a dozen skiffs now surrounding the barge. Shouts drifted across the water from the Lower Bank, too, but Vargo didn’t have time to worry about what might be happening there. A clump of river rats was climbing over the rail.

Vargo caught his knife hilt in his teeth and dug in his pockets for the clay pieces he’d stashed there. As the two half circles came together, he got the satisfaction of watching the rats blown backward off the boat, into the river.

It’s more fun from this side, he told Alsius, shaking his hands to cool the sting from the explosion. Nothing in Diomen’s notes had mentioned that. Though next time I’ll wear gloves.

::Just make sure you don’t point it in the wrong direction!::

Some of the pirates had turned to fish their dazed friends out of the river, but more poured over the side. Dropping the cracked numinat, Vargo reached for the second one he’d prepared, but his scorched fingers made him clumsy; he fumbled the pieces, and then someone came at him and there was no more time for numinatrian tricks. Only knifework, in close quarters, and in the dark it was hard to tell Vraszenian friend from Vraszenian foe.

Setting his back to the cabin gave him some protection and gave Peabody the chance to jump to the roof. Anything?

::The Rook’s guarding the Black Rose at the bow. Oh my, those aren’t Palaestra rules he’s fighting by.::

Vargo ducked under a club meant for his head, came up knife first under the person’s ribs. The heated blood stung the fresh burns on his fingers. Clubs—did that mean they were hoping to take prisoners, rather than slaughtering everyone?

He spied a flash of mist-pale clothing as the Anoškinič was dragged over the side, and a second flutter as Andrejek jumped after. The cry of pain that followed sounded more like Andrejek’s bad knee giving out than anyone bleeding, and Vargo couldn’t get to them to help anyway. To Alsius he snapped, Any way out of here?

::We’re on a boat surrounded by boats. What sort of way were you hoping for?::

No exit strategy. Vargo should have insisted they hold the meeting somewhere he controlled. Although those tended to get raided a lot these days, too. Should just stop having meetings.

::Vargo, I see Branek! Lower Bank side, by the rail.::

He came himself?

Before Vargo could do anything with that, an arm circled his neck and jerked him back. The cold kiss of steel along the unscarred side of his throat suggested that taking Vargo prisoner was optional at best. He went still, and someone else wrenched his knife from him.

All around the barge, the chaos was dying down. There were simply too many of Branek’s people for the ziemetse’s guards to fight them off, even with guests like the Rook to help. Someone had Ren’s arms twisted up behind her in a painful joint lock, and the Rook knelt on the deck with no less than four blades pointed at him. Andrejek and the Anoškinič hadn’t reappeared; for all Vargo knew, both were dead.

Branek strolled into the center of it all with a look of shit-eating satisfaction on his pox-scarred face.

His gaze swept over Vargo, the Black Rose, the Rook. The Kiralič, clutching his head as if he’d met one of those clubs too closely. Dalisva, also with a knife at her throat; even Mevieny had a guard. Blood stained the deck, and too many bodies lay unmoving.

Branek addressed the Rook first, in Liganti. “Lately you involve yourself in Vraszenian politics. Seem I like a chalk-faced noble to you?”

“Even someone like me needs variety every century or so,” the Rook said, as if he weren’t a breath away from being skewered. “And since you have a history of doing a nobleman’s dirty work, it isn’t far out of my way.”

Branek scowled. “Then into the hold you will go, with the other prisoners.”

Ren was the closest to the hatch. Her captor shoved her into the darkness below, followed by two of the ziemetse’s people who were still breathing. Before anyone could prod the Rook to his feet, though, Branek stopped them and picked up the Rook’s fallen sword. “But before you do… I have always wondered.”

The tip of the sword reached out to flip back the Rook’s hood.

Alsius!

The spider wasn’t close enough to bite Branek. But a scream went off in Vargo’s ear and the hands holding him spasmed open, and that was distraction enough. He twisted free, lunged for Branek, wrenched the sword from his hand, and spun them both so that the rail was at Vargo’s back.

Now he was the one with a blade at someone’s throat, which he liked much better.

“If anyone’s making the Rook strip at swordpoint,” Vargo snapped with more bravado than he felt, “it’ll be me. I owe him that.”

Branek’s wiry beard smelled of sweat and zrel, and he was taller and heavier than Vargo. The only thing keeping him still was the razor-sharp edge of the rapier against his neck.

Any other time, Vargo would take the cut and deal with the consequences. But Ren was below, and he’d promised the others his protection. If Branek died, they’d never get away.

A hostage standoff would suffice—he hoped. “Tell your people to—”

Vargo never got to finish that sentence. An explosion came from the hold. The boat shuddered, deck tilting precariously, and he and Branek went tumbling over the side.

River Dežera: Equilun 19

Ren didn’t know which direction was up.

She hadn’t had a specific plan when she scooped up the dropped pieces of Vargo’s blasting numinat; they’d just seemed like they might be useful. And when she got shoved into the darkness of the hold, the use that came to mind was aiming them at the hull. It would make a distraction at least, which she hoped Grey and Vargo would be able to leverage—and if that actually opened a hole into the river, she figured she could swim out and come back aboard from an unexpected direction.

Instead the water that surged into the hold knocked her straight off her feet. Slammed against the hull, she had no time to find her bearings before it was over her head and the lone lamp snuffed out. The rushing pressure of water threw off any sense of up or down, left her spinning in a roaring void.

Hold your breath, go still, and you’ll float upward, Tanaquis had said when teaching Renata to swim. But the hold was pitch black and it seemed like there was wood in every direction; she couldn’t tell what was hull and what was deck and what was crate. Panic made her flail, bruising herself against unseen obstacles—and then she broke through into a pocket of air, gasping for blessed breath. But there was only a little space between her and the deck above, and it was shrinking fast, and in the blackness she couldn’t tell where the hatch was that would lead to safety.

If there even was any safety to be had. By the shouts she could hear through the deck, the barge was sinking fast.

Ren searched with desperate hands, trying to find a way out, but there was nothing. In a moment her pocket of air would be gone. She screamed, knowing it was futile; no one up above was likely to hear it over everything else. Where was Grey? Where was Vargo? Were they still alive, or—

Don’t think about that. Just get out.

Right before the pocket vanished, she sucked in as much air as she could and pushed off through the water, hoping to find a glimmer of light. Was that the hatch over there? Or was she hallucinating it, because the alternative was that she was trapped and about to die?

She didn’t have enough air. Her lungs were burning, begging for a fresh breath she couldn’t give them. This wasn’t a nightmare she could wake from; it was real, it was inescapable, and she was going to drown—

A hand seized her arm, and pulled.

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Equilun 19

Grey almost wept with relief when he broke the surface and Ren, held tight and safe in his arms, started coughing.

In the chaos that followed the explosion, his only thought had been to get below. But he’d forgotten that what he wore was only an imitation of the Rook’s gear, without the numinatrian etching on the eye mask that would help him see in the darkness. He’d found himself in a hold rapidly filling with water, no light to guide him, and only the bone-deep terror that Ren would die to drive him forward. When his searching hand found an arm, he’d prayed for the Dežera’s mercy that it was hers—that no one else was still in the hold, that he wasn’t about to save the wrong person or leave someone else to die. And for the first time tonight, the Faces smiled upon him.

Swimming in the Rook’s long coat was difficult, but it wasn’t the first time he’d had to manage. Orienting himself by the lights of the Floodwatch Bridge, he struck out for the western bank, hoping Vargo’s people hadn’t been completely overrun there. All around him, others were doing the same, or else paddling toward the skiffs the attackers had used to board. He couldn’t tell which, if any, were his allies.

His first priority was getting Ren onto land. Everything else he could deal with later.

The marsh-thick mud sucked at his boots as he dragged them both onto shore. Ren was on her hands and knees, coughing up spume; all Grey could do was rub her back and fight the urge to pull her close and never let go.

A fight he lost when she caught her breath enough to sink into his embrace. “You’re all right. You’re safe.” He whispered words and kisses into her river-chilled braids. His hood cloaked them in dark warmth, closing out the world. “I would have dived to the bottom of the river to save you.”

Her coughing resolved into words. “Never swimming again. Fucking river.” And nothing about that was funny, but somehow they both were laughing.

He could have stayed there all night, but the cold would have forced them to move even if other circumstances hadn’t. By the time he helped Ren to her feet, the area was relatively quiet. The skiffs had dispersed, and Grey didn’t hear any fighting, but there were voices coming from the south, one recognizable as Vargo’s. The two of them straightened themselves as much as possible—they couldn’t do much about being soaking wet, but they could at least try to look more like legendary heroes than sodden kittens—and went to see what had happened.

At the sight of them, tension drained visibly from Vargo’s shoulders. He bellowed, “Sedge! Got ’em. Call back the swimmers.” A thunder of footsteps a half beat later was Sedge running back to see with his own eyes—then slamming to a halt as he forcibly restrained himself from hugging the Black Rose like the sister she was.

“Mask-damned bow lookout was paid off,” Vargo rasped, raking his own wet hair out of his face. He’d shucked his coat, and the sopping lawn of his shirtsleeves clung to his arms. “With the moons new, and their oars muffled—the rats know how to be stealthy on the river. My people didn’t see anything until it was too late.”

“Koszar?” Ren said. “The others?”

Vargo jerked his chin toward a nearby shed. “He wrenched his bad knee getting the Anoškinič away, but compared to the last few messes he’s fallen into, that’s getting off lightly. Dalisva made it, too. But—” He kicked at the ground as if he wished Branek’s head were there.

“The Kiralič,” Grey said, his heart sinking.

“And the szorsa.”

“Branek won’t harm either of them,” Ren said with more confidence than Grey felt. “This isn’t something he can blame on the Liganti; hurting a clan elder and the current speaker for the Ižranyi will only turn people against him. They’re hostages.”

It was an improvement only by comparison. Grey should have insisted on better security—though what that would have looked like, he didn’t know. Something that would have required the ziemetse to trust Andrejek more.

“Anyways, this is yours.” Vargo picked something up off the ground and offered it hilt-first to the Rook: Ren’s Vicadrius. “Wish I’d gotten more of Branek’s blood on it, but I suppose it’d be bad luck to kill a man with the Rook’s blade.”

The blade that had come within a breath of unhooding Grey, until Vargo intervened.

You’re not the Rook. You’re just a man in a costume. Doesn’t tonight prove it?

It took little effort to roughen his voice into an approximation of the Rook’s as he accepted the sword. “You have my thanks. For this… and for your assistance.”

“Thank my eight-legged friend; it was his doing.” Vargo broke into a soft chuckle. “And he suggests that you take this as a lesson to be kinder to spiders.”

Lower Bank: Equilun 19

Vargo’s youth as a runner had mapped Nadežra into his bones. Some parts better than others, of course; few people sent messages from Froghole to the Pearls.

But the Lower Bank? That was his from Dockwall to Floodwatch, and always had been.

Two Cut Ears accompanied him as he made his way north, one of them in his shirtsleeves with his coat now on Vargo’s back. Varuni had been reluctant to let him out of her sight, but the hit wasn’t on him; it was Vraszenian business. Whatever trouble he had keeping his knots in line, nobody was on the hunt for him tonight. He’d be safe enough. The Kiralič and Szorsa Mevieny might not be, no matter what Ren had said.

So he left Varuni in charge of tracing their attackers and went back on foot, because like hell was he going to trust skiffers after this.

And because he always thought best on his feet.

He should be turning the night over in his mind, looking for what went wrong, how to control the damage that would come when the Lower Bank knots learned a Vraszenian elder had been taken on Eret Vargo’s watch—as though he didn’t have enough difficulty already, juggling the roles of cuff and crime lord.

But his thoughts kept slipping back to that moment on the deck of the barge, when the Rook was on his knees, mocking Branek as if it didn’t matter that he might be unmasked.

Mocking… in a voice that niggled at the edges of familiarity.

Not the way it should have. Vargo had twisted his mind into tangles before, trying to identify the Rook’s voice, but there was magic at work there. That voice always sounded like you ought to recognize it, but couldn’t. This… this was different. Vargo couldn’t place it, but he knew that voice.

Which meant something had gone wrong with the magic that hid the wearer’s identity.

Or he’s just a decoy. A false Rook in a costume.

::Eh?:: Alsius roused enough to mumble, a shift under Vargo’s collar that was too familiar to tickle. Between delivering a full load of venom and cowering on Vargo’s head as they splashed to safety, he was exhausted.

Just thinking. Go back to sleep.

The Sunset Bridge was empty save for the night hawks guarding it. They let Vargo and his fists pass without hassle, and the tightness in Vargo’s shoulders eased as he left the Lower Bank.

He and Alsius had wondered before if the Rook was some kind of spirit, bound to a series of human bearers. If the magic was broken, he suspected he knew when it had happened: in the Praeteri temple, when the Rook let slip the chance to destroy the medallions in order to save Ren’s life. He’d looked like he was fighting with himself then, and Vargo had assumed that was the spirit holding fast to its oath not to kill, in defiance of the person who carried it.

But now…

If anybody was willing to let Ren die, it wasn’t the man who’d fought at her side tonight. Who’d dived headfirst into a flooding hold to rescue her when the barge started sinking and Ren was trapped below.

If I remove this hood, I’m just a man, the Rook had said as Vargo dangled from Sureggio Extaquium’s rooftop.

A man who cared enough about Ren to set aside a calling two centuries old to save her. When she’d brushed off Vargo’s interest in favor of a new lover, he’d assumed that was the Rook… and he might not be wrong. But might it not instead—also—be the man whose home Arenza Lenskaya had been visiting so often since midsummer?

They’d been in the same room before, the man and the Rook, but now that seemed almost like a bit of theatre. It was what Vargo would have done to throw off suspicion.

He stopped halfway to the Old Island. With the moonless sky above and the black river below, the only illumination came from the lightstones on the bridge. An illuminated path of Vargo’s new life, from knot boss to noble.

There was something very wrong with the world, when it turned out Vargo was the only one not wearing a mask.

Alsius. Alsius! Vargo prodded his collar.

::What?::

He ignored the mental grumpiness. He needed the other half of his mind to confirm his suspicions. I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out.

I think Grey Serrado is the Rook.

4

Pouncing Cat

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Equilun 20

Ren expected nightmares of drowning when she went to sleep.

Instead she dreamed of the past again.

Not just Nadežra, smaller and lacking many familiar buildings. Sometimes it was different cities, in the broad plains of the Dežera valley, in the mountains that edged them. Or towns, or farms, an ocean of rice fields as far as she could see.

It wasn’t a nightmare, not while she was in it. But every time Ren woke, a chill went down her spine.

Because she’d been having the dreams ever since she took Tricat back. And Tricat was associated with time.

The medallion was well-hidden in the false heel of a pair of winter boots, in a box with protective numinata inscribed on its inner sides. That should have limited its influence on her. The prospect that it could bleed through anyway…

Tess worried, she knew. They had to be cautious about what they said inside Traementis Manor, but Ren had told Tess about the dreams, and a glance and a touch on her shoulder in the morning said enough. Neither of them could do more than worry, except pray the medallions would be destroyed soon.

The last thing Ren wanted after one of those dreams was to deal with Letilia. But she had to tell the woman about the Trials of the Volti—and predictably, Letilia’s first reaction was an attempted slap.

This time Ren stepped out of range. “You should be pleased, not angry. This is how we’ll get what you want.”

“What I want?” Letilia’s brow twitched. “Do you expect me to suffer through some ridiculous challenge just for a chance to beg for readmission to House Traementis?”

Renata laughed. “Is that what you think this is for? However did you survive so long in Prince Maredd’s court?”

They were in Renata’s sitting room, which wasn’t quite as elegant as it used to be, Ren having replaced one of the fine, delicate chairs with something plumper and more comfortable. She avoided that one now as she gestured for Letilia to sit: What she needed was not comfort, but poise.

Letilia huffed and dropped petulantly onto another chair, hard enough the legs squeaked in protest. Studying her, Ren sighed inwardly. Letilia had done a poor job of accepting the years as they came. If she could have had her way, time would have frozen when she was twenty-four, preserving her forever in that moment. She wasn’t without beauty now, but she didn’t understand—or didn’t want to understand—how to let it grow and mature with the seasons of life.

Just like she didn’t know how to work from the position she was in now, rather than the position she’d held as an exotic foreigner in an insular land. “At the moment,” Renata said, “you’re a hanger-on. Nadežra sees you as House Traementis’s old scandal, come to stir up mud long dried. You’re hoping they’ll invite you to their parties—and they will, because they like no spice so well as scandal.

“But the Trials of the Volti will change that. It will be a grand event after a year of strife… and who will be orchestrating the show?”

“You,” Letilia said spitefully.

Renata smiled. “No. You.”

Some of the affront bled out of Letilia as Renata went on. “Yes, the trials are for me. But you will be my sponsor. Don’t worry; we’ll have others to handle all the tedious organizational work, setting up the stands and so forth. You needn’t trouble yourself with that.” She didn’t want Letilia anywhere near the logistics. “What everyone will see is Alta Letilia Viraudacis making her reentry to Nadežran society in grand style. You won’t be hoping to attend their parties; they’ll be hoping to attend yours.”

Letilia was only somewhat mollified. “They’re still trials in your honor. Not mine.”

Adjusting her posture to mirror Letilia’s, Renata cast another lure. “If this goes as I hope, there’s a good chance it will end with my marriage. Donaia will dance with the moons in happiness to see me settled; she’ll grant anything I ask… as will my new spouse.” Let Letilia wonder what door that might open for her. “But would you want to cling to my surcoat like that, with all the other opportunities this will afford you?”

That would be the worst possible scenario, Letilia successfully joining another house and rooting herself so deeply in Nadežra that Ren couldn’t dig her out. But right now, what Ren needed most was time. Vargo had found the ship Letilia arrived on, two weeks before she claimed. Tracing where she’d gone and who she’d visited was harder.

Letilia’s mouth pursed in thought. Before any of it coalesced into words, the sitting room door swung open. “Renata,” Tanaquis said, “I really need you to—oh.” She blinked at Letilia. “You’re busy. Well, it can’t be helped. The stars have their own timing. The experiment I mentioned the other day—”

A moment of thought summoned the memory: Tanaquis wanted Renata to lay a pattern with a different deck, to see if that affected the results. It hardly seemed urgent, but letting Letilia chew on what Renata had said was better than pushing the matter any further right now. “Of course. I’m glad to help with your work.”

Letilia hopped up like her chair had become red-hot. “Work?”

“More experimental numinatria,” Renata said, hard and sweet as a honey stone. “Would you care to stay and observe?”

“No!” Giving Tanaquis a wide berth, Letilia paused at the door to frown at Renata. “We’ll talk more when you’re not dusting your gloves with chalk, poppet.” Then she fled.

“There, that’s dealt with.” Tanaquis settled in Letilia’s vacated chair. Then she rose just as quickly, pulling a deck from her surcoat pocket and setting it on the tea table before Renata, followed by a decira. “May I see the Face and not the Mask. Isn’t that the proper incantation?”

“It is, yes.” Renata eyed Tanaquis. Most people assumed she was oblivious to social nuance—and certainly there was truth to that—but sometimes, Renata suspected, that was a gambit to get away with bypassing the niceties. Tanaquis had disposed of Letilia quite neatly, just as she’d gotten the woman to sit still for an hour the last time they’d met. Maybe I should ask her to take care of that problem.

Perhaps when her cousin wasn’t looking so agitated. It wasn’t Tanaquis’s usual distraction; instead of distant, her eyes were restless, flicking here and there. Renata removed her gloves, ready with an explanation if Tanaquis asked about the bruises left by her misadventure in Floodwatch. “Would you like me to try a seven-card wheel instead? Ever since the nameless szorsa showed it to me, I’ve been eager to try.”

“No!” Smoothing back hair that seemed more frazzled than usual, Tanaquis said, “Consistency is key when experimenting. Introducing another difference would muddy the results.”

She kept looking for pattern to be consistent, in all the wrong ways. But rather than argue, Renata shuffled the cards.

With her thoughts so full of Letilia, it wasn’t until she began dealing the cards that she realized the significance of this moment. Tanaquis might think of it as an experiment, but it was also a pattern. And not a three-card line to address a problem, but the full pattern of someone’s life.

Renata knew very little about her cousin. The last member of House Fienola; delta families rose and fell more often than the nobility did. Inscriptor and astrologer. Working for Iridet. Brilliant and boundlessly curious. A few personal quirks, like her tendency to disembowel dumplings before eating them. But almost nothing about Tanaquis’s life, her old family, how her friendship with Donaia had formed. She simply didn’t talk about herself: to Tanaquis, other things were far more interesting.

Pattern was as much about reading the client as the cards. To provide better guidance or to manipulate—the face and the mask of the szorsa. Feeling as if she was, for the first time, truly looking at Tanaquis, Renata said, “This is your past. The good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

As soon as she turned over the ill card, she could guess why Tanaquis rarely spoke of the past. Three Hands Join, veiled. “When you see this,” Renata said, “I imagine you think of Tricat.”

Tanaquis’s nod was tight and uncharacteristically silent. Renata said, “It’s an apt association. This is the card of aid, and here I think it means your family. You grew up alone, didn’t you?”

“House Fienola wasn’t gone yet, and I was well cared for. Nannies, tutors—”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Why would I need more? I was brighter than my tutors anyway.”

It was the answer of someone who had learned at an early age that those around her didn’t care, so long as she fulfilled their expectations. Not abuse; just… indifference.

Tanaquis stroked her thumb across the seam on the opposing glove, where the stitches were starting to fray. “I did have one person, for a time. My uncle Bonavaito. My parents adopted him from House Ciagne when I was ten. But he was never a happy man, and he wound up killing himself.” She inhaled deeply. “The veiled position means an ill interpretation, yes? I tried to help him. I failed.”

“You were a child. You couldn’t have been expected to save him.”

“I know.” The flat line of Tanaquis’s mouth underscored the words. “That isn’t guilt talking. His problems were beyond me to fix. I may have liked Uncle Bonavaito, but I resolved not to be like him.”

Renata felt that resolve in the other end of the row, the card that showed what carried Tanaquis forward. “Ordinarily Storm Against Stone ought to mean physical force, because it’s from the cut thread. But as you’ve so often complained, the cards are flexible in their interpretation—and to be quite honest, your determination to learn sometimes feels like a physical thing. It carried you to a point of decision.” She tapped Two Roads Cross, in the center position. “But what that decision was… I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Utrinzi,” Tanaquis said. “He was the first to truly challenge me. To encourage me instead of humoring me.”

Renata wasn’t sure the card referred to that mentorship. But to her astonishment, Tanaquis’s breath suddenly hitched, and a tear spilled down her cheek.

Only for an instant, before she dashed it away. “Oh, bother. Everything ends; Ninat is part of the Lumen’s cycle. I should be used to that.” Glaring at her dampened glove as though it had betrayed her, she said, “He fired me this morning. For my involvement with the Praeteri. I thought it was forgiven, but I suppose he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

The cards suddenly faded into irrelevance. “Oh, Tanaquis—I’m so sorry—”

Her cousin brushed the sympathy aside. “I understand it’s bad form to interrupt a reading. Please, go on.”

Tanaquis wasn’t the sort to cry on anyone else’s shoulder, and Renata wasn’t much good at offering comfort. The best she could do was to let this reading be the distraction Tanaquis clearly wanted—and hope it wouldn’t dig too deeply into any more wounds. Turning over the next line, she said, “This is your present, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

With what Tanaquis had just confessed, it wasn’t hard to see the echo in the ill and ambiguous cards. The Liar’s Knot, and Drowning Breath. She’d lost her mentor’s trust; would others turn away from her, too?

“Lost trust can be regained,” Renata said, thinking of herself and Vargo. “And fear can be a necessary reminder to be cautious.” To not play with eisar numinatria. Tanaquis was far more sanguine about drawing on the power of the Primordials than any of the rest of them were comfortable with.

Yet they needed her knowledge. Without it, they would be completely lost.

Tanaquis nodded, but it didn’t look like she was listening. “I’m allowed to continue researching how to deal with our current problem, but I’m forbidden to hire out my services as an inscriptor or astrologer. I’m not worried about the money—I have more than enough for my needs. But…” She shrank in on herself, looking small. Lost. “What am I supposed to do? If I’m denied my compass, my edge, and my chalk… is there any self left?”

“Of course there is.” This time Renata was able to capture the other woman’s hands in her own. “Tanaquis—cousin—you are more than simply your work. You have the Lumen’s own light within you. And see, The Face of Ages, revealed: You still have your knowledge, your scholarship, the wisdom of the past.”

“But compass, edge, chalk, self: All four are needed to know the cosmos. What I lost… Is there any way to get it back? To regain my—” She swallowed convulsively.

Her self. Praying an answer would lie within, Renata let go of Tanaquis to turn over the future line. The Mask of Mirrors, The Ember Adamant, and The Mask of Bones.

It wasn’t like the twisted line of Grey’s future—the pattern he’d warped with his own interference—but it drove the breath out of her anyway. The Ember Adamant: That card had been Grey’s past, and the Rook’s good future. A chance to fulfill his mandate once and for all, by destroying the medallions. The threads of Tanaquis’s fate tangled with his, in the risk that they would fail. As they had been failing for the last two months.

She’d let the silence stretch too far. “That’s secrets, yes?” Tanaquis said, pointing at The Mask of Mirrors. “Secrets and lies.”

Renata nodded, dragging her gaze away from The Ember Adamant. “I don’t know what secret it refers to. But the card is in the revealed position; the secret is one you should keep.” The truth of Ren’s identity? She’d wondered on occasion if she could share that with Tanaquis. But the woman was too prone to letting information slip when she was distracted.

Some hint of that doubt must have crept into her voice, because Tanaquis pinned her with a sharp gaze. “I can keep secrets. Despite what people think. I kept the Praeteri’s, didn’t I?” And in doing so, lost the trust of her mentor.

Renata studied the card’s mirrored visage as if it would show her anything other than the wavy lines and warped half images of the reflection the artist had carved into the printing block. Whatever it referred to, it felt far bigger than the identity of one half-Vraszenian liar. “Not the Praeteri, but perhaps related to it. Like our current problem. Keeping the medallions secret may be necessary to ensure our success. The Ember Adamant, veiled, indicates a chance of failure in our duty. There are plenty in this city who would take that power for themselves if they knew of it. And then The Mask of Bones…”

“Is death.”

Tanaquis didn’t quite manage her usual matter-of-fact tone. “And endings more generally,” Renata said hastily. “I think—hmm. It feels oddly tangled with The Ember Adamant. As if an ending isn’t the same thing as success. I don’t know.”

She clamped her mouth shut on the rest. Because Tanaquis wasn’t wrong: That card did mean death. And in its eyeless skull, Ren saw the possibility of Tanaquis’s own demise.

It was the line the others had stepped back from, that day in the temple. They could have used the death of the holders to trigger the destruction of the medallions, accepting a mass sacrifice to rid the world of that poison.

But maybe ten people didn’t have to die. Maybe only one did… if that one held all the medallions.

Every bone in Ren’s body rejected that, and not because of the risk of a second Kaius Rex. She wasn’t going to sacrifice her cousin for this. She wasn’t going to sacrifice anybody. Grey had broken the Rook to avoid that, because the corruption of A’ash had already caused too much death and destruction. They would find another way.

By the press of Tanaquis’s lips, she’d made the same calculation as Ren. She’d vowed she wouldn’t kill herself like her uncle had—but suicide and sacrifice weren’t the same thing.

Renata didn’t touch her again, but she leaned forward until she had Tanaquis’s eyes on her. “I’ll find the nameless szorsa,” she said, soft and intense, as if she hadn’t already tried and failed. “The spirit of a dead woman could also fulfill the meaning of The Mask of Bones. Don’t assume the cards have only one significance, cousin.”

“No, of course not.” Tanaquis’s answering smile didn’t touch her eyes. “But it’s good to prepare, just in case.”

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Equilun 21

“How’d you get rid of Letilia?” Vargo asked as he led Ren into the parlour. He hadn’t seen her during daylight hours in weeks, thanks to her “mother” latching onto her tighter than a river leech.

Early-afternoon sun gleamed off the wood paneling like slow-dripping honey. He held up a bottle filled with brandywine the same mellow gold, but put it back when Ren shook her head. Tea it was, then. He activated the numinat to heat water as she said, “Tess agreed to divert her with dress fittings. I slipped out while she was covered in pinned muslin and couldn’t follow.” Ren’s rueful grimace said she hated leaving her sister with that bag of weasels. But Letilia hadn’t given any indication of remembering Tess, and Renata’s association with the popular Ganllechyn clothier was too well-known to hide; trying would only cause suspicion.

“We’ll pour one out to honor her sacrifice,” Vargo said, measuring out a blend fragrant with cardamom and peppercorns. “What was so urgent you needed to see me alone?”

Ren’s laugh held an odd, embarrassed tinge. “I have a favor to ask. And it’s—well—personal.”

“Quietly dumping Letilia in Owl’s Fields?”

“I wish,” she muttered, then drew a deep breath. “No, it’s… oh, djek. There’s no graceful approach to this. Recall you the conversation we had the night of the Extaquium lightning party? When I told you I wasn’t available?”

If the mad suspicion that had mugged Vargo on the way back from Floodwatch had any truth to it… “I’m guessing that hasn’t changed, or you wouldn’t be so nervous. I’ll put you out of your misery. Short of you asking me to feed the old man to a seagull, I’ll probably say yes. He’s napping right now, so you don’t have to worry about him offering his opinions.” At least, Alsius claimed to be napping. Since Ghiscolo’s death, he swung between manic theories about designs for a destructive numinat and melancholy withdrawal, and it worried Vargo.

But at least it meant neither Vargo nor Ren had to suffer commentary on their sexual relationship—or rather, lack thereof.

Her tension broke into a wry grin. “Then will you pretend to be my secret lover so I can marry Grey Serrado?”

I was right.

Ren’s smile only broadened as Vargo’s silence stretched on. To keep her from guessing that more than just surprise had him tongue-tied, he rose and busied himself with pouring tea for them both, keeping his back to her until his thoughts settled. “I’ll admit, that’s not who I’d have guessed.” He set a cup and saucer before her, then blew on his own to cool it.

“The Rook?” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Flirtations we have had, certainly. But immortal vigilantes with ancient missions make for poor company at the end of the day.”

It was a neat dodge, and if Floodwatch hadn’t planted suspicions in Vargo’s head, he might have swallowed the misdirection. He didn’t push: If Ren wanted him to know, she would have told him. “No wonder you’ve been spending so much time at the Serrado house… and you did beg me to save his life. But what do you need me for?”

The plan she outlined had all the audacity he would expect from two people who spent their nights chasing around the city in mask and hood. A public spectacle, a series of trials to win a favor from the famous Renata. “But if Grey wins,” Ren said, “people will think he’s the lover I’ve been hiding, and all this was merely a show to make him look legitimate.”

“So you need someone else to pose as that lover. Somebody the crowd will cheer for him to beat.” The one thing the cuffs disliked more than a Vraszenian nobody: a Nadežran somebody.

Ren didn’t think like that, but the truth stung all the same. Masking that old twinge with a wry leer, Vargo said, “Makes sense; most people already assume we’re fucking. I’m surprised Donaia hasn’t clawed my bits to ribbons. Hope Serrado’s not the jealous type; he’d prefer me at the bottom of the river.”

Her nervousness melted like chocolate into something warm and gooey. “He wouldn’t, you know.”

Vargo did know. The Rook—Grey—had that chance and didn’t take it. But that was a secret Ren wasn’t sharing. It wasn’t hers to share.

She leaned forward and touched his arm. “Helping me with this… No one else could do it. We will not forget that. And anything I can do in return—”

“You can stop right there. Of course I’ll help. With all the other shit we have to deal with, it’ll be fun to rile up the cuffs. We’ll have you knotting wedding braids in each other’s hair before year’s end.”

Patting her hand—a friend’s touch, rather than a lover’s caress—Vargo thought of the medallion sitting under a locked and warded floor panel upstairs. Sessat. Friendship. Camaraderie.

He gripped Ren’s warm, gloveless fingers to drive away the chill.

Suncross, Old Island: Equilun 24

The shopfront on Drema Square was empty, holding only the scent ghosts of moths and mildew. The light seeping through the lamp smoke caking the windows danced with dust motes.

Pavlin sneezed. “At least the location is good?” he said, venturing inside with a sleeve raised to shield his nose.

Giuna remained in the doorway, less excited than she’d been when they left Traementis Manor. Tess had meant this to be an afternoon with Pavlin, for cleaning and maybe a few stolen kisses, but Giuna had said she wanted to help prepare the new shop and the tiny apartment above, and Tess could hardly refuse the alta.

“I know it’s not much to look at now,” Tess said to her, “but with a bit of work we can make it presentable enough for cuffs, yes?”

“Cuffs?” Giuna arched an amused brow—an expression stolen from Renata—and bravely stepped over the threshold.

Tess pressed cold fingers to burning cheeks. “Meaning no disrespect, alta.” She shot a quelling look at Pavlin, who turned his laugh into a convincing sneeze.

“I’m not offended.” Giuna stripped off her gloves and tucked them into the pocket of her surcoat—one of her older ones, rose grey and shapeless, from before Renata and Tess joined the household. Perhaps she had come prepared to clean. She scratched at the grime on the window, leaving a clean streak too narrow to see through. “And Master Ranieri’s right about the location. I’m surprised it stood empty for so long.”

No one had used it in years. Not since Ghiscolo Acrenix had someone carve out a passage into the Depths, allowing his Praeteri cultists to reach their temple without braving the rats and floods below.

Tess almost didn’t care where the shop was—almost. What mattered was that it was hers. No more stitching in a back corner of someone else’s house; she would be a respectable tradeswoman, with a sweetheart waiting upstairs at the end of the day.

It would mean spending less time with Ren. But the feeling that they were both trapped by her lies had started to fade. Ren and Tess could have something like normal lives at last… which was, after all, supposed to be the point of the whole con.

After they dealt with a few remaining problems. Like those Primordial-cursed medallions.

Rubbing the dirt from her finger, Giuna said abruptly, “Renata’s mother. What are we going to do about her?”

Tess stifled a groan. Not a Primordial, but Letilia could be mistaken for one in dim light. So this was why Giuna insisted on coming to see the shop: so they could talk without risk of being overheard. “I suppose it’s too much to hope there’s room for her in the Dockwall Prison?” she asked with a wistful look at Pavlin.

He chuckled and slid an arm around her waist, tucking her neatly against his side. “If I’m made Caerulet, I’ll make bothering your alta a crime. Until then, we need a different tactic.”

“Boot her from Nadežra entirely,” Giuna said, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed like a Lower Bank fist in a play.

Tess’s heart thumped. “She’s on guard for that, though. I heard her say—not that I was eavesdropping, mind you—”

Giuna snorted. “I know servants listen, Tess. And you’re always guarding Renata’s back. What did you hear?”

The best lies are crafted from the truth. Ren had taught her that, because it was true, and because Tess didn’t have her sister’s knack for weaving cloth out of nothing. Even now, her cheeks flushed again, and she just hoped Giuna would take it for embarrassment. “You remember that to-do over the letter from Eret Viraudax?”

“The one Eret Vargo destroyed. Yes.”

Tess couldn’t remember the specifics of what Ren had pretended the letter said, but she didn’t have to. “Letilia’s that vindictive, she’ll ruin my alta’s life if she gets thwarted here. She said she’d left a message somewhere, and if she goes missing, the message will be delivered and all those secrets will come out.”

Giuna’s brow knitted. “The secret that Renata isn’t Eret Viraudax’s daughter? I mean, not just that he didn’t sire her, but that he never married Letilia. Would that truly ruin Renata’s life?”

Tess had to improvise. “There might be more? Nobody knows a person’s dirty laundry like their mother, after all. Whatever it is, it’s enough to stay my alta’s hand.”

“I wish she trusted me better,” Giuna muttered, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. Then her shoulders straightened. “I understand being cowed by someone, though, and how hard it can be to come out from under that. If Renata won’t act, we’ll have to.”

“I could ask around,” Pavlin said. “Find out where she’s been going, who she’s been talking to, that sort of thing. Letilia’s got no reason to pay attention to me.”

Mother bless this man for being so smart. Tess had been trying to think how to ask him that very favor, without giving too much away. She squeezed Pavlin’s hand in thanks as Giuna said, “I can ask around, too, in different corners. Letilia’s been trying to renew all her old friendships, and some of them might gossip.”

She bounced upright in a faint puff of dust. “You don’t mind if I start now, do you?”

Tess had never expected her to do much cleaning here. Besides, the alta’s departure would mean finally having time alone with Pavlin. “We’ll sweep our dust out of the shop; you go sweep yours out of the city!”

As Giuna departed and Pavlin went to fill a bucket from the nearest pump, Tess stood in the middle of her shop, thinking.

Giuna searching; Pavlin searching; Vargo had put some of his people out as well. At this rate, Letilia didn’t stand a chance.

But it would go easier if more of them could talk to each other.

When Pavlin came back in, Tess tugged the bucket out of his hands and set it down so she could wrap her arms around him and nestle her face against his chest. He buried his lips in her curls, breath warm and sending tingles across her scalp. He said, “I can clean tomorrow if you’d rather rest this afternoon. Might get started on asking around.”

Like water filtered by a cleansing numinat, Tess’s thoughts came clear. She hadn’t asked Ren yet… but she knew her sister’s mind, inside and out. And she knew Ren trusted her.

Steeling herself, Tess pulled out of Pavlin’s embrace. “Actually, I need to tell you some things about my time in the Fingers. About my sister… and her time as Letilia’s maid.”

The Palaestra, Floodwatch: Equilun 27

“Ninat,” Grey’s opponent finally gasped, doubled over from the jab to the diaphragm that had ended their match.

Grey fought the urge to double over himself, exhausted after sparring all afternoon. Pointing his blade at the ground, he held out a gloved hand to help his opponent rise, thanking him for the match.

His courtesy earned him only a sour look as his fellow duelist stalked from the practice circle. At least this one didn’t spit at his feet like the last one had.

Grey racked his practice blade and dragged a towel over his head and face, wishing he could shed the quilted jacket and mop down his entire body. Though the calendar said winter had come to Nadežra, the balmy air hung on him like a wet rag.

Dedicated duelists and charter mercenaries spent their days inside the ring of cold marble columns that marked the Palaestra proper. The cuffs who liked to carry swords preferred to take their practice in the surrounding gardens, where grassy paths and flowerbeds wound between the dueling rings and created space for admiring audiences.

Ninat’s unknown holder had carried a sword. Whether he was a gentleman, a duelist, or some other commoner with the right to go armed, there was a chance he honed his skill at the Palaestra. Grey, cut off from Vigil resources, was haunting the place in the hopes he might appear.

He paid the price in sweat, and in challenges from people who took offense at House Traementis hiring a Vraszenian duelist with no reputation.

Deciding propriety could go hang, he tugged his sweaty gloves off and dunked his hands in a trough. The lukewarm water provided such relief that he seriously considered dunking his head as well.

“Are you done for the afternoon, or do you have one more in you?”

At that pleasant drawl, Grey’s consideration shifted. Forget his head. Could he lift the trough to dump it on Vargo?

He blotted himself dry with insolent slowness before turning to greet the man. Vargo was dressed the part of a duelist, all too well. The leather gauntlets tucked into his belt were fresh from the tannery. His coat’s seams and creases were pristine, the pale twill never snagged on a practice blade’s pitted edge. Grey would bet Ren’s Vicadrius that the embroidery at cuffs and collar were cooling numinata. Vargo would never let himself look sweaty and disheveled in public.

“You want to duel me?” Grey asked, letting his skeptical tone say what they both knew: Vargo wouldn’t last a breath past the moment he said Tuat. “Why?”

“Surely you heard the news about Alta Renata’s Trials of the Volti?” Vargo inspected the rack of practice weapons. “The first challenge is dueling. And I hear you’re not bad at it.”

“Good enough to know you’d do better with an earth-handed blade. All those are sun-handed.”

Vargo paused. “So they are.” A flush crept up his neck.

Grey went to another rack and pulled a weapon, but didn’t hand it over. “Rumor says Eret Vargo could already get any boon he wanted from Alta Renata.”

It was unspeakably peculiar, performing the duet of cooperative deception with Vargo. Grey knew perfectly well that Ren had recruited the man to help them, playing the role of the secret paramour doomed to lose to a noble-hearted upstart. But anyone listening had to hear the opening notes of that song.

Vargo shrugged. “Some things are harder to gain than others, and the approval of her house head is the hardest of all.” He tugged on his gauntlets, then said, “Do you intend to enter the trials? You’ve been practicing so very hard. Worried you’re not good enough?”

Staged banter gave way without warning to dull fury, but Grey couldn’t say whether it was for Vargo or himself. Or both.

Because he hadn’t been good enough. Branek’s people had overwhelmed them at Floodwatch. Overwhelmed him. The Kiralič and Mevieny were captured—Ren had almost drowned—because Grey lost the fight.

Rationally, he knew they’d been wildly outnumbered. Even as the Rook, he might have ended up in the same position. But he’d been training like mad for weeks, honing his body into the finest tool he could, in a desperate attempt to make up for what he’d broken… and it still wasn’t enough.

Worst of all was the fear lurking beneath that. Excellence: the domain of Quinat. How much of his self-doubt was the medallion feeding his drive to do better?

Grey threw the practice sword at Vargo too hard; it hit the man’s chest and almost fell to the ground. Vargo’s kohl-darkened eyes widened. “Let’s see how you fare,” Grey snapped. “If you can’t land one touch on me in five passes… I get that fine coat of yours.” It wouldn’t fit—Grey was longer in the limbs and broader in the shoulders—but Tess could transfer the cooling numinata to one of his own coats.

“Should just hand it over now,” Vargo muttered before taking a fair approximation of the opening stance. “Uniat.”

“Tuat.”

Grey tamped down the urge to disarm Vargo with his first attack. He could have done it easily—but was that just a desire to demonstrate his skill, his power? The other point of this theatre was to make it look like Vargo might stand a chance in the first trial. Grey wasn’t certain how he expected to pass it on his own merit; the man was a fighter, but a rapier was too clean and elegant a weapon for the back-alley brawls he knew.

So Grey waited, letting Vargo make the opening move, a thrust from far too close range. Only after a few parries did he slap the sword from Vargo’s hand. “First pass,” he said. “Try again.”

After a second disarm, he paused to correct Vargo’s grip. The third pass ended in a stop-thrust to the man’s ribs. “Your blade is longer than you think,” Grey said. “Use that. It isn’t just an overgrown knife.”

Vargo paused, frowning oddly. “I didn’t expect you to actually teach me. Given…”

That sentence couldn’t go anywhere good, so he didn’t finish it. Grey said, “Then why ask?”

“You looked like you were in a mood to beat someone up. And, well. I was here.”

To take whatever punishment Grey wanted to deal out. Just like he had the night of the Traementis adoption ball, when Grey gut punched him in the shadows between two carriages. The night Vargo risked his life to save Grey’s.

Offering advice had improved Grey’s mood slightly, but now it soured again. “You’re not the one I want to beat up. Other people shouldn’t suffer for my mistakes.”

Vargo winced at the verbal thrust, but he didn’t cry Ninat. Instead he chewed briefly on his lip, then said, “How do you make it right, when you fail?”

“You can’t,” Grey said. To Vargo. To himself. “You just do better next time.”

The blades came up again, but Grey finished the final two passes quickly and cleanly. “You can have the coat delivered to my lodgings,” he said, bowing himself out of the ring. “I believe you know where they are.”

Dockwall, Lower Bank: Equilun 29

From its rooftops, Nadežra looked serene. Just a quiet sea of tiles and chimneys, rippled by the lines of the streets and canals, and the distant glimmer of the Dežera. Up here, Ren couldn’t see the problems and frustrations. Only the sleeping city, washed eldritch pale by the first quarter of Corillis.

She wished it could wash her own frustrations away.

Wherever Branek had taken himself and his prisoners after Floodwatch, it wasn’t any of the usual places. Staveswater was closed to him, Prazode still angry over his niece’s involvement with the Anduske. The Crimson Eyes’ stronghold held nothing more than the usual collection of Tserdev’s people. Branek hadn’t even trumpeted his success in capturing the Kiralič; whatever he hoped to accomplish there, it wasn’t a matter of public propaganda.

Maybe his real goal was to capture Mevieny. Koszar swore he hadn’t shared his plan for judgment by ordeal with anyone prior to the meeting. But Branek might have other uses for the speaker for the Ižranyi.

Unfortunately, if Branek didn’t want to advertise his achievement, the others couldn’t, either. It would cause too much chaos if people knew Mevieny and the Kiralič were being held prisoner. Which meant Ren and her allies had to be circumspect in their searching.

Below them, the warehouse lanes slumbered. The only sounds were the lapping of water from the canals, the creak of boats in their berths, the distant ringing of a buoy. With a weary sigh, Grey sank onto the roof and tipped his head up. Tess’s pins kept the replacement hood in place, but Corillis’s light flowed over his features, highlighting his cheekbones, the sculpted line of his lip.

“I’m sorry you have to spend your birthday like this.” He spoke in his own voice, not an approximation of the Rook’s.

“In your company?” Ren said, light and teasing. “Believe me, searching Dockwall is an improvement on what came before.”

“Your birthday dinner went badly?” He tugged her down to sit between his spread knees. They’d bantered as they searched, the Rook and the Black Rose, but it lacked its usual playfulness. He blamed himself: for the loss of the Rook, for the loss of his clan elder. His failures weighed heavily on him.

As Ren’s challenges weighed on her. “Donaia invited Letilia.”

Publicly, Renata’s birthday was in Colbrilun, but the Traementis knew the truth. Donaia—in a fit of generosity as misplaced as it was dutiful—had concluded that she shouldn’t exclude Renata’s mother, thereby forcing Ren to sit through two excruciating hours of sniping conversation.

She expected some comment from Grey, but he was oddly quiet. Finally he said, “Szeren… still you have told Donaia not?”

About herself. About the truth. “Not until I’ve dealt with Letilia.”

“Why?”

A straightforward question, softly delivered. Ren couldn’t stop herself from stiffening, even though Grey, with his body wrapped around her, would feel it. But it was Grey: She didn’t have to hide her tension from him. “The night of Giuna’s party, I was going to tell her. Then Letilia appeared—”

“All the more reason to speak, I would think. Take that weapon from Letilia’s hands.”

“What if Donaia uses it herself? No longer is she cursed, but the Primordial influence lingers. Whether she exposes me or Letilia does, the result will be the same. What little hold I have over our fellow medallion holders will shatter.”

His arms remained gentle, like he was holding a skittish cat. “Would that not have been true had you followed your original plan?”

It would. She hated him a little for noticing that, and simultaneously wanted to lean into him for comfort. One patient layer at a time, he was stripping away the deceptions she used to hide the truth… even from herself.

The night was quiet. Up on this roof, only Corillis and the stars were listening. And Grey, who would never turn from her.

“I am afraid,” Ren whispered, her chin dropping. “That once I tell Donaia the truth, she will see me as no different from Letilia. That she will cast me aside. That they all will.”

Like her mother’s family had cast Ivrina aside. For them, a half-Liganti daughter was unacceptable; for Donaia, a half-Vraszenian niece would be the same. And then the family Ren had acquired, the pretense of belonging… all that would be torn away.

She didn’t say that part, but she didn’t have to. Grey knew. He tucked her against the warmth of his chest, and Ren wished briefly that she weren’t in the Black Rose’s guise, that he weren’t costumed as the Rook. She wanted the elemental comfort of skin against skin, the freedom of shedding all her masks.

“The Traementis are not your only family, Szeren.” Grey still spoke quietly, his voice as much felt as heard. “Perhaps this is the wrong moment to offer, but… your kin. Wish you to know them?”

Ren went still. Past the lump in her throat, she said, “My mother’s koszenie was lost when Ondrakja disappeared.” If Ren still had the shawl, the embroidery would have told her everything; instead, all she had were faded, untrustworthy memories of the few times she’d managed to slip it out from where Ivrina kept it folded away. Had the final stitches at one corner been blue, for the Varadi? Or perhaps green, for the Dvornik? Was the other side Kiraly grey, or Anoškin white? Which side marked the clan of Ivrina’s birth?

Grey knew all of that. “There might be another way,” he said. “If you dance the kanina.”

The ceremony Vraszenians used to call up the spirits of their ancestors, the parts of their souls that remained in Ažerais’s Dream. Mostly they danced it for special occasions: births, weddings, deaths. The ancestors didn’t always appear, and it was never all of them; no one could control which ones came.

“My mother was cast out,” she forced herself to say. “Why would they listen to me?”

“Some kretse are more forgiving than others, not passing those judgments on to the children. Your mother’s might be one of them.” Grey untangled himself from her and stood, holding out one hand. “The only way to know is to try. It need not be now, but it risks nothing to learn the steps.”

Her rapid pulse had little to do with the exertions of the night. What if she danced, and no one answered?

Learn. Then you have the choice.

Ren took his hand and came to her feet. “Teach me.”

She’d seen the dance performed many times—well, she’d glimpsed it. When she was very young, Ivrina had always hurried her away, and after her mother was gone it became only a painful reminder of what she couldn’t have. The steps themselves were simple. The complexity came in the spinning, circling movements of the group as a whole… because like many Vraszenian traditions, the kanina was performed by the community, everyone from children barely old enough to walk to elders almost unable. Not by a single person.

We’re a community of two, Ren told herself. Will that be enough for my mother’s people? When the other is no kin of theirs?

A light touch on her jaw drew her from her thoughts. “Should I show you that again?” Grey asked, and Ren realized he was waiting. She’d missed her cue to switch to the three-soul-weave, the core figure that divided the segments of the dance like the chorus of a song.

She shook off her worries like water. “Walk it with me. We pass sunwise shoulder first?”

“Yes. It’s easier when you do this full speed; your momentum should carry you naturally forward. But the dance gets faster as it goes. Soon the eldest step out and the children go spinning off. The rest keep going until they can’t, and when everyone is exhausted…”

That was when the ancestors came. If they came at all.

Ren wasn’t about to try it tonight. When she had the steps down, Grey pulled her close for a kiss. “Whatever happens—with the kanina, or with Donaia—you will be all right. Clever Natalya always manages.”

“So long as she has her Constant Ivan.”

He laughed softly, tracing the edge of her lace mask. “Shall I bring four horses to pull your caravan?”

It was one of the most well-known folktales: the challenge Clever Natalya set to choose the next leader of her kureč, with Constant Ivan gathering horses from the dawn and the dusk, the slopes of the mountains and the shore of the sea. Thinking of it, Ren’s breath caught. “You already have.”

Grey tilted his head in confusion. She said, “A shawl full of knives, like the white horse Natalya rode into battle. A kitten to help me sleep, like the red horse to lighten her burdens. A card that promised honesty, like the black horse that shared her secrets. And—” She hesitated, knowing this would brush close to pain. “And the hood when you needed me to be the Rook. Like the gold horse who worked at her side.”

She wrapped his hand between hers and pressed lips to the thin leather glove, warmed by skin underneath. “To me, you truly are Constant Ivan.”

His thumb traced the curve of her cheek. His eyes, unshielded by the false hood, glimmered with what could as easily be moonlight as tears.

Voice rough, he said, “In some versions of the tale, they danced before their wedding. Not the kanina. Have you heard of the oszefon, the campfire dance?”

The phrase was distantly familiar, but it summoned up no images. When Ren shook her head, Grey’s fond smile took on a wicked slant. “No surprise. It is not a dance for children.”

Puzzled, she let him take her hands again. Grey said, “The oszefon is the flicker of flame, the curl of smoke, the heat between lovers. It is a duel as much as a dance, taking and being taken. I move into your space, and you yield so you can slip into mine.”

The basic step was easy; Ren picked it up quickly. “Good,” Grey said. “Now we do it in the proper hold.”

In one swift move, he pulled her flush against him. So this was why Ren’s mother hadn’t mentioned the oszefon… and why Grey claimed it wasn’t for children. The proper hold meant that Grey’s boot and knee slid between hers, his hand cupping hers against his chest. Ren had no alternative but to wind her free arm around his neck, fingers gliding across the wool of the hood, wishing they could nestle themselves in his hair.

“This is dancing?” she asked, her laughter breathless.

“The most intimate kind that still involves clothing,” he murmured in her ear, like the ghost of a caress. Then he began to move.

It was nothing like the stiff Liganti dances she’d learned, or the wild energy of the kanina. Ren was exquisitely aware of Grey’s body against hers, every shift of muscle and breath. Sometimes he moved at a slow drag, like pulling reluctantly from a kiss. Other times it was a staccato flash, pivots and flicks, igniting heat between them. “Every campfire throws sparks,” he whispered.

Ren dipped one foot between his legs, a delicate invasion; then it was her turn to retreat—if anything could be called a retreat when they were in contact from shoulder to knee. They were two bodies moving as one, nothing existing beyond the circling movements of the dance.

At least, until they were interrupted by the whump of a bag thrown over the roof’s lip, followed by the scuff of boots as the owner clambered after it.

The intruder was in his teens, in mismatched rags of black, with a pockmarked complexion and night-widened eyes. Too old to be a runner, but too young to make a good fist. His cry of surprise when he saw them got swallowed into something like a frog’s croak. “Tyrant’s nutsack, there’s two of you now?”

His instinctive recoil would have sent him off the rooftop, if Grey hadn’t lunged and caught him by his coat. The boy’s hands flew up to protect his face. “I’ll put it back! I didn’t take much, but I’ll return it all!”

Then, between parted fingers: “Wow. En’t nobody gonna believe I got nabbed by the Rook.”

Ren stifled a laugh. In the Black Rose’s voice, she said, “I think that tadpole can go back in the water, don’t you?”

“You’re not my type of target,” Grey agreed in the Rook’s voice, tugging the boy to a safer footing. “Besides, I think Lady Rose and I have somewhere else to be.”

She could read his meaning in his body, as if they were still entwined. Somewhere more private, and more comfortable, than a Dockwall warehouse roof.

Together they vanished into the night, leaving the boy alone with his awe and his sack of stolen goods.

5

Sword in Hand

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Apilun 8

Grey had moved in with Alinka after Kolya died, because her herbcraft didn’t bring in enough money to support her children on its own. Now that Donaia was paying for her services, Alinka didn’t need him there anymore. And his duelist’s stipend would cover a room in a lodging house for him.

The morning of Renata’s first trial, he was on the verge of telling Alinka as much when she said, “I would ask a favor of you.”

Had she come to the same conclusion he had? “Of course.”

“Yvieny is seven.” Alinka cast her gaze upward at the hammering of feet, coming distinctly through the floorboards. “She needs her koszenie.”

She marked age the way it was done in Vraszan, with pregnancy counting as the first year of life. At the age of seven, children were supposed to receive their koszenie, the embroidered shawl that recorded a Vraszenian’s lineage. By tradition, the mother stitched her side, and the father, his. A tradition not everyone followed—not everyone had enough skill with a needle—but Kolya would have.

“If only I had nagged Kolya to start the moment Yvie sprouted her milk teeth, and Jagyi too, so something of their father they might still have. Now, you are what they have of him.” Alinka laid her hand over his on the table. “Will you help me with it?”

The question went through him like a hot spike. Her request made sense; if a parent was absent or unable, the next best thing was for a family member to step in. But how many times had Grey been kept away from ceremonies, his grandmother insisting that his presence would anger the deities? Stitching Yvieny’s shawl would be tantamount to stitching that poison into her blood.

Alinka knew all of that. Yet her gaze was steady, and her hand, covering his, didn’t move.

A knock came at the door before he could master his tongue enough to respond. Sighing, Alinka got up—and stiffened in surprise at the sight of the tall Liganti woman outside.

Grey leapt to his feet. “Meda Cercel.”

“Serrado. How many times do I have to say the formalities aren’t necessary?”

“You call me ‘Serrado,’” he pointed out. “It feels odd to call you ‘Agniet’ in reply.”

Her sigh was half laugh. “Fair. And I… well. May I come in?”

Alinka excused herself to quiet the children playing upstairs. Grey gestured his former commander to the table and offered tea, which she refused. Just as well—he needed to be at the Palaestra soon. But Cercel wouldn’t have come all the way to Kingfisher without good reason; he could spare a moment.

“Congratulations on your new position,” Cercel said once he sat. “Are you happy in it?”

Cautiously, Grey said, “So far, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t take you up on the offer of finding me work as a mercenary—”

Cercel waved his apology aside. “That’s not why I’m asking. Once the new Caerulet is installed, those who quit the Vigil in protest over that business with the Ordo Apis will be allowed back in. If they want. I’m here to ask if you would consider it.”

A month ago he would have said no, easily and with pleasure. But now…

A Vigil officer had power a common duelist didn’t. Like the power to track Letilia’s movements and help Ren neutralize her.

Grey ran a hand through his hair, feeling a length it hadn’t had in years. Almost long enough for a stubby braid. If he rejoined the Vigil, he would have to cut it again—and Ren would be sad. Not just for the hair itself, but for what the change would imply.

Sighing, he said, “I’m not certain there’s any point. It would just be more of the same.”

“What if it weren’t more of the same?” Cercel asked, ignoring a childish shriek from upstairs. “I know that’s a lot for you to imagine. But if the new Caerulet disbanded the Ordo Apis, reformed the Vigil, did all the things you and I both know are needed. Would you come back then?”

Grey made himself consider it, because without rank separating them, Cercel was a friend. In the end, though, his answer was unchanged. “I’d love to see that. But I don’t have the fire to make it happen, not anymore. I’m sorry, Meda Cercel.” He winced. “Agniet.”

Cercel straightened her gloves, in a rare show of awkwardness. “About that. Keep this in your pocket until it’s public, but… technically, as of this morning, I’m Alta Agniet Cercel Coscani.”

Grey jolted like he’d broken an active numinat. “You’re a member of House Coscanum now?”

“Adopted. Yes.”

And that swiftly, the whole conversation came clear. “You’re Caerulet.”

Her mouth bent wryly. “Not yet, no. But if all goes well, I will be. There aren’t many suitable candidates, so Alta Faella had the bright idea of ennobling somebody new to put forward. Please, no jokes about the seat being cursed.”

It wasn’t cursed—not anymore. The poison that used to infect the city’s Caerulets was in Vargo’s hands now. Which meant that, for the first time since Kaius Rex died, there was a chance of someone not trying to strangle Nadežra into their vision of order.

And if there was anyone Grey would trust in the military seat, it was his former commander.

Not least because she hadn’t leaned on their friendship to get him to return. She’d presented it neutrally, letting him decide on the basis of his own feelings. “You’re a good choice,” he said, with complete sincerity. “And I wish you the best of luck.”

“But you still won’t return.” Cercel sighed and stood. “I understand. It’s a damn shame, though, Serrado. Maybe some of your former patrol will, at least.”

“I’ll talk to them,” he promised. “And—if Pavlin rejoins—”

She nodded without hesitation. “Lieutenant. He deserves it.”

Pavlin would need the higher pay if he ever wanted to set up his own household. With, for example, a certain Ganllechyn seamstress. The thought made Grey smile. “Thank you. Now if you’ll pardon me…”

Cercel raised an eyebrow at the mask lying on the table. “Going somewhere? Perhaps to the Palaestra?”

“I hear there’s to be dueling. A good way for a man to establish his reputation.”

She clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll do well.”

As he opened the door for her, he asked, “Do you know yet who you’ll appoint as high commander?”

“I was thinking Serinval Isorran.”

Grey’s thoughtful nod stopped mid-dip. “House Isorran has some Vraszenian ancestry.” Several generations back, and most people had forgotten, but Ryvček had mentioned it once.

Cercel smiled blandly. “Do they? I hadn’t realized.”

Laughing quietly, Grey gave her the bow due from a commoner to an alta—but not the title. “I look forward to seeing a new Vigil, Cercel. Meanwhile, I’ve got some duels to win.”

The Palaestra, Floodwatch: Apilun 8

The first Trial of the Volti would have drawn a crowd and a makeshift market regardless of weather, but mild days and sunny skies meant people came out in droves. Wandering through the close-packed masses, Giuna regretted the sleeves of fine caprash wool tied onto her surcoat. They’d seemed like a good idea when she left Traementis Manor, but now her arms were prickly with sweat.

She wasn’t the only one feeling the warmth. People had come out in Nadežran-style masks, imitating the heavier Seterin volti worn by the competitors, but most were using theirs as makeshift fans while browsing the stalls crammed in behind the spectator stands. A gaggle of children were staging mock duels with skewers of candied hawberry; their only face covering was sticky red syrup as they shouted bloodthirsty taunts. At the edge of the grounds, performers with painted faces worked the fringes of the crowd. The most popular featured blades to play up the draw of the day: knife juggling and throwing, blade dancing, sword-swallowing.

Giuna paused to watch a man with his head thrown back taking a length of steel easily as long as his forearm. Someone jostled her elbow and she turned, half expecting a sly comment about the performance that would make her blush and stammer… but it was only a stranger pushing past.

Why should it be anyone else? Leato was dead. Sibiliat was under house arrest, for reasons nobody would explain. Parma had disappeared from society, leaving Bondiro to mope and Egliadas with nobody to leaven his surly lack of humor. Renata was always busy, and besides, her aura of cool elegance made it hard to imagine her offering raunchy comments.

Who else did Giuna have, after a life lived mostly from the window of her bedchamber with a book in her lap? Her other friends were acquaintances at best, and had only become even that much after the Traementis fortunes were repaired.

Sighing, she removed her mask to ply it as a fan and continued on from the sword-swallower, alone.

Most of the Palaestra grounds were taken up by the dueling ring and the spectator stands, with the volti using the building itself as their staging area. Some already circulated through the crowd, recognizable by their full-faced masks. According to Renata, the tradition had its roots in the visored helmets worn by equites in Seteris, which allowed them to contend anonymously in tournaments. But in Nadežra, the plain helms of the archaic past had been transformed by local practice, and the competitors once identified by the emblems on their banners were instead named for their fantastical masks.

Like the fox-masked woman in front of the Palaestra’s columns, arguing with Argentet’s secretary.

“I told you, it was paid,” the Fox Volto said with mounting irritation. “My aunt would not lie about such matters, nor such a mistake let slip.” The spice of Vraszan flavored her tongue and gave her words bite.

“I can’t find any record of entry payment,” said the secretary, without opening the ledger at his elbow. Instead, he laid his hand across the table, palm up. The dueling tournament limited the field to those permitted to carry swords, but that included a certain number of commoners—and it seemed this man saw that as license to solicit bribes.

The Fox Volto huffed. “So it is incentive you need?”

His oily smile congealed when she smacked his hand aside. Her other hand landed on the hilt of her blade. “Perhaps instead my skill you need to see.”

Rising from his seat, the secretary snapped, “You—”

“Ah, you’ve arrived!” Giuna leapt forward and caught the hand that rested on the sword. The woman’s gauntlets hung from her belt, and the warmth of her hand through the fine cotton of Giuna’s gloves felt like an imposition. But Giuna could hardly withdraw now. “What took you so long? Cousin Renata sent me to make certain you were settled.”

After only a quicksilver moment of hesitation, the Fox Volto laughed softly and disengaged her hand from Giuna’s—but only so she could twine their arms together. Sunlight caught fire in the woman’s dark brown braids, casting an auburn halo of curling wisps around her head. “I owe her thanks. Especially when the messenger is as much a pearl as the mistress.”

With no mask to hide behind, Giuna could only conceal her fluster with a frown. She turned to the gaping registrar. “I’m certain if you check again, you’ll find my friend in the ledger.” She let her smile sweeten, like hawberries hiding the skewer inside. “Or I can ask Eret Novrus to help, if you’re having trouble. He’d hate for any of Alta Renata’s volti to be turned away.”

“No need, Alta Giuna. I… I must have overlooked it. Please.” He shoved a competitor’s badge at the woman like a Vraszenian propitiating the Masks.

“I’m sorry for that,” Giuna said, leading the Fox Volto up the shallow steps into the Palaestra, now segmented into chambers by screens. “His Elegance has been trying to eradicate this sort of graft, but these things take time.” She scanned the dim interior, looking for Iascat. If one registrant had been refused, there might be others.

The Fox Volto’s smile was audible in her voice. “I can hardly complain when such a pretty defender stepped in to save me.”

Giuna swallowed. Sibiliat had flirted, but her words had been a snake’s, all twisting phrases and whispered innuendo that could mean anything—and that could be ignored when it became confusing. Giuna didn’t know what to do with such charmingly blatant flirtation.

But she’d learned what to do with people who treated her heart like a game.

Untwining her arm, Giuna took a step back. “You can find your way from here. But a word of warning; you’re wasting your time competing for Alta Renata’s attention. She prefers men. And you’re wasting your breath flirting with me. I prefer people who aren’t using me to get to my cousin.”

The laugh that followed was muffled by the mask, until the woman pushed it up, revealing skin brown enough to confirm that Vraszan was in her blood. She was still nipper-cheeked, maybe even as young as Giuna. And where Giuna expected to find mockery, the lopsided smile she flashed was wry and begged forgiveness. “I’m put in my place—though I can’t promise I’ll stop flirting. My aunt claims it’s as necessary for those in our profession as water for fish. Though for such a brave protector as you, I could be happy to drown.” A wink punctuated her contrition. “I promise I’ve no interest in the fair Renata. I compete to show my skill only, and perhaps earn some regard.”

“Oh.” Now Giuna felt foolish, and it was nobody’s fault but her own. The young woman carried herself like a blade—bright flashing and spring-steel grace. Of course she was here to prove her mettle. Giuna scrambled for an apology and came out with “Your aunt?”

“Is well enough known that I hardly need to add to her renown by speaking her name. But I am Kasienka Ryvček.” Bowing in the archaic manner favored by Vraszenian swordmasters, Kasienka lifted Giuna’s gloved hand. From atop her head, the vixen mask laughed.

And instead of kissing Giuna’s fingers, Kasienka turned her hand over and kissed the inside of her wrist, right where the short glove exposed the skin.

Struggling for breath that had gone the way of her wits, Giuna said, “I’m… Giuna. Traementis.”

“I know,” Kasienka said with another wink. Pulling her mask down, she added, “Perhaps today, I’ll fight for your attention instead.”

She certainly had it as she sauntered away, hips swaying a bit more than necessary. Giuna tugged her glove more tightly onto her hand as though that could stop her shiver. What would Mother say? Donaia might be happy to extend kindness to Grey and his family, but her heir flirting with Oksana Ryvček’s niece would be a different matter.

So what? Giuna thought, suddenly fierce. Why shouldn’t I flirt with her? Sibiliat had been of the right station in life, and see how that had turned out. And it wasn’t as if Giuna was looking to marry. She just wanted to enjoy herself for once.

Resolving to cheer the Fox Volto on, she headed for the stands.

The Palaestra, Floodwatch: Apilun 8

In hindsight, perhaps Renata should have staged the first trial somewhere other than the Palaestra—somewhere with more space.

Faella was right, she thought, peering through the curtains at the back of the box where she would sit to watch the duels. People are hungry for a spectacle. Her field of view was limited, but the crowds packing the stands made her hope the carpenters they’d hired to build this temporary arena hadn’t cut any corners. There had been problems with that in the past, stands collapsing under too much weight, people injured or even killed.

But Renata wasn’t Crelitto Traementis, nor any of the other nobles who put profit above safety. And Faella, from whose coffers came much of the funding for this event, would hardly want it marred by tragedy. Not when she was clearly so keen for it to bring a bit of peace to the city.

“—but if they lose two duels in sequence, then it will come down to the points they’ve scored—”

Tanaquis’s reminder to Letilia of how the duels would work had been going on for several minutes, and she still wasn’t done. Renata hadn’t really expected her to agree to handle the logistics; she’d made the request in what she thought was a vain bid to distract her cousin from the rift with Utrinzi. To her surprise, Tanaquis had eagerly accepted. Renata didn’t want to set it up such that a volto had to win every single duel—too much chance for something to go wrong with Grey, Vargo, or both—and so Tanaquis, relishing the mathematical challenge, had instead designed a complex system to determine who would proceed to the second trial.

Too complex, in Renata’s opinion. But it seemed to make Tanaquis happy.

And it irritated Letilia, who interrupted the explanation with a flap of a ring-heavy gloved hand and a dramatic yawn. “Take your numbers to Mede Beldipassi. Only the gamblers care.” She nudged Renata aside with her hip, poking her pointed nose through the gap to survey the crowd, and thereby missed the way Tanaquis’s fingers clenched around her pencil.

“If you don’t explain the rules properly to the crowd, they won’t—”

“The crowd didn’t come for rules. They came to see blood, sweat, and a bit of dash. A proper welcome for a prodigal daughter’s return.” Letilia patted Renata’s arm, though clearly she was referring to herself. “I think it’s just about time to give it to them. Wait back here until I introduce you, poppet.”

“But—” Tanaquis’s reach fell short of Letilia’s draped sleeve as the woman swished through the curtain and out onto the announcer’s dais.

“What odds would you give that she ‘forgets’ to call me forward?” Renata said, feeling guilty at the amusement she took from the murder sparking in Tanaquis’s grey eyes.

“Even,” Tanaquis grumbled. “Better an empty register than a mother like that.”

If only it were that simple. Ren had been delighted when she got a position as Letilia’s maid: Serving the influential mistress of one of Ganllech’s many petty princes had seemed as far from her life as a Finger as she could get. Only with time had she come to realize the ways in which Letilia resembled Ondrakja. But in both cases, what was her alternative? Life on the street, without a protector. An empty register, to put it in Liganti terms, would have been the least of her worries.

Letilia hardly needed the amplification numinat scribed onto the dais. Her voice came through all too clearly, welcoming the crowd in terms that made it sound like they’d come to see her. But if that kept her docile long enough for Ren to work, it was a small price to pay—even if Ren stifled a grimace when Letilia started rambling in her terrible accent about who better to oversee a Seterin tradition than a woman who was practically Seterin herself?

If Renata had actually bet on Letilia leaving her out, though, she would have lost. At long last—and carefully avoiding the word “daughter”—Letilia proclaimed her in a voice they could probably hear in Whitesail, and Renata stepped through the curtain.

The stands were a riot of color, everyone turned out in their festival best. Not just nobility and gentry, either; Renata had reserved a portion of the tickets for Lower Bank attendees. Faella had promptly fenced them off in the worst seats, but they still made a grand show, panel coats and knotwork charms in abundance. A little gossip spread via Arkady had ensured Vraszenians knew Grey Serrado was among the volti, and he already had supporters.

Knowing the crowd’s anticipation would soon dull, Renata kept her own speech short. Soon she declared, “My favor is not easily given, and I would see the ones who seek to win it. Call forth the volti!”

The crowd took up her cry. “The volti! The volti!”

And from the tent on the far side of the dueling grounds, a double line of masked figures emerged. They formed a glittering river of silk and velvet, jewels and beads and bright metal wire. The pale fabrics of Liganti fashion had been thrown aside as each attempted to outshine the others, not a dull hen to be found in the parade of peacocks. With their faces masked, they sparkled their way into anonymity: a gold sun; silver Corillis and copper Paumillis; beasts familiar and fantastical; shapes drawn from the numinata; and even a few masks inspired by pattern cards. Renata was surprised to see those, but perhaps she shouldn’t have been. Alta Renata’s interest in Vraszenian superstition had become widespread gossip.

After they’d paraded a circuit around the stands, waving and collecting thrown flowers and ribbons, the volti snaked into a single line. Letilia swept her hand down, and as one they dropped to their knees.

“Oh, I could do that all day,” she murmured with a giddy giggle. Renata descended the stairs before Letilia decided to play puppet master with several score people bearing swords.

One by one the kneeling volti rose and introduced themselves, not by name, but by the devices of their masks. As Renata curtsied and wished each of them well, she wondered if one face in particular hid beneath a volto. There was a chance Ninat’s holder would see the promised boon as a chance to win some kind of protection for himself.

If he had, Tanaquis would find out. Every competitor was required to unmask for her at the time of elimination.

As with their attire, each volto attempted to stand out from the crowd, with poems and gifts. The Fox Volto offered her a sleek dagger made for use rather than ornament; the Storm Volto gave Renata a glove—a move that received jeers from the crowd, who considered that joke played out. Vargo, in a shining prismatium mask whose polished surface almost evoked The Mask of Mirrors, presented her with a box of fine Vraszenian chocolates.

“But won’t it melt in this sun?” Renata asked, smiling archly, as though her question and this whole exchange were extempore rather than scripted.

“Then the alta should enjoy them now. Allow me.” Flipping tradition into the river, Vargo stood—angling to the side so that they could be seen from the stands—and took Renata’s free hand. He peeled the glove down her arm slowly, to the scandalized gasps and delighted murmurs of the crowd.

He had reached her wrist when a third hand grabbed his arm and pulled it away.

“Is this how a volto shows respect?” asked the Raven Volto, his sober, storm-dark coat and feathered mask an inkblot that marked him out from the gaudy array. He stood opposite Vargo, the three of them clasping wrists like they were swearing oaths. Ren had an impulse to close the circle.

Vargo’s chuckle was loud enough to carry. “You’d rather she dirty her glove?”

“Why should she, when another can take on such burdens for her?” Releasing his grip, the Raven Volto stripped off his gauntlet and plucked a confection from the open box. He held it before Renata’s lips, letting her choose to close the last handspan of distance.

Knowing that nobody but the three of them was close enough to see it, Ren let her tongue flick out the tiniest bit to catch Grey’s bare skin. It tasted of chocolate and spice, leather and salt.

Rubbing his empty fingers together as though pocketing a kiss, the Raven Volto lowered his arm and knelt. Vargo let out a shaky breath and a low curse that nearly had Ren breaking character with laughter, but he gathered himself enough to kneel as well.

She had to force herself to continue down the line with Renata’s poise, giving all the volti time to present themselves, before clapping her hands and calling for the duels to begin.

The volti retired to their staging area, all except those who were up first. Renata took her seat in the box, now filled with the guests Letilia had invited to join them. People would circulate all day, but by dint of her social influence and involvement with the trials, Faella had first claim to the seat next to Renata’s. She leaned in close when Renata sat down, her voice as sharp as the blades now flashing in the light. “A pretty show—but don’t forget your side of the bargain. Marvisal still refuses to speak to me.”

“She refuses to speak to anyone.” Last week Renata had wasted an hour sitting outside Marvisal’s closed door, trying and failing to coax the young woman into conversation.

“I don’t understand that girl.” Faella sniffed. “If she would just tell me what she wants, I would give it to her.”

Underneath her serene facade, frustration roiled. Thanks to the Illi-ten medallion, Faella had rarely had to face not knowing what the people around her wanted. But was she stymied because she’d stopped using her medallion, or because Marvisal’s desires were outside of Illi’s purview?

Renata couldn’t demand answers from Faella out in the open. And before she could do more than contemplate dragging the other woman somewhere more private, Letilia’s shrill laugh pierced her skull.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll have some excitement before the end! You can hardly have this many duels and not expect some bloodshed. You know, I tried to persuade Renata to pit the volti against wild animals. It’s very popular in Seteris, having them fight lions or bears. But she’s too squeamish.”

Renata entertained a brief vision of tipping Letilia over the railing into a boar pit. Such a tragic accident. I mourn her loss.

She distracted herself by watching the duels. Some competitors lost embarrassingly fast, but the Prismatium Volto wasn’t one of them. Either Vargo had found a miracle sword imbued to make its wielder an expert swordsman—which wasn’t even how imbuing worked, outside of tales—or he’d found some way to cheat. As long as he wasn’t caught, she didn’t particularly mind.

And it was a pleasure to watch Grey at work. He couldn’t indulge in the Rook’s panache, of course; she was surprised he’d even risked the raven mask. But he fought with an economy and elegance that held their own beauty, stretching out his duels just long enough to make for a good show, then finishing his opponents off with deft ease.

Keeping her eyes on Grey, though, meant she wasn’t watching Letilia—which proved to be a mistake.

“Would you have fought for me like this, if my father had called three trials for my hand?” Letilia asked, fanning herself coyly with a mask of stiffened paper and swan feathers. Most of the time, it was easy to ignore her terrible flirting. But now her target was Scaperto Quientis.

“I’m afraid I lack skill with the blade,” he replied politely, ramrod straight and focusing on the current bout like he’d spent a lifetime following the dueling world.

Letilia laughed as if he’d said something witty, leaning as close as the arms of their chairs allowed. “How lucky for you that you needed no ridiculous spectacle to win my favor.”

“I thank Quarat every day for my good fortune,” Scaperto said, his voice so flat that Renata nearly choked on her wine. His stiff posture broke as Letilia nudged even closer. “Is there something wrong with your chair, alta, that you feel the need to crawl into mine?”

“The sun is shifting; I must stay out of it. My daughter and I have to be careful. Our skin browns so easily, you know.”

She favored Ren with a smile sweet as poison-laced almonds. The demand for assistance was clear, but Ren didn’t know what Letilia expected her to do. Did she think she could revive some flame that never existed? Scaperto hadn’t shed one tear over the breaking of that betrothal.

“Come sit beside me,” Renata said, though the words were like pulling teeth. “I’m well in the shade.”

Scaperto stood fast enough that his chair threatened to topple. “And I see Mede Bagacci. I’ve been meaning to speak to him about dredging the Lower Bank canals—if you’ll excuse me.”

Letilia was too good at the game to let her scowl at his paper-thin excuse last for more than an instant. Then she smoothed it away and came to sit alongside Renata. Before she could speak, Renata said under her breath, “If you provoke Donaia by angling for Scaperto, you’ll only make my task harder.”

“He was mine before he was ever hers. And what’s she going to do, marry into Quientis? She has her own register to worry about. Meanwhile, I’m only doing as you suggested, making use of this opportunity while you laze about. I’m beginning to question why I should keep my silence.” Letilia brushed the feathers of her mask along her cheek, lips pursing in thought. “Wouldn’t Scaperto be grateful to me, if I revealed the truth? Some of your crimes fall under Fulvet’s jurisdiction.”

This was a dangerous conversation to have in public. Letilia knew that, and was doing it to underscore her threat. Gritting her teeth, Renata rose to her feet. “Then come. My friend Parma wasn’t able to make it today, but I see Ucozzo Extaquium in the stands. Let’s invite him to join us.”

The Palaestra, Floodwatch: Apilun 8

As with all things in life, money and rank bought privileges unavailable to other people. In the case of this tournament, they secured Vargo a private changing cubicle within the Palaestra. It was only a temporary shelter of four canvas walls open to the marble roof above, but it gave him a place to rest between bouts.

During bouts, too—since he wasn’t the one fighting.

A single brief lesson with Grey Serrado wasn’t remotely enough to make Vargo a contender in this trial. But since it wouldn’t do Ren’s plan any good for him to be ignominiously knocked out in his first duel, he’d hired a substitute: someone of the right build and, with the help of walnut dye, the right hair color to take his place. Rather than faking a scar on the other man’s throat, which might peel off under the sweat of exertion, they both wore collars high enough to hide the mark. Now the “manservant” who’d accompanied him into the Palaestra was doing all the hard work, while Vargo hid away with bare face and hands, entertaining himself with a deck of cards.

A muffled cheer went up just as Vargo beat himself at sixes for the fourteenth time. ::That’s the final point secured,:: Alsius said. ::You might have instructed him to be more sportsmanlike. He walked off without helping Manghisca out of the dust.::

I told him not to, Vargo thought, gathering the cards and tucking the deck away. Manghisca shorted us on that last shipment of cochineal. People would expect me to hold a grudge.

::Good thinking,:: Alsius said. ::He’s accepted his victory token and is on his way back—oh no. Oh dear.::

Vargo sprang to his feet, but he couldn’t just go charging out. What’s happened?

::One of the arbiters just stopped him,:: Alsius said. ::I’m not close enough to hear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t look good.::

The spare mask Vargo had brought would hide his identity, but it wouldn’t give him any grounds to intervene. He yanked the stiffened fabric over his face anyway, and by the time he left the curtained cubicle, he had an idea.

Alsius was thinking along similar lines. ::His Elegance is overseeing the replacement of the lemon water.::

Keeping his head low and his shoulders hunched like a servant busy with his work, Vargo swiped one of the discarded pitchers and sidled up to Iascat. “Eret Novrus, a word?”

Iascat’s confused question died on parted lips when he met Vargo’s eyes. Scowling, he dragged them both behind the nearest screen. “If you’re going to cheat, you’re supposed to stay hidden—not reveal your deception to the man responsible for stopping such things.”

“I meant to, but one of your arbiters is hassling my decoy.”

“I won’t ask how you know that.” Running a hand through hair that looked its best when unartfully mussed, Iascat sighed. “I suppose you expect me to help.”

His petulance should have made him seem surly, but all it did was draw attention to the soft fullness of his frowning lips. Vargo caught the lower one with his thumb. The drag of bare skin over soft flesh echoed the game Grey had played with Renata, minus the chocolate to lend it sweetness. “I’d be grateful if you would.”

Iascat smacked his hand away. Not roughly, but Vargo flinched all the same. “Your gratitude is apparently all you’re willing to give. At least to me.”

Lifting his mask to better read what had crawled up Iascat’s nose, Vargo said, “Are you… jealous?”

That pale skin flushed so easily. “I believed you when you said you weren’t interested in emotional entanglements with anyone. But it seems Renata isn’t just anyone.”

Vargo sighed. They’d been meeting more often since Iascat took the Argentet seat, and not always to discuss the business with the medallions. He’d gotten to know Iascat very well.

Well enough to recognize how much he sounded like his aunt Sostira.

And well enough not to phrase it quite that bluntly. “You sure that’s you talking, and not Tuat?”

As easily as Iascat’s skin flushed, it also blanched. His hand flew to the vesica piscis brooch at his throat, the symbol of Argentet’s office. “I… Shit.” His brow hit Vargo’s shoulder and rested there. “Can we pretend I didn’t just make a fool of myself?”

“We can play whatever games you want. Later. If you get me through this trial.” Vargo buried his hand in Iascat’s hair and gently tugged his head up. “Renata’s counting on me to court everyone’s disapproval, so they’ll rally to support the person she wants to win.”

Iascat gave him a flat look. “It didn’t occur to you that a friend might be able to help with that?’”

“Tuat’s your weakness to guard against right now.” Vargo grimaced. “Sessat’s mine.”

Tugging the mask back over Vargo’s face, Iascat laid a finger across his paper lips. “Go back to your hiding place. I’ll rescue your decoy.”

The Palaestra, Floodwatch: Apilun 8

By the time his final duel ended, Grey wanted nothing more than to drain the entire jug of chilled lemon-mint water set out for the competitors. He was used to sparring, and the cooling numinata Tess had swapped from Vargo’s coat to Grey’s kept him from overheating completely, but fighting in a full-face mask… he felt like he’d dipped his head in a basin of sweat. His mouth, by contrast, was as parched as dry rice, craving a cool, tart drink.

He’d seen firsthand, though, what happened to those who gave in to that urge. If Vargo hadn’t stopped him at the beginning of the day, Grey might have been one of them. “I don’t recommend it,” Vargo had said, nodding at the drinks laid out inside the Palaestra. “Saw someone adding to the jug, and I don’t think it was honey.” The competitors who’d bolted for the privy not long after gave miserable testimony to the wisdom of his warning.

A few stragglers were still fighting their last duels, but the staging area was crowded with volti bemoaning their losses or crowing victory. Some kept their masks on, but nearly everyone had shucked their coats and wore only wrinkled and sweat-limp shirtsleeves. Not even the numinata blowing air through the pavilion were enough to whisk away the funk of bodies after a day’s exertion.

Still, the sweat and the smell couldn’t dent Grey’s good mood. While passing the first trial didn’t require a volto to win all of their matches, if they wanted the crowd’s favor, that was the bar they had to clear. And he’d done it with ease, despite the best efforts of others to thrash him in the ring. Some had targeted him because he was Vraszenian—his mask might cover his face, but not his hair or the back of his neck—but the real challenges came from the professional duelists, who saw him as Donaia’s pet. After years without a house duelist, why would she hire a Vraszenian, unless it was out of pity? Grey’s victories today had earned him not only a token for the next trial, but also—he hoped—a modicum of respect.

A foolish hope, he discovered as he headed for fresher air outside.

In the close-packed pavilion, the elbow that caught him under the ribs could be mistaken for an accident, but the kick to the back of his knee could not. Grey let himself drop, bringing his hands up to catch the foot aimed at his head. He almost took the woman down with him, but caution held him back. He’d been in this play before, countless times during his early days in the Vigil. If he retaliated, then when the dust settled, he would be the only one blamed.

By that same logic, his attackers couldn’t keep it up for long without attracting notice. Grey let go of the woman and concentrated on shielding his head, leaving his ribs to fend for themselves.

Too late, he realized that left his pockets fair game for someone who wouldn’t have lasted a bell working a Lower Bank crowd.

“What’s going on here?”

Iascat Novrus truly had grown into his new position; his tone was authoritative enough that it snapped Grey to his feet. But with the pummeling he’d taken, could anyone blame him if he lurched into one of his attackers as he rose? The man wore a constellation mask, but Grey recognized him by the mole on the right side of his neck. He was a fellow duelist, Arran Licino. A skilled swordsman—he’d collected his victory token early on—and vocal about how he deserved the Traementis position more than a certain Lower Bank upstart.

“Apologies, Your Elegance,” Licino said. “It’s the crowds in here. The Raven Volto tripped.”

Iascat’s gaze found Grey. “Is this true?”

How many times had he been asked that question? The answer always had to be the same. “Yes, Your Elegance. I’m quite tired, and it made me clumsy.”

Snorting a laugh, Licino let his friends lead him away. After a curious once-over, Iascat strode off as well. Grey was entertaining visions of the Rook paying the Licino townhouse a visit that night when a hand touched his elbow. This time reflexes took over: He caught the wrist and flipped it into a lock.

“Ow,” Vargo said.

Grey let go like he’d grabbed a red-hot iron. “Sorry.”

“My own fault,” Vargo said, shaking the discomfort from his wrist. His prismatium volto reflected a distorted rainbow. “Check your pocket. I think one of them filched your victory token.”

“They did. That was the whole point of attacking me. Well, that and teaching me a lesson.”

Vargo’s other hand held a glass of lemon-mint water. He looked at it and said, “I was coming to offer you this—it’s fresh, and safe to drink—but we’d better go get your token back.”

Even as he spoke, though, chimes began ringing, signaling the victorious duelists to present themselves outside for the closing ceremony.

A ceremony in which they would display their victory tokens, thus earning themselves a place in the next round.

“Shit. There’s no time. Here.” Vargo handed Grey the water and dug in the pocket of his waistcoat. Apparently he’d had time to change. In fact, he looked as fresh and crisp as someone who’d been lounging around all day… which Grey suspected was true, given how well the Prismatium Volto had done in his duels. Thrusting his token at Grey—a carved wooden disc bearing crossed swords—Vargo said, “Either way the plan is fucked, but better this way than the other.”

Grey eyed the token like a trap. Not because he didn’t trust Vargo, but because he didn’t want to be grateful to him. And Vargo was right; it would ruin Ren’s plan for him to be eliminated this early. If Grey accepted his help, though, he wouldn’t have to show skills he’d prefer Vargo not know he possessed.

He saw you and the Rook in a room together. You’re safe.

Shaking out the sleeve of his free hand, Grey let its contents drop into his palm: another carved wooden disc. “Thanks, but Licino seems to have misplaced his own.”

The prismatium mask hid Vargo’s expression, but not the wry laugh that followed. “Guess you really are a gutter cat underneath those feathers.”

Feathers. Did he mean the raven mask Grey wore now or the hawk’s uniform he’d molted this past summer? Or… something else?

There wasn’t time to ask. Draining the water—sweet and fresh and tart, as welcome as rain in summer—Grey said, “Let’s go present ourselves to Alta Renata.”

The Palaestra, Floodwatch: Apilun 8

With so many duelists competing, the first trial made for a long day. The crowds had thinned somewhat by the end, and Renata herself was more than ready to escape to a quiet room and a soft bed.

So far, though, all had gone according to plan. She hadn’t gotten everything she hoped for out of the day; Tanaquis reported that Ninat’s holder was nowhere among the losing duelists. But both the Raven Volto and the Prismatium Volto had won all their duels, ensuring themselves places in the second trial. If the latter had succeeded in part thanks to one opponent very obviously throwing a fight, that would only feed through the rumors: a nice little flourish Ren assumed had been Vargo’s idea.

Except that when the successful volti lined up before her, she didn’t see those two masks anywhere among them. They darted into the arena at the last moment, as if something had delayed them. Was that, too, part of the tale they were trying to sell? Or had something gone wrong?

Whatever had happened, it didn’t interfere with the results. After Letilia had flattered the winning volti with praise for their skill and courage, she bid them present the fruits of their victory to Renata.

Tokens in hand, Renata took her place on the amplification numinat. Directing her words as much to the crowd as to the volti, she proclaimed, “In two weeks, we shall hold the second trial: a boat race through the canals of the Lower Bank!”

A ripple of dubious murmurs greeted that, subsiding when Renata raised her hands. “But I have no wish to expose anyone to the foulness of the water there.” She laid the faintest stress on anyone, which did more to quiet the murmurs than mere gesture. “So I hope you’ll permit me a small indulgence of self-congratulation. In one week’s time, I invite you all to a grand celebration in Horizon Plaza. Eret Derossi Vargo is ready at last to fulfill the terms of the Traementis charter—to replace the West Channel cleansing numinat. The Dežera will run pure and clean once more!”

The noise this time was no ripple. A wave of cheers rose, crested, and showed no signs of ebbing. Pounding feet shook the stands, people hugging and flinging their masks in the air.

And if the jubilation came louder from the common stands than those of the cuffs, Ren didn’t mind at all.

6

The Mask of Worms

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Apilun 10

Donaia tore off her gloves the moment she entered Traementis Manor, slapping them onto the hall table rather than throwing them in Colbrin’s face. He didn’t deserve such treatment, but her fury demanded release.

“Letilia,” she snarled like it was the foulest curse, and his pinched brow smoothed into understanding. The nerve of that woman! Swooping down on her lunch meeting with Scaperto, peppering him with pointed questions about how he came to take the Fulvet seat from the Traementis, was it in recompense for their broken betrothal…

“Wouldn’t it be a boon if I could get my hands on Fulvet,” Letilia blithely said as he fled to the Charterhouse—and it was unclear if she meant the seat or the man.

It had taken all Donaia’s self-control to remove herself from the ostretta without burning the place down. Now she said to Colbrin, “I’ll be in my study. No interruptions.”

Her new study was on the ground floor, a sunny room with a wall of windows overlooking the back garden and a door for Meatball to go in and out. Smaller and brighter than the cave her husband and generations of Traementis heads had used—where Meppe now worked his bookkeeping magic—it lightened her heart simply to be there.

Usually. Not today. Why did the steel of Renata’s spine soften to wet paper in the face of her mother’s demands? You know the answer, Donaia thought. Gianco had never been able to stand up to his father, Crelitto, either. Renata had to cross the sea to get out from under her mother’s thumb, but now that thumb had followed her. And all the rest of Letilia, too. The woman was a curse wherever she went.

A curse.

Donaia stood utterly still, caught by her own sudden thought. The day Crelitto struck Letilia from the register, he’d made them all gather to watch it. All the members of House Traementis filling the manor’s main hall, because in those days they were still large and powerful.

Was Letilia’s departure the first drop in the flood of their decline?

She couldn’t recall. Had Crelitto’s brother Umattone died before or after Letilia left? They’d happened in quick succession, she knew, but this many years on, the precise timing escaped her.

The register would say.

The garden door creaked, Meatball nosing his way in. He thumped his head against Donaia’s leg, but she didn’t indulge his demand for petting. Nudging him out of the way, Donaia went to the new lockbox and removed its contents with care.

House Traementis’s register was old and heavy. The oldest segments dated back to the time of Kaius Rex, though the imbued parchment still looked as new as the day of its making. Donaia spread it open on her desk, meaning to trace upward to the black Ninat over Umattone’s name—and stopped again.

She knew what her register had looked like when the new members were added in Canilun, and it wasn’t this. Every current name had a second Uniat scribed around it, the space between broken with tiny, complicated figures whose meaning she couldn’t begin to parse.

Meatball whined a query as she rose to her feet. “Stay,” Donaia said, and with the scroll in her arms, she went back out into the house.

When Donaia left for lunch, Tanaquis had been at the manor, in the room she used when she didn’t want to go all the way back to Whitesail. She was still there now, and Renata with her, but Donaia ignored her niece as she dropped the scroll atop Tanaquis’s papers and stabbed one finger at the mess of the current generation.

Tanaquis looked stricken—but not surprised. Donaia fought to keep her voice steady as she said, “You did this. Why?”

For some reason Tanaquis looked at Renata. Donaia did the same, searching Renata’s hazel eyes. “Is this something to do with your mother?”

Renata pressed her lips together, then stood and took Donaia’s stiff hands in her own. “No, not Letilia. It’s… I’m sorry.” Regret shadowed her gaze. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you this, and I’ve let my uncertainty drag on too long. It has to do with the curse on House Traementis.”

The old fear dug in, its claws never quite leaving Donaia’s heart. “Are—are we cursed again?”

“No,” Renata said firmly. “But Tanaquis and I have been investigating where the curse came from. We still don’t know who’s responsible… but we think we’ve found what was used to enact it. A numinatrian artifact, a profoundly malevolent one. Unfortunately, we can’t simply leave it lying around; it’s far too dangerous. I have it, but I was concerned that it might have an ill effect on the family. So I asked Tanaquis to make some alterations to the register to protect the rest of you.”

Her gaze dropped to take in the scroll. “I’ll admit, I didn’t expect something quite so… extensive.”

A malevolent artifact. Donaia had known Renata was still chasing the source of their curse, but she hadn’t asked for details. Her own mourning had been a cocoon, shielding her from the guilt of letting others take on that burden. I need to start paying more attention.

Tanaquis was watching them silently. When Donaia looked at her, she said, “I have Iridet’s permission to work on this matter. And the safety of House Traementis is one of my primary concerns. I promise, this has my full attention.”

So quietly it was almost inaudible, Renata said, “The more I consider it, the more I wonder if it would be wiser to remove me from the register.”

She tried to withdraw her hands, but Donaia tightened her grip. “Don’t talk nonsense. I have my fill of that these days from that woman.”

A mere touch wasn’t comfort enough. She pulled Renata into a hug, murmuring into her niece’s hair, “Even if you won’t let me send your mother away, I can at least make sure you don’t bear every burden on your own. If this artifact is so dangerous, then I’ll take that danger on myself. I will not lose you.”

Too, her heart whispered. From the way Renata flinched, she heard the unspoken echo.

When the girl pulled back, her eyes were limned with unshed tears. “No, this burden must remain mine. You’re the head of this house; risking you means risking everyone. But…” She bit her lip. “You’re certain?”

“That you’re family? Yes,” Donaia said. “We’re Traementis. We don’t give up on each other.”

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Apilun 10

“And I thought kneading dough was hard. My baking ancestors are burning for shame,” Pavlin grumbled as Grey tied their borrowed splinter-boat up at a water stair. He stretched his shoulder, easing the strain of an afternoon of rowing and poling up and down the Lower Bank.

Grey did the same, though without the dramatic expression of suffering. “Vigil work will be easy by comparison. I’m grateful you took the time to help, though.”

Pavlin would never have given his shoulder that comradely nudge when Grey was his superior. “Of course I’d help. And not just because Tess has me wrapped around her thimbled finger.” The winter sun was as bright as his grin. “You might not be pinning the hexagram back on, but you’ll always be my captain.”

A musty smell rose from the coats they’d shucked into the bottom of the boat. All their clothes smelled, spattered with splashes of algae-green canal water. Today had been good practice, even if Grey couldn’t hope to be partnered with anyone so accommodating in the second trial.

“If you come back with me,” Grey said, “Alinka can give you salve to ease the soreness.” He would need some himself. Fit as he was, rowing was very different from dueling, and an activity he hadn’t indulged in this much in years.

“Maybe something for blisters, too,” Pavlin said, inspecting his palms.

Grey wasn’t surprised to find a guest waiting at Alinka’s house. The members of the Stadnem Anduske still had to be careful where they went, but Cercel’s first action as Caerulet had been to disband the Ordo Apis, the special force Ghiscolo had created to hunt them down. Idusza perked up like a cat at the scent of fish when Grey came in; then her shoulders slumped. “The Faces have not smiled on you, I see.”

“No luck,” Grey admitted as Yvie ran shrieking across the room to hug his leg. He and Pavlin had used their rowing practice to sniff around the Lower Bank, hoping to glean hints of where Branek and his captives were holed up.

“Perhaps if we sought their blessing,” Idusza said. “Offerings I have made, but we lack a szorsa’s guidance. Not since Suilun have I seen Arenza.”

Grey pried Yvie off his leg and tried to calculate how much was safe to say around his niece. She’d kept one major secret for them already, when Koszar was recuperating upstairs. But it wasn’t fair to ask a child to carry adult burdens. “I spoke with Arenza myself, and she laid a three-card line. Our path is The Face of Stars: We must simply hope for a stroke of fortune.” He’d spent the day giving fortune as many opportunities to strike him as possible, but the sky remained clear, and Grey’s fortunes remained as luckless as they’d always been.

Grinding up a piece of brick tea, Alinka muttered, “Perhaps we would see her more if she were not given reason to stay away.”

Idusza scowled; Pavlin shifted awkwardly toward the door. But Yvie wasn’t old enough to know that some words were meant to be heard, not answered. “What reason?” she asked, far too loudly.

Alinka twitched guiltily. “Who can say? Come, alča. Go add more decorations to the front step; perhaps those will lure her to us.” Catching up a bucket of colored chalk remnants Tanaquis had kindly—if unthinkingly—bestowed on the child, Alinka ushered her out onto the stoop.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Once the door was closed behind Yvie, Alinka gave Grey a meaningful stare. “The first trial… That, I understood. As a duelist you must establish yourself, so the world sees you as more than Mistress Ryvček’s apprentice or the grateful recipient of Era Traementis’s charity. But now you borrow a boat and practice as if you mean to win the second trial, too. What hope you to gain from Alta Renata, when already you are the house duelist? Why have we seen nothing of Arenza?”

“Perhaps I should…” Pavlin took another step toward the door. “Ča Polojny, can I escort you to… somewhere?”

Snorting at the ill-concealed invitation to flee someone else’s domestic squabble, Idusza rose and exchanged her house slippers for half boots. A shawl of faded rust with only the bleached remains of embroidery came up to cover her head. “Yes, to my friends I should take this lack of news. Alinka. Ča Serrado.” Her polite farewell was its own condemnation. Arenza was a friend of hers, and she clearly didn’t approve of any man toying with her heart.

Their departure left Grey alone with Alinka, and no more observers to hide behind. But what could he say? She was right to glare at him; from the outside, his behavior looked inexplicable. Alinka had been so glad when he found a sweetheart, but now here he was, chasing after an alta for reasons he refused to explain. Meanwhile he was betrothed, and she didn’t even know it.

Ren’s masquerade had always been a delicate balance. Letting others in on it might have improved her life, but it had made the dance significantly more difficult to maintain. And it meant that more people had to lie on her behalf.

Telling Alinka the truth would only widen that circle. Yet Grey couldn’t imagine keeping it from her much longer.

The silence had stretched painfully long. “I promise, Arenza understands what I’m doing.”

“Very nice for her. But I understand nothing.”

“I know. Alinka, I—” Grey folded her into a hug. “She’ll come visit. And she’ll explain.” Either with the truth, or with a deft lie. If anyone could come up with such a thing, it would be Ren.

But more and more, he didn’t want her to.

Nor did he want to do it himself. “Sit down,” Grey said. “I’ll make tea… for you should know something about my own life.” And about the Rook.

Hidden temple, Old Island: Apilun 11

Vargo was the only one in the underground temple when Renata strode in and announced, “I had to tell Donaia about Tricat. Not everything, of course—not its origin, nor about the other medallions, nor that it was losing this one that cursed the Traementis. I don’t want her killing Letilia. But…”

He wasn’t used to seeing her visibly uncertain. At last she said, “I haven’t felt right, hiding the danger from her.”

Vargo sat back on his heels, keeping his chalk-dusted hands clear of his dark trousers. She still maintained her Seterin accent when she wore Renata’s mask, but more and more often, he found himself slipping into Lower Bank rhythms when they were alone together. “No secrets or debts between you, your enemies are my enemies. En’t saying a family’s the same as a knot, but similar principles, yeah? ’Cept nobody says it out loud when you join a family.”

“Fortunate for me that they don’t.” Her wry laugh fell like golden leaves over a sinkhole of guilt.

They might have dispensed with secrets between themselves, but they still held many back from the world. Well, Ren did. Most of Vargo’s major secrets had died with Ghiscolo, Diomen, and the Praeteri. Only Alsius remained, and practically everybody important knew about that now. As for his life, he’d never been anything to the world but belligerently himself. Ren, on the other hand, still had plenty to hide.

Tanaquis arrived soon enough after that Vargo knew she must have come with Renata and somehow gotten distracted halfway down the tunnel. Probably by the ward that kept intruders out—she still wanted to understand how that worked, and why triple clover knots let people pass through. “Oh, you’ve started,” she said, hurrying over to examine the numinat Vargo had begun inscribing. “Let me see.”

Today’s work was their latest attempt to find the spirit of that nameless szorsa Ren had met in the dream. She’d tried taking aža here in the temple, but none of the glimpses it showed her were the one she wanted. Tanaquis had suggested the Tricat medallion might help, as it had before, only to recoil at the vehement refusal of the others.

Instead she’d taken a new tack. Her inspiration for today’s numinat sprang from her mentor’s obsession with music. “It’s not the same as Tricat, which is embedded in time. The harmonic spheres transcend time,” she’d explained, hoping to convince them to rig the cavern with wires that would turn the entire temple into a giant lyre. Eventually, she gave in to Vargo and Alsius’s more reasonable suggestion of chalking out the figure for the harmonic spheres, an ever-widening path of seven overlapping circles. Combined with the figure Tanaquis had once used to send Vargo’s spirit into the realm of mind, they hoped it would direct Ren to the szorsa.

::Do pay attention so you can give a thorough account when you return,:: Alsius implored Ren as Serrado arrived, a near echo of the instructions Tanaquis was giving her. ::Some people don’t appreciate how wondrous an event it is, traveling through the realm of mind!::

Abandoning her to her fate, Vargo approached Serrado. Ren’s excuse for inviting him had been that he was Vraszenian, and therefore knew more about Ažerais’s Dream than any of them—the same reason Serrado had given back when they were trying to save Ren from sleeplessness. It made a good cover; if it weren’t for his suspicions, Vargo would have bought it.

“I still don’t understand why she needs to go in alone,” Serrado muttered, as though the argument hadn’t been settled several times over.

Really, they weren’t being at all subtle—not if you knew where to look. Vargo would warn them, but watching their dance was one of the few amusements he had these days.

“More people going means more chance of someone getting lost.” He felt bad the moment he said it, and the sour look Serrado gave him was like a thumb pressed to a bruise. “Besides, it’s better for you to stand ready to retrieve her. Tanaquis and I will need to handle the numinatria.”

Then Vargo raised his voice for everyone to hear. “By the way, am I the only one assuming that Faella used her medallion to put Cercel in the Caerulet seat?”

The chorus of “No” that answered him echoed melodiously from the temple’s high ceiling.

“She’s a good choice, though,” Serrado said as the last of it faded. “Better than any other I can think of.”

Renata nodded. “I doubt Faella used the medallion to control anyone’s desires—I don’t think she knows how. But she might very well have looked for someone who could get the support, not only of the Cinquerat, but of the city.”

Social unity fell under Illi-ten’s purview. Vargo growled low in his throat. “You know, if the medallions only helped people to act like selfish assholes, it would be easier to resist them. The problem is, they really can help, sometimes.”

“Of course. There’s nothing inherently wrong with desire, or any of the emotions that emanate from the Primordials.” Tanaquis’s declaration lacked her usual blithe confidence. The loss of Iridet’s respect and support had shaken her more than the fall of the Praeteri. “That’s all Primordials are, really. Those concepts in their purest form.”

::Lumen save us all, I am not wading through another apologist debate,:: Alsius grumped. His admiration of Tanaquis’s “innovative mind” and “precise chalking” had soured in the face of her flirtation with heresy.

“Perhaps you might have a word with Faella,” Vargo said to Renata, both of them fighting a smile at Alsius’s pique. “After you return safely, of course.”

“That’s hardly an incentive to come back.”

He gave her an impudent wink as Tanaquis said, “While you’re at it, perhaps you could persuade Faella to talk to me about what she saw during the ritual. I still only have reports from some of the medallion holders; I’m lacking Sessat, Noctat, Ninat, and Illi-ten. It isn’t nearly enough.”

“Not likely to get Noctat,” Vargo muttered.

“I know!” Tanaquis huffed at Sureggio’s rudeness, dying without leaving a proper report. Vargo hadn’t told her what he and Varuni had discovered when they went to Extaquium Manor, intending to remove that human stain from Nadežra, only to find themselves too late. Whatever the man had seen in his temple vision inspired him to end his life in an eleven-sided numinat. His note had said, I surrender my soul to the purity of desire.

Renata cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to ask… Vargo, have you been having any peculiar dreams since you took a medallion? Sessat-related dreams?”

“Apart from the occasional nightmare of plague, I don’t often remember my dreams.” And those he did were banal worries of being trapped in a library full of blank books—probably bleed-over from Alsius. “I take it you’ve been having Tricat nightmares, Renata?”

She twisted her gloved hands in an uncharacteristic display of nerves. “Not nightmares, exactly. Dreams of the past. And dreams of the Vraszenian past, at that—some of them here in Nadežra, but others elsewhere in Vraszan. At least, I assume it’s Vraszan; I’ve never been farther inland than Floodwatch.”

“Tricat dreams?” The brightness perking Tanaquis’s tone was warning in itself. “How fascinating. Could you—”

“—give your report after we’re finished here,” Vargo said, placing chalk in Tanaquis’s hand and turning her toward the numinat. “Perhaps your dreams can take you to wherever this nameless szorsa of yours waits.”

Ažerais’s Dream

The numinat that carried Ren’s spirit into the dream felt a great deal like falling asleep. One moment she was sitting in the figure, listening to Tanaquis hum the seven-note melody she was supposed to use to return; then, without quite noticing the transition, she was somewhere else. A different version of the temple, with murals carved into the walls that flickered and changed in the corners of her eyes.

It wasn’t quite right, though. While the place around her was recognizable as Ažerais’s Dream, it was… too precise, Ren thought. Crystalline and hard.

The realm of mind, inscriptors called it. She’d always assumed it was the same thing as the dream—and it was. But the method she’d used to come here had left a sense of distance between her and the dream, like a pane of glass separated them. Nothing was quite immediate enough, quite messy enough. Like a dream described rather than experienced.

If she wanted to find the szorsa, she suspected she would have to break that glass.

Not with violence. Ren stretched her hands out, thinking. The dream was a place of instinct, intuition, the amorphous logic of symbols rather than the rational march of numbers. And what symbol did she have available to her that might draw her into the heart of the dream?

The Black Rose’s disguise flowed up her arms, growing into gloves, sleeves, the overlapping layers of the body. The mask covered her face, first threading across her brow, then settling into the familiar veil of lace.

When that cleared from her vision, the dream felt right.

Ren smiled beneath the mask. She was in the dream… and for once she wasn’t on ash, Tricat wasn’t warping everything, there was nobody to rescue and nobody to flee. This was a dance where she was free to set the steps and call the tune. She could take a moment to simply enjoy its slipping, shifting beauty—to feel the half-caught sense of meaning around her, the same sense that came and went as she read pattern.

Only for a little while, of course. Who knew how much time it would take her to find the szorsa?

Assuming she could find the szorsa at all.

Ren had hoped the numinat might bring her directly to her target. Since her luck wasn’t that good, she tried walking a labyrinth: first the usual complex path, swinging out as well as in, and then when that failed, the type she’d seen on the floor here, circuits that moved steadily inward. But when she got to the center… still nothing.

She bit her lip. The dream had given her a decira when she needed to pay for her pattern, and the lace mask when she called for it; could she make that work on purpose? Ren concentrated on her hand, and then there was weight in her palm, the familiar heft of her mother’s deck.

The Face of Roses, Sleeping Waters, Ten Coins Sing. Ren’s breath hissed between her teeth. She’d tried before, outside the dream, and gotten the exact same cards. And as before, apart from Sleeping Waters—the card of place, depicting the Point and its lost labyrinth, high above her head; she was in the right location—she couldn’t read anything from them.

Because the szorsa wasn’t just nameless. Being made Zevriz meant being severed from one’s people… and from everything else. Pattern couldn’t guide Ren, because that woman had been torn out of it. No threads led to her anymore.

But she was able to pattern me. That had to mean some kind of connection remained. Ren couldn’t think how to find it, though. She would have to go back to the waking world and see if anyone else had an idea.

Then she hesitated.

There’s more I could look for here than just her.

Connections. Kaius Rex and the szorsa had used the Uniat medallion to bind the others together into a chain. That chain had broken at his death; from the perspective of numinatria, only the pieces remained, nothing linking them into a whole.

But from the perspective of pattern, they couldn’t not be connected. Their association with each other remained on a conceptual level, through their crafting and their history with the Tyrant. Could Ren use that to find the holder of Ninat?

She could try. And if it didn’t work, she could try again with Parma, using the numinatrian harmony of Noctat with Ninat. Tanaquis would leap at the chance to combine those two traditions.

Ren was bound to her medallion, as the holder of Ninat was bound to his. And the medallions were connected to each other… so all she had to do was find the right thread, then follow it.

The threads glimmered into view as she looked for them, a shifting rainbow of strands. A moment of concentration settled them into colors she could sort: That silver one was her link to Grey; the blue one, Vargo. She avoided the putrescent purple one, shuddering. She’d strengthened her connection to the zlyzen, back when she rescued Vargo and the medallion from the dream—to what effect? She hadn’t seen so much as a clawed limb of them since then. Not that she could really complain, but it worried her that nothing seemed to have come of it.

Tricat would be brown. There was more than one of those; one led to Tess and Sedge, another to the Traementis. She didn’t see one for her mother, and a lump tightened Ren’s throat. When Ivrina died, all Ren could afford was a pauper’s pyre, burned with others in the Liganti tradition. Did that mean her mother’s spirit was lost to the dream?

There. That, hidden beneath the rest, was the thread to the Tricat medallion. And strung through it, a dull tin line.

Uniat. The chain of office had been destroyed in the material world, but the idea of it still linked the medallions.

Plucking the tarnished wire, Ren followed it out of the temple. She expected to be led to Novrus Manor, since Tricat was most closely linked with Tuat. Instead, the wire turned sharply, leading her to the place where all paths converged in Nadežra.

The Point of the Old Island, with its Great Amphitheatre—and the wellspring within.

It was as full as if she’d stumbled into the middle of the Great Dream. Brightly painted stalls on the flat ground outside displayed wares and signs for services, tempting anyone who approached. Pilgrims dressed in their festival best milled around, waiting to sip from the waters of their goddess. The amphitheatre’s crumbling top was crowned with dreamweaver nests, and the iridescent birds swooped over the crowd, the occasional fallen feather scrabbled over before someone claimed the prize. Such feathers promised good fortune for the seven years to come.

Yearning tugged Ren forward. Her mother’s people might be here. And if she couldn’t find a nameless szorsa or a faceless man, perhaps she could find them.

The mood inside the amphitheatre was reverently festive. A tune wended through the gathered people on the thrumming pulse of drums and feet. The glow of the wellspring washed the crowd with ghostly colors as they circled its rim.

Grey had taught her this dance, a version for two, on a rooftop mere weeks ago. The people here were performing the kanina to call their ancestors.

She had no kin to dance with. But surely here, of all places, she alone could be enough. Could find the answers she so desperately craved.

Her first step was wrong-footed, and she stumbled. A thread had tangled around her ankle, tripping her up. She kicked it free, but it clung as she entered the dance, catching her skirt, looping around her wrist, easily brushed off, but persistent as a puppy.

Ninat? She tried to look at the thread, but glancing down only made her collide with someone who grumbled in good-natured annoyance. Ren didn’t want to abandon the dance for something unknown—something that might not even lead to any reward. Not when she was so close to finding her mother’s family.

But that isn’t why you came here. Duty dragged at her, irritating and unshakable. She was supposed to find the szorsa; failing that, she’d gone after Ninat’s holder. Her unknown Vraszenian kin mattered only to her, not to anyone else. Not to Nadežra.

If she left, though, she might never have another chance.

Then so be it. Ren clenched her teeth and hardened her heart. Whoever her mother’s kin were, they’d cast their daughter out. Even if she found them, what welcome would they give Ivrina’s half-breed orphan?

The dull hurt of that thought was only partial armor against the tears as Ren stooped, heedless of the bodies slamming into her, and seized the thread. It led her through the crowd, bending first one way, then another; she crossed her own path more than once, in a looping knot that made her step over or under the thread as she passed. And as she followed it…

It’s leading you nowhere. What you want is here. Family. Harmony. The answers to all your questions.

Cold spiked down Ren’s back. The swirling bodies were a whirlpool, trying to drag her back into the dance. The drums sounded like thunder. Storm Against Stone: the winds that howled outside the Charterhouse on the Night of Hells, when Ren and Mevieny stood before the warped statues of the Cinquerat, and Ren sensed for the first time the Primordial power behind the medallions.

She’d followed Uniat’s thread… and it lured her with the family she wanted, the answers she desired.

Straight into the grip of A’ash.

The whirlpool grew more violent, people’s hands clawing her braid, skittering off the leather petal-plates of her disguise. Unable to catch her, they attacked the thread leading her out, trying to rip it from her grasp.

A sob tore from her throat as she clung tighter, drawing strength from the memory of the last time she’d climbed a rope to escape the claws of nightmare. Grey waited at the other end. Her friends must have realized something had gone wrong, and he’d come to save her again.

Planting her boots against the crumbling stone walls, she scrabbled up the line to where the dreamweavers built their nests. A hand reached down, and she caught it without thinking. Without question.

Only to blink in surprise when she saw the man hauling her to safety. He looked nothing like Grey: a few years older, at least, with the pale skin and sun-kissed hair of the north.

The original Rook? No. Even if the magic weren’t broken, Ren had felt the memories and heard the stories from Grey. The original Rook had been a young woman—one with Vraszenian blood.

“Who…?” They both spoke at once, and the man’s crooked smile broke into a laugh. Kneeling, he peered over the wall, into a pit of storms that roiled and flashed with lightning. There was no sign of the dancers now. “Ah, mistress. Quite a mess you fell into.”

He peered up at her, hazel eyes catching the light. “But what most puzzles me is that your soul is whole. Szekani, čekani, dlakani. How managed you that?”

The man was speaking Vraszenian. With traces of a Seterin accent—but fluent Vraszenian, with knowledge of their beliefs as well. Ren should have answered his question, but what came out instead was “Who are you?”

“Gabrius,” he said, standing and coiling the thread. “A humble inscriptor. One who wanted to understand better this place of your peoples… and wound up with all the time in eternity to study it. Have you a name I can use?”

She was still wearing the Black Rose’s mask, but introducing herself that way felt pretentious. “Ren,” she said. “What you pulled me out of…”

“An invasive pest.” He spat into the cesspit. It wasn’t the wellspring anymore; they were nowhere on the Point. “To contain it I’ve tried my best, but with so much seepage…”

Ren followed his gesture to the ring of nests and the birds crooning and preening. “The dreamweavers?”

“Is that how my circle appears to you? Mirabile scitu.” Gabrius looked around again, as though wishing he could see whatever Ren did.

She rubbed her arms, like that could scrub away the clinging lure of her desires. “Know you what that ‘pest’ is?”

“Yes, and I’m guessing you know also. But name it not—that has a tendency to draw its attention.” Gabrius gave her a sharp look. “Straight into its grasp you walked. What could possibly lead you to do that?”

She wasn’t about to tell a Seterin stranger about the medallions, even if he had just rescued her. “I seek someone in the dream. The szekani of one who has died. But she is Zevriz… Know you what that means?”

“One whose connection has been cut.” The grim slant of his brow said he also knew how important such connections were to Vraszenians. “Was she kin of yours, before?”

Ren couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh, thinking of the promise she’d just walked away from. “Who can say? I know my own kin not, and hers are lost to time and severance. She…” Ren hesitated, weighing what she could and couldn’t say. “This pest—she had a hand in bringing it here. I know not if she meant to, but I am hoping that if I find her, I can get rid of it at last.”

“Finding one who cannot be found… now that would be a new challenge to pass the time.”

The glint in his eyes reminded her of Tanaquis, the words of Alsius, but the graceful ease with which he hopped to the ground on the far side of the wall was unlike either of them. Following him, Ren landed in a twilight dream of Suncross Plaza, the sky burning from saffron to cobalt, the lamps hanging in the air like bubbles in thick honey. The buildings around her looked different, though: older, but newer at the same time.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

His frown had a wry cast. “In this realm, time is fluid. Since before the pest, though. What you see is the Nadežra I knew in life.”

“Went you south into Vraszan?”

“Briefly, but not far. Why?”

If he hadn’t gone far, he couldn’t have seen the things that appeared in her dreams, the cities and towns and fields. “It matters not. For the szorsa I should search.”

“To your flesh you should return,” he said firmly. “I object not to being trapped here—always there is more for me to learn—but you might not wish to join me. On your behalf I will search… though I know not how to tell you if I succeed.”

She hesitated, suddenly wary. What if this was another Primordial trap?

It isn’t what you want. She had no desire to cede her search into someone else’s hands, or to go back to the waking world with nothing to show for her effort. Surely she could trust that.

As for future meetings, the thread was already there, formed when he led her out of the trap. It shimmered now with different colors, like aža, like Sebat, the numen most associated with inscription. Ren concentrated on it until she knew its feel. “With this, I can find you again.”

He looped the thread thrice around his hand before giving her a salute of the sort she’d only seen in theatricals—historical productions where every gesture seemed artificial and archaic. “Until then, tread carefully, Ren. And be cautious of which threads you follow.” So saying, he sauntered off into another Suncross, and another, until the haze of dreams between them was as impenetrable as a wall.

But the thread connecting them gave a playful tug. An assurance he was out there, somewhere.

The seven-note melody Tanaquis had been humming as Ren went into the dream was snagged in her mind like a fishhook. When Ren hummed it in reverse, a glittering peacock line appeared on the ground, bisecting the path of spheres that brought her here.

With a final pang of regret, Ren followed that line back to the waking world.

Hidden temple, Old Island: Apilun 11

Surfacing felt a great deal like waking from a dream, except that ordinarily Ren didn’t wake to the avid faces of Tanaquis and Vargo hovering over her, waiting for a report.

Well, Vargo was mostly there as Alsius’s sedan chair. “Any luck?” he asked, his voice a simple knife through the barrage of questions from Tanaquis and the spider.

She groaned and scrubbed at her face. “Not exactly. It’ll be harder to find the szorsa than I realized—but I may have help in doing so. Believe it or not, I met a spirit in the dream. A Seterin man, an inscriptor. He said his name was Gabrius.”

A heartbeat of silence greeted her statement. Then, out loud from Tanaquis and telepathically from Alsius: “Gabrius Mirscellis?!”

Renata recoiled from Tanaquis, but she couldn’t stop Peabody from leaping onto her shoulder. “Er… he didn’t say. Who is Gabrius Mirscellis?”

Vargo snorted. “Only the man whose work we cribbed from to design the numinat you’re sitting in. Author of Mundum Praeterire? The first to investigate—never mind; neither of us cares. I used to have a bust of him in my office, until the Rook broke it. Thin nose, narrow jaw, looks like he’s the only Seterin philosopher with a sense of humor?”

“He said he got caught in the dream,” Renata said cautiously.

Alsius toppled from her shoulder into her lap. She caught him as Tanaquis said, “That sounds like him. How fascinating! He did get lost there when he was exiled to Nadežra.”

::Exiled!:: Renata had to hold Alsius close to keep him from jumping at Tanaquis in defense of his hero. ::Vile propaganda spread by envious rivals. Anyone of sense knows he came here due to his interest in the realm of mind.::

“I thought he was fleeing gambling debts.” Vargo grinned like a boy throwing pebbles to scatter pigeons. “Or an affair of the heart.”

Unaware of Alsius’s incoherent sputtering, Tanaquis said, “Whatever drove him here, he became curious about Ažerais’s Dream. He was the first to speculate that it might be the same as the realm of mind.”

“It is, and it isn’t.” Ren caught Grey’s gaze. He was hanging back, trying to pretend he hadn’t been worried. She risked a small smile, and his expression warmed with relief.

Shaking his head, Vargo retrieved the fuming Alsius. “Serrado, why don’t you make certain Renata is recovered while Tanaquis and I clean up.” His voice rose over twinned protests from his fellow inscriptors. “You can ask all the questions you want later. It’s been almost three centuries. Mirscellis isn’t going anywhere.”

Flashing Vargo a look of wary gratitude, Grey knelt at Ren’s side. His fingers brushed hers, as much as either of them dared when they had an audience. “You came back safely.”

She swallowed, remembering the trap she’d fallen into, taking refuge in the warmth that grounded her. “I told you I would.”

“I should know better than to doubt you.” It was the respectful response of a commoner to an alta, but she could hear the words Clever Natalya echoing underneath. Then Grey’s tone lightened. “A good thing, too; I don’t think I can duel a dream on your behalf.”

If anyone could, she believed it would be him. She let him help her to her feet, allowing her hand to linger a moment too long in his. Nobody was paying the slightest attention. Alsius had recovered from his pique and was arguing with Tanaquis, through a long-suffering Vargo, about whether he could be sent into the realm of mind to meet Mirscellis.

“Apparently he’s an admirer,” Renata murmured to Grey, amusement rising over the chill inside. “Just wait until I tell him the rest of it.” About A’ash, and Mirscellis’s efforts to contain that influence—and how she’d walked straight into its maw.

The chill returned, but holding it inside would help nothing. Squaring her shoulders, Renata said, “I’m ready to give my report.”

7

River’s Blessing

Westbridge, Lower Bank: Apilun 14

The wind blowing down the Dežera was as cool and crisp as the candied apple slices Tess was snacking on, but neither it nor the clouds dimmed the enthusiasm of the crowd flocking to the Lower Bank for the activation of Vargo’s river numinat.

Or rather, flocking there for the festival. It was the Potter’s Moon, when the Dežera’s waters ran low enough for craftsmen to reach the thick, alluvial clay beneath the layers of silt; after weeks of hard, mud-mucking work, tradition called for people to drink from the first finished cups to celebrate the river’s bounty. It was also a party for the volti who’d passed the first trial—and wherever there was food and entertainment, people would come.

Once, Tess would have been working the crowd as a pity-rustler, using her big eyes and quivering lip to charm coin out of people’s purses, or distracting them while Ren made a lift. Now she strolled at Pavlin’s side, stopping here and there at carts selling hot rice wine and cider. “Enough, enough!” she laughed when he tried to pass her a steaming cup, holding up her paper apple cone and her half-eaten capon leg. “If you’re keeping my hands full so you can rob me later, I’ll warn you I’ve nothing of value to take.”

“Not true,” Pavlin said, studying her with a discerning eye. “There’s at least one thing worth stealing.”

He leaned in for a kiss. Tess ducked her head, but she could hardly swat him away with her hands full. Nor did she want to. Instead she crowded into him, hiding her glee against his shoulder and mumbling, “Ruffian. I should report you to the Vigil.”

That shoulder was clad in fresh blue, the set of dress vigils she’d finished the night before. The steel of his new lieutenant’s hexagram reflected the overcast sky. Pavlin was off duty, but Vigil officers were expected to attend public events in their uniforms, the better to remind people that no crimes could be hidden from the Aerie.

Her sweetheart was once more a hawk. In spring that discovery sent Tess into tears; in winter it had her crying with laughter. How did this ever happen?

“I’d be happy to accept the fair mistress’s report,” Pavlin said, too smooth and sure for her health to take. “But you’ll need to show me what the thief absconded with.”

Rising on her toes, Tess delivered her report to his cheek. “Do you think I’ll ever get it back?”

“Perhaps I can bring it by your lodgings later?” Now Pavlin was the one blushing and ducking his head. “We should find Alta Giuna and tell her about Mede Pattumo.”

Pavlin’s flirting had clean driven his news from her head. Tess said, “We should get to the platform anyway—it’s almost time.”

She quickly finished off her apples and capon, washing them down with wine strong enough to sting her eyes. With the crowd parting for Pavlin’s coat, they made their way toward the river.

An observation platform ran along the shore for the special guests. Its railing was lined with volti in their full-face masks, stars and willow trees and peacocks and flames, waving to the crowds below. Every so often someone tossed something up to them, and it wasn’t always easy to tell the gifts from the signs of scorn. The lump of dung thrown at the Wave Volto was pretty clear, though; whoever he was, apparently he wasn’t well-liked.

A few of Vargo’s Fog Spiders guarded the steps, dressed clean for once, and they waved “Sedge’s little sister” through with a smile for her and warning looks for Pavlin. The platform was far less crowded than the milling streets below, and most of its occupants were happy to ignore her. Tess ignored them in turn. Only a few wore coats or surcoats she’d sewn herself; the rest weren’t worth her notice.

A crane towered above the layered numinata, angling over the river in a way Tess had a hard time believing was safe. Seven foci gleamed like stars, ready to be dropped into place. “There won’t actually be much to see,” Vargo had warned them beforehand. “Just the water gradually clearing.” To which Ren, naturally, had said she would provide something to see.

Forty-nine trumpeters, seven times seven, blew a fanfare from atop the Great Amphitheatre as the foci rolled into their waiting slots. Fireworks went off a moment later, bright against the clouds. A barge, floating downriver from Floodwatch, passed through the gleaming structure with its own musicians aboard, picking up where the fanfare had left off with a jubilant song. It was all a great deal of expense—but not unnecessary, Tess thought as the crowds cheered in delight. The display told them House Traementis and House Vargo cared about this occasion enough to celebrate it: attention the Lower Bank rarely received.

To her surprise, Tess found herself tearing up. Renata might be a mask, but this was real. Ren and Vargo had made this happen: clean water for countless Nadežrans, after far too long without. Tess hadn’t forgotten her days of trudging to the east side of the Old Island, or paying the water-carriers who filled their casks there and then carted it where it was needed. No one would have to do that again.

She wiped her eyes dry, and realized too late what had been obscured by the tears: an unfamiliar surcoat dyed with purple mallow and embroidered with jaundiced finches. By the time the wearer caught her arm and clamped her close like bosom friends, it was too late.

“If it isn’t sweet little Tess,” cooed Letilia. Her breath was hot and sharp as rice wine. “Who’s made such a name for herself, creating clothes for my dear daughter. I do wonder where you acquired your skill. Everyone knows that such things are outlawed in Ganllech.”

Pavlin edged closer, hand twitching as though he couldn’t decide whether to pull Tess away or go for his sword. Grabbing that hand, Tess gave it a warning squeeze. It was safer to humor Letilia than to antagonize her.

But Tess didn’t have Ren’s skill for faking cordiality. “Is there something you needed, alta?”

“Oh, many things.” Letilia’s laugh trilled like she’d made the funniest jest. Tess gave her a close-lipped smile. “But your mistress is working on those. Perhaps you could encourage her to do so more quickly.”

“I’m certain I don’t know what you—”

“After all,” Letilia interrupted, loudly enough that Tess sucked in a breath, hoping nobody was paying attention. Letilia’s smile widened, a shark sensing the blood of fear. “After all,” she continued more quietly. “I only have one daughter… but I recall a maid of mine often shirked her duties to go visit her sister. A sister who later fled Ganllech for crimes against the princes.”

Then, in a murmur that called up memories of Ondrakja: “Ren might be safe, but you are not. Not from the law in Ganllech, and certainly not for what you’ve abetted here. You should remind her of that before someone recognizes you.”

Releasing her iron grip, Letilia flicked her fingers—the same gesture the princes of Ganllech used to send a criminal to be torn apart by hounds—and sauntered off.

Tess shivered in the cold wind licking down the Dežera. Not even Pavlin’s arm was enough to warm her.

“It’s an empty threat,” she said, to reassure him as well as herself. At least she’d told him everything. If Letilia had hoped to set him against her, that thrust fell short. “She’s getting desperate, is all. Nobody in Ganllech would give two penneths for one runaway seamstress.” Not even one arrested for the blasphemy of stitch-witchery.

“I don’t think it’s Ganllech she was threatening you with.” A furrow of concern cinched Pavlin’s brow tighter than one of Vargo’s waistcoats. “Renata’s title gives her protections that you don’t have. If Letilia wanted to cause trouble for you…”

“She’d have to expose Ren. And herself. She’s not ready to do that yet, or she wouldn’t be bothering with me.” So there was no need to bother Ren with Letilia’s empty threats. Bolstering herself with that thought, Tess straightened and searched the crowd. She spied Giuna hanging over the platform’s rail to point at something in the river, bottom up and heels kicked high. A laughing woman in a fox volto pushed up to her brow held Giuna’s hips to ensure she didn’t topple tits-over-teacup into the mud below.

“Come on,” she said, pulling him in her wake as she headed for Giuna. “It’s past time the three of us trimmed Letilia’s claws.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Apilun 16

“Alta Giuna! What an honor. Please, be seated. Would you like some coffee?”

“Tea, if you don’t mind.” Giuna smiled at Toneo Pattumo, settling into the chair he indicated. His office was surprisingly sparse, the sole painting depicting a ruined temple in the Seterin countryside. One might have taken it as mere austerity, the choice of a man who preferred simple surroundings… if there weren’t visible marks on the walls where other pictures used to hang. And if one didn’t know his reputation as a connoisseur of art.

Once the tea was made and sweetened to Giuna’s liking, he took the chair behind the desk and said, “Is there some service House Pattumo can do for your family?”

“Oh, I hope so. My cousin Renata speaks highly of your services.”

His teacup didn’t quite hide the flicker of unease as he sipped. They both knew Pattumo had caused Renata a great deal of trouble in the days before her adoption, hounding her about problems with her letter of credit. Those debts were settled, but Renata had no reason to praise him.

Giuna set her cup into its saucer with an authoritative clink. “Some philosophers believe the world has an inherent balance. As fortunes rise in one place, they fall in another. For example, the Traementis fortunes have been climbing lately. Yours, on the other hand…”

He cleared his throat. “Alta Giuna, I—”

“Borrowed money from unfortunate sources. Money you would have been able to pay back… if your business partner Ebrigotto Attravi hadn’t recently met with ignominious disgrace. Involvement with a heretical cult, I hear.” A cult Pattumo himself had joined. That, like the identity of his Lower Bank creditors, had come from Vargo, by way of Tess. But Giuna was here because of what Lieutenant Ranieri had learned.

“Mede Pattumo,” she said, before he could protest. “I’d love to repay your generosity to my cousin by helping you out of this inconvenient situation. House Traementis has just acquired the charter for assaying coinage; I think you’d be ideal for administering it.”

A nervous flick of his tongue wet his lips. For all Giuna’s sweet tone, he could tell there was a barb hidden inside. “However could I repay you for such an opportunity?”

At moments like this, Giuna could almost understand why Renata enjoyed navigating the Charterhouse. It wasn’t nice to back Pattumo into a corner… but watching everything slot into place, neat as a puzzle? That, she could see the pleasure of.

“Alta Letilia,” she said.

Pattumo flinched.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Giuna went on, gentle and remorseless. “But I suspect she’s given you something to hold on to for her. Knowing Letilia, she spun you some dreadful story about how she fears winding up facedown in a canal, the victim of Traementis cruelty. Mede Pattumo, do you believe I’m cruel?”

“No,” he whispered.

“No. And I promise you, no one in my house—my mother included—intends violence toward Letilia. But she’s petty enough to ruin her own daughter’s life if she doesn’t get her way. So here’s all I ask: Let me have what she gave you. Let me have it, and don’t tell Letilia. Do that, and the administration contract is yours.”

He fiddled with his teacup, rattling it against the saucer. “What if she asks to see it? She’s done that once already.”

The risk was real; the runners bringing messages from Letilia’s hotel to Pattumo’s door were how Lieutenant Ranieri had tracked this connection. Life would be easier if Letilia were more stupid, Giuna thought, sighing. “In that case…”

She wasn’t nearly the innocent she used to be. In preparation for the heirship, Renata had described the underhanded tricks used to falsify deals.

“Loan it to me,” she said. “I’ll bring it back within two days.” Or something that looks like it, anyway.

Pattumo rose and opened the strongbox in the corner of his office. The envelope was sealed with a wax-stamped numinat, a precaution Giuna trusted Vargo could circumvent easily enough. The looping, overembellished writing was familiar from the endless stream of notes Letilia sent to Traementis Manor. It read, In the Event of My Disappearance.

“I’ll deliver the contract when I return this. With a clause stipulating your continued silence on the matter.” Giuna curtsied, smiling. “It’s a pleasure doing business, Mede Pattumo.”

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Apilun 19

Ren sat with Grey at the table in the Serrado house, waiting for Alinka to speak. She’d tried three times already, but each time the words had died on her tongue. She wasn’t blinking enough, and the tea had long since gone cool between her motionless hands.

With every passing heartbeat of silence, the tension in Ren’s heart wound tighter.

Finally the stillness cracked into a breathless laugh. “It is absurd. And it is the only thing that explains the absurdity of everything else.” Alinka dragged her gaze up and met Ren’s squarely. “He hopes to win the hand of Alta Renata… because you are Alta Renata.”

The burning in Ren’s eyes said she hadn’t been blinking enough, either. “I am.”

“And when first you came here—”

“That was no trick. For Koszar I searched, which led me to you. I was terrified when Captain Serrado walked through the door.”

That drew another laugh from Alinka, this one less incredulous, though a moment later she shook her head again. “So this entire competition…”

“If I win, we will no longer have to hide,” Grey said.

So far it was working. Everyone knew Vargo was the Prismatium Volto, and most assumed he was Renata’s secret lover. Meanwhile, rumors were swirling about Vargo and Grey: The Rook had accused Vargo and Sostira Novrus of colluding in the Fiangiolli fire and the death of Kolya Serrado, but Grey Serrado had been seen visiting Vargo’s townhouse. And hadn’t Sostira’s retirement been suspiciously abrupt? What was going on between those two?

Their rivalry was a perfect recipe for igniting interest in the trials. Knot boss versus ex-hawk; upstart cuff versus Kingfisher man. The Lower Bank wanted Grey to win. The Upper Bank wanted Vargo to lose. Beldipassi couldn’t take bets fast enough.

Alinka made a frustrated sound. “You may not hide, but she will. Still she will be Alta Renata, instead of herself. And what am I to say to Era Traementis? Every Meralny I visit the manor. When I see Alta Renata there, am I simply to curtsy and pretend I know not? What of the children? Yesterday Yvie had her dolls throwing things at the ‘cheese-eater’ seducing her uncle away from Auntie Arenza. For you these lies may be easy, but for us they are not.”

Ren groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I know. Alinka, I am so sorry. I never meant for things to become this tangled.”

“Then untangle them.” Cups and spoons clattered as Alinka’s hand came down hard on the table. “Stop being Renata. Why keep this false life you have built? Would you not be more comfortable as yourself, among your own people?”

Three different responses tried to leap from Ren’s throat at once. Each thwarted the others, leaving her mute. Grey voiced one of them on her behalf. “Alinka… I too would have to cut ties with the Traementis. Even if Donaia and the others recognize Arenza not, should Ren change one set of lies for another? Pretend she is a stranger to them?”

Gripping her tea like she meant to crack the cup, Alinka said, “I know to them you are grateful, because they helped you and Kolya when first you came to Nadežra. I myself am grateful; it is thanks to Era Traementis that I no longer worry how I will pay the next month’s rent. Still, it is the only way Arenza can be herself.”

She’d missed the message hidden in what Grey said. “But I am not Arenza,” Ren said. “Not as you use that name. You think that with Vraszenians, I would be among my own people, but a lifetime I have of knowing that’s not quite true. When to Nadežra I returned, the language was rusty in my mouth. Grey had to teach me to dance the kanina. What real Vraszenian needs such teaching, at my age?”

“I question you not—” Alinka began, stricken.

“I know you don’t see me that way,” Ren said, deliberately letting her phrasing be Liganti, even as her accent remained Vraszenian. “But others do. And meanwhile, would you have me abandon the Traementis? That life may have begun as a lie, but what I do as Renata is real—and it helps them. I’m their advocate in the Charterhouse, their influence among a dozen noble and delta houses. The river numinat charter was approved thanks to Renata’s efforts.”

Alinka opened her mouth like she wanted to respond, but Ren pushed onward, making herself say the next part before she could lose her nerve. “If they choose to throw me out, that is their decision, and I must find a way to live with it. But should I rip a hole in their register, just to simplify my own life?”

She knew the answer to that. It was right there, in what she’d said: If they choose to throw me out. The choice ought to be theirs.

No matter how much the prospect hurt. Maybe especially because it hurt. Donaia, Giuna, Tanaquis… she’d begun to think of them as real family. And she wanted nothing more than to keep that from changing.

Family. Stasis. Two desires the Tricat medallion would all too readily feed. Ren didn’t blame a Primordial for making her want those things in the first place—but clinging to her lie, long after wisdom said to let it go?

An awkward silence had fallen. Alinka was staring at her tea; Grey’s eyes were flicking between her and Ren. His gaze halted on Ren when she drew a deep breath and said, “I’ll tell them. After the trials end, so Donaia can remove me quietly, should that be her decision.” People would gossip far too much if she were disowned mid-trials. But afterward, if Grey won, there would be an easy explanation to hand.

Sensible logic that did nothing to dull the pain. But this was the hell she’d crafted for herself: She wanted too many things, and she couldn’t have them all. To resist A’ash, she must stop thinking about her own desires, and start thinking about what other people needed.

But that’s a desire, too, isn’t it? The wish for them to be happy.

Bile rose in Ren’s throat. She could chase her tail straight down into madness. Instead she clung to that promise. Not a desire, but a plan. After the trials are done, I will tell Giuna and Donaia the truth.

“More tea, I think,” Grey said, stroking Ren’s arm before reaching to collect Alinka’s stone-cold cup. “I’ll brew it, while the two of you get to know one another—for real.”

The Point, Old Island: Apilun 22

The wind whipping across the Point threatened to tear Renata’s hair from its careful arrangement. But standing atop the rim of the Great Amphitheatre, gazing over the Dežera, allowed her to feel for a moment like she was all alone, with nothing but the winter sky above and the waters far below.

To the south, she could see people gathering at the Floodwatch Bridge. Faella had suggested a footrace for this second trial—“Being fleet of foot is a traditional virtue, isn’t it? And I imagine your man is good at that sort of thing, having run up and down the Lower Bank when he was still a hawk”—but Ren liked her idea better. Still a test of speed, but also a way to draw attention to the newly cleansed waters of the West Channel, and a private homage to the spirit of the Dežera. No one save her friends might recognize the Vraszenian impulse underlying her choice, but Ren took satisfaction in it.

And in the twist she’d added, both to send a message, and as insurance against trouble. This trial wouldn’t only test speed; it would weigh a virtue she valued far more. The volti had to work in pairs, two to a boat, and no one would be considered to have completed the race if they reached the finish line alone.

She hoped that would shield Grey against interference. That it would still happen, she had no doubt; Faella had cackled over the obstacles inherent in sending the volti through the western canals, where the locals could both cheer on the spectacle and indulge in “Lower Bank tactics” to improve the chances of winning their side wagers. But at least Grey would have an ally with a vested interest in completing the race.

The tap of a cane on the stone recalled Renata to herself. She turned, one hand rising to keep her hair from her eyes, and discovered Faella had come to join her. Renata steadied the old woman as she attained the amphitheatre’s rim.

“You could have let me wait in Duskgate,” Faella grumbled. “The end is the interesting part, and these old bones can’t rush down with the rest of you young folk.”

“I asked you up here for a reason,” Renata said. A quick glance showed her the others were staying back, out of the worst of the wind. They could speak here as privately as anywhere in Nadežra. “It’s about Marvisal.”

Faella’s attention sharpened like a knife. “You’ve learned something?”

From a seven-card wheel—not that she could admit that to Faella. Coffer and Key had said the main obstacle to Marvisal’s happiness was the Illi-ten medallion. With the rest of the pattern giving Ren a lever, she’d been able to pry an answer out of Marvisal at last.

Renata asked, “How much do you truly value her happiness?”

The old woman’s expression said she wasn’t jabbing Renata with her cane only because she needed it to brace herself against the wind. “Are you questioning my love for my grandniece? I told you, I—”

“Would snuff out the Lumen to make her happy; yes, I remember. To be frank, that would be the easier path. I’m afraid what she wants requires something much more difficult: for you to give up what you want.”

Faella’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“It’s no secret you’ve been grooming Marvisal to become your heir. The unspoken sixth Cinquerat seat, ruling polite society from her throne in the Pearls. But Marvisal’s desires lie in quite another direction.

“Your grandniece has never loved that life the way you do, and her recent experiences with Mezzan and Sibiliat have quite soured her on it. What Marvisal wants, Alta Faella, is to leave all this behind. She wants to see the world—to travel to Seste Ligante, to Seteris, to Arthaburi or Ghus or anywhere that isn’t here.” Society might be the purview of Illi-ten… but the world was Illi-ten, too. That was how the Primordial influence seeping through the Coscanum register had manifested in Marvisal.

“Rubbish,” Faella sniffed. “I didn’t see—”

She cut herself short, but not soon enough. “Didn’t see what?” Renata asked, her voice hardening. “Marvisal’s desires, as shown to you by your medallion?”

The grinding of Faella’s teeth couldn’t possibly be audible over the wind, but Renata fancied she heard it. “Yes, all right; I used it on the girl, when she suddenly refused to talk to me. If she wanted the world, surely I would have seen that!”

Would she? Or had her own desires blinded her? “You’ve been using your medallion rather a lot, haven’t you? Even after you learned what it is, and where its power comes from. You used it to secure the Caerulet seat for Agniet Cercel.”

“You should thank me for that,” Faella snapped. “I used it, yes—to find someone in this damned city who might have a prayer of keeping it from tearing apart. Given our recent history with Caerulets, isn’t that a good thing? Oh, don’t lift your nose like you smell something foul on your shoe. I want things to endure.”

“Do you not understand the danger—”

“I’ve been marinating in that danger for most of my life.” Faella jabbed her cane against the stone for emphasis. “You say the power in that thing corrupts the user; very well, I am corrupted. Stopping now will hardly change that. Meanwhile, this city lurches from one crisis to another. I am an old woman, Alta Renata, and I don’t have much time left… but I intend to make sure my house and my homeland last after I’m gone.

“So yes. I used my medallion to find someone who could do a better job as Caerulet than her predecessors, for the sake of Nadežra; and then I scribed her into my register, for the sake of House Coscanum. It will make no real difference to the state of my soul, and you may well thank me for it later.”

The speech left Renata briefly silent. She didn’t know what she’d expected; something pettier, perhaps. Certainly not an argument she found difficult to refute. Cercel would be a good Caerulet—at least until Illi-ten’s influence corrupted her, and hopefully the medallions would be long gone before that. Adoption was the only way to make her eligible.

But that was the insidious temptation of the medallions. Like a bad apple, they rotted even the good desires they touched.

The flag went up at Floodwatch Bridge, a fluttering white banner, bright in the winter sun. The volti were ready.

Faella wasn’t done, though. Jabbing one finger at Renata’s sternum, she said, “You owe me more than that, you know. Do you think I suggested this whole spectacle out of kindness toward you? Or even just to get your help with Marvisal?”

The rage numinat in the Praeteri temple. The delusion numinat in the prismatium workshop. Twice Ren had been influenced by Primordial power, and the memory made her sick. “You used your medallion on me?”

“I haven’t bent your will, girl. I don’t know how, and the one you hold protects you anyway. But I know better than to put all my goods in one boat. Our new Caerulet is one; you and that lover of yours are another. It showed me the two of you can help hold this city together, and it wasn’t hard for me to guess how. A concession here and there, from the Upper Bank to the Lower, does a lot to soothe ill will.”

Faella’s smile did nothing to ease the sickness. This entire setup, the Trials of the Volti—she’d proposed it because of her medallion?

“I’ll cancel the trials,” Ren snapped.

“Don’t be stupid,” Faella scoffed. “The trials are merely an entertaining show. The only way to escape what I saw in you is to give up on any dream you have of calming Nadežra’s troubles. Given the effort you’ve gone to this past year, I doubt you’ll do that.”

She was right. Ren couldn’t walk away from this city and its problems. She’d decided that during Veiled Waters, when she went back to stop Mettore Indestor and Gammer Lindworm.

Faella nodded in satisfaction, as if she’d just scored a point in a duel. And in truth, she had. Petty anger at the revelation about Marvisal might have driven her to lash out… but that didn’t make her wrong.

“I’m going to enjoy destroying your medallion,” Ren growled. It barely came out in Renata’s accent.

Turning toward the stairs, Faella cast one last thrust over her shoulder. “Remember the visions we all had in Ghiscolo’s numinat? Mine showed me that even the light of the Lumen can’t burn this stain away. It stays with you, Alta Renata. Even through death.”

Then she was gone, puffing down the stairs. As if her departure had been a signal, everyone else came streaming upward, to join Renata at the top of the amphitheatre and watch the race begin.

Ren stood, frozen by more than the wind. Even the light of the Lumen can’t burn this stain away.

Could Ažerais? Or would Ren, when she died, carry the taint of A’ash with her into the afterlife, into the dream, into the life that followed?

At least if anyone saw the tears stinging the corners of her eyes, she could blame the wind.

West Channel and Lower Bank: Apilun 22

When Grey realized Bondiro Coscanum was his partner, he nearly gave in to Ren’s Clever Natalya instincts to cheat. Bondiro’s laziness was as legendary as his height and long limbs—the latter two outweighing the former just enough for him to scrape through the dueling trial.

But if Grey were going to cheat, he should have done it before the pairs were drawn. As, it seemed, someone had already done. “Don’t worry,” Bondiro said, folding himself into the long, narrow boat like a stork in a sun mask. He’d brushed his eyelids with gold powder to match. Imbued, hopefully, or it would run into his eyes as soon as he began sweating. “Aunt Faella said she’d cut my accounts if I didn’t do my best to help you.”

So this wasn’t chance. “I told Alta Renata I intend to win fairly.”

“Did you tell my aunt? And what’s more fair than me working my hands to blisters? Actually, that’s entirely unfair. Point is, this isn’t cheating. It’s having someone at your back who won’t sabotage you.”

It was a moot point regardless; there was no changing things now. Grey stripped down to his shirtsleeves, settled himself, and readied his oars. Together they sculled out to the starting line, their boat’s green-and-white flag snapping in the river breeze. All around them, the others were moving into position, some with more skill than others. He saw Vargo’s prismatium volto shimmering nearby, and glanced reflexively at the man’s partner.

Grey had seen those contemptuous eyes far too often for the wave-sculpted mask to disguise Lud Kaineto. For a brief moment, Grey felt sorry for Vargo.

When the starting firework went off, the murky waters churned into froth. In this first stretch, speed was the only arbiter: a straight shot down the Dežera, from the Floodwatch Bridge to the Orje Canal, just south of the Sunset Bridge.

Bondiro, to Grey’s surprise, was a decent partner. He put his back into each stroke and kept a steady rhythm. They quickly outpaced the inexperienced rowers, one of a dozen craft slicing down the river’s center, where the current added to their speed.

The yellow froth paled to clean white as they passed under the arch of the newly activated river numinat. Its shadow trailed a tingling caress across Grey’s sweat-dewed skin—not just from chill, but from the power flowing along the prismatium lines. Although they weren’t quite the first to reach the mouth of the canal, they weren’t far behind, and with a drag of one oar, Grey angled them toward the Lower Bank.

The next leg was more about agility than speed—that, and knowledge of the Lower Bank canals. Tanaquis had designed a course that required them to pass through set checkpoints, forcing them deep into the maze of smaller waterways, but their path between those checkpoints was theirs to choose.

No doubt some competitors had bribed the checkpoint watchers. But Grey couldn’t worry about that now.

Bondiro’s long arms batted aside flotsam dumped into their path from a bridge overhead. “Your register is inked on pisspot papers!” he shouted at the crowd of delta youths in Terdenzi colors, flicking a moldy orange peel off his shoulder.

Grey was inured to having things thrown at him. He used his oar to fend off grasping hands trying to drag them back and tripped one interfering woman into the canal. The rest of the time, he was as much poling as rowing. It was impossible to say where they were compared to other competitors, but they’d passed the Westbridge checkpoint and the one on the edge of Seven Knots. They were headed into Kingfisher, where people knew and liked him, and they were doing well—

A lone reed along the waterway popped up with a splash. Too late, Grey realized it was a breathing reed, with someone at the bottom end. He got a brief glimpse of the face of Mede Attravi’s eldest son—and then he was flying through the air.

The water he landed in was cleaner than it had been in years, but that was no consolation. The force that hit them must have come from a numinat, and he knew, even before he surfaced, what it would have done.

Their boat was half submerged, the hull cracked and leaking. It wouldn’t take them to the end of the canal, much less the end of the race.

He’d lost.

Lower Bank: Apilun 22

Vargo figured he was in trouble the moment he realized he was paired with Lud Kaineto. Is this some revenge from Carinci? he wondered. She’d lain quiet since Ghiscolo died, apparently licking her wounds. But after the fall of the Praeteri, Kaineto had landed on his feet with House Destaelio, snagging a position as their duelist. He had no particular reason to help the hamstrung Acrenix.

Vargo appreciated Ren’s design for the second challenge, though. Kaineto needed a partner if he wanted to advance to the third trial—though what he expected to win for himself there, the Masks alone knew. Renata would pick her teeth with him. Unfortunately, that meant that Vargo also had to work with Kaineto.

At least the arrogant little shit didn’t argue when Vargo said they should hang behind the lead pack, to avoid the inevitable sabotage attempts waiting for the first boats to enter the canals. Which was true, though only part of the reason.

The rest paid off when they poled around a corner just in time to see the green-and-white-flagged boat ahead flip in an explosion of water and oars.

The resulting waves rocked Vargo’s boat. He sank to a knee to steady the vessel and watched as Grey and the Coscanum idler discovered their hull too badly cracked to continue. Bondiro cursed and began splashing toward the nearest stair, but Grey remained low in the water. His hair streamed like river weeds, long enough that it no longer screamed “hawk,” and dejection was written across every visible bit of him.

Kaineto was still poling forward, around the flipped boat. Leaning toward Grey, he called out in the sort of mock-friendly tone that got a man punched in the face, “I guess your Masks didn’t have mercy!”

Vargo sighed.

And booted his partner over the side.

“Don’t just float there,” he said to Grey, shifting over to act as ballast while Kaineto flailed in the water. “We’re falling behind.”

The other man gripped the edge, but didn’t pull himself up. “The rules—”

“Say it only counts if the boat crosses the line with two competitors aboard. They don’t say it has to be the same two from the start. We’re the embodiment of teamwork and cooperation! We’re also wasting time.”

The boat rocked dangerously as Grey hauled himself in. Vargo lifted his oar, ready to crack Kaineto across the knuckles if he tried the same; the delta shit thought the better of trying. “Come on,” Vargo said, using his oar to renew their momentum. “I’ve got a shortcut.”

“We still have to pass the checkpoints,” Grey said, pushing them off the canal wall. “Unless you’ve bribed someone.”

“Not the judges.” Vargo’s face felt like a steamed bun beneath his mask, but he was grinning. “The Moon Harpies. They control the Ship Street canal, and only open it for friends… which includes us. Should cut at least a bell off our trip.”

He wasn’t the only one who knew that way was usually impassable, so the canal leading toward it was empty. But as they poled up, the water gate that should have been standing open was closed.

“Problem, Mirka?” he called up to the woman straddling the gate.

Only belatedly did he realize she wore a charm around her wrist, not the boss’s knot around her neck. Not Mirka, then, but her twin, Mileka—maybe. He could never quite be sure whether the woman he was dealing with was the Moon Harpies’ boss, or her belligerent sister pulling an act.

“Mirka’s off dealing with another Crimson Eyes attack,” Mileka said, heels thumping the gate. “Seems they thought this’d be a good time to take another street, while we was all busy cheering you on.”

She looked like she’d rather cheer Vargo on with a boot to his backside. He sighed and spared a glance back the way they’d come. The canal wasn’t wide enough to turn the boat around, but they could pole backward easy enough.

Except they didn’t have time for another delay. “What do you want?”

“I want a boss who cares that we’re losing ground and people to those red-eyed flea barges, instead of one who’d rather play skiffer and eat cheese. Everyone knows you’ve got Tserdev’s brother.” Mileka rose to balance atop the gate. “Maybe you should send her a few pieces, to jog her memory.”

Her suggestion would only lead to more problems—but explaining was a waste of Vargo’s breath. Through clenched teeth, he ground out, “I’ll deal with it.”

“Swear on your oaths to us.”

An empty price, easily paid. Vargo almost laughed. “I swear on my oaths to you.”

His shoulders itched at Grey’s hard stare. Ren knew Vargo held no such oaths; had she shared that knowledge with her lover?

Whether she had or not, Grey kept his opinions to himself, and Mileka nodded in acceptance of Vargo’s word. At her shrill whistle, the water gate lifted, and they poled back into contention.

It was smooth skiffing to the Kingfisher checkpoint, but just past that they ran into another obstacle—almost literally. Vargo didn’t know what had caused it—outside sabotage, interference between competitors, or just plain bad boating—but several craft had wedged themselves into a tangle up ahead, prows and sterns jammed against the canal walls, everyone too trapped to get out. The Fox Volto had leapt clear of the wreckage and stood on a bridge rail, laughing with the crowd at the predicament of her fellow competitors.

They were completely blocking the way.

Vargo wished he’d brought his own blasting numinat. Or that he’d thought to send Alsius to scout instead of leaving him with Ren, in case Letilia needed biting… but there was no way the spider could have kept ahead of them. He reviewed the map of Kingfisher in his head, trying to find a better route. Every path he could think of would put them massively behind.

Grey spoke for the first time since Ship Street, shoving their boat sideways in the channel. “This way!”

“There’s no opening to get past—”

“We won’t try.” They were close enough to the wall for Grey to toss his oar onto the walkway. “If we portage across Čefor Square, we can get to the Lodry Canal. The rules don’t say we have to go the whole way by water.”

The rules didn’t say it because trying to haul a boat through the streets and bridges of the Lower Bank was idiocy. Slow idiocy, with crowds in the way.

Vargo hadn’t moved. Grey snapped in frustration, “I know Kingfisher!”

“Glad I didn’t wear my good coat,” Vargo muttered, hopping to the water stair and pulling the boat up until the hull scraped stone.

Canal water sloshed around Grey’s calves as he pushed from the submerged part of the stair. “Once we’re on the flat, we can hoist it—”

“Oi, Captain! Need some help with that?”

Vargo wasn’t certain who in the crowd made the offer, but once they did, a chorus of voices joined in. Then hands, nudging him out of the way. With the aid of seven people who, judging by their shoulders, made their livelihoods hauling freight, the boat easily flipped up. Soon the whole parade was jogging in Grey’s wake with shouts of “Make way, the captain’s coming through!” and “Kingfisher’s own’s gonna win!”

The captain. Grey might have surrendered his Vigil hexagram, but it seemed his people still remembered one hawk fondly.

Vargo found himself grateful for Alsius’s absence. If the old man were here, he’d be droning on about the life lesson to be learned from this: Vargo had to lie to his people for their cooperation. Kingfisher folk sprang to assist their captain without him needing to ask.

“Master of the Two Banks my ass,” he grumbled as he followed along. A straight shot across the square brought them to a dead-end canal—one whose open end pointed right where they needed to go. The boat splashed back down and the wind of the cheering blew Grey and Vargo onward, toward Little Alwydd and the turn back into the river.

And, Vargo prayed, toward victory.

Duskgate, Old Island: Apilun 22

After the excitement of the early part of the trial, Renata got to the temporary pier set up along the Duskgate bank… and waited. She could hear shouting from the Lower Bank, but after the last of the boats lumbered around the corner into the Orje Canal, there was nothing to see.

It was almost easier to watch Letilia than to think about what Faella had said. Her supposed mother had declined either to oversee the start of the race in Floodwatch, or to join the others atop the Point; she preferred to wait in comfort at the end of the course, where she could gossip with her growing circle of acquaintances. Right now she stood with Avaquis Fintenus—an old friend of hers, or perhaps “hanger-on” might be a better word—and, more worryingly, Avaquis’s head of house, Giuppero. Judging by the laughter and the way Giuppero kept casually touching Letilia’s shoulder, that conversation was going all too well.

Renata’s gloved hand tightened on her warmed honeymead, spiced to ward off the air’s chill bite. Giuna had come through in grand style, winkling Letilia’s accusations out of Mede Pattumo’s hands. It hadn’t been difficult for Ren to forge a new envelope filled with the lyrics to the bawdiest Vraszenian songs she knew; she used to handle Letilia’s correspondence in Ganllech. The fail-safe was dealt with—but getting rid of the woman herself required Ren to wait until the third trial was done. Too many questions would arise if she returned to Seteris before the spectacle was over. If Letilia managed to secure herself a place in a Nadežran register before that…

“Tess. Isn’t Avaquis Fintenus wearing one of your sleeved surcoats?” Renata murmured. Her gaze tracked the goldenrod sway of Avaquis’s overskirts as she left Letilia’s side to refill goblets for them both. In the absence of Ren, Letilia apparently was inclined to make anyone at her side into a maid to fetch and carry.

“The last one I’ll be making for her, in this life or the next,” Tess grumbled. “I’m not so desperate for custom these days that I need to compromise my principles for a woman that set on wearing yellow.”

Renata couldn’t see anything wrong with the ensemble, but she was wise enough not to argue with Tess. “I need an excuse to speak with her. Away from Letilia, but without looking suspicious.”

Not even Tess’s best pity-rustler pout could make her rescind her request, and Tess soon gave up trying. “The things I put up with…” she muttered, straightening her own servant’s grey-and-white before wending through the crowd toward her mark.

She didn’t bump into Avaquis herself; that was a beginner’s mistake. But she was right on hand to help when poor Orrucio Amananto sent sticky honeymead streaming down Avaquis’s generous bosom.

Tess led Avaquis off the pier and into an alcove created by a bricked-off alley, where they had a little shelter from prying eyes as she helped the woman blot the mess away. Renata followed a suitable beat later, with an air of mixed sympathy and anger. “Alta Avaquis, I am so sorry. Shall I send that Amananto fool home?”

Dabbing mournfully at the wool, Avaquis sighed. “It’s too late. The damage is done.” Her pout took on a calculated edge as her gaze slid sideways to Tess. “I suppose I’ll need a replacement made. I hope you can help expedite that.”

Tess had been spending too much time with Meatball and the puppies, judging from the whine she stifled at the back of her throat. Renata nudged her gently toward an escape. With luck, Avaquis would leave this conversation so offended, she wouldn’t dare demand favors from Renata again.

“Of course,” she said, pulling out her own handkerchief. “It’s the least I can do after the way Mother treated you, back in the day. I didn’t realize until I saw you together just now that you were the ‘buzzing little bee’ from her stories. You’re much more gracious than I would be, forgiving her so readily.”

Avaquis stiffened. “What do you mean? Letilia and I were friends. I might even call her cousin someday.”

Renata was half guessing. Letilia had made reference to someone she called a bee; Avaquis often liked to wear yellow. She was also slightly younger than Letilia, and House Fintenus held no Cinquerat seat. That put Avaquis in precisely the right situation to hang around, convincing herself that the most fashionable young woman in Nadežra was her friend, while Letilia responded with her usual half-masked disdain.

Most people would be annoyed by the truth, no more. But Tess had flooded Ren’s ear with gossip gleaned while fitting Avaquis’s clothes: The Fintenus woman was both insecure, and vindictive enough to have fit in well among the old Traementis. By the way she stiffened, Renata’s dart had hit its mark.

But best to press it deeper. “Oh, certainly,” Renata said. “You know how Mother is—tongue like a stinger, until she wants something from someone. Then her words drip pure honey.”

With perfect timing, Letilia’s shrill laugh came from the temporary pier. She was standing now with Cibrial and one of the Destaelio daughters, the simpering flattery of her posture clear even from here. Renata tilted her head. “Looks like she might prefer a wealthier cousin than you.”

Chin high, Avaquis smoothed her skirts of nonexistent wrinkles. “You know, people say that you must take after your father, not your mother.” She spoke to Renata, but her gaze was fixed on Letilia. “How silly. I can see the resemblance quite clearly.”

Sneer at me all you like, Renata thought as Avaquis stalked away. As long as you don’t adopt Letilia.

But her satisfaction at putting that pebble into Avaquis’s shoe soon faded to tension as she waited for the boats to make their way through the maze of the Lower Bank, silently cursing her own cleverness in designing this challenge.

And then it vanished entirely, when Letilia’s hand closed on her arm.

The woman didn’t even bother to be subtle as she dragged Renata off the pier. “What do you think you’re doing?” Renata demanded, twisting to look back at the river. “The finishers will be arriving soon—”

Letilia ignored her objections. “You think you’re so clever,” she snapped, nails digging in as though she could pierce layers of wool and silk. The smile she kept on for any observers was jagged glass. “I don’t know what you did to spike my efforts with Eret Fintenus—but you’re the one who’ll regret it if I miss my chance at a register.”

Renata wondered what Avaquis had said, to make Giuppero pivot so fast. Maybe I should have worked more subtly. “I saw you talking with Cibrial,” she said, improvising. “You’d hurt your chances with Destaelio if they thought—”

“Don’t lie to me, gnat! And don’t forget I can destroy you. Do you think a little humiliation is the worst I can do?”

The honeymead curdled in Renata’s stomach. “Threatening violence? Not your usual style.”

“Who said anything about violence? I’m not the criminal here. And before you start hiding behind the register place you lied to get into, I’m talking about your charming upbringing. Your filthy blood isn’t the only reason you don’t belong here.” Letilia was barely moving her lips, so no one could try to read them, but it made her expression seem like an animal’s snarl. “I wonder what the Cinquerat will do when they learn of your guilt in the amphitheatre business last year. After all, wasn’t the person who so conveniently pointed her gloved finger at that Ondrakja charlatan once her best protégé? Her pretty little Renyi.”

Ren was glad she had her back to the pier, so no one could see her expression. You wouldn’t.

This was Letilia. Of course she would. But there was no way she could make it stick, surely. Cercel, Scaperto—they knew Renata had helped stop Ondrakja. Neither of them would buy the tissue-thin pretense that Ren had only been turning on her coconspirator.

But that wouldn’t matter. Even if she wasn’t convicted in court, Letilia would have done more than enough damage. The people who’d suffered as a result of Indestor’s fall would be only too glad to see Ren not merely fall, but float facedown in a canal. Surviving members of House Indestor, ones who hadn’t landed on their feet as well as Meppe had. Former clients of that house, like Essunta, like Kaineto.

Donaia, whose son had died from the infighting between Ondrakja and Mettore. Even if she forgave Ren for lying her way into the Traementis, could she forgive that?

Ren had failed to mask her fear, and Letilia preened like a well-fed vulture. “Keep that in mind, since you’re so clever. You have far more to lose than I do, poppet.”

The wind carried Letilia’s last words to Ren as she sailed past, back to the pier and the prying eyes there. “And stay away from my dealings with Cibrial.”

Duskgate, Old Island: Apilun 22

After that, Ren wanted nothing more than to retreat from public view. Instead she had to be Renata, standing on the pier, waiting for her volti to return, pretending she neither saw nor heard Letilia flitting about.

It brought no comfort when a red-and-white-flagged boat emerged from the Semejno Canal downstream, implausibly early. “Galbiondi and Elpiscio aren’t remotely subtle with their cheating,” Faella sniffed, as if she hadn’t been throwing her own poisoned barbs Renata’s way not an hour before. “I wonder if that was even them in Floodwatch, or if they’ve been sitting in Dockwall all this time in a second boat.” But after that, nothing.

Until several more emerged in quick succession and began fighting their way upstream. The timing was crueler than Ren had intended: not only were the competitors rowing against the current, but the tide was going out. For those who hadn’t paid off the checkpoint watchers, the hardest part came when they were the most tired.

And Renata, watching, prayed for some of them to give up. Nowhere in that cluster did she see the green-and-white flag of Grey’s boat. But only the top eight finishers—the top four boats—would continue to the final challenge.

“Oh dear,” Tess whispered, close enough that she could take Renata’s gloved hand in her own and hide it in the mixed fall of their skirts. “Never you mind. For certain he’s just around the corner.”

As if this race were the biggest concern she had. But at the same time, it felt like the one bright hope currently within her grasp.

If it even was in her grasp. Ignoring the frontrunners, Renata kept her gaze fixed on the downriver shore and the last checkpoint Grey would have to pass before the sprint to the end. “I should have made certain,” she murmured. Why had she let Grey convince her otherwise? Why, when everyone else was cheating, did she have to remain honest?

“What happens if he doesn’t…” Tess swallowed the rest of the question, too late.

With an effort, Renata pulled coolness around her and disengaged from Tess’s grip. Too many people were watching her reaction. Letilia was playing coy, as though she knew more than she did. Faella met Renata’s gaze with a slow smirk.

Renata’s false coolness chilled to real ice. Had Faella taken some revenge over what Ren said about Marvisal? Had she somehow signaled Bondiro to sabotage Grey, instead of helping?

If that were the case, she would end Faella. She would reawaken the Traementis reputation for vengeance by ripping House Coscanum apart. She would—

“Oh. Oh!” Tess flailed, then covered her mouth with both hands and a squeak.

Renata’s gaze flicked back to the last checkpoint, but the straggler coming through bore an orange-and-black flag—no possibility of mistaking it for Grey’s. Hope failing, her eyes dropped to the four boats closing in on the Sunset Bridge. They’d pulled close enough for her to make out the individual rowers.

Tess hadn’t been looking into the distance. She’d been looking at the third-place finisher drawing up alongside the temporary pier—the one flying Vargo’s blue-and-gold flag, which Ren, fixated on looking for green-and-white, had ignored.

Grey was slumped in the stern, chest heaving for breath, soaked from head to foot.

Murmurs spread across the pier like flames through the warrens of Lacewater, a wildfire of speculation Renata could only control by giving it voice. Loud enough to be heard, she said, “How strange to see the Prismatium Volto and the Raven Volto finish together! I would have expected your rivalry to keep you apart.”

“Wasn’t this a challenge of cooperation?” Vargo shouted back for the crowd’s benefit.

His voice was rough with exertion and elation, but Grey’s softer response was the one that snared the real attention. “It’s a compromise I gladly make, when the alternative is losing Alta Renata’s favor.”

Greeting the third-place finishers first had done its job; she needed to congratulate the others as well. As she turned to do that, wisps of gossip reached her ears like river ghosts. Derossi Vargo… Grey Serrado… killed his brother?…

And, standing out among them: Whatever he intends to ask for, he must want it very much.

No doubt half of them expected Grey to ask her for vengeance or justice. They would be all the more surprised when the trials ended. But that was fine; she had two weeks to finish preparing that ground.

The fact that she would have that chance at all, she owed to Vargo.

She couldn’t say it out loud. But as Vargo disembarked, windswept and river-soaked, she caught his gaze and knew she didn’t have to.

Thank you.

8

The Friendly Fist

Lacewater, Old Island: Apilun 30

“So this is where my money’s going,” Ren muttered, eyeing the run-down building across from the Whistling Reed.

Not much of her money, by the looks of it, but that was hardly surprising. Letilia wasn’t likely to arrange for a second room at her Eastbridge hotel for this, even if House Traementis was footing her bill. The lodging house—an actual lodging house, unlike the building the Fingers used to occupy—had the usual Lacewater patchwork of shutters in six different styles, plastered splotches where the walls had been repaired and repaired again, and pity-rustlers haunting its corners like spiders waiting for prey.

But for the people of the street, any room somebody else paid for was a good one.

“You sure about this?” Sedge asked, while Tess kept a wary eye out for pickpockets.

“No,” Ren said, and went inside.

Once the shock of the confrontation with Letilia had faded, Ren’s mind had gone to work on the woman’s threat, calculating whether she needed to speed up her plans. That was when she’d recognized the clue Letilia had inadvertently let slip.

Her pretty little Renyi.

That Letilia had figured out Ren was one of Ondrakja’s Fingers wasn’t out of the question. Ren had never shared her life story with her employer—Letilia had never cared—but bits and pieces slipped out over the years, and Letilia was the sort to hoard any weapons she could find. That phrase was too specific, though. Only a few people these days would know it.

It seemed the letter stowed with Mede Pattumo was only one of the safeguards Letilia had in place.

After a minute of pounding and a muffled clink of bottles rolling, the door swung open on the scowl of her childhood nightmares.

“The fuck do— You.” Simlin hadn’t so much grown up as out: broad shoulders, barrel chest, and hands as meaty as ham hocks. More than one Finger had been cowed into submission after a few blows from Ondrakja’s favorite enforcer, Ren among them. He hadn’t been allowed to touch her face, but there were many places on a child’s body where bruises wouldn’t show.

Ren retreated a half step. She’d thought herself prepared for this, with Tess and Sedge backing her up… but Ondrakja wasn’t the only one who’d stamped an imprint of fear onto her heart.

And the threat Simlin posed now was far worse than a simple beating.

“Got the Tyrant’s own wrinklies, knot-traitor,” he said, slapping a sap against his thigh. Droop-lidded eyes flicked past her shoulder. “And the two of you, keeping loyal to a split-tongued viper. You know what happens when you trust a snake?”

He smiled, small and mean, at Ren. “You get poisoned.”

“Simlin.” She forced her voice to remain steady. “We can talk out here, or we can talk in your room. Depends on how many neighbors you want knowing your business.”

“The business where you’ve come to beat me bloody? People here pay to see that kind of sport. Might as well give ’em a show.”

“Nobody’s beating anyone today,” Tess said coaxingly. “You know me; that isn’t something I’d watch. Come now. I brought buns. Fresh, even, not day-old.” Back in their Finger days, Sedge had defended Tess with his fists, and Ren with her clever tongue. But they couldn’t be around all the time, and she used to buy her way into Simlin’s good graces with sweetness and food.

By the audible growl of his stomach, most of Letilia’s money had gone for zrel instead. He snatched the bag from Tess and sneered, a scar in his lip giving it an extra twist. “Fine. Be interesting to get a peek at the dance Ondrakja’s pet’s been putting on for the cuffs.”

Sedge preceded Ren into the room, a shield in case Simlin meant to spin around and slug her. In the past he might have, but now he just sprawled on the bed. With one heel, he hooked the stool that was the room’s only other seating and kicked it under the frame, where no one could sit on it.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” he said, his grin gummy white with half-chewed bun.

Abandoning the wisp-thin hope of diplomacy, Ren pulled her hand from Tess’s. “Whatever Letilia’s paying, I can offer more. If you leave Nadežra, I’ll arrange a credit line with a banker. Anywhere you go, you’ll have a nice life.”

“And safety,” Sedge growled. The two of them used to fight like starving dogs. He’d argued that Simlin couldn’t write more than his name and would have a hard time revealing Ren’s secrets without a tongue. But he’d grudgingly allowed they could try softer means first.

Jerking his chin at the knot bracelet Sedge proudly wore, Simlin said, “So, what? I take the money, or you come back with enough fists to silence me for good?” His own wrists were bare. The Stretsko hired him occasionally, but Sedge claimed Simlin never lasted long in any knot that took him. A leather thong around his neck, though, held a ratted tangle of green and purple threads. Ren had thrown her Fingers charm at Ondrakja’s feet; years later, he still carried his.

At Sedge’s shrug of acknowledgment, Simlin snorted. “You think anyone from Dockwall to Froghole would lift a finger if I told them they was protecting a knot-breaking traitor? I might not be sworn now, but I en’t never broken my word. Or killed my boss.”

That last was directed at Ren, who flinched. Simlin’s expression got uglier. “You eeled out,” he growled. “Ran away to Ganllech. ’Cause you knew what we would do if you stayed.”

Running had always been the plan, even before Ren poisoned Ondrakja. But saying that wouldn’t help.

Because he was right. She’d known exactly what the Fingers would do. Most would flee, hoping to find safety elsewhere; a few, like Simlin, would beat her bloody before they went. Like the Fog Spiders had beaten Sedge—and his crimes were far smaller.

“That’s what you want,” Ren whispered. She didn’t need a Primordial’s power to show her Simlin’s desires. “You want revenge on me.”

He spat. “Seems like justice from my end, but I en’t some cuff, packaging ugly things up in pretty words. ’Swhat you do. ’Swhat you are. Ondrakja’s pretty little Renyi.” Simlin fished through the bottles rolling under his bed, shaking until one sloshed with dregs. He made a face when he took a pull. “Maybe I just want everyone to see the ugly you’re hiding inside.”

Pretty little Renyi. The ugly you’re hiding inside.

Tess inhaled sharply. Sedge looked at her, then Simlin—then at Ren. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “Fuck that.”

Ren held up one hand. It trembled, but she couldn’t stop that, and besides, Simlin would like seeing it. “Justice, then. If you have that… will you go?”

“Fuck that. Lacewater’s home.” He ran a tongue over his teeth, sucking loose the bits of bread stuck there. Then, carelessly, he said, “But I’ll hold my tongue and leave you to your life. Figure Ondrakja would enjoy watching it, you pulling a big one over on those chalk-fuckers.”

If he meant that as a compliment, it didn’t quite land—but that might have been his intent anyway. Ren drew a deep breath. Before she could speak, though, Sedge stepped in front of her.

“No way,” he snapped. “Ren, I en’t letting this canal scum beat on you. What’re you gonna say, when people want to know why Alta Renata’s got a black eye?”

“En’t she supposed to be a clever liar?” Simlin asked. Then he grinned, vicious as a shark. “Or, y’know. I could hit her somewhere softer.”

Sedge had never heard Ondrakja say that. He’d already been left for dead when she made it clear that the next time Ren fucked up, she’d go after Tess.

The old Ren would have snatched out a knife and tried to stab Simlin. But living as a cuff had made her soft… and the people around her had made her better. Even if she could hear Vargo now, wondering why they weren’t dealing with this problem in a more permanent fashion.

Tess had instinctively retreated. Ren turned and touched her shoulder, waiting until Tess met her eyes and nodded, before she addressed Sedge. “What he’s asking for is fair.”

The agony in Sedge’s eyes cut like a blade. He’d always been her defender, not of her pretty face, but of her. What she was asking… it went against the core of who he was.

But it was her choice. Slow as a man ankle-deep in mud, he stepped out of her path, and she faced Simlin.

Who took his time sizing her up, savoring her fear. He even winked at Tess. “Guess they should have left you behind after all. Sure you don’t want to step outside?”

“I’ll stay,” Tess whispered, taking Sedge’s hand. For comfort… or to hold him back.

“You take this too far,” Sedge said, a warning to Simlin and a reassurance to Ren, “and I’m stepping in. And you won’t be stepping out of this room again.”

“We’ll see,” Simlin said, and planted a fist in Ren’s stomach.

She doubled over, retching. Simlin’s voice was a distant buzz in her ear. “You spew on my floor, I’ll make you lick it up.” He shoved her upright while she was still gasping. The second punch landed high, striking her in the tit. Pain was a sharp-edged star radiating out from the point of impact, and instinct curled her arms to protect her body.

Pointlessly. The third punch landed with a meaty thud on her face, the one place Simlin had always been forbidden to damage. Cheek throbbing, she closed her eyes in preparation for a rain of blows, all the violence he’d never been allowed to unleash on her before.

Nothing followed.

She waited, trying not to cringe, sure he was just letting fear season the next strike. But then Simlin’s voice came, dismissive and curt. “I’m done. Get the fuck out of here.”

It took will to crack one eye open, lest that be the cue for him to lay into her again. When she did, though, she found that Simlin had gone back to the bed and was sitting with his elbows on his knees. “You en’t worth more,” he said, sounding tired.

She didn’t know whether he meant that, or whether he’d decided that beating on her wasn’t as satisfying as he’d hoped. Tess voiced the question she didn’t dare speak. “And your word you won’t do as Letilia wants?”

His laugh sounded like rocks grinding. “Still let her pay for my bed and my zrel, but I figure you don’t want her knowing you got to me. She drags me out to expose you, well—” Simlin pressed fingers to his knuckles, hissing theatrically at the nonexistent damage her face had done to them. “You’re just another chalk-face, and I’m gutter-spun trash. Might even be fun, ranting about all the great truths I seen on aža.”

Ren exhaled slowly, her face pulsing with incipient swelling. She really would have a difficult time explaining that. But if a bruised cheek was the price of Simlin’s silence, she would pay it.

And she believed he would keep quiet. This, not Letilia’s plan, was what tradition said she deserved.

“Stoček isn’t dealing anymore,” she said, “but he knows who is. I’ll make sure you get some aža.”

She backed out the door, and Sedge and Tess followed silently, until they were in the street. Then they both hugged her. Ren returned the embraces, letting herself feel the pain, without and within.

Then she wiped her eyes and straightened. “It’s done. Letilia’s fangs have been pulled; now I can deal with her.”

“ ’Less she’s got a third fail-safe in her pocket,” Sedge reminded her. “But that’s a worry for later. Right now, you need some cold meat for your face, and a drink for the rest of you. Come on. We’re going to the Talon and Trick.”

Lacewater, Old Island: Apilun 30

When Sedge and his sisters had stumbled across Stoček the day of Sedge’s “birthday” at the Whistling Reed, the old aža dealer had looked as hard done as could be, cur-thin and nearly as mangy, several fingers shortened on one hand and the other gone completely.

A few months feasting on something other than zrel couldn’t do nothing for the hands, but it had put more meat on Stoček’s ribs and even done something for his hair. True to his word, Sedge had gotten the old man cleaned up and into a place his disreputable looks had value: the Talon and Trick, where slumming cuffs got just enough grime and tarnish to make the gambling parlour a thrill. Stoček couldn’t deal cards or serve drinks one-handed, but sobered up, he had a keen eye and a knack for discouraging cheats with a friendly bump and a few sly words. It was the sort of soft touch needed in a place where you couldn’t bounce your clientele without getting raided by hawks.

This early in the day, the nytsa parlour wasn’t yet open for business. Stoček was alone at a table, wolfing down some noodles with hardly a pause for breath, when Sedge came in.

“Hey, Stoček,” Sedge said, nerves twanging. If word gets around… But Stoček was trustworthy in his own way. “All right if we have a quiet drink with you?” And he gestured behind him, at Tess and Ren.

Stoček stared, a wad of noodles hanging out of his mouth. Coming here was a risk: the old aža seller weren’t likely to connect Ren with Alta Renata, but he wouldn’t have forgotten her. Nor how and why the Fingers fell apart.

But he also owed Sedge a favor. And Stoček weren’t the sort to forget that, either.

The noodles slurped up into his mouth, a long tangle that took what felt like a whole bell to chew and swallow. By then he’d apparently made a decision, because the expression that appeared in the noodles’ wake was a broad smile. “Little Ren!”

The knot in Sedge’s gut loosened. She always was one of his favorites.

“Hello, Stoček.” Ren came forward shyly. “I heard you were still around.”

“Hello, hello!” Opening his coat with the padded hook strapped to his forearm, Stoček rooted through an inner pocket and came up with a familiar cone. Like his grin, it was only slightly crumpled. “Faces must have been telling me you’d come. Bought these this morning on impulse. What happened to your face?”

Unshed tears shone in Ren’s eyes, bright as the candy she plucked from the cone. “You always had honey stones for me.”

“I’ll tell you a terrible secret, little Ren. They’d be for me, but my teeth ache when I eat them. So I enjoy watching you nippers eat them instead.” He held out the cone for Tess, then for Sedge. “You too. Even if you en’t been taking care of your sister like you should.”

“Weren’t my choice,” Sedge muttered. He didn’t feel like he deserved a honey stone, not after letting Simlin beat on Ren. Besides, he hadn’t eaten one since before Ondrakja tried to kill him. Most fists didn’t; they had to keep up a tough image.

But Stoček rattled the cone, and with nobody there to see but his sisters, Sedge popped the sweet candy into his mouth, savoring the half-forgotten taste.

“Sit, sit!” Stoček gestured them to the empty chairs—though it might only have been so he could go back to slurping noodles. Tess excused herself to the kitchen, where Sedge was willing to bet that whole cone Vargo had put in a cooling numinat for supplies. Ren perched on a chair and began chatting with Stoček, slipping back into their old teasing like no time had passed.

Tess came back with a chilled piece of mutton for Ren’s face and beer for them all. Stoček took the latter, still chattering like an old gaffer, marveling at how Ren had grown and telling her all the ways Lacewater had changed. Sedge watched the tension melt out of his sister, her nodding and listening like she hadn’t set foot on the Old Island in years.

But her manner brightened to real interest when Stoček mentioned some new people in the old Cut Ears’ base. “Who is there?”

“Ah, don’t mind me,” Stoček said, after he’d downed the last of his noodle broth. “I’m just an old gossip who sees too much. It’s folk you’d do better to stay away from; they won’t bring you nothing but trouble. The Anduske gobble up sweet kids like they’re honey stones. You stick with Sedge. He’ll take care of you—no more black eyes.” The eye he narrowed at Sedge said there’d be no more candy in Sedge’s future, otherwise.

“Hey, en’t my fault when she tells me not to take care of her!”

Ren laid her hand on Sedge’s arm. “Worry not, Stoček. I have no interest in joining them.”

Joining, no. But Sedge knew what Ren was thinking, even before she deftly brought the conversation to a swift close and the three of them left the Talon and Trick. Outside, Tess said, “Anduske. Branek’s people, you think?”

“At least worth following up, yeah?” Sedge said to Ren.

She breathed out in a slow hiss. “If Stoček’s right, it’s a stroke of luck. And that’s what we need, so… yes, we should look.”

“Meaning me and you, or me and some other you?”

Ren shot him a wry look. “I think any other me would draw attention, yes?”

“I’ll get word to Grey,” Tess said, tugging her shawl higher. “Don’t do anything foolish, you hear?”

“Never,” Ren said, and they split.

The Cut Ears had abandoned their turf when Praeteri interference tore their knot apart. The survivors had taken refuge with Vargo on the Lower Bank, losing all their Lacewater territory. So far as Sedge knew, nobody controlled it these days; the evictions earlier in the year had really unsettled things.

A bit of careful loitering netted them enough glimpses of people Ren identified as Branek’s to confirm that the dilapidated old house was occupied by Anduske. Sedge, craning his neck from the vantage of a nearby alley, nudged Ren with his elbow. “Hey. That look new to you?”

She had to climb onto a crate before she could see it. “The boards across the window? Very fresh. And very much like someone wants to make sure nobody leaves that room.”

Sedge expelled a heavy breath. All of Lacewater held history for them, but this place more than most. Messing around with the Cut Ears had gotten them in trouble: Sedge almost murdered, his sisters almost murderers, and the two of them stuck in Ganllech for five miserable years. Smart choice would be to walk away.

But Sedge wasn’t much known for his brains. “We try to figure out who’s in there, we’ll probably tip the Anduske off.”

“So we gamble and hope calling nytsa doesn’t give our opponent all the points?” Ren said, too light for her ease to be anything but a mask. She had to be warier of this place than Sedge was. Her next words confirmed it. “I’d rather not put you at risk.”

“Who says I’m gonna be at risk?” Sedge grinned. For once, he was the one with a plan. “Seems to me, retaking their hideout is Cut Ears business.”

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Apilun 31

The old joke went, the four most terrifying words in a knot boss’s world were one of his fists saying, “I got an idea.”

“It’s not… entirely unfeasible,” Vargo said slowly, turning Sedge’s pitch over in his mind to look for leaks. Varuni’s grunt said she was not only in agreement, but guardedly impressed. Alsius’s mental hum said the same. Only Ren, tension lines around her lips and fingers twisted in her skirts, betrayed reservation.

But she hadn’t objected, and Vargo was certain that not even loyalty to Sedge would keep her from saying something if she’d spotted a flaw. Varuni knew the truth of her now; Ren could speak freely in front of everyone here. Whatever had her wound tight, it was more private than her identity.

Vargo had slept wrong the previous night, and even the connection between his life and Alsius’s didn’t do much for a mere kinked neck. He pressed his fingers in like he could dig out the pain and rotated his head as he thought out loud. “Merapo doesn’t have that big a crew these days. The Cut Ears lost plenty when that Praeteri numinat turned their old leader, and some of those who survived left for other knots. I don’t know if it’ll be enough. But I could loan him some people—”

Sedge cleared his throat, now looking as tense as Ren. “Actually… it’d work better if Merapo cut loose from you. Official. And public.”

He was right to look tense. “The fuck makes you think I’d ever agree to that?” Vargo asked. Soft. Cordial. Because Sedge was a trusted fist and Ren’s brother and Vargo probably shouldn’t knife him—not without a chance to talk himself out of this hole.

The Cut Ears might be Old Island rather than Lower Bank, but they were still one of his knots. His grip was the only thing keeping the peace in the rookeries of Nadežra. A peace made more tenuous when word of Mileka’s demands and the Moon Harpy deal got out. All his knots were on edge.

Ren’s flat look said she recognized that tone of voice, and she thought he was being theatrical. Which he was, in a way: Vargo had spent years teaching his people to be afraid of that voice. But he wasn’t doing it just for the hell of it, and he gave her a flat look right back.

She was unfazed. “Branek has half the Stretsko with him; we must assume he knows the Cut Ears joined you. If they do anything—if any of your knots do anything—he’ll assume your hand is behind it. And he’ll be right.”

“So your answer is for me to let one of my knots cut free?” Vargo’s fist tightened around nothing—the same nothing that tied the knots to him. “Sounds like sinking a boat over a few barnacles. I want the Kiralič and Mevieny back, but I en’t dissolving my crews to get it.”

::Vargo, take care. With that medallion influencing you—::

“This en’t about Sessat,” Vargo snapped. Ren could hear Alsius, and it wasn’t like Sedge and Varuni weren’t used to him talking to himself. “The answer would have been no from the moment I crawled out of Froghole. They’re mine.”

“Are they?” Ren asked quietly, an edge of challenge to her curiosity. “Forgive me… I know you’re as loyal as any sworn boss, but to you they are not tied. And the people who make up the knots don’t belong to you. That isn’t how knots work.”

She was right. Knots were friendship, not ownership. Not a Tyrant’s rule.

Slumping forward like his strings had been cut, Vargo braced his elbows on his knees and scrubbed the frustration from his face. His thoughts felt like bugs under a turned cobblestone, scurrying from the light. “Look at it logically. Say Merapo and the others do cut knot—publicly enough for Branek to buy it. That means it’s public enough for others to buy it. If I just let the Cut Ears walk, those others will start to think they can do the same without consequences. Pretty soon we’re back to every corner of the Lower Bank being territory people knife each other over.” The way it used to be, before Vargo’s takeover began, fighting each other instead of banding together against their real enemies. No order, no structure, no—

Fuck. Maybe Sessat was influencing him.

But that didn’t mean his fears weren’t real. Merapo leaving would be the first trickle of water through a cracking dam.

Sedge blew out slowly. “Yeah, I know. But… how’re you gonna stop that from happening anyway? Half your knots already want to pull loose, now that you’re a cuff.”

And that was the problem. Master of the Two Banks, Koszar Andrejek had once called him. But the more Vargo tried to bridge that divide, the more he felt stretched to snapping.

Becoming a cuff was a means to an end, not something he’d ever wanted for himself. But now that he had it, had tasted its power in the sweet, clear water of the West Channel… he wasn’t about to take his foot off the Upper Bank just to keep the Lower.

Too bad Arkady Bones en’t a few years older, he grumbled to Alsius. Only belatedly did he remember Ren could hear it, too, as her lips pressed down on a smile.

To Sedge he said, “I don’t know. That, unfortunately, is the Lumen’s own truth. But now the river numinat’s up, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands. And apparently nothing to do but kick around here while you’re off riling up Lacewater.”

“Then you’ll—”

“Tell Merapo I want borders settled before he cuts out. I get word of a turf battle over so much as a cobblestone, I’ll drop our new Caerulet on the lot of them.” His grin was more teeth than humor, but so be it. “She may not jump when a cuff snaps his fingers, but I know an ex-captain she listens to.”

Lacewater, Old Island: Apilun 35

The warm weight of Sedge’s hand on Ren’s shoulder helped ground her. “It’ll be all right,” he murmured.

She wished she could believe that. But they’d been here before: the two of them lurking in an alley behind this tenement on a cold, misty afternoon, preparing for a job. They were older now, and she was masked as the Black Rose, but the years in between might as well have been a dream.

Or rather, a nightmare.

“Tide’s out and the sky’s clear. Why wouldn’t it be all right?” Her false cheer was thin gauze over a ragged wound.

“Because last time it weren’t,” Sedge said bluntly.

Ren swallowed hard. “Sedge—”

“Don’t. You din’t know.”

“I knew I was going further than I should. Further than I’d been told to.” Ondrakja had sent Ren to steal back a pearl ring the Cut Ears had taken from her. But Ren, Tess, and Sedge were already preparing their escape from the Fingers, scraping what coin they could to build a life away from Ondrakja. When she’d seen a chance to take more…

She swallowed again, but the rock in her throat wouldn’t go down. “I got greedy. And Ondrakja tried to kill you. Over my mistake.”

“For the smartest of us, you sure do pack a lot of stupid between your ears.” Sedge tweaked one of those ears lightly. “Blaming yourself, just like Ondrakja wanted. We was all tugging to get loose of her knot. So why’re you still letting that thread tangle you up?”

Because she’d hurt people. Not even just Sedge: To Ren, the little statuette of An Mišennir Lagrek was just a bauble she could sell. To Yariček, the leader of the Cut Ears, it was the last thing he had of his father. He’d threatened war on the Fingers to get it back.

“I keep doing it.” She didn’t even realize she’d said that out loud until Sedge’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “I keep putting people in danger. I keep hurting them. Because of my ambition.” Like she’d hurt the Traementis. Sedge had survived; Leato hadn’t.

“But now you’re making it right.”

He thought she was talking about the Kiralič and the failed meeting. He wasn’t entirely wrong—and he was right about where her thoughts needed to be. Even as Ren drew a deep, steadying breath, shouts erupted from the next street over.

Sedge’s plan was elegant in its simplicity. Branek had occupied the Cut Ears’ old base? Then the knot should try to take it back. With their ties to Vargo publicly severed, it didn’t look like a distraction, because it wasn’t: Ren and Sedge were riding in the wake of a genuine bit of street warfare. It wasn’t enough to get them directly into the building, but they didn’t need that.

The tenement’s narrow central hall shot like an arrow from front to back. To either side, the missing doors had been replaced by oxhide and cloth, or battered curtains of beads as gap-toothed as an old woman’s gums. And because Lacewater loved a good brawl—so long as they could watch from the safety of windows or rooftops—the rooms were empty.

Mostly empty.

One of the curtains rattled as they approached, the only warning before a hip-high missile shot through and took Sedge out at the knees. He hit the wall with a grunt; the child landed on his ass with a hiccup of surprise.

It was a boy no older than Jagyi, and all set to start wailing when Ren sank to one knee. “Oops!” she said, letting her laugh into her voice. “My friend wasn’t watching where he was going. Sedge, tell this little fellow that you’re sorry.”

“He ran into me—” Sedge swallowed it down when Ren gave him a meaningful look. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I’m sorry.”

The boy wasn’t even listening, staring open-mouthed at Ren. “You’re the Black Rose! Gaf-gaf! Gaf-gaf! We’re being burgled by the Black Rose!”

“Little we have for her to take,” came a voice from inside the room, rough with pain and age. “Lemyi, get back in here and leave strangers to their business.”

Unfortunately for him, Ren’s business was in that room. When a second child peeked out, Ren let the girl add her weight to the boy’s, both of them tugging her through the curtain.

Inside the windowless, cluttered room, an old man with a badly twisted leg sat on a stool, dandling an infant on his good knee while another crawled on a bit of worn canvas thrown over the splintered floorboards. At the sight of the Black Rose, the man’s jaw dropped, but his hands remained firm on the child he held.

Extricating herself gently from the two holding her, Ren said, “Go on. Go to your gaffer.”

The suspicion tightening the old man’s gaze eased once Lemyi and the girl were safely peeking out from behind his chair. “You the cause of the fuss out there?” he asked, nodding toward the front.

“Just taking advantage of it,” Ren said. “There’s someone next door who needs rescuing. If you don’t mind letting me through, grandfather, and letting my friend stay to keep watch, you’ll have our thanks in the form of a solid meal for yourself and these children.”

It was a better offer than money, which might have attracted attention. The old man pursed his lips and nodded. “I don’t know what ‘through’ you mean, but well enough. Just go about your business quickly, or I’ll make you change this one’s nappies as a toll.”

“My friend’s good at that,” Ren said, grinning, and went to the corner before Sedge could do more than glare.

Her amusement faded quickly. When she pulled the bed there aside, her fingers found the outline of the hatch, irregularly shaped to conceal its presence. Lacewater was full of compartments and passages, used by smugglers to move goods and hide illicit business when the hawks came knocking. The important thing was, this one had openings into both this building… and the one next door.

The hatch opened with a creaking yawn on a darkness ready to swallow Ren whole. Her muscles tensed, refusing to move. The last time I went in here…

Behind her, the gaffer grumbled, “We’ll be losing all the children in there now.”

“Why don’t you wait in the hall?” Sedge suggested. “Might be safer that way.”

Ren heard him chivvy the gaffer and the kids past the curtain, but she couldn’t turn to look. The darkness below held all her attention. A fen-rotted stench curled up from the opening, and the lamplight glinted off muddy water below. Low tide or not, Lacewater was always sinking into the muck.

Sedge’s hand landed on her shoulder again. “I’ll stay here with the lamp, in case you need to back out. Just make for the light, yeah?”

She laid her own hand over his, squeezed, let go. She couldn’t back out. This was the only way in: Even with the Cut Ears attacking, Branek’s people weren’t dumb enough to leave their doors unguarded. And she was the only one who could fit through this passage.

Ren pulled off her mask. As much as she’d rather be the Black Rose right now, she didn’t want that filth all over her disguise. Tucking the scrap of lace into the safety of her braid, she forced herself to drop into the fetid water below.

The lightstone she uncapped on her wrist revealed a mud-pocked undercroft of rotted wood pilings and worn numinata inscribed on crumbling masonry. Even at a crouch, she risked banging her head; she had to slosh her way forward on elbows and knees like some bloated fen salamander. She did her best to keep her wrist high and steady, the light casting a circle of dancing shadows around her.

Like zlyzen, twisting and crawling. The last time Ren came through here, she’d feared the monsters might be lurking. Now she knew they were real. Had watched them kill.

They’re in the dream, she told herself, trying to slow her heart. You haven’t seen them in months. They’re not here.

But sometimes they crossed over.

Ren crawled faster.

Down here, it was hard to hear the shouting. How much longer would the distraction last? Could someone hear her coming? What if the hatch at the other end was nailed shut? She forced herself under a low beam, face almost in the water. On the far side there was more space, and when she touched the boards overhead, they lifted without protest.

If there’d been a guard in the room, they would’ve had ample opportunity to stab her. Ren hoisted herself out without so much as a preparatory glance, sloshing stinking runoff across the floor, and shut the hatch like a zlyzen was on her heels.

She wanted to stay there until her pulse slowed, but there wasn’t time. Ren wiped her hands dry on a nearby sack—then stopped.

When she’d broken in before, this room was where the Cut Ears taught each other to fight. The bloodstains were probably still there, but now they were covered by bags of grain, barrels of water. And beyond them… stacks of crossbows and spears.

Koszar was right. Branek is preparing for violence.

The thought made her sick. But would he truly turn those weapons on his own people, just to motivate them against the Liganti?

Mevieny and the Kiralič might be able to tell her. But to free them, Ren needed help. She dragged the Black Rose’s mask over her face, leather petals replacing her sopping, muck-smeared clothing, and crept out into the hall.

The Cut Ears’ headquarters was tall and narrow, with a central stairwell that made defending the upper levels as easy as dropping rocks. Creeping up the steps, Ren kept her back to the outer wall to hide from anyone left to guard. If she and Sedge were right about the boarded-up window, her ultimate target was on the top floor… but her first stop was just one flight up, a room with barred shutters that couldn’t be opened from the outside.

Shutters the Anduske were smart enough to keep guarding.

There were distinct benefits to Grey having told Alinka the truth about the Rook—and to Ren being able to practice throwing at Vargo’s house. A flick of her wrist sent a dart tipped with one of Alinka’s imbued sedatives into the guard’s neck. The yelp he got out wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the chaos out front, and then Ren had a hand clamped over his mouth, her other hand twisting his arm into a lock until the dart took effect. When he slumped, she lowered him to the floor and unbarred the shutters.

Grey paused on the sill, the substitute Rook’s hood doing nothing to disguise his grimace. He curled one arm around his lower face, coughing into his elbow. “Such an aromatic rose,” he said, the words muffled by wool.

Primly, Ren said, “Even roses need fertilizer to grow strong.”

“Is that what that is.” He made up for his teasing by taking her hand without hesitation. “Up?”

“Up,” she agreed.

There was a guard outside the room at the top, but Ren let Grey deal with that one. The scuffle was brief, and in its aftermath, she searched the man. He was smart enough not to keep the key on himself, but fool enough to store it atop the door frame. Not knowing if there would be one more threat waiting inside—or a different occupant than the ones they were hoping for—Ren eased the lock open as silently as she could. Then she hurled the door open and dove through, letting the Rook behind her serve as the taller, more obvious target.

It wasn’t necessary. Only one person was inside: the Kiraly clan elder, sitting on a narrow cot and dealing out a well-worn set of cards.

Which flew everywhere when the door burst open, a shower of mismatched backs and poor inking. His yelp spun into a wry chuckle. “Have you practiced such dramatic entrances, or is it natural skill?”

“The blessings of Nem Zimat,” Ren said wryly. There was nowhere in the room for anyone else to hide, guard or otherwise. “We’ve come to get you out—you and the szorsa both. Do you know where she is? In another room, perhaps?”

Her voice and manner made the urgency clear, but the Kiralič still took a moment to gather the scattered cards, knocking them straight. His furrowed brow said the answer to that question was complicated. “Mevieny has put her faith in Ažerais. She is no longer… quite… Branek’s prisoner.”

“Explanations can come later,” the Rook said. “Our distraction won’t last forever.”

They were only halfway down the stairwell when voices began echoing up it. Ren had a brief view of faces staring up at them, like a ring of befuddled flowers; then Grey turned in a whirl of black coat. “Get the Kiralič out,” he said. “I’ll guard your retreat.”

Would the Black Rose kiss the Rook? Not smelling like Ren did, she wouldn’t. Instead she grinned, pushed the Kiralič toward the open window, and said, “Catch up when you can.”

To the sound of ringing steel and the Rook’s mocking laughter, they made their escape.

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Apilun 35

Getting away was harder when Grey couldn’t just pull the hood off and revert to ordinary clothes. But Ren and the others waiting to help her had to take a roundabout path in order to avoid leading any pursuers to Vargo’s house, and with the Kiralič stuffed into a sedan chair—they couldn’t trust the skiffers—they moved slower than he did. Grey arrived hard on their heels. Ren smelled better than before, and he wondered if she’d paused at a street pump to unmask and sluice herself off.

Vargo’s shoulders eased visibly when he opened his kitchen door to them, but characteristically, he hid that relief behind a sardonic comment. “If I was the betting type, I’d be out a decira,” he said as he led the Kiralič to the room at the back of the house. “Hurting you would have been stupid on Branek’s part—but I didn’t expect him to be sensible.”

“It seems you bet on me returning, though,” the Kiralič said, seeing the two who waited there with clenched hands and untouched tea. Koszar and the Anoškinič rose with the speed of relief, and the Kiralič touched his heart in greeting. “I will make offering in thanks to Šen Asarn Kryzet that you both escaped our ill-fated meeting.”

“This one will have no knees left if he continues to leap about like he can fly,” the Anoškinič muttered. With one toe he prodded the cane Koszar leaned on, but there was a warmth in his grumping that had been utterly absent before. If nothing else good had come of that disaster, Grey thought, at least Koszar’s rescue of his ziemič had persuaded the man he wasn’t entirely without virtue.

Injured knee notwithstanding, Koszar tried to lower himself to the floor. “Kiralič. Please believe, it was no intent of mine to lure you into danger—”

An impatient wave cut him off. “Get up. No ally of Branek are you; I heard enough to be sure of that. And more besides. Are we safe here?”

“Better be,” Vargo muttered darkly, tugging the drapes shut. “Unlike that boat, I control this place.”

Sorrow briefly shadowed the Kiralič’s face. “The barge, yes. That was a gift from my wife, upon our wedding.”

The bottom dropped out of Grey’s stomach. The Kiralič’s wife had been Kolya’s master during his apprenticeship. Those fine carvings, now lost to the Dežera… had some been shaped by his brother’s hand?

No one else would understand the stricken note in the Black Rose’s voice. “My sincere regret for sinking it,” she said—an apology to the Kiralič and Grey alike.

The Kiralič gestured it away. “Desperate times, and I cannot object when the Rose of Ažerais makes an offering to the Dežera.”

Grey had reflexively drifted to the dimmest corner of the room, where the shadows supplemented those of his hood. He hoped the twinge of grief didn’t show in his voice as he changed the subject. “You told us Szorsa Mevieny’s not exactly a prisoner. She’s sided with Branek, then? Is she the one who sold us out in Floodwatch?”

“Not at all,” the Kiralič said hastily as the rest of them sat. “A great risk she takes, for the sake of us all. She has not forgotten Ča Andrejek’s wish for judgment by ordeal. But to achieve that, first she must persuade Branek to listen to her wisdom, instead of…”

He trailed off for long enough that the Black Rose made a noise to prompt him. Sighing heavily, the Kiralič said, “You will hear eventually; no profit is there in hiding it. Branek has been taking advice from an elder szorsa of my own clan, one with much influence.”

Swallowing fear like glass, Grey whispered, “Who?”

“Laročja Szerado.” The Kiralič’s braids swung as he turned to the Rook. “Perhaps you have memories of her? In two separate cycles, she has stood as speaker for the Ižranyi at the Ceremony of the Accords.”

“I remember her.” Not as the Rook, though. The Rook had no reason to feel cold nausea at her name. The Rook wouldn’t wish he could dive out the window and remove himself from this business.

From Vargo came a soft intake of breath, and Grey tensed for him to ask. But it was Koszar who gave the question voice. “Szerado. The same kureč as the former hawk?”

“Unless the threads of his koszenie he has cut, yes,” the Kiralič said. “But I know not the details of that family’s business. It was none of mine.” He smiled bitterly. “No matter what my wife used to say.”

“And what does Szorsa Laročja say, that Branek is so willing to hear?” Grey asked. What poison has she poured into his ears?

The Kiralič’s mouth hardened. “Whether the idea was hers or his, I cannot say, but she has him convinced it can work. He means to lure the Vigil away—by what means, he shared not. But when they are gone, his people will close off and barricade the bridges. They mean to take the Old Island.”

“Fuck me,” Vargo said, and then silence followed.

Rubbing at his eyes, the Kiralič said, “His plan is… unfortunately well thought out. Through his clan he has ties to the skiffers; they will guard the shores. In cellars and in the Depths he is stockpiling food, so they cannot easily be starved out. Already our people come for the Great Dream, for the end of the Grand Cycle. Before the mists rise, he will take and hold the island, and from there he will declare Vraszenian control of Nadežra.”

It wouldn’t be that simple. Taking the Old Island, perhaps—maybe even holding it for a time. Nadežra had a few warships, but none that could attack the Old Island; they were either ocean-going vessels that would run aground in the delta, or else riverboats too large to pass the Floodwatch Bridge. Their job was to defend against threats from the sea and the river, not from within. For that, Nadežra had usually relied on the Vigil. Cercel wouldn’t order a massacre, the way Mettore or Ghiscolo would have done, but she wouldn’t sit idle, either.

Even with the island in his hands, though, Branek would be far from victory. And the island didn’t translate to control of Nadežra.

Those were the thoughts of a hawk, not a Rook. But Grey knew how to twist one to sound like the other. “If he tries it during sun hours, he’ll have an entire Charterhouse full of Liganti hostages.” Even a cleansing numinat wouldn’t be enough to wash the blood from the Dežera then.

Koszar said, “And what of those on the island who have not come at his call? I understand now why Branek has brought in so many, but not all who live there care for his cause.”

The Kiralič nodded grimly. “Even so. They plan to imprison all Liganti residents—and those who are, in Branek’s eyes, too polluted by the blood of outsiders.”

“Imprison.” Ren’s voice was a knife in the dark, sharp and quiet. “Somehow I doubt it will end there.”

“With imprisonment it will begin,” the Kiralič said. “But no, there it will not end. He… he expected me to rejoice in it. Our island, the place where Ažerais’s children first gathered and saw her dream, purged of Liganti impurity.”

Vargo’s boot slid from his knee to strike hard against the floor. “As someone who’s had his impurity dredged up from both sides of the river, I feel qualified to say ‘fuck that.’ We stop him. We have to.”

“I doubt Branek can be turned from his path.” Looking to Koszar, the Kiralič bowed his head. “But you wished to expose his oath-breaking and retake the Stadnem Anduske. If the support of the ziemetse you still desire, Prevomir and I will do what we can to secure it.”

The Anoškinič scoffed, puffing up like the bird his clan was named for. “Speak for me, will you?”

“Yes, because you are a man of sense.”

Scowling, the Anoškinič didn’t argue. “It will not be easy. The Stretskojič I suspect gives support to Branek in secret, and the Varadič will look for opportunities to spin his own webs. But if it is as we fear… then we will get you what support we can.”

9

The Mask of Bones

Isla Traementis, Old Island: Apilun 36

Traementis Manor still didn’t feel entirely safe. To Ren, safety was home, and home was where she could be herself. By those standards, the closest thing she had was Vargo’s townhouse.

But it was a good deal better than it had been, thanks also to Vargo. After she’d made a bitter comment about always fearing the servants overhearing or entering without warning, he’d presented her with two numinata: one that would chime when someone entered the sitting room, and one that would dampen sound, stretched across the canopy of her bed.

Impressively, he’d managed to explain the latter without so much as a salacious lift of his eyebrow.

Those two together meant that having Grey visit her at night was only somewhat foolish, rather than stupidly reckless. And Ren was willing to accept a bit of foolishness in exchange for the warmth of him at her back, the sight of his face in the morning. Grounding her once more in the present, after dreams of Vraszan’s past.

Soon we will not have to hide.

She hoped. Only one trial remained, and while she had confidence Grey would win… would it be enough? Certainly there were people cheering him on, Lower Bank residents supporting one of their own, nobles eager to see someone—anyone—trip Vargo right before the finish line. But whatever the folklore behind the Trials of the Volti, Ren wondered if Faella’s scheme was working. How would people react when Grey requested permission to court her? Would their support extend past that line?

Not just on the Upper Bank. Grey had been called a slip-knot before, when he was a hawk. He’d likely face that again, once he started courting a Traementis alta. They’d be together publicly, but it would still be a con, trying to sell the tale of their romance to the city.

And even if that worked… would it forever be tainted by its source? The method was Faella’s idea, but her inspiration was Primordial.

“I can hear you thinking, Szeren,” Grey murmured.

She’d told him what Faella said at the amphitheatre. Grey’s thoughts were the same as hers: that their love for each other had nothing to do with a Primordial, and that they would benefit no one by abandoning the trials unfinished. But that wasn’t the only weight on her mind.

The name the Kiralič had spoken. She and Grey hadn’t discussed it the night before; he’d no sooner crept into her room than he sought comfort in her arms. And yet that comfort had not gone past kisses.

Perhaps Grey truly could hear her thoughts, because he turned on his side and touched his brow to her bare shoulder. “Yes, Laročja Szerado is kin to me. I wish we were not. She wishes it even more.”

He almost never spoke of his family. What Ren guessed at came only from the shadows behind his words, and the one time he’d mentioned them directly. “Your… grandmother?”

“My nightmare,” he said, simple and flat. “The reason Kolya stole me from our kureč, when I was only ten. Her and my father.”

Grey had looked sick when he saw the bruises Simlin gave her. And there was a scar on his back, the long mark of a whip. She’d never asked him about it, assuming it had happened here in Nadežra. Carters and carriage drivers plied their whips against Vraszenians who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. But the scar was an old one.

She’d never asked why they left, why Grey didn’t use his patronymic. Now she stroked his hair and said, “They were cruel to you.”

“Not without reason.” Pressing into her hand in a fair imitation of Clever Natalya, who was dozing by his feet, he continued softly. “My grandmother… she is the reason I despise frauds. For years I watched her foretell doom for others, persuading them only she could avert it. Building a web of those dependent on her, in debt to her, as though she were Varadi. I think at times she believes her own lies. But once, in her cups…”

He fell silent, his body tensing against the confession. Ren stroked him again, kissed his brow. “You need not say it.”

“Yes, I do. You have to know.” His eyes closed. “When I was very small, my mother drowned herself in the river. She—she tried to drown me, too. Kolya saved me.”

Ren’s breath caught in her throat. Before she could find words, Grey went on. “She’d been sick in her heart ever since I was born. My grandmother’s pattern said I was the cause—that my mother must give me up. She meant adoption into another kureč, ending our relationship… but my mother thought she was being kind. To her, The Mask of Bones could mean only one thing.”

“You blame your grandmother for her death?”

“No. I mean—Alinka’s told me this sickness can happen with women after childbirth. Usually only for a short while. Sometimes it lingers, though, or even grows worse. My grandmother, I think, made it worse. But after my mother died…”

His breath grew more ragged. “If I was the cause of my mother’s sickness, my grandmother was convinced there must be a reason. And so she patterned me. It showed—she confessed this once, when she was very drunk; it is the only time the cards have spoken to her as clearly as a voice—I am cursed. I was born cursed.”

“That’s not true,” Ren said, soft and firm. “I have laid your pattern, Grey. Nowhere in it saw I anything like that.” A twisted future, yes, but he’d done that himself, trying to hide from her. No horror in his past. Nothing to blame a child for.

And yet they had blamed him. Dead-voiced, Grey said, “They thought they could cleanse me of it. Help me atone. At first it was strictness only, but after Kolya went to his apprenticeship, they—they—”

He couldn’t say it, and didn’t have to. No embrace could ease that pain, but Ren tried anyway, folding Grey into her arms and hugging like she could drive the sorrow from him. His last words were muffled against her shoulder. “I am a curse. To everyone around me. My mother. Kolya.”

I ruin whatever I touch. My grandmother was right. His words in the temple, after she stopped him from burning the Rook’s hood.

“You are not a curse,” she whispered fiercely. “Because of you, I am alive. Because of you, I am better than I was: happier, more honest, living for more than my own gain only. You have helped the people of this city. When I patterned you, I saw no evil. Trust me, if not yourself. Your grandmother was wrong.”

Mere words. They couldn’t erase the scars, visible or hidden. But he’d once thrown a rope to pull her from the pit of her own fears; she could only try to do the same now. To give him something to hold on to, now and forever.

She waited until his trembling stilled. Then she said, “Kolya was right to take you away from that. Would I be right to keep you from it now?”

Grey sighed and rolled onto his back, gaze caught in the drape of the canopy. “If only it were that simple. If my grandmother is helping Branek—”

“Then we deal with her by dealing with him.”

Ren’s mind reflexively went to work, tallying up what she needed to know, what vulnerabilities she might attack. Then she made herself stop. There would be time for that; right now, what mattered was the man beside her.

Wrapping herself around him again, she closed her eyes. Soon enough he would have to go; soon enough she would rise and be Renata and bring the Trials of the Volti to an end. And confess the truth of herself to Donaia. And deal with Letilia.

For now, she breathed in the warmth and the scent of him, and wished they could stay there forever.

The Point, Old Island: Apilun 36

In becoming a con artist, Ren had learned how to ride the jittering edge of her nerves. The breathless excitement and anxiety of a con in progress sharpened her thoughts, making her more aware of everything around her, every nuance and twitch of the people she manipulated.

But it was possible to overload that balance, and today, she clung to it by her fingernails.

On the one hand she had her guests, gathered at the Great Amphitheatre for the third and last of the Trials of the Volti. The field of competitors had narrowed to eight. They circulated through the crowd in their masks, though by now everyone knew who was still in the running. Renata had to walk a very delicate path, pretending not quite well enough to have no preference, masking her true hope with a little too much warmth shown to the Prismatium Volto.

A path she nearly fell off when Letilia’s voice snagged her attention, like an old blister rubbed raw by new shoes.

“That’s hardly fair, Mede Beldipassi. Wouldn’t it skew the betting books if I shared a mother’s insight? Though I will say that my dear poppet has shown a surprising inclination for the Lower Bank.”

As though dispersed by Renata’s glare, the crowd before the stage parted to reveal Letilia entertaining a circle of hangers-on, rich cuffs who laid large sums on small matters and called it sport. Letilia might be speaking to them, but she aimed her words at Renata like a cocked crossbow. “Didn’t she live there for almost a year before she was adopted into my family’s register? Perhaps she misses the smell.”

The acoustics of the amphitheatre lifted the Raven Volto’s soft reply far beyond the stage. “How can that be, when it’s thanks to her efforts that the Lower Bank now smells as sweet as the Upper? We might more fairly shower Alta Renata with our favor, rather than begging for hers.”

“I didn’t act alone,” Renata demurred, artfully touching the sleeve of the Prismatium Volto as though it were an unconscious gesture. “We owe as much thanks to Eret Vargo.”

“He has my gratitude… but that’s the limit of my generosity.” The Raven Volto stepped within reach to catch and hold her fingers and her gaze alike. “I hope to make it the limit of yours.”

The flutter in her belly as his lips warmed the thin silk between them had nothing to do with artifice. Her laugh was soft as thistledown on the breeze. “I look forward to your efforts.”

Her cluster of suitors dispersed quickly after that performance, but that only left her open to Letilia’s approach. Stylized silver hounds chased gold egrets over the moss-green field of her surcoat—a vast improvement over the embroidery she’d worn on her arrival. Hoping to glean clues about any remaining fail-safes, Tess had bowed to Letilia’s demand for a new ensemble. She’d sewn until her fingers resembled red pincushions and she was hunched like a Ganllechyn stitch-witch of old just to get the embroidery done on time, and still learned nothing useful.

Did that mean there was nothing to find? Or had they missed one final trap?

Letilia clamped down on Renata’s arm, a habit that was starting to make Ren flinch in apprehension. Tonight, she promised herself. Everything was in place. She had no doubt what Letilia’s reaction would be when Renata granted Grey’s request for courtship. In the wake of that, who would think it odd when Letilia chose to take ship back to Seteris? Especially since it would echo the way she’d fled over twenty years ago. The letter Ren had written in Letilia’s handwriting, railing against her daughter’s poor judgment, would catch any remaining doubts in its net.

And Letilia would get the life she’d always wanted—the life she’d refused, because she didn’t trust Ren to give it to her. More than she deserved, but a small price to pay for peace.

“I do wish you’d worn something else tonight,” Letilia said, eyeing Renata’s apricot surcoat and delicate golden river lilies with distaste. “We clash.”

“You needn’t be so tense. Haven’t you done well out of this event? I hardly see you these days; you’re too busy visiting new friends and old.”

“Friends are not a register, and thanks to your foolish interference, I still lack one of those. Have you even tried to talk Donaia around? Or do you expect me to settle for House Vargo when that jumped-up piece of trash wins this farce?”

Stifling a snort at the thought of Letilia shackled by register to Vargo, Renata said, “I have every intention of speaking with Donaia once tonight’s trial is over.” She almost wished the conversation would be about Letilia, instead of about herself. About who she really was. Ren’s imagination had spun out seventeen versions of that conversation, and far too many ended in Traementis vengeance.

Letilia clicked her tongue. “I’m getting tired of living in a hotel. I want my old rooms back in Traementis Manor. You’ll see to it, yes?” She didn’t even spare a glance for Renata, her gaze flicking over the crowd like a cook at market looking for the freshest catch… and settling on Scaperto Quientis. “Or I’ll find better rooms elsewhere.”

If that was a threat, Renata almost wished her luck. Few things enraged Donaia more than watching Letilia angle after Scaperto. For his part, he seemed to regard her as a barrel of black powder, stinking and liable to explode at any moment.

But she allowed Letilia to think the threat had landed, until the woman sailed back into the crowd. Then Renata blew out a long breath, trying to slow the rapid thud of her heart. Down in the city, the clock towers chimed ninth sun. Time to get started.

Everyone knew it, too. The crowd’s noise dimmed to a whispering murmur as Letilia climbed the stage.

“My friends!” she proclaimed, spreading her arms wide. “Thank you so much for gathering here today. I’m delighted to welcome you all to the third and final Trial of the Volti. As you can see, servants are even now laying out food and drink for you in the box seats, and soon we’ll have music for dancing. We must keep ourselves entertained somehow—as Renata, for some whimsical reason, has chosen a trial we can hardly even watch.”

Her theatrical frown elicited a few boos from the crowd. Blame Tanaquis, Renata wanted to say. The initial seed idea she’d proposed had fired her cousin’s creativity—but providing a spectacle for observers was the furthest thing from Tanaquis’s mind.

The volti lined up on the stage, and Renata approached them, bearing a tray with eight sealed envelopes. Each was marked with a stylized drawing of the recipient’s masks. “For the third trial,” Letilia said as they took their envelopes, “Renata wishes to test your cleverness. Each envelope contains a clue that will lead you to a location on the Old Island. If you’ve puzzled it out correctly, you’ll find in that place a second clue—a series of five in all, to prove your excellence.

“But beware! Though each of you begins with a different clue, as you proceed, you’ll begin to encounter one another. Take too long in the solving, and you may find your opponents have beaten you to the next stage! And when it comes to the final one… then, my charming friends, there is only a single victor. Whoever reaches Alta Tanaquis and claims the victory token from her will return here—and win from Renata a boon of their choosing.”

That was the script Renata had given her. But of course Letilia had to add a coda. “I do hope the volti will be safe, running hither and yon across the Old Island. But then, I suppose they all proved their strength in the first trial… and any who fail now are clearly unworthy of reward.”

Renata couldn’t tell whether it was deliberate or accidental that a sneer touched her lip when she looked at the Raven Volto and the woman in the willow mask. They were the only two commoners left in the pack. Had Letilia taken steps to sabotage them? She had no reason to do so, apart from sheer pettiness—but that might be enough.

If so, Ren had to trust Grey to overcome it. As hawk and as Rook, he’d dealt with far worse than Letilia. And the envelopes had come directly to Renata from Tanaquis; there was no way Letilia could have interfered with them. Ren doubted she could have imitated Tanaquis’s scrawling handwriting, which might pose a bigger challenge to the volti than the riddling clues.

The volti had their envelopes. Letilia paused, letting the silence stretch out. Then she cried, “Begin!”

To the roar of the crowd, the volti ran for the exit.

Old Island: Apilun 36

To find the clue your path must bend

Toward the place where all roads end.

::Dreadful poetry, but clearly referencing Ninat,:: Alsius said as Vargo folded his third clue and strode off through Suncross. Seeing him cut west, he added, ::Oh, you think?::

“It’s the way Tanaquis would think, and that’s what matters.” Unlike the canal race, Vargo didn’t have a crowd of spectators cheering and jeering him on; he took advantage of that to lift his prismatium mask and let the winds off the Dežera cool the accumulated sweat. “I think she’s going easy on me.”

Alsius huffed. ::Entirely unnecessary. She knows you have me to help you.::

“Your confidence that I could manage on my own is noted and appreciated,” Vargo muttered as he reached the Duskgate at the foot of the Sunset Bridge. Even if the white envelope tucked between two of the disused gate’s planks hadn’t stood out like a banner, the Argentet lackey making sure no passerby swiped it would have given away the clue’s location. Passing the lackey a decira, Vargo snatched out the envelope and broke the wax seal. At this rate, he’d be back at the amphitheatre before the sun set.

Three months of working with Tanaquis had made her handwriting easy to read.

Amid the walls of painted fear,

You’ll find your next clue hidden here.

The chill that passed through Vargo had nothing to do with the wind. He shoved the clue inside his coat and leaned against the gatehouse, sucking in breath after breath of fresh air.

When the first wave of oh fuck no had passed enough for him to speak, he said, “I take it back. Tanaquis hates me.”

Alsius scuttled down Vargo’s lapel like he meant to crawl inside and read the clue under the shadow of blue gabardine. ::Why? Is it difficult? Read it to me; I’m certain I can puzzle it out.::

“The Depths. She’s sending us to the place Gammer Lindworm kept the children.”

::Oh.:: Tucking his legs under like he did when he was trying to avoid the attention of seagulls, Alsius said, ::That’s not so bad. Ondrakja’s dead, after all.::

Not so bad? Vargo forced a laugh. “She kept zlyzen there, too. Remember?” His scars still pulled a bit when he twisted, making sure Vargo would never forget. Just like the nightmares he’d been fighting on and off since those monsters trapped him in the dream.

Alsius hadn’t grown up with stories of the zlyzen. They didn’t hold the same terror for him. ::But without her to call them, I’m sure it’s fine. Come, we’re wasting time! You may have beaten your opponent to this clue, but someone else may be headed into the Depths right now.:: Cunningly, he added, ::You don’t want to go down there only to find you shouldn’t have even bothered, do you?::

That prodded Vargo off the wall. Ren and Grey. You’re doing this for Ren and Grey. Though the setup of the challenge made it damn hard for him to assist Serrado, or to watch for anyone sabotaging the man. After a moment’s consideration, Vargo stuck the envelope back between the gate’s panels, while the Argentet lackey looked surprised. If Serrado was on the same path as him now, the man would need that clue. And if it was someone else…

Then I only need to outrun that one when the zlyzen show up, Vargo thought mordantly, heading for the nearest river stair.

The tide was in his favor, though he wished he’d worn a scented mask as he picked his way along the river strand to the opening that led into the Depths. The prismatium one did him no good at all, and he let it hang from his neck as he peered into the tunnel opening. He hadn’t thought to bring a light source—but he had brought a small inscription kit, on the chance that Tanaquis’s puzzles would involve numinatria. A broken shard of plate washed up on the bank made an acceptable surface for inscribing a basic light numinat. Holding that like a shield, Vargo forced himself into the darkness.

The people he’d sent down here to wash the zlyzen blood off the walls must have missed traces. Or was that just his natural sense of dread, inspiring his skin to crawl right off his body? Every shifting shadow seemed to hold the unnatural angles of a zlyzen’s limbs; every echoing scuff and drip was one of them creeping close. If Ren weren’t my friend, I’d be out of here so fast I’d leave my shoes behind. But she was, and he pressed onward.

At least it was cooler down here. Vargo lifted his sleeve to his face, eyeing every midden and mulch pile to make sure it wasn’t about to rise up and rake him with diseased claws. He was so busy shying from shadows that he failed to notice the other light source until he was almost upon it.

Turning a corner into a larger corridor, he came face-to-mask with Serrado.

“Pretty certain you’re supposed to leave that on,” Serrado said, his raven beak dipping toward the prismatium hanging around Vargo’s neck.

“Oh no, I’m disqualified,” Vargo drawled, not in the mood for Serrado’s arid wit. “Guess I’ll return to the surface like a sane person.”

Serrado shuddered as he glanced behind himself. “I’m no happier being here than you are. Any sign of the clue yet?”

No veiled suspicion that Vargo might have already found and disposed of it. If Serrado had harbored any doubts about their plan, they’d drowned two weeks ago in a Lower Bank canal. And though he wasn’t about to admit it, Vargo felt a lot more comfortable now that he had somebody bigger than a spider guarding his back.

“The burial niches, I suspect,” he said. Where Gammer Lindworm had kept the children caged.

There was no attendant here, which meant they were in the wrong place—possible; that Tanaquis didn’t think a nonpublic location needed a watcher—probable; or that the attendant had decided they weren’t being paid enough for this shit, which Vargo considered extremely plausible. Especially as they approached the niches carved into the wall and the stench of the Depths grew chokingly foul.

But there was another white envelope resting between two of the bars Gammer Lindworm had installed. Vargo hung back, letting Serrado be the one to pick it up.

“‘Pass beyond the unseen wall; take your prize, and win it all,’” Grey said. He arrived at the answer simultaneously with Vargo and Alsius. “The temple.”

Where the Illius Praeteri had conducted their rites, and Kaius Rex before them. Vargo carried a triple clover charm all the time these days, because they’d been using the temple for their various experiments. He assumed Grey did the same, but if not, Vargo could hand over his own. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” Serrado pressed one hand over his mouth, gagging a little. “There’s something else.”

::Carrion,:: Alsius said uneasily, shifting on Vargo’s shoulder. ::Something down here is dead.::

Serrado couldn’t hear the spider, but he’d turned to look at the next niche along, raising his own lightstone. Still a hawk, Vargo thought with irritation. “We can come back later—”

Then Serrado reached out and turned over what Vargo had thought was a pile of cloth. A corpse rolled to face them… and with a jolt, Vargo recognized it.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “That’s Ninat.”

The Depths, Old Island: Apilun 36

“Hold this.” Shoving his lightstone into Vargo’s free hand and tossing his mask aside so he could see properly, Grey dropped to his knees. There was no point checking for life; Grey had dealt with enough dead bodies to recognize this as one. The face was pallid as a fish belly, with the same flaccid sag, but nothing had started gnawing on it yet, nor had it sunk into rot. Days, then, instead of weeks or hours.

The limbs shifted like a puppet’s, a fresh wash of rot rising up to choke Grey as he rooted through the dead man’s clothes. Ir Entrelke, let it be here. It has to be here.

“Looks like he was hiding out,” Vargo said. His own light was lifted to the niche above, where a few bottles and a knapsack were stashed. “I didn’t even think to have anyone search the Depths.”

“Nor did I.” An understandable oversight, even if Grey was kicking himself for it now. The man hadn’t looked like the sort to haunt the Depths. But in his fear, after what he’d seen, perhaps he’d never emerged from the tunnel. Perhaps he’d fled down, down, down…

A pouch slipped out of the man’s coat and landed on the lip of the niche. Its thin velvet only muffled the dull clink of metal striking stone.

Relief and horror warred in Grey’s heart. That had to be the Ninat medallion—and the timing couldn’t be worse.

“Wait.” Vargo’s hand wrapped around Grey’s wrist as he reached for the bag. The two lights in his other hand cast unsettling shadows up his face, but nothing could hide the conflict in his expression.

The Rook might be broken, but Grey still felt the old fury bubbling up, at all the people who didn’t care who they hurt in their grab for any scrap of power. “We can’t leave it here. Do you propose to take it instead?”

“Hell no. I’m already having enough problems with Sessat. It’s only—” Vargo’s grip tightened. Then he released Grey’s wrist and stepped away. Not far; only to retrieve the raven mask Grey had dropped. “Neither of us should carry two.”

Grey went perfectly still.

Vargo was still, too, not meeting his gaze. Tense. As if he feared what the response would be.

“How long have you known?”

Voice tight, Vargo said, “Suspected something after the meeting with the ziemetse. Been paying attention since then. I don’t think anyone else is in a position to notice, but…” He shrugged one shoulder. “You and Ren. You’re both damn good at lying, but I can see what’s between you. Even when you’re not being you.”

Because the Rook is broken.

Grey couldn’t afford guilt right now, nor self-recrimination for failing to hide the truth. Vargo was right; it wasn’t safe for either of them to have two medallions. Neither was it safe to just leave Ninat here and hope no Depths scavenger came by and looted the body. The burial niches didn’t see a lot of visitors, but that didn’t make them secure.

“Tanaquis can take it,” Grey said. “She’s at the temple, with the victory token.”

Vargo turned enough to offer him the volto. “You go. You’ve got a boon to win, and I can wail and gnash my teeth publicly later. I’ll stay here and guard the thing—if you trust me.”

There were as many layers to that comment as there were colors in Vargo’s mask and tunnels in the Depths, and Grey didn’t have the time to untangle them all.

But neither could he quite make himself say the words. He only said, “I’ll need my lightstone.”

Two steps away, he glanced over his shoulder and found Vargo uneasily settling as far from the niche and its stinking contents as he could. The memory of Yvie’s recent artistic efforts on the front stoop flitted through his mind. “It’s not a thread, but red chalk might work.”

“Fuck you,” Vargo grumbled—but he was already digging in his pockets as Grey hurried away.

He didn’t need the Rook’s memories to guide him through the tunnels, and only a healthy sense of caution kept him from breaking into a run. A sense of caution which frayed and broke as he drew closer, until he finally rounded a curve and found a well-lit area up ahead, just outside the ward protecting the entrance to the temple.

Someone else was there, in front of a board festooned with hundreds of numinatrian and knotwork charms. The Boar Volto—Mede Galbiondi—systematically grabbed one charm, tried the barrier, dropped it, and grabbed another, while Tanaquis watched from the far side.

Her amusement faded to something far tenser when Grey skidded to a halt. “Are you all right?”

Deception had been drilled into his bones when he became the Rook. He forced himself to glance at the clue tacked at the top of the board, though he paid the words no heed; he had no doubt at all that Tanaquis had stacked this deck for himself, Vargo, or both. Ren might play honestly, at his request, but nobody else seemed to feel so constrained. After a cursory glance at the board, he grabbed a random charm and passed through the barrier, courtesy of the triple clover knot in his pocket.

But he didn’t take the victory token yet. In a murmur well-hidden under the bellow of outrage from the Boar Volto, he said, “We found the stranger. Vargo and I, in the burial niches. It’s on him, but—” Making his shudder convincing wasn’t difficult. “I—I was afraid to take it. I can’t risk my family like that.”

“Without a register to channel the energy, it wouldn’t—” Tanaquis stopped herself mid-argument. “No, of course. And Vargo shouldn’t either, should he? Right, take this.”

She shoved the victory token into his hands, then pushed past him, through the unseen barrier. Following her, Grey said, “Is it safe—”

“I already scribed protections into the Traementis register,” Tanaquis said, while the Boar Volto stared at them both. “It will be enough. Go.” Not waiting for further argument, she darted off down the corridor.

Grey looked at the Boar Volto, whose gaze had fallen to the victory token he held. “Don’t even think about it,” Grey said in the Rook’s voice, and headed for the surface.

The Great Amphitheatre, Old Island: Apilun 36

The sun was nearing the horizon and Donaia was fighting off a headache when excited shouting at the far side of the amphitheatre heralded the return of the winning volto.

“Finally,” she breathed. She didn’t agree with Letilia on much, but it was purely cruel of Renata and Tanaquis to stage this last trial in a fashion that left the spectators with nothing to do but eat, drink, dance, and worry.

Though Donaia might be the only one doing that last. While no doubt all of Renata’s volti wanted something from her, she’d feared from the start that her clever, persuasive niece had staged all of this in order to legitimize her relationship with Vargo. He might be a nobleman, but his title was less than a year old, and his boots and business remained firmly planted on the Lower Bank.

The cries got louder, and the musicians gave up. No one was dancing now anyway. Alinka rose onto her toes in a vain effort to see who’d won. The entry tunnel was clogged with people whose only business in this crowd was betting.

Please, let it not be Vargo. Would Donaia have no choice but to accept that man in Renata’s life? Would she have to let her niece go, to be scribed into his lonely register of one?

Too many people were cheering and punching the air for that to be the result. The crowd finally parted, and Donaia’s heart skipped a beat as she saw the victor.

The Raven Volto.

No one had openly confirmed the identities of the volti, but how could she not recognize that one? When she’d watched him grow from an abused little boy into the upright and honorable man he was now. She didn’t need Alinka’s yelp of delight to confirm it. And right then, floating on a cloud of breathless relief, Donaia was ready to give him a boon of her own in thanks.

Letilia was caught off guard. She’d been deep in conversation with a Cleoter cousin, and though she started to break that off so she could roll herself in Renata’s reflected glory, her momentum faltered at the sight of the Raven Volto. Whether she cared enough to know his precise identity or not, she knew he was the only remaining Vraszenian competitor. With a flick of disgust, she gave up on returning to the stage, letting Renata stand alone to receive the victor.

He knelt before her, presenting in both hands the engraved silver disc of the final victory token. Renata took it and said, “Through my trials you have shown your strength and your courage, your speed and your fellowship, your cunning and your devotion. Remove your mask, Raven Volto, and ask what boon you will of me.”

Grey’s hair was rumpled and his face damp with sweat, but he still made a beautiful sight as he gazed up at Renata. And his voice was resonant with joy as he said, “Nihil peto sed gratiam. Like the humble shepherd in the tale, I ask no favor but your favor: your permission for me to court you.”

Someone yelped. Someone else giggled. But mostly what Donaia heard was the mass rush of indrawn breath.

Including her own. Grey wanted to court Renata? But he was—

As if the river’s winds had whipped away a fog, Donaia saw clearly at last. He was the lover Renata had been hiding, all this time. The distance she’d seen between them wasn’t awkwardness or embarrassment; it was a mask over what they knew the city would condemn. Where Vargo fit into that picture, Donaia had no idea, but in this moment it hardly mattered. Renata’s smile, too tenuous and bright to be anything but genuine, spoke the truth she’d been concealing for so long. This was what she wanted.

Gossip could go many ways. It all depended on which direction it was pushed, in the instant when everything balanced on the knife’s edge.

No one blocked Donaia’s path as she joined them on stage. Between the acoustics of the amphitheatre and the numinat under her feet, she didn’t even have to raise her voice to be heard. “My niece’s discernment and taste are known throughout Nadežra. I cannot say whether you will win her hand, when so many have tried and failed… but I want nothing more than to see Renata happy. If you can bring that to her, I will gladly open our register. I only wish my son were here to cheer you on, Master Serrado. You were ever like a brother to him.”

Murmurs greeted that reminder of her loss. Part of Donaia was ashamed to be using Leato’s death to squeeze sympathy out of blood-minded gossips, but she knew how he would have reacted to this turn of events. He would already be clapping Grey on the back, beaming fit to crack his own face in half. Just like Giuna was doing now, darting up to hug Renata, bouncing on her toes before throwing propriety to the wind and hugging Grey, too. And Donaia—

She didn’t know how to feel. She felt too many things at once. Happiness, yes, because it was impossible to look at Renata and not realize that her niece had truly found what she wanted. Shock, because while the nobility might well take Vraszenians for lovers, marrying one was their least excusable scandal. Worry, because however well-orchestrated this entire display had been, there would still be knives poised for Renata’s back… and Grey’s as well.

But in this moment, what mattered was defending them both. And so Donaia warmly embraced Renata, then Grey, and tried not to think about the future.

Then she commanded the musicians to strike up a dancing tune and shooed the two lovers off to have a word on their own. Grey in particular looked impatient to escape for some private congratulations. Meanwhile, Donaia made a beeline for the nearest carafe of wine.

She found Letilia already there, glaring at her cup as though its contents had gone to vinegar. Donaia pivoted, but Letilia’s voice caught her. “Happy to open your register, eh?” She slugged back the wine and poured herself another. “Open it for that gnat—but not for someone who has every right to be in it.”

Letilia was drunk, they might attract an audience, and at the moment the Traementis duelist was otherwise occupied, but Donaia couldn’t bite back her response. “What right? Your own father struck you from the register.”

“For what crime?” Letilia’s wine sloshed over to stain her glove as she spread her arms. Tears sparkled in her eyes; she’d always been able to call them up for dramatic effect. “What terrible thing did I do for you all to hate me? Leave home to follow my dreams? That’s a disowning offense?”

On its own, no. But Crelitto’s fury had lasted for years after Letilia’s departure—all the way to his death. He’d never said why, only claimed to have his reasons.

Letilia was still talking, the venom thickening with every word. “You’re no better than a Lower Bank night-piece, opening your doors for anyone who can bring you value, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. You like to pretend you care about family, but what welcome did I get when I returned? Not even my old rooms back.”

“Those rooms are Giuna’s now,” Donaia said, casting around for anyone who could intervene and take Letilia away. Right now she would even recruit Scaperto, but he was busy talking to Cibrial, his back to her so he couldn’t see her signal.

Letilia scoffed. “Then you could give me the heir’s suite. I hear nobody’s using it.”

Leato’s rooms. Fire and ice slammed through Donaia’s bones, warring for supremacy. In one stride she was up in Letilia’s face, grinding the words out through a throat gone as hard as stone. “You have only ever seen this family as a source of money and comfort. A thing to take from at your whim, and never give back to. But know this, Letilia: I will burn the Traementis register before I ever scribe you into it.”

The woman staggered back a step, eyes going wide. For the smallest instant, Donaia wondered if she realized she’d finally gone too far.

But this was Letilia. She was incapable of that.

“Fine, then,” Letilia said, biting off each word. “If that’s how you’re going to be, then you deserve what’s coming.”

Before Donaia could react, Letilia turned on her heel and strode through the milling crowd to the stage, into the center of the numinat. The breaking of glass echoed through the amphitheatre as she flung her wine cup to the ground and cried, “I have something to say!”

The Great Amphitheatre, Old Island: Apilun 36

“But having two medallions in the Traementis register—” Ren whispered.

Grey scrubbed a hand through his hair. They stood close together in the shadow of an entry arch, still in sight for propriety, but far enough away for privacy. “I know. But someone has to take it. Tanaquis thinks she’s put in enough protections.”

Remembering the marks festooning the register’s clean lines, Ren thought Tanaquis might be right. Hoped she was. “It’ll do for now, at least. I honestly don’t know who else I’d trust to take it.” She trusted Tess and Sedge, but she wouldn’t inflict this on them. Ryvček, perhaps. But she wasn’t here tonight, and they couldn’t leave Ninat unclaimed.

Then Ren realized the crowd had gone quiet, the music limping off into silence.

And everyone was staring at her and Grey. Whispering to each other, some behind hands or fans, others openly.

No, not staring at them both. Just at her.

Letilia stood on the stage, cheeks flushed and arms akimbo, breathless with vindictive triumph.

Then Donaia hauled herself up to stand alongside Letilia. Her voice amplified by the numinat, she snapped, “What absolute horseshit. You are a petty, jealous woman, and drunk besides—but this is too far, Letilia, even for you. Go home. Nobody of good taste wants you here, and nobody of good sense would believe such wild accusations.”

How much had Letilia given away? How much had Ren missed? Ren couldn’t drag her gaze from the woman, but the whispers of the crowd carried everything she needed to know. Everything she feared.

Vraszenian.

Con artist.

Liar.

She’d known that Grey’s victory would anger Letilia. She’d thought she could use that to get rid of the woman. But she’d miscalculated: Instead it had driven Letilia straight over the edge of truth.

From nearby, a soft, hurt voice. Giuna’s. “Renata…”

That broke the paralysis, and Ren wished it hadn’t. Because when she met Giuna’s gaze, she saw that however much Donaia might condemn this as Letilia’s drunken nonsense… Giuna knew it was possible.

A deep-seated reflex reached for something to say. Some way to spin this. That she wasn’t Letilia’s daughter would be difficult to refute, but the rest—so long as her makeup was on, nothing about her looked obviously Vraszenian—she could still try—

Maybe she could. Maybe, with enough effort, there was a way to salvage a few shreds of her masquerade.

But Ren was tired. And she’d sworn to reveal the truth once the trial was over.

The Masks, it seemed, were laughing at her.

She looked at Giuna and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

The words were too soft to carry, but Donaia must have read the shape of them on Ren’s lips. For one horrible moment, she was a frozen statue. Then she said in an unsteady voice, “You shouldn’t have to apologize for your horrible mother. You—”

“No. I mean…” Ren clamped her lips against the accent she’d adopted for over a year, the crisp syllables sitting like cut glass in her mouth. When she spoke again, it was with the fluid rhythm of the winding Dežera. “Tonight I meant to tell you. It is as she says. She is no mother of mine.”

Dead silence. Not even a scandalized wave of whispers. Faella Coscanum stood with her jaw hanging loose, but Ren found no satisfaction in astonishing the city’s most well-informed gossip.

Not when everything had fallen into dust.

“Get out,” Donaia whispered. Even a birdcall would have been enough to drown it out, but with the numinat pitching her voice through the amphitheatre, it rang as clear as a shout. “Get out. And don’t show your face to me again.”

Grey’s hand slipped into Ren’s, the one solid thing in a world gone distant and faint. With him at her side, Ren walked through a crowd that parted around her like the Dežera around the Point. Down the aisle, out one of the amphitheatre’s exits.

And out of Renata’s life.

10

One Poppy Weeps

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Pavnilun 1

The next morning Ren lay in bed with Grey at her back, drifting on that peculiar, unreal wind of someone who went to bed too late, woke up too early, and couldn’t fall back asleep. Or maybe it was the unreality of the same thing that disturbed her rest: the inescapable knowledge that Alta Renata was unmasked at last, her con exposed to the world.

Vargo had sworn fit to boil the Dežera when he found the two of them in the temple, too heartsore to decide what to do next. “If I’d been there—” he’d said, helplessly.

“You couldn’t have done anything,” Ren said, her own voice dull with shock. “And what you were doing mattered more.” Standing guard over Ninat until Tanaquis could claim it. Ren supposed any concern over two medallions in one register was moot now. Tricat would be gone from the Traementis as soon as Donaia could unroll the parchment.

But Vargo hadn’t found much comfort in that. And in his quest to do something, anything to help, he’d offered her the refuge of his own house. Grey didn’t have his own lodgings yet—might never, if Donaia revoked his duelist contract—and it was better than crowding in with Alinka and the children, even if many poor Vraszenians lived their whole lives on top of one another.

Within the shock still hollowing Ren out, the emptiness of fear gnawed. How was she to pay for anything now? Not just lodgings but clothing, food, everything necessary for survival. Ren was licensed as an advocate for two more years—assuming Donaia couldn’t revoke that, too—but who would hire a known con artist to represent them in the Charterhouse? And who would accept her petitions? She had no way to support herself, except by the old habits of grifting and theft. Habits half the city would know of when the morning broadsheets went out.

She wouldn’t even be able to get work as a maid.

That thought made her whole body shake with something that wasn’t a laugh. It roused Grey, whose arm tightened around her waist.

“I’m here,” he said against the nape of her neck, his breath a warm comfort against the inner cold. Her fingers tangled with his, holding tight to him.

Though part of her said, You should let go. “I’ll only bring you down with me,” she whispered. Letilia’s revelation would sour the sweet story they’d spun. A Vraszenian con artist and her Vraszenian lover, duping everyone and nearly getting away with it. It was disaster for them both.

“Then we fall together.” He shifted, tugging at their joined hands until she rolled over and faced him, nose to nose and half buried under the heavy azure blanket. “When Clever Natalya faced evil sorcerers, Constant Ivan stayed true. Would you have me do less? We’ll figure it out.”

Maybe. But the part of her that was used to picking itself up off the ground just felt tired and broken. Like there wasn’t any point in trying.

Muffled sounds came through the door that led from Vargo’s bedroom to his study. The previous night he’d dragged his lounging couch into the other room, ceding his bed to them. Now it seemed he was awake, and trying not to wake anyone else.

Ren wanted to stay in bed forever, safe from the consequences of her actions. But her thoughts needled her like a burr in her stocking, and hiding wouldn’t make anything better. She forced herself upright and said, “Perhaps food will help.”

They had only their clothes from the previous night. But a pump and a warming numinat meant there was fresh hot water, washing away the cobwebs of sleep alongside the remnants of her makeup. After that, it felt almost fitting to don the tatters of Renata’s identity. Ren left the heavy surcoat draped over a chair and followed Grey downstairs in nothing but a wrinkled underdress.

Tess’s and Vargo’s voices drifted out of the kitchen in a friendly squabble about the proper additions for tolatsy. Vargo was arguing for the spices and savories common in Vraszan, while Tess adamantly insisted on the superiority of the cream, honey, and dried fruit Ganllechyns used to make their boiled oats edible.

Ren’s heart tightened, not entirely in pain. She hadn’t lost everything.

Nobody brought up the events of the previous night when she came into the kitchen, for which Ren was profoundly grateful. Grey settled the breakfast debate with a declaration that they’d make both types, and soon Ren was ensconced in the sunlit room at the back of Vargo’s house. In her hands was a bowl of proper tolatsy, and on the warming numinat was a smaller one sweetened in Ganllechyn style—“morning dessert,” as Vargo termed it. A series of thumps in the alley behind turned out to be Sedge, who came in bearing a crate emitting a constant stream of protesting meows. “Your cat clawed me,” he said accusingly as he lifted the lid, Clever Natalya springing free and bolting for cover.

Soft as the rice porridge was, Ren almost couldn’t swallow her mouthful around the lump in her throat. With Grey’s help, she’d broken into Traementis Manor the previous night… because as much as it hurt to do that, she couldn’t risk someone else picking up the boots whose heel contained the medallion, even for the purpose of delivering them to her. But Clever Natalya had been off on her midnight prowls, and Ren couldn’t afford to search for her—not when someone might notice the cat’s disappearance.

She managed to whisper, “Thank you, Sedge.” Putting the bowl down, she drummed her fingers to entice Clever Natalya onto her knee, then kept herself very busy petting the cat while everyone else got themselves settled.

“S’pose there en’t no point in popping Letilia on a ship bound for Seteris now,” Sedge said after the quiet went on too long with nobody breaking it. “Other than the pleasure it’ll give us. Something to be said for that.”

“Sedge!” Tess hissed, giving him an admonishing poke.

“What?” Sedge said. “It’s what we was all thinking.”

Ren coughed her throat clear. “Letilia is yesterday’s problem. Now that Ninat has been found, we should focus on destroying the medallions.”

New silence greeted her words. She dragged her gaze up and found everyone alternately looking at her, then exchanging glances with each other. “What?”

“Ren…” Tess took her hand. Gloveless. Ren wouldn’t have to fuss with gloves anymore. “I’m not saying the medallions aren’t important… but perhaps they aren’t the most important thing right now. What about Donaia and Giuna?”

Something surged inside Ren, like a rat trying to claw its way out of her throat. “What can I say? I should have told them sooner; it would have hurt them less. Explanations now will sound like I’m trying to salvage my con. If I were them, I wouldn’t listen to a word I say.”

“Doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to hear it,” Vargo said, poking at his tolatsy and studiously not looking at anyone. Grey, sitting next to Ren, inhaled softly. Vargo lifted his spoon, then let its contents goop back into his bowl. “If you’re going to cut ties, do it because you want to. Not because you’re afraid.”

“I’m not—”

“Aren’t you?” Vargo asked, meeting her gaze. He hadn’t done more than throw on a morning robe yet; his eyes were bare of the kohl that usually lined them, giving him a softer, open look.

It cracked her open, and the first tear spilled. “All right, I am. What if I hurt them again? More than I already have. I might just make things worse.” Not that she could fathom what “worse” might look like.

Nor could she bear everyone looking at her. When Clever Natalya mrrped in her lap, she ducked her head and let the next few tears fall on silky black fur.

A soft square of linen appeared in her hand—the one Grey carried for Yvie or Jagyi. He said, “I think worse might be leaving them with nothing but Letilia’s explanation. They don’t have to accept the truth from you… but don’t you want to share it with them, for once?”

Not when the truth felt like a knife between her own ribs. Or— No, Ren thought. The knife was already there. This would be its removal. Which might end with her bleeding out; the metaphor wasn’t comforting. But no matter what imagery she dressed it up in, they were right. Donaia and Giuna deserved an explanation from her.

She blotted her eyes and said, “A letter. If I show up at their door, odds are they’ll turn me away. But a letter they can read when they choose. Or burn it. Whatever they prefer.”

Tess brushed her hands briskly, like this was just another housecleaning task. “Very good. Vargo, do you have paper?”

“Do I have—” He stared at her, spoon in hand as if he were fighting the urge to flick tolatsy in her direction. “Yes, I have paper. You can use my study, Ren; that way you’ll have some peace and quiet.”

She followed him upstairs to the study where, not that long ago, Vargo had saved Grey’s life. Grey had told her last night, in their hurried conversation before everything fell apart, that Vargo knew about the Rook. She’d expected Grey to be wound wire-tight at that discovery, but he wasn’t, and this morning the two of them were acting almost normal. Honesty: Sometimes it made things better. She clung to that thought as Vargo settled her into the desk chair and gave her paper, pen, blotter, ink.

After that, though, he still lingered. “I didn’t want to bring this up around the others, because I didn’t want you to feel pressured,” he said. “But you can’t stay here.”

His words hit like a shock of cold water. She managed to say, “Of course. I’ll leave once—”

“No, that’s not…” The couch that served as his bed the previous night creaked as he dropped onto it. “I didn’t mean you’re not welcome. I mean that I doubt you want to stay here. But your old townhouse is still empty, and I’ve fixed up the broken windows. And Westbridge is much closer to Kingfisher.”

“I can hardly afford—”

“Did I ask for payment? There’s no debts between us.”

The paper crimped under her fingers as she recognized the echo in his words. “We aren’t knot-sworn.”

“We could be.”

His gaze was steady on hers again. Ren’s hand trembled as she brushed loose strands of hair from her face. “Vargo… you hold Sessat. Even if you carry it not, it’s still influencing you.” Friendship and loyalty. Damn the medallions, and damn Kaius Rex.

He shrugged, a veil of carelessness over what lay beneath. “We were friends before I took Sessat. You already know all my secrets. You know me better than almost anyone, and…” Vargo rubbed distractedly at his chest, the brand hidden by layers of fabric. The sigil that bound his life and his spirit to Alsius. “That time wasn’t exactly a choice. This is. And I’m not going to let some piece of numinatrian junk rule my life.” He snorted. “I’ve already got a chatty spider doing that.”

“But—” She had to force the words out. “I betrayed my knot. Twice. I poisoned Ondrakja, and I threw her to the zlyzen.”

“You want to compare our sins? We’ll need a few bottles of brandy and a lot more time.” His crooked grin called up their drunken afternoon of truth-telling.

But then that grin gentled into something Vargo never showed the rest of the world. Vulnerability.

“Look,” he said, soft as a shadow. “If you’re saying no because you don’t want to, I understand. You’ve got your blood siblings, and you’ll be marrying Serrado. Maybe you don’t want more ties. But if this is some ‘for your own good’ bullshit—or worse, ‘I don’t deserve it’—skip it. I know you. We know each other. And… that’s a rare thing for me.”

Ren felt like a sodden rag, leaking every time someone so much as touched her. But at least this time the tears stinging her eyes didn’t spring from sorrow or fear. Because she knew exactly what Vargo meant: the breath-stealing sense of finding someone who could look at you—at all of you, sins and all—and still hold out their hand.

She rose from behind the desk and perched next to Vargo on the couch. Close enough to take one of the hands dangling loose between his knees and clasp it in her own. There didn’t have to be a leader and followers; knot oaths were a ritual of friendship, a Vraszenian tradition long before they were adopted by Nadežran gangs.

“All our grudges are washed away,” she said. Words she’d recited twice before… but she never meant them as sincerely as she did now. “Your secrets are mine, and mine are yours. Between us there will be no debts.”

His voice was rough but his grip gentle as he repeated the oath. He released her hand—and then a shaky laugh as Ren impulsively threw her arms around him. She let go a moment later, but the feel of it stayed with her: a solidity she could trust.

“I en’t no good at knotwork,” he said, letting his diction slip. “And I din’t exactly plan this in advance, so I don’t have nothing prepared.”

“You can ask Tess for cord.” She laughed and wiped her eyes, glancing back at the desk. The blank paper and waiting pen didn’t feel quite so frightening anymore. “I must write that letter anyway. But once that’s done… I think you should bring out the aža.”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Pavnilun 1

“—sent her man to collect her damned cat, but doesn’t have the common decency to come here and give us an explanation! It’s absurd, it’s absolutely absurd—but you saw her reaction. You heard how she spoke at the end. She’s Vraszenian! How is that even possible? A liar, all this time, living in our midst!”

Donaia’s breath came fast and unsteady as she paced the room. Every time she dragged her voice down to a more reasonable level, it rose again. Well, so be it; not like the entire staff of Traementis Manor hadn’t heard. The entire city had heard. More than a dozen people had helpfully delivered broadsheets to her door. She was the laughingstock of Nadežra.

Giuna sat curled into a tiny ball at the end of the couch, her shoes abandoned on the floor. Meatball, wedged under the side table, tracked Donaia with doleful eyes. Scaperto watched from the armchair, but his expression was unreadable. And Tanaquis sat at the desk, the heavy roll of the Traementis register unfurled before her, pen and ink at the ready. As soon as Donaia said the word, Renata—whoever she really was—would be struck from their ranks.

Scaperto cleared his throat. “Do you intend to bring charges against her?”

Donaia tripped over her own feet, catching herself on the back of the couch. “Charges? No! Why would I…”

Her fingers tightened on the padded backing, the chamois as soft as a daughter’s cheek. Renata had sat there a year ago and talked Donaia out of sending her packing, using the promise of refilling the Traementis coffers, saving the Traementis reputation.

Taking vengeance against Traementis enemies.

Like true kin would. Like a daughter to replace the son she’d lost.

Donaia sagged as exhaustion washed through her. Giuna supported her mother until she could sink onto the cushions. Donaia said, “What could I charge her with? Making a fool of an old woman isn’t a crime.”

Lips flat, Scaperto glanced at Tanaquis’s poised pen. Impersonating a noble was a crime. And once Renata was no longer in the register, she wouldn’t be protected from her earlier lies.

So many lies! Layer upon layer, any crack in one patched with another. Tanaquis said thoughtfully, “It makes so much more sense now. If you stop to think about it.”

The pattern cards. The slip about her birthday, when she’d been too ill to maintain her facade. The story of Letilia getting pregnant during Veiled Waters. The clues were there, if Donaia had only looked at them properly. But she hadn’t, because Renata had so neatly lured her into biting the hook.

And because she hadn’t acted alone.

“He investigated her,” Donaia said, muffled by the hands she scrubbed over her face. “I had Grey look into her, at the beginning. No doubt he learned the truth—and she recruited him into her con. This whole time, they’ve been conspiring against me.” That cut deeper than Renata’s trickery. She’d known him since he was a boy. He’d been Leato’s friend. She never would have expected him to be seduced by a pretty face.

But by a sharp mind? And Vraszenian blood? That mattered more to his people than registered bonds. Why wouldn’t Grey side with one of his own?

Claws scrabbling on bare wood, Meatball dragged himself out from under the table and climbed into her lap—where he absolutely was not allowed, but Donaia had no heart to scold him. Draping herself over his back, she said into his fur, “No. No charges. Nadežra doesn’t need more meat to chew on.”

Scaperto relaxed, the mantle of Fulvet falling away to leave only the man. “Then what do you need from me? Shall I go talk to her?”

“And say what? Give her a chance to spin this all in her favor somehow?” Donaia couldn’t conceive of what that might look like, but she knew all too well the persuasive power of Renata’s silver tongue. In bargaining, one of the best maneuvers was to feign disinterest, luring the other party into offering more concessions. Renata had used that time and again, refusing adoption the first time Donaia offered, giving up the heir’s position, suggesting she ought to leave the Traementis because of that cursed artifact.

Was that bargaining? a traitorous voice whispered, deep in Donaia’s mind. What concessions did she get in return?

The regard of everyone significant in Nadežra, for one. Regard she could have spun into a better adoption, a prestigious marriage, even a seat on the Cinquerat.

But she’d refused those, too, instead putting together a convoluted ruse to marry her coconspirator.

Meatball whined softly as Donaia’s fingers dug in, and she made herself ease off. Bile rose, bitter and acrid. “Isn’t it ironic? Renata seems most like Letilia’s daughter now that we’ve learned she isn’t. The two of them deserve each other.”

Giuna’s hand touched hers. “I keep thinking that I should have listened to Sibiliat. She understood how Renata was playing us, if not why. She tried to warn me.” At Donaia’s protest, Giuna gripped her fingers. “I’m trying to keep my irritation that Sibiliat was right from clouding my judgment regarding Renata.”

“And implying I shouldn’t let my hatred of Letilia do the same?” Donaia asked, a wry note creeping in despite herself. When had her little girl grown into a wise woman?

A knock at the door interrupted Giuna’s reply. Scaperto got up to answer it, revealing Colbrin. “My apologies, era,” he said, bowing. In his gloved hands was a small tray with an envelope on it. “A letter has arrived from…”

He trailed off. How were they to refer to her now? Donaia didn’t even know the liar’s real name.

The thought of touching that envelope made every muscle tense, but she waved for Colbrin to come in. “Give it here. Let’s see what she has to say for herself.”

Suncross, Old Island: Pavnilun 3

Giuna’s courage got her as far as exiting her sedan chair in Drema Square. Then, confronted with the freshly painted shop door, it failed her.

Just go inside, she told herself. It’s better than having to talk to Vargo. Or Mistress Serrado. She at least knew Tess. Or thought she knew: Her mind still stuttered to a halt every time she remembered the months of deception.

She didn’t even want to be out of the manor. It felt like everyone in Nadežra was laughing behind her back—or to her face. Donaia had cut off the money to Letilia, but even that feeble counterstrike could draw no blood; Letilia had already found fresh welcome as a guest of House Destaelio. From there, she was spreading tales far and wide.

At least Tess’s shop was in Suncross, rather than the Upper Bank, like Giuna had once advocated for. The merchants here might be glancing sidelong at her, but none of them approached to deliver a witty, cutting remark.

Not yet, anyway. Giuna forced herself forward, across the plaza and through the door.

She’d never been in a proper dressmaker’s shop before. At first the Traementis couldn’t afford it; then they could, but they also had Tess. She knew, though, that the opening of any new establishment could be relied upon to attract curious explorers. Giuna expected to find the small interior crowded with bolts of fabric, sample garments, and people.

She found the first two, but not the third.

Tess rose from a cream-and-crimson settee striped with gold piping, a bright smile of greeting fizzling on her lips. She masked her disappointment with a subservient bob. “Alta Giuna. I didn’t expect…”

“I apologize for barging in. I must have mistaken the date. I thought you’d opened already.” She glanced at Pavlin, sorting notions on the counter. Notions Giuna had sorted into the wall of apothecary drawers just last week.

Make-work. When he’d expected to be busy charming customers and jotting down measurements.

“We’re open,” Tess said. Heaving a breath, she shouldered her sorrow and said with cheer as false as a fox’s humility, “But it’s early hours yet. I expect we’ll be getting a rush soon.”

It was seventh sun. Well past when even the nobility were out of their beds.

“What brings you here?” Tess pressed before Giuna could point out the obvious.

Fumbling for her purpose, Giuna said, “I, ah. A great many of Rena—of Ren’s things are still at the manor.” Her tongue tripped on the name. Ren, the closing signature on her letter had said. Still in Renata’s elegant handwriting, but chopped down to what Giuna supposed might be the truth. “I know Master Sedge came and got the cat, but the rest… I’m not sure where to send it.”

“We’re at… She’s at…” Tess’s copper curls shook as she glanced toward the curtained workroom at the back of the shop. “Eret Vargo was kind enough to let her move back into the Westbridge townhouse.”

The townhouse Giuna had helped them vacate. Where Ren and Tess had slept on the floor of the kitchen, until Giuna sent them a mattress.

Where Ren had sworn she was telling no more lies.

Giuna suspected her cheeks went redder than Tess’s freckles. Before she could swallow the heat, Tess said in a rush, “I’m sorry. For my part in everything. It was a true pleasure, outfitting you. I hope someday you can forgive me enough to let me do it again.” Her smile trembled. “I promise not to poke you with pins.”

Ren’s letter had made clear that while her supposed maid knew her scheme, all Tess wanted was a shop of her own. She’d tried to talk Ren into sharing the truth several times. Giuna wasn’t quite certain she believed that; she’d seen how deep Tess’s loyalty and support ran. But she wanted to believe it.

Clenching her fists in gloves Tess had made for her, Giuna said, “Is she here?”

Another glance at the curtain was answer enough. It twitched, and a stranger’s face peered out.

A stranger’s face, but familiar. And the hazel eyes were as dear as a sister’s.

Or they had been.

Pavlin cleared his throat. “There’s, uh. A private room in the back.”

Giuna didn’t want to have this conversation, not right now. But she couldn’t just walk out—not when Renata, Ren, was right there. “Thank you,” she said curtly, and Ren faded out of her path as she swept through the curtain to the room beyond.

It held a small platform for the customer and several tuffets for sitting. Giuna perched on one; Ren shifted toward another, twitched, and reversed the half-finished bend of her knees. “Oh, sit,” Giuna said wearily. “I’m not going to get a crick in my neck staring up at you.”

Ren sat. Silence ensued. Giuna couldn’t decide whether to be angry at that or not. She wanted her erstwhile cousin to say something, anything… and she also wasn’t sure she wouldn’t slap Ren for whatever she said.

One of them had to start. “I read your letter.”

Ren’s mouth worked for a moment before releasing a bitter laugh. “No idea you have how difficult it is to even speak. My voice still wants to be Renata with you.”

Instead of herself. It was unutterably strange, hearing the thick, rolling sounds of a Vraszenian accent coming from that face. Giuna wanted to ask a million questions… but they were all different shapes for the same demand: for Ren’s reassurance that they’d been more than marks to her. The letter said so, but what if that was another lie?

She should have rehearsed this, like when she’d told Sibiliat off. But why was it her responsibility to figure out the right words?

“Explain,” she said curtly.

Ren blinked. “The voice, or—”

“Yourself,” Giuna said. “I read your letter, but it was all about your life with us.” Why she’d started the con—for money, pure and simple—and how that changed over time. How she should have told them sooner, and regretted that she hadn’t. Nothing about herself. “I want to know who you really are… assuming I can even trust what you say.”

Ren looked down at her hands, fiddling with a charm of interlaced blue-and-green cords around her wrist. “It won’t justify what I did.”

“I’m not looking for justification. I want to understand.”

A slow, unsteady breath. Then Ren began to speak.

Giuna locked her hands and sat motionless through the litany: starting before Ren was born, her father a mystery and her mother an outcast, through the tumults of a Lacewater childhood. Gammer Lindworm, when she’d just been Ondrakja, the leader of a gang of thieves. Sedge’s presumed death. Ganllech.

Ren paused, grimacing. “There is a lie I can drop at last. Letilia never made it to Seteris; House Viraudax is simply a name I chose at random. The letter Vargo destroyed in Whitesail presumably said they’d never heard of either of us.”

At that Giuna almost spoke, but she bit down and let Ren continue.

Life in Ganllech, where Tess’s skill with a needle saw her recruited into an illegal enterprise, making luxuries for the wealthy and powerful who flouted their ascetic laws in secret. Until Tess got arrested and Ren broke her out, the two of them fleeing back to Nadežra.

Here Ren stopped, looking helpless. “There—there is more. But, Giuna, some secrets I hold are not my own. I would have to get others’ leave.”

Giuna struck one hand against her knee. “More lies. More secrets. How can I know you’re telling the truth about that? Every time I think I’ve pulled off the last mask, there’s another underneath!”

“I’m the Black Rose.”

Ren could have yanked the tuffet out from under Giuna, and it wouldn’t have been as startling as this. She covered her face. If she didn’t, she’d only end up laughing, and she couldn’t do that right now. “Of course you are.”

A breath of air stirred the curtain as she put her hands down, and Giuna half expected Tess and Pavlin to jump through and shout, Surprise! Part of her wished, with each increasingly absurd truth, that this was some aža dream. Like the one that…

“Did Leato know?”

Others words crowded behind the ones she could force out. Did he find out your secret? Did you leave my brother to die?

Did you kill him?

The hesitation answered her first question; the more it stretched out, the worse the others got. Then a soft rush of fabric as Ren slid from her tuffet to the floor in front of Giuna.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered, her elegant voice broken. “The whole Night of Hells. It happened because of me—because I was conceived on the Great Dream. Poison me with ash, and I go there in the flesh. And I dragged the others with me.

“Leato… if only I hadn’t invited him to the Charterhouse. But I did, and he drank the ash, and we wound up in the nightmare. Yes, he found out the truth. He—” Ren’s breath hitched, and whatever she would have said remained unspoken. “We tried to escape together. But Gammer Lindworm was waiting at the wellspring. With the zlyzen. If I hadn’t let the Rook pull me out first—if I’d stayed—”

“Enough,” Giuna choked through her own tears, recoiling not from Ren’s guilt, but from her own. For even thinking Ren could do something like that. Yes, she’d lied. But as angry as she was at Ren, Giuna couldn’t imagine her being so ruthless.

Soft. Naive. Standing, Giuna backed away from Ren’s supplication. “I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know how to believe you.”

Ren flinched like she’d been struck. Giuna hardened herself as much as she could. “All I know is that you hurt us. I understand that you tried to make up for it by helping. That you claim to be sorry—but I—” She spread her hands. Her gloved hands. For the first time, she realized Ren’s were bare.

It didn’t feel like intimacy between cousins. It felt like the most distancing thing in the world. Upper Bank and Lower. A sob lodged in Giuna’s chest, as immovable as the Old Island cleaving the Dežera. “I don’t know how to respond.”

Ren’s shoulders slumped. “And I know not what to say. Words cannot fix this. Perhaps nothing can.”

That hurt more than anything. The idea that the bond they’d had was ruptured beyond repair. That once again, Giuna had lost family.

The silence was unbearable. Giuna pushed through the curtain, and neither Tess nor Pavlin said anything as she left.

Upper and Lower Bank: Pavnilun 4

The only warmth Grey received when he entered Traementis Manor was Meatball’s eager, slobbery greeting. Even that was cut short at a sharp command from Donaia, one that made Grey flinch and Meatball whine in confusion before returning to lie at her feet.

Colbrin had shown him to her old study, the one she’d ceded to Meppe and his books. The high ceilings gave an impression of power, even as the dark wood made Grey feel like he was being crushed into submission.

And yet, the room wasn’t cold as in years past. Heating numinata had replaced the old fireplace. Rich hangings from upriver Vraszan, shimmering with bronze and copper threads, warmed the wan sunlight streaming through the windows.

But nothing could warm the look Donaia fixed on him.

“We’re not having this conversation here,” Grey said, before she could set him down.

It broke the ice of her facade into cutting shards. “Consider yourself fortunate that we’re conversing at all, Master Serrado.”

This was Donaia’s seat of power, steeped in two centuries of Traementis superiority. The curse of the medallions might be lifted, but places carried their own sort of gravity, wells for the memories gathered there. The Dežera was the thread stitching Vraszan together. Labyrinths were the cup that held his people’s dreams. And the grounds of Traementis Manor were well-watered with the blood of vengeance against those who wronged their kin.

The words came out unplanned. “Leato always said it was impossible for us to talk as equals with the river between us.”

Her flinch scraped her chair across bare wood. “That is low, using his name to win a point.”

“Perhaps. Will you come?” He held out his hand.

She didn’t take it. But she sailed past and called for Colbrin to summon a sedan chair.

Grey was well used to making the trek from Dawngate to Duskgate on foot. He was barely winded from his jog ahead of the sedan chair as they entered the tangle of streets on the edge between Seven Knots and Kingfisher and landed outside a run-down ostretta with a weathered wooden fish hanging from its eaves.

“The Gawping Carp?” Donaia raised a skeptical brow as she stepped out of the chair and took in their surroundings. Her gloved hand covered her nose, as though the scent of ginger, peppercorns, and other spices permeating the small plaza were unpleasant instead of merely unfamiliar.

“Leato and I often talked about bringing you here,” Grey said, holding open the door. Actually, Leato had laughed at how wrong-footed and out of place his mother would be, but Grey had more faith in Donaia. She was nothing if not adaptable.

And she wasn’t cruel by nature. All his hopes for this meeting hung on that.

Her clothes were plain by Upper Bank standards, just warm chocolate wool with an underdress of tea-dyed linen, but their quality still drew attention as Grey led her inside. Dvaran remembered Leato well enough to see the resemblance; he almost tipped over a pitcher of millet beer. But he said nothing as Grey led Donaia to a table—the same table he used to share with Kolya, and with Leato. A gesture from Grey brought that pitcher to their table, along with two cups and an expression that said Dvaran expected Donaia to knock the whole set to the floor in disgust.

She sat rigid until Dvaran had left. Then she said, “I hired you to investigate her. To tell me what I wasn’t seeing.”

“And I did. Everything I reported was true. I didn’t know there was anything else to tell until after the Night of Hells. And by then…”

He’d struggled over it. Leato was dead; Renata was ill. The only thing keeping Donaia from collapse was her fierce need to protect what she could.

“You thought I couldn’t handle it,” Donaia whispered. “You thought I was too weak to know the truth.”

“I wondered if the truth mattered. So often you and Leato told me that, for the Liganti, family isn’t constrained by blood.” He let the accusation of hypocrisy hover unspoken. “By then, you cared for Renata like family. And she cared for you the same.”

“She pretended to.”

“Is that what you believe? Or what you fear?” Grey held her gaze until the exuberant end to a round of nytsa in the far corner gave her reason to look away. “I’m not here to explain Ren’s heart to you. Only to tell you that I’ve seen it, and I know her affection is no act.”

Donaia swallowed hard. Then, in a sudden burst of motion, she poured herself a mug of beer and drained half in one go. He couldn’t tell whether her grimace was for the taste, the turmoil within, or both.

Whichever it was, it left her voice unsteady. “Giuna came home from Tess’s shop and spent the afternoon crying in her room. Nencoral is furious; she’s been insisting Meppe go over all the books and find whatever Renata—whatever Ren did while she had custody of them. Tanaquis has come to the manor only once since the truth came out. That girl has torn a hole right through the middle of us, and I—I don’t even know what to do about it.”

The band of tension around Grey’s chest eased. This was the Donaia he’d come to care for: not the vengeful Liganti noble out to make others pay for her humiliation, but the warmhearted, steel-spined woman who guarded her family’s heart because it was her own.

He poured some beer for himself and curled his hands around the mug. “And what has Ren done, since she came into your lives? Ignoring the lie or the truth of her birth, what has she done to the Traementis?” For the Traementis.

Donaia pressed her lips together before answering, as if to make sure only the right words came out. “You’re talking about our fortunes. And Indestor. And the curse. But—”

Dipping her chin low didn’t hide the tear that fell to stain the table’s battered surface. Almost inaudibly, she said, “Giuna told me. About the Night of Hells. About Leato’s death.”

Grey watched the elders at their nytsa game until his own tears eased enough to let him speak. Ren blamed herself… but wasn’t Grey more at fault? She’d done everything she could to free Leato from that nightmare. He was the one who’d chosen to save the stranger in front of him before going back for his friend.

The urge to tell Donaia about the Rook choked him as thick as the tears. If it wouldn’t just muddy things worse, he might have. It wasn’t like the hood’s demand for secrecy bound him anymore.

Instead he asked, “Do you think she’s at fault?”

“Yes. And no.” Donaia gave up on the pretense that she wasn’t crying and swiped at her cheeks, salt staining her gloves. “I want to blame someone. I know Mettore and that Gammer Lindworm hag were responsible… but I didn’t get to do anything about it. I only found out after they were dead, and it was too late for revenge.”

Grey’s jaw tensed, but Donaia went on before he could say anything. “You don’t have to tell me that isn’t fair. I know Ren didn’t mean to get him killed—and now it at least makes sense, why she’s always blamed herself. Why she’s tried so hard to help us. She’s trying to make up for his death.”

No amount of help could ever do that, and they both knew it. But that wasn’t how such scales got balanced. Grey said, “Because she does care. About you, and Giuna, and the Traementis.”

Donaia drank more, as if to buy herself a delay before answering. When she put the cup down, it thunked hard against the wood. “Caring or not, how can we go on associating with her, now that everyone knows she’s—”

“Vraszenian?”

It earned him a hard stare. “A con artist.”

That was true. But they both knew it wasn’t the whole truth. “Tell me honestly. If Ren truly had been a Seterin woman, or Liganti—still a con artist, still lying to you, but not Vraszenian—would you be this torn right now?”

It was a step too far, pushing Donaia when she felt herself the wronged party. She rose fast enough to jar the table, and Grey had to catch the pitcher before it canted over. “I have never… never,” she spat, color high. “Didn’t I treat you and your brother fairly? Wasn’t I happy to accept you when you won the trial? I won’t try to defend my fellow nobles, but I am not like them.”

No, she wasn’t like Mettore, trying to destroy the wellspring so Nadežra would no longer be a holy place for Vraszenians. She wasn’t like the nobles who called his people “gnats” and passed laws to keep them poor. She’d helped him and Kolya, when they first came to the city.

But she didn’t see the little points of friction. Giving clothes to Alinka—clothes in the Liganti style. The times when she said to Leato, “We aren’t Vraszenian,” as if that would be an awful fate. She’d given Kolya a job, because he was a desperate teenager with a traumatized younger brother in tow… but until Ren took charge of Traementis business, how many contracts had the house extended to Vraszenian merchants and artisans?

Donaia had gotten her voice under control. “I’m not certain what you hoped to prove by bringing me here, but I don’t think there’s anything more for us to say.”

Smoothing her skirts, she pulled out her purse and marched to the counter, where she plunked down an entire forro. To the wide-eyed Dvaran she said, “Thank you for keeping my son out of trouble. Your beer is surprisingly palatable. If you would be so good as to have someone call me a chair?”

Grey waved Dvaran off before he could inform Donaia there was nobody to send. “I’ll do it.”

The crisp air outside was a relief, and the bearers who’d brought Donaia from the Upper Bank had wisely decided there was more money to be had in waiting to carry her back than trying to find a rich fare here. Donaia emerged a few moments later, her cheeks drained of their livid color. Grey wondered what Dvaran had said to her, in those few moments she’d remained behind.

“Be well, Era Traementis,” he said, bowing. Which might not be the right thing to say, but formality was better than tongue-tied, heartsore silence.

When Donaia was gone, he went back into the Gawping Carp for another drink.

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Pavnilun 5

Ren didn’t need Tess to answer the door anymore. She was at her shop in Suncross anyway, working on a commission for a merchant who cared less about social politics than about getting an elegant waistcoat, and Grey was at Alinka’s. When the knock came, Ren was the only one at home.

Being back in the Westbridge townhouse was unspeakably strange. Not because she was sleeping on the floor of the kitchen again; no, all the furniture was uncovered, and Vargo had supplied coal to tide them over until he could inscribe some numinata for the hearths. But this had been the one place in Nadežra where she could be herself, back when everyone but Tess and Sedge saw only the mask. Now she was herself, here and everywhere, and she opened her own door.

Tanaquis breezed inside without even a greeting. Rain beaded her dark hair and the sleeves of pewter wool that covered her from shoulder to glove-tip. “I’ve tracked down the identity of Ninat’s former holder. It’s much easier when you have the man in front of you—his corpse, anyway, and everything he had with him. His name was Stezze Chetoglio. I presume you don’t want everyone in his register dying, so I’ll need a nine-card pattern from you.”

It didn’t sound like the brusqueness of someone forced into Ren’s unwelcome presence by business—more like Tanaquis’s usual efficiency. But Ren hadn’t seen her since before the third trial began, hadn’t had any chance to speak to her about what happened.

Ren shut the door, sinking the front hall into dimness. “Tanaquis. Hello. I—I owe you an apology.” And so much more… but her conversation with Giuna had proved that nothing could ever be enough.

Tanaquis clicked her tongue in annoyance. “You did waste my time, making me calculate a false birth chart. Maybe two, if you lied the second time as well—yes? Then you should give me the real date so I can do your chart properly. It’ll bother me if I don’t.” She brushed the rain from her sleeves with brisk strokes. “Honestly, it explains so many oddities—like your skill with pattern. Is your parlour usable? Giuna said something about you sleeping on the floor.”

Bemused, Ren led her into the parlour. Somehow a few short months of living at Traementis Manor left her half expecting someone to show up with tea. Making some would be a welcome distraction for her hands, but Tanaquis would get impatient. “You aren’t angry?”

“Why, because you kept secrets? You’re the one who drew The Mask of Mirrors for my pattern and told me that some secrets ought to be kept.” Tanaquis settled herself on the couch. “You knew people wouldn’t understand. I understand that very well.”

Just as Tanaquis had known people wouldn’t understand if she told them the Praeteri’s eisar numinatria drew on Primordial power. The comparison made Ren’s skin crawl. Nothing I did is that bad. Is it?

“Why you did it in the first place is beyond me,” Tanaquis went on, “but it hardly matters. I’m mostly glad that it won’t get in the way of our research anymore. Whatever knowledge you’ve been hiding, you can put it all on the table now. Along with cards, please—nine of them.”

Letting out a laughing breath, Ren said, “Let me get my deck.”

“No, use mine.” Tanaquis pulled it out. “I’ll need to take the cards with me, and it’s better if you don’t come. Mede Chetoglio thinks you have something to do with his cousin’s death.”

“What? Why? Think you that Stezze told them about Ghiscolo’s ritual?”

Tanaquis examined her glove, then the edges of the deck. “No, it seems he fled afterward; no one in his house had seen him since Canilun. The evidence in the Depths suggests he’d been hiding there for some time. But he was found by some of your volti—on the night your true identity was revealed, no less. And everyone thinks the whole trial was rigged to begin with… I suppose they’re not wrong.”

“You rigged it,” Ren said, seating herself across from Tanaquis. “No coincidence was it that you placed the victory token behind the ward. Very few could pass that test, and only two among the volti.”

For a moment Tanaquis looked taken aback. Then she ducked her head. “All right, it’s true. Though I thought it was Vargo you intended to win.”

“He was the decoy.” The deck was slightly damp from Tanaquis’s glove, but not so much that Ren couldn’t shuffle. “House Chetoglio… they trade primarily in spices. I wonder if they’re poisoners. Ninat’s influence will have bled into them somehow.” Quaniet Scurezza must have had a source for the nuts she used to kill her entire family, though the Chetoglio weren’t in the Praeteri. “Stezze I know nothing of.”

“He was usually overseas on family business. That’s why nobody recognized him.”

Ren snorted despite herself. “Lucky for Ghiscolo that he was in town when the ritual began. Can you imagine us standing there for a month, waiting for Stezze to sail back?” She shuffled and dealt the cards, trying not to think about the oddity of laying a present and a future for a man who was dead. But a nine-card spread was appropriate for Ninat.

“Your Great Dream is coming up soon, isn’t it?” Tanaquis said when she was done. “Clearly the wellspring is linked to how pattern works—maybe even the source of it all. I’ll need to arrange to drink its waters; then maybe I’ll finally understand.”

Habit made Ren swallow down the response she wanted to make. Then she remembered she wasn’t Renata anymore and could speak her mind. “Tanaquis, for my people there is no holier day. Many you will anger if you demand the right to sip from Ažerais’s waters simply to satisfy your curiosity.”

“Perhaps you could bring me a bottle—no? That’s not how this works?” Tanaquis brooded. “I could understand so much more, though. And isn’t that a good thing? A Liganti woman understanding your traditions?”

“You have more respect for them than many Liganti,” Ren admitted, swallowing the addition of though that’s faint praise. “But trust me when I say this is not the way. Argentet charges us for the right to visit, and entrance is limited. You would displace someone else.”

Tanaquis perked up. “Then I’ll talk to Iascat. And in the meanwhile, you and I can work together. I might be restricted from doing experimental numinatria, but technically this would be experimental… textilatria? What a terrible word. And it would be a welcome break from thinking about the medallions all the time. Alsius refuses to discuss the Primordial aspects of their power—Vargo says he degenerates into sputtering whenever I start speculating as to how they were made—and my own thoughts are going around in circles. New avenues. That’s what I need!”

A smile as bright and fragile as blown glass accompanied her words. Ren remembered how badly Tanaquis had doubted herself after Iridet fired her—and now she held the Ninat medallion. The numen of endings, of the dissolution of the self back into the Lumen.

It was a desire that Tanaquis, with her endless curiosity to know the cosmos, would be particularly weak to. New beginnings might be her way of counteracting its draw. Ren bit down on the urge to ask if Tanaquis was taking appropriate precautions against the medallion. After all, Tanaquis had designed most of those precautions in the first place.

“I’ll help however I can. But truly, I’ve told you most of what I know. Perhaps another szorsa you could consult—though the one I’m thinking of is… not available.” They’d had no word of Mevieny apart from what the Kiralič said, nor even any hint of activity from Branek. Vargo had attempted to find out where the Anduske went after the Cut Ears took back their base, but with no luck. There was simply too much city for Branek to hide in while he plotted his next move. Unfortunately, Koszar’s own next move relied on finding Mevieny: Judgment by ordeal used to be the special purview of the Ižranyi. With the clan gone, only their speaker could call an ordeal.

Ren gave Tanaquis the cards, and her cousin rose to go. “How inconvenient that you’re over here in Westbridge; I’ll waste so much time crossing the river. Perhaps Vargo has another townhouse I can rent. He’s banned me from visiting him outside of daylight hours, did you know?”

Ren did know; Vargo had complained after Tanaquis knocked on his door at seventh earth for the third time in a week. “You can visit me at any time. The sooner we destroy the medallions, the better.” She grimaced, thinking of Tricat hidden in the wine cellar, under the flagstone where she used to keep her pattern deck. Grey’s Quinat was upstairs, as if distance between them might help. “At least we needn’t worry about two medallions in one register, now.”

Tanaquis waved this away. “Yes, protections around our names will be sufficient. There are some inherent challenges, given the resonance between Tricat and Ninat and the Traementis history with the former, but I don’t expect any problems.”

Not even Tanaquis could be that oblivious. “I meant now that I’ve been struck from the register. I presume you were able to uncurse the others with the original cards.” She’d braced herself for the blow of the announcement, but Donaia hadn’t even paid her the courtesy of informing her—not that she deserved such courtesy.

“Donaia considered it,” Tanaquis said. “But she hasn’t asked me to remove you.”

That stole the breath from Ren’s lungs. I’m still in the register? The scroll itself held very little significance for her; she hadn’t grown up with that as the defining mark of family. But to Donaia, that did matter.

It wasn’t forgiveness. It might only be that Donaia had decided not to strip Ren of the legal rights she’d gained, a tiny shred of protection in return for what she’d contributed.

But maybe forgiveness wasn’t impossible.

“And I’m glad of it,” Tanaquis said, sounding a little surprised. “What you saw when you patterned me… My original family was very different. But I like you, even with all those lies muddying the water. It would be a pity if you had to go away.”

Ren swallowed. “I’ll still be here, Tanaquis, whether a register joins us or not.”

Tanaquis straightened, her quicksilver thoughts already moving on from such personal matters. “Come by my townhouse tomorrow. I want to know everything about you and pattern—now that it will be the truth.”

11

The Face of Ages

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Pavnilun 7

The charm around Ren’s wrist was interlinked coin knots in blue and green, and an odd warmth touched Grey’s heart every time it peeked out her sleeve.

Vargo and Ren, bound by knot oath. Once he would have laughed at the idea; once he’d stood in the Seven Knots labyrinth and listened to the Black Rose swear vengeance against Vargo for his betrayal. But he couldn’t deny that the man had become a true friend. And that was something Ren needed—not just right now, but in her life.

She wasn’t the only one. Neither of us should carry two.

That moment in the Depths, Grey hadn’t been able to spare much thought for Vargo’s revelation. He’d been too busy worrying about Ninat. Then had come Letilia’s strike, and he’d been busy taking care of Ren. Not until later had he been able to think about what to do with Vargo knowing, and by then the answer was clear: nothing.

The Rook would have been furious. But the Rook was broken. And time and time again, Vargo had acted to protect Grey. Saving his life. Helping in the trials. Keeping his secrets.

Not just about the Rook, but any other secrets Grey might have. In a brief visit to the Westbridge townhouse, Vargo had mentioned that the Kiralič was looking for him with questions about Laročja Szerado. “If you’d prefer, I can say I don’t know where you are,” Vargo offered. “Or I can arrange neutral ground.”

“Here is fine,” Grey said. “If my grandmother is working with Branek… yes. He and I should talk.”

But it wasn’t only the Kiralič who showed up. Grey did his best to ignore the assessing looks from Idusza and Koszar as he led them into the parlour, where Ren awaited them stiff-backed and ready to pour tea.

“Ažerais bless the road that brought you safely to us,” she said, rising with Renata’s grace even as she spoke the formal Vraszenian greeting.

Touching his hand to his brow, the Kiralič replied, “And the river that gives us life.”

Some of the formality bled out of Ren’s posture as she turned to the two Anduske, replaced by something Grey had seen far too much of lately: the guilty slump that awaited a blow. “Please believe… I regret abusing your trust.”

Koszar took a seat, toying with the head of his cane. “When offered our knot, you refused. Is this why?” His wave took in Ren and the townhouse, all the parts that weren’t the Arenza they’d known.

At Ren’s nod, he expelled a hard breath. “No trust was abused. You gave no oath to share your secrets; you owe them not to us.”

Idusza hadn’t yet seated herself. She remained in the doorway, arms crossed, as if the room held a dead rat. “What of our first meeting? Was that truly Ažerais working through you, or only tricks to fool a simple woman?”

A fair question, but Grey’s heart ached to see Ren hunch deeper, a turtle without her shell. “Tricks,” she admitted. “I approached you because I wanted to know what Mezzan was doing.”

“But I broke with Mezzan. And yet you remained.”

“Yes,” Ren murmured, not looking at Idusza. She’d braided her hair, along the sides of her head and joining at the back; one hand toyed with the tail now. “By then…”

By then she cared. As with the Traementis. Grey bit down on the urge to speak; his intervention wouldn’t help.

Idusza sauntered over to loom above Ren. “When I realized you were the cheese-eater whose shrieking brought Mezzan low, I gave myself hiccups with laughing. And I thought, this is a woman I would drink with. You always seemed too mystical and untouchable before. No fun.” A wry smile peeked through. She spat into her hand and held it for Ren to take. “Friends?”

The helpless relief in Ren’s face as she looked up was like a rainstorm to break summer’s heat. She spat in her palm and gripped Idusza’s hand, and Grey tried not to visibly sag as the tension eased.

“We came not for this,” the Kiralič said, only a little reproving. “We must speak of your grandmother, Gru—”

“Grey,” he said before the Kiralič could resurrect a name he dearly wished he could bury. “I am called Grey now. And I know not what I can tell you about my grandmother. No words or news have I exchanged with my kin since Kolya and I left.”

“I seek not news, but history.” The Kiralič accepted the teacup Ren offered, gazing into its contents as if they might hold answers. “Szorsa Laročja… ordinarily it would not occur to me to question her wisdom. This path she guides Branek down, though…”

Ren passed Grey a teacup. It warmed away some of the coldness in his hands—some. “You think I might know why she’s doing this.”

The Kiralič grimaced, looking far older than his years. “My heart says the path they walk cannot be right. And yet.”

The mirror surface of Grey’s tea rippled until he set it down. The Kiralič was his own clan elder; he owed the man an honest answer. And he had no loyalty to a cruel old woman, nor had he ever hidden his disdain for the type of szorsa she exemplified.

But that disdain was the mere scratch of a thorn. The truth behind it was a cut to the bone.

A hand slipped into his, warm and dry, glove-free forevermore. Ren had finally embraced her past. He couldn’t run from his.

“She told me the cards spoke truly to her only once,” he said, hoping they wouldn’t ask when. “Perhaps that has changed since I left. But before then, every pattern she read, she was the weaver. Always to serve her own ends, to bend others to her will.”

Idusza made a small, satisfied noise, as if he’d only confirmed what she thought. The Kiralič shook his head. “For a szorsa to heed not the wisdom of Ažerais… worse, to never receive it, and instead present her own false guidance as truth… please believe, I question not your word. When your brother took you away, when Jakoslav found himself suddenly without sons, we knew something was fouler than we’d realized. Even so… convincing others will be difficult.”

Grey squeezed Ren’s hand—a question—and got an answering squeeze in turn. “Would the word of a true szorsa convince them? One conceived on the Great Dream, who with the turn of a card can change fates and lift curses, who has walked in Ažerais’s Dream? Because you have one here.”

The Kiralič eyed their clasped hands, brow rising in skepticism. “She admitted her skills were trickery.”

“I trust the pattern she laid for me,” Koszar said.

Ren gave him a fleeting, grateful smile. “I cannot pretend I have never used the cards to trick. But I also lay them true. Though whether any will heed me, who can say. After all, I am a known con artist… and only half-Vraszenian.”

Her gaze challenged the Kiralič to deny that concern. Instead he did her the courtesy of nodding. “Yes. It casts doubt—all the more so when you lay your word against that of a respected szorsa.”

One from a kureč that prized the purity of its blood. There were cousins in Grey’s lineage who’d married outsiders—any kureč that traded along the Dawn and Dusk Roads did the same—but thanks to his grandmother, the children of those unions remained on the edges of the Szerado. She was proud to declare her ancestry entirely Vraszenian, right back to the fall of Fiavla.

Yet it was Ren, half-Vraszenian, who was the Black Rose.

Grey knew why she didn’t fling that at the Kiralič. The Black Rose was a card up their sleeve, something they could possibly use against Branek; revealing her identity now would undercut its power. Ren merely said, “You may judge my skill for yourself. Shall I pattern you?”

The Kiralič smiled. “Perhaps someday. But I would rather see what you advise for the situation.”

“Very well.” Cards in hand, she paused. “If you mind not… I would like to try a different spread. An older one, the seven-card wheel.”

Grey didn’t expect Koszar’s sudden interest. “Where learned you that spread?”

“You’ve heard of such a thing?” the Kiralič asked, frowning.

“The old szorsa in my kureč laid it sometimes, before…” Koszar swiped his eyes before the tears could fall. “Never have I known anyone else to lay cards like that. Learned you this from an Andrejek?”

Grey suspected Ren had suggested the wheel to flaunt her knowledge in the face of doubt. Now, having unexpectedly reminded Koszar of his lost kureč, she looked regretful. “I know not if she was Andrejek—I met her in the dream. She used it to pattern me, when I sought to right an imbalance there.”

Fortunately, no one asked what the imbalance was. Eyebrows rising, the Kiralič said, “I would very much like to see this spread.”

Ren recited the prayers as she shuffled, invoking each clan ancestor in turn. Then she laid six cards in a ring, with a seventh in the center. “One card for each clan, in pairs to recall the twins. First come Meszaros and Stretsko: the Horse for what you have, resources and allies, and the Rat for what stands in your way, obstacles and enemies.”

They all leaned forward as she turned over the first two cards. Touching the first, Ren glanced at Koszar. “The Mask of Hollows was the good of your own future. Here it returns, with the same meaning. The common people of Nadežra are not merely a prize to be seized; they can be allies. They must be allies, if you wish to succeed. If proof you seek that Branek’s murderous plan is not the way, Kiralič, here it is.”

The ziemič looked neutral, but Grey suspected that masked wariness. It was almost too convenient, the card from Koszar’s own pattern turning up first—but Grey had no doubt Ren had dealt honestly. This was Ažerais at work, not manipulation.

“For obstacles,” Ren said, “The Face of Light. Almost a Liganti card, is it not? Rationality, logic, like their Lumen and numinatria. No surprise that they stand in the way.”

And the medallions, too, Grey thought.

Ren went on. “But these cards go two and two, good and ill. Veiled, this speaks of logic’s limitations. We cannot simply reason our way to better days; passions run high. But too high, and you may ruin your own hopes.”

Or worse, think that passion and hope were good substitutes for pragmatism. Many attempts to retake the city had used those for fuel, but people couldn’t eat passion, couldn’t use hope as shelter or protection for their children. They were wildfires that scorched the earth. The medallions weren’t the only reason Liganti rule had lasted so long.

Grey shook off such thoughts as Ren reached for the next two cards. “Owl and Spider, Anoškin and Varadi. The wisdom to remember, and the question to ask.”

Two more Faces, of Crowns and of Weaving. Ren tapped the former. “The proper balance between ruler and subject. A thing Nadežra has not seen in centuries… but anarchy is no better. Has Branek any plan for what happens if he succeeds? It is not enough simply to take the island, or even the city; if you tear down the Cinquerat, in its place you must build something else. And The Face of Weaving…”

She was too disciplined to let any hint of smugness show. “The card of community,” she said. “The question is, who is the community? Who belongs, and who does not?”

With his grandmother so fresh in his thoughts, Grey had to speak up. “I know not what cards Laročja has laid for Branek. If pattern gave her this one, though, she would use it to demand a purge of those who belong not.”

Dull fury burned in his veins as he looked at the Kiralič. “But has Nadežra not always been a port, and the place where the Dawn and Dusk Roads meet? Always there have been others here. They, too, are part of the city.”

“Peace,” the Kiralič said softly. “Let your szorsa finish.”

The next pair was Two Roads Cross and Storm Against Stone, for the Dvornik and the Kiraly. Grey was almost relieved they weren’t Faces and Masks; after the first four, it would have been an unnerving sign of divine attention. “The Fox for your reward,” Ren said. “A chance to act—to make a difference. And the Old Island is where roads meet. But the Raccoon for the risk you take…”

Grey suspected only he saw her minute shudder, because only he knew the cause. During the Night of Hells, that card—Storm Against Stone—had brought Ren into contact with an echo of A’ash. The overwhelming power of a Primordial.

But it could mean more than one thing at a time. “This will unleash terrible force,” Ren said. “You cannot ride such power; in its rampage it will crush you. Take care lest this plunge all Vraszan back into war.”

When no one responded, she said, “And the Dreamweaver, the hub on which all else turns.”

Her fingers faltered as she turned over A Spiraling Fire. Two figures silhouetted before a campfire, closely embracing; dancing the oszefon, Grey imagined. It was the card of exertion, of passion, which perhaps echoed the warning from The Face of Light—but it seemed an odd choice.

Ren also frowned as she stared at it. “This… seems not right.”

Her words made Grey tense. “As if someone interfered?” He didn’t know who could have. No one else had touched the deck, and Ren wouldn’t manipulate the cards. Not after what happened when Grey did that.

“No,” Ren said, but she didn’t sound certain. “It… I cannot explain it. This is not the right card, not the true hub. Yet I know not why.”

It was the sort of show the frauds put on, making it seem like the querent’s reading was divinely touched. But that usually led to a declaration of some wondrous meaning, and Ren only looked confused. Nor would she choose that route this time—not when she was trying to prove her gift was worth heeding.

“Perhaps it speaks to events we see not,” the Kiralič said, watching Ren rather than the cards. “Or to Laročja’s influence?”

Something flashed in her eyes, there and then gone. She swept up the cards. “I think not, but neither can I say what it is. Apologies. You wished to know if Ažerais speaks through me. This is the only answer I can give.”

The Kiralič waited as she recited the closing prayer. Then he said, “Your willingness to admit doubt speaks well of you… though when it comes to convincing others, certainty would be of more use. I will think on what you’ve said, Szorsa Arenza.”

For him to address her that way was a compliment, but Ren’s smile was still brittle. “Call me Ren, Kiralič.”

Grey held his questions until the others had left. Then he said, “That final card…”

She sighed, sagging against the closed door. “Truly, I know not. I wondered if it might signal Parma, with the Noctat medallion, but…” Ren shook her head, confused and annoyed. “This will bother me.”

She only meant the confusing final card, the reading that felt incomplete, but her words sent a shiver of unease through Grey.

Ren had sensed A’ash on the Night of Hells, the storm battering against the stone of Ažerais’s presence. She’d run afoul of the Primordial again when she ventured into the dream in search of the szorsa.

And Ren herself held Tricat. While also being connected, through her gift, to Ažerais.

What if the Primordial’s influence was seeping through? What if the stone was crumbling in the face of the storm?

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, gathering Ren into his arms to keep them from shaking. And hoped that for once, he had the gift to tell the future true.

Lacewater, Old Island: Pavnilun 7

“So she’s really dead?” Esmierka asked Tess over the rim of a chipped stoneware mug still bearing the potter’s fingerprints. “En’t coming back like bad zrel in the morning?”

The floor of the wharfside ostretta crunched with the broken remains of shells, the air redolent with brine and smoke. The Salty Shucker served the sort of fare they’d only dreamed of back in their Finger days, when the Lacewater shoreline was Cut Ears territory and off-limits to hungry little hands. When a runner brought Esmierka’s lunch invitation to Tess’s shop like they were both fine ladies, it amused Tess to suggest the dive clinging like a barnacle to the rim of Turtle Lagoon.

“Turned into a hag and ripped apart by zlyzen,” Tess said, warming her wind-chapped hands around her own mug. In the deeper parts of winter, she mourned how the noble penchant for gloves meant common Nadežrans sneered at them as affectations, even when wearing them was only sensible.

Esmierka sat back and rubbed her belly, full of river mussels steamed in garlic and wine. “I’d buy you lunch every Tsapekny just to hear the tale again.” Her smile stretched the burn scar Ondrakja had given her.

“I’d let you, just to tell it again.” Tess’s mug knocked against Esmierka’s with a dull clunk. “I only wish I’d seen it firsthand.”

“I’ll just have to talk to the one who did.”

Tess’s gut rolled like she’d eaten a bad mussel. Esmierka hadn’t mentioned Ren before. She’d assumed they were leaving that dog buried. Tucking her hands in her lap, she said softly, “I’m happy to strike palms and call friends with you, but if you mean to harm my sister…”

“Harm?” Esmierka spat onto the floor. “That for Ondrakja. Bitch burned my face just because I had the guts to cut myself out. She was never nice, but she got worse, long before she was Gammer Lindworm. Ren was just a kid, doing what she had to. Protecting herself—and protecting you. Fuck anybody who blames her for that.”

Ren blames herself, Tess thought, remembering her sister standing there and letting Simlin hit her. But maybe that had finally leached the poison out of her heart, because Ren had a new knot charm on her wrist now.

“In fact—” Esmierka leaned forward, voice low. “Suilis is out now. Untied herself after that business with the Acrenix, left Nadežra with her brother. The Oyster Crackers could use more people. If Ren’s hard up, I could talk the others around to letting her in. You too, if you’re game for it. You go into houses for fittings and the like, right? You could feed us information. Suilis already told us everything there is to know about the Traementis, down to the color of their smalls, but there’s more pickings in the Pearls than one noble house.”

Giuna, standing inside the door of the Suncross shop, her lip trembling when Tess couldn’t hold her gaze. The image had burned itself into Tess’s mind, and it flared up again now.

Ren might have told the lie, but Tess had supported it.

“Steer clear of the Traementis,” she said. “They have dogs. And if I learn even one of those has been poisoned or drugged, I’ll be cracking oysters instead of mussels.”

Esmierka cocked an eyebrow. “Is it only the dogs you’re worried about, or their owners as well? I’d think you’d want payment for what happened.”

“Only one I want to pay isn’t part of the family anymore,” Tess muttered. Then, as Esmierka’s other brow went up, she added, “Letilia, not Ren.”

Esmierka lounged back in her chair, smirking. “That can also be arranged.”

Tess had only been speaking in jest. “But—”

“She’s holed up with the Destaelio now, right? Hard house to get information on. Those daughters are fiercely loyal. Servants are well-paid. And the only place with more numinatrian defenses is Simendis’s manor—but only thing he’s got is prudish opinions, and who’d steal those when he passes ’em out for free?”

Prudishness. Like the austerity laws in Ganllech—the ones their nobles flouted in secret.

“Forget the Destaelio for now,” Tess said, an idea taking shape. “Can you find me a dog breeder?”

Esmierka huffed. “You want a mutt, I can get you one in the alley outside.”

Tess swatted her arm. “His name’s Rhuelt Glastyn. He bred two of his braches to Meatball—the Traementis dog. I don’t know if he’s in Nadežra anymore; he may have gone back to Ganllech.” Donaia would know, but she’d never tell Tess.

“All right, you’ve got my curiosity.” Esmierka leaned forward again. “What’s important about a Ganllechyn dog breeder?”

“Nothing,” Tess said. “But the dogs he breeds are fine hounds—princely. He talks to nobles. And I bet he’d have gossip on why a certain noblewoman fled Ganllech.”

The Rotunda, Eastbridge: Pavnilun 9

Donaia would frankly have preferred to pull out her own toenails than go to House Coscanum’s fete at the Rotunda. She knew what would happen: people whispering behind their gloves, casting sidelong looks at the members of House Traementis, then swanning up to offer some comment, sugar-sweet on top and poison underneath. We hope the turn in Traementis fortunes doesn’t prove as false as the woman who turned them, or something as elegantly cruel.

But pulling out her toenails would do nothing for House Traementis’s public image. And Donaia refused to add “cowardice” to “foolishness” in the list of barbs people could hurl her way. So she mustered the paltry ranks of House Traementis—minus Tanaquis, who never came to these things, and Nencoral, whom Donaia suspected would be resigning her place in the register as soon as Fintenus accepted her back—and marched them to the Rotunda, where the Upper Bank had gathered to celebrate the elevation of Agniet Cercel Coscani to the Cinquerat.

It was a belated and clumsy event by Faella’s standards, but the Traementis weren’t the only ones humiliated by Ren’s unmasking. Faella had shown the girl too much favor to escape the mud. But House Coscanum held a seat in the Cinquerat now, and this was a very pointed reminder that they were too influential to be snubbed.

“Orrucio’s here, and Civrin Isorran,” Giuna said, waving tentatively at them. Both were new acquaintances, made this past year as she came out of her shell—as Renata coaxed her out, Donaia thought sourly. “Do you mind if I go say hello?”

Civrin Isorran, whose mother was the Vigil’s new high commander, under Alta Agniet. Those without the connections to approach the Coscanum were flocking to the Isorran instead. A school of razorteeth, and Giuna wanted to dive in.

“Do you need my permission?” Donaia snapped, then grimaced at Giuna’s start. “I’m sorry. Go on. Idaglio, what do you think of the new mural?”

While Giuna flitted off to discover whether her friends would still talk to her, Idaglio and Meppe distracted Donaia with a critique of the rice fields and orchards painted along the band beneath the etched glass dome. A display of Era Destaelio’s deep pockets and questionable taste, but there was no savor in mocking it. Even with Idaglio netting a few of his friends into the conversation, Donaia was all too aware of the whispers, the sidelong glances. Damn that girl for putting us in this position.

Then a hatefully familiar laugh echoed off the high vault of the dome.

“Oh, the Rotunda! I was so sad to have missed the Autumn Gloria this year. It really is one of the best events Nadežra has to offer. I have such delightful memories of this place—you know, one time my father paid for the entire stock of brocade a merchant brought from Plectia. All for me, and I gave bolts as gifts to my friends. You must remember that, Cibrial; yours was that lovely pale green with pomegranates.”

Donaia remembered, if only because a silk faille of golden wheat sheaves that was supposed to become her wedding surcoat had wound up in Letilia’s hands. The brat decided it made her look sallow, and left it as a feast for moths in the back of her wardrobe. Gut clenching like she’d drunk wine gone sour twenty-some years before, Donaia focused on the potted persimmon trees arching overhead and pretended she couldn’t hear that spine-scraping voice moving closer. And closer.

Until something warm and sticky sloshed down her arm and dripped onto the bronze surcoat Tess had created for Renata’s belated adoption ball.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there,” Letilia said, her smile as cloying as the mulled wine trickling into Donaia’s glove. “Brown is such a dull color, you practically blend in with the walls.”

“It’s our family’s tradition,” Donaia snapped back. “But then, you never had much respect for that, did you?”

Letilia tittered into her glove, glancing at Cibrial as if inviting her to share the joke. A whole cluster of Destaelio cousins stood with them, sailing through the Rotunda like a cargo ship full of wealth. “How very rich, coming from the woman who sullied Traementis tradition by adopting a Vraszenian. But you didn’t know, did you?”

And you played along with the lie. Donaia bit down before that response could escape. It was just asking for Letilia to lay a pitying hand on her arm and say she’d been trying to protect Donaia’s family from humiliation.

“Not just a Vraszenian, but a thief,” Letilia went on. “She stole all my jewelry when she fled, you know. Anything she left with you, I want back; those things are rightfully mine.”

“The only thing I received from her was my mother’s ring, which you stole when you abandoned your family.” Flicking droplets of wine back at Letilia, Donaia said, “No wonder everyone believed you could be mother and daughter. One thief looks much like another.”

Letilia hissed like an outraged goose. “You dare accuse me? Why, I have never been so insulted!”

Smooth as silk, Cibrial said, “You deserve satisfaction, Alta Letilia.”

“A duel!” Letilia cried. “It’s my right as a noblewoman! But whoever will stand on my behalf?”

“I’d be happy to offer the services of my duelist,” Cibrial said. A wave of her hand brought a thin-faced, fair-haired man up to her side.

Theatrical outrage transformed to theatrical delight. “Mede Kaineto! Is it true you were the Wave Volto in the trials? I so enjoyed watching you defeat your dueling opponents. Very beautifully done, and so quick.”

Kaineto bowed with one hand to his chest, in a bad mimicry of Seterin style. “I would have made it past the second trial, too, except the Raven Volto cheated—with that criminal’s help. Now that we know the truth, I’m not surprised. But the entire city should be grateful to you for exposing those charlatans. My steel is yours.”

They’d drawn an audience, and far too late, Donaia realized a confrontation must have been Letilia’s plan. Before Leato’s death, he’d borne steel for them. Then, at Renata’s encouragement, it was Grey Serrado. It was still legally Grey; she hadn’t broken his contract. But if she sent for him…

Letilia simpered, laying a hand over the one Kaineto had placed on his hilt. “It may stay sheathed today. It seems Era Traementis has no one willing to back her insult or defend her thievery.”

“You’re mistaken, Aunt Letilia,” Giuna said, pushing through the crowd ringing them. Behind her came another girl, tall and lanky, with sun-burnished skin and dark hair triple-braided along the sides of her head.

Letilia looked ready to spit acid at the interruption. “Who’s this?”

The tall girl bowed, dark eyes bright as though she found all of this vastly amusing. “Kasienka Ryvček.”

A wave of murmurs swelled at the famous name attached to an unfamiliar face. Kasienka’s crescent grin widened. “Yes, yes, everyone knows my aunt. My skill is not yet so sharp. But good enough, I hope, for Era Traementis?”

Donaia didn’t have to hear the whispers to know what everyone would think. Why did Vraszenians keep popping up around her house like jack moles? Traementis was one of the oldest families. Perhaps they’ve sunk too far into the mud, the whispers said. Perhaps they’ve forgotten their Liganti roots.

A different voice drowned them out. If Ren truly had been a Seterin woman, or Liganti, would you be this torn right now?

That memory doused her ire like water over a sot’s head. Donaia said, “Everyone knows and admires your aunt. I trust your blade to defend our name.”

Like a song changing key, the excitement of a verbal spat gave way to the excitement of a public duel. Scaperto took charge, looking guilty for not having found Donaia faster. The open space at the center of the Rotunda made an ideal ring; before long, Kasienka and Kaineto faced each other with their coats shucked, swinging their arms to loosen the muscles. Donaia stood at the edge, twisting her sticky gloves into knots under her surcoat. To Giuna she whispered, “How do you know this girl?”

“We’re—friends,” Giuna murmured back. “We met at the dueling trial.”

Before Donaia could ask more, the blades were out, the opening Uniat and Tuat exchanged, and the duel began.

Kasienka hardly seemed to be taking it seriously. “You know,” she said, her sword flickering, “both the Liganti and Vraszenian styles have their strengths. For example, your straight-armed stance presents constant threat.” She faded back, away from that threat. “On the other hand—”

Donaia couldn’t quite see what happened. Kaineto’s blade suddenly dipped, and he retreated in a hurry. “Against your stance, transport works well,” Kasienka said, grinning.

“I’m not here for a lesson,” Kaineto spat.

“Oh? I like learning from my opponents. From you, though, I think there is not much to learn. So if you have no interest, let us not waste our time.” Kasienka made a careless-seeming thrust, much too distant to threaten Kaineto’s body.

But he yelped, and his sword clattered to the marble floor.

“That’s a disarm and first blood,” Kasienka said, as red stained his white glove. “But I suppose I can only win once.”

Giuna bounced on her toes. “Perhaps I should have mentioned,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mistress Ryvček was the Fox Volto in the first trial. I believe Mede Kaineto lost to her there, too.”

Donaia shot her a dry look. In an undertone, she said, “Yes, perhaps you should have mentioned.” If only for the sake of my nerves.

Scaperto examined Kaineto’s hand and sent him off to be tended, then waved for Donaia and Letilia to join him at the center of the circle. With everyone poised for another bloodletting, Scaperto said, “I believe Alta Letilia owes House Traementis an apology. And House Destaelio owes one as well, on behalf of their guest.”

Looking like she’d dined on mealy persimmons, Cibrial said, “Of course. My deepest apologies, Era Traementis.”

Donaia expected Letilia to throw another tantrum—even relished the idea that she might, with everyone watching. But at a pointed stare from her host, Letilia only sniffed. “I suppose it was rash of me to accuse Donaia of theft. She’s merely happy to call thieves kin.” She leaned in close, but pitched her voice to be audible. “Or am I wrong, and you have struck that gnat from your register?”

And just like that, the whispers were back. Donaia should have known that a single victory wouldn’t change the tide of gossip. Kasienka’s steel might have defended them, but no one here had Renata’s silver tongue.

She hated that the person she most depended on to defend her family was the one who’d put them into this mess.

“Come, Giuna,” she said, straightening her back like an inscriptor’s edge. “It’s time we left.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Pavnilun 9

Giuna had come to the Rotunda hoping that after she’d performed her share of social niceties, she could slip away with Kasienka. She wasn’t in the habit of hiding her activities from her mother—until recently, she’d had nothing to hide—but in the wake of Ren and Grey’s betrayal, Donaia had gone back to old habits, holding her family close and strangers at arm’s length. Giuna’s stolen moments with Kasienka were bubbles of joy in what had become grim days, and she was reluctant to let Donaia’s suspicions fall on her new friend.

Her Vraszenian friend.

But the duel and their subsequent grand exit from the Rotunda left no opening for escape. Giuna scarcely had time to duck behind a column for a brief goodbye. “Thank you,” she whispered fervently—and before Kasienka could respond with some clever quip, Giuna kissed her.

It was a brief, awkward thing. She managed to land off-center and too hard, her teeth knocking against her upper lip. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Dreadful. She was absolutely dreadful at this.

Kasienka caught Giuna’s elbow before she could flee. “To steal from me a first kiss, and then apologize? I should hope you’re sorry for that, at least.”

“That was never your first kiss,” Giuna blurted, digging the hole she was in even deeper.

She expected laughter—Kasienka always seemed to be laughing—but all she saw was warmth and a curiously vulnerable fondness. Coaxing her closer, Kasienka said, “It was our first. Though—since I hardly had a chance to do my part—perhaps we might count this as the first instead?”

And the second, and the third, and the fourth, all much less dreadful, even if they ended far too quickly. After Giuna dragged herself off to join her family in the Traementis carriage, she kept her hand over her mouth, certain that her smile would give her away even if her reddened lips didn’t.

The mood there was not nearly as light as her own, weighted down by Letilia’s poison. As the carriage rolled across the cobblestones, the woman’s accusations echoed in Giuna’s memory, extinguishing all thoughts of romance. Thief. Stole all my jewelry.

“Mother,” she asked slowly, “do you remember if Ghiscolo Acrenix ever gave Letilia a gift? A numinatrian medallion cast in bronze?”

Donaia looked like she would have preferred uncomfortable silence to any conversation that touched on Letilia. “That wouldn’t have been her style. Come to that, Ghiscolo wasn’t her style, either.” They rattled into one of the lanes leading northward from the plaza before she said, “Why?”

Meppe and Idaglio looked on curiously as Giuna began pecking through the half-truths and dropped hints from people who dismissed her as too young and naive to think for herself. “Letilia was asking after the jewels Ren stole. And I never told you—Sibiliat used to hound Renata about jewelry, especially numinatrian things. She said Letilia had an Acrenix family heirloom, a gift from her father, that she wanted back. She pretended it was an idle thing, but she hired people to break into the Westbridge townhouse and look for it when Renata couldn’t sleep. And… do you remember the maid Suilis?”

“The one who quit without giving notice,” Meppe offered.

Giuna nodded. “A few months ago—well, she kidnapped Tess.”

That broke Donaia from her frozen posture. “What?”

“I should have told you,” Giuna said in a rush. “Renata—Ren—she convinced me not to. Suilis was working for Sibiliat, trying to find that same medallion. Ren swore she didn’t have it, but… but Ren lies.”

“Like she breathes,” Donaia muttered. “So Ren stole something she couldn’t pawn—or wouldn’t—and valuable enough that…”

She fell silent. “Mother?” Giuna prodded.

Barely audible over the clatter of wheels and creaking of carriage springs, Donaia whispered, “A malevolent numinatrian artifact.”

“Well, numinatrian,” Giuna said. “I don’t know how malevolent it is.”

“Renata and Tanaquis do,” Donaia said, her whisper as grim as a winter freeze. “It’s what was used to curse our house. Renata knows. She brought it with her.”

Giuna knew that flush in her mother’s cheeks, and it never boded well for those who’d wronged her. Before she could think of a way to divert or douse that spark of fury, Meppe spoke. “A curse? Is this what Cous—what Renat—what Ren was so frantic to have removed from me?” He worried Idaglio’s hand in his own. “She said it had to do with the Indestor register being burned. Why would she curse me, then take me to Cousin Tanaquis to be cleansed?”

Confusion rippled Donaia’s mask of anger. “You cursed? What? No, this was House Traementis, before your adoption. And—”

“And Ren herself,” Giuna said.

“Yes. Ren was cursed, too.” Donaia’s tone had slowed, like the Dežera on a changing tide. “Even though she wasn’t Traementis, nor any blood of Letilia’s. Which means… that maggot-infested eel carcass of a woman!”

They all jumped when Donaia’s fist connected with the side of the carriage. Cautiously, Giuna said, “Mother, what is it? What’s going on?”

Donaia folded her gloved hands into a hard knot in her lap. The smile on her face held nothing of humor. “Letilia is the one who cursed our house all those years ago. And I intend to make her pay for it.”

Hidden temple, Old Island: Pavnilun 12

“Before the others say anything,” Vargo said when Ren and Grey arrived in the temple underneath the Point, “I have an idea to make things simpler. Well, sort of.”

The exchange that followed was between the two of them alone, in a code no outsider could read: a tilt of Grey’s brow, a wry smile and shrug from Ren, then both of them laughing quietly as Grey threaded their fingers into a woven whole. All Grey said after that was “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

Couples, Vargo thought with a mental eye roll. Thank the Lumen he and Alsius weren’t that annoying. He gestured toward Tanaquis, scribbling notes at the desk she’d dragged into the temple. “She and Alsius have approximately seven thousand and four questions they want to ask Mirscellis. They want to send Ren into the dream to ask those questions, with orders to bring back verbatim answers, after which I guarantee their list will only get longer.”

“Do I detect the tone of a man who’s been in that exact position?” Ren asked, grinning.

Alsius at least could hear Tanaquis for himself. But Ren wasn’t wrong; Vargo’s annoyance at having to play mouthpiece for the old man had prodded him to this idea. Life had been easier when everyone thought his lapel spider was a pin or a very unusual pet.

“I have an idea for how to talk to Mirscellis directly,” Vargo said. “If Ren is willing to try.”

Of course she was willing, even after she heard what he had in mind. Vargo knew a martyr’s impulse when he saw one; Ren, still reeling with guilt over her con, would grasp at any opportunity to make up for it with something good. But he wasn’t going to insult her by treating her willingness as insincere—and he wouldn’t be suggesting this plan if he thought it would hurt her.

That didn’t stop Grey from watching like the hawk he used to be as Ren settled into the numinat. He grumbled to Vargo, “Just promise me she’s not going to come out of this with a Seterin inscriptor stuck in her head forever.”

“Would I sentence another poor bastard to that fate?”

::Here now! I don’t hear you complaining about the fine clothes and soft beds my instruction has brought you!:: Alsius said, hopping to his usual perch on Vargo’s shoulder.

Ignoring Alsius, Vargo said to Ren, “Just concentrate on the connection you made with Mirscellis,” and swiped his chalk to close the circle.

This numinat wasn’t quite the same as the one Alsius had hoped would transfer his spirit into the body of a messenger boy, before accidentally winding up in the boy’s spider instead. But the principle was similar, albeit temporary: Rather than sending Ren to talk to Mirscellis, they would bring Mirscellis to them.

In Ren’s body.

She closed her eyes, and long moments passed. Vargo clasped his hands behind his back to hide their tension. “Should we have given her aža?” Grey asked, sotto voce.

“We can try that if this doesn’t work,” Vargo murmured back. Then Ren’s head came up, blinking.

“What an odd feeling,” she said.

Her accent sounded almost like Renata, and her posture had made a chameleon change. But not to Renata’s crystalline poise; this was looser, and Vargo had the sudden, unsettling feeling that if he’d taken aža, he would have seen another face ghosting over her own.

Gabrius Mirscellis.

::It worked! It’s him! Is it him?:: Alsius scuttled so far forward on Vargo’s shoulder that he seemed about to leap into the numinat. Vargo took a step back. ::Ask him. Or I’ll ask. Can you hear me, Master Mirscellis? You’ll need to speak aloud; sadly, this connection with Ren only goes one way.::

One of Ren’s hands rose, Mirscellis staring at it like he hadn’t seen a hand in centuries. Then he touched his head, feeling along the line of the crown braid there. “Whose body am I in? Is this the young woman I met in the dream? Did she consent to this?”

Vargo liked him better for asking. “She did. And if you want to leave, we’ll release you—”

::But we have so many questions!:: Alsius yelped.

Ren frowned—no, Mirscellis frowned. A different expression from the one Vargo knew so well. “Where is that voice coming from?”

::Me! It’s coming from me!:: Alsius lifted his brightly colored abdomen and waved two legs in the air like he was signaling a lady spider. ::Altan Alsius Acrenix. Gracious, I hardly even know where to begin. I’ve read all your works, even Mundum Praeterire, which has become quite difficult to find. I suppose we should start at the beginning—not the very beginning, I mean, your childhood hardly matters, except I do want to discuss the time you led that student takeover of the Obrantum Agora, but for now let’s focus on the experiments that stranded you in the realm of mind. Your notebook was lost, so we’re not entirely sure what you were trying to accomplish with your journey. And how did you become trapped? Do you want out again? Is that even possible? I suppose if we found you a less-inhabited body to possess…::

Mirscellis looked taken aback. “I— No, I wouldn’t want to claim anyone else’s body. I intended to come back to my own. I’d planned my experiment very carefully, scheduling it before the Great Dream; I theorized that if I couldn’t re-enter my flesh as intended, that event would let me cross back and hopefully restore myself by another route.” His scowl had no bite; clearly the intervening centuries had worn the edges off his frustration. “Unfortunately, someone mistook my comatose state for death. They dismantled the numinat and moved my body, and—well. That was that.”

His matter-of-fact tone made Vargo shudder. Alsius, meanwhile, was riding the wave of his own curiosity. ::The Great Dream? So you did come to Nadežra to explore how aspects of the Lumen manifest in Vraszan? That was a matter of great debate, you know, after your death. Sandetto claimed you’d started dabbling in blasphemies—but he was always jealous. Did you truly dump vinegar over his manuscript during an ostretta brawl?::

“His head. I would never destroy someone else’s writings, no matter how spurious their—”

“All right!” Scooping Alsius into his palm before the spider decided to jump into the circle and damn the consequences, Vargo sent a desperate look to Tanaquis, who was madly scribbling notes.

“He asked about Sandetto, didn’t he?” she said, amused. Then she nodded at their guest. “Master Mirscellis, I’m Tanaquis Fienola Traementatis. We’re interested in whatever you can tell us about your explorations of the realm of mind. For example, when you first—”

“If I might,” Vargo said, wishing he could scoop up Tanaquis as well. “Ren’s doing us all a favor here, and we shouldn’t press it further than we have to. Master Mirscellis, have you been able to find the szorsa she asked you to look for?”

Mirscellis was apparently more disciplined than either Alsius or Tanaquis, because he took the redirection without complaint. “I haven’t. For which I owe her an apology. I suppose it was hubris to offer in the first place; I thought my mastery of the dream enough to find one szorsa’s szekani, even if she is Zevriz. I was wrong.”

Tanaquis leafed backward in her notebook. “But you found Ren—in the middle of a Primordial-influenced dream. I’m very curious how you managed that, and how you made this containment circle she described. I’ve met very few people who know how to invoke a Primordial’s power, and even fewer who know anything about blocking it.”

“Just why are you meddling with such things?” Mirscellis’s voice cooled with suspicion.

Fortunately, it was Grey and not Tanaquis who answered. “Our only interest in Primordials is in ridding this city of them.”

Mirscellis’s tension eased. “I wish you luck. The gods themselves couldn’t purge the Primordials entirely from the world—and who knows what it would look like if they had.”

A world without desire, or rage, or fear. Fortunately, Grey kept talking before either Alsius or Tanaquis could snap up that philosophical bait. “Not in a cosmological sense. The Primordial of desire, the one you rescued Ren from, has an all too concrete presence here.”

He gave an admirably succinct explanation of the medallions, with enough of a hawk’s military tinge to keep everyone else quiet. Mirscellis rubbed Ren’s jaw thoughtfully, as if feeling for stubble that wasn’t there, and nodded when Grey was done. “That explains a great deal. I knew Nadežra had been conquered—I can enter the waking world at the Great Dream, and for several iterations there was no one there—and I knew that happened not long after the infection started. But I never knew the specifics. Mirabile scitu.”

Vargo said, “Ren had a vision of what Kaius Rex did. That’s why she’s trying to find the szorsa.”

He related the story of Ren’s vision, though he wasn’t quite as successful as Grey at discouraging interruptions; Tanaquis kept quoting from her notes whenever he got a detail wrong. Mirscellis, meanwhile, looked like he wished he had his own notebook to scribble in. “I’d always wondered how Primordial influence managed to infest the dream. I didn’t know it was possible to blend numinatria and pattern like that.”

“More than possible!” Notes and pen forgotten, Tanaquis shifted forward in her chair. “I’ve even used pattern cards as foci for numinata—though it only works if Ren chooses them. Presumably other szorsas could achieve the same effect, though preliminary research suggests that not all of them can. And there are other applications. Like the numinat for destroying the wellspring, using the wellspring itself as a focus.”

At Mirscellis’s horrified blanch, Vargo said, “I dismantled it, and the people behind the attempt are dead.”

“Good,” Mirscellis said. “Ažerais’s gift is not meant to be used that way. No more than we are meant to channel the power of the Lumen directly, rather than through its refractions. Nothing short of blasphemous—not to mention dangerous.”

Alsius twitched in indignation. ::Are you implying Ažerais is on par with the Lumen?::

Mirscellis refused to be drawn into theological debate with a spider. He said, “What Ren saw might explain why you’ve had such difficulty destroying the things. Tell me, what can the medallions be used to do?”

Grey’s body betrayed no hint of the tension that question must evoke in the man who was the Rook. “They allow the bearer to see what others want—colored by the numinat of the medallion they bear—and to force their will upon others to strengthen those desires. A bearer can also see who or what can be used to achieve their own desires.”

“Tell me more about that last part.” Mirscellis’s gaze sharpened with interest, like a cat sighting prey.

Vargo said, “A medallion is the only way Mettore Indestor could’ve realized Ren could be used to destroy the wellspring. We don’t think it told him outright that she was conceived on the Great Dream—just that she was helpful to his goals. But it was enough.”

“That’s what drew him to Arkady Bones as well. I was present when he first met her,” Grey said. “Not even Arkady knows for certain when she was conceived or born, but Mettore knew the moment he set eyes on her that he could use her.”

Mirscellis tried to rake Ren’s fingers through her hair and snagged hard in the braids. His wince, though, was for something far more serious. “As I feared. If the creation of this chain drew the Primordial’s power into the dream, then it stands to reason it also drew Ažerais’s power into the medallions. Knowing how to gain one’s desires is not within the purview of desire itself… but it is within the purview of a goddess of dreams and intuition.”

Vargo’s whispered curse was the only sound in the temple. Kaius Rex had waged decades of war and sparked centuries of unrest by taking the holy city of Vraszan for the Liganti. The Dežera would run with northern blood if Vraszenians thought he’d stolen their goddess’s power to fuel his conquest.

We en’t telling nobody about this, he thought forcefully at Alsius.

::No, my boy. Definitely not.::

For once Vargo was glad that Tanaquis’s attention remained on matters metaphysical, rather than political. She said, “We do have a way to destroy the medallions. They’re connected with their bearers’ lives, in ways I suspect involve pattern as well as numinatria. If we destroy both bearers and artifacts together… but nobody wants to do that. Our next best alternative is to let one death do the job—with that one person holding all ten of the medallions.” Her matter-of-fact tone left no doubt who she intended to take them all.

Grey’s vehement refusal sounded more than a little like the Rook. “That’s Ninat talking,” Vargo added.

::We aren’t affected by Ninat,:: Alsius mused. ::And we’re more likely to survive the experience than another would be.::

We aren’t killing ourselves for this, Vargo said. Not just for Alsius, but for Mirscellis, who’d drawn a sharp breath.

::So we’ll do it to save one man out of guilt, but not for an entire city? Possibly more?::

“We had a ticking clock then. We don’t now.” Vargo hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and when Tanaquis and Grey turned confused looks on him, his scowl deepened. “Don’t worry. I’m not the sacrificial type.”

“Of course.” Grey gave Vargo his blandest look. For the first time, it occurred to Vargo to wonder if that blandness was, in reality, Serrado being a smartass.

But Mirscellis was speaking. “I suspect you need to sever pattern’s interference with the medallions before you can destroy them.”

“Ren tried,” Grey said, his frustration seeping through. “Of us all, she knows pattern the best. But she thinks she would need to be there bodily to make it happen, and the only method we have for doing that is…”

“Unacceptable,” Vargo said flatly.

Mirscellis’s thoughtful look deepened. “‘Bodily’ is the wrong term for my existence in the dream, and I don’t want to go making more excessively confident promises I might not be able to keep. Still, it’s possible I could help. You’ll need the medallions in hand, though. All of them, I should think, with their bearers. And you’ll need some substitution for the missing Uniat—tell me, Altan Alsius, Alta Tanaquis. Are you familiar with embodied numinatria?”

This time, interrupting the discussion would have been counterproductive. Vargo let Grey draw him aside, leaving the three chalk-heads to swap citations. In a low voice, Grey said, “Do we need to worry about Tanaquis?”

“If you mean ‘does she want to be the next Kaius Rex,’ no,” Vargo said. “She wants to understand the cosmos, not rule it. Though that’s Ninat’s domain, too.” The boundary between the mundane and the infinite.

Grey looked only a little reassured. Vargo imagined the Rook’s suspicions had soaked right down to the bone. “Look,” Vargo said. “I wholeheartedly believe she’s trying to destroy the medallions, if for no other reason than the sheer challenge. Is Ninat going to feed that desire? Of course. But it’s like Simendis being an ascetic recluse. It helps us.”

“That’s boon and bane alike,” Grey muttered. After that he said nothing, until Mirscellis was gone and Ren was back.

Vargo let Grey go to her first, but once the two of them had unclamped from each other, he eased forward. “You all right?”

Ren looked faintly surprised as she said, “Yes. It was… peculiar, but not unpleasant. I could not speak to him, but I felt his mind. Like a whirlwind of energy and light. Such curiosity—and such warmth.” Her fingers curled unconsciously, as if around a hand that wasn’t there.

“Could you hear our conversation?” Tanaquis asked, pen poised and ready.

Ren shook her head, and Grey patted her shoulder in ostentatious sympathy. “Get comfortable. This might take a while.”

12

Coffer and Key

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 14

Approaching the Seven Knots labyrinth, Ren fought the urge to touch her face. In the short time since her con had ended, she’d gotten used to walking around with her skin clean of cosmetics. Wearing Arenza’s mask now made her itch, and not just physically. I’ve learned to like honesty.

But honesty wouldn’t serve her now. Although Renata had been unmasked, Arenza hadn’t yet. Sooner or later the truth would come out… but while the lie lasted, she would use it.

The square in front of the labyrinth was even busier than usual. Although Veiled Waters was nearly two months off, it was a Great Dream year; Vraszenians who could afford to flooded the city well in advance. Seven Knots was packed to bursting, every spare room rented, and the ones that weren’t spare hosting twice as many as before. One enterprising fellow had renovated a traveling caravan to hold nothing but beds, and was boasting that twelve people could sleep in comfort. Looking at it, Ren believed the twelve, but not the comfort. She thought guiltily of the extra space in the Westbridge townhouse as she slipped through the crowd to the labyrinth.

The interior held not the usual throng of worshippers making offerings and artisans selling charms, but a flock of women in their finest clothes, from polished boots to embroidered sash belts and shawls. Ren tugged her own shawl closer as she searched for a familiar, blindfolded face. Though there had to be close to a hundred women present, nowhere did she see Mevieny.

The Kiralič had said she wasn’t Branek’s prisoner, but that didn’t mean he would let her come here today. The purpose of this gathering was to choose who would represent the lost Ižranyi for the next seven years—the position Mevieny had held for the last cycle. Making that decision didn’t require the current speaker to be present, though… and given that Branek likely wanted someone else in her place, he might well keep her away.

Which meant Ren had to fall back on her second, less appealing plan.

Her target wasn’t difficult to find. After slipping what mills she could afford into the Faces and Masks on their pillars and walking the labyrinth path, it took questioning only one szorsa—a round-faced woman who didn’t bother hiding her curiosity about this newcomer—to learn which cluster of women held Laročja Szerado.

Ren wasn’t certain what she’d expected Grey’s grandmother to look like. Some combination of Diomen and Gammer Lindworm, perhaps, a charismatic charlatan crossed with a nightmare hag. Laročja was neither. The braids of her silver hair held many knotted charms: a rose of Ažerais, a widow’s wedding token, the seven-looped knot of a kureč’s senior szorsa. The strands that escaped formed a halo as fine as spun floss. Weight had smoothed the wrinkles from her cheeks, making her seem younger than her years, but the crinkles around her eyes and mouth recalled as many smiles as frowns. She was smiling now, patting the hand of a woman around Ren’s age.

“Never apologize for speaking truth,” Laročja told her. “What Ažerais shows us, we have a duty to share, no matter how unpleasant the client finds it. To your kurenič my son will speak. No szorsa should be so disrespected.”

Her son: Grey’s father. Ren felt the weight of the throwing knives hidden in her shawl as she approached the small crowd. A tap on one woman’s shoulder brought her around, creating an opening Ren could use to slip through. “Szorsa Laročja,” she said as the young woman bowed herself away. “Could we privately speak?”

A few laughs escaped the press around Laročja. Swap the clothing and the language, and Ren might be some insignificant delta gentlewoman asking to speak privately with Faella Coscanum. Laročja’s gaze dismissed Ren with familiar impatience. “I’m a busy woman, little one.”

Ren touched her heart in a gesture of respect she didn’t feel at all. “I come regarding the dreamweaver’s lost fledgling.”

In this crowd, she couldn’t risk naming Koszar directly, only refer obliquely to the Anduske, the “children of the dreamweaver.” But it was enough to make Laročja’s gaze flick down to her shawl, eyes narrowing in calculation. “A moment,” she said, not to Ren. Like a flock of starlings moving on, the crowd dispersed.

“You are the one advising the slip-knot owl,” Laročja said when they were gone. The blue of her shrewd eyes was deeply familiar, but empty of the warmth Ren saw when she looked at Grey. “Think you it wise, twisting Ažerais’s insights to suit your own ends?”

Only long practice at controlling her words kept Ren from calling the woman a hypocrite to her face. “I twist nothing, Szorsa Laročja. I tell him only what I see—though my experience is far less than yours.”

“I advise you to leave that one to his fate. But I think not that you came for my wisdom.” Stepping away from the nearest pillar—Ir Entrelke Nedje, the deity of luck; Ren doubted that was mere chance—Laročja gestured to a bench along the wall. “Let us talk. Though the men we aid are enemies, we need not be. That would be foolish and shortsighted.”

Ren, sitting, wished the season gave her an excuse to cover her words with a fan. No doubt others were watching, hoping to read her lips as easily as they read the cards. “I hope you will aid me in ending the schism. It serves no one, least of all the Vraszenians of this city.”

“You mean to turn the traitor over for justice?” One silvered brow rose in doubt. “For I know of no schism—only a few malcontents with a taste for cheese. The true children of the dreamweaver seek to remove the leech from their heart.”

“Then no objection should you have to them submitting themselves to Ažerais’s judgment, in the form of an ordeal.”

The first eyebrow lift had been a measured act. The second shooting up to join it was not. “Only she who speaks for the Ižranyi may oversee such a thing.”

“I’m sure you know where Szorsa Mevieny is.”

“That honor she will not hold much longer.”

The selection would take place today, but the handoff wouldn’t occur until the Great Dream. By tradition, the lost clan’s new speaker was the first to sip from the Wellspring of Ažerais. But by then, Branek would already have staged his rebellion. “We both know this cannot wait.”

Laročja sniffed. “The young, always in a rush. I see no reason to hurry.”

“You see no reason to prove that Branek is favored by Ažerais? For surely you have no doubt of that.”

The pause said Laročja was giving the proposal serious thought. It should have been gratifying; instead it was the opposite. She shouldn’t be this easy to convince. What am I not seeing?

Laročja clasped Ren’s hand between her own. “Young as you are, you will not have attended this gathering before. Stay for the choosing, and afterward, we will talk.”

Before Ren could reply, Laročja stood, brushed off her skirts, and strode into the sunlight blazing down on the labyrinth’s path.

“My sisters,” she called out to the assembled szorsas. The chattering faded almost immediately, everyone turning to look. “We come together to choose who will speak for the lost Ižranyi in the next cycle of our Lady’s dream. But before that dream comes, our elders will again meet the Cinquerat in the Ceremony of the Accords. We all know of the horrors last year—horrors that robbed Mevieny Plemaskaya Straveši of her sight. Someone must take her place now, to finish out the cycle.”

Djek, Ren thought, staring, as Laročja let sorrow drag her cheeks into a frown. “I have spoken for the Ižranyi before. I can do so again.”

And make yourself the one who oversees the ordeal. Not just that: The szorsa who took the position during this Great Dream would lead their people into the new Grand Cycle. Even after she was replaced, her vision would influence the next forty-nine years.

Then a voice rang from the entrance, blessedly familiar. “Already you speak for me? The Ižranyi, I think, would be no more pleased than I.”

Ren kept her gaze on Laročja, rather than turning with everyone else to look. She already knew Mevieny had arrived; what mattered was Laročja’s reaction. Which was well-controlled… but not well enough to hide the flash of anger.

A girl Ren didn’t know led the old szorsa forward, into the light of the labyrinth. A strip of pale gauze covered the empty sockets where Mevieny’s eyes had been, but she stood proudly as she came to a halt. “If you win the support of our sisters and of pattern, then so be it, Laročja. But from me you will not take these final months.”

Laročja’s solicitous expression had the look of a well-practiced lie. “I thought only to lessen your burden. Surely you wish not to relive that night—nor to remind others of it. People whisper still that a curse lingers on all those touched by it.”

Another woman spoke up. Ren instantly marked her as a sycophant. “It has happened before that the Ižranyi’s speaker dies before her cycle has ended. Then her successor is chosen early and takes her place. Why not cast our cards? If again Szorsa Mevieny prevails, then the matter is settled. If not…”

Clearly, she expected Laročja to win. Ren prayed she was wrong, because the suggestion was met with general acclaim, and the assembled szorsas all began to take out their decks.

Grey hadn’t been able to tell her how the choosing was done; that wasn’t for outsiders to know. Ren drifted toward the nearest szorsa. “I am new. What is the method?”

“Draw a card,” the other woman murmured back, her own deck in hand. “Let its message guide to whom you give it.”

The interior of the labyrinth whispered with traditional prayers and rustling cards. Most szorsas were giving an honest shuffle, but if the nature of the card chosen mattered, Ren had no doubt that at least some would rig their results.

Not all the cards began going to Mevieny or Laročja, though. Easily half a dozen other women appeared to have their own supporters, albeit fewer in number. “It is simply a vote?”

The young szorsa looked like she’d asked if the Dežera flowed out of the sea. “Of course not. With the cards they receive, they lay a pattern to show how they will guide our people in the coming cycle.” She moved away, taking her card to Laročja.

Ren couldn’t let Laročja administer the ordeal. She drew out her deck, then paused. I could draw honestly… or I could send a message.

Her mouth compressed into a fierce smile. Mevieny may not use it—but message it shall be. She shuffled her deck, making it look fair, but her fingers knew the shape of the one card ever so slightly different from the rest. Choice in hand, she headed for Mevieny.

One of the women who’d already gathered several votes was there, handing her small stack to Mevieny. A swift glance showed Ren someone else bringing her collected cards to Laročja. Candidates, it seemed, could throw their support behind each other.

Then it was her own turn. Ren stepped up and took Mevieny’s hand, sliding her card into it. “The Constant Spirit,” she said, since the blinded szorsa couldn’t see its painted surface. “The card of the Meszaros. Not your clan, I know, but—”

Instead of taking the card, Mevieny seized her wrist. “Arenza?”

“Yes,” she said reflexively—and then stopped.

She’d dealt with Mevieny as the Black Rose, but had the old woman ever met Arenza? Yes, Ren realized with dread. Once: on the Night of Hells, after Mevieny’s eyes were torn out.

But Ren hadn’t shared her name then. Mevieny shouldn’t be able to connect those threads, to get from a familiar voice to the name of a persona she’d never met.

Unless she’d connected a lot more threads than that.

Mevieny’s chin tilted to one side, ear angled toward Ren. “I hoped you remained at the side of old friends, but little news makes it to me these days.”

Heart beating fast, Ren bent closer and murmured, “My old friend holds to his hope of an ordeal, but I fear I may have given Szorsa Laročja ideas instead. If she oversees it…” Ren couldn’t see how many cards Laročja had compared to Mevieny, but if the final arbiter was not a tally but a pattern laid, then surely a practiced fraud had the advantage.

Another pair of szorsas approached, one offering a single card, the other a stack of four. Released from Mevieny’s grip, Ren edged away. The Masks on the columns seemed to be laughing at her, for the ill luck she’d brought down on herself.

Until Mevieny caught the belled cuff of her sleeve. Then Ren knew they were laughing… because Mevieny pushed a stack of mismatched cards into her own hands.

“Ažerais has blessed this one,” the old szorsa said, loud enough for others to hear. “Even with my eyes gone, I see it. If the time has come for me to step down, no more fit successor could I hope for.”

Ren almost dropped the cards. I can’t speak for the Ižranyi!

All eyes were on her, and Laročja’s glare was pure poison. The other szorsas whispered to each other in surprise. All those who’d gathered votes were older, women who’d earned the respect of their peers. Ren was young and completely unknown.

Laročja sniffed, gathering her composure. “Your judgment has gone along with your sight, Mevieny. But so be it. Let those with cards lay what pattern they can.”

One of her supporters spread her shawl across the grass so Laročja could kneel and lay the cards. Mevieny murmured in Ren’s ear, “The layout is your choice, and the placement of the cards. The idea is not to read pattern but to shape it—to weave the fate of our people for the coming cycle.”

Like szorsas were reputed to do in legend: not just interpreting Ažerais’s Dream, but calling it into being. Like Ren had once pretended to do, making Sedge cough up worms to impress Idusza.

One woman had only five cards, and was arranging them into a three-card line on her own shawl. Laročja and the other were sorting their stacks for a full nine-card spread, though Laročja had far more to choose from.

Ren had more than enough—thirty-three cards in total. She knelt in the grass and spread her shawl out, then began flicking through the assemblage. Past, present, future. For the past, should she focus on the wounds Vraszan had suffered, the eras of its glory, or its legendary beginnings?

Then she stopped and flicked back through. Did I really see…

She had. And although it wasn’t perfect, it came close enough that Ren knew what to do.

Laročja’s voice rang out. “Let each woman show her vision.”

The three-card line went first, then the other full pattern. When Laročja turned to Ren, her smile held the malicious expectation of failure. “And you, little one?”

Ren’s hands were steady as she dealt the cards she’d chosen. Not a nine-card spread, but the seven of the wheel.

“This is an older layout, favored by the Anoškin,” she said. “The wheel of the caravan that carries our people down their road. One card for each clan, with the Ižranyi the hub on which the wheel turns. I have not the Ižranyi clan card, of course; those are lost, their faces blanked and their name forgotten when the clan died. But I have done my best.”

She turned over The Constant Spirit, The Friendly Fist, and The Silent Witness. The cards of the Meszaros, the Stretsko, and the Anoškin. Lacking The Kindly Spinner for the Varadi, she was forced to break the sequence with her best substitute, The Peacock’s Web from the spinning thread, but she followed it with The Artful Gentleman and The Hidden Eye for the Dvornik and the Kiraly. Five out of the six remaining clan cards. And for the Ižranyi, she had chosen Labyrinth’s Heart.

Ren sat up and said, “My vision for our people is the clans standing together in strength. And holding us together, the lost labyrinth that used to surround our Lady’s wellspring.”

Laročja shot to her feet with a speed that belied her age, boot catching her shawl and sending her own spread flying. Ignoring the gasps from onlookers, she snatched up The Constant Spirit and brandished it in Ren’s face. “How got you this card?”

When Ren gave no answer, she turned her ire on the rest of the gathered szorsas. “Who contributed this card?”

“Laročja.” Mevieny’s hand came down hard on the older woman’s shoulder, then felt down her arm to her wrist. Whatever she did there loosened Laročja’s grip enough for Mevieny to take the card without damaging it. “Disrupting a pattern, touching another’s cards without permission? Perhaps you are the one who’s lost her senses.”

Jerking out of Mevieny’s hold, Laročja watched her return the card to Ren with an expression as cold as acid-etched steel. Then with a sob, she crumpled to the ground, hiding eyes Ren suspected were bone dry. “Forgive this sentimental old woman. It’s only that I would know that card anywhere. It belonged to my precious daughter by marriage, given to me when she passed. Both have been lost for so long… to see the card now…”

Mevieny spoke before Ren could. “Grieved though I am for your loss, we are about the business of our people. Show your pattern, Laročja, and let this matter be settled.”

Enough murmurs rose up in support to push Laročja back to her seat. Collecting her scattered cards, she laid them out with all the portentous oratory she could muster—and she had a few clan cards in there herself. Ren suspected she’d placed The Artful Gentleman in a veiled position as a dig at Mevieny, who was Dvornik.

But she’d undercut her own authority with that display over The Constant Spirit. And Ren pairing her clan cards with the old style of pattern had won more than a little admiration from those watching. When Mevieny called for those who had been swayed by pattern to change their vote, the woman who’d laid the three-card line passed her cards to Laročja. The one with the nine-card spread hesitated for a moment before handing her stack to Ren.

“Lucky for you that you have Ažerais’s blessing,” the woman said, soft enough that it would be only a murmur to other ears, “for you have made many enemies today. I hope only that you remember your friends in this next cycle.”

Mevieny counted the cards, openly where others could see. Ren edged out Laročja by only three… but it was enough. Raising her voice, she cried, “Arenza Lenskaya shall succeed me!”

“At the Great Dream,” Ren said loudly. “Not before.”

Inwardly, she was cursing. Djek. How had she gotten herself into this? Everyone would want to know who she was, especially with no kureč name. Soon they would learn she was Grey Serrado’s outcast, half-northern lover. She’d already been hanged on one side of the river; now she’d be hanged on the other.

But Mevieny would oversee the ordeal. Right now, Ren would take what victory she could get.

Hidden temple, Old Island: Pavnilun 15

If facing the gathered szorsas was daunting, stepping into the temple the next day took every bit of courage Ren could muster.

Cibrial spat audibly as Ren crossed the threshold. “I’m surprised you dare show your face here. Assuming that is your true face. Who knows how many masks a woman like you keeps at the ready?”

Most of the others were already there. Vargo she could trust, but Ren forced herself to meet the other gazes in turn: Cibrial contemptuous, Iascat wary, Parma disbelieving. Beldipassi looked like he wanted to poke her in the cheek with a finger, to make sure she was real. Utrinzi merely looked thoughtful, as if an unexpected shape had appeared in his numinat.

Faella was too dignified to actually spit, but the curl of her lip carried the same message. Apologies for ruining your plans, Ren thought, not feeling sorry at all. The medallions only showed what could be of use, not how. If Ren and Grey were going to help Nadežra, it would be by destroying this poison and stopping Branek, not by mollifying the Lower Bank with their romance.

Forcing a smile, Ren bent her knees in a mocking curtsy to the gathered nobles before turning to Tanaquis, busy at her desk. “What do you need us to do?”

With a swirl of green silk, Cibrial was in Ren’s path, barring the way. “Before we do anything, shouldn’t we reconsider what we’re doing? We’ve been following the word of a con artist—a proven liar. Who’s to say this isn’t some new scheme of hers, to usurp our power and claim it for herself? My new guest has revealed some interesting things about how you came to hold Tricat. You stole one medallion before coming to Nadežra; maybe you came here to wrest the others from us!”

These things are the reason my land was overrun, you— But saying that would only reinforce Cibrial’s argument. And just because Ren had been unmasked didn’t mean she had to abandon all subtlety. “Happy you might be to accept the corruption of a Primordial, Your Charity, but I am not.” The accent wasn’t Renata’s, but the scathing politeness was.

A sleeve swung as Cibrial gestured at Tanaquis. Its loose drape was Tess’s work, Ren knew, and she had to fight the urge to tear it off and strangle the woman with it. By the time her flash of rage passed, she’d missed half of what Cibrial said.

“… times have we gathered to destroy them?” Cibrial was asking. “Always without success. Maybe they can’t be destroyed. Maybe we ought to focus on learning to live with them, as safely as possible.”

Nothing could have been better calculated to annoy Tanaquis. “Anything made can be destroyed,” she snapped. “Especially now that we have Ninat.”

The way Cibrial put her back to Ren would have been a duel-worthy insult to Renata. “I don’t pretend to know more than you, Alta Tanaquis. But Utrinzi has said that Ninat also represents allowing old paths to end so that new ones might open. How much more time must we waste on a doomed endeavor? I, for one, tire of being called at the whim of scholars. Am I expected to make this my life’s work when I have businesses to run and trade to oversee?”

::Whims?:: Alsius said, his outrage audible only to Vargo and Ren. ::The destruction of these abominations is our highest duty!::

Iascat stepped forward, hands up in placation. “Cibrial, I’m as busy as you are, but it’s only a few hours here and there.”

She sneered at him. “Says the man in bed with the con artist’s accomplice. I may have loathed Sostira, but at least she had the wit to see when she was being manipulated.”

Ren and Grey had talked about how this meeting might go, about how the support of a legendary enemy of the nobility like the Rook would only corrode her standing.

She wished now that she’d thought to have the same conversation with Vargo.

“I don’t think—” he began.

Cibrial spoke over him. “Oh, Ghiscolo’s murderer has opinions? I’m very interested to know the thoughts of a man who somehow has recently claimed both a title and a medallion.”

Vargo’s scar puckered with his scowl. “You’d rather I let him kill you? Because I can—”

“We are wandering far from the point.” Utrinzi Simendis spoke so rarely that everyone fell silent at his interruption. He’d joined Tanaquis at the desk; now he held a piece of paper in his hands, still wet with ink. “So long as we cannot destroy the medallions, we must indeed accept the imperfect solution of trying to mitigate their influence. But that does not mean we should abandon all attempts to rid ourselves of corruption.”

He held out the paper to Ren. “This is for you.”

Mystified, she took it. The writing was hasty, but at the bottom was the seven-pointed star of Iridet’s seal, marking it as a formal document.

Speaking to the room, he announced, “I have just issued her a contract to administer a charter I hold, for the destruction of these medallions. Should she fail to pursue this goal to the best of her ability, rest assured I will prosecute her. But the purgation of heresy falls under my authority as Iridet, and I require the cooperation of all—including my fellow Cinquerat members—in bringing that about.”

The Rook’s voice put a period to Cibrial’s sputters. “I was wrong about you,” he said to Utrinzi as he emerged from one of the back chambers, where he’d been hiding since before the others arrived. “I apologize for my assumptions during our first meeting. And my treatment of you.”

“You should. I’ve yet to find a better procurer of instruments than Mistress Gredzyka, and she won’t take my custom anymore.”

Their odd exchange did nothing to steal the breath from Cibrial’s argument. “You can’t grant charters to common criminals!”

“Oh, shut it or we’ll be here all day,” Parma snapped, elbowing past her to join the others around the table. “She’s still Traementatis, so Uncle Trinzi can slip her whatever he likes. And fuck keeping this thing any longer than I have to. Lumen, I miss sex so much.”

Tutting at Parma’s crudity, Faella laid a hand on Cibrial’s shoulder. “Let’s do what we came here to do, and see what results.”

“Yes please,” Beldipassi said timidly, from behind all the people who outranked him.

Tanaquis knew better than to make them wait while she spent hours on inscription. The figure was already chalked onto the floor, dizzyingly complex, with squares marked out for the subsidiary foci. “Ren, if you would?” Tanaquis said.

As she’d done at the labyrinth, Ren had chosen cards for each of the numina, doing her best—at Tanaquis’s insistence—to look for points of connection between those forces and the concepts represented by pattern. She laid them around the numinat in sequence: The Face of Seeds, Orin and Orasz, Three Hands Join, The Face of Gold, The Face of Roses, The Liar’s Knot, The Face of Light, A Spiraling Fire, The Mask of Bones, and The Face of Ages.

While Vargo distributed cups of aža-laced wine, Tanaquis said, “Ghiscolo’s numinat would have worked, but at the cost of your lives. That’s because each of us is bound to our medallion—so in order to destroy those, we would have to destroy ourselves. The goal today is to break that binding… with the help of Gabrius Mirscellis.” She waited, but Utrinzi had already heard the plan, and no one else gasped in astonishment. “A very famous Seterin inscriptor,” she said, sounding irritated.

“And the point of the aža?” Faella asked, making a face at her cup. “I haven’t touched the stuff since that awful Night of Hells.”

“This is aža, not ash,” Vargo said, “and Mirscellis happens to be dead. His spirit is in the realm of mind—also known as Ažerais’s Dream—so the aža should let you perceive him, and possibly also the connection he’ll be cutting.” He gave Faella an insolent smirk. “This way you can make sure he cuts the right thing. You don’t want to find yourself severed from your house, do you?”

Vargo tossed his wine back like a dare. With a glare for his impudence, Faella did the same.

“Gather around the numinat,” Tanaquis said, nudging Parma and Faella into position. “Hold hands; we have to re-create the missing Uniat ourselves.”

Iascat took Ren’s hand with an awkward twist of his mouth she thought was meant to be a smile. The others shuffled into place, with the last gap at Quarat, where Cibrial would have to join hands with Ren on one side and the Rook on the other. “This is absurd,” she snapped.

“I thought you didn’t want to waste any more time than you had to,” Iascat said, with mild venom.

Grimacing like she was wading into an unclean canal, Cibrial joined them in the circle.

By the time the focus was in place, the outer circle closed, Ren felt the first prickles of aža’s awareness. The taste of smoke lingered on the back of her tongue, and a quiet, shuffling music rang in her ears. She recognized it as dim echoes of the dance she’d escaped with Mirscellis’s help, and her body tensed.

A squeeze on her left hand dragged her back. She gave Iascat a grateful smile.

The old carvings on the temple walls shifted and danced when she studied them, squinting through time’s fog. Once this place had been used by the Praeteri; before them, by Kaius Rex. But what had it been before that?

A sheltered site in a Vraszenian city, buried beneath the wellspring. Who else would they worship here but Ažerais?

Ren’s breath caught. Was that a true glimpse of the past, helped along by Tricat, or just a vision spun by aža? It made sense, though. Pattern was bound into the medallions; Kaius and the nameless szorsa would have chosen this place to perform that binding for a reason.

Tanaquis’s voice pulled her back to the present moment. “Call him.”

Mirscellis. Gabrius. The thread shimmered into view when Ren looked for it. She couldn’t touch it without letting go of Iascat and Cibrial—but what was a hand, really? Just an extension of the will. She knew him, far more deeply than their brief encounters should account for. That whirlwind of energy and light, the snapping fire of his intellect and the gentle glow of his concern for her well-being. Ren found herself hoping that when this was all over, the two of them could simply talk. He was what she’d pretended to be, a Seterin come to Nadežra; she wanted to know his tale.

But first they must free themselves. Ren breathed her will along the thread, and it glowed in response.

Oh good, it did work. Gabrius’s voice rippled like water, but the Seterin accent was unmistakable. A moment later she saw him, flickering at first, then steady. A choked-off oath from Beldipassi said others could see him, too.

In the dream, his ghostly figure walked the perimeter of their circle, trailing one hand after him. Not a bad Uniat, he said. Surprisingly strong. You’re more united than I thought.

United? After what Cibrial had said? But Ren wasn’t about to argue with good news.

Gabrius brushed his spectral hands together and shot Ren a smile, which faded into a thoughtful frown. He’s never seen me properly, Ren realized. She’d been the Black Rose when they met, and then he’d possessed her.

Only a moment of distraction; then he shook the frown away. To unlace a boot, you start at the top. So— He gave Faella a courtly, archaic bow. Illi-ten, I believe. Allow me.

With the care of a harpist, he plucked a single gold thread from among the many entwining Faella. A tug in both directions made Ren gasp and sway—and she wasn’t the only one. “Careful!” Cibrial snapped.

This could be a problem, Gabrius murmured, peering at the thread more closely. Even from her poor vantage, Ren could see the dull tin woven through the gold. More, she could feel it yanking in her gut with every shift.

Tanaquis craned her neck at Faella. “So there is an Uniat thread, even though the chain itself was destroyed.”

The carvings on the walls pulsed. Now the figures were detaching from them.

No: just one figure. One Ren knew.

“Behind you!” she shouted—too late.

The nameless szorsa lunged toward Gabrius, but her clawlike hands didn’t strike his body. Instead they raked through the few threads that touched him, snapping them like cobwebs.

Gabrius cried out, his back arching. The entwined gold and tin strands slipped from his grasp, and boiling pain flooded through Ren.

The linkage of their hands broke. Faella clutched her head and reeled; next to Ren, Cibrial collapsed with a shriek. Before Ren could move, the szorsa shoved Gabrius backward—and he was gone.

The szorsa wasn’t finished, though. She turned toward the rest of them, snarling. Ren cried out, “Zevriz! Stop! We mean you no harm!”

“No harm?” Gone was the quiet, sorrowful figure Ren had met before. This spirit was wild-eyed, her cascading braids whipping like angry snakes as she spun to face Ren. “You would break me! Snap me to pieces, worse than before, first body, then chain, now this!”

She spooled the tin thread between her hands, and with it came the strands connected to the other holders: gold, copper, silver. Ren’s bronze wrapped around her chest like a constrictor, tightening until her bones creaked and she could barely draw air. “Stop. We aren’t…”

“Zevriz. No right have you to claim any threads. Release them.” Like Ren, the Rook spoke in Vraszenian.

The stranglehold eased, enough for Ren to suck in a deep breath. Around the circle, the other holders looked equally bad. Utrinzi clutched his chest, face grey and lips ashen. Vargo had fallen as if his feet were cut from under him; Tanaquis was curled in a ball, shivering like a sick kitten.

The Rook was one of the few still upright. The unnamed szorsa had released the skein and was tearing at her own clothes instead, where a single, gossamer-thin thread stretched from her to the Rook’s coat.

To the hidden pocket where Grey kept the ruined hood.

“You,” she whispered, but it wasn’t an accusation. More like bewilderment—and hope. “I know what’s in you. It isn’t gone after all…”

With Cibrial on the floor, there was no one to block the glance Ren exchanged with Grey. Some connection between the szorsa and the Rook?

“You made me not,” he said, cautiously. “I know that much. It was another, grieving and angry. But had you some part in it?”

“They came here.” The szorsa turned, looking around the temple as if she didn’t recognize it. “I hid them. I kept out the wrong ones. I thought… I thought I could…”

Kept out the wrong ones. The ward, the force that prevented people from entering the temple unless they had a triple clover charm. She was its source?

The szorsa reached out to the Rook, imploringly. “Give it back. Two threads make a stronger cord.”

He exhaled in understanding. “Not had some part in it. You became part of it.” His hand brushed down the front of his coat, like he was considering doing as the szorsa asked. Giving her the hood.

“Don’t.” Vargo hadn’t regained his feet, but he reached out as though he could stop Grey. “Hers isn’t the only spirit bound up in… that.”

::How do you know?:: Alsius demanded.

::I’m on aža. And I know a bit about spirit bonds, don’t I? Messing with Uniat called her here, and the thread to the Rook calmed her.:: Vargo’s gaze met Ren’s, his words for her as much as for the spider.

“Three parts to the soul,” she whispered. There was a connection not only from the szorsa to the concealed hood, but from the hood to the tin thread of Uniat.

The medallions. The Rook’s mission, from the earliest moment of his existence.

One part of the szorsa’s soul, bound up in the medallions—in the Uniat that linked them together. One part bound up in the Rook, trying to fix her own mistake. And the third adrift in the dream, cut off from everything except the missing parts of herself.

Ren shifted back to Liganti and said, “Tanaquis. When the medallions were linked into a chain, it caught a piece of her in it. If we free her… that might be what we need to destroy them.”

She prayed Tanaquis wouldn’t start thinking out loud. So far they’d kept from the others the full story of Ren’s Tricat vision, the fact that the szorsa had helped Kaius Sifigno forge his chain. Cibrial’s Quarat vision had shown her that pattern was involved, but not how. Ren spoke obliquely, and hoped Tanaquis would understand.

Her cousin’s mouth formed a silent, considering circle. Then Tanaquis said, “Yes. Though I have no idea how.”

Or how to get her out of the Rook. Neither of those were problems they were likely to solve today. Ren faced the szorsa and spoke again in Vraszenian. “My word I give that we will aid you. Soon your spirit will be whole once more.”

Hidden temple, Old Island: Pavnilun 15

There were a thousand questions after that, not least because Cibrial was deeply suspicious of Ren conducting a conversation in Vraszenian with a dead szorsa, and she didn’t trust anything reported about what they’d said. When she finally left, arm in arm with Faella, it didn’t take the insights of Tricat to know she would dig her heels in even harder after this.

But with the szorsa’s appearance, Ren felt like she’d finally grasped a loose end in a tangled mass of string. The first step to unraveling it at last.

She expected another thousand questions from Tanaquis, but her cousin walked out without even demanding a report, mumbling something about wanting to consult her books at home. Possibly she wanted to get away from her erstwhile mentor and employer, who kept giving her disappointed frowns. Utrinzi frowned deeper when she abandoned him and Vargo to dismantle the numinat with a full bucket and stiff-bristled mops; by the time he left, he looked almost as irritated as Parma, trailing in his wake.

Quiet fell back over the temple, with only Ren, Vargo, Alsius, and Grey remaining. The last of whom pushed his hood back once everyone was gone and scrubbed his hands through his disheveled hair, sighing. “What of Mirscellis?”

The memory of those threads snapping reverberated through Ren’s soul. All her vaunted skill with pattern, and she’d been helpless to protect him. “With his connections broken… he may now be like the szorsa.” Adrift forever, after Ren dragged him into their problems. Could the szorsa help restore him? Not in her current state, Ren feared. Which meant—

She swallowed hard, dread lodging in her throat like a stone. “We may not be able to find him again.”

::You must!:: Alsius crouched in the spot where Mirscellis had vanished, a bright spot of color on the damp-darkened floor. ::Whatever that mad spirit did to him—if this destroys him—::

At Ren’s flinch, Vargo said, “He’s survived the realm of mind a long time. I’m certain he’s fine.” His frown, though, said he was anything but. Scooping up the forlorn spider, he tucked Peabody under the warm shadows of his collar. “That szorsa… the description of your last meeting made her sound much less violent.”

::Tricat’s influence?:: Alsius said, shaky despite Vargo’s assurances. ::That might explain it, if she was close to the heart of its presence. Tricat is stability, after all.::

Ren tried to find some stability in her own mind. Perhaps Tricat had shown Ren what that szorsa was like before she came apart. Ordinarily a person’s szekani was more of a shadow, rather than something coherent enough to read a pattern.

Then again, ordinarily the other parts of a person’s soul didn’t suffer the fate this one had.

Ren shared Alsius’s comment with Grey, followed by her own thoughts, and Vargo nodded. “Yes. I’d like to know how exactly a soul gets ripped apart and stuffed into a hood and a set of Primordial medallions.”

::We don’t know that’s what happened—::

“We don’t know what happened.” Vargo raked his hair back in frustration. “We’re dealing with hidden history two centuries old, and—”

“I know,” Grey said softly, turning the ruined hood over and over in his hands as though that history was written in its embroidery. “At least, some of it. Nothing about a szorsa. Well, not this szorsa. There was another…”

Ren heard Vargo bite down on the questions he wanted to ask. So did Grey, it seemed; he looked up and met Vargo’s eyes. “The Rook is… sort of a spirit, and sort of a collection of spirits. It’s a thing each bearer creates, imbuing our performance of the role. But I think it also contains the szekani of past bearers.” He grimaced. “Not my own, I suspect. That was forced out when I defied it.”

Alsius crept out from under Vargo’s collar. ::Is he saying their souls don’t go to their dream after they die? They dedicate themselves that much to their task?::

He sounded both awed and horrified, and Ren chose not to relay that comment as Grey went on. “I used to be able to touch on the memories of those past bearers when I wore the hood. But it was dangerous to give in too deeply—the more you are the Rook, the more you become the Rook—so I only know traces. There was a knot of people who swore to overthrow the Tyrant, here in this temple; they made the pieces of the Rook’s disguise. A young woman was the first to play the role. And a szorsa did… something.” A frustrated sound escaped him. “I don’t know what.”

With aža still spinning Ren’s vision, she almost felt like she could see what Grey described. She’d never leaned on the little dream to guide her readings, the way some patterners did, but…

Her deck caught on the edge of her pocket as she pulled it out, undermining any dramatic effect the gesture might have had. “What if I tried to see?”

::Is that wise? Aža and medallions and whatever other strange influences linger here—should we take such risks for vague portents and ambiguous interpretations?::

“At this point, even vague portents are more than we have.” Sweeping Tanaquis’s scattered notes and equipment aside in a way that would get him scolded later, Vargo gestured to the desk.

Grey’s touch on Ren’s arm stopped her. “I doubt not your gift,” he said, “but you told me that patterning the Rook left you feeling like you’d put your brain through a sausage grinder.”

And even then, she still hadn’t been able to see everything. Ren laid her hand over his. The leather of his gauntlets felt stiff and new, not the supple softness of the true Rook’s guise. “I won’t push. But shouldn’t I try?”

“If she can get us answers instead of more questions,” Vargo said, “I’m in favor of her trying.”

Grey still hovered as Ren sat down and shuffled the cards. What layout should she use? What exactly was she trying to learn? Nine cards, she decided; it was the most complete pattern, the warp and weft of fate. And it felt… right.

Was that her instinct for pattern guiding her? Aža? Or the medallion in her pocket?

A chill washed through Ren as she dealt out the cards. Each one she turned over felt like an echo, the past reverberating into the present. For the lowest line, Sword in Hand, The Mask of Mirrors, Jump at the Sun. Cards that spoke to what happened before the Rook was made; their significance was a soft conversation in a neighboring room, real but not quite audible. The middle line, The Mask of Knives, Saffron and Salt, and—

Two cards in the central place. The Ember Adamant… but stuck to it, dealt at the same time, Sisters Victorious.

Ren’s breath caught. “This is the pattern she laid. The pattern she changed.” Like the szorsas selecting the speaker for the Ižranyi. Creating fate instead of merely reading it.

“Is that even possible?” A shadow fell across the paired cards as Vargo leaned in for a better view.

“Yes,” Grey said, his voice as rough as a broken bone. “When a szorsa with the true gift lays the cards… I did it to myself. Trying to keep Ren from learning the truth, when she laid my pattern. It’s how I broke the Rook.”

Vargo shot upright. “I thought you did that to keep the Rook from killing her.”

“Yes. But that happened because I interfered with my pattern. I cursed my own fate.”

“Not a curse,” Ren said. She couldn’t look up at them; all her attention was on the cards, the last three above the ones that had changed. Pearl’s Promise, The Mask of Chaos, The Face of Light. “They would have failed. The Tyrant’s rule would have continued. She took Sisters Victorious out of the pattern in order to move the rest. Pearl’s Promise would have been their ill future—no reward for all their effort. The Ember Adamant became their present, the burden of the Rook. Numinatria created him and imbuing gave him life, that woman surrendering herself completely to her role… but it was the changed pattern that made it possible.” As a changed pattern had ended it.

::Which ‘she’?:: Alsius dropped onto the desk and huddled, legs curling underneath him. ::Are you talking about this Zevriz one that attacked us, or the szorsa Master Serrado mentioned?::

Both. Ren was hardly breathing, as if that would break her tenuous connection. “A living szorsa laid the pattern, then changed it. But I think it worked because the one called Zevriz helped. Her spirit is in this place.”

“Part of it, anyway.” Vargo’s sigh was a ghost ruffling Ren’s hair. His shadow receded as he rounded the desk to stand near Peabody, one hand rubbing absently at his chest. “So what she did meant her soul got caught in the Rook? I wonder if she intended that.”

Ren couldn’t tell. Flicking through the remainder of her deck, she laid out the cards from Grey’s pattern, alongside the one that made the Rook. Lark Aloft and The Mask of Nothing were meaningless; those were the cards he’d slipped into the top while she wasn’t looking, and she set them aside now. Sword in Hand and The Ember Adamant were already in the Rook’s pattern: commitment to a cause, an obligation to fulfill. Could she use one to patch the other? Or would that merely make things worse than ever?

::We can’t just leave all those souls trapped. They have to return to the Lumen. Or Ažerais’s Dream. Perhaps if we burned the hood?::

Vargo coughed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Remember ‘smoosh’?”

Peabody’s full-body shudder nearly toppled him off the desk. ::Ah. Perhaps we shouldn’t be hasty.::

Grey’s brow furrowed at the half of the conversation he could hear. “What idea?”

“Nothing you haven’t already considered and discarded. Alsius is concerned about releasing the trapped souls to… wherever they’re supposed to go.”

Ren collected the cards of the two patterns and tapped them straight, trying to think. Trying to tease out what was insight, what was aža, and what was the medallion talking. She should have taken it out of her pocket before she began—but would she have understood as much without it?

And that’s why you need to be afraid. Because you’re asking yourself that question.

Unthinking habit had made her shuffle the small stack of cards. On pure impulse, Ren dealt three of them out in a line, faceup.

Three, like Tricat.

Or like the three parts of the soul.

She must have made some sound, because suddenly both Grey and Vargo were there. “What is it?” Grey asked.

“Advice for us to follow?” Vargo said.

“Not in the way you’re thinking. It’s her—the nameless szorsa.” Ren couldn’t pattern her directly, but following the few threads the woman still had, the hood and the medallions…

Her fingers hovered over the first card. “Pearl’s Promise. The card they needed to move, so they would succeed in overthrowing the Tyrant. From the woven thread—as the szekani is that thread of the soul. Her szekani is the part of her in the hood. And The Face of Light.” She shifted to the third card. “From the spinning thread.”

::Like the Lumen?::

Ren nodded. “This is the card I associate most with numinatria. The spinning thread of the soul is the dlakani, which should pass on to reward or punishment. But instead, that is bound up with the medallions.”

Grey inhaled. “And Sleeping Waters from the cut thread. The card of place—this place. But that would mean the part in the dream is her čekani. That’s… not supposed to be there.”

His flat tone belied his understatement. The čekani was the part that came back to the material world, to embodiment and to life, twining itself with a new szekani and dlakani in place of the old. It was in the wrong place—all the parts of her were in the wrong place. “I think she was not cut off from her people,” Ren said. “Not in the usual way. She cut herself off, from shame, and the scattering of her soul means she cannot mend it.”

Grey laid a hand on her right shoulder, a steadying grip against the vertigo of that thought. Strength that would hold her, when her own strength faltered.

And Vargo would keep thinking, when her own mind wanted to freeze in horror. “Remember Fadrin’s vision?” he asked.

Fadrin had held Quinat during the ritual, and unlike Mezzan, he’d shared his vision with Tanaquis. It had shown him that for a time, Kaius was the master of the medallions, using their power without falling prey to it. But then a woman died, and after that, they mastered him. Transforming him into the Tyrant of legend, indulging his every terrible whim.

“We figured it meant the szorsa died,” Vargo went on. “But we didn’t know why. It makes sense now: She was his living Uniat, whether she wanted to be or not. She kept things in balance. But even dead, even with the physical chain destroyed, her soul still connects them.” He brooded over it for a moment. “It’s hard to destroy a soul. Maybe impossible.”

“We free her,” Ren said firmly. Not because she expected Vargo or Alsius to argue with her—much less Grey—but because she could already imagine what some of the other medallion holders might say. “We get her szekani out of the hood and her dlakani out of the chain, and we give her peace.” She swept the cards together, murmuring a prayer. Then, shuddering, she pulled Tricat out of her pocket and slapped it onto the desk. A few inches of distance didn’t protect her much, but at least she wasn’t carrying it anymore. She couldn’t wait to shove it back into its hiding spot.

“Nice words,” Vargo said. “We still need a way to do it.”

Ren had a notion, at least for the szekani. But she couldn’t try it right now—not when the aža in her body was dulling to normalcy, the insights it granted fading like mist. Not without some careful thought first, and some offerings made to the Faces and the Masks.

But once that was done…

“The same way it became bound in the first place.” She turned to Grey and Vargo, hoping her smile looked more confident than it felt. “I will change the Rook’s pattern.”

13

The Mask of Ravens

Dockwall, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 19

The problem with being trained by a perfectionist was that Vargo had picked up the same tendencies. He couldn’t leave even the preliminary work of a major inscription in anyone else’s hands. Which meant he wound up on his hands and knees in a canal-side warehouse in Dockwall while the day laborers moved pegs and string around, and Orostin pretended to be awake in the corner.

Sitting back on his heels, Vargo flexed his shoulders, wincing at the crackle of bones and sinew. This warehouse came courtesy of a charter from Fulvet—one Quientis might regret granting him now that everybody suspected Vargo of colluding with Ren. Vargo should have laid down some protective figures here a while ago, but he’d been too busy with the river numinat and the medallions. The numinata couldn’t be inlaid until Vargo sketched them out, though, so here he was: coat shucked and sleeves rolled up, chalk dusting him almost as pale as a cheese-eater. Too late, he realized he’d exposed the knot of his oath with Ren, tied around his wrist, and he sneaked a quick glance at the dozing Orostin. Had the other man noticed?

::Ninat needs to be shifted slightly east. It’s not balanced with Quarat,:: Alsius said from his spider’s-eye view in the rafters as Vargo rolled his sleeves back down.

He was being exceptionally picky today. Not just today, either; ever since that disaster in the temple, when Mirscellis’s spirit was driven away by the frenzied szorsa. Ren had tried to find him, without either hope or success. Pattern was about connections, those threads Ren saw, and Mirscellis had none anymore.

Neither had that missing piece of Ren’s spirit, when the Night of Hells left her unable to sleep. But they’d had her body and the other parts of her spirit to help then. Vargo couldn’t do anything for Mirscellis. Or for Ren or Alsius, each of them fearing the man was lost forever.

Except this: to grit his teeth and cooperate when Alsius criticized every tiny flaw in his inscription. Vargo checked the plans for the master numinat, with the various child numinata tucked along the elegant curve of the spira aurea: Quinat to protect against mold and vermin, Quarat to shield against misfortune like fire and flood, Ninat to prevent spoilage. Lowering the sketch, he peered at the tangle of chalked guidelines, like a game of skip-hop run amok.

Redrawing Ninat would keep him here until sunset. But the more precise his chalking now, the longer the protections would last. And it would make Alsius happier.

He briefly thought the creak as he stood up was his knees objecting to all that time on the floor. But Orostin went from apparent somnolence to on his feet in one breath, and a chilly breeze told Vargo the warehouse door had opened.

“You should be between Vargo and the door,” Varuni said to Orostin, shutting it behind herself.

He grunted and slumped back. “En’t like nobody could get at him here—not without me hearing noise from outside, first.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you’re also responsible for stopping this asshole from slipping off without telling you.”

“I haven’t done that in a while,” Vargo said, bracing against his own hip to crack his lower back. “Done in Floodwatch?” Her people had summoned her there for some kind of meeting, hence his being saddled with Orostin as a replacement.

Varuni glanced at the others. “Need to talk to you about that.”

The warehouse’s open interior left no space for private conversation. “You can have a break,” Vargo told the day workers, and led Varuni to a far corner as they shuffled outside.

Alsius met them there, dropping onto Vargo’s head. Usually that sort of antic would get at least an eyebrow twitch from Varuni, though Vargo had never determined if it was amusement or disgust. Now she didn’t so much as blink. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She wasn’t scowling at him, so he hadn’t done anything to upset her. But something shifted under the stone of her facade. Something about their friendship, and her duty to her people.

She thinks of me as a friend?

A chill trailed down his spine like the tip of a knife. Varuni had always been unreadable. How was he reading her now? And not just her mood, but—

“I’m going home,” Varuni said. “Back to Isarn.”

“The fuck?” If there’d been a chair, Vargo would have dropped into it. He settled for bracing a chalky hand on the wall. “Did I piss someone off? You?” But she wasn’t angry. Not at him, at least.

“You always piss me off.” A smile glimmered, white teeth against dark skin like a falling star. Then it faded. “No. My family has less need of a smuggler now that Prasinet is relaxing the tariffs, and you have less need of a bodyguard now that you’re protected by your title. Or so my mother’s agent says. She wants me home.”

“And what do you want?” Even as he asked, Vargo knew the answer. Varuni might keep a stoic countenance, but she cared deeply for her friends. Vargo, Sedge, a few others over the years. But she also felt the weight of duty, to her family and her people. A duty that was no longer in Nadežra.

He shouldn’t know those things. Not from just looking at her.

“I haven’t seen my family in years,” Varuni said. “I’ve gained two siblings and ten cousins while I’ve been up here. And they want to reward me for our success. They invested in a smuggler, wound up with a nobleman.” Another glimmer of a smile, but he could see the weight underneath. Her loyalty, pulling her in two directions.

And not just that. Fear—because as much as she might try to hide it, this Primordial shit scared her. But Vargo felt like he saw that with different eyes. With normal ones.

Primordial shit. It must be the Sessat medallion showing him her conflict of loyalty. But he’d left it at home, safe behind imbued locks and layers of numinata.

Hadn’t he?

As casually as he could, Vargo ran his hands down his waistcoat, like he was brushing away chalk. And felt it, a lump in the waist pocket that shouldn’t be there.

Alsius, did you notice me picking up Sessat this morning? Maybe it was something else. A forgotten focus, an oversized forro.

::No. Why? You mean—you have it on you?::

Varuni peered at Vargo. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said reflexively. “Haven’t eaten enough today. Orostin didn’t think to remind me.” Why the fuck had he picked up Sessat? Absentmindedly, like he might tuck a spare handkerchief into his pocket. But nobody should be half so casual around a Primordial artifact.

He forced himself to focus on Varuni. Don’t go— The words almost leapt from his mouth. The idea of her leaving for Isarn was like the islet turning to mud under his feet. She gave his life stability, and damn it, she was a friend. Things Sessat liked. He’d thought, when he volunteered to take that medallion instead of Quinat, that he was picking the one he’d be less susceptible to.

He’d been a fool.

Give me a moment, Vargo said to Alsius, his heart beating far too fast. One problem at a time.

“Glad to be a success story,” he said, scrambling for the thread of their conversation. Varuni had dodged his question about what she wanted; she hadn’t made a decision. Maybe the right words could convince her to stay.

Maybe he didn’t need words.

For a moment he couldn’t breathe past the idea. He couldn’t do it right here, right now; it required numinatrian preparation. But he could help Varuni make up her mind. He could keep from losing her. She was a friend, wasn’t she? He had precious few of those. And she already wanted to stay. He wouldn’t be making her do anything she didn’t want.

A searing nip on his neck almost made him slap Peabody flat. The pain did its job, though; it broke Vargo from the Primordial spiral of his own thoughts. His heart pulsed like a battle drum. Use Sessat to fuck with Varuni’s mind? That was the last thing a friend should do.

She was right to be afraid of this thing. And she was right to get away from him.

“When are you going?” Vargo asked, before Varuni could inquire into his sudden spasm. Small as it was, Alsius’s nip still burned, and he leaned into that pain to keep his thoughts clear. “Sedge’ll want to see you off. A few others that aren’t terrified of you. Maybe a few that are, if you want to fuck with them one last time. We could have a party.”

Her weight settled back, off the balls of her feet. “You don’t need to worry about that. Plenty of other things keeping you busy.”

“No, let me. Least I can do, after years of you keeping my uncooperative ass intact.” Should he not say that? Fucking A’ash. Varuni had more than earned some reward, whatever a Primordial whispered in his ear. “Look, I’ll be here a few hours more. Orostin’s got my back; you go take care of your own business. We’ll talk at home tonight.”

Varuni’s mouth bent in a frown, like she knew he was being weird about this but wasn’t going to prod him as to why. “Let me talk to Orostin first.”

While she did that, Vargo pretended to study his diagrams. Alsius… I don’t even remember picking it up. But it’s in my pocket.

He didn’t add, And that scares the liquid shit out of me, but he didn’t have to. Alsius crawled down to his shoulder. ::We should warn the others.::

Yeah. If I can’t be trusted anymore…

::No, I meant the others may find themselves doing the same.::

That thought was even more nauseating. There was no way Vargo could stay here, calmly scribing guidelines, with a piece of Primordial evil in his pocket. Earlier he’d been too wrapped up in his head to pay much attention to anyone around him, but now he looked at Orostin and saw that the man wanted to join some kind of legitimate organization—not the hawks, but maybe a mercenary company. Alsius wanted to restore Mirscellis, so they could discuss everything the man had ever written about numinatria and the underlying structure of the cosmos.

He had to get home and get this thing off him.

Varuni came back. “Put the fear of you into Orostin?” Vargo asked, with false lightness.

“Just confirming it was already there,” she said, perfectly serious. “You and I will talk tonight.”

Watching her leave, Vargo clenched his hands behind his back, to keep from reaching for the thing that could make her stay.

Froghole, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 19

The high-ceilinged ostretta the Fog Spiders claimed as their hole sucked up noise and boxed your ears with it till Sedge couldn’t properly hear nothing. It only got worse the more people gathered. When everyone was shouting…

And everyone was shouting.

The cause lay scattered about the room, in cheap broadsheets crumpled up and stepped on and thrown. One of Ertzan Scrub’s old loyalists had brought in the first copy, but others weren’t far behind. They were all over the city, seemed like: little quarter pages announcing in bold type A KNOT OF LIES.

Beneath that, the knife to the ribs: the news that Derossi Vargo weren’t sworn to the lieutenants who led his knots. Not any of ’em, and never had been.

Now every last damn Fog Spider was up in arms, demanding to know if it was true, demanding to know what they were going to do if it was, demanding that Nikory answer for this betrayal of knot oaths.

Your secrets are my secrets.

Sedge was getting tired of problems he couldn’t solve by beating them up.

What he could do was drag out a crate for Nikory to stand on and bang a pewter flagon against the wall until the metal bent and people shut up… for all of two breaths, until Nikory admitted it was true.

After more shouting and banging, old Spitcrust Surz waved his copy of the broadsheet. “Why should we listen to you another moment? Scrub was our last true boss. Your loyalty’s been bought and paid for, and it en’t to us.”

That called forth too many growls of agreement. This kind of mood got knot leaders overthrown. Sure, everyone here was tied to Nikory—but oaths didn’t stop rebellions from happening.

Sedge didn’t have another crate handy, so he settled for jumping onto a table, one boot skidding in spilled millet beer. “Show me how Nikory en’t been loyal to us! What’s a knot leader supposed to do, anyway? Protect his people, keep ’em safe, hit back at their enemies. When en’t Nikory done that?”

He could have split his own tongue for letting that question slip, especially when someone shouted, “Din’t we lose three people in the Dreamweaver Riots, running around on Eret Vargo’s orders?”

“Knocking heads and protecting what’s ours,” Nikory snapped back. “Like we would have done anyways.”

“What about Hraček? And Yurdan! Vargo made him take ash, let him get shredded—”

“Don’t you talk about Yurdan,” Sedge snarled. Red rage pounded his skull at the memory of being helpless to protect one of his own. A rage Vargo had shared, for all he kept it behind a mask of calculation. “You don’t know what shit you’re spewing. I was there—”

A stamp from Nikory cut Sedge off, choking back his urge to play dentist with Surz’s teeth. Nikory said, “Yurdan volunteered. And nobody here can say Vargo din’t take vengeance for how they died. Or did you all forget how he earned that title you treat like piss in your mouths?” He let the silence hang for a moment before adding, “What else?”

Every complaint they brought, Nikory had an answer for, to the point where Sedge wondered if he’d expected this day to come. And after a bit, Nikory weren’t the only one speaking in Vargo’s defense. Newer people, like Lurets and Dneče—people who came to the Fog Spiders after Vargo’s takeover.

After Vargo made the group better. Sedge had heard enough stories from fists like Old Piotr to know he wouldn’t have wanted to go nowhere near their web before that.

“Look,” Sedge said when the argument started going in circles. “Oaths matter, yeah. But they en’t the only thing that matters, are they? You all know I was a Finger. Put my hands between Ondrakja’s and swore the oaths. You know what she did? Beat me halfway to death, then cut me out and beat me nine-tenths the rest of the way.”

The crowd around him was too close-packed for Sedge to spit without hitting somebody, but he made the noise. “Ask me who I’d rather follow, Vargo or that hag.”

That got a few cheers and curses of support. Hardly enough to end the argument for good—nothing would manage that in an afternoon—but the shouting shrank to rumbles, and Sedge breathed out in relief. The threat to Nikory was past.

Vargo, though… he was still in a pit of trouble.

As Dneče rolled out the cask they usually saved for celebrations, Sedge sidled up to Nikory. “We en’t the only knot having this conversation, you know.”

They watched the mob break apart, Sedge noting the ones scowling the most, in case he needed to talk to them later, fist to fist. Nikory said, “I’ll let Vargo know he might want to stay east of Dawngate for a while.”

“What I want to know is,” Sedge muttered, “who leaked this?” There were lots of suspects. Every one of Vargo’s lieutenants knew they hadn’t sworn any oaths with him, whatever their knots believed.

In a low voice, Nikory said, “I think it was me.”

A strangled noise escaped Sedge. He stared at Nikory, and the man’s shoulders hunched low. “You heard what Acrenix did to me?”

The Sessat medallion—though Nikory didn’t know that was the cause. Ghiscolo had used it to poke Nikory’s doubts about Vargo, getting him to sell out the meeting with Andrejek in Lacewater. “You told him about the oaths,” Sedge said. “How there weren’t none.”

“Din’t seem important at the time. But… yeah.”

Ghiscolo was gone. But his people weren’t. Maybe Sibiliat, sitting under house arrest out in the bay, had gotten her hands on a printing press. Maybe Carinci was getting revenge for her son’s death.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Just like Letilia spilling Ren’s identity, the problem wasn’t who said it.

The problem was, it was true.

“Maybe let me tell Vargo,” Sedge said. Varuni was going to knit herself a cap from somebody’s innards. Sedge just hoped it wasn’t his.

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Pavnilun 19

I will change the Rook’s pattern.

Ren’s words echoed in Grey’s thoughts, like the tolling of the city’s bells the night the Tyrant died. She had such confidence in her skills—and rightfully so. If anyone living could do it, she could.

But even for Ren, this was asking a lot.

She sat on the floor of the parlour with her entire deck spread around her. For the last two bells she’d been thinking out loud, debating the different kinds of pattern. “I remember a story where a szorsa cursed the lover who betrayed her,” she mused, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. “Some five-card arrangement. If I could invert that… But I know not how it is done.”

Grey knew. If three cards made a thread, and nine, woven cloth, then a five-card crux was the shears that cut. Laročja used it to intimidate her enemies. Or to frighten her clients into paying for protection, pretending she was laying some other spread when her hands, “guided by Ažerais,” mysteriously dealt five cards instead.

The memory choked him, and the words didn’t come out. Ren sat up. “But this is not a curse. It is a—a reweaving.”

“To free a spirit trapped in cloth,” Grey said, sitting tailor-style across from her, tucked into a gap among the cards. She spoke Vraszenian more often since her unmasking, and he answered her in kind. “Though I know not how far textile metaphors will take us.”

The smile she flashed at him didn’t last. “Grey… have you considered what might happen if we succeed?”

“In destroying the medallions?” He blew out a slow breath. “I’ve tried.”

“No, I mean…” She pushed cards out of the way so she could shift close enough to lay her hand on his knee. “When from the hood we free her. If her aid made the Rook, then losing her… We might never be able to fix him. There might not be a Rook any longer.”

He’d already broken the Rook by refusing to let Ren die. If destruction was the only route to freeing another’s soul—or possibly many…

“Then let him end.” Grey touched The Laughing Crow. The card’s meaning had nothing to do with the Rook, but the black bird always reminded Grey of him. “Once the medallions are destroyed, what purpose is left?”

“The Rook is more than that fight. Yes, for a single cause he was made—but you came with us to Floodwatch. You helped free Koszar from prison. Destroying the medallions will not fix all Nadežra’s problems; still the city will need a champion when they are gone.”

“As you said: I’m the one who came to Floodwatch. I chose to help in Dockwall. The city will have you, their Black Rose. And it will have me.” He stroked her head, palm gliding over the braids she wore all the time now. “I’m not proposing to retire. But I can be enough. I can make myself enough.”

“I never doubted that,” Ren said. She bit her lip before adding gently, “But is it you who wants it… or Quinat?”

The bell clanging on the stoop interrupted any response Grey might give. Followed by pounding, and then a shrill voice as loud as a rooster’s crow.

“Oi! Any of you lot at home? Stiff-britches? Freckles? Open up!”

“It appears Mistress Bones is paying a call,” Grey said. He rested a hand on Ren’s shoulder as he rose. “I’ll let her in while you clean that up. Otherwise, she’ll either demand a reading, or win your shirt from you in a game of sixes.”

Ren’s half-hearted laugh said they would return to their conversation once Arkady was gone, and it gnawed at Grey’s heart as he went to answer the door. Was Ren right? Was the medallion affecting him more strongly than before?

Arkady barged in, knocking all those thoughts aside as she ricocheted off his hip into the wall. “You got problems,” she said, shoving a wrinkled broadsheet into Grey’s hands. “We all got problems now, thanks to that chalk-fucking friend of yours.”

“Vargo? What’s happened?” Ren popped into the hallway, deck in hand.

As Grey skimmed the smeared type, Arkady said, “Somebody decided to wave Vargo’s smalls for everyone to see, is what. Now word is the knots are all riled up, looking for something to cut. I sent one of mine off to Eastbridge to warn him, but figured you’d want to know sooner than later.”

“He isn’t in Eastbridge,” Ren said, stuffing the cards in her pocket and snatching the broadsheet from Grey. “He’s in Dockwall, working on— Never mind. You’re right. We have to warn him.”

Dockwall, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 19

They were too late.

For one nauseating instant, Ren thought the body along the canal was Vargo’s. He’d been wearing plainer coats to the Lower Bank lately, so as not to catch attention; the bloodstained broadcloth could have been his. But the head had a balding patch, and shameful relief flooded through her when she realized it was Orostin.

“Fuck,” Arkady said, toeing the body until it flopped over without the resistance of the living. “You think they went through his pockets before they dumped him?”

“Please don’t check,” Grey said, kneeling in the muck of the street to feel at Orostin’s neck. Then under his nose. He shook his head and stood, grim eyes meeting Ren’s.

She glanced up and down the empty walkway. Too empty for this time of afternoon. A pair of gloves lay on the flagstones, their knuckles bloody. Vargo’s, still wet when she touched them. “Someone must have seen something.”

“Sure they did.” Arkady spat over her shoulder. “But you think they’ll risk the local knot coming down on them?”

“I think I can be very convincing.”

The quiet menace in Grey’s words rocked Arkady back on her heels. Ren pushed through the open gate into the warehouse yard. She considered and discarded subtlety before calling out, “A forro for anyone who knows what happened outside!”

A head peeped out of the small building that housed the office. “You’re that Alta Renata. The one that pulled one over on the cuffs?”

“Where’s Vargo?”

The laborer edged out, gaze raking the yard. Grey and Arkady, following Ren in, didn’t send him bolting for cover. “We was helping him with the work here. That Isarnah woman came to talk to him, and then he decided to leave early, but—” The man hunched defensively. “I en’t paid to fight for him. Only to hold a peg while he walks circles with some chalk.”

“How many? Did you recognize any of them? How badly was he hurt? Which way did they take him?” Grey rattled off questions like he was still in Vigil uniform. Ren fell back a step, keeping an eye on the gate—and saw a flash of color in the shadows.

“Alsius!” She rushed to the gap between the cobbles and the wall foundation, dropping to her knees where the little spider scuttled back and forth like a worried parent. With Vargo gone, she couldn’t hear him. And she hadn’t thought to bring the numinat that let him speak to her on his own.

But he was alive. And capable of walking, which meant Vargo must be, too—she hoped. Not just walking, but waving his legs like flags.

In a crack of the foundation, she spied the blue gleam of steel.

All the breath went out of her. What the fuck is Sessat doing here? Had Cibrial tried to remove the medallion from Vargo’s untrustworthy hands?

Grey crouched beside her. “What are you—djek.”

Ren shared her theory, and he shook his head. “It sounds more like a knot. Doesn’t mean Cibrial couldn’t have sent them, but—”

“But an angry knot is more likely.” Vargo must have dropped the medallion to keep it from being found. Looking helplessly at it, Ren said, “One of us will have to take it. Or Arkady. Unless—”

The bright shape of Peabody splayed itself over the steel circle. Then he began laboriously nudging it out of the crack.

Despite everything, a touch of mordant humor crept into Grey’s voice. “Do you think it counts if a spider has possession?”

If it did, then Vargo would be cursed. He hadn’t used the medallion any more than he could avoid, so the curse ought to be light… but if one of his knots had taken him, he was in a situation where Sessat’s impulses could very easily destroy him.

They had to find him. For so many reasons.

Ren was in Vraszenian clothing, including a paneled sash belt. She unlaced it and laid the fabric on the ground for Peabody to climb on, pushing the medallion; then she picked it up like a sling. When she looked at Grey, she got no preternatural insights. Either he had no desires related to Sessat, or Alsius was the medallion’s holder, and she was just his sedan bearer.

Arkady leaned against the gate, watching like she’d stumbled on an awkward bit of street theatre. “En’t even gonna ask. Guess I’ll put my kids out and see if they hear anything, but dunno if I’ll get much. The knots are gonna squabble over territory like gulls over day-old fish guts, soon as they realize there’s nobody making ’em play nice. Wager the whole Lower Bank’s about to go to shit.”

“Hey!” the laborer called out as Ren turned to go. “What about that forro?”

Ren had only a few centiras on her. Thanks to Utrinzi, she had a source of income now, but the days of walking around with a fortune in her pocket were over. “Come to number four, Via Brelkoja, Isla Prišta in Westbridge,” she called over her shoulder, tossing what coins she had his way. “You’ll get paid. Right now, we have to rescue our friend.”

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 19

The bag over Vargo’s head muffled sight and sound, and he went in and out of focus, but he was alert enough to notice when the language around him went from cant-spattered Lower Bank Liganti to city-flattened Vraszenian. Aware enough to smell the mix of sweat and spices, raw garlic and cooked rice, that said he was in Seven Knots. And canny enough to guess he’d been handed over to the Stretsko.

When the bag came off, he expected to see Branek. After all, the man’s reach had extended beyond the Anduske to Stretsko knots along the Lower Bank, and he might well have figured out Vargo was involved with the Kiralič’s rescue, despite the Cut Ears cutting loose. It turned out he’d guessed wrong, but Vargo recognized the deep-set eyes and strong brows of the woman leaning over him.

“Tserdev.” He coughed out the dust-thickened phlegm clogging his throat. “How much did you pay for me?”

“Peace between the Stretsko and your former people until Veiled Waters has passed.”

“Former?” He was halfway through a mental question to Alsius before he realized that if his thoughts were silent, it meant the old man was too far away to hear him. When the Roundabout Boys jumped them at the warehouse, Vargo barely had time to cast Sessat into the shadows of the gate before he was mobbed by his own fists. Alsius had protested strenuously at being ordered to stay behind and guard it, but he’d obeyed. At least Vargo could trust that loyalty.

He might have expected betrayal from the Moon Harpies or the Odd Alley Gang, both of them on the edge of Seven Knots and at war with Tserdev’s people. The Roundabout Boys were a Dockwall crew—and mostly Nadežran, not Vraszenian. “What did you offer, to get them to turn?”

Laughter answered him. Kneeling close enough for spitting, Tserdev fished a crumpled broadsheet from her panel coat. Vargo only caught sight of the headline and a few random phrases before she crammed it into his mouth.

“How can someone betray a man who knows nothing of loyalty?” Standing, she waved to the fists looming behind her. “Search him.”

Vargo spat out the ink-foul paper, pretending to be separate from his body as the men cut through his bindings and stripped him down. They were thorough—and not gentle—but they kept it impersonal. They removed his contraceptive numinat, and even found the tiny knife and packet of chalk powder he’d sewn into the band of his smallclothes.

The search got to his knot charm—the one he shared with Ren. “Don’t you dare fucking cut that,” Vargo growled.

“So some oaths you respect,” Tserdev said. “Fortunate that your own people found this not.” Taking the knife from her minion, she cut the cord and tossed the charm atop the pile.

Doesn’t matter. Didn’t cut it myself. Changes nothing. Vargo shook with the urge to rip the knife out of Tserdev’s hands and do some cutting of his own.

“What’s this?” Tserdev lifted one boot to nudge the brand over Vargo’s chest.

“None of your fucking business,” he snapped. A too-quick answer would be taken for a lie. His breath hissed out when one of the fists yanked his head up by the hair, and the dull ache from his beating exploded like horses galloping through his skull.

Tserdev’s smile was vicious. “Try again.”

“Ow! Fine!” Marshaling his best you’re a fucking idiot who knows nothing about numinatria expression, Vargo said, “It’s an initiation brand. Like your knot bracelet. You heard about the cult Iridet cracked down on last autumn? This was the price of admission.”

“What’s it do?”

“Nothing—ow, fuck! Stop that.” Vargo glared up at the fist yanking at his hair like the man was a rough lover. “Nothing anymore. Cult’s disbanded, and all I got is this stupid scar.”

“So to your own people you swear no oaths, but from the cuffs you’ll accept this?” She spat, the gobbet striking Vargo’s brand and oozing down his skin. “You deserve not the loyalty you’ve been given.”

“What loyalty?” Vargo glanced around the shabby back room, as much as the grip on his hair would allow. Aside from his pile of clothing, there was only a thin pallet shoved against a wall, a bucket for night soil, and an oil lamp hanging from a hook by the door. He’d enjoyed nicer accommodations in Dockwall Prison.

Tserdev didn’t give the obvious answer. Instead she crossed her arms and began pacing, like a cat without a tail to lash. “In Staveswater you and that Black Rose kidnapped my brother, so that to your will I would bend. For months I have searched, and nothing. I want him back.” She stopped and gave Vargo a cruel smile. “Your knots know not where he is, but you do. And from you I will have my answers.”

So this wasn’t Anduske business. Tserdev was pursuing her own ends.

And it was obvious what methods she had in mind. Vargo stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Let me guess. Splinters under the fingernails, crushing my balls, that sort of thing? I’ll spare you the trouble. He’s at the Isarnah trading house in Floodwatch.”

Tserdev spat a dismissive noise like it was gristle between her teeth. “So quickly you answer my question?”

“Coward,” muttered the man mauling his hair.

Vargo smiled like it was a compliment. “Ča Očelen, you and I are no longer at war. I took Dmatsos to keep you off my turf—but seems the Lower Bank decided they don’t need me, so I don’t need him. The Isarnah have your brother, and they’ll trade him for me.”

Tserdev caught his chin, nails digging into his skin. “Think you to trick me? Eret Vargo is so well-known for the webs he spins, he might as well call himself Varadi.”

“But I’m not Varadi, am I? I’m Nadežran and a noble. I care about two things: business, and my own skin. Why suffer a beating to withhold information that could buy my freedom?”

The grip eased, Tserdev’s heavy brows knitting over eyes glittering with the promise of retribution if this was a ruse. “Perhaps there is little left to trade. If my brother you have hurt—”

Vargo’s barked laugh silenced the threat. “Again, where’s the profit? Your brother has been treated well—a sight better than this.” He couldn’t move with Tserdev and the fists holding him, but his glance took in the grimy room and all his possessions stripped from him.

She sniffed an unamused laugh, but let him go. “We’ll see what your foreign allies say. Until then… you are in my web now, Vargo. And I will make sure you stay there.”

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 21

The grey sky seemed low enough to touch, and a cold wind was knifing down the Dežera. Ren wanted to rub her arms for warmth, but the Black Rose couldn’t show ordinary weakness. Instead she stood in a shadowed doorway and waited, hardly breathing, for Tserdev to arrive.

She’d expected tracing Vargo to be like following the target in a game of cup-and-shell—always assuming they didn’t simply find his corpse in a canal. The speed with which a message arrived at the Isarnah compound in Floodwatch spoke of Vargo cutting a deal with his captor instead. A refreshingly straightforward trade: Vargo for Dmatsos Očelen.

The Isarnah were glad to hand Dmatsos over, but that was all they were willing to risk: no contingent of guards, no promise of retribution if the exchange failed. Which made more sense when Ren found out that Varuni had officially been recalled from her duties as Vargo’s bodyguard, and was to be sent home to Isarn.

Varuni’s comment on that had been succinct. “I’m not going anywhere until we get him back.”

She waited outside the compound now, alongside Sedge and Nikory. The Fog Spiders hadn’t sold Vargo out, but neither were they willing to offend Tserdev to get him back—especially not with Orostin dead. Those two were here as individuals, not as Fog Spiders. Ren, masked as the Black Rose, hid off to one side; Grey, hooded as the Rook, did the same on the opposite side.

The five of them, and no more. Ren’s questionable status and Vargo’s illegal past made her wary of seeking the Vigil’s help, and Tserdev had refused to show if any cuffs got involved. Which meant that the group now approaching outnumbered them nearly three to one—before counting the men carrying five sedan chairs with their windows blacked out.

Varuni spoke first. “You try anything against us, and my people will intervene.” Guards were watching from the top of the compound wall.

“There will be no need for such things so long as you hurt my brother not,” Tserdev said. “Where is he?”

::Vargo’s here,:: Alsius said to Ren, his mental voice shaking with relief. The numinat that let him communicate with her in Vargo’s absence was on a barrel next to Varuni, weighted down with rocks. If Tserdev had shown up without her prisoner, Ren had wanted more than Alsius’s silence to clue her in. ::Though… he’s not talking. He’s very disoriented. What have they done to him?::

Ren cursed her inability to answer him with her mind. Which chair was Vargo in? Tserdev had undoubtedly brought five precisely to keep them from trying to rush it.

The compound’s gate opened. Varuni reached through and pulled Dmatsos out, hands tied and feet hobbled with a short rope. “Unharmed, like I said. Now give me Vargo.”

At a flick of Tserdev’s hand, one of her fists dragged a body from a sedan chair, flopping it over his shoulder like a sack of laundry. Dirty, bloodstained laundry; Tserdev hadn’t shown him a tenth the courtesy given to Dmatsos. Vargo’s hair was stringy with grease and grit, falling over a bruised and swollen face, and mud was ground into his coat of blue broadcloth, like he’d been dragged through the streets by his boot.

::What did they do to him? Vargo? Vargo! Please tell me you’re all right.::

::’Mm here. Stop yelling. Y’got Sessat safe?::

Ren fought the urge to sag with relief at that muzzy mental response. Alsius leapt off the barrel and skittered across the ground, leaving the numinat behind. But she could still hear him, through the connection with Vargo. ::Yes, you silly boy. Don’t worry. We’re going to get you safe as well. Then we can deal with curses and the like.::

Varuni stood impassive, letting her own scrutiny hide the fact that she was waiting for a warning from Ren. When none came, she nodded.

The fist put Vargo down and shoved him stumbling forward. Varuni cut the rope between Dmatsos’s ankles and did the same. As the two men neared each other, though, the bright spot of Peabody slammed to a halt on the hard-packed ground.

::Wait. That’s not right. Vargo, you’re not hurt. We’re not hurt. I’d feel it.::

::No. Drugged, maybe. Can’t see where I am. Sedan chair? Fuck, gonna puke…::

Ren’s blood froze. Her mouth didn’t. “Varuni, it’s a trick! They’re swapping a fake!”

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 21

The man Tserdev was trying to pass off as Vargo kept lurching toward the Isarnah compound. Everyone else went the other direction.

Grey had the longest legs, and he’d been poised to move since Tserdev appeared. That the woman loved her brother and wanted him back, Grey believed; that she was willing to let Vargo out of her own hands so easily, he didn’t.

He outpaced the others, almost close enough to grab Dmatsos, but his eye was on a different prize. Vargo had to be in one of the other sedan chairs, a fallback if the fake was identified too soon. Which one, though?

Grey almost didn’t notice the knife flung his way until it was too late to dodge. He swerved, and behind him Varuni spat a curse, but not in pain. The bearers had picked up the other four chairs and were bolting down different lanes. They’d dropped things on the ground, though—things vomiting smoke into the chill air, hiding their movements as they fled.

Djek. Can’t see! The real Rook enhanced Grey’s sight, but this substitute did nothing except hide his face. “I’ll take the left!” he snapped, knowing the others were behind him, Ren and Varuni and Nikory and Sedge. Alsius might be able to figure out which chair Vargo was in, but not fast enough. They couldn’t risk losing sight of any.

At least the sedan bearers were slowed by their burdens. One of the pursuers would catch the chair with Vargo in it. And then what? Grey thought, sprinting after his chosen target. They were outnumbered, and splitting up wouldn’t help. But he couldn’t think of anything better.

Tserdev’s people would want to get to the river, to a friendly skiff. This lane bent parallel to the water, around a long set of grain warehouses, but Grey knew the doors to one of those warehouses lined up nicely, a shortcut he’d used before. He kicked his way through one—

There was no door on the opposite side. He’d gone into the wrong building. I know my way around Floodwatch! But he was used to relying on memories besides his own, all the echoes residing in the hood. Now there was only silence, and he’d gone the wrong way.

Cursing furiously, Grey lunged back out into the street. If he couldn’t go through, he’d go over.

He leapt for the eaves, feeling grim satisfaction that at least he didn’t need the Rook for that. Even without the lost gloves’ improved grip, his muscles responded with smooth power, hauling him onto the low, flat roof. Crouching low, Grey ran across, looking for his quarry.

As expected, they were coming back his way, heading for the lane that led to the river. Grey timed his jump perfectly, crashing into the first guard and taking the man down amid the snap of broken bones. That surprise let him get the front chair bearer, dropping the carrying poles so the back bearer stumbled, and from there he spun to deal with the second guard, the weight of his whirling coat feeling almost like what he’d lost.

But any satisfaction died when he tore open the door of the sedan chair and found it empty apart from a heavy sack. No Vargo.

An explosive crack came from upriver. Grey pivoted and staggered as his knee screamed. He’d landed badly from that jump. Masks damn it all—nothing he did was working like it should!

That couldn’t be allowed to stop him. Gritting his teeth, Grey threw an elbow into the throat of the last man standing and set off in a lurching run for the source of the noise.

He got there too late. A sedan chair lay on its side, its floor shattered, but the bearers and guards were nowhere in sight—much less any occupant the chair might have had. Following some bloody footprints, Grey found Nikory against a warehouse wall, dazed, but still breathing.

Vargo. The footprints had to be from Vargo, managing some numinatrian trick in an attempt to escape. But they petered out: Where was he now?

Gone.

Rage and frustration drove Grey’s boot into the nearest wall. Not enough. Never enough! He’d joined the Vigil thinking it would give him a way to help Nadežra; he’d become the Rook thinking the same. Now he was neither hawk nor Rook, and on his own, he couldn’t even help Vargo. When the other man needed him most, Grey failed.

He carried the ruined hood inside his coat, a talisman to spur him on. Grey dragged it out and glared at it, chest heaving with exertion and failure. I can make myself enough, he’d told Ren. It was a lie. This was what he needed: the true Rook, the spirit built up over centuries of effort. They couldn’t let it be destroyed. There had to be a way to mend what Grey had broken, while still freeing what shouldn’t remain trapped. He held the lock in his hands; he just needed the key.

Pounding footsteps made him drop the hood and reach for his sword. But it was only Varuni and the Black Rose, and the way they staggered to a halt told him they’d met with no more success than he.

Grey saw more than that. Ren. She’s the key.

Then he realized his other hand was in another pocket, wrapped around the smooth curve of a metal disc.

Quinat. Just as Vargo had picked up Sessat without realizing, he’d brought Quinat with him. He’d gripped it in his hand, thinking about what he needed, what he wanted.

And A’ash had shown him the answer.

He snatched his hand back like the iron was red-hot as Ren knelt to examine Nikory. “Did you see—”

“No.” Yes. “I got here too late.”

Varuni stood like a statue, hands curled into fists with nowhere to strike. “We’ve lost him.”

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 21

“You’re a wily fucker, I’ll give you that,” Tserdev said as she entered the room where Vargo’s guards had stashed him after his failed escape attempt. A different room than before; this one lacked a cot and a closestool. It boasted a chair he suspected wasn’t meant for him. And a lot of cobwebs.

The sole of Vargo’s bare foot exploded with pain as Tserdev kicked it. Sticky warmth followed, oozing past the wet scab of gummy blood and Lower Bank filth the kick had knocked loose. Vargo wondered if he should thank her for the abuse. With as fast as he healed, he’d prefer the muck to end up on the outside.

Not that he’d wanted to rip open his flesh on the splintered edge of an unpadded sedan chair seat, or run barefoot and bleeding down a Floodwatch alley. But they’d tied his hands and hobbled his ankles, thinking that was enough to keep him from running if the drugs wore off. It would have been, if Alsius hadn’t drilled him so much on basic numinatrian sigils that he could—literally—scribe them with his toes.

Messy, but an explosive numinat didn’t need to last longer than the blast, and Vargo didn’t want anything strong enough to kill him. Just a little noise. A momentary delay. A loud-as-fuck chin-flick to the cosmos that might give his friends time to catch up.

Nails sharp as rat claws dug into Vargo’s cheeks as Tserdev forced his chin up to meet her gaze. “Too bad for you that I’m wilier.”

Too bad for him that he hadn’t realized she brought decoy chairs. When he busted out, the only person in sight was an unconscious Nikory. With no other friends there, he could only run—badly. And get his bleeding ass caught—easily.

“What I want to know is, how are you even conscious? We drugged you enough to put out a Meszaros draft horse.” The chair scraped as Tserdev dragged it closer. She drew a knife, examining her teeth in the blade’s reflection. “Care to share?”

Given that it was the only thing that might get him out of this alive, no. “Did you get your brother back?”

“He has a few things to say to you about his time as your guest. Dmatsyi, you can come in.”

Dmatsos’s beard was overgrown and his coat and trousers sleep rumpled, but he hadn’t suffered in his stay with the Isarnah. Vargo had been very clear about that. No point in making enemies through bad treatment.

A philosophy Tserdev and her brother didn’t seem to follow. Vargo bit down on a scream as Dmatsos stomped on the fingers of his right hand. Then he realized there was no reason not to scream, and gave it full voice until it shredded his throat.

“Straighten them,” Tserdev said. Dmatsos obeyed, drawing another series of cries from Vargo. Sweat dripped into his eyes, his mouth. Salty. And copper-flavored. He’d bitten through his lip.

Tserdev’s knife prodded his throbbing hand. Vargo tried to pull away, falling still with a strangled whimper when the knife pierced the webbing between thumb and finger, pinning him in place.

“Can’t tell from this,” Tserdev muttered. “Maybe if we broke them enough to show bone?”

“Or we just make him tell us.” Standing, Dmatsos wound up for a kick. It struck Vargo’s side, hard enough to lift him off the ground—and rip his hand free of the pinning knife. Then another kick. Vargo tried to curl around it, to catch Dmatsos’s leg so he couldn’t draw back. Dmatsos shook him loose. “What’s the trick? Everyone says you can walk away from anything. How?”

“Enough.” Crouching, Tserdev yanked her knife free of the floorboards. She flipped the blade, dragging the tip over the scar at Vargo’s brow, down the jagged line along his neck. With a flick, she opened the sweat-soaked collar of his shirt to lay steel over the mark seared into his chest. “I think there’s one explanation only. Cult scar, you said? No longer works. Shall we test it?”

“No,” Vargo whispered, helplessly—just as the blade slashed across the brand.

14

The Ember Adamant

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Pavnilun 21

“You told me it was him!”

Ren had never heard Varuni raise her voice. Now it rang off the wood-paneled walls of the parlour, rounded by the Isarnah accent Varuni almost never let through. Vargo’s stone-faced, stoic bodyguard was in a perfect fury, and the brunt of it was directed at Ren.

“I thought it was him,” she said, knowing the words were inadequate. “Alsius said he was drugged—it was difficult to tell—”

A mental wail cut her off. Peabody hunched inward, a tiny, anguished spot of color on his fabric numinat. ::His fingers! Oh, Lumen—they’re breaking his fingers—::

Ren swallowed down nausea. “We solve nothing, casting blame—”

Skirting the low tea table, Varuni stalked toward Ren. “Easy for you to say, when you’re the one to blame.”

“Here now!” Tess planted herself between them, cheeks flushed with fury. “Raise your hand to my sister, and I’ll be putting my fist to your face.” She shook one wind-chapped hand under Varuni’s nose.

Pulling up like she’d been threatened by a pigeon, Varuni snorted. “That fist?”

“No. That fist.” Tess jerked her chin toward Sedge, who’d come up to flank Ren, with Grey on the other side.

::We don’t have time for this! He’s… Ow! His ribs—::

Ren’s knees wouldn’t hold her anymore. She sank onto the couch, barely able to form words. “They’ll kill him. Tserdev is vindictive. Now that she has her brother back… what reason has she to keep Vargo alive?”

Arkady hocked an unrepentant loogie into the hearth. “Money. Bargaining with the Fog Spiders, if they’ve stayed loyal. Leverage over that Anduske fellow Vargo’s been helping. Or over you. Lots of things she can get out of him, besides blood.”

Her pragmatic assessment helped ground Ren—until Alsius screamed.

She shot to her feet. “What is it? What are they doing?”

The spider didn’t answer. He was writhing in the center of the numinat, legs flailing helplessly, but nothing came through the link. She could see his scream… but she couldn’t hear it.

“What’s wrong with him now?” Arkady asked, peering at the spider. “Seen roaches do that when you douse ’em with mint oil or salt water, but en’t nobody touched him.”

“They don’t need to,” Ren whispered. “His life is tied to Vargo’s.”

Sedge’s hand at her back steadied her. “The spider’s alive. Means Vargo en’t dead, right? Maybe healing the spider’ll help. Tess, you got any restoratives?”

“In the kitchen,” Tess said, hurrying out of the room.

Ren didn’t realize she’d been twisting the knot charm around her wrist tight enough to stop blood until Grey’s touch coaxed her grip open. “You can’t hear him anymore?” he asked. At a shake of her head, his gaze flicked to the numinat. “Perhaps there’s another way to communicate.”

By the time they’d cleared the tea table and chalked rough lettering across it, Tess had returned with a jar and a spoon for Alsius to sip medicine from. The spasms had passed, but he was still unsteady as he crawled across the table, tapping the letters he wanted.

His message was short and to the point. Link cut.

Ren swallowed hard. “Then he probably lacks your strength, too. Does that mean… you won’t know what happens to him?” Does it mean you won’t know if he dies?

Peabody began moving again. Unsure. Help V. Then he hopped, as if to underline his words.

Easy enough to say—but how? Sedge and Varuni were arguing, the latter demanding aid from the Fog Spiders, the former doubting their willingness, and Arkady insisting her kids could search. Grey drew Ren aside, where others couldn’t overhear. “We need the Rook.”

She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead. “Can we afford the distraction right now? We know not how long Vargo will have value to Tserdev.” And there were many ways to break a person, while keeping their value.

“It’s not a distraction. I said before that I was enough on my own. I was wrong. And Vargo’s paying the price.”

Once, he wouldn’t have cared. Might have even celebrated. Now the quietness of his voice couldn’t mask the guilt, the fear, the pain. Ren gripped his hand in her own. “I’m not certain I can fix the Rook—”

“You can. I know it.” The sick look in his eyes said he knew it because it had to be true. Because the alternative was unthinkable.

She couldn’t disappoint him.

Ren raised her voice to cut across Sedge and Varuni. “Go, and let us know when you learn anything. We’ll be in the temple, trying… something else.”

“Something else?” Tess echoed, mingling doubt and hope.

Grey nodded. “Do me one favor. Send for Ryvček.”

Hidden temple, Old Island: Pavnilun 21

“So this is what’s in here,” Ryvček said, twirling the triple clover knot charm around her finger as she entered the hidden temple. “Often I have wondered.”

Ren said, “This is where the medallions were joined, and also I think where the Rook was made. We hope it will assist in mending him.”

“And the Zevriz, she is here as well?” Ryvček peered into the shadows their lightstones didn’t reach, as if the nameless szorsa might be lurking there.

“Caught in madness within Ažerais’s Dream. She doesn’t need you flirting with her,” Grey said. The bag he dropped on the floor punctuated his disapproval. Unfair disapproval, Ren thought; Ryvček knew how serious their business was. But he burned with the need to set right what he had broken. Ren slid her palm down his arm, soothing as she did when Clever Natalya worked herself into a ball of bristling black fur.

Ryvček dismissed his surliness with a flick of her fingers. “As you say. I came to help; tell me what you need.”

Ren reached into her pocket for her deck—and her fingers touched metal. Masks have mercy.

Alsius had told them about Vargo finding Sessat on him. Ren knew, with sick certainty, what was in her pocket, but she forced herself to draw it out anyway: the etched bronze disc of Tricat.

“I have no memory of picking it up,” she whispered. I didn’t even notice it coloring my sight.

Grey recoiled like she’d pulled out a viper, then buried his face behind his hands. “Djek. I’d hoped…”

“This is a new problem?” Ryvček kept her distance from them both.

Grey answered before Ren could. “Earlier, I also realized that my medallion was with me.” His dragged his head up. “I’ve returned it to its hiding spot, but… it’s how I know the Rook must be fixed. How I know Ren can do it.”

The desperation she’d seen before made new and awful sense. “Grey—”

“You thought this was a good idea,” he said, fiercely. “Before you knew why I suggested it. This is necessary. The Rook has defenses against the medallions that we have not. And—it’s why I became the Rook, why I became a hawk. Because I wanted the power to change things, to make them better. I know Quinat feeds that—but does that make it wrong?”

The problem wasn’t that his desire was wrong. It was that giving into one desire made the next that much harder to resist.

Ryvček tensed. “So these things you take up without knowing? That is…”

“Terrifying,” Ren said, her mouth dry as dust. “I suspect it’s a consequence of our last attempt to destroy them.” Joining their hands together as a living Uniat. Mirscellis had intended to break the connections, but he’d failed; perhaps the effect had even been the opposite. And it had come at so high a cost.

In one convulsive move, Ren flung Tricat into the corner and scrubbed her hand down one leg as if that would cleanse it. Not even death removes this stain. Faella told me that. But one problem at a time. Ren forced herself to think about Grey’s words, to evaluate them as rationally as she could.

He was right. They needed the Rook.

Ren reached into her pocket again and was relieved to find only cards there now. She said, “I will build the pattern from those laid before. The one that helped make him, the one I laid for the Rook, and the one I laid for you, Grey.”

The tension he’d been carrying since the townhouse seeped away like foul blood from a wound. Pressing his brow to hers, he whispered, “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

A kiss brushed her cheek, cobweb-soft, before he turned away to mix a vial of aža with a measure of wine. Ren shared the cup that Grey drank from, but when he started to mix a third dose for Ryvček, she waved him to stop. “One of us should remain sober. And I’m not as necessary to this as you are.”

“You give me too much credit,” Grey said as Ren picked through her cards to find the ones she needed. “Ren will do most of the work.”

“I hope he is not like this in bed,” Ryvček said to Ren, startling a laugh from her.

Grey crowded his teacher away from the desk. “Must you always be like this?”

“Yes. Because this is how I am the Rook.” Her smile glimmered like the silver threading through her hair, like the blade at her waist. Then Ryvček thrust a finger at Grey’s chest. “You are a different Rook. Less fun. Too much brooding on rooftops, though I suppose that appeals to some. But both are needed here. With numinatria was the thread spun, and with pattern was the cloth woven, but what stitches the Rook into a whole is the person inside. The one who becomes him.”

“Imbuing,” Ren said. “A performance rather than a craft.”

Grey blew out a slow breath. “Yes. Then… we will need this.” He knelt and began pulling Fontimi’s Rook costume from the bag.

Ren’s fingers paused in their search at The Face of Balance, its visage divided between silver and gold. Not one she’d seen in any of those three readings… not one she’d seen. A faint twinge echoed in her temples, remembering the blinding headache that had gripped her when she patterned the Rook.

The central card. The one his defenses forced her to look away from. This was what she had missed: the card of law, order, and justice. She would have known in an instant that it was Grey.

With a rueful smile, she finished her search and laid the remainder of the deck aside.

Shuffling wasn’t necessary, not when she would be selecting the cards. But she did one pass anyway, then one from Ryvček, followed by Grey. He pulled his gloves on after he was done, and after a moment’s hesitation, drew the real hood over his head. “What now?”

“Now she does her business,” Ryvček said. “And since you must be the Rook… we duel.”

Old Island and Lower Bank: Pavnilun 21

Grey had dueled as the Rook. And he had dueled his teacher.

Never both at once.

The quirk of Ryvček’s mouth as she drew her blade said it was strange for her, too, but that didn’t stop her from settling into a relaxed, cocky stance. “With no magic aid, are you certain you wish not to yield now?”

The tension coiling up Grey’s spine had little patience for banter… but wasn’t that part of the Rook? A part that lately he’d all but given up on. “Why? Uncertain you’ll last past the first exchange? Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on your aged bones.”

“Ha!” Ryvček didn’t bother to test his defenses. Nor did she treat this as a light bit of sparring; her sword tip went straight for his face. Grey twitched aside rather than parrying and counter-lunged.

Ren ignored them both, sitting with a hand stuffed full of cards, like a sixes player who’d forgotten the rules. “The Laughing Crow,” she said, but he wasn’t sure if it was to them or herself. In aža’s little dream, shouts became whispers, and the brush of a cat’s paw could be heard across a room. “The card of communication.”

“You’re a talkative one,” Ryvček agreed, snagging Grey’s attention as she almost caught his blade in a bind. “Banter is one thing, but you share secrets. How many now know that you are the Rook? How many know of the medallions?”

Dueling while spun: not the sanest thing Grey had ever done. In that dark coat, it was easy to think of his teacher as the real Rook. The one he couldn’t measure up to. “How many Rooks have gotten as far as I have?” he countered. He’d put her on the defensive; hopefully it wasn’t a trap. “We’ve learned things none of my predecessors knew. Things we need, if we’re to destroy the medallions at last.”

It was a trap. Ryvček got him to overextend on a lunge, and only a quick twist saved him from a skewer through the arm. “Fine words. But can you back them up?”

“Those who stand beside you,” Ren said, laying The Laughing Crow on the table.

“With the help of others, I can,” Grey said. Then he got the bind Ryvček had missed, and a quick strike with his other hand knocked her sword from her hand.

Her eyes glimmered deep in her hood. She was the Rook now. A Rook, anyway. Grey was still costumed, but aža was showing him his teacher as his predecessor.

“Then why are you wasting time with me?” she said, stepping out of his path.

She was right. He couldn’t properly be the Rook sitting around a disused temple under the Point, shadow sparring with himself. The Rook was made to be out in the world, taking action.

Uncapping the lightstone at his wrist, he ran out of the temple.

In the tunnels below, he followed sound and smell and the ever-downward slant into the Depths. Pressing against moss-slick stone, he skulked along with catlike tread. Just another blot of darkness in the ever-winding dark.

The Mask of Nothing, came Ren’s whisper, trickling past him like water. A rat squeaked in response. That which stands against you.

The Depths stirred, murmurs of human refuse hunting for a safe place to sleep, screams of those trapped by rising waters. A dying woman, desperate enough to drink zlyzen blood. And underneath it all, Primordial poison seeping into the city’s bones, until not even the great Dežera could wash it away.

He felt bars at his back before he heard the scuff of boot on stone.

“Traitor.”

That wasn’t Ren’s voice. A man, unfamiliar—but memory stirred anyway. Grey wasn’t surprised when the figure that appeared at the edge of his light wore the unrelieved black of another Rook. Glints shone around the man’s gut, reflections off blood. The aža was showing him the one who’d died in the Depths.

Stained gloves clenched into fists. “You claim that hood, but you hold a medallion. You use it. How did we ever think one such as you was worthy?”

The medallions were a power the Rook shouldn’t desire. Grey knew that, far too clearly… and when he touched his pocket, he felt a hateful weight inside. A hallucination brought on by the aža? Or had he not left it behind in Westbridge after all? He couldn’t deny the other’s accusation. He had used it—maybe not deliberately, maybe he hated himself for it, but even so. Just as the people he fought against had used their medallions.

But Grey wasn’t like them. He wouldn’t let himself be like them.

Was the niche at his side the one they’d found Ninat’s holder in? Didn’t matter. Grey drew out the Quinat medallion and hid it as deep in the niche as he could, then displayed his empty hand. “I can give it up.”

The answering laugh held a wild edge. “So you claim. But you thought you’d put it down before.”

“I will continue to put it down. To leave it where temptation cannot reach me, until we destroy them.” His gaze slid toward the niche. Was he only imagining the dull glint of iron in the shadows? Had he already picked it up again? What guarantees could he give, when he couldn’t even trust his own senses?

Thrusting his wrists toward the other Rook, he said, “Bind me.”

After all, the Rook wasn’t his enemy. A’ash was—and his own need for control.

Fears shrieked in his mind as the other Rook bound his wrists with a rope as red as blood. What if someone found the medallion before he could send an ally to secure it? And who would he send? It was safer in his own keeping—

The other one dragged him away by the rope. The old oath whispered in his mind, soothing the disarray of his thoughts. Your secrets are my secrets; your debts, my debts. The people who made the Rook had sworn themselves together as a knot. He could lean on their strength.

I remember that, Grey realized. The oath to end the Tyrant’s reign, before the Rook was even a thought. It was a glimmer of light in his mind… and a literal glimmer ahead. He’d reached the mouth of the tunnel, the river rushing by outside. The other Rook was gone, and the only remnant of the rope was a red triple clover knot circling his wrist.

The cleansed river splashed around his boots as he emerged and hauled himself up the wall. Was it truly night already, or was that just what aža wanted him to see? And who did the hand belong to that grabbed his wrist and hauled him onto the solid ground of the Old Island? Perhaps there was no hand at all. Perhaps he was still in the hidden temple, grasping at visions while Ren laid out cards.

The wisdom you must remember. A ghost shadow swooped on down-silent wings, scattering pigeons in a burst of feathers and fury. In the fading echo of their screeching, Grey heard Ren’s whisper: The Mask of Chaos.

The moons were wrong. Corillis should have been new, but it shone the silvered blue of a newly minted decira, painting the river walk in midnight hues. The hooded figure who’d dragged him to safety was a black silhouette, save for the sickle-thin curl of his lip. “Never fished in the river and pulled up a hawk,” the Rook said. “Maybe I should throw you back.”

“I’m no hawk.” Grey yanked his arm free.

“That coat of yours looks blue by this light.”

It did, and the breeches threatened to bleach into tan. Grey fought to keep them black—but that wasn’t how aža worked. I have to be the Rook. Dueling, creeping through the Depths…

When the system is unjust, Ren said, then justice must come from without.

The hood Grey wore hid his grin, but he let the expression through anyway. “The better to learn their weaknesses. Want to go make some trouble?”

Like black-winged hunters, they descended on the Aerie and scattered the fat blue-feathered pigeons inside. Grey dueled three captains at once, while his counterpart lifted the master key from one of their belts. He cackled at their demands that he surrender himself.

“Has that ever worked?” he asked, bottlenecking the fight at the corridor to the holding cells. The creak of unoiled hinges told him he wouldn’t be fighting alone for long. The turf battles between Vargo’s former knots had filled the Aerie full to bursting. “When you order someone to give up, doesn’t that only spur them to fight harder?”

As he’d fought harder. Every day, ground under the boots of his superior officers, he fought to fix the broken system, until he put the yoke on himself and thanked them for kicking him.

A laugh broke loose from a throat too long strangled. Free. He felt free.

He wasn’t the only one. The slam of a door thrown open echoed down the corridor, the three swords against him dipping in shock.

“You might want to clear the path,” Grey said, jumping aside as a rush of people descended on the doorway.

But one of the faces going by was familiar, known in the way people in dreams were known, even if never seen in life. Grey snagged the man by the arm and used the momentum to slam him into the wall. “You’re one of Tserdev’s Crimson Eyes, yes?” Grey said conversationally. “You and I should talk.”

“As should we.”

The crispness of the new voice almost brought Grey snapping to attention on reflex. He knew, before he turned, what he would see.

Cercel. Blade in hand, and still dressed as a commander, instead of as Caerulet. That alone suggested none of this was real, that he was back in the temple, hallucinating it all.

Be the Rook. He twisted the arm of the Crimson Eye behind his back and offered Cercel a courteous bow. “As much as I’d love to accept your invitation…”

“It wasn’t an invitation.”

“Come now. We both know the truth.” Grey stepped closer, not afraid she would stab him. The Rook didn’t fear. “You need me.”

“For what? I’m trying to maintain order.” Cercel’s glance took in the busted door, the rainfall of paper and general chaos of the prison break. The air reeked of spilled coffee. “You’re the opposite of order.”

Yes, he was. Because he had to be. “When the day comes that the Vigil truly serves the people of Nadežra—when it’s more than the shackles and the sword—then I won’t be necessary. Until then… the Face needs its Mask.”

He didn’t know if he’d convinced her. But she didn’t stop him as he shoved the Crimson Eye out the door.

In the shadows of a building, he stopped and pushed the man up against a wall. “Vargo. Where have your people taken him?”

“I en’t telling you shit. Just ’cause you sprung me, you think I’ll turn traitor?” The man horked back to spit, but choked on it when Grey spun him face-first into the bricks.

“I think two centuries is a long time to learn ways to make people talk,” he whispered.

The man’s lips moved, but his voice was Ren’s. The question you must ask. The Face of Balance.

The counterpart to The Mask of Chaos. If the Face needed the Mask… wasn’t the opposite also true?

“You’re wasting your time,” said another Rook from her perch in the eaves. One boot was hooked off the roof’s edge, and blue string spanned her fingers in a game of dreamweaver’s nest. The changing patterns as she hooked and looped and dropped and caught were hypnotic.

Grey shook his head, as if that would steady it against aža’s spin. “He has information I need.”

“Why?” Hook. “That fancy spider isn’t our business.” Loop. “The medallions are.” Drop. “But you keep chasing roses and overturning dreamweaver nests.” Catch: the thread became a net, falling on Grey and tangling him in its snare.

The Rook followed it, her landing cat soft. “You feel bound to them, because they saved your life. But we would have continued. We have to continue. Our purpose is to rid this place of that poison.”

“Which poison?” Grey asked, trembling under the weight of memory, of another net. “The medallions? They’re a tool—only one of many. You can’t pull a single thread and not drag others with it. The Anduske exist because of Kaius Rex’s invasion. The knots fight each other on the Lower Bank because of Liganti power on the Upper. Justice for Nadežra requires more than destroying a few bits of metal.”

Like a breath of wind, Ren whispered, What is justice?

“You’ll never rest,” the Rook warned him.

Grey shrugged. “I never expected to.”

At a tug from the Rook, the net unraveled into a single thread. She coiled it like knitter’s yarn and handed it to Grey. Glancing over her shoulder to where the Crimson Eye no longer cowered, she said, “Sorry I lost your man for you.”

“Rats are plentiful. I’ll catch another.” Casting the blue thread upward, Grey climbed to the place he’d always felt most at home, be he Rook or hawk or Kiraly raccoon.

The rooftops of the Lower Bank.

Where he caught sight of two figures running, one chasing the other, leaping the gaps of the streets.

Grey took off before he even identified the pursuer as another Rook. How many would he encounter? Every person who’d ever worn the hood? The reward you gain, Ren murmured in his ear. Pearl’s Promise.

From the pattern that had made the Rook. The card they’d wanted to move, from the ill future—no reward for their efforts—to the good. He knew which Rook he was following, and he knew she would never catch her quarry on her own. It wasn’t in the fate she’d twisted for herself. She was only the beginning of the thread that he’d cut short.

A wild leap took him over a narrow canal, more gutter than water. When the fleeing figure jinked aside to avoid Grey, that put him in the path of the other Rook. He swerved back, but Grey was too close. The rope snapped out like a herder’s snare, and the stranger crashed hard onto the tiles.

The first Rook was upon him before he could even roll over, tearing at his clothes. When the man curled up like a snail to protect his softer parts, her claws turned into fists, raining blows down on him.

“Where is it? Someone must have it. I will tear apart every person in this city to find it… to end this…”

Her voice broke, young, weighted with sorrow like a body dumped in a canal. For two centuries, this was all she’d been. She’d made it so, and now she couldn’t escape.

Pearl’s Promise had become the good future, but that left The Mask of Chaos as her ill. The Tyrant’s single power broken into many, spreading disorder throughout Nadežra. And so this woman and all those who came after had continued to fight.

“Liatry.” The name was on his tongue before he realized he knew it: aža speaking through him, Ažerais’s memories longer than even a legendary vigilante’s. He caught her wrists before she could strip her quarry down to his bones in search of something he didn’t have. “You don’t need to keep looking. We’ve found them. We’re close.”

The first Rook was rigid in his grip. “I failed. I thought Zmienka changing the cards would end it. We ended the Tyrant… but not the threat.”

Zmienka. The nameless szorsa? No, the one Ren said had changed the Rook’s pattern. Part of the knot sworn to take down Kaius Rex. One of a trio of women, the truth behind the legend of the three courtesans, played out every year on the Night of Bells.

“You haven’t failed,” Grey said. “We haven’t. Can’t you feel it?” Ren’s hand, laying the cards, choosing their fate. She’d struggled on others, he thought, trying to decide what question the Rook needed to ask, what among her cards best represented the strengths he could bring to bear. But not this one. The position of reward, and the card of reward. It could never be anything else.

Liatry’s voice was thin as a garotte wire. “Issena won’t have died for nothing?”

He didn’t need Ren’s gift to feel those threads. The memories had drifted through him many times, in those moments when the hood reminded him why they fought. Two women had been Liatry’s lovers: the szorsa who changed her pattern, and the Liganti noble whose death spurred that change.

“She hasn’t died for nothing,” he promised Liatry. “You ended the Tyrant. We’ll end the rest together.”

“Together,” she echoed, gaze somewhere beyond the rooftops of Seven Knots. Ducking her head, she removed her hood—but only the hood. The disguise had begun as separate pieces, before she gave her life to knit them into one.

The woman beneath was young, with the mixed heritage of the Dawn and Dusk Roads stamped on her features. Nadežran to her bones. Pressing her hood into his hands, Liatry said, “You’ll need this.”

The wool tingled even through the leather of his gloves. The Rook. Not connected to him, to the hood on his head. Not anymore. But whole and unmarred and somehow lighter. Grey could return to the temple right now, and they would have done what they set out to do.

But…

Reeds Unbroken, whispered Ren.

The risk you take.

Liatry and her victim were gone. Grey stood alone, hood in his hands and doubt in his heart. Reeds Unbroken, the card of endurance. But he had broken.

From the street rose the high-pitched cries of children in fear. Two huddled back as three men swaggered forward. “En’t your pitch no more,” one of them sneered, shoving the nearest kid hard enough to knock her down.

“Oi!”

The shout brought that man around just in time to take a fist to the nuggets. The attacker dodged his outraged swipe, kicking out his knee. A fluttering coat of piebald velvet flickered to black and back again as the newcomer leapt between the men and the children. “Get going!”

And Grey felt a tug—the same tug Ryvček must have felt when she caught two boys facing off against Mezzan Indestor and his friends.

That one.

Someone who could be the Rook. Who would stand, outnumbered and outmassed, against people abusing their power… and who would fight dirty enough to win, flinging a handful of muck into the eyes of the first one who retaliated.

Hardly more than a child. Maybe not even. Grey had been that young when Ryvček took notice of him—but she hadn’t laid the burden on him then. Not so soon.

One man knocked the defender down, and was rewarded with a boot to the ankle. He howled and staggered back, buying the kid time to get up and start running. Living to fight another day.

You’re not broken until you agree you are. He couldn’t tell if that was his own thought, or Ren’s comforting voice.

His hand tightened on Liatry’s hood. “I’m not done,” he muttered. “And I’m not putting this on someone else. I’ll see it through. I have to.”

The hood wasn’t in his hand. It was on his head, where it had been from the start. But now… now, again, finally, it was more than a piece of wool.

And Grey knew where to go.

The boots softened his landing as he dropped, the hood staying put without pins to hold it. The night unfolded itself to his eyes, sharper than natural vision. When he spoke, he heard the voice that wasn’t his own. The voice of the Rook.

“Let her go,” he said.

The hooded figure before him wasn’t like the other Rooks he’d encountered. Those all showed the suggestion of a face—a smirk, a wink, a dash of panache that was as much a part of the Rook as his hood and his sword. This one was empty, a yawning darkness that was nothing and had nothing.

In his arms, slumped and sweating from her futile struggles, was the szorsa whose guilt had cut her off from her name, her people, and herself. Zevriz.

The Ember Adamant, came a voice from that darkness. Ren, with him even in this. The hub on which all else turns. The one card that was in all three readings: Grey’s, the Rook’s, and the one that made the Rook.

And in the pattern Laročja had laid for Grey, so many years ago. His ill future: a burden he couldn’t bear, a debt he couldn’t repay.

One card of three. It wasn’t his entire future.

“I said, let her go.”

“And let this go on forever?” His voice, the Rook’s voice, echoed back to him. Or was he talking to himself? But he wasn’t the one tightening his grip around a helpless woman’s soul. “She began the whole thing, helping Kaius. Pull this thread, and it will all unravel. It’s the easiest way. It might be the only way.”

All around the square, shadows moved. People stepping out, black-clad from head to foot. The Rooks Grey had met, and others besides.

“We don’t kill,” Liatry said. “I swore it to Issena, before she died.”

The other Rook—the spirit of the Rook—growled. “One death. One death can end all the rest.”

“No.” Grey drew his blade again. “I wouldn’t let you kill before. And I won’t let you destroy her soul now.”

“None of us will.” That was Ryvček, echoed by others all around.

And together they moved. A whirlwind of black coats, of blades flashing in the night. But it was the Rook they fought: the thing they’d created, each of them in their own way, the spirit who’d become greater than the mere humans that made him up. He moved faster than Grey could believe, dodging and weaving through the crowd of his bearers, the nameless szorsa still pinned with one arm.

He was stronger than any one of them. But not stronger than them all.

They herded him back, into a corner where two buildings met, with Rooks on the roof to stop him escaping upward. Grey advanced to the front and looked into the depthless darkness of the hood.

“Let her go,” he repeated. Softly this time. “We’ve carried the burden of her mistake all this time. We don’t have to carry it anymore.”

With a sigh of relief, the Rook released the nameless szorsa and flowed like fog into Grey. Blinking like a dreamer waking from endless sleep, the szorsa released an unsteady breath. “I’m free?”

“We both are,” Grey said. “We all are.” The shades of other Rooks were fading—into the aža, into Ažerais’s Dream. But even with their souls slipping loose, something remained. The thing they’d made, like a spirit born of Ažerais herself.

“Our Lady blesses you,” the szorsa whispered, mouth and hand trembling.

“And she forgives you,” Grey replied.

He meant to take her back to the Old Island, where another part of her tattered soul waited. But she faltered before they’d gone three paces, and he was forced to pull her onto his back. Walking as steadily and quietly as he could, he began heading for the river.

Partway there, the weight increased, and the half-conscious murmurs in his ear deepened to an abused baritone.

Dawn was rising. The szorsa was gone.

And Grey, hooded and armed as the true Rook, was emerging from Seven Knots with Derossi Vargo slung across his back.

15

The Face of Balance

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 22

Ren didn’t know what Grey had said to Alinka. But after a fascinated Arkady arrived at the temple saying he was in Kingfisher with “what’s left of Vargo,” Ren and Ryvček hurried across the river to find Alinka bandaging wounds with no expression but clear-eyed determination. Whatever anger she held toward Vargo over her husband’s death, it didn’t stand in the way of helping an injured man.

And Vargo was injured, appallingly so. His face, his hands, his feet, his ribs; the worst was the bandage over his heart, mute testimony to the damaged numinat there. Peabody hunched above it like a helpless and miserable poultice.

Ren slumped on the floor against the wall, too exhausted to stand. Laying those cards… No pattern had ever drained her this badly. In the Seven Knots labyrinth she’d merely made choices; here she’d made those choices matter. Aža’s Call had wanted to be the risk, the illusion of the Rook becoming reality, bearers losing themselves to his power. It had taken everything she had to lay down Reeds Unbroken instead, wondering all the while if that was an improvement, placing the burden on the backs of so many yet to come. As if the position of risk could ever be comforting and safe.

She would have sworn only minutes went by while she considered the options, balancing what she hoped the Rook would be against the tension of his pattern. But when she looked up from the completed wheel, Ryvček told her hours had passed.

Hours in which Grey had done the impossible. Single-handed.

He looked like he wanted to collapse next to her. She’d only imbued a pattern; he’d imbued the Rook. But he remained on his feet as he drew Ryvček aside, away from Alinka. “I know not whether it was real or imagined, but in my journey… I thought I had Quinat with me.” He’d stripped out of much of Fontimi’s costume, gloves included; his knuckles whitened as his fists curled tight. “I—I gave it up. I can’t be its holder. Not when I’m also…” Yvieny was asleep in a chair, but he left that sentence unfinished anyway.

“Assume for now it was real,” Ryvček said. “Where think you that you left it?”

Grey’s gaze was limp with gratitude. “You mean you…”

“Cannot let you take all the credit for dealing with this? Of course not.” Her light tone belied the tension in her shoulders.

“If it isn’t still in Westbridge, it’s in the Depths. In one of the burial niches.”

Where they’d found Stezze Chetoglio with Ninat. Where Gammer Lindworm had once lurked with Tricat. Ren had never liked any part of the Depths, but she was coming to loathe that bit.

Ryvček was already heading for the door. “Get your inscriptor friend ready. The other one, I mean.”

Tanaquis. “We’ll need a story to tell her,” Ren said as Ryvček left. “Unless you are all right with her knowing.”

Now Grey gave in to exhaustion, dropping into a graceless pile next to her. “He would prefer me not to. Not controlling me, just…”

Just that, Rook once more, he had to be cautious. The Laughing Crow stood with him, not The Face of Glass; he still wouldn’t share his secrets freely.

Like iron to a lodestone, Grey’s gaze slid back to Vargo. Alinka had washed away the blood, but nothing could erase the bruises mottling the man’s body and face. “He’ll need to be uncursed, too,” Grey said. “Once he wakes up. Alinka, what remains to do?”

She was examining Vargo’s shattered hand, swollen and discolored. “The bleeding has stopped. The papaver should keep him asleep, but in case not, hold him down while I set his fingers.”

They both forced themselves up. Ren’s arms felt like wet noodles, but she didn’t need strength; she only needed to lean her body weight on Vargo’s legs while Grey took his shoulders. The actual work was Alinka’s, and Ren tried not to listen to the crunch.

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 22

The first sensation marring the blissful sea Vargo floated in was the barest nibble. Just a small fish testing to see if this great lump was edible. But then came another, and another, until he was devoured bite by bite. Teeth raked along his fingers, sank into his chest, and stabbed into his lungs. Waves of pain crashed against his head in a relentless tide.

Dragging himself onto the shore of wakefulness, he opened his eyes to piercing light and the rounded face of a curious sea-maid. With her button nose only a breath away, all he could see was wind-wild hair and pond-water eyes. And a grin entirely too feral for comfort.

“The fuck are you?” he mumbled. Tserdev was recruiting them young.

But no. He wasn’t with Tserdev anymore. The Rook… or many Rooks? Maybe that had been fever dreams.

Alsius?

Only silence answered.

“Fuck?” the feral child said. Her grin widened, like she’d been given a treasure immeasurable. “Fuck!” she shouted, then ran from the room, a shrieking trail of “fucks” bubbling up in her wake.

The face that replaced hers was older and careworn. “You’re awake,” the woman said in Vraszenian, then switched to accented Liganti. “Stay still. You have been badly beaten.”

“Don’t need you telling me that,” Vargo mumbled. He wanted to answer in Vraszenian, to prove he could, but he wasn’t sure which language came out. “Where’s m’ spider?”

A tickling sensation on his face loomed into an enormous shadow, eclipsing one eye. Vargo’s other eye registered the woman shuddering, though she didn’t look surprised. “Alsius,” he whispered, a tear leaking out from beneath the spider. Here, and alive—but inaudible. Because Tserdev had slashed the numinat.

“My brand,” he said, struggling to sit up as though he hadn’t just been told—and agreed—not to. It was like being stabbed all over again, and he fell back onto the thin pallet beneath him. “Ow.”

“If you insist on acting without thinking, be not surprised by consequences,” she said, disapproving as only a parent could be. Jars rattled and clinked as she sorted through them.

“Story of my life,” he muttered, gingerly herding Peabody so the spider rode the rise and fall of his chest. His right hand was swaddled in bandages and pulsed with a distant ache.

“I can’t hear you,” he said in response to the frantic leg-waving that usually accompanied information Alsius considered vital. As bad as the beatings had been for Vargo, how much more terrified must Alsius be, silenced like this?

“I need my brand healed. The one on my chest,” he told the woman. “The rest doesn’t matter. I’m earth-handed; if you bring me imbued medicines, I can improve them with a numinat.”

But even then, how well would the mark heal? Tserdev hadn’t exactly washed the wound afterward. How could it not scar? Flawing the numinat, such that it would never work again.

He clenched his eyes against tears, finger stroking to calm Alsius. “It’ll be all right. We’ll fix it.” Somehow.

When he finally opened his eyes again, he found the woman watching him with an odd expression. “You know not where you are. Nor who I am.”

Vraszenian. Healer. And treating Vargo’s wounds… after the Rook rescued him.

Fuck.

“Ča Serrado.” He tried to raise his bandaged hand to his brow in proper Vraszenian greeting and winced at the effort.

“Think you that gestures of respect will make this meeting easier?” she asked.

“I don’t think anything could make this easier. On either of us.” Vargo and Grey had reached a kind of peace—even friendship—despite their differences. He couldn’t say the same of Kolya Serrado’s widow.

Cupping his good hand around Peabody, he forced the words out. “I know it fixes nothing, but… I am sorry. For my part in your husband’s death.”

“You are right. It fixes nothing.” She lifted the light bandage over his brand. Unstoppering a red clay jar, Alinka pressed a numinatrian seal onto it before dripping the contents over the slash. “Any healer will tell you a broken body cannot always return to what it was. Mended bones ache in cold weather; weak joints buckle under strain. Even wounds can reopen when a person eats poorly.”

He watched the red-ragged line rather than her. Someone had pulled the skin together with fine stitches. He wished he could rip them out. “I’m not certain I follow this metaphor.”

The breath she exhaled was like the wound: ragged, but holding together. “I know you meant not to kill him; I know you acted in pursuit of a greater cause. None of these bring him back. None erase the wound, any more than your regret does.”

She smacked her hand abruptly against the table. “I would treat you regardless, Derossi Vargo, because I am a healer. But I know not if I can forgive you. Because of you, my children have no father. Because of you, my bed is cold. Great causes are no comfort in the face of that. If you wish to make it right, then in the future, do better.”

Color high, she folded a new bandage and placed it over the wound. “Touch this not. I will tell Grey and Ren that you are awake… assuming they are awake.”

After she’d gone upstairs, Vargo expelled a hard breath—then winced as it pierced him like a blade of fire. “Let me guess,” he said to Alsius, who’d gone still inside his cupped hand. Peabody’s four largest eyes glittered in what Vargo took to be judgment. “You were warning me not to make an ass of myself. And now you’re grumbling because I did. Tap once for yes.”

A fuzzy leg tapped his palm with all the strength of a butterfly kiss. Then, after a pause, two quick taps.

“Not grumbling?” Another twinge in his chest, but this one couldn’t be blamed on his ribs.

Before he could ask for clarification and much-needed comfort, two sets of footsteps sounded on the stairs. And if Vargo didn’t have his expression under control by the time they arrived, he was ground too raw to care.

Ren looked like she wanted to hug him in relief, but couldn’t find an unbruised spot to latch on to. She settled for gripping his wrist, gently enough not to rattle Alsius in his palm.

His bare wrist. “Din’t cut knot myself,” he mumbled, feeling like a boy who’d been caught filching market stall fruit. “That was Tserdev.”

Her grip tightened like she meant to rebind their oaths with that alone. “You nearly died, and you think I give two mills for some knotted string?”

At his wince, she eased her hold. Tears glimmered, unfallen, as she said, “I’d make you a replacement every day if that would help you heal. When first I saw you, I thought…”

That I was a dead man. And he would have been, if not for… whatever Grey had done.

Vargo expected one of them to explain, but instead Ren said, “What happened? He was spun, and can tell me not. We aimed to fix the Rook so he could help you, but the helping was supposed to come later.” The smile she shot Grey was full of fond recrimination.

“You’re asking me?” Vargo said. “I was beat to Ninat and back. Though even that doesn’t explain what I saw.”

Grey cleared his throat. “I thought I was freeing the nameless szorsa from her bonds. I did free her. But—somehow I also grabbed you?”

“You, and about twenty other Rooks. I’d ask who you put in the costumes, except I don’t think those were real people.” Everything had been chaos and shouting, Tserdev losing her shit on an epic scale as Rooks seemed to emerge literally from the shadows.

The look Grey shot back at Ren was mixed bafflement, awe, and half-suppressed hilarity. “I’m afraid to find out what I did at the Aerie.”

“Later,” Ren said firmly, before Vargo could ask. “First, there are curses to deal with. Vargo, we found Alsius with Sessat, but—is it possible to uncurse yourself? Or must that be done by another?”

He hadn’t expected to think about numinatria less than a bell after waking up, but he appreciated her concern. “I’ve worked with Tanaquis enough to understand the process. With cards from you and something to dull the pain, I don’t see why I couldn’t uncurse myself.” A minor shift sent pain shooting up his arm. “Thank the Lumen it’s not necessary. I may have, uh. Inscribed Alsius into my register.”

After a moment’s stillness, legs drummed his palm like a coxswain running ahead of a storm. Vargo tapped Alsius on the head. “Stop that. It tickles.”

The expressions on the faces above him looked like comedic masks. Grey managed to say, “He’s… in your register.”

As Vargo’s father—but Vargo would rebreak his own hand before he admitted that, at least while lying flat on a table with no dignity to shelter behind. Bad enough that Alsius scrambled up his arm to nuzzle against the side of his neck, like the peacock spider equivalent of a hug. “Yes. So I’m fine. No curse removal needed.”

“Unfortunately, there still is,” Ren said. “In the course of mending the Rook, Grey gave up Quinat. Ryvček has it now, but that helps Grey not. I’ll spin a story for Tanaquis; you must rest and heal.”

“Not that I’m doubting you could, but…” Every time you lie to your family, you cut out a piece of yourself. Vargo hesitated over how to say what he meant. The silence in his head was distracting. How was this easier when he had a spider babbling suggestions at him? “Tanaquis is more perceptive than she lets on. And she might be examining everything you say these days. I can do it. I just need my kit.”

And about a week on my back, he thought, but the familiar rejoinder never came. The silence hurt worse than Tserdev’s knife.

Ren glanced at Grey, deferring to him. Grey held Vargo’s gaze as he nodded. “Then we’ll do that. Thank you.”

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 23

Grey’s step felt lighter than it had in ages as he crossed the Sunset Bridge the next evening and headed for Kingfisher. As much as he regretted dropping the Primordial burden on Ryvček, he breathed easier not carrying it himself.

He regretted even more putting the burden of the curse’s removal on Vargo’s shoulders. The sheen of sweat on the other man’s blanched face when he got up from inscribing the numinat said that broken ribs and chalking a floor made for a bad mix.

Now Vargo was on his way back to Eastbridge and his own physician, before Tserdev could find out where he’d vanished to and rain retributive fire on the one who sheltered him. Grey, meanwhile, was on his way to thank Alinka and apologize yet again. But when he opened the door, he found someone else at the table with her, cup of tea in hand.

“Grey.” Koszar’s smile carried a hint of tension. “With you I was hoping to speak.”

“I’ll make certain the children play quietly,” Alinka said, hitching Jagyi onto her hip and herding a grumbling Yvieny upstairs.

“You’re more likely to find me in Westbridge,” Grey said, watching Koszar watch Alinka’s departure. He bit back the urge to warn the revolutionary away from his marriage-sister. With as many leaks as his own boat had, he could hardly condemn another for sinking.

Pouring tea for himself, he sat. “But I’m here now. What need you from me?”

Koszar wasted no time with pleasantries. “Mevieny has done as we asked and called for Ažerais to judge us, through an ordeal. Branek has no choice but to agree.”

“And?”

“And I want you at my side,” Koszar said. “Whether Ažerais favors me or not, someone must speak out against Laročja. Perhaps Branek will listen not, but others may.”

Grey’s throat tightened enough that he almost couldn’t swallow the tea. Once he’d forced it down, he said, “Koszar… it will be my word against hers.”

“The word of her own grandson,” Koszar said, soft and insistent. “There is none stronger.”

“The word of a slip-knot. A man who cut his hair, altered his family name, and joined the Vigil.” Waving at the world outside, Grey said, “They’ll see me as you once did.”

“If that were true, the Kiralič would not have asked for your opinion. You are better regarded than you believe, after this past year. People know you as an honest man. If you speak, those who need to hear will listen.”

An honest man. Grey glared into the rippling mirror of his tea. If that were true, he’d admit why he had no intention of going anywhere near the ordeal, nor any other gathering his grandmother might attend. Vargo had relieved Grey of one curse, but no numinat could lift the one he’d been born under.

Instead he said, “Unless my grandmother speaks more loudly. Which she always does.” He’d yelled himself hoarse as a boy, refusing to break beneath her words, or those of his father.

“I’ll support you,” Koszar said. “And Ren—”

“My half-Liganti lover? By now my grandmother will have learned the truth of her. A szorsa who cannot depend on her cards has other means of finding things out.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Koszar, I understand. But no. For me to stand up and denounce her… it would do no good.”

No, he wasn’t an honest man. The point wasn’t whether his words would do any good. After all, he’d publicly quit the Vigil, expecting nothing to come of it except his own downfall. Denouncing Laročja was likewise the right thing to do, whether it had any effect or not.

But he couldn’t. The mere thought sent sick fear writhing through his gut. To face her, to look into those cold eyes, hidden in the mask of a kindly old woman—You were born wrong; it’s your fault she died…

He was a good liar. His hands remained still, and his tea settled into a placid mirror.

The silence that answered him rang with Koszar’s disappointment. But all the man said was “Then I suppose we must trust in Ažerais. And in Ren.” He finished his tea and rose. “I will not trouble you with it again.”

But he stopped at the door for a parting sally. “I will only remind you that however long and winding the Dežera’s path, inevitably she finds her way to the sea. It is no different with blood and family.”

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Pavnilun 28

“I’ll be fine,” Vargo grumbled as Varuni passed through his study for the third time to make sure the windows were locked and the alarm numinata undamaged. “It’s been a week, and Tserdev hasn’t so much as thrown an egg at my windows. Probably too spooked by what happened. Still, I won’t let anyone in but Ren and Tanaquis, and I’m not going anywhere like this.”

He brushed his good hand down his morning robe, a patchwork of river blues. The silks snagged on his calluses, but the velvet was soft as a cat’s purr. Usually Peabody would be tucked into the collar, a tickle against his cheek, but he’d wandered off shortly after Vargo dragged himself out of bed. With no voice to guide him, Vargo had no idea where the spider was hiding.

“Those promises are meaningless. You think I haven’t learned that by now?” Varuni huffed a soft breath and twitched the thick curtains closed like the early spring sunlight was a threat to Vargo’s safety. “I’ll be back before first earth.”

That familiar, decisive tone ate at him like acid. Vargo fiddled with his blotter paper, tearing off little pieces to roll into balls. When he’d been a boy and the bane of Alsius’s days, he’d made a game out of flicking them at the spider instead of practicing numinatria.

No secrets between us. That oath was to Ren, not Varuni.

And that justification was a sack of shit.

“I don’t want you to go.” Damn it. He hadn’t meant to say it like that, weighing her down with guilt. But his head was too muddled with the mix of papaver and stimulants that kept him something like functioning.

Varuni at least understood he didn’t mean today’s visit to Floodwatch. “Vargo… I have a duty to my family.” The words were as solid and unwavering as Varuni herself. But so was the tension in her jaw, telling him her duty rested on an eroded foundation. It was knowledge he shouldn’t have, and it tugged at him like sucking mud.

There was one way to make it easier for her. He didn’t need to use a medallion. He already had her fear, his fear, and the truth.

“I thought about using Sessat on you. That day in Dockwall. I didn’t want you to leave, and I could tell that part of you wanted to stay, and—”

“You did what?” She stumbled back a step, gaze flicking to the panel where the medallion lay hidden.

“Thought about it. I wouldn’t do it.” Vargo held up his hands, one splinted and the other shaking, to prove they were empty. “But… I wanted to.”

He held silent and as still as pain allowed while she paced like a caged cat. “That’s what these things do, right? They make you want to use them.”

Vargo wished it was that simple. “They don’t make anything that isn’t already there. Which is why you should go. It’s only getting worse, now that the chain has been strengthened.” And it would keep getting worse, especially without Alsius acting as a tiny voice of reason.

He was glad he couldn’t read Varuni’s desires now, as her hands twitched like they wanted to pull off a net that wasn’t there. “I—I have to go,” she said at last, uncharacteristically rough. “They’re expecting me.”

“Go,” Vargo said tiredly. He didn’t ask if she would still be back before first earth.

Fortunately he wasn’t left to brood for long. Ren showed up first, letting herself in and saying, “I’m surprised Tanaquis offered to come here.”

Vargo was, too—but grateful. It meant he didn’t have to haul his broken carcass up to Whitesail. “Might not want that maid of hers overhearing. Though this en’t about the medallions.” For once.

Ren didn’t press for an explanation, saving Vargo from having to go through it twice. But they had a lengthy wait before Tanaquis showed up, more distracted than usual, her hair pulled into a single unwashed plait. “I hope this is important,” she said, irritated. “I’m working on a figure of nested Tricats in a Ninat framework. I’m hoping it might let us pull the last piece of that woman’s soul out of the chain. Though it would go much better if the chain existed for us to work with. But I can hardly get much done when I have to spend time traveling across the city.”

“Coming here was your idea,” Vargo reminded her. They’d scarcely seen so much as an ink stain of Tanaquis since Mirscellis’s failed attempt to help. He was glad to know she’d gotten Ren’s messages about the szorsa’s soul and the piece that had been freed, but it would be nice if Tanaquis had acknowledged those messages. Or done anything to help them to try to get Mirscellis’s spirit back. “As for whether it’s important, well, depends on whether you want to find a new holder for Sessat after I kiss Ninat good night.”

“I didn’t bring my medallion. And why would you want to kiss it?” Her face cleared. “Oh, you mean dying. Why would you die?”

“Yes,” Ren said, tone as dark as Tanaquis’s had been bright. “Why would you die?”

“An exaggeration,” Vargo said, hoping he could make it true. “But…”

Showing would be easier than telling. He tugged his robe open and peeled the bandage off his chest, hissing as the thin gauze pulled at the clots and fresh blood oozed free. “It’s not healing. I’m not healing. Alsius is fine, but I’m like a bucket with a hole in the bottom.”

That finally got Tanaquis’s full attention. “Fascinating. Is the energy drain similar to what happens when an inscriptor imbues a numinat?” She came at him with an ink-blotched glove, blinking when Ren caught her wrist.

“I don’t know,” Vargo said. “I try to avoid imbuing numinata. Normally this goes in a cycle, energy flowing from me to him and back again. Only now the flow is one-way. Alsius based the design on some of Mirscellis’s theories; Tanaquis, I’m hoping you might have ideas.” What he really wanted was to ask Mirscellis himself. He’d tried an experimental numinat or two, as if those might succeed where pattern failed, but without Alsius to offer insights, he’d gotten nowhere.

Before anybody could suggest it, Vargo added, “I don’t think making a new figure would work.” Even if they could inscribe a numinat this complicated on a tiny spider body, there was no way to replicate the mad, muddled conditions of the night Alsius had inadvertently joined their lives in a desperate attempt to save his own.

Tapping her lip, Tanaquis said, “Can Alsius still feel anything from you? I’m curious if cutting the numinat severed the bond between you entirely, or if… hmmm. Ren, didn’t you say a thread connected them, in the realm of mind?”

Vargo could translate the drawn-out nature of Ren’s “yes”; she’d been significantly distracted by zlyzen both times she looked at it. “It makes sense,” she said, fingers tracing an unseen line. “Any relationship is a connection; that one is stronger than most. I know not if what I saw is the same thing as the numinatrian link.”

“But it might be. Isn’t that why we asked Mirscellis to help with the medallions? Pity that szorsa interfered. Though her situation makes me wonder about imbuing numinata—what that would look like from a Vraszenian cosmological perspective. Also whether all souls are divisible, or whether that goes by ancestry, or faith. Heretical talk, I know, but Utrinzi isn’t here to chide me for it.” Tanaquis laughed, far too brittle. “Chiding. One time when I was a girl, I asked him about— Never mind; you don’t want that story. But he got so angry with me. Did you know he can actually shout? He’s always been too narrow-minded for his own good, never asking the next question. For him, the orthodoxy regarding death is enough.”

She was rambling worse than usual, and Vargo didn’t like the morbid turn it was taking. “Tanaquis. Ren. Do either of you have a suggestion to stop me metaphysically bleeding out?”

“I—” Ren looked helpless. “I can lay cards, see what they say. But I cannot apply it directly. A Brother Lost may be the card of wounds, but as a bandage it’s not much use.”

Tanaquis had come back to the point. “If I was looking for a purely numinatrian solution, I’d think in terms of the Lumen’s cycle, passing through Ninat’s gateway and returning to Illi to start anew.” She perched on the edge of Vargo’s desk and toyed with the pile of little paper balls, rolling them under her fingers as she theorized. “But if you’re talking pattern…”

Vargo had never heard so pure a noise of frustration as the one Tanaquis made suddenly, and the balls jumped as she slammed her fist on the desk. “I still don’t understand! No matter how much I read, no matter what questions I ask, I can’t find how they fit together! I thought eisar would be the answer, but even that doesn’t fit—imbuing isn’t why the cards work as foci—pattern is pure nonsense, and yet it works! How can it work? Is the cosmos truly so disordered? There has to be some underlying structure, something I can’t see—”

“Tanaquis!” Ren caught her cousin’s gesticulating arms and held them tight. Vargo received Ren’s worried glance and bounced it right back. Ninat: not just the numen of death and destruction, but also of seeing beyond the horizon, of apotheosis. For all her seeming unflappability, Tanaquis was profoundly vulnerable to that pressure.

Breathing heavily, she tried to reassert a semblance of control. “Forgive me. It’s just—vexing. I believed the medallions were simple. But every time I think I have a way to deal with them, I find it will only produce some new problem. I may hold Ninat, but that doesn’t mean I want people to die.”

“Well, cheer up. If we don’t fix this,” Vargo said, jabbing a thumb at his damaged mark, “might be the shortest path to destroying the medallions will be giving them to me.”

Tanaquis’s frustration cracked into an inappropriate laugh, Ren taking on the burden of her frustration with a purse-lipped glare. But though Vargo waited for the voice that scolded him when he held his life too cheaply, all he heard was the buzzing silence of his own head.

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Pavnilun 28

Ren had brought cosmetics to cover Vargo’s injuries, on the presumption that he would accompany her tonight to the ordeal, in support of Koszar. Knowing what she did now, that was out of the question—and it was a mark of how drained Vargo must feel that he didn’t press the point.

Unfortunately, the bell rang before she could convince him to rest. “Probably Tanaquis, back with a theory,” Vargo said wearily.

But it wasn’t. “Oh,” Parma said when Ren opened the door, in the tone of one finding an unpleasant surprise on her shoe. “It’s you.”

Iascat laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s just as well, Parma. Ren, is Vargo in?”

For Parma to have left her defensive seclusion, this must be significant business. Ren led them to the morning room, where Vargo was eating a bowl of tolatsy with the dogged determination of a man with no appetite, but great need.

She’d forgotten to warn their unexpected visitors. Iascat took one look at Vargo and rushed to his side. “What the hell happened to him?”

The fact that he addressed the question to Ren said he knew Vargo to be an unreliable source when it came to his own injuries. “Lower Bank business,” she said, not sure how much Vargo wanted to share.

Parma snorted. “So that’s what Sibiliat’s letter was hinting at. She said she’d make you pay. Thought she was talking Cinquerat politics—didn’t figure she’d send someone to beat you up.”

With dangerous mildness, Vargo said, “No, she destabilized the entire Lower Bank and started twelve knot wars at once. I suppose she thinks that’s suitable compensation for me stopping her father from becoming the new Tyrant.”

That quelled Parma. Iascat said, “We’ll talk about that later… but it isn’t why we’re here.” He smoothed the lay of his coat, as though checking his pockets after a run-in with a thief. “I’ve found myself picking up my medallion without meaning to—often realizing only after I’ve inadvertently used it. Parma and Utrinzi have as well.”

“Fuck.” Vargo started to rake his good hand through his hair, only to jerk away with a hiss when it touched his bruises. “Us too. I assume it’s an unfortunate result of that ritual with the dead szorsa.”

“Unfortunate, or deliberate?” Parma asked, gaze hard on Ren.

An echo of Renata’s coolness frosted Ren’s Vraszenian accent as she said, “Are you implying something, Alta Parma?”

“I’m outright saying it.” Brushing aside Iascat’s staying hand, Parma squared off against Ren. “We’re all suddenly walking around with our medallions, making it easy for somebody to lift them. I don’t like Cibrial enough to agree with her on the color of my own hair, but you suggested the ritual. And you aren’t exactly famous for your honesty. Alta Renata.”

“What think you I wish to do?” Ren demanded. “Take all the medallions for myself? I want nothing more than to get this Mask-damned thing out of my life—get all of them out of all our lives.”

Parma huffed. “So you claim. But you’re working with the Rook, aren’t you? Who just staged a one-man raid on the Aerie and broke a lot of prisoners out. Cibrial thinks this is all a plan the two of you hatched to destroy the nobility.”

That’s sounding like a better idea every day. Before Ren could suppress that bile enough to get other words past it, Iascat cleared his throat. “Cibrial and Faella are angling to get authority over this taken out of Utrinzi’s hands. They’ve been scribing an edited version of the truth for Agniet and Scaperto, that you and the Rook are conspiring against the city.”

“That’s utter—” Vargo’s attempt to rise was aborted by an insufficiently suppressed groan.

Worry flashed across Iascat’s expression as Vargo sagged back onto the couch, but he only said, “I know. But they’ve used my relative newness and my connection to both of you to make me look biased. And Utrinzi has always had a reputation for being out of touch. If they can get Caerulet and Fulvet on their side…”

It wouldn’t just be legal authority they’d lose, but access to several of the medallions. Ren’s fingernails dug into her palms.

Dropping next to Vargo with an exhausted flumph, Parma said, “Look. I just want to get rid of this thing. And I don’t mean giving it to someone else; I agree they need to be gone. After what my uncle did to himself…” She closed her eyes on a shudder. “But if you can’t do it soon, we’ll need some other way to stop Cibrial and Faella from taking them. They’ve already bent Beldipassi’s flimsy spine to their will. They think it’s just a matter of time and patience before they get me and Iascat.”

Grey can talk to Cercel, Ren thought. But who would talk to Scaperto? Would another visit from the Black Rose sway him as easily as it had when Koszar was scheduled to be executed de Ninate?

None of that solved the actual problem. “We’ve freed one of the two trapped parts of the szorsa’s soul,” she told the others. “That leaves only her dlakani, in the chain.”

“Great,” Parma said. “How do Vraszenians get rid of this dala-whatever?”

Silence. Ren looked at Vargo, who was looking at her. He shrugged helplessly: Vraszenian religious practice was hardly his strong point. And Ren had only grown up on the fringes of that world.

Eyes rolling, Parma said, “What, you don’t know your own people’s funerary practices?”

“I couldn’t afford a proper funeral for my mother,” Ren snapped. “She was burned on a pauper’s mass pyre.”

Parma sank back like a chastened child, her round cheeks flushing splotchy red. Plucking at the lavender-threaded quilting of her thick surcoat, she said, “I was supposed to know that? The woman we all thought was your mother is jostling for a place at Cibrial’s teat.”

“So, we need more information on Vraszenian funeral rites,” Iascat said, bodily inserting himself between Ren and Parma as though he feared someone might go for a knife. “Ren, if I stayed with Vargo, could you go talk to Master Serrado? Would he be willing to help?”

More than you know. “Certainly,” Ren said. “I’ll be seeing him tonight.”

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 28

I hope Koszar isn’t making an enormous mistake.

A shiver crawled across Ren’s shoulders as her group approached the night-shrouded Seven Knots labyrinth. Faith in Ažerais was one thing; staking the future of the Anduske on this ordeal was another. If Koszar failed, they would have no way to stop Branek except by passing word of the impending rebellion to Cercel… with all the bloodshed that would bring.

If Koszar fails, a little voice whispered, won’t that mean Branek is right?

To shake off that thought, Ren looked up at the roof of the labyrinth. She couldn’t see any shadows out of place, but she trusted the Rook was there. While Grey might not be able to face his grandmother as himself, the Rook could and would keep watch in case things went badly wrong.

And Ren expected them to go badly wrong. There were too many people present, and a disheartening number of people surrounded Branek along one side of the interior colonnade.

Idusza jerked her chin at a cluster gathered on the opposite side of the colonnade, by the Face and Mask for Nem Idalič Zimat. The stout older woman at their center glowered as though she’d been dragged out of bed for this nonsense. “Good—Nainev and her friends stand not with Branek. Ljunan said they might be ready to break. This bodes well.”

Koszar’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Better it would bode if the Black Rose joined us tonight.”

Ren said nothing. What could she say? Koszar had begged her to accompany him. He didn’t know the specifics of what had happened here at the labyrinth, but he knew she would be the next speaker for the Ižranyi. You can have that, or the Black Rose. Which one do you want more?

She’d chosen to come as herself. Unmasked, her face bare of the cosmetics she’d worn before, because by now Laročja would have learned the truth. There was no more point in lying.

Sure enough, the old woman stabbed a sharp-nailed finger toward Ren the moment she drew near. “That outsider,” Laročja spat. “That half-breed. That fraud. In this labyrinth she stood and claimed the right to speak for the Ižranyi. She contaminates this sacred rite; no doubt all along her plan has been to manipulate it for the traitor’s benefit.”

“I will oversee the ordeal,” Mevieny snapped, hand tightening on Dalisva’s supporting arm. “A right you tried to wrest from me early. Szorsa Arenza only acknowledged what was already mine.”

“She won with a stolen card!” Laročja proclaimed, playing to her audience rather than to Mevieny. The charms braided into her silver hair swayed as she turned to face the crowd, a reminder of her rank and authority. “My precious Meszaros clan card, taken from me years ago by a treacherous boy. The same cursed wretch who is now that one’s lover!”

Mevieny scoffed. “Claim you that one card makes the difference? Of many threads is a pattern made. And our Lady weaves stronger than any one woman—be she girl or crone.”

Before Laročja could find a response to that insinuation, Mevieny released Dalisva and clapped her hands. “For a purpose we have come, to discover whom—if anyone—Ažerais favors. Ustimir Hraleski Branek of the Stretsko, Koszar Yureski Andrejek of the Anoškin. Come, together let us seek the guidance of dream.”

Dalisva mixed aža into a cup of yellow wine for the three of them to share. Then they circled the colonnade, one man on each side of Mevieny, guiding her steps. Branek made an ostentatious point of placing his offerings in the Faces and the Masks second, after Mevieny. Koszar, unruffled, went last. Either his serenity was a mask of its own, or his faith truly was steadfast.

When the offerings were done, the trio standing at the mouth of the path, Mevieny shook off their hands. With slow but sure-footed steps, she walked the labyrinth alone, following its twists and turns. A lifetime of memories to guide her? Ren wondered. Or does she see with aža’s sight? The little dream transcended ordinary vision, but what it showed was fickle. Then again, the Seven Knots labyrinth had survived even the Tyrant. If anything on the Lower Bank had graven itself so deeply in Ažerais’s Dream as to persist through the shifting images aža bestowed, it would be this place.

Ren had not made offerings of her own, but she still prayed. May Koszar win. He has to win. Branek would drown us in blood.

At the heart of the labyrinth, Mevieny dipped her fingers into the basin of water and touched them to her forehead. Then she turned to face the head of the path, and her voice rang full and rich. “Ustimir Hraleski Branek. Speak your grievance for Ažerais to hear.”

Standing to one side of the path’s entrance, Branek addressed the crowd. “I say that Andrejek has abandoned the ideals of the Anduske, the children of the dreamweaver. He is like The Face of Song, veiled: a facade of peace that fails to hide the trouble within. To the Cinquerat he would bow, rather than fight for the freedom of this city—while every day, our people suffer and bleed! To lead us, he is no longer fit… if he ever was.”

Mevieny nodded in acknowledgment, while Ren wondered if Laročja had fed him that line about The Face of Song. “Koszar Yureski Andrejek. Speak your grievance for Ažerais to hear.”

Koszar let a bitter smile touch his face. “No claim now that I cut my knot, Ustimir? At least you have respect enough not to lie before Ažerais.” He tugged the knot from beneath his shirt collar: not a simple charm, but an interwoven mass inherited from all the Anduske leaders before him. “Here it is, uncut. To take power, Branek lied, condemning me for an act I committed not. He is the traitor—and no faith can you have in a man who has none.”

On its own, it wasn’t enough to turn people away from Branek. Perhaps if Koszar had been able to reveal the treachery months ago… but too much time had passed; his rival’s grip had solidified. This was no longer simply about politics, though. It was about the judgment of Ažerais herself.

In theory. Ren bit her lips so hard, she feared they would bleed.

A strip of embroidered cloth already covered the gaps where Mevieny’s eyes should have been. Still, she took out a length of violet silk and bound herself again. A symbolic gesture, but the symbol mattered: She would not see with her waking eyes. Only that which the dream showed her, in the name of the lost Ižranyi.

The clan both Branek and Andrejek claimed to honor. If only the Ižranyi still lived—a thing people said far too often, an invocation of an idealized past. A time long before the Tyrant, before Nadežra suffered under Liganti control.

Ren prayed to Ižranyi, ancestor of that lost clan. To Stretsko, Branek’s holy founder. To Ažerais herself. If Branek serves you not—if he serves Nadežra not—then stop him. Somehow. I beg you.

“Ustimir Hraleski Branek of the Stretsko,” Mevieny said. “By ordeal shall your claims and your heart be judged. Put your faith in Ažerais, and your path will be smooth beneath your feet.”

Branek set his shoulders and began to walk.

He strode along the winding path like he wished he could bull across the grass and head straight for the center, blasphemous though that would be. With Nadežra he would do the same, crushing those who opposed him into blood and bone beneath his feet. It might be effective. It would also be a nightmare.

And nightmares answered him.

The torches that lit the labyrinth seemed to dim. The shadows of the colonnade lengthened, detached, scuttling down past the Faces and the Masks, spindle-limbed and hissing. Hairless hides, cracked like charred wood, shifted over raw bone and wiry muscle as the zlyzen swarmed.

Ren clapped both hands over her mouth to hold in her scream. She recoiled a step, grabbing at Idusza—and the other woman shot her an annoyed look. One finger, laid over Idusza’s full lips, cautioned her to be quiet.

But she showed no hint of alarm. No one did… except for Branek.

His step faltered. In the silence of the labyrinth, Ren heard him draw an unsteady breath; then he forced himself onward. All around, the others watched, as if all they saw was the man submitting himself to ordeal.

Not the monsters who had come to test him.

Ren’s hands stayed clamped over her mouth, but for a different reason now. I can see them. I haven’t taken aža. Why can I see them?

Another night, another labyrinth. Atop the Point, in Ažerais’s Dream. She’d gone to rescue Vargo from the zlyzen… and in exchange, she’d bound herself to them. Strengthening the connection formed when she swore herself into Ondrakja’s blasphemous mockery of a knot.

As much as Ren loathed Branek, it was all she could do to keep herself from leaping forward when the zlyzen began attacking him. He’d taken aža, not ash, and so their claws passed harmlessly through his clothes and his flesh. But Branek couldn’t control his flinches, his ragged gasps of fear. His progress along the path slowed.

And Ren couldn’t control her memory. Vargo, crouching sick and afraid, holding the zlyzen at bay with nothing more than red chalk. Leato at the bottom of the empty wellspring, screaming. Dying.

“Leave me be!”

The shout was Branek’s. The zlyzen chased him as he bolted from the path, but they stopped at the labyrinth’s edge, slinking back and forth, crawling over each other and snapping at an audience that couldn’t see them.

All around the colonnade, people were murmuring in shock. Abandoning the ordeal didn’t necessarily mean Branek had lost, not when Andrejek had yet to walk. Ažerais might condemn them both. But it boded ill for him.

Ren, lowering her hands, risked a glance at Laročja. The older woman’s expression was as unreadable as stone. But she stared straight ahead—not at Branek, gasping and huddled on the ground.

Mevieny must have seen it all, through aža’s sight. Still, her voice was calm as she said, “Koszar Yureski Andrejek of the Anoškin. By ordeal shall your claims and your heart be judged. Put your faith in Ažerais, and your path will be smooth beneath your feet.”

Koszar took a deep breath and laid his cane aside. Then he, too, began to walk.

And the zlyzen…

They lunged at him, all hissing growls and snapping fangs. But only from a distance: each time they pulled up short, like dogs on leashes, before belly-crawling away. Menacing, not attacking. Koszar’s steady, uneven footfalls didn’t falter as he traced the looping line of the path, swinging in and then out, doubling back upon itself in tight coils.

Until he reached the center of the labyrinth, where Mevieny waited. Then the snarling creatures faded like mist, leaving the courtyard quiet.

But before they went, Ren was horribly sure the leader of the zlyzen—the one who wore Ondrakja’s old knot charm—turned and gave her a sharp-toothed grin.

Every part of her was cold. I did this. I brought them here, because I wanted Branek stopped.

Laročja was right. I tainted the ordeal.

She stood rigid as Koszar guided Mevieny out of the labyrinth, a straight line to the edge, leaving any ill luck behind. The speaker for the Ižranyi removed her violet blindfold and announced, “The ordeal is done. Ažerais has judged Ča Branek and Ča Andrejek, and all have seen the result. Ča Andrejek has her favor.”

Ren tried to force words past the strangling tightness of her throat. Before she could, a woman cried out along the side of the labyrinth. “Look! In the mouth of Ir Entrelke!”

The deity of good fortune. With a trembling hand, the woman reached out and plucked a card from the opening where worshippers placed their offerings.

Ren knew that card. She’d seen the spreading wings of that ghost owl in the pattern Laročja laid, here in this same labyrinth: The Silent Witness, the clan card of the Anoškin.

Laročja moaned, staggering as if her knees had gone suddenly weak. Clasping her hands together, she said, “May the Faces and the Masks forgive my foolishness. This is the danger, when the loud voices of powerful men speak over the whispers of our Lady. But in the silence, at last I hear clearly. Ča Branek has lost his way; it is Ča Andrejek whom Ažerais means to lead us now!”

Regaining her strength, she faced Koszar and touched her heart. “Ča Andrejek, you have been wronged. But I will stand by you to make it right… and so will those who listen to me.”

Cynicism cracked the ice around Ren’s heart. At least she didn’t pull it from behind Koszar’s ear. It hardly mattered whether anyone else guessed that Laročja had planted her assistant with that card ahead of time, insurance against the possibility that Branek might fail the ordeal. The important thing was, she’d just thrown her allegiance publicly behind Andrejek. A threat, neatly wrapped in a concession: The Anduske might follow their leader, but Branek had gathered support from outside their ranks, too. Support Koszar would need, if he wanted to make real change happen in Nadežra.

Support Laročja could just as easily revoke as bestow.

Grey should have come like Koszar asked, Ren thought, fuming. Only he could expose Laročja for what she was: a fraud, a malicious liar who’d abused her grandson for years, who didn’t deserve the respect and authority she’d been given. If he had the slightest concern for justice—

Sickness rose to gag her. You know why Grey made the choice he did. And you know why you’re angry at him. Because the claws of A’ash were sinking ever deeper into her heart.

Mevieny’s dry voice dragged her back to herself. “It seems Szorsa Laročja concurs with the judgment of the ordeal. What say you, Szorsa Arenza?”

What could she say? If she confessed—if Koszar’s half-Liganti advisor confessed—that she might have inadvertently tainted the ordeal, she would be handing his enemies a knife to sink into his back.

Our Lady weaves stronger than any one woman, Mevieny had said. The blind szorsa stood serene, her hands wrapped in the purple silk that had hidden nothing from her. She couldn’t meet Ren’s gaze, but her manner had the same effect.

If the ordeal truly had been tainted, surely Ažerais would know. And their goddess had other ways to condemn Koszar, whatever the zlyzen did.

“Ča Branek’s path is one of fear, violence, and failure,” Ren said, forcing herself to speak with something like tranquility. “Always have I trusted Ča Andrejek to lead us to a better way. Tonight’s events change that not.”

“Then we are woven in agreement,” Mevieny said. “Koszar Yureski Andrejek of the Anoškin, you are worthy in Ažerais’s sight. You have broken no oaths, betrayed no trusts, and brought no shame to your kureč or clan.” She couldn’t outright reinstate Koszar’s leadership of a dissident group, but she didn’t need to. The message came through clearly.

As did Koszar’s reply.

“Children of the dreamweaver,” he declared, loud enough for all to hear. “As Szorsa Arenza said, Ča Branek’s path was one of fear, violence, and failure. I will not lead you in such ways.

“But the path we walked was that of the labyrinth—like the sacred labyrinth that once marked the stone around our Lady’s wellspring. A wellspring that has been outside our control for far too long.”

The columns by the entrance held no Faces or Masks. Despite his bad knee, Koszar leapt onto the pedestal of one and wrapped his free hand around to hold himself in place, high enough for all to see. “Branek’s goal is right, even if his methods are not. And so to you I pledge: We will take back what we have lost. But we will not with blood stain those pure waters. The Great Dream comes, and we must be ready to greet it—with the Old Island in our hands!”

The surge of cheering struck Ren like a blow. She faded into the shadow of a column, hoping her expression didn’t show the depth of her shock. I thought I was helping Koszar stop a rebellion.

He hadn’t even warned her. When had he made this decision? He must have been considering it well before tonight. But fear, violence, and failure: She’d handed Koszar the rhetoric herself.

And she couldn’t deny he’d used it well. No tactic would bring all the Anduske to his side tonight; a few, Branek among them, were slipping out the back door of the labyrinth. A flash of light from the roof was the Rook signaling that he’d follow, in case they decided to protest the decision with violence. But they were the minority. The evidence of the ordeal, combined with Laročja’s support and Koszar’s declaration, meant that most of the Anduske were back in his camp, the divisions of the past year forgotten.

Ren looked at Dalisva, standing serene. Clearly she’d known this was coming. Which meant Koszar had probably been talking to the Kiralič, maybe other ziemetse as well. Did that mean they were ready to support him, not only against Branek, but against the Cinquerat itself?

She breathed out, trying to slow her heart. Trying to think clearly, if that was even possible anymore. This isn’t what I wanted. But is it what we need?

The waters of the Dežera were rising. Soon the Wellspring of Ažerais would appear, ending not only this seven-year cycle, but a Grand Cycle. The beginning of a new age. If there was ever a time for Nadežra’s rebirth, this was it.

Ren didn’t want a rebellion. But she wanted what it might produce, so badly she could taste it.

Most importantly, she wasn’t the only one who wanted it. All the cheering Anduske, the ziemetse willing to set differences aside for the chance at real change. Ren could see the place in the grass where she’d laid her vision of Nadežra’s future: the clans coming together, with Labyrinth’s Heart at their center. The promise of peace.

She didn’t think she’d created this. But maybe she’d felt it coming.

And maybe it was time for a revolution.

16

The Face of Song

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Pavnilun 30

“Andrejek did what?” Tess demanded, staring at Ren.

It was both like and unlike being back at Traementis Manor. Ren had to watch what she said at the townhouse, but not because she feared maids listening at keyholes; instead it was river rats she had to worry about. The shredding of Vargo’s organization had left all the knots scrabbling over their territorial boundaries, and the resulting brawls had spilled over to innocent citizens—along with some not-so-innocent ones.

Arkady’s territory had always overlapped that of other, older knots. Those knots had let it pass, because her kids were pity-rustlers and petty pickpockets, not any challenge to their control. When everybody grabbed for everything they could, though, the kids were the first to lose.

So they’d bolted for cover… into Ren’s house.

Not all of them. Before she lost her place on the Upper Bank, she’d managed to get some of the most vulnerable into the households of adoptive families. Others had fled, or were old enough to earn places in adult knots. A few were dead in the canals. But Arkady had led much of the remainder straight to someone she knew had space for them, and a heart too soft to turn them away.

It meant Ren couldn’t rant to Tess about Koszar’s decision to go ahead with the rebellion, even though they were currently alone in the parlour. “I understand why,” she said. “I even agree—I think. I only wish he had warned me.” As if the leader of the Anduske had any obligation to consult with her. He didn’t even know she was the Black Rose.

Tess said, “But… people will get hurt.”

While Koszar wouldn’t order a wholesale slaughter of the impure, some amount of bloodshed was inevitable. Ren’s heart ached every time she imagined it. Yet what was the alternative? Let things continue as they were, with the Liganti controlling everything? With Vraszenians and common Nadežrans bleeding every day on the Old Island and the Lower Bank, metaphorically and literally?

And the deeper resentment, centuries old. This was a Vraszenian holy city. Filled with many other people, not just Liganti but Isarnah and Ganllechyns and more… but theirs. With the Great Dream coming, and the end of a Grand Cycle, how could they leave it in other hands?

Reasonable thoughts. But Tess caught her sleeve, and Ren realized that without thinking, she’d drifted toward the stairs. Toward the cellar, where her medallion was buried. How much could she help Koszar—how much could she help Nadežra—with just a little assistance from that disc of bronze?

The tug on her sleeve turned into a pinch. Ren laid her hand over Tess’s with a wan smile of thanks. “We’ll do what we can to protect people.” Without Primordial aid.

“Right.” Already Tess had taken the news and transformed it into bustle. She tucked her hair into her kerch as though she meant to set to work right that moment. “I’ll need to move the shop’s supplies. Else they’ll get looted, sure as snapdragons. Little Alwydd should be safe. Vargo’s old knots don’t have a foothold there, and Old Mag has a passel of grandkids with too many muscles and not enough work. I’ll just—”

“Oi!” Arkady’s voice ripped through the house like a nicked razor. With so many children coming in and out, sitting on the porch or by the windows, Ren had no need for a bell anymore. “Got some cheese-eaters on the stoop says they know Re-nah-ta. They en’t hawks or nothing. Want me to search ’em for weapons?”

It was probably Iascat and Parma again, coming to relay the newest trouble from Cibrial. “Faces and Masks, no,” Ren murmured into her hand, then shouted back, “No, and not for purses, either. Bring them to the parlour.”

“I’ll make tea?” Tess said, but Ren caught her before she could leave.

“You’re not my servant. Never were. And we owe no hospitality to—” Her words stoppered her throat in a frog’s croak when she saw who was entering the room.

Donaia. And behind her, a tentative Giuna. Arkady and her kids lurked in the shadows of the hallway, eyeing the small gems sparkling on the cuffs and collars of the ladies’ surcoats. Ren even caught the flash of a thumb knife palmed as soon as Arkady noticed her looking. A pointed glare sent the children scurrying and their leader skulking off.

“It isn’t what it looks like!” Tess blurted when Donaia’s gaze swung from Ren to Arkady and back.

“And what do you think it looks like?” Donaia asked.

“That… we’re… setting up our own knot of child thieves?” Color rode high on Tess’s cheeks. She pressed plump fingers to them. “We aren’t.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Donaia said. Her voice was cool, her gloved hands clasped tightly against a surcoat of brushed chocolate wool. From anyone else it might feel like a dismissal, but Ren was just relieved it wasn’t outright condemnation.

“What… what brings you here?” she asked in a halting amalgam of Arenza’s and Renata’s voices. As when she’d met Giuna in Suncross, she didn’t know who to be around these women.

“I’ll fetch tea,” Tess said and bolted, closing the door behind her.

At least trapping Ren like that made it difficult for her to slip downstairs to Tricat’s hiding place. She forced her attention to her guests—if they were guests. “Have a seat. Just move Doomclaw not.” Arkady’s ginger tom had taken over the most comfortable armchair and hadn’t budged from it once that Ren had seen. In sleep he looked almost peaceable, but it was a bigger lie than any she’d ever told. The only creature he tolerated besides Arkady was Clever Natalya, who’d curled herself into a tiny inkblot between his paws.

At least Donaia didn’t make them sit in awkward silence. Once she’d settled herself away from Doomclaw, she said, “Here is what I’ve pieced together. This ‘malevolent numinatrian artifact’ you and Tanaquis told me about may or may not have once belonged to the Acrenix, but it’s connected to Ghiscolo’s sudden death and Sibiliat’s house arrest. Letilia used it to curse my family when she fled Nadežra. Giuna told me she’s been in Ganllech since then. At some point Letilia used it to curse you, and perhaps you found out; perhaps that’s why you stole it and came back here. What I don’t know is why. Were you hoping to get enough money to cleanse yourself? But you seemed surprised to discover we were cursed. And apparently Meppe was cursed at some point, too.”

Donaia’s hand tightened into a fist. “It almost fits together, but not quite. And I’m reluctant to take action against Letilia until I know the full extent of her crimes. I tried questioning Tanaquis, but we’ve hardly seen her since you were unmasked, and when I went to her townhouse, her maid blocked me at the door. Said she had orders not to let anyone in, not even by Cinquerat command. So I must come to you for answers.”

Ren licked lips that had gone sandpaper dry. “You trust me to tell you the truth?”

“Yes.” Donaia’s gaze was level. She didn’t say the rest: that if Ren lied now… then it truly would be over.

Doomclaw sighed and corkscrewed in his sleep, dislodging Natalya. She squeaked a protest and rearranged herself.

Ren raised her voice. “Arkady.”

No sound came from behind the door, but she knew the girl was there. “Arkady, I need you to make sure no one overhears what we say. Yourself included.”

Donaia’s mouth thinned with doubt, but from behind the door came a muffled voice. “You got it.” And Ren trusted that Arkady would do as ordered.

Then she told Donaia everything.

It was easier to speak of Primordials than of her own lies and the pain they’d caused. Partway through, Giuna clamped her hands over her mouth, eyes as wide as an owl’s. Donaia’s expression was a brittle mask over whatever lay beneath. Ren kept her own gloveless hands folded in her lap, her posture as straight as Renata’s, and talked steadily until she ran out of truth to give.

Well, almost ran out. Giuna unclamped her hands and whispered, “Does this have to do with you being the Black Rose?”

Donaia’s head whipped around fast enough to unpin a tress of hair. Ren fought the urge to plant her face in her palm. “Not—not exactly.”

Giuna flushed, realizing what she’d done. “Oh. Sorry. I— Wait!” This time she caught herself, the struggle visible; then she forged ahead anyway. “Grey is your sweetheart. And the Black Rose is… There are stories of her associating with…”

Why in the name of all the Masks did I choose clever people to con? She could have gone after Fintenus instead. Ren silenced Giuna’s unvoiced question with a curt nod.

A full minute passed in perfect stillness, the only sound the rasping of Doomclaw’s tongue as he groomed little Natalya with long sweeps that rocked her whole body.

Sighing, Donaia said, “I feel like Tanaquis, saying this, but… that all makes a great deal of sense. I’m only surprised you didn’t use the Black Rose to frighten off Letilia.”

“If only she were so easily frightened,” Ren said. Not smiling, but feeling for the first time as though she could. All differences fell into the canal in the face of a mutual dislike.

“What was your plan for dealing with her?” Donaia held up a hand, forestalling a protest Ren had no intention of making. “Don’t try to claim you didn’t have one. I know you well enough for that.”

“Seteris,” Ren admitted. “I was going to send her there with money enough to make all her fondest dreams come true… and hope it would be too much hassle to return.” Freed of Tricat’s curse, Letilia’s luck might be better than whatever drove her out of Ganllech.

Donaia huffed. “A kinder fate than I intend to give her. Whether she meant to hurt us or not—no, she did mean to hurt us. Just not to the degree she achieved. She deserves to be hurt in return.”

“Does she?” Ren let the question hang until Donaia met her gaze. “Or is that what you want?”

She felt a little bad saying it, but only a little. Her own wish to strike buzzed in her throat like a caged hornet; the rebuke was as much for herself as for Donaia. The other woman’s gloved hands, brushing the foreskirt of her surcoat straight, paused mid-stroke. A brown surcoat: Tricat’s color, which Donaia wore often.

Her hands lifted as if she suddenly wanted no contact with her own clothing.

Giuna said, “Letilia is terrible, and I hate her for what she’s done, but… she didn’t know she was cursing us. She’s already done her worst to Ren; maybe we should leave it at that.”

“She won’t leave it at that,” Ren said. “Letilia has figured out that Tricat is important; she’s trying to get it back.” How much had Cibrial told her? Probably as little as possible.

Donaia smacked one hand against the arm of the couch she shared with Giuna. “Then we have to deal with her.”

Ren hesitated. If she didn’t ask, she couldn’t receive the answer she dreaded. You’re more prepared to face Primordials than this? Yes—but if she could brave the one, she could brave the other.

“When you say ‘we,’” she said softly, “who do you mean?”

“Of course I mean…” Donaia sputtered to a stop, hand hanging in the air between them. It dropped to her lap with a whump. “How am I supposed to trust anything to do with family, knowing one of these cursed things had control of my mind?”

“Masks have mercy.” This time Ren did give in to the urge to bury her face in her hands. “How think you I have felt, all this time?”

Donaia’s answer came soft and weary. “I don’t know how you’ve felt. Were we ever family to you?”

Ren sat up and found Donaia biting her lips together as if to hold back other words. Not angry ones—not even hurt, Ren thought. Just… lost. Uncertain. Looking for reassurance.

The same thing Ren craved.

“I—I know not how to… how to be family,” she said. It felt like stretching a cramped muscle: painful, but good. “For Vraszenians, kinship is blood, but growing up, I had no kureč or clan. Only my mother. And after she died, Tess and Sedge—we swore to each other as siblings. Then… you.”

She included Donaia and Giuna both in her admission. Tanaquis, with her curiosity and intellectual drive, had become a friend for sure, perhaps more. Meppe and Idaglio were nice enough. By the time Ren realized she saw Leato as more than a mark, it was too late. He had died and all she felt was guilt. But Donaia and Giuna had been with her through the worst of Storm Against Stone, as she’d been with them. That was all she’d ever known of family.

“I was afraid to tell you who I was. What I’d done.” Her breath hitched with every word. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to lose you. And the words I want you to trust most, you have lost all reason to believe.”

It took everything she had to make herself meet Donaia’s gaze. And what she saw there…

“Oh, fuck Primordials,” Donaia said, and dragged her into a hug.

There would be salt stains on the shoulder of Donaia’s surcoat later, but Ren suspected her aunt might shred her entire Tricat-colored wardrobe for dishrags. Once Ren had extricated herself from that hug and Giuna’s that followed, she said, thick with the aftermath of tears, “If it helps, I grew closer to you after I lost Tricat. Not everything is Primordials.” Your own desires will destroy you—that was how the curse worked. She certainly had wrecked herself fairly badly by caring for the Traementis. But the desire at least grew on its own, free of Primordial influence.

At a thump from the hallway, Donaia jerked and placed herself between Ren, Giuna, and the door. Arkady’s voice rose up, audible even through the thick wood. “… told you five times already, she said nobody was to listen. So I en’t letting nobody past.”

Tess’s response blazed a path through three languages, six impossible bedroom activities, and nine gruesome ways a person could become a corpse. In the gasping silence that followed, Arkady’s soft whistle was clear as blown glass. “Damn, Freckles. You kiss your sweetheart with that mouth?”

“Yes. And he enjoys it. Now step aside, if you please.”

The door opened, and Tess bustled in with a full tray and an expression as prim as a neatly tucked seam. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I don’t think the tea’s gone cold yet.”

“No.” Donaia’s lips twitched. “But the cakes may have gotten a little scorched.”

Tess weighed Ren with a swift glance as she set the tray down, taking in the marks left by tears. “Is there anything else you need, Ren?”

Two kinds of family in one room, and the knot charm around her wrist. She lacked only one thing.

“Yes,” Ren said. “I need clothes to get married in.”

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 30

Yvieny wasn’t playing on the stoop. That should have been Grey’s warning. But after days of wrangling Arkady’s kids in Westbridge and dealing with Koszar’s pivot toward revolution, he saw the quiet as a promise of peaceful refuge.

When he stepped through the door, only cold shock kept him frozen in place, rather than fleeing.

“You said he visited rarely,” Jakoslav Szerado said to Alinka. Lifting Jagyi off his knee, he set the boy on the floor. “I will take my leave. Go on, little bandit. Go to your mama.”

At the gentle nudging, Jagyi’s grip on his grandfather’s panel coat firmed to toddler-backed steel. His face twisted up in a pout, and he sagged to the floor like he was Clever Natalya’s caravan: immovable even with a team of four fine horses.

Grey found his voice, rough as unsanded wood. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing. I meant not to intrude. I only wanted…” Jakoslav’s water-pale eyes went like a lodestone to Jagyi, then Alinka. Yvieny crouched in the corner with her dolls, watching the adults with lips tight and eyes wide. “I came not to bring strife between you. I wished only to meet my daughter and grandchildren. I will go.”

“Stay.” Alinka pressed a hand to his shoulder, though Jakoslav had made no effort to rise. “We cannot send you away so soon.”

Grey could and would—but this wasn’t his house. He took the cup of tea Alinka thrust at him, but his knees refused to bend for him to sit. Instead he stood by the door, knowing it was awkward, unable to move. Just looking at his father made him feel small, like he was a ten-year-old boy again.

If he raises a hand to you, he’ll learn how much has changed, he told himself. Just as he had at the labyrinth, looking down at the silvered head of his grandmother—but there he’d had the presence of the Rook to keep him strong. And if he raises one to the children…

Grey was suddenly and profoundly grateful that Ryvček held Quinat now. If he were still under its sway, he feared what he might have done.

He forced himself to sip the tea, and almost spat it out again. Not because it was bad; no, this was excellent tea, not the cheap brick sort that was all Alinka could afford. His gaze snapped to the hearth, to the beautifully painted box there, and Alinka smiled. “A gift from your father.”

“It’s nothing.” Taking Jagyi’s chubby hands in his, Jakoslav pressed the long blade of his nose to Jagyi’s little mushroom. “I heard your mama’s kureč comes from Zmadya upriver, and I thought she might miss the taste of home, so far from family.”

Grey’s hand trembled at the suggestion that he wasn’t family, at the insinuation that he was neglecting Alinka and the children.

Alinka met his eyes and rolled her own, but that was scant bandage over a wound that had seeped blood his whole life. “Brother Grey takes very good care of us,” she said.

From the corner came Yvieny’s voice, soft but hinting at belligerence. “Uncle Grey brings me honey stones. They’re better than some yucky old tea.”

It chased away some of Grey’s gloom. Jagyi might be easily swayed, but at least he’d bought Yvieny’s loyalty with years of sweets smuggled past Alinka’s tolerant sighs.

“What is this ‘Grey’ nonsense?” Jakoslav asked. The thump of his bootheel on the wooden floor made Grey flinch. “Is his great-uncle Gruzdan’s name not good enough for my son? You disrespect your family for a mere boy’s grudge?”

A boy’s grudge? Was that how his father remembered the years after Grey’s mother died, before Kolya took him away? Was that how he managed to see himself as a good man and a wronged father?

“I remember those days differently,” Grey said, as evenly as he could. With Kolya gone, if he didn’t remember, who would?

Alinka could hardly miss the tension, but unfortunately, her instinct was to ease it with hospitality. “It’s almost time for me to prepare lunch. Will you join us? Perhaps we can all share some happy tales of these past years. And Yvieny can show you the dolls Kolya made for her.” Yvie let herself be herded forward, but she clutched her dolls protectively to her chest.

“I’d like that.” Lifting Jagyi once more to his lap, Jakoslav held out a hand to Yvieny like he was coaxing a fawn. Grey found himself hoping for once that Yvie would give in to her penchant for biting. “Come, Yvie. Perhaps after lunch you can show me your koszenie, and I will tell you stories of your father’s family.”

“Yvie is only six,” Grey said. “She hasn’t yet been given her koszenie.”

He deliberately counted it by Nadežran tradition, where the first year of life was the first year of age. His suspicion that Jakoslav had gathered plenty of information already was confirmed when his father said, “Nonsense. She was conceived during the Great Dream, which means she is seven. If her koszenie isn’t done, I would be happy to embroider the paternal side. This old man has only time to occupy his hands.”

“I’ve already started,” Grey said, not mentioning that his efforts had only gone so far as to buy floss. Tess had promised to teach him, but so many other things kept them both occupied.

“Then little Jakoslav’s. You wouldn’t be so selfish as to deny me both.” Jakoslav aimed his appeal at Alinka, as though he knew Grey would deny him anything and everything.

“Jagyi won’t need his for years,” Grey snapped. But he knew it for an error the moment the words came out of his mouth, even before Alinka flinched. He tried to moderate his voice, and knew he failed. “The boy has only just met you, Dodač.”

The word slipped out, well-oiled by past habit. Few Vraszenian families these days were so formal as to use the old words for various relatives. But Jakoslav had always insisted on it, and even though Grey had sworn he would never call the man that again, his body remembered the blows that followed on the heels of disrespect.

That one word earned Grey his first smile of the day. His father’s approving nod curdled like sour milk in Grey’s gut. “You’ve shorn your hair and cut free of your name, but at least this place hasn’t carved all manners from you.”

After that, Grey could hardly shove his father out the door. Nor would he give Jakoslav the satisfaction of watching him flee. So he was forced to endure a meal with the man, listening to him make friendly, reasonable conversation with Alinka, well-greased with compliments toward the children.

No. Toward Jagyi. Yvie quietly sorted and resorted her dolls, ignored.

When the meal ended and Jakoslav finally left, Alinka closed the door and sagged against it, sighing. “Fear not, Grey. I haven’t forgotten Kolya’s stories, nor yours. Though… he is not as bad as I imagined.”

Heat and cold washed through Grey in alternate waves. “He’s very good at seeming not so bad. If he weren’t, someone would have intervened long before Kolya took me away.”

“Yes, yes.” Alinka passed a hand over her brow. “Still… he deserves to know his grandchildren.”

“If only that were all he wants.” Grey fought to keep his voice low. Jagyi was asleep, and Yvieny had fled upstairs as soon as she was released from the table. He didn’t want his nephew to wake, his niece to overhear this poison. “Alinka, my father has no heir.”

That widened her eyes. “But—surely the Szerado are not without sons. There must be nephews, cousins, other male kin.”

“There was a nephew, yes. But two years ago a horse threw him and he took a terrible blow to the head. The others aren’t fit to lead—or at least my father considers them unfit.” Grey had a lihosz cousin in Gursoven who would be ideal. That man’s grandmother had been Isarnah, though, which meant Laročja would never accept him.

“But Jagyi is so young. It will be decades before he’d be suited to lead a kureč.” Twisting the end of her sash belt in her hands, Alinka added, “Have you thought perhaps that his kindness to the children is to show he has changed—that he has regrets? Perhaps it is you he wishes to reconcile with.”

And name as his heir. She didn’t say it, but Grey had to laugh all the same. It was laugh or bleed, and the fact he could do the former came as a pleasant surprise. “The moons will set in the northern sea first.” Even if his father considered it, Grey would never agree. Nor would his grandmother allow it. Not with the curse she’d found in his pattern, so many years ago.

With an effort, he pushed them from his mind. Taking Alinka’s hands in his own, he said, “It matters not. My family is here, and family brought me here today. Ren and I have had enough of waiting. On the spring equinox, we will be married.”

Alinka’s shriek of delight pierced his gloom like sunlight. It roused Jagyi from his nap and brought Yvie dashing down the stairs, and their joy at his news was a reminder of what family could—and should—be.

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Pavnilun 32

Few things gave Donaia more satisfaction than making someone she despised wait on her pleasure. When the person in question was Letilia, satisfaction grew to vindictive delight.

She did feel a slight tremor of guilt when she allowed the bouncing pup at her heels to surge forward and greet their guest with dusty paws and slobbery tongue—but not for Letilia’s sake. After the dog breeder gave her some pups from the litters Meatball sired, Colbrin had devoted much of his time to training them. It wasn’t nice of Donaia to encourage such misbehavior… no matter how gratifying she found it right now.

“Dumpling. Down,” she said, clicking her fingers.

The grey-brindled pup left off his excited leaps and trotted happily over to receive the morsel of dried mutton Donaia offered him. “Good boy,” she said, giving a scruffle of encouragement as well.

Letilia shuddered and tried to scrape her composure back together. She’d never liked pets of any kind, seeing them as threats to her own dignity and skirts; Dumpling’s enthusiasm had driven her into retreat between two chairs. Now, with him called off, she squared her shoulders and lifted her nose into the air. “I don’t know why I did you the kindness of accepting your invitation; I should have made you come to me. I must be softhearted, giving you another chance, after everything you’ve done to me.”

“What I’ve done to you?” Donaia’s bark of laughter sent Dumpling under her skirts for shelter. All too aware of the lingering influence from the Tricat medallion, she’d intended to make this meeting brief and to the point… but surely anyone in her position would take a little time to relish their vengeance. “What did I ever do but bear your snubs in silence, while you did your best to turn our entire register against me? All your whinging to your father that I was a mere outer relation, that I should be grateful to be given meals and a bed—that with my mother gone, perhaps I should be struck out entirely? Gianco only wed me to protect me from you, you vicious little snipe.”

“Yet here you stand as head of the house, with the rest of our family gone,” Letilia hissed. “Apparently I was right to warn Father about the poison of outsiders.”

Donaia lurched back a step, hand going to her gut as though Letilia’s strike had been physical. Poison: the word Ren had used, over and over again, to describe the Primordial influence on their house.

Nothing in Letilia’s manner said she knew what wound she’d just dug her thumb into. No, that was Traementis insularity talking, for all that she was Traementis no more. Tanaquis might have cleansed Letilia of the curse, but the influence of A’ash remained.

In both of them.

To keep herself from going for Letilia’s throat, Donaia bent to extract Dumpling from her skirts. The pup was already getting too large to hide there, but the warmth of his barrel and the softness of his ears grounded her. She couldn’t bring herself to be gentle with Letilia, not after the endless years of petty viciousness, the inability to care about anyone but herself. But she didn’t have to fling that whole Primordial business in the other woman’s face, either, revealing what was better kept secret.

She could get all the justice she needed out of Letilia’s own situation.

“Yes,” she said, fighting to keep her tone restrained. “I am head of House Traementis. And it’s my duty to see to house business. I understand an offer was made to you on our behalf; I’ve invited you here to amend it.”

That lanced the boil of Letilia’s anger, deflating her into confusion. “What offer? Who made me an offer?”

“Ren. Your erstwhile… maid.” She let the implication spool out, let Letilia draw the wrong conclusion.

Gloves straining over her knuckles, Letilia whispered, “You mean… you’re willing to reinscribe me in the Traementis register?”

Donaia’s satisfied smile rode roughshod over Letilia’s incredulous one. “No, I’m referring to a different offer. More of a suggestion, really—that you leave Nadežra with funds to set yourself up somewhere else, and never return. Though I’m afraid the lack of prudence you showed in refusing that generous offer has cost you an opportunity, as any stipend is now off the table.”

That brief, greedy hope hardened into scorn. “What game is this? You think you have the power to drive me out of this city? When you can barely show your face in public?”

As if she’d forgotten the thread of the conversation, Donaia glanced down at Dumpling. “This pup is the get of Lex Talionis, you know. We made arrangements earlier this year with a dog breeder, Rhuelt Glastyn—I don’t suppose you met him while you were in Ganllech? I understand he’s supplied dogs to many princely households… including that of Prince Maredd.”

Letilia’s face whitened beneath the powder. Voice barely louder than Dumpling’s panting breaths, she whispered, “Has he.”

“Indeed. Dog breeders mostly gossip about bloodlines, you know, but sometimes even that subject runs dry and they must find fresh meat. Like the news about Prince Maredd’s mistress being stripped of the title he gave her and exiled from Ganllech, on pain of death. Something about a missing royal heirloom. A… hen brooch, I believe?”

Letilia had gone rigid, not quite hiding the panic that must be building inside. Letting the mask of casual conversation fall, Donaia said, “You do know that in Nadežra, impersonating a noble is a crime.”

“A crime committed by that gnat you call a niece!”

“My niece, as you just pointed out, is a member in good standing of House Traementis. You, on the other hand, have no family willing to shelter you. Meanwhile, you’ve announced yourself as Alta Letilia Viraudacis, loudly and often. You’ve demanded a noble’s right to have your honor defended in a duel. You’ve threatened my family, Letilia—and for that alone I would gladly see you drowned in the Depths.” That, and ten thousand reasons beside. The years of constant, grating nastiness, before Letilia fled. The unwitting selfishness that had cursed House Traementis, reaping even Donaia’s beloved son. For that, she could watch Letilia hang, and drink deep in celebration afterward.

But Leato wouldn’t want his mother to go down that road.

“I will do you the courtesy of allowing you to leave Nadežra before I notify the Vigil. But if I see your face again, Mistress Letilia, be certain that my courtesy has reached an end.” One hand signaled Dumpling to stay; with the other, Donaia opened the door. “And be eternally grateful that, thanks entirely to Ren, House Traementis no longer dines on vengeance.”

She half expected bluster anyway, Letilia trying to play cards she didn’t hold. Instead, white-faced, the woman walked out in silence, and Donaia shut the door behind her.

Alone, she slumped onto the couch. Dumpling sat at her feet, obedient but quivering; in contravention of all good principles of dog training, Donaia reached down and lifted him into her lap. A few moments later, voices came from the front hall: Tess and Giuna, chattering about what Giuna might wear to Ren’s wedding. Another balm on Donaia’s healing soul.

Smiling, she nudged Dumpling off her lap and went to join the conversation. Those two should know the fruit their efforts had borne. And she could ask Tess if Ren might like a dog of her own for a wedding gift.

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 35

“Watch your head,” Idusza said to Ren and Grey as she ducked under a beam bracing two sagging walls apart.

The Anduske headquarters were buried in the warren of Seven Knots, the path there deliberately confusing, making it harder for their enemies to reach them. If Ren had known the way, she might have spoken to Koszar sooner than this. The confrontation at the labyrinth hadn’t taken Laročja out of the dance; she’d merely switched partners. The people she’d summoned from outside Nadežra to help make the rebellion a reality were a runaway caravan: Koszar could only grab the reins and do his best to steer it in a safe direction. But where else might Laročja drive him, without someone else to counter her influence?

Grey laid a reassuring hand on Ren’s shoulder as Idusza knocked at the final door, and she flashed him a brief smile. She wished Vargo could have come with them, but he was still recovering—slowly. Too slowly, Ren feared. Not merely without his usual speed, lacking Alsius’s life force to help him along; he was healing more slowly than an ordinary person. And though he hid it with makeup and sardonic wit, exhaustion hung over him like a shroud.

The door guard let them into a long series of rooms with their walls replaced by temporary divides of beaded curtains and latticework screens. Vraszenians clustered in every nook and alcove, the colors of every clan flashing in their braids. “These are all Anduske?” Ren whispered to Idusza. It didn’t seem possible. Some of those they passed were lighter skinned, northern Vraszenians, with the lilt of Nadežra softening their tongues. Others were clearly from the south, one group dark enough to almost pass for Isarnah, and some of the accents were so thick she barely recognized the words as Vraszenian.

“No. Most have come for the Great Dream,” Idusza said, clicking her tongue like many Nadežran natives did when the seven-year flood arrived in town. “They follow the tail of that old gutter cat.”

Laročja. Seeing her people this deep in Koszar’s sanctum worried Ren.

Then Idusza lifted a reed screen, and Ren saw that it wasn’t only Laročja’s supporters who’d gotten in.

Koszar sat in a circle of low camp stools with a cluster of people. Mevieny, Ren was glad to see… but the other two were Laročja, and a man whose resemblance meant he could only be Grey’s father, Jakoslav Szerado.

Koszar levered himself up at the sight of the arrivals. “Szorsa, Grey, it’s good to have you. As you can see, we are deep in planning.”

“I imagine you have not much time,” Ren said, hoping her dismay didn’t show. She could hardly talk to Koszar about Laročja with the old woman right there. And it would look suspicious if she asked to speak with Koszar privately. “You intend still to begin before Veiled Waters?”

“We must.” Koszar balanced with his cane as he sat. “It gives us hope of consolidating control before the Great Dream. I would not do as the Tyrant did, and deny our people access to our Lady’s waters.”

She wished she could persuade him to delay, but Koszar would want to know why, and she couldn’t name the medallions as her reason. Couldn’t even tell him for how long, not when they still hadn’t figured out how to free the third part of the szorsa’s soul from the Uniat chain. Grey had said there was no particular ceremony for sending the dlakani on its way, no kureč or clan to mourn a woman without name.

Grey himself was a tense pillar at Ren’s side. She knew he’d encountered his father at Alinka’s house; of course Jakoslav would be here as well. A sullen fire burned through Ren’s veins when she remembered the stories Grey had told. The years of abuse, in the name of purifying an innocent child.

Now was not the time to drag that up. Neither Laročja nor Jakoslav looked at Grey, and Jakoslav cleared his throat pointedly. “Koszar. Regarding the Upper Bank—”

“What’s this?” Ren asked, her attention snapping back. “I thought the plan was to control the Old Island.”

“It is.” Koszar held up a hand to forestall Jakoslav. “But even with the skiffers on our side, there are still the bridges to consider. The cuffs will retaliate, and their strength is greater than ours. We must occupy them with other worries.”

“What other worries?” Grey asked. “Have you so many people that you would risk leaving them on the Upper Bank?”

“I will leave none of ours where they might face danger. But as I said, we have the skiffers. And the cuffs cannot watch the entire riverbank at once.”

Raids. Like the Stretsko had done this past summer, the night they attacked Vargo’s house. The nobles and delta gentry might play at boat racing, but the clan of the rat ruled the river. The clan of the soldier, whose thread was dyed with blood.

“If violence spills onto the banks,” Ren said sharply, “where will it end? That you can take the Old Island, I believe; many who live there are sympathetic, or at least resent the cuffs as much as you do. But will you start a war? Have you the means to fight a war? Because if you attack the delta gentry and noble families where they live, you will have one.”

Placing a steadying palm at her back, Grey said, “I know something of Nadežra’s military strength. Not only the Vigil, but the soldiers at our borders, who will turn inward if you give them reason. What hope you to accomplish with this?”

“Think not so ill of me,” Koszar said, gesturing for them to sit. Ren forced herself to comply, despite the tension winding her tight. “Our plan is leverage, not bloodshed. And the ziemetse support it. Well, most of them.”

Ren wondered if the holdout was the Varadič. Had the lack of that card in her stack at the labyrinth been prescient? Or had its absence influenced what was happening now?

Koszar was still talking. “The river they will blockade, cutting Nadežra off from the south. To the east and the west they’ll interfere as they can with the Dawn and Dusk Roads. With no sea ships we cannot blockade the port, but while we make noise on the Old Island, Nadežra’s trade will be choked on three sides of four—until the Cinquerat agrees to negotiate.”

“They’ll fight,” Grey said, sounding more thoughtful than resistant. “The border forts won’t sit quietly while you raid caravans. But on the river you have greater strength, and soldiers that fight your raiders east and west are soldiers that cannot be brought into Nadežra. It… is a good plan.”

It was a good plan, and Ren dearly wished she knew who had suggested it. Was Laročja more reasonable than she thought? Was Branek or Jakoslav a canny strategist? Or was this from Koszar, or from the ziemetse? Too much was out of her control for her to breathe easy.

But this wasn’t her rebellion. As Ren or Arenza, Renata or even the Black Rose, she was only one of many. She didn’t envy Koszar trying to navigate so many shoals.

She could mark a few for him, though. “Delta family coffers are not so deep as the nobles’,” she said. “Most have only a few sources of income, and much of it flows back into noble pockets. They will feel the bite first. But some have ancestors on both sides of the river; they would say they are Nadežran, not Liganti or Vraszenian. Get them on your side, and they will help you lean on the Cinquerat.”

The rattle of cards shuffled and bridged was as polite an interruption as a cleared throat. Laročja drew a single card, frowned, then put it back into her deck.

Koszar’s mouth pinched. “You have insight to offer, Szorsa Laročja?”

“What insight could I provide that would speak louder than one who has spent so much time among the Liganti? Who knows them so well, and shares their blood.” Folding her hands over her deck, Laročja kept her eyes downcast. “Who has even bewitched a child of my own blood to turn against his—”

“Stop.”

Grey’s voice was soft, but sharp enough to cut Laročja’s words short, and the hand at Ren’s back clenched so tight it trembled.

For the briefest instant, Laročja’s lips tightened like they were holding in a harsh reprimand. But she knew she had an audience; she merely said, “You see? This old woman will remain silent.”

If only, Ren thought. And sure enough, Laročja spoke again before Koszar could move on. “If I give not my voice to these concerns, though, who will? I speak not for myself, but for Ažerais. And for Ažerais’s children, who came here at our call to support a Vraszenian uprising.”

“Ažerais speaks to me as well,” Ren said, resisting the urge to add, a good deal more clearly. “Despite my northern blood.”

Laročja laid one hand over her heart as though surprised. “Your ancestry is not what concerns the people, but your allegiance. Are you not written into a Liganti register? Bound more by ink than by blood? Many saw you come in here today; they will wonder where you go when you leave.”

Ren stiffened. If Laročja meant to keep her prisoner here—

“Meaning no disrespect to an honored elder,” Idusza said, braided head bowed. “But that is such utter horseshit, one might mistake you for a wagon mule.”

Mevieny’s hand found Idusza’s shoulder with unerring accuracy. Her grip must have been harder than it looked, for Idusza bent under it. “And sometimes a rat can be mistaken for a cat, when it grows too big and bold. But Ča Polojny is not wrong about Szorsa Arenza’s character. Much has she done to help our people in Nadežra. In quiet ways… but they speak louder than mistrustful whispers, Ča Szerado.”

Only when Laročja’s breath hissed between her teeth did Ren realize that last comment was addressed to her, rather than to Jakoslav. It was the polite way to address a Vraszenian—but not a szorsa.

Tugging her shoulder out of Mevieny’s grip, Idusza said sullenly, “Not only quiet ways. She led us to the saltpeter for the amphitheatre bombing, and her cards helped us steal it.”

Mevieny grimaced. “Of that… I was not aware.” Her scowl landed to the left of Ren’s head, but Ren knew it was for her all the same.

“Peace,” Koszar said, as much a warning as a plea. “Szorsa Laročja, for bringing these concerns to me, I thank you. But Szorsa Arenza has my full trust. She understands the need to keep our plans held close.”

Ren went cold. She hadn’t even thought that far—but she should have.

The Traementis. When Ren had made her confession to Donaia and Giuna, it had only been about the medallions, not anything to do with the Anduske. Not a deliberate omission; it simply hadn’t been on her mind.

But she’d promised Donaia honesty.

And honesty now would cost the Anduske everything. If Donaia knew about the rebellion, there was no way she’d stay quiet. Whatever sympathy she had for Vraszenians, it didn’t run deep enough to wash away the objections she would make about violence, about stepping outside the accepted channels for change. She would warn the Cinquerat. The Old Island would be lost, and all they’d gain would be another fifty years of retaliatory oppression.

If Ren kept this from her, though… it would be the end. Donaia couldn’t take the betrayal of yet another secret, yet another lie. This fragile thing Ren had made with the Traementis, a new family born of ink rather than blood, would burn to dust.

No matter what Ren did, she would lose something. The Traementis, or a new Nadežra.

Grey’s hand gripped her own. Laročja, seeing that, let a poisonous smile bloom.

The choice was no choice at all—and she wouldn’t allow Laročja the satisfaction of knowing she bled inside. Ren said, “May An Lagrek damn me to the isolation of no name but Zevriz if I betray you, Koszar Yureski Andrejek.”

Her oath made him straighten in surprise, but he knocked his cane against the floor before Laročja could speak. “Then the matter is settled, and this meeting is done. Though if you are willing, Grey, for you I have questions about the Vigil’s likely response.”

It was a dismissal to the rest of them, and Ren stood, trying not to shake. Justice versus family. Whatever choice I make plays into Tricat’s hands. If she was sliding deeper into Primordial influence, though, at least she’d chosen the path that would benefit more people.

On sudden, panicked reflex, she checked all her pockets to make certain she hadn’t brought the medallion. She hadn’t noticed any particular insights into what other people wanted… but could she trust she wouldn’t just chalk it up to her own skill?

Her pockets were empty, and then Mevieny caught her searching arm and tucked it close. “For you I have questions about your assistance to the Anduske.”

Ren let herself be prodded away from Koszar and Grey, taking Mevieny to the far side of the reed screen. “I knew not what saltpeter even was used for when I helped Idusza steal it,” she murmured back. “Much less what they planned for it.”

“That is a relief—but not what I truly wished to speak of. Is anyone close enough to hear?”

They’d stopped in the corner farthest from the other clusters of revolutionaries. “No.”

“Then this warning I give you. Only Dalisva and I know how much you are the chosen of Ažerais. For the rest… Laročja speaks truly when she says you are trusted not. That is as true among the ziemetse as among the Anduske. If news of this endeavor reaches Liganti ears, it matters not whether you kept your oath to An Lagrek. Many will blame you. And they will seek retribution.”

“Fear you any leak?” Ren asked softly.

Mevieny’s breath huffed out. “In a group this large? Always. But—”

“Mevieny. Ren.” Laročja’s sweet voice made a point of omitting a szorsa’s courteous title. “While the others chatter, I would speak with Ren alone.”

“It’s fine,” Ren said, answering Mevieny’s questioning squeeze with one of her own. Laročja’s words couldn’t wound Ren, and she didn’t seem the sort to pull a knife. If she did, Ren had a shawl full of her own knives to answer with, courtesy of the grandson Laročja had spurned.

But the only daggers Laročja seemed inclined to cast Ren’s way were of the glaring sort, and Ren tired of the contest. “As you have so kindly pointed out, I was not raised in a kureč, so my knowledge of proper manners toward elders is thin. If you have something to say, say it.”

The hard edge sheared away, leaving a woman tired and concerned. The worst part was, it didn’t look like a lie. “I fear I’ve angered you to the point where you will listen not, but still I must try. I failed our Kolya. I should have convinced my son to find the boys before it was too late… but Szerado men are so proud, it sometimes beggars all sense. Whatever else may be true of him, Gruzdan is the same.”

His name is Grey. “Let me guess. This is prelude to you warning me he is cursed.”

“So he told you. Even convinced you it is a lie, told by a wicked old witch. But here.” Laročja lifted her deck, presenting a fan of cards to Ren. “Just one. Humor me, girl with Ažerais’s gift.”

Ren had seen countless tricks that began with a single-card draw, but Laročja didn’t seem like she was preparing to astonish Ren with her sleight of hand. Sighing, she drew one.

The Face of Balance. The card of justice and order.

“You recognize this,” Laročja said, watching her closely. “Not the card itself—it has special meaning for you.”

“It means Grey,” Ren said coolly. “When he was in the Vigil. I patterned him before he quit.”

“Surely you saw more. A darkness that clings to his heels.”

She hadn’t even been able to look at The Face of Balance when it appeared in the Rook’s spread. That had been defenses rising against her, though, nothing to do with Grey. His pattern had seized her throat until she almost couldn’t breathe: his twisted future, brought about by him interfering with the cards. “What saw you, Laročja? What makes you so certain he is cursed?”

Ren suspected Laročja’s shudder was deliberate—but not feigned. “A moment ago you swore by An Lagrek. The Mask of Unraveling was the heart of his pattern, telling me that with us he has never truly been woven. All across his spread, the Masks cursed him. In his past, The Mask of Worms, The Mask of Chaos; in his present, The Mask of Ravens. Where he goes, he brings conflict. His mother—”

“His mother was ill,” Ren snapped. “She was ill, and your solution was to blame her infant son. That death is on your head, Laročja, and lucky you are that it wasn’t two.”

Now she saw the ugly truth behind Laročja’s sweet mask, as the old woman went to ice. “You think that boy is The Face of Balance? No, girl—those are the hounds of justice at his heels. What crime Gruzdan committed in a past life, I know not, but he must pay for it. Yet always the price comes instead from the people nearest him. His mother is gone, and his brother. Would you condemn those sweet children to that? Would you condemn yourself?”

Ren lifted the card to fling it back at Laročja. The Face of Balance gazed at her: unsmiling, implacable. It was supposed to be the dlakani that received reward or punishment for its acts in life, not the part that was reborn… but was it possible Grey had carried some weight forward from a previous life? What could leave that kind of mark?

You know the answer to that. Faella had told her. And Laročja had seen it in Grey’s own past, as The Mask of Worms.

The taint of a Primordial.

Ren was practiced in hiding her shock and horror, but Laročja hadn’t earned her reputation as a gifted szorsa by relying on pattern’s insight. She nodded as though all her claims had been confirmed. “Yes. You see it as I have. But the question remains—what will you do about it?”

Boots struck the floorboards hard enough to make her flinch, and then Grey was at Ren’s side. He gave Laročja his shoulder, as though even her existence wasn’t worthy of note. “I’ve told Koszar what I can. Are you ready to go?”

“More than,” Ren said, shoving the card back at Laročja. “Come. Let us find fresher air to breathe.”

17

Warp and Weft

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

The townhouse’s kitchen door was propped open when Vargo arrived by splinter-boat bearing several large ewers of the Heron of the South Wind’s Vraszenian spiced chocolate. A decira was more than enough to buy the two skiffers’ aid in carrying Vargo’s wedding contribution inside.

“That will go cold,” said the voice Vargo most dreaded, before his eyes even adjusted to the dim kitchen light. Alinka Serrado stood with her hands on her hips, frowning at the ewers steaming in the morning chill.

A tug on Vargo’s peacock-hued waistcoat smoothed the creases obtained during his slumped journey from the Upper Bank. He hoped his mask of smiles and powder hid his exhaustion. Reaching past Alinka, he tilted one of the ewers and showed the red wax seal stamped underneath. “Warming numinat.”

Alinka softened. “Thank you. This will help keep the children out of the wine.” She gestured at three crates stacked in the corner.

Vargo’s ribs creaked like the rotted hull of an old ship as he chuckled. “I see Era Traementis didn’t stint on doing her part for the bride’s family.”

“I think the bottom one was already here?” Alinka frowned at the stack. “It has a House Extaquium stamp.”

Shuddering, Vargo said, “Throw it in the canal. On second thought, don’t. I went to a lot of effort to clean those waters.”

“And grateful we are for it,” Alinka said, with unexpected sincerity. Then she dug in her pocket and produced a clay bottle. “More of the tonic I gave you. But… it is not good for you to use so much.”

“It wasn’t good for Tserdev to work me over like that, either,” Vargo said lightly. Alinka wasn’t fooled; her concerned gaze flicked to his brow. To the old scar that cleaved it—which had started to crack and bleed like it was new.

“What she did was wrong. Here.” Excavating her pocket again, Alinka pulled out a handful of odds: a sticky candy wrapped in paper, a handkerchief, a pretty green stone, an arm from someone’s mutilated doll. And a small wooden box with waxy cream she reached out to dab on Vargo’s brow.

“Uh.” He looked at her finger, eyes crossed.

Alinka’s skin was too dark to show a flush, but he read it in her sudden awkwardness. “Forgive me. You are no toddler. Here.” Thrusting the box of unguent into his good hand, she swept the other trinkets back into her pocket and escaped upstairs.

It bought him a moment of privacy. He dabbed the salve onto his brow, then tucked it away. If he had more time later, he might unwind his neckcloth and see if it would do any good for the seeping scar on his throat.

Working one-handed was awkward, but Vargo managed to affix the numinat he’d prepared to the side of the clay bottle. A quick scratch with a stick of red ocher closed the line, and he downed the tonic before the numinat could burn out Alinka’s imbuing.

It intensified the taste, too, and he stood gagging, pressing the back of one hand against his mouth. Peabody hopped onto the counter and drummed all eight legs at him. Bead-dark eyes gleamed like they were overflowing with tears and judgment.

“I know,” Vargo muttered. “But the alternative is collapsing during their vows. You want that instead?”

No answer came, of course. He hadn’t felt so alone since he was a child.

You’re not alone. He had Ren, and with no reason to hide it anymore, a fresh charm around his wrist to prove it. He had other friends and allies.

He had the desperate hope they would find an answer to his problems, before it was too late.

Giddy shrieks and pounding feet above reminded Vargo that there were more children here than just Alinka’s two nippers. He might not have any knots left to call his own, but he was still a master at commanding them. And besides, he had one more gift to deliver.

“Oi! Arkady Bones,” he hollered, scooping up Peabody and stomping up the stairs. “Stop causing problems and get your knot together. You got work to do.”

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

Ren felt almost as unreal as she had after the Night of Hells left her sleepless. Somehow the impulsive decision to stop waiting and wed Grey had grown into an event with two dozen guests—not counting the kids Vargo had put to work, or the younger ones Old Mag was distracting with fire tales in an upstairs room.

“Hold still,” Tess chided when she shifted in her seat. Ren’s hair had to be loose for the start of the wedding, but that wasn’t the same as leaving it untouched. Tess was combing elderflower-scented oil through it, trying to get every strand where she wanted. The mood was nothing like a maid to her mistress, and Ren smiled at Tess in the mirror.

Her sister swatted her when Ren reached for a necklace of interlocked crescent moons, a pre-wedding gift Giuna insisted she wear. By Liganti tradition, grey and silver were proper for a wedding—the colors of Tuat. To Vraszenians, though, those were Kiraly colors. Grey had looked magnificent in his panel coat when they’d gone to the Seven Knots labyrinth to make their offerings to the Faces and the Masks. Tess and Alinka had colluded to embellish the embroidery going up one side and down the other until the fabric was barely visible beneath the intricate, pearl-colored threads. But Ren, clanless, simply wore the finest Vraszenian clothing Tess had been able to provide on short notice. Her copper-threaded sash belt evoked the Traementis fondness for such shades without directly being Tricat’s bronze.

The medallion itself was in the cellar, and Sedge was assigned to make sure Ren went nowhere near it, watching her like—“Not like a hawk,” he’d said when she gave him that task. “Glad your man shed his feathers before you married him, or I’d have a problem.” He’d raised a meaning-laden eyebrow at Tess, and she quickly steered the conversation toward matters unrelated to her choice in sweethearts.

At least Grey was free of Quinat now. Ren had done her best to push aside Laročja’s conviction that some stain haunted him from a previous life, and her own flash of fear. Even if the old woman had found truth in her cards for once, it wasn’t enough to drive Ren from Grey’s side.

And she wasn’t about to let thoughts of that malicious crone ruin her day. Lifting her chin, Ren fastened the necklace around her throat. She was Vraszenian and Liganti, after all, and didn’t have to feel guilty about that.

When she was finally arranged to Tess’s satisfaction, Ren stood for the last piece. She wasn’t the first person to marry into a Vraszenian family from the outside, without a koszenie to wear. Tradition’s answer for that was a piece of plain black silk. But Ren had chosen instead a private joke: the patterner’s shawl the Rook had sent after ambushing her in the kitchen. Though she’d removed the knives for today: Bringing blades into a marriage invited strife.

Alinka tied the shawl around her hips and gave her a happily teary smile. “For your children’s koszenie, we will need to invent a Traementis symbol.”

Thanking the Faces for imbued cosmetics, Ren blotted away her own tears with one of the ample supply of handkerchiefs Tess had stuffed into her pocket. “A triple clover?”

From the gleam that sparked between Tess and Alinka, Ren suspected the two women liked the idea. “Later! Later,” she said, laughing, before her wedding day turned into a stitching circle. “May I go downstairs now?”

“So ready to make my brother her husband,” Alinka said, hands clasped over her heart.

Tess snickered. “Maybe she’s just ready to have him unmake her bed.”

Alinka met her, grin for grin. “Already he has seen to that!”

Ren fled before her blush burned away the powder on her cheeks.

Downstairs, she found the parlour and hall astonishingly full of people: Pavlin and Dvaran, Varuni and Iascat, Koszar and Idusza keeping a wary distance from Scaperto and Cercel, Yvieny and Arkady giggling in a corner in a way Ren hoped someone was keeping an eye on.

The Traementis contingent formed an awkward cluster off to the side, near the chair Doomclaw refused to relinquish. Nencoral had made good on her threat to return to House Fintenus, but Idaglio was discreetly dabbing at tears, while Meppe had Clever Natalya in the crook of one arm, making up for their separation with a lavish scratch under her chin. Even Tanaquis had come, though her distracted stare said that wherever her thoughts were, it wasn’t this part of the cosmos. Ren diverted to join Grey in welcoming Dalisva, Mevieny, and the Kiralič as they arrived, but with that duty discharged, she went to her adoptive family.

Donaia’s smile was tentative, but Giuna’s beaming welcome brought summer in on a chilly spring day. “You look beautiful!” she cried, clasping Ren’s hands in her own. At their twined fingers, covered and bare, she let slip a gasp of feigned shock. “But where are your gloves? Having sacrificed one to the Rook, did you cede the other to Grey so he wouldn’t be jealous?”

“Stop being ridiculous. Of course a Vraszenian wouldn’t wear gloves.” Donaia batted Giuna’s hands away, but only so she could capture Ren’s in turn. “Though she’s finally embraced our custom of sleeves,” she added, winking.

Ren’s laugh came naturally. Strange though it still felt, it was a delight to be herself with so many people. “It’s far too cold to go without. And I have all the attention I need.”

Donaia leaned in close. “I want you to know I didn’t forget a gift; it’s only that my original plan fell through. I was going to offer you a pup, but Tess tells me you’re afraid of dogs? I never realized!”

“Meatball I’ve learned to tolerate,” Ren said. “And the puppies are undeniably cute. But… actually. If a puppy you are willing to give, then I know Tess would love one.”

“Oh.” Donaia’s conflicted expression quickly gave way to another smile. “Of course Tess should have one; she took such good care of Meatball. But in the meanwhile, I’ll have to find another gift for you.”

A cackling Arkady galloped past, bearing a shrieking Yvieny on her back, and followed by Jagyi toddling as fast as his chubby legs could manage.

“Perhaps I’ll talk to Scaperto about allowing you and Grey some time at his bay villa,” Donaia said dryly, patting Ren’s shoulder with the long-suffering sympathy of a woman who’d raised children. “Now go. You have other guests to welcome. And Giuna tells me there’s a warm Vraszenian drink I simply must try? One I won’t regret in the morning?”

Leaving Giuna to introduce the Traementis to the glories of spiced chocolate, Ren continued circulating. Grey was doing the same, and every time she glanced across the room at him, she found him glancing back at her. Then they would laugh, and someone would notice and elbow one of them, and she felt like she would float away on the giddy joy of it all.

Until Vargo came up to her with Master Peabody on his shoulder and Sedge at his heels, the latter hiding something behind his back. Vargo’s color was still bad and his kohl-rimmed eyes glittered like he had a fever, but he managed a reasonable smile. “I’m told gifts are usually given after the wedding’s happened, but… you need this one before. Assuming Sedge and I got it right.” His expression added, Fuck, I hope we got it right.

Sedge presented what he’d been hiding: a flat, beautifully carved box. He stood like a footman while Ren unfastened the latch and opened the box—

Revealing a neatly folded expanse of black silk, intricately embroidered in green and grey, white and blue, red and gold.

The colors smeared in Ren’s vision, and her throat closed up. She could barely make her shaking hands lift the fabric from its case. It cannot be—this is impossible—

But the silk slid through her hands, and near the edge she found a place where it had been torn. Someone had repaired the damage with neat, tiny stitches, then replaced the embroidery that crossed the tear.

Ren knew that tear. She’d asked her mama what caused it; Ivrina had yanked her koszenie out of Ren’s little hands and stuffed it back into the chest where she kept it hidden.

She was on the floor and didn’t even know how she’d gotten there. Vargo crouched over her, worried. “Fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea. Is it the wrong one? After this many years, it was a long shot—”

“How?” Ren whispered, staring at him, at Sedge. Everyone else had stopped talking; they were crowding around, and Grey slipped through to kneel at her side. “How did you find it? Ondrakja claimed she had it, but…” All those years Ren tried to find her mother’s lost koszenie, and Ondrakja had it all along. The final manipulation, a secret prize she would give back only once she had Ren’s perfect loyalty. Instead Ren had poisoned her, and the koszenie was lost.

“Simlin,” Sedge said, closing the box. “Got it from him that the Vigil sacked the lodging house after the Fingers broke apart. That led us to Gil Vasterbol, who holds the charter for selling confiscated goods. He’s still got that big chest of hers—keeps stuff in it he wants locked up—so when we went to talk to him, he let me look for hidden compartments. When we found that in there…”

Vargo finished for him. “We thought there was at least a chance that it was the right one. I guess it is.”

Ren barely heard the explanation, too busy passing her fingers along the embroidered lines like they held answers to her past, her mother’s secrets and sorrows. Which, in a way, they did. But…

“I know not how to read it.”

She looked at Grey as she spoke, but it was Alinka, worming her way into the growing tangle of people, who reached out. “May I?”

Letting go entirely would have taken more strength than Ren had, but she shifted her hold to let Alinka find the two corners and compare the stitches there. “Anoškin, for your mother’s mother. The Čyrost kureč. But your mother was born into her father’s kureč, the Volavka of the Dvornik.” Alinka pointed at the trees of white and green embroidery that branched out before flowering into other patterns and colors, other kretse, other clans. Then she paused. “This is strange.”

“What?” Ren fought the urge to pull the precious fabric away.

Alinka’s brow knitted in puzzlement. “You claimed your mother was cast out. But at the corners, where the koszenie is tied around the wearer—they would have cut these threads. Cutting her off from her kin.”

Like being cut out of a knot. Someone cast out would always be marked by the severed threads on their koszenie. Ren hadn’t known, because Ivrina had never taught her the customs and code.

Confusion dried her tears as she studied the stitches. “I don’t understand. Why would she lie? Why claim they wanted her not?”

Behind her, Grey drew a slow breath. “Perhaps she wanted to flee—just not enough to cut her own threads.”

As he himself had done. But Mevieny’s voice came through the press of people, soft and thoughtful. “The Volavka, I have heard of. I cannot swear that among them there is no badness; after all, who knows what happens out of sight? But their own daughter they would not cast out simply for bearing an outsider’s child.”

The Volavka. Ren finally had a name to put to the mass of people she’d imagined since childhood. Only they weren’t what she’d imagined, traditionalists so fixated on purity that Ivrina’s dalliance couldn’t be forgiven. They might have even wanted her back.

They might want Ren.

It was too overwhelming to contemplate right now. Grey and Vargo helped Ren to her feet. “I’m sorry,” Ren said to the guests. “I meant not to upset everyone.”

“You’re too smart to be that dumb,” Sedge said, at the same time Vargo said, “Technically, it’s our fault for upsetting you.”

“Yes, in private might have been wiser.” Alinka’s scowl was worthy of Tess. Like a sister, which she soon would be. Ren had expected to gain a small family today, only a few twined threads. Instead she’d been given a whole tapestry.

Her gaze caught Grey’s, his loose hair grown long enough to touch his shoulders. Just long enough to hold a braid. Waiting for her token to tie them together.

Ren brushed her cheeks dry and smiled. “No, this was a happy gift. The best gift. Here, help me.” She fumbled at the knot of the Rook’s apology shawl, and soon had it off.

Before Alinka could tie the koszenie around her hips, though, Tess darted in. “Wait! Dvornik? That’s green, right?” With a yank and a twirl, she divested Ren of the copper sash belt and tossed it over her shoulder. “One hour! Give me till seventh sun, and I swear we’ll do this proper!”

She ran upstairs, leaving Ren dishabille among her grinning wedding guests. Donaia broke the tableau by saying, “I think it’s time we broke out the wine, don’t you? Come, Scaperto.”

Which gave Ren just enough privacy to bestow a rib-cracking hug on Sedge and a gentler one on Vargo. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I know not what they will be—but now I can find answers.”

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

The lack of servants meant Donaia could escape into the half-basement kitchen to retrieve some bottles of wine.

“Are you all right?” Scaperto asked as he levered the top off a crate. “That business with the shawl… Ren could have other family out there.”

Blood family, he didn’t say. The kind Vraszenians held most dear.

Sighing, Donaia sagged against the table in the center of the kitchen. It was hard to imagine Ren sleeping on the floor here. And hard to think of her as Vraszenian, despite the evidence. “This whole business is difficult,” she confessed. “I used to think the next family wedding I attended would be Leato’s.”

Scaperto left the wine and came to hold her hand. “I’m getting off easy by comparison. All I have to do is pretend I don’t notice the fugitive radicals lurking in the corner.” He hesitated, then said, “I helped them get out of the Dockwall Prison, you know. Well, I helped that Black Rose woman get them out.”

Donaia swallowed the impulse to tell him that had been Ren. She’d told Scaperto a great deal of what Ren had shared with her, but only the parts that had to do with the city. What really happened to Ghiscolo, and the Primordial medallions behind it all. My family, she’d said incoherently, weeping into his shoulder. All this time. Poisoned by Tricat, and by A’ash. No wonder they’d clung to old Liganti ways, often marrying among themselves rather than bringing outsiders in. Gianco had been her second cousin.

“You’re a good Fulvet,” she said softly. “I never thought I’d say this… but I’m glad the office is in your hands, instead of ours. Yours are cleaner.” So far as either of them knew, House Quientis had risen on its own merits; it had never held a medallion.

With his hand on hers, she felt his shudder. “It makes you question everything, doesn’t it? Agniet, Iascat, and I are supposed to sit down with that Andrejek fellow, you know. Master Serrado’s request, for his wedding: truce today, and diplomacy tomorrow, to see if we can find a peaceful path forward. Now that I know about those… things…” He trailed off, then shook his head. “I don’t even know how to proceed.”

“With the city’s best interests at heart. Like you always do.”

Scaperto huffed a quiet, rueful laugh. “Do you know what I thought, when I found out Ren was a Vraszenian imposter? After all the what under the Lumen’s light and how is that even possible bits, I mean. I found myself thinking, no wonder she worked to calm the riots. To cleanse the West Channel. It makes so much more sense now.” He drew his hand from Donaia’s so he could rub it over his face. “What does my reaction say about our people?”

A burst of high-pitched giggles upstairs saved Donaia from having to find an answer. “I know the sound of children up to no good,” she said dryly, pushing off the table. “If Mistress Serrado isn’t careful, that imp will lead her daughter into bad ways. Let’s go, or people will suspect we’re up to something inappropriate down here.”

Scaperto caught her before she could take more than a step. “Shame to waste perfectly good suspicion,” he said. And Donaia, smiling, let him draw her in for a kiss.

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

After making his sister cry in front of everyone, Sedge vowed not to fuck up his one job for the day: ensuring Ren didn’t wander down to the cellar to stuff a Primordial artifact in her pocket. With this crowd here, he figured she was pretty safe, but no sense taking chances.

There was an armchair in a good spot by the parlour door, but that had been staked out by two cats curling around each other like the twin moons. Rather than risking his skin by disturbing Arkady’s ugly yellow tom, he dragged up a spindle-thin chair with a hard seat and settled in for sentry duty.

“Shouldn’t you be smiling at your sister’s wedding? You look like a man who’s eaten a handful of worms.”

Idusza was drinking fine wine this time instead of cheap zrel, but her words took Sedge back to a Westbridge corner and a moment he’d been hoping she’d forgotten. His cheek throbbed in memory of her fist.

“Ah. Yeah.” He eyed the glass in her hand warily. She was the sort of woman who’d break a bottle to knife a man. But probably not at a wedding? “Ren said you’d figured us out.” She’d also said Idusza had laughed. But maybe that good humor only extended to people who hadn’t made swaggering asses of themselves.

He resisted the urge to scoot away as Idusza leaned against the wall, looming over him. “I’ve forgiven her. You, though—you nearly broke my hand.”

“With my face.” His jaw twinged in memory.

“It’s a very punchable face,” Idusza said… though the gaze that swept down his body suggested his face wasn’t the only part that interested her. And possibly not for punching. Sedge shifted as far as he could without leaving his chair, searching the room for someone to rescue him.

“Too bad for you. That’s my face to punch.”

Someone other than Varuni. She’d been keeping an odd distance from Vargo today, but did she have to drift toward Sedge instead? He hunkered down as she came up on his other side, feeling like a mouse caught between two prowling cats. In the chair next to him, Arkady’s demon-beast opened one yellow eye and yawned widely. Like Sedge needed reminding of how many teeth cats had.

“Not that I’m against it,” he said as the silence grew tighter by the moment, “but can we at least agree that nobody gets to rearrange any of my parts until after my sister’s married?”

Idusza swirled the wine in her glass. “I could agree to that,” she said, raising a brow as though she’d asked Varuni a question.

“I don’t share.”

“Then I leave him to your mercy.” Laughing, Idusza drained her glass. “This wine is terrible. I need more.”

As she left to flirt with the decanter, Varuni turned her glare onto Sedge. He waved at Ren, deep in conversation with Dvaran. “I was just keeping watch over my sister,” he said, feeling guilty without quite understanding why.

“Of course. Stay out of trouble.” With something that might have been a smile, she sauntered off.

Leaving Sedge trading confused looks with the cat beside him. “What just happened?” he asked.

Doomclaw’s only answer was to stretch his toes and curl once more around Clever Natalya.

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

The women of Tess’s illegal embroidery ring in Ganllech claimed there was no teaching someone how to imbue. Imbuing was the art and craft of doing. Explanations wrapped it in a hazy cloud of ambiguous wisdom, but none of that bestowed understanding. In her youth Tess couldn’t make front nor back of it, no matter how often she tried. It made no sense.

Until one day, back bent over a chained snake knot for Prince Olyn’s table runner, her confusion settled like mist on the moors. Her entire world became fingers and needle, silk thread and linen backing.

When she raised her head, her neck ached, the fire had burned down to coals, and most of the women were snoring on their pallets. Tess felt cored like an apple, and Mavvy Red nodded from her place by the hearth. “Now you’ve got the way of it,” she said. Laid across Tess’s lap, coiled at her feet, the embroidered snakes slithering along the runner gleamed like they’d been stitched with emeralds.

Now, years later and an ocean away, finding that place was as easy as slipping into a lover’s warmth. The front panel of one of Ren’s surcoats fit against the copper sash belt with only a bit of tucking needed. Tess’s fingers flew and her needle flashed as she wove green and copper, gold and silver. Under that dance rose a slow-flowing river against a burnished sunset sky, gilded reeds rooted deeply along its bank. A long and gentle life that could withstand floods and drought, foul weather and fair. Her wish for her sister.

When Tess raised her head, blinking away bleariness, it was just like that first time: the finished sash bundled in her lap, and a feeling like she’d left something behind and couldn’t recall what.

“You’re incredible,” Pavlin said, seated by the window and watching her with open-faced wonder.

Raising hot fingers to even hotter cheeks, Tess ducked from his scrutiny. “It’s just a bit of stitching. Nothing that’ll save lives.” Not like he was doing, helping change the Vigil in his crisp new lieutenant’s coat. Or Ren and Grey, Vargo and Sedge. Now that Ren’s secret was out, Tess wasn’t even needed for the con. She loved her simple life. She preferred it. But sometimes… “Nothing that matters.”

Pavlin tugged her to her feet. One by one, he kissed her needle-sore fingers. “Who decides what matters? Nobody needs spice cakes, but isn’t the world a nicer place for them?” His dark gaze was so intense, she could become lost in it as easy as imbuing. “You do that. Make the world a nicer place. My world.”

Then, while Tess tried to knit up her frayed thoughts, he blurted, “Marry me.”

What? she wanted to blurt back, and Now? But what came out was a giddy “Yes!”

The breath of his surprise was like soft velvet on her fingertips. His smile curled against them. “Good.”

She caught his laugh, her own bubbling up to join it, and then they were kissing, the embroidered sash crushed between them.

“No telling anyone,” Tess said once they’d parted and set themselves to rights. She smoothed wrinkles from the sash and carefully folded it over her arm. “Not today. It’s bad form.”

“Of course not. But soon?” He twined his fingers with hers.

“As soon as I can make you a new coat. Sedge’ll cry if I marry a man in a hawk’s plumage.” Grinning, Tess followed him downstairs to see her sister wed.

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

Grey would have been happy to marry Ren in any colors at all. But when Tess reappeared with Ren’s sash belt, now featuring river-green panels embroidered with shimmer-gold reeds of silk, it felt like turning over the final card in a szorsa’s pattern. The koszenie Alinka tied around Ren’s hips raised more questions than it answered, but they could pursue those later—together.

As the Kiralič led them to the cleared space in the parlour, though, Ryvček spoke up in her impudent drawl. “A moment. Fine enough to have Grey’s clan leader perform the wedding on his own, when we knew not where Ren came from. But now I hear she is Dvornik! A daughter of the fox! As a fellow vixen, I insist on playing her family’s part.”

“Why should it be you?” Mevieny stood from the seat she’d claimed, fingers resting lightly on her cane. “Think yourself the only other fox skulking about? As close as you are to the groom, you’re practically Kiraly. If any is to stand for Arenza’s clan, it will be me.”

Ryvček’s gasp of outrage was exaggerated, her grin feral as she threaded past her audience to face her challenger directly. Her fingers brushed the back of Mevieny’s hand. “Very well. If you want the honor so much… let us duel.”

“I am no fool. I know your reputation, Oksana Mivriskaya Ryvček. But I have a counter-challenge.” Flicking away the flirtatious touch, Mevieny laid her palm over Ryvček’s cheek, thumb resting on her lower lip. “We’ll kiss for it.”

“She does know her reputation,” Grey murmured to a snickering Ren as Ryvček dipped Mevieny in a dramatic embrace.

Once Mevieny was restored to her feet, Ryvček barked a fox’s laugh. “I concede the victory! Szorsa Mevieny shall have this honor.”

Taking Ren’s hands in his own, Grey led her to stand before the ziemič and the szorsa. He’d had to tell her what to expect. Vraszenian weddings were often performed in public for the entire community to witness, but whenever Ren had drawn close to one, Ivrina had always hurried her daughter away.

First they shared a cup of aža, seven sips each, trading it back and forth with giddy smiles. Then the Kiralič spoke about each of their families. He negotiated those shoals with admirable diplomacy, given the sudden discovery of the uncut Volavka threads on Ivrina’s koszenie, the presence of the Traementis, and the absence of Grey’s immediate kin, who ordinarily would have been there.

By the time he gestured for them to braid the marriage tokens into each other’s hair—the second ribbon now green for Ren’s newfound Dvornik heritage—the aža was beginning to spin Grey’s vision. With everyone assembled for the ceremony, he saw no hint of the brittle mask this parlour had once been over the truth of Ren’s poverty and lies; instead the walls seemed a tapestry of many different threads, weaving and stitching themselves higher and warmer with every passing moment.

With a sure touch, Mevieny bound Grey’s hand and Ren’s together, weaving a narrow embroidered strip around them in a complex pattern. “May the Faces smile upon you always,” she said, “and the Masks turn away.”

With Ryvček smirking just past Mevieny’s shoulder, reminding him of her recent performance, Grey couldn’t let himself be outdone. The altered panel sash cinched Ren’s waist small enough to let his fingertips meet at her back as he lifted her up, spun her around laughing, and dipped her low. Her laughter was like aža-laced wine, warm on her lips, sweet on his tongue, and intoxicating.

“I want to take you away now.” Grey’s whisper was cocooned by the fall of his hair, the lift of her arms over his shoulders. Their own little world, if only they could stay there.

Two kisses landed, one at each corner of his mouth. “Yvieny will cry if she cannot dance the kanina.”

Sighing, Grey dragged himself upright, pulling Ren along with him. Ren. His wife.

But she was right. Marriage was about more than just two people. “Tie on your koszenie and truss up your skirts,” he said, facing the room with a grin so broad his jaw ached. “Vraszenian or Liganti, join in our dance—our ancestors must hear that two threads have been tied!”

Cheers rattled the windows as Ryvček passed around aža-laced wine. Faithful to his duty, Sedge took none, but most others did. Mevieny reclaimed her seat and took up a round-framed drum and beater. Her initial tick tick tick against the frame gave everyone time to form a circle in the cleared space of the parlour. It was tight, but a kanina should be danced pressed shoulder to shoulder, until everyone moved as one.

The beat transitioned to the measured syncopation of wood on taut hide, the clop of horse hooves on the road, the murmur of the river over exposed rocks. Ren had already been swept from Grey’s side. Giuna murmured stammering uncertainty as Grey caught her hands, and he grinned. “Even children learn this one. Come!”

They all danced, the Vraszenians with fluid joy, the Liganti with stiff unfamiliarity that gradually relaxed into the beat. Cercel had apparently attended a Vraszenian wedding before; she showed Iascat what to do. Dvaran had Donaia, the arm that lacked a hand behind her back, guiding her as the direction changed. Yvieny and Arkady were chaos whirling through their midst, reassuring the outsiders that it hardly mattered whether they got the steps right or not. Sedge had even coaxed Varuni away from the wall.

If this dance summoned ancestors, who would come? Not just Szerado, but Ren’s unknown Volavka kin? Could the kanina call down Traementis from their Lumen? Grey would have asked Vargo, but neither of them had the air for it. The exertion had called a hectic flush to Vargo’s cheeks, but despite that, his expression was one of bemused delight. He gave Grey a breathless grin when their gazes met, and a surge of warmth enveloped Grey’s heart. That he could hope for Volavka at all—for Ren’s people to see their dance and know of their union—was thanks in part to Vargo. Step by step, the man had woven himself into her life… and into Grey’s as well.

The rhythm quickened, their bodies colliding and compressing like a bellows when the circle changed direction. Vargo stumbled, saved by Grey’s arm around his waist. On his far side, Arkady and Yvieny had stopped their careening spin, Yvie’s bright eyes fixed on some far point.

Her lips moved. Through the cacophony of laughter and drum, Grey couldn’t hear what she said, but he read the word on the shape of her lips.

Papa?

Shock froze Grey in place. Yvie’s joyous shriek pierced him to the core. “Papa!”

Kolya. Kolya stood there, at the edge of the room. And the person keeping Grey from falling to the floor was the man who’d killed him. The man Grey had been laughing with not a moment before.

Yvie dashed away before Grey could catch her, before he could remind her that when the ancestors came, it was only their szekani, a sight granted by aža’s blessing. Wisps of memory and emotion, with no more substance than a breath. However much he might wish otherwise.

She reached the shade of her father—and he swept her into his arms.

Impossible. But there she was, with her little face buried against his neck. Alinka, pursuing her daughter, stopped just out of arm’s reach; when Kolya reached out, she hardly seemed to breathe as she took his hand. But Kolya’s translucent fingers wrapped around hers like flesh and blood.

“I can’t stay,” Kolya said, his voice holding the resonance Grey missed so badly, threaded through with a ghostly wind. “But called, I come.”

That wind swept the laughter from the room. Grey would have dismissed this as an aža dream, if not for Yvieny babbling all the things her papa had missed, Alinka flinging her own arms around them both. Jagyi, ducking his head into his mother’s skirts at the appearance of this soft-glowing stranger he barely remembered.

Grey couldn’t find his tongue. Kolya’s head tipped to one side, his slanted smile full of fondness and gentle mockery. “My little brother is wed. Will you let me meet my marriage-sister?”

That meant knowing where Ren was, and Grey couldn’t drag his eyes from Kolya to search. But the crowd shifted and she was at his side, supporting him so Vargo didn’t have to. The strength in her, as she helped him stumble toward his brother. Whatever shame Grey might feel for his own failings, he could never be anything but proud of Ren. Proud to introduce her to his only blood family that mattered.

“This is my wife, Arenza Lenskaya Volavka of the Dvornik.” His faint stumble over the name Ren could now claim was nothing compared to how his voice faltered as he said to her, “This is my brother, Jakoslav Jakoski Szerado of the Kiraly.”

Kolya balanced Yvieny on one hip so he could embrace Ren with the other arm. “Any woman who makes my troubled brother happy is a blessing.”

Unspoken guilt weighed so heavily, Grey couldn’t keep the words inside. “Kolya—the night you went to the warehouse—”

“I know.” Kolya met his gaze seriously, but death hadn’t erased the lines of laughter that fringed his eyes. “I know. Think you my brother could sneak around like that, and I wouldn’t notice?”

It stole the breath from Grey. All this time, he’d assumed Kolya hadn’t known he was the Rook. That when he’d warned Grey about the black powder hidden in the Fiangiolli warehouse, he’d only been warning his brother the hawk, not the legendary outlaw.

An outlaw who still hadn’t been able to save him. A brother who had, somehow, without ever consciously deciding, forgiven Vargo for killing him.

How could he face Kolya, with the weight of that forgiveness on his conscience?

A translucent hand brushed past his new marriage braid to grasp his shoulder. “Glad I am that you have found peace. It brings me peace. That is no betrayal.”

With a sob that shook his entire frame, Grey caught that hand and pressed it to his brow. When that soft contact wasn’t enough, he leaned in, wrapping himself around Kolya and Yvie both. It was like embracing sunlight, warmth without substance. Already the sweat from the kanina was cooling, and Kolya was growing fainter. When they drew apart, Yvie had been passed to Grey’s arms.

And Kolya’s gaze had passed to Vargo.

The man stood silent and still like prey hoping to escape notice. The flush had drained from his cheeks, leaving them as waxen as putty. Peabody stood on his shoulder, legs and abdomen raised in purely ineffectual defense.

“And you,” Kolya said, simply. Without accusation.

Vargo lifted his chin like a man accepting the gallows rope. “I’m not looking for peace. Too busy trying to make up for my mistakes.”

“One need not close out the other. Perhaps you and my brother can help each other learn how.” Hands to his heart, Kolya gave Vargo a formal bow. “Thank you for guarding his back when I could not.”

The room was so quiet, even Vargo’s tiny indrawn breath was audible.

Grey couldn’t breathe at all.

Kolya touched Alinka’s cheek, then bent to kiss her. “The dream fades. I must go.”

Her trembling hand covered his. “I know.”

“Be happy.” His voice was only an echo now, his form dust in sunlight.

“I will try.”

“We will meet again, when the road leads you home.”

Alinka nodded, hand falling limp to her side. Kolya was gone. Into the emptiness, she whispered, “When the river meets the sea.”

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 2

Vargo didn’t expect company after he stepped out of the gathering. Grey had his family to see to, and Ren had her guests; it was partly to make things easier for them that he slipped away.

He should have known better.

Ren found him sitting at the top of the stairs with a silent Peabody balancing on the back of his splinted hand. She was equally silent as she joined him, hip and shoulder warm against his, but in her case it was companionable. A presence, not an absence.

Vargo wiped his cheeks dry with the back of his good hand and tapped his temple. “It’s too loud up here, without the old man to talk sense into me.” When Peabody lifted up and down like a bouncing bean, Vargo stroked his fuzzy thorax. “Yeah, I know. I admitted it. Don’t let it go to your head.”

After a moment, she said softly, “Anger’s easier to take, isn’t it. You know what to do with that.”

Fight back, most of the time. Other times, let it hit him like he deserved.

He didn’t deserve what Kolya Serrado had said to him. Alinka Serrado’s anger, yes. Her dead husband’s forgiveness… no.

Vargo couldn’t put that into words, and he didn’t have to. He only gave a gentle bump of his wrist against Ren’s, where the knot bracelet peeked out from the belled cuff of her shirt.

Then he tucked Peabody back into place and stood. Offering his arm, he said, “Come on. En’t you supposed to be at a feast or something?”

“I am,” Ren said, slipping a hand around his elbow. “And though I will understand if you leave, I would like you there.”

He could hardly refuse. No one commented on his return; Grey only laid a warm hand on his shoulder. “Alinka took the children home,” he said. “They need some time to breathe it in.” But that still left a tableful of guests, and if the mood was a touch subdued, it soon livened up again into something like a wedding.

Happy though he was to be there, the effort left Vargo drained. Afterward he slumped onto the couch in the parlour as others took their leave, in some cases hurriedly—Tanaquis, bolting out the door like she had to catch a sudden idea before it escaped; in other cases gracefully—Donaia, with many blessings for the new couple’s happiness; and in others, with salacious winks and offers of last-minute advice—Ryvček, her arm around Mevieny’s waist in possibly unnecessary guidance. Pavlin went off to dispose of the last of Extaquium’s wine, and Tess was clattering dishes down to the kitchen when Grey came in and found Vargo still there.

Vargo twitched upright. “Sorry, I’ll head out. Just needed a moment to catch my breath.”

“You shouldn’t walk. I’ll call you a chair.”

“Won’t be any safer. Half the sedan bearers around here are in with my old knots.” So far they hadn’t come for Vargo, but he’d rather not dangle his ass out for them. “Not certain I can trust anyone these days.” He winced at how hollow and pathetic that sounded, and hoped Grey would mistake his reaction for pain.

“You trust Ren.” Grey’s gaze caught and held on the blue-and-green charm on Vargo’s wrist. “You can trust me.”

Vargo’s laugh wasn’t flecked with blood, but it felt like it should be. Kolya’s appearance had torn away the old scab of guilt. “Just shows you’re a better man than I am.”

Grey sank onto a chair, looking pensive. “There was a time I would have said nothing could make me trust you. I thought you were out for nothing but your own profit and power—and that you didn’t give a wet leech what you crushed on your way to those goals.”

“You weren’t wrong.”

“Don’t lie just to hurt yourself.” Grey’s gaze was steady. “You and Ren… you’re two birds from one egg. You’ve both hurt people, trying to get what you want. Hurt them in ways you never intended, ways that can’t be undone. But you’ve also taken care of them—sometimes without them even knowing. Ren with the Traementis. You with your knots.”

“And they still tossed me to Tserdev.” Vargo lifted his splinted hand. “Caring don’t buy loyalty the way oaths do.”

“Then would an oath convince you that you’re better than the face you show to the world?”

Vargo’s hand ached as he brought it down again. “You want to trade knot oaths with me, too?”

“I could. But it occurs to me that you owe me a brother.”

Exhaustion must have muddled Vargo’s thoughts; he was misunderstanding basic speech. “Eh?”

Grey tugged his shirt cuff back, exposing the inside of his wrist.

Even that took a moment to sink in. Brother. Wrist. Right, Vraszenians cut themselves and mingled their blood to make someone their—

“If this is a joke, it en’t funny.”

“I wouldn’t joke about this. You saved my life, Vargo. You’ve guarded my back, protected my secrets—protected Ren’s, too.” A soft laugh escaped Grey, and he gestured at the room around them. At the house Vargo had given Ren and Grey when they needed refuge. “You probably don’t even realize… among Vraszenians, it’s a brother’s job to arrange a place for a wedding.”

Vargo reached out to Alsius with a mental wail—maybe the old man could explain this, ’cause he sure as hell couldn’t—but it was like he’d said to Ren. He was alone in his head, and it was too noisy there to make sense of anything.

“You forgetting why it is I owe you a brother?” he asked, because apparently Alsius was the source of his manners as well as his sense.

Grey’s hand held steady, the underside of his wrist soft and pale. Vulnerable. “I’m honoring what my brother said to us both. Peace can only be found in making peace between us.”

I don’t deserve peace—not from him, and not from you. But there was something gently implacable about Grey’s manner. Insisting without words that yes, he did.

Just like Vargo had insisted to Ren that she deserved the trust of a knot, whatever lay in her past.

He tried to summon up a sardonic response, but all he managed was “I en’t healing too well right now.”

“We can wait if you—”

“No.” Because if he waited, he’d talk himself out of this.

Grey had no blade, because he was still in his wedding clothes, but Tess had left her sewing basket on a chair. Vargo couldn’t hold the thumb knife in his injured right hand, and he wanted the mark on his left wrist, alongside the knot he shared with Ren. Grey made the cuts for them both, then pressed their wrists together.

“I take you as kin,” Vargo repeated after Grey. “With my name, I shield your children. With my body, I guard your spouse. With my heart, I protect yours.” His tongue felt clumsy, and his voice shook. “As the Dežera connects the mountains to the sea, let our blood flow together, as brothers.”

Wary of breaking the solemnity, he fell silent as Grey bound a handkerchief tight to his wrist. Vargo hoped the small cut would clot quickly.

But he could only hold his tongue for so long. “Pretty safe bet on your part. En’t likely to marry or father brats, and my heart’s a withered old thing.”

Grey let out an aggravated groan. “You keep talking like that, and I—”

Whatever friendly threat he was about to make died at a sound from upstairs. A noise like a cry of alarm, cut short.

“Ren,” Vargo said, and bolted for the door.

He was too tired and slow, even with his walking stick to support him, and Grey was taller. His new-sworn brother made it up the stairs faster, to the door of the bedroom. And inside…

Inside, a zlyzen had Ren cornered against a wall that was fading into mist.

“Sword,” Vargo snapped, tossing his walking stick to Grey. In a flash he had it unsheathed and slicing toward the zlyzen.

“No!” Ren raised her arm as though she meant to block steel with flesh. Grey diverted the strike and caught hold of her instead. “It wants me to go with it.”

Want looked a lot more like force from where Vargo was standing, but Tess was running up the stairs, Ren and Grey were fading into something Vargo suspected was Ažerais’s Dream, and he had a choice to make.

No choice at all, really.

“We’re following a zlyzen. Don’t let anyone panic,” he shouted at Tess. Then he lunged and caught Grey’s bandaged wrist… and reality collapsed into a sinkhole of chaos.

18

Drowning Breath

She tried to hold on.

Through the veil that separated waking from dream, but not into any layer of imagined or remembered Nadežra; no, she spiraled further and deeper, past everything she knew, the only solid thing the grip on her arm. Grey, and behind him, Vargo, pulled on a journey they weren’t meant to take.

She tried to hold on.

She failed.

He follows a twisted thread, into the past…

—he’s a boy again, trapped between the bite of his grandmother’s words and the lash of his father’s belt. Wrong, wrong, seeping out of him like poisoned blood, staining the people around him. His mother’s hands covered with it, shoving him under the river’s flow to wash him clean, following behind to make sure he stays. He doesn’t stay. Nature rejects him, spits him back to atone. Cursed child, stained, despised gutter cat. Only discipline can cleanse him. Lash, lash, lash go the belt and tongue until he’s a curled and whimpering creature, neither fur nor mask to protect him. No mother or brother. Alone, left alone. She fears him, fears what she sees and doesn’t understand. He sees it in her eyes. He runs, again and again, until someone steals him away—

… the thread winds on…

—steal through the streets, quick and quiet, stumbling through the night while farmers and fishermen sleep and hungry foxes watch with wary golden eyes. Bad luck follows in his wake, eggs with no yolk, milk curdling in the pail, nets full of eyeless fish. Ill omens, the villagers throw them out, but food is food and he is hungry and he roots through mangers and middens to fill his empty belly. Never stay, can’t stay, or they’ll find out he’s the cause. If he’s lucky they’ll only chase him off, won’t print their fear on his flesh, break his bones with their terror, hang charms to keep him away, monster not starving child only seeking to survive—

… the thread winds on…

—never survives, not for long, people flinch with fear from spiders. He sets his web in the wrong places, cast out, caught, crushed, even the kindly spinners don’t want him. They leave him bound, struggling, in a web of red thread; tie it around your wrist, lay it around your bed, loop it around his throat, what do we do with him? Can’t remove the curse, so remove the one that carries it. Saw at the ropes with broken glass, scuttle free before they find their nerve, slip away like the ghost they would make him—

… the thread winds on…

—ghost in an abandoned shack, silent hunter, eating mice, bats, nobody comes near but he hears them now, chanted prayers, sacred water, flaming brands, drive it out. This place is empty, why can’t he stay he knows the answer he tastes their fear, he’s twisted and wrong and no fire can burn him clean no water wash away the stain—

… the thread…

—bloodstained rocks on the ground around him, it isn’t even a rat it’s a demon, he’s running but he can’t run fast enough they’re following they’re screaming rock to the back of his knee he falls and the next strikes his head blood stains his sight crimson all he sees is terror—

… winds…

—horse terror thunder of hooves dust rising the storm clouds rushing toward him their hooves come down and he welcomes the end—

… on…

Vargo tried to keep hold of Grey’s wrist. But the dream swirled like a turbulent current, yanking them apart, and when it stopped, he was in the middle of an empty lane.

Alone.

The lane was no place he recognized. It stretched out like driftwood: bleached as bone on the surface, a hollow air of weightlessness beneath. His boots scraped over paving stones as smooth as wet sand and as hard as brick. Houses and shops of weeping grey stone penned him in, their windows as empty as a corpse’s eyes, lashed with planters of dead brambles. Mist lingered in the gutters instead of trash or sewage, until tattered by a breeze as soft as a whimper. The open doorways caught the breeze as it passed, and sang it back in a chorus of disharmony.

“Ren?” His shout was an anemic thing. “Grey?” Vargo reached for his collar, for the comfort of Alsius, and found the space there as empty as the place he’d landed.

They could be anywhere. The dream had as many layers as it had dreamers, and after that tumbling, spiraling journey, he couldn’t even be sure they were in this empty city with him—though it sure felt like something was. The skin of his neck crawled like cold fingers were tickling it.

“Fuck,” he muttered, putting his back to a wall. This whole place pulsed with a nightmarish cast Vargo hadn’t felt since he’d last taken ash. What Mask-damned impulse had made him follow the others?

A bandaged cut, and the knot charm above it.

Vargo forced himself to think. He had the knot charm; he had the fresh cut; he had a numinat on his chest that wasn’t healing right. For all the good any of those did. Vargo concentrated, trying to imagine threads coming out of them, but he lacked Ren’s facility with the dream. Numinatria couldn’t solve this for him, either; no inscription could point him in their direction, and unless he felt like calling on Primordials, no inscription could drag Alsius and Ren and Grey to his side.

But the nightmare was worse in one direction than others. There, where the clouds above gathered and roiled like a burgeoning scream.

A zlyzen had dragged Ren off. If she was anywhere, it was probably where things felt the most awful. Vargo’s fingers curled against the wall, nails scraping like he was clinging to his last shred of good sense.

“Follow the fucking zlyzen,” he growled. “Great idea.” And, pushing off the wall, he headed toward the fear.

Ren stumbled to earth in a deserted street, with a lone zlyzen for company.

No Vargo. No Grey. She’d lost her grip on both in the transition to… whatever this place was.

“Where are they?” she demanded. Ren might be facing a monster from her childhood, dread might be radiating from her surroundings like everything was doused in zlyzen blood, but in that moment, her anger overwhelmed her fear. “Where did you send them?”

The zlyzen crouched low, like Meatball the one time Ren had seen him truly misbehave and be snapped at for it. The monster from her childhood looked… penitent.

Ren liked that even less than she liked the grin it had given her after the ordeal. It made her ill, acting like some kind of leader to the things that had killed Leato.

Hugging her own body, she glanced around as if Grey or Vargo might appear out of an alleyway. But there was no one, not even the shifting, half-seen shadows of the dream. The city was utterly empty.

She’d seen it before, though. Not this nightmare version; the living city, full of people. In the dreams she’d been having ever since—

Ever since I got Tricat back.

But she’d done more than one thing that night, hadn’t she? She’d retrieved the medallion… and she’d strengthened her connection to the zlyzen. Which she’d thought had no effect until the ordeal. Clearly, she was wrong.

“You,” she said, staring at the zlyzen. “You’ve been sending me those dreams. Why?”

It couldn’t respond; she didn’t think zlyzen were capable of speech. It only growled low in its throat, taking a few steps, looking over one wrong-jointed shoulder, waiting for her to follow.

“Not without the others,” Ren said through her teeth. If they were in the dream, even some nightmarish zlyzen corner thereof, then she could make use of that. All she had to do was follow the—

She staggered, catching herself against a wall. Looking for the threads that bound her to Grey and Vargo was like looking into the pit of the empty wellspring where the zlyzen had torn Leato apart. A bottomless, snarling abyss, a place even Ažerais had forsaken.

Maybe the whine from the zlyzen was supposed to be comforting. But the creature was a piece of what she recoiled from, and the sound only made Ren shudder from head to foot.

“Why drag me here?” she demanded. “All this time, from me you have wanted something. What?”

By way of answer, the zlyzen walked a short distance, watching over its shoulder. Another whine.

It wanted her to follow it. Just as it had wanted her to follow it into the dream.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

The sound of a human voice made Ren’s heart leap. But it wasn’t Grey or Vargo—and who else would be in this place? She pressed herself instinctively against the grit-crumbled wall, easing toward a corner.

This city had all the ups and downs Nadežra lacked. From Ren’s vantage point she could see down a steep hillside into a square, where a man in a periwinkle coat was wandering aimlessly, shouting. “Where did you all go? I tried to hold on—”

A man in a Liganti coat, with hair like dark honey. And there was something nigglingly familiar about that voice…

She leapt onto a rooftop below, then to a balcony, then to the ground. She wasn’t quiet; the man spun to look. And even though she’d never seen his face before, there was enough family resemblance to confirm her absurd hope.

“Ren! Oh, thank the Lumen you’re safe—and look!” The skirts of his coat flared as he spun, displaying stylized numinata embroidered in cobalt and amethyst. “I’m human again!”

“Alsius.” Ren couldn’t stop staring. “How—”

He laughed in delight. “You tell me! You’re the expert in matters of dream, after all; I’ve never been bodily to the realm of mind. Look, I have hands!”

She caught them as he waved them in her face. “Alsius—where’s Vargo?”

That dampened his giddy joy. “I don’t know. We were separated and— Oh, Lumen’s light shield us, it’s one of those creatures…”

The zlyzen had followed her, crawling down a wall like it had crawled down a column during the ordeal. Alsius hid behind Ren, and she had the unsettling feeling he would have crawled under her hair if he could.

“We’ll find them,” Ren said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “And we’ll deal with whatever this thing wants. Then we’ll get the fuck out of here.”

The first splash of color was the last one Vargo wanted to see.

Blood.

Not much. Just a smear, like a bright flag draped across the edge of a public well. More on the paving stones, a copper-bright spatter trailing away from the well like escaped wishes.

“Ren? Grey?” he called. And out loud for once, “Alsius?”

The blood shimmered, all the brighter for the mist-dulled greyness around it.

“At least it’s not zlyzen blood,” Vargo muttered. It also wasn’t leading in the direction of the worst fear. But that was only a theory, and this looked a lot like a sign, the first thing out of place he’d seen since arriving. Pulling out the two halves of the blasting numinat he’d taken to carrying at all times, he followed the blood.

The streets undulated up and down like a cast-off ribbon, past yards with empty chicken coops and milking pails, only broken eggshells and the stink of curdled milk suggesting they’d ever held anything but dust.

And more blood.

He found the first body wedged against the outside hearthwall of a house, hollow-bellied and starving thin, dead flesh blue from cold. Before Alsius, Vargo had lived on the streets, scuttling between squats, stealing food and warmth. Looking at that body was like looking at the future he’d managed to escape.

But the body wasn’t his, and it wasn’t Ren or Grey or Alsius. Shuddering, he went on, following the trail of blood.

To another body, young and rope-burned and bloody around the wrists, the cuts festered and foul. Vargo gagged on the smell, pressing one sleeve to his nose to keep it out. Zlyzen work? But he knew all too well what it looked like when they tore someone apart. Only human cruelty looked like this.

Instinct yelled at Vargo to flee. He ignored it and kept going, and after the first two it wasn’t a surprise to find a third corpse, this one the bloated, water-pale remains of a drowned girl. He was moving faster now, the speed necessary to overcome his common sense. Past a body lying amid the bloody rocks that had brought it down, past one trampled into unrecognizable pulp. He hadn’t yet found a body he knew, but that charred lump up ahead looked like a dead zlyzen, and if their guide had died—

Then everything around him changed.

No more corpses. No more pulsating dread. No more silence; there were people all around, Vraszenians, going about the ordinary business of their lives. After what he’d just seen, the normality hit like a slap to the face.

Vargo stumbled, waving off concerned glances and flinching from helping hands. This was more than just illusion. They could touch him. Did that mean he would become the next corpse for the next fool to find?

His retreat brought him against the divided door of a tiny shrine crammed between two shops. The top half was propped open to make a window, the ledge over the bottom half wide enough for leaning.

And inside, watching him with curiosity, sat a szorsa.

She asked him a question, in a dialect so thick Vargo could only guess her meaning from the deck in her hands and the shawl over her shoulders. Did he want his pattern read? No—but in Ažerais’s Dream, did he have a choice?

Then he noticed the tangle of a ribbon amid the free-fall tumble of her dark hair. Silver and green, and he knew those ribbons. Tess had picked them out herself, wanting only the best for—

“Ren?” he asked. But no, the braid was on the right side. If this was Ren, shouldn’t it be the left?

The next question tripped inelegantly from his tongue. “Are you Grey?” It was a dream. Anything could happen.

The szorsa’s brow furrowed at the name, like she was hearing a distant echo. “That naman… whi knawe ih that naman?”

The less he understood her words, the more certain he became. “You’re Grey. You have his marriage knot.” Vargo pocketed the blasting numinat and tugged his own hair to illustrate. “Remember? You got married?”

She let her hand drift up in mirror, gasping when her fingers found the braid. Pulling it forward, she examined the carved token, brow knitting in confusion. “Ih habbe nat an housbonde!”

Vargo reached for the szorsa, but she flinched back—as well she might, with a stranger trying to grab her. He put his hands up in a gesture of non-threat and tugged his cuff down to display the cloth bandaging his wrist. “We swore brotherhood, remember? You have one, too.” Her loose sleeve had slipped down when she reached for her hair. “You, me, and Ren. She’s my knot-mate, your wife. A zlyzen brought us here. Recognize any of this?”

Either she didn’t, or the differences between his Vraszenian and hers were too great to surmount.

With a click of impatience, the szorsa shuffled her cards and drew one. The style was different from Ren’s deck, but the constellation painted on it took an unmistakably human shape: The Face of Stars. Good luck, and the szorsa shrugged at Vargo as if to say, Do what you will, stranger who speaks nonsense.

“Right.” Vargo hadn’t come to the wedding intending to do numinatria, but these days he didn’t go anywhere without supplies shoved into every conceivable hiding place. He pulled a brush, an ink vial, and a few imprinted wax foci from his pocket—then halted.

Whatever had seized Grey had affected his mind. Only the Primordials could do that, via their eisar. Vargo’s thumb passed over the wax plug imprinted with the symbol for Celnis, the god most closely aligned to Uniat. The ordering of the chaotic self into awareness.

He’d never cared about the more religious aspects of numinatria; that was Alsius’s game. Vargo only cared what it could do for him in the world of Lower Bank gang struggles and Upper Bank politics. But couldn’t he imitate the way the Praeteri had imbued their blank foci, pouring himself into what he created?

Closing his eyes, he pressed the wax to his lips and prayed to the Lumen.

Celnis. Uniat. Self-awareness. Vargo had once told Ren he wasn’t a complicated man. Just a frustrated one, because the world was a mess and didn’t have to be. But even when he tried to carve out a bit of order, it led to chaos and unintended consequences. Like Alsius. Like Kolya Serrado.

His hand shook, breath shuddering out. He didn’t want to think about Kolya. But… self-awareness didn’t give two shits for your comfort.

Kolya’s death had been only a vague regret at the time. Wrong place, wrong time, unintended, not his fault. The cost of doing business. Same with Alsius. Vargo hadn’t chosen to help the old man any more than he’d chosen to harm him. In the early days he’d gone along with Alsius’s plans because they brought food, a roof over his head, increasingly fine clothes on his back.

Was he any different from all those senseless, selfish people responsible for the chaos he despised? From his knots, tearing apart the Lower Bank because Vargo lied about swearing oaths instead of breaking them?

You and Ren… you’re two birds from one egg, Grey had said. Hardened by the world, but a short drop away from cracking. Too willing to use people like tools; too wary of being used by others.

And yet, he’d tied himself to Ren. Mingled his blood with Grey’s. Not because they were useful, but because he cared. And because they cared about him, as something more than a tool to discard as soon as its use ran out.

Those bonds didn’t erase past wrongs, didn’t transform him into a better person. But they gave him a reason to try again when it all went to shit. To look for people he could trust to help him drag the chaos kicking and screaming into a semblance of order.

They made it easier to accept their trust in him.

Breathing in his guilt, breathing out his fear, Vargo found a place of equilibrium. Of peace, if only for a moment.

He opened his eyes. The street remained busy, but the buzzing restlessness inside his skull had gone still. So often Vargo lived in his head, ignoring his body except when sex or pain dragged him into it, but for once he felt at home in his flesh. Uniat: the body as a whole.

The szorsa watched him warily as he reached across her counter. Her faint twitch didn’t mar the line he drew, the soft bristles of his brush leaving behind a circle of cool ink, and she sat as still as a held breath when he pressed the Celnis focus, imbued by the Lumen’s grace with self-awareness, to the center of her brow.

And then the szorsa was gone, and in her place was Grey.

He remembered.

Like the Rook’s memories, fleeting shades he couldn’t grasp in their entirety. But he remembered. Not just being himself, but the selves before that: life after life, reborn into one clan after another. Dvornik, Varadi, Anoškin, Stretsko, Meszaros, a trail of ill fortune and violence.

Laročja had been right—and so very wrong. He was cursed… but less so with every life that passed. What he bore now was only a trace of the original weight.

And his suffering had never been the answer. Only the repulsed lashing out of people who couldn’t see past their fear.

A hand waved in front of his eyes. “Grey? You with me?”

Grey blinked at Vargo. His tongue still held the flavor of a dialect not spoken in five hundred years, but his voice was his own as he said, “You brought me back. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well.” Vargo rocked back on his heels, hands twitching like he didn’t know where to put them. “Just took an oath, din’t I? Can’t let Ren go from wed to widowed in a day. What was that? What is this?” He waved at the world around them, faded from colorful and crowded to a desolate wasteland in the space of a breath.

The buildings were the same, though. Grey opened the shrine’s lower door and stepped into the abandoned street. “A dream.” Or a nightmare. “Where’s Ren? Why isn’t she with you?”

“I blame the zlyzen.” Vargo thumbed back in the direction he’d come from. “My original plan was to head for the worst fear, on the assumption that she’s probably there.”

It was an unfortunately logical assumption. Wishing he still had Vargo’s cane sword, Grey said, “Then let’s go find her.”

Ren tried to shout for Grey and Vargo as she and Alsius followed the zlyzen, but it was hard. Every sound conjured the feeling that something was watching, that by making noise she was drawing the attention of a predator. Her voice kept withering in her throat. Alsius’s delight had briefly made him ebullient enough to shrug off the creeping dread, but soon it settled in. She heard the tremor every time he called Vargo’s name, and she held tightly to his hand as they walked.

Not a living thing, not rat nor fly nor carrion crow, disturbed the bleached stillness. The gardens they passed were all dead branches and no leaves. Just when Ren was ready to plant her feet and demand—what? That the zlyzen somehow manifest the ability to talk and explain itself?—the street they were climbing became a staircase, then flattened out into a broad plaza.

With Grey and Vargo at the far side.

Zlyzen forgotten, Ren dashed across the plaza to Grey’s waiting arms. Their marriage tokens tangled as she pressed her cheek to his. “Thank the Faces. How found you this place?”

“Vargo’s idea. Head to wherever felt like the biggest danger.” Grey’s reply was a chuff of strained laughter against her ear.

“Blame me not.” She pulled away. “We only just arrived ourselves. The zlyzen led us here.”

“Us?” Vargo asked. All his attention had been for her, but now he looked up and past.

Just in time to keep his balance as Alsius crashed in, arms flinging around him in a relieved embrace. “Never do that again to me, my boy!”

After weeks of Vargo’s ashen complexion, it was a relief to see color flood his cheeks. His good hand came up to touch Alsius’s back like he expected the dream to yank the man away at any moment. “How—how are you—” Then, sputtering, he pulled back. “Wait. Weren’t you old when we met?”

Alsius’s sputters sounded very much like Vargo’s. “I wasn’t old; I was exactly this age! You were simply a brat. With bad manners and a worse memor—urk!”

The words cut off as Vargo’s arms tightened around him. The cloth of Alsius’s coat muffled Vargo’s reply, but it still came through. “It’s good to hear your yammering, old man.”

Old man. Ren had been thinking of him as sixty, but he was in his midthirties at most. He’d been trapped as a spider nearly half as long as he’d been human.

This time Alsius was the one to draw back. “I’ve been thinking while we looked for you. Alta Ren—or Szorsa Arenza, perhaps I should say—can you help my boy? We’re in a place of dream; can you…?” He gestured toward Vargo. Toward the faint lump of the bandage beneath Vargo’s shirt.

The connection between them. Tanaquis had wondered if Ren would be able to mend it—but Ren, shivering, remembered what had happened when she tried to see the threads linking her to other people.

Vargo, drained and gaunt. Alsius, the picture of human-shaped health. How much longer could Vargo survive the imbalance between them?

She stepped forward, hesitant. “I… will try. But first you must tell me what you wish done.”

Vargo stared at her. “Thought that would be obvious. We want you to fix it. What part of me metaphysically bleeding out did you miss?”

The part where I laid a line for this problem, and the third card was Hundred Lanterns Rise. The card of release, and where their path ended. But before that came Warp and Weft—the union between their two spirits—and for the path to follow, The Face of Balance.

Whatever their connection had grown into, it had begun as a crime: Alsius trying to take over Vargo’s body for his own survival. If she was to renew it, this time they had to choose that path.

When she said so, Vargo looked at Alsius. Wetness gleamed at the edges of his eyes. “Spider or not, he’s the only father I’ve ever had. Worst days of my life have been these past ones, not being able to talk to him. So, yes. I want it… if he does.”

Alsius sniffled audibly. “My boy. You’re a better son than I deserve.”

Vargo tugged the collar of his shirt open, and Grey helped him peel the bandage loose. Ren laid one hand on his seeping mark, the other on the same spot on Alsius. Drawing a deep breath, she thought, You don’t have to look. Only to mend.

Father and son. A thread of love and support, even though it began in the desperate moment when Alsius looked into the face of his own death—

Her breath wavered. That was the horror of this place, trying to seep in. The zlyzen had stood a little distance off while the four of them reunited, but now she felt its gaze on her. The skin between her shoulder blades crawled.

They aren’t choosing out of fear. There it began, but they have passed through that shadow. To each other, they are a source of comfort. Strengthening each other not only in body but in heart. The shelter Ren herself had lost when her mother died, leaving her alone.

She remembered her own fear. Let it wash into her, not the connection. Every other bit of her was cold, but her hands were warm as she drew them together, feeling the thread, until at last her fingers met.

It shone briefly in her vision, the strong thread of family, untouched by the nightmare around them. Then it vanished from view.

Ren sagged against Grey. Alsius cupped his hands over his chest as if he held something precious. Gasping like it was his first breath in days, Vargo clawed his shirt out of the way. His skin was unmarred, the lines of the numinat restored. His laugh was as unsteady as Jagyi at a run. “Tanaquis will lose her mind that she wasn’t here to see that.”

“Do I have one now?” Alsius struggled with the complicated knot of his neckcloth.

Slinging an arm over his shoulders, Vargo said, “If it’s in the same place as Peabody’s, might want to check the other end, old man.”

“Perhaps you can examine the content of your trousers later,” Grey said. “There’s an unnervingly patient zlyzen glaring at us.”

It had moved, pacing over to crouch by the entrance to the labyrinth. Ren didn’t want to look in that direction: It was like looking down the throat of ash itself, made with zlyzen blood. But the creature had brought her here for a reason. She doubted it would let her leave until that reason was fulfilled.

Wetting her lips, she said, “We must go.”

Entering the labyrinth was like plunging into the Dežera in winter. She shuddered from head to foot at the sense of wrongness. The interior felt more than merely deserted; it felt desecrated. The stones of the path were broken and heaved out of place, the column shrines shrouded in plain fabric, the carved figures no more than half-seen ghosts beneath the cloth. As though this corner of the dream had to be hidden from the gaze of the deities themselves.

The zlyzen paced across the labyrinth’s path—ill luck, walking inward that way; as if such a creature cared—to a center of blackened ground and stones like sun-bleached bone. The sides of the enameled basin there were bubbled and cracked. Ren shivered, as though all the heat had been drawn from the world.

“What nightmare is this?” she whispered.

The zlyzen only clawed at the basin’s rim.

Ren couldn’t make offerings to the hidden Faces and Masks. Instead she walked a circuit of the colonnade, praying briefly at each column for the safety of herself and her companions. Then, with the others trailing in her wake, she walked the broken path itself. There was no serenity to be found this time, no feeling of purification. Ren focused on the sound of her footfalls to stave off the horror that bled in with each breath.

At the center, the basin was dry. Its curve cradled only a soft mound of ashes.

Ren looked to the others, but they were as mystified as she—and all crowded to one side, as far from the zlyzen as they could get.

Reflexively, Ren reached for her pocket. But there was no reason for her to carry her pattern deck on her wedding day. She didn’t dare try to dream one into existence, either, not with this place trying to taint her. But Grey knew that gesture, and he handed her a stack of cards. “These… I found them here.”

She’d handled pattern cards countless times. Even with the differences in paper, her fingers knew the heft of a deck that was slightly too full. Riffling through, Ren saw The Artful Gentleman, The Silent Witness—all the clan cards save for the Ižranyi, adding to the sixty of an ordinary deck.

Ren prayed to the ancestors and shuffled, the rattle too loud in this silent place. Tiny spires of ash wafted up, and she reflexively twitched away, not wanting to touch those soft grey motes. Nine cards, or seven? What exactly was she trying to pattern, anyway—this place? Those ashes? She made up her mind to deal nine, but when she knelt to lay them out, last-minute hesitancy stayed her hand. This deck held the clan cards; seven it would be.

“The Horse for what you have,” she said, turning over Hundred Lanterns Rise.

What they had was ashes: a sacrifice. Whatever the contents of the basin represented, it was a desperate plea for mercy. When Ren relayed that, Vargo muttered, “I don’t think it worked.”

“Maybe it did,” Ren said uncertainly. “This position is meant to be positive.” But the pattern Ivrina had dealt on the Night of Hells was warped to ill, even the good positions. Ren had been poisoned with ash that night. It was likely pure accident, the drug called ash and the ashes here—but who had named the drug? Gammer Lindworm? Mettore Indestor? Breccone Indestris? They’d never found out.

She turned over the next card, and her skin turned to ice.

Sleeping Waters. The card of place.

“I know where we are.”

“The realm of mind—or rather, Ažerais’s Dream,” Alsius said, peering at the card’s depiction of the Point, crowned with its beautiful, lost labyrinth. “But this is no reflection of Nadežra.”

“No,” Grey whispered, before Ren could. “It’s Fiavla.”

A noise pierced the silence between them, so low it scraped the edge of hearing. The zlyzen, growling. Not from anger or fear, but from excitement.

Grey turned to look at the desecrated labyrinth, his eyes wide and lost. “What you saw me as, Vargo—what you drew me from—that is where it began. The ill fortune that’s hounded me from life to life… it is because once, centuries ago, I was a szorsa of the Ižranyi.”

Ren’s breath caught. The Mask of Worms. Showing up in her patterns, again and again, as the corruption of a Primordial. What Laročja had seen in her grandson…

He’d been Ižranyi. Before Fiavla fell.

When Fiavla fell.

“How do we get out of here?” Vargo asked, his voice far too controlled. “Now.”

“To leave a pattern half read is bad luck,” Ren whispered.

“To stay in a Primordial-cursed city might be just a touch worse, wouldn’t you say?” He pitched high on the last words. Vargo might have personal reasons to fear the zlyzen, but everyone from the tip to the tail of the Dežera had heard horror stories of fools who tested the boundaries of Fiavla, even to this day.

Her hands moved faster as she turned over the third card. “The Owl, for the wisdom you must remember.”

Coffer and Key, the card of objects. “What they burned,” Ren said, looking up at the basin. “To stop the destruction… what sacrifice might earn that mercy?”

A whole clan, destroyed. But like the corruption of A’ash spreading through a numinatrian register, the destruction only struck those bearing the Ižranyi name. It hadn’t spilled out to everyone of that blood. If it had, all Vraszan would have died; centuries of marriages meant that practically everyone had ancestors in every clan. Ren likely had Ižranyi forebears herself, though too many generations had passed for it to be recorded in the branching strands of Ivrina’s embroidery.

Grey answered, staring at the ashes. “Their koszenie. They—we—burned our own koszenie, to destroy the bonds of kinship. To keep the chaos from spreading.”

Blasphemy. Desecration. Sacrilege. The labyrinth reeked of it. No wonder they had shrouded the Faces and the Masks: to hide the shame of their deeds.

The zlyzen’s faint growl gained strength and fervor. It belly-crawled forward to lip at the toe of Grey’s boot. Teeth like jagged obsidian left pale scratches along the leather, and he flinched back.

Ren hurried onward. Ten Coins Sing, the card of generosity; the position of the Spider was the question they must ask, and they had already answered it. The blasphemy of the Ižranyi had been for the sake of others. “You—your people—acted for the good of all,” Ren said to Grey, fiercely. “Without your sacrifice, how many more would have died?”

His gaze was bleak. “Yet that crime I carried through many lives, in all three parts of my soul. I saw those lives, Ren. I was—never welcome. Always feared, always treated like a monster. Less so with each life, but still… for what we did, we were damned.” He swallowed. “I still am.”

Pattern itself gave Ren the counter she needed. “The Hidden Eye,” she said, lifting the fifth card for Grey to see. “The reward you earn: your own clan card. As you said, with each life it is less. The poison Laročja saw was your past. Not your present, and not your future.”

Vargo made a noise that wasn’t a laugh. “No, that’s a different poison and a different Primordial. But why does that zlyzen care? Why has it been stalking Ren like a starving mutt?”

The Hidden Eye had occupied the position of the Fox. For the Raccoon, the clan animal of the Kiraly, Ren turned over Labyrinth’s Heart. “The card of stillness for the risk we take,” Ren murmured, looking at it. “But I think… that is not what it means.”

She heard an indignant huff from Alsius, the vocal equivalent to his mental snort. His numinatrian-trained mind still disliked the slipperiness of pattern, the way one meaning could be bent to another. “Sleeping Waters cannot be in two places at once, and already it has been used,” Ren said, pointing at the second card. “So instead I have a different labyrinth—to indicate the one that stands atop the Point. There is danger to the wellspring.”

“Another damned numinat, then?” Vargo growled. “Breccone en’t around to make it. Some clever new idea of Branek’s?”

Ren shook her head. “I know not. We ourselves may put it in danger somehow. Not directly, but as a consequence of what we do here.” Perhaps by bringing the stain of a second Primordial back with them. The skin of her back hadn’t stopped crawling since they arrived, but now it crawled harder.

That left only the central card, for the Ižranyi. The hub on which all else turned.

Sisters Victorious. The card of courage.

Ren’s breath fell out of her in a sigh of understanding. “What is courage… but the overcoming of fear?”

The zlyzen hadn’t retreated far. Her dread of it had waned; surrounded by this defiled labyrinth, the creature hardly seemed as bad. Now it came forward and, with a hesitant muzzle, nudged at the koszenie still tied around her hips.

Months of dreams, not just of Fiavla but of other places. Market towns, fishing villages. Parts of Vraszan she’d never seen, and centuries old.

Dreams given to her by the zlyzen.

Hardly believing her own daring, Ren reached out and took that charred, twisted head in her hands. “What do you get when dreams and fear combine?” she whispered. “You get a creature of nightmare.”

She looked up once more at Alsius, at Vargo. At Grey, who had been Ižranyi; Grey, who in life after life had been feared. Hated. Treated like a monster.

“The zlyzen,” she said. “The zlyzen are what remain of the Ižranyi.”

19

The Mask of Knives

Old Island: Cyprilun 6

Tess hadn’t heard anything from Ren for four days, but she still crossed to the Upper Bank to update the Traementis on the lack of news. “A burden shared is a burden halved,” she told Donaia when the woman fussed over her wasted trip, and left Traementis Manor with a lighter heart, as though the adage were the literal truth.

But her steps dragged as she dwelt on the unshared part of her burden: that a zlyzen had taken Ren and the others. She’d blundered her way through a lie about numinatria and the realm of mind rather than make Donaia relive Leato’s death. After the Night of Hells, the corpses had surfaced from the dream into the waking world. If the worst happened now, would they even find a body to burn?

Don’t think about that. Tess wrapped her striped woolen more tightly against a chill both within and without. Ren will be all right. And Grey and Vargo, too. Nobody knew Ažerais’s Dream like her sister.

She edged around a barrel-filled cart stopped in the middle of the Sunrise Bridge. A Vraszenian fellow was leaning over the bridge’s rail—had the carters lost something over the edge? If so, she didn’t envy whoever might dive in after it; the twilight wind was bitterly sharp. Tess still had a long walk to Westbridge. To the house Sedge hardly dared leave with a medallion in the wine cellar and a gaggle of children that needed looking after whether they thought so or not. To the fading hope that she’d glance into the parlour and find Ren had returned, safe and—

Sudden force hammered Tess to the cobblestones.

Her ears rang as she pushed herself to her knees, wondering what had happened. When she touched her chin, her fingers came away bloody. As if from a great distance, she heard people shouting and screaming. Twisting to look behind her, Tess saw a great plume of black smoke rising from where the cart had been.

Lacewater-raised instinct said that whatever had just happened, she didn’t want to be anywhere near it. Tess regained her feet and stumbled in the other direction, past people staggering upright and demanding explanations. A group of angry cuffs stormed by, masked for a night of drinking and calling for a hawk to bring order.

No hawk came swooping down. And as Tess ran for the Sunset Bridge, it became clear there weren’t any hawks to come. Only more and more people with braided hair and clan colors, carrying cudgels and knives, beating drums and singing fierce Vraszenian songs.

The Anduske. Andrejek’s uprising. But Ren’s not back yet, Tess thought, the explosion still scrambling her thoughts. How could they start their rebellion when Ren was lost?

A foolish thought. Almost as foolish as thinking she could escape to the Lower Bank. By the time she got to Duskgate, the wind had shredded the second plume of smoke, but shouting and chaos told her the same thing had happened here. Of course they wouldn’t take out only one bridge.

A skiff, then. But as Tess ran north to follow the shore, she knew it was futile. Weren’t half the skiffers Stretsko? There were boats on the water, to be sure, but none taking passengers. Instead they were forming a cordon around the island, or swarming other vessels, shoving their oarsmen into the river. Fists wearing the knot of Tserdev Očelen’s Crimson Eyes knocked down anybody attempting to get to an unattended boat.

Tess’s mouth was dry. Think. You’ve been through this before. It wasn’t a riot, not yet; the people around her—those not displaying clan emblems—were mostly confused and frightened, not angry. That could change fast, though. A man wearing the Anduske knot was standing atop a crate, shouting in Vraszenian. Tess didn’t speak it well enough to understand everything, but she got the gist: declaring the Old Island was in Vraszenian hands, calling for others to join the cause, and for them to seize hold of any…

Any Liganti.

She veered down an alley before the man’s eye could fall on her. Ganllechyn wasn’t Liganti, but how many would know or care when they saw a pale face? Right now the crowd and confusion were her best protection; she had to find shelter before those ran out. Tess dragged her woolen over her head and ducked her chin low. The stripes were like a banner, but better that than her copper-bright hair.

“Oi!”

The shout could have been directed at anyone, but rabbit fear said it was aimed at her. Tess turned a corner and hurried faster, only to hear heavy boots following. A second “Oi!” and now there was no mistaking it; the man was after her. Tess reached for her scissors—pitiful protection—and now he was right behind her, saying, “Oi, Tess—”

Simlin barely jerked out of range as she swung around with the scissors. “Fucking pisspot hell, Tess!”

“You stay back!” She waved her scissors. “I’ve shucked an Oyster Cracker for putting his hands on me. Don’t think I won’t poke holes in you, too!”

Simlin backed up a step. “Save it for someone who means you harm. There’s enough of ’em around here.”

“And you’re not one?” Something crashed down the alley. A woman screamed. Tess glanced away long enough that Simlin could have easily torn the scissors from her hand.

He only said, “I en’t. And I know we en’t knotted no more, but we was once, and you weren’t a blade-tongued bitch like Ren. If you don’t want my help, though, good luck with those scissors of yours.” He strode back down the alley, away from the scream that had become many, voices raised in a confusing tangle of languages.

“Wait,” Tess called, keeping her scissors at the ready. Simlin slowed enough for her to catch up. “Where are you going?”

“Not back to my flop. Place was swarming with assholes come in from upriver. Figure they’re in on this.” He stopped where the alley spat out onto a narrow canal walk.

Tess’s flight had taken her deep into Lacewater; they weren’t far from Lifost Square. “Think we can get to the Talon and Trick? Vargo protected his business and property during the Dreamweaver Riots. They’ll have been ready for this.”

“And they’ll just let us in?” Simlin said, but he turned in the right direction.

“As long as someone there recognizes me,” Tess said, following behind like thread trailing a needle.

She knew better than to try the front door, with the crowd milling around the square. But nobody answered her knock at the side entrance, not even when it turned to pounding, or invoking Vargo’s name. Not until she cried, “Please, Stoček knows me.”

Then the door cracked. So did Tess’s hope, when the face peering out was a stranger’s. A woman. And Vraszenian. “Anyone can say they know Vargo. How know you the other?”

“He used to give us honey stones as children.”

“Sounds like him.” Dark eyes flicked from Tess’s covered hair, to her bleeding chin, to Simlin hulking behind her. “You’ll bring trouble on us all if you keep shouting in the alley. Get in here.”

The door cracked farther, enough to let them squeeze through. The woman closed and bolted it behind them, and Simlin helped her drag a heavy cask to block it.

Empty of laughing cuffs and their glittering masks and coats, the gambling parlour slumped like a laborer after a hard day. A creak from the staircase had Tess clutching her woolen shawl tighter, but it was only Stoček, grim-faced and dour as she’d never seen him.

A grimness that lightened when he spotted her. “Tess? That racket was you? And hey, isn’t that pouty little Simlin?”

“Not little no more,” Simlin grumbled.

“Still pouty, though.” Stoček tried to pinch his cheek between a thumb and a finger-stub, but Simlin dodged like it was Tess’s scissors.

Tess sagged against the cask and said, “We didn’t know where to go.” Stoček wasn’t safety the way Ren and Sedge were, but he wouldn’t toss her to the street.

Grabbing a cloth from an abandoned table, Stoček nudged her chin up with his padded hook and blotted away the blood. Tess hissed at the sting of zrel, but helped Stoček bind a clean cloth around her head without complaint.

“Little rabbit,” he said, hook flicking one of the bandage ends. Tess blinked back tears.

Simlin swiped the zrel and knocked back a slug. “So what—we just sit here and hope nobody else comes knocking?”

The woman’s jaw tightened when Stoček looked at her. “We’ve no more room,” she said.

With the Talon and Trick standing empty, she must mean something else. Stoček confirmed Tess’s suspicion when he said, “Room in the bilge still. She can take my place down there.”

“That’s one. We have two more now.”

“I can stay up here,” Simlin said. “Nobody gonna mistake me for a Lig. I’ll say Stoček’s my grandda.”

“Gaffer, you mean,” Stoček said, and Simlin grunted.

Tess’s jaw ached as she watched the conversation bounce between them. “I didn’t mean to bring trouble.”

“You didn’t,” Stoček said, with a glare at the woman. “Everyone knows the cuffs come to the Talon and Trick. Only a matter of time before someone comes looking for hostages.”

“So you’ll say you sent them away?”

“Masks willing, they’ll believe it.” Grasping her elbow, the woman led Tess to a room shielded by a beaded curtain. Inside was a table covered by a szorsa’s shawl, with bowls for offerings to the Face and the Mask. The woman pushed the table aside and pried up a hidden trapdoor. “Down you go. Make no noise, or all of us will pay the price.”

Any thought Tess had of arguing or asking more questions died at a new pounding and a voice shouting in Vraszenian, “Open up!”

Stinking water, just an inch or two deep, splashed around her as she went through the trapdoor. The space beneath the floor was barely tall enough for a person on her hands and knees, and when the entrance banged shut, the only light came from tiny cracks between the floorboards. In the moments before darkness closed in, she’d seen several other people, their fine clothes incongruous in that place.

Tess tried to edge away from the trapdoor, but the others were too closely packed. A woman hissed, “Stop! You’ll bring those gnats down upon us!”

Biting back her retort, Tess forced herself still. The water sloshed quiet, and then she heard something grinding away from the front door.

The trio upstairs put on a good performance, even Simlin. Why had they barred the door? Because they’d be fools not to. They’d lived through riots before. Was anyone else here? No, the chalk-faces all bolted when the trouble began. Were they sure of that? Yes, very sure. Would they object to the Anduske searching?

Tess almost stopped breathing when boots clomped across the floor, as if they’d hear it above their own noise. From the banging, they were smart enough to search for hidden compartments; Lacewater was riddled with them. If they found this one, Tess would be the first person they grabbed. Could she buy any safety by saying she knew Andrejek? Would they even listen?

The bilge wasn’t the only hidey-hole, it seemed. Screams from upstairs made Tess hunch like a terrified rabbit: Liganti voices protesting their treatment, threatening retribution, cutting off with the unmistakable sound of violence. Stoček’s voice—“Here now, no need for that”—and then a cry from the old man, and a rough shout from Simlin.

Tess clapped both hands over her mouth. They stank of moss and fouled river water, and she fought the urge to gag.

The Anduske left. Time passed with only breathing to measure it; the rebels must have targeted the temples to stop the bells from being used as signals. Pavlin had mentioned once that Seterins had a code for passing messages in wartime, which every officer of the Vigil was expected to know.

Pavlin. He’d be worried if she went missing. Sedge would tear up both banks to find her. Giuna might help him. She had to get to safety, or at least get word to them.

Not even her hands were enough to stop her shriek when the trapdoor swung open and light flooded in.

“Had to see to Stoček first,” the woman said. Her cheek was swollen. “The hatch I can leave open, but if you come out, they’ll see the water if they come back.”

They’ll come back, the tension in the woman’s shoulders said. Them, or someone else.

“Simlin?” she whispered. Maybe he was tending Stoček. She hoped he was tending Stoček.

But that wasn’t what Simlin would do.

The woman’s flat, bloodless lips were a worse confirmation than any words. Tess squeezed her eyes shut. She’d never much liked Simlin… but he wasn’t all bad. He’d shown that at the last.

“We can’t stay here,” said the cuff crouched next to Tess, his voice high with impending panic. She’d seen him before, hanging on Giuna at events. An Amananto boy. “There might be spiders! Or rats!”

“Rats and spiders up there, too,” muttered someone farther back.

Tess opened her eyes to see the szorsa’s lip curl. “You prefer the streets, go with my blessing. There is a back way out. But past that door, you will be on your own.”

A spark of hope kindled in Tess’s chest. Only a tiny one; there was still a lot of island between her and safety.

Her… and the others. She couldn’t abandon these people here, hiding in terror and stagnant water. Even if she was tempted to leave behind the one who’d called Vraszenians “gnats.”

“I know a safe place,” she said. With a nod toward the szorsa, she added, “One that won’t bring more trouble on you. If Stoček can walk, we’ll take him with us. But getting there won’t be easy.”

“Where?” the Amananto boy asked, clutching her arm.

If Tess couldn’t get off the Old Island, the next best thing was to put herself somewhere her friends would think to look for her. Because they would come, sure as the moons would rise.

“Someplace dry,” Tess said. “Protected by magic, too.” What if someone had looted her shop? She’d already removed most of the valuables, but people took the oddest things.

She glanced up at the szorsa. “I’ll need some triple clover knots.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Cyprilun 10

With most of the Upper Bank’s sedan chair bearers conscripted for other duties and the few remaining chairs reserved for Cinquerat use only, Donaia had two choices for getting to their temporary headquarters: break out the Traementis carriage, or walk. The habit of frugality, not yet shed, made her walk.

It meant she saw very clearly the effects the takeover of the Old Island had already had on her city. Prasinet, understandably distrustful of what might happen to any cargo unloaded into Dockwall, had directed all shipping to empty its holds into Whitesail. Which rapidly overflowed—those warehouses couldn’t handle everything—so that spilled over into neighboring districts, the Pearls included. Cibrial made sure we get the high-class cargo, Donaia thought sourly, watching a cart laden with wine casks lumber over one of the few bridges in the Pearls wide enough to take it.

Storage would only be a problem for a while, though. Forces from some of the Vraszenian city-states were blockading the Dežera upriver and harassing caravans along the Dawn and Dusk Roads. The ships that came into Nadežra were used to selling their cargo, then loading up again with goods to take north. If Nadežra had nothing to offer, soon they would stop coming.

Don’t borrow future trouble, she told herself. We have plenty to keep us busy right now.

The prospect of violence hung over the city like a fog. It had already begun; those escapees who’d managed to swim the East and West Channels before the cordon tightened said the rebels had taken control of the Charterhouse, killing the evening guards. The Aerie still stood, the last anyone heard, but a false rumor that the Anduske would bomb the bridge at Floodwatch had drawn the bulk of the Vigil’s forces there just before the takeover. Then they’d blown spans out of the Sunrise and Sunset Bridges instead, cutting off the Old Island entirely.

Donaia shivered as she reached Eastbridge, and not because of the Dežera’s chill wind. Structures rose along the bank, facing the Old Island: trebuchets, with piles of stone around them ready to be hurled, and numinatrian engines of war.

None had yet seen use. Donaia unashamedly muttered a prayer of thanks that Ghiscolo Acrenix wasn’t still Caerulet, or worse yet, Mettore Indestor. Neither of them would have held back from an immediate assault on the Old Island, bloodshed be damned. Agniet Cercel Coscani would at least give diplomacy a chance to work.

Or she was just buying time. The Vigil weren’t sufficient to storm the island, and Agniet couldn’t afford to draw their military forces away from the borders. Not with the neighboring city-states ready to pounce at the first sign of inattention. That meant hiring mercenaries, as they’d done in previous wars, but this rebellion had taken the Cinquerat enough by surprise that all they had right now were a few local companies usually contracted to guard caravans.

Donaia shouldn’t have let her thoughts stray in that direction. Some people must have known this was coming. She was terribly, terribly afraid that two of them were Ren and Grey.

But she was even more afraid of what had happened to them. Eight days, and no sign of either. Nor of Vargo, whom Tess had said went with them. Into the dream, for what purpose Donaia could hardly imagine. Eight days since the wedding, four days since the city went to hell, and Donaia didn’t know if she would ever see her niece again.

She came at last to Rivershore Plaza, with the Rotunda’s dome gleaming at its eastern end. Limping a little from a blister—Donaia had been elated when she could finally buy herself new shoes, only to find them less comfortable than the old pairs molded to every knob of her feet—she pushed through the chaos outside the Rotunda to the chaos within.

A fabric canopy painted with an enormous numinat stretched across the mouth of the dome, keeping the noise to an acceptably dull roar. The shops below had been emptied to make offices for the displaced Cinquerat, and clerks dashed this way and that, the papers they carried lacking even the usual leather folders to protect them. There were no statues to proclaim the mottoes of the Cinquerat seats—I speak for all; I counsel all; I support all; I defend all; I pray for all—but the open center of the Rotunda held the usual constellation of five desks, and the usual secretaries to direct traffic, looking no more harassed than usual.

Donaia ignored them. Bypassing the desks, she pushed through the crowd to the shop at the back of the Rotunda, which was not so much the Cinquerat’s audience chamber as their war room.

Another numinat on the door muffled sound as it closed behind her. Empty shelves within mocked the gathered leaders, a reminder of the room’s prior purpose. The sales counter had been transformed into a strategy table. A map of Nadežra spread across it, the Old Island dominating the center, with the Upper and Lower Banks stretching down its sides. The Cinquerat stood around it, listening to Cercel.

“We’ll need cover for the removal crews,” she said, tapping the Point with a rod. “If the rebels realize what we’re doing, they could easily station archers here and rain Primordial hell on both sides of the channel.”

“And risk damaging the river numinata?” Scaperto asked. His gesture took in two filigree half masks, repurposed to represent the structures spanning the East and West Channels. Small boat markers flocked alongside them.

Cercel sighed. She was younger than Donaia, but the few months she’d been Caerulet weighed on her like years. “If they realize the river numinata are our goal, they might risk it to stop us.”

“They would be right to do so,” snapped Utrinzi Simendis. His people were busy inscribing weapons and providing aid, but his emergence from self-imposed isolation to attend this meeting told Donaia how serious it was. “Destroying the river numinata is an act of madness. The effects will harm this city far more than a scuffle with a few radicals.”

“Destroying the what?” Donaia snapped. The table shook when her hand came down on it. “House Traementis holds the charter for one of those numinata, and we have not given our consent.”

“Not destroying.” Scaperto righted a few of the toppled markers, conspicuously not meeting her glare. “Removing the foci to temporarily disable them.”

Flapping like an angry gull, Utrinzi said, “Which will destroy the East Channel numinat! An inscriptor died to create that work. You can’t simply reactivate it when you please!”

“So we’ll replace it. Vargo managed it; so can we.” Scaperto reluctantly raised his gaze to Donaia’s, heavy with regret—but also with resolve. “The Cinquerat is invoking the public good clause in your charter. House Traementis has no say in this. We’re informing you as a courtesy.”

“But—” She felt like someone had pulled the ground out from under her. They’d summoned her here for this? “Won’t that leave the whole city with nothing but filthy water?” The Lower Bank had relied for years on peddlers who carted water from the clean East Channel. With both sides fouled…

Iascat said, “We’re making plans for emergency supplies of clean water. There are wells outside the city, and Iridet’s people can make smaller cleansing numinata.”

“Supplies that will be distributed to both banks, for as long as we can hold Floodwatch,” Scaperto hastened to add. “I wouldn’t countenance this if they weren’t.”

It still wouldn’t be enough. Not with less than a month to the Great Dream, and Vraszenians flooding the city in anticipation. Donaia didn’t side with the Liganti who assumed they were all radicals and insurrectionists in need of containment, but insufficient supply might guarantee further insurrection.

Cibrial’s mouth pinched with cynicism. “Assuming we can get our hands on enough barrels. Rimbon Beldipassi has bought up all the available stock. I would accuse him of espionage, but he started doing it before Agniet had this idea.”

“And whose fault is that?” Iascat said sharply. “If you hadn’t encouraged him…”

It produced a brief silence, during which Cercel looked confused and Scaperto abruptly looked sick. Donaia arrived at understanding a beat after he did. Those light-forsaken medallions. She already had the unpleasant suspicion Cibrial was using hers to manage the city’s financial affairs in the face of this crisis; things on that front were going too smoothly to be explicable otherwise. And Faella Coscanum seemed to be everywhere these days, talking to everyone, keeping the delta gentry in line. Beldipassi’s sudden investment in barrels might be driven by the same Primordial inspiration.

Cibrial glared at Iascat. “To think I’d regret the day Sostira was gone, replaced by a boy without the guts to do what’s needed. Don’t go throwing stones at me; at least I’m trying to hold this city together.”

“In the short term. Some of us have an eye toward the longer term and larger threats.” Iascat’s riposte earned a harrumph and a nod from Utrinzi.

Cercel, possibly the only person present who didn’t know what they were talking about, dragged them back on topic. “This matter falls under Caerulet and Fulvet, and with Prasinet’s support, we are in three-fifths agreement. This meeting isn’t for discussion; it’s to inform you of our plans.”

A clerk scurried in and shoved a folded missive into Cibrial’s hands. She cursed sulfurously when she read it. “Those damned rebels have started burning the deeds for Old Island property and writing their own, giving the land and buildings to the shopkeepers—to secure their support, I imagine. I need to deal with this. We’re done here.”

She stormed toward the door, which opened to reveal Faella waiting on the other side. Even with the renewed wave of noise, Donaia heard Cibrial’s muttered comment as they stalked away together. “That Fienola woman could end this in a bell, if she’d just answer her damn door.”

Tanaquis. According to Ren, she held the Ninat medallion: death and endings. Donaia hugged herself to forestall a shudder, grateful that Tanaquis was more interested in the cosmos than in the conflicts of the everyday world. Unlike most of the medallion holders, she had the skill to employ hers to its full and devastating effect.

She’d been holed up in her townhouse since the wedding, though, refusing all callers. When she left Westbridge, she’d been muttering something about Vraszenian souls not properly moving through the Lumen’s cycle—but with the air of one inspired, not her usual grumbling complaints. Donaia could only hope her epiphany had something to do with destroying the medallions.

Scaperto touched Donaia’s arm, recalling her to herself. “I know this is hard, and I’m sorry we have to be so high-handed. But cutting off clean water to the island puts pressure on them to capitulate. It’s our best bet for ending the rebellion without bloodshed.”

No, the deaths would come more slowly, as unclean water spread disease. At the same time, Scaperto wasn’t wrong. There was no way out of this conflict that wouldn’t cause suffering.

She could only do her best to mitigate it. Squaring her shoulders, Donaia said, “I’ll go have a talk with Mede Beldipassi.”

Froghole, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 10

Chill water swirled around Sedge’s bare knees and rolled trousers as he waded out past a decayed jetty on the Froghole shore. The usual lights along the riverbanks had been snuffed, and clouds veiled Corillis and Paumillis. To the south, a bright line marked the bridge at Floodwatch; north of him, the Sunset Bridge was a broken line. Between the two, everything was darkness and rushing sound.

And somewhere in that darkness, his sister needed him.

He hadn’t been there when the zlyzen got Ren. No, he’d gone off like a damn fool to drink with Varuni and spent the night learning that not all her impulses toward him were violent. And he hadn’t been there when the bridges blew, with Tess caught somewhere between the Pearls and safety. He couldn’t go into the dream after Ren, but he could find Tess.

She was on the island. She had to be.

Sedge took a deep breath and dove in.

The cold threatened to drive the air from his lungs. He’d learned to swim because it was useful for Vargo’s smuggling work, but never in snow-melted spring flood. Sedge hadn’t gone three strokes when he started wondering if this was a mistake. His balls were trying to crawl inside his body for protection, and his feet were already numb. On the far shore there would be rebels, who could hear him coming even if they couldn’t see. Rebels, and worse: People said they’d seen zlyzen patrolling the waterfront, as if defending the island.

He didn’t try to fight the current, flowing fast with the rising flood behind it. Instead he let it carry him downstream toward the cleansing numinat, focusing on angling across toward Lacewater. Praying all the while that he’d make it before the current swept him past the Old Island entirely. Years ago a farmer had found his infant self among the riverside sedge; he didn’t want his corpse to wind up there, too.

The water hadn’t yet stopped stinking when the clang of metal on metal made him thrash defensively. The sound came from above, though. He glanced up as he passed through the cleansing numinat’s skin-deep buzz and saw faint, shielded lights dancing above like pearl ghosts. Was it Andrejek or the Cinquerat that had stationed people on the numinat?

Distraction cost him valuable paddling time. The suddenly clean waters were sweeping him toward the piers of the broken Sunset Bridge, and he weren’t anywhere near the island yet.

Trying to get over faster made too much noise. A strong lightstone beam suddenly blazed across the water. That gave Sedge enough warning to duck under, and a moment later he heard a muffled splash, far too close for comfort. He flailed under the surface, trying to sense which way the current was taking him, trying to go a bit rightward from that. How far north had he traveled? How much of the island was left for him to catch?

He came up gasping and saw the shore sliding by, buffered by the sandbags Fulvet had placed against flooding. Not quite within reach, but he pushed for them, hands slipping on the wet, rounded burlap. He was running out of sandbags when he finally managed to wedge his hand into a gap and pull himself to a halt.

His relief was short-lived. A rock thudded into his arm; cursing, Sedge flailed for a new hold. “I en’t your enemy!”

Whoever was up above didn’t give a shit. More rocks struck him; a shard of tile cut his scalp. Sedge tried to haul himself enough onto the sandbags to curl up and protect his head.

Then someone grabbed his arm—his bad arm. And he hadn’t worn the brace Tess made for him, because it would interfere with swimming.

Sedge’s arm came out of its socket with a familiar, meaty sound. He howled with pain as the defender hauled him over the sandbags and onto the pavers above. A boot thudded into his ribs, washing agony through him, and Sedge didn’t know what words were coming out of his mouth. He’d prepared a speech, something to convince the Anduske he wasn’t a threat, but all the words were gone—

“Stop that, you fool!” someone shouted in Vraszenian. “Andrejek’s orders; Cinquerat spies should be brought in for questioning.”

“I en’t a spy,” Sedge mumbled, but nobody was listening to him. “Idusza Polojny—I got news for her.” Only the news that Ren and Grey and Vargo were still missing, but these people didn’t have to know that.

“What of the one who knifed Orsoly?” another voice snapped. “We cannot take the risk. Better to be safe—”

In Sedge’s ear, a voice whispered, “Keep quiet.”

That was just enough warning for him to bite down on a scream as someone dragged him backward, into a narrow alley. “Up,” the new voice said. “While they’re distracted. Wait for me by the Plešy Bridge.”

Sedge staggered to his feet. In the dim light, he could barely make out the hooded figure at his side. He choked on the name that wanted to burst out. “G—”

“Go,” the Rook said, and Sedge went.

Behind him he heard a burst of alarmed cries and a mocking laugh. He wanted desperately to look back, but made himself lurch forward on feet he couldn’t feel, past broken windows and boarded-up doors, until the tiny Plešy Bridge came into view. Then he wedged himself into its shadows and waited, panting.

By the time the Rook returned, Sedge’s trousers were half frozen to his legs. But he’d had plenty of time to think about that voice. “You en’t the real Rook,” he said harshly, prying himself upright.

The Rook eased back the hood enough to let in a touch of light, revealing Oksana Ryvček. “An older vintage,” she said dryly. “Come. Or I’ll have rescued you for nothing.”

He didn’t realize until after she’d led him to a cellar room that his feet were bleeding, cut by glass from the shattered windows. Ryvček attended to his shoulder first, dragging it back into place with experienced hands, before picking shards out of his soles and wrapping them tight. “Only spies, fools, and the desperate come here,” she said when she was done. “I know which I am. You?”

“Desperate,” Sedge said grimly. “I’m looking for Tess.”

Ryvček must be wearing the costume Grey had used. It looked good enough to send a thrill through him, despite everything—and she’d dealt so easily with those guards. An older vintage, she’d said, and he knew Grey had once trained with her. Was she the Rook before him? Her fingers snagged on a frayed braid when she ran a hand over her head. “Turns out your other sister has the courage of the first, when need calls.”

Sedge almost grabbed her. “You know where Tess is? She’s alive?”

“Alive, and doing what she can. Andrejek blew the bridges early—or someone on his side did. They were supposed to go at midnight, when few northerners would be here. Instead many were caught. In prison Andrejek keeps them, the ones lucky enough to be brought to him, but even that is far from safe. Tess is helping a few hide.”

Relief melted Sedge into a puddle. Tess was alive. And—not safe, but he weren’t surprised Tess couldn’t just keep her head down. “You’ve gotta take me to her.”

The sardonic arch of Ryvček’s brow halted him. “Sopping wet, with slashed feet, and without coat or shoes? You’re Nadežran enough to avoid trouble, but not looking like that. Give me time to find you clothing. Not that you have much choice; you know not where she is.”

Sedge scoffed. If the rebels were going after outsiders, Tess would head for the safest place available. And there was one place better than any other. “I’ll bet you the boots I left behind that she’s in the temple. But I’ll wait for that coat.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Cyprilun 12

Giuna wished she had someone, anyone for company as she slipped into an Eastbridge alley. No one had heard from Tess since the Old Island fell to the rebels; Giuna feared she was trapped there. Even hoped she was—because all the alternatives were worse.

But there was no one to go with Giuna. Lieutenant Ranieri was devoting every moment not swallowed by his duties guarding water distribution on the Lower Bank to looking for Tess. Sedge had gone missing, doing the same. She would have asked Kasienka, but the other girl was off on business for her aunt and hadn’t come by the manor in days. Giuna couldn’t even bring Meatball. Donaia would ask why she was taking him, and Giuna didn’t want her mother to know what she was doing.

So she was on her own as she stripped off her gloves, faced the door at the back of the Eastbridge Quaratium, and rapped on the wood.

No answer came, not after the first knock, nor the second or third. Maybe they’re all out, Giuna thought. Or they moved after we found them.

When she tested the latch, the door swung open.

“Hello?” she called up the stairwell, hating how timid she sounded. “I’m looking for Esmi—Mistress Esmierka.” She didn’t know the woman’s family name. She didn’t know if the woman had a family name. Neither Tess nor Sedge seemed to.

Giuna ventured up the steps. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. If it weren’t important, I wouldn’t be here.” The staircase opened into the room she’d seen before, still decorated with the mismatched trophies of the Oyster Crackers, the most successful knot of thieves on the Upper Bank. They hadn’t moved on; they just weren’t home. “Hello?”

The reply came in the form of an arm around her throat and the cold kiss of steel against her skin. “What part of our last meeting made you think you got an invitation here, alta?”

“I know I don’t.” Nerves made Giuna want to swallow, but she was terrified she’d cut herself if she did. The voice was Esmierka’s, though: one mercy from the Vraszenian Masks. “I’m sorry. I—I came to ask a favor of you.”

Esmierka released her. The knife stayed out as the thief circled to face her. “The likes of you, asking a favor from the likes of me, at a time like this. That’s almost as rich as you are.”

Her cynicism was understandable. Esmierka had a Vraszenian name and some of the blood, though her accent was purely Nadežran. “The favor will help you, too,” Giuna said, discarding all opening pleasantries. “My plan is to cut Cibrial Destaelio off at the knees.”

The burn scar made Esmierka’s expression hard to read, but her abrupt stillness said plenty. After a moment she dropped into a chair. “As opening cards go, that one’s at least interesting.”

Giuna remained standing, like a supplicant. Little tricks she’d picked up from Ren, who’d taught her that honest persuasion was a kissing cousin to dishonest manipulation. “Are we alone?”

Esmierka nodded.

“I mean it,” Giuna insisted. “If we aren’t, this could be incredibly dangerous to everyone. The rest of your knot included.”

The other woman’s brows rose, but she said, “Truly, we’re alone.”

Giuna had to trust it was the truth. “Do you remember the bronze medallion Suilis was looking for? The one she thought Ren had?” At a second nod, Giuna said, “Her Charity has one very much like it, except cast in copper and etched with Quarat. I need someone to steal it. And you’re the only thief I can ask.”

Esmierka’s bark of laughter was entirely deserved. “What about your cousin?”

“Ren’s missing. Nobody’s seen her for days.”

That snuffed the amusement like a pinched candle. “Tess neither. Her man came asking. Think they’re in the same place?”

“I don’t think so. But I don’t know.” Everything felt like it had spun out of Giuna’s control. No sign of Grey and Vargo, either, unless the rumors about sightings of the Rook on the Old Island were true. Tess missing. Sedge missing. Tanaquis wasn’t opening her door to anybody, even when Giuna stood outside pleading for an hour. And Donaia was busy trying to keep the barge that was Nadežra from steering itself straight onto a shoal. Giuna couldn’t do anything about any of it.

Except this piece. She’s using her medallion, I’m sure of it, Donaia had said. Faella, too. When Giuna went to talk to Iridet, she’d found Parma at his house. Parma said she could take care of Faella; that left Cibrial in Giuna’s hands.

Esmierka spun the knife around her fingers. “Two of ’em, now. Why do these medallions matter so damned much? There’s lots of numinatria in this city.”

Giuna wasn’t about to give the whole story to someone who hadn’t yet agreed to help, but she could share part of it. “They’re what Kaius Rex used to conquer Vraszan.”

The knife spun free and clunked to the floor.

“So,” Esmierka said, her voice flat. “You’re a typical cuff after all. You want me to steal this thing and give it to you.”

“No,” Giuna flung back, shuddering down to her bones. “I want you to hide it—hide it where nobody else can find it, not even your knot-mates. These things are evil, Esmierka; they’re evil and dangerous and I’m asking you to take a terrible risk by stealing one. But we need to destroy them, and I don’t trust Cibrial to cooperate.”

Esmierka stood slowly, not taking her gaze from Giuna’s. “Tess said you’re not much of a liar, but this… You truly want to undercut your own Cinquerat, in the middle of a war, because you think these things are that bad.”

“If we’re relying on them to keep control of this city,” Giuna said, her voice trembling, “then we’re no better than the Tyrant.”

That got a short, sharp nod. Then Esmierka spat into the palm of her hand.

Giuna’s gloves were still in her pocket. She spat in her own hand and met Esmierka’s grip, palm-to-palm.

“If I’m keeping my crew in the dark,” Esmierka said, “I’ll need someone else’s help finding where she keeps it.”

Giuna sighed. “By ‘someone else,’ I suppose you mean me.”

Scar twisting with her glee, Esmierka said, “Suppose so. Welcome to the Oyster Crackers, Alta Giuna Traementis.”

Hidden temple, Old Island: Cyprilun 13

Even though Tess knew the temple was warded against intruders, she still tensed up every time she heard footsteps approaching. There was always the chance that someone had let slip the secret of how to get in, or that someone wearing a triple clover charm just happened to try the barrier. Enough people had come onto the Old Island for the rebellion that some might not even know there was a barrier. And she could only imagine what the rebels would do if they found her collection of refugees hiding in a temple that used to belong to Kaius Rex.

Stoček hurried over to the entrance, as if he’d be much of a defense should an enemy come through. Tess followed, carrying the chair leg that was her makeshift club. But it was only Sedge, hauling a small cask of water.

“All I could get,” Sedge said at Tess’s disheartened look. “What Andrejek’s passing out is the water they’d set aside for putting out fires—they filled their barrels before the numinata got destroyed. But there en’t much left.”

Tess licked lips that already felt far too dry. The temple made a good shelter, but a bad place to wait out a siege. The only food or water they had was what Sedge could scrounge outside. The Amananto boy, Orrucio, claimed to know a little bit of inscription; he’d been trying to make a cleansing numinat using supplies left behind in the temple. So far, no success.

“We’ll make it last,” Stoček said. But Tess knew that no amount of thrift would stretch that cask very far.

An answer came from the tunnel, Ryvček’s voice deepened and stripped of its usual accent. “No, drink up. Because tonight you’re getting out of here.”

Tess’s heart leapt as the Rook’s hooded silhouette appeared behind Sedge. “You’ve got a way off the island?” How, she couldn’t imagine. But Ryvček had all the Rook’s resourcefulness, even without his magic to help.

“I told you I would. But you’d better move fast, because the longer we wait, the more likely it is that somebody finds the boat.”

Dust burned in Tess’s throat as she looked at Sedge’s cask, but her conscience held her back. If they were leaving, then someone else should have the clean water.

She was about to say so when the numinata lighting the temple flickered and dimmed.

Footsteps echoed from everywhere and nowhere, mixed with cries of alarm from the refugees. A chill spread across Tess’s skin, slow, crawling horror that made her cringe from the shadows. Except there was nowhere to go but more shadows, and a smell like worms broken free of overturned earth.

“Zlyzen,” Sedge rasped, arm coming around Tess like he would protect her.

But then the light flickered back like it had only been the shadow of a passing gull. Around the temple, the refugees cowered in confusion.

And at the center of the room stood Ren, Grey, and Vargo.

20

Seven as One

Hidden temple, Old Island: Cyprilun 13

Stepping out of the dream felt like stepping from a boat onto solid land. After the creeping, corrupted horror of Fiavla, suddenly everything was bewilderingly normal.

Ren tried to hold on to Alsius as they passed through—tried to hold on to him as Alsius, the man rather than the spider. Hadn’t she once drawn the Black Rose’s mask out of nothingness into reality? But that had been when the amphitheatre numinat was fraying the boundary between the two realms; in the absence of that, her control had limits. The threads of him slipped through her fingers, and when the temple solidified, he was a spider once more.

At least he was there, and Grey and Vargo with him, everyone safe and whole.

So focused was she on that, she didn’t see her siblings until they barreled into her with hugs and glad cries.

While Ren was still giving reassurances and a garbled account of where they’d been to Sedge and Tess, Vargo took in the stares of the wide-eyed people around the fringes of the room. “You turned Kaius Rex’s temple into a nytsa parlour?” he drawled. “Just how long have we been gone?”

“Eleven days!” Tess cried, dabbing Ren’s tears and then her own with her sleeve.

Ren flinched at the number. Eleven days: the time it took for Fiavla to fall and the Ižranyi to become… what they’d become. She didn’t dare assume it was coincidence.

“You’re here just in time to make my life difficult.” That came from a familiar hooded figure. “I was about to get these people off the island.”

After so much time dealing with both versions, Ren could tell the genuine Rook from the false, Fontimi’s old costume and the hood Tess had imbued. Without that, though, she would have never known it was Ryvček.

“What mean you, ‘get these people off the island’?” Grey said. “What’s happening?”

Sedge looked awkward. “So, while you were gone… Andrejek went through with it. Old Island’s under Vraszenian control. Not just the Anduske; seems like half the continent came downriver to help retake Nadežra.”

That prompted a garbled account in the other direction, Tess and Sedge explaining what Ren had missed—the bridges down, the river running foul, zlyzen tearing into the swimmers Caerulet had sent to infiltrate the island by night. This was more like expecting solid ground, only to fall down an unnoticed step. It hadn’t felt like eleven days passed in the dream—it hadn’t felt like one day—but suddenly she jolted into a world changed irrevocably from the one she’d left.

“Andrejek and his advisors are meeting with the Cinquerat,” Sedge finished. “At the Sunrise Bridge gap, so they can’t throw more than words at each other. While they’re all busy, we’re gonna get these people to safety.”

The people in question were all northerners. Orrucio Amananto gave Ren an awkward wave.

She pressed her fingers into her eyes. I was supposed to be here. I was supposed to help mitigate Laročja’s influence.

It wasn’t too late. “They’re meeting now?” she asked. Sedge nodded. “Then I may still be able to do something. The rest of you go; I will head to the Sunrise Bridge.”

Grey caught her wrist. “We’re going together.”

She wanted to say yes. As Rook or as Grey, she wanted him by her side. But Laročja would be with Koszar, and besides… “You need to make certain my unwanted possession is secure,” she murmured in Vraszenian.

“And I need to do something about the river numinata. Might skin whichever shortsighted imbecile made that call,” Vargo growled. “If we end up with an outbreak of the bloody flux, might be I’ll skin the lot of them and save Andrejek the effort.”

Sedge crossed his arms and looked his most menacing. “I’ll keep her safe. En’t needed out there, and things here are rough.”

Ren wasn’t about to argue. “I’ll join you when I can,” she promised Grey. If Koszar was meeting diplomatically with the Cinquerat, then some amount of contact with the banks must be possible.

Reluctance was clear in every line of Grey’s body. But he knew as well as she did that they would be more effective if they divided their efforts. He traced one finger down the ribbons braiding the wedding token into her hair: a reminder that they were now joined, in the world as well as in their hearts.

Brow pressed to hers and lips separated only by breath, Grey murmured, “I suppose it was too much to ask for a single night to enjoy it before everything came crashing down.”

“All the more reason to keep yourself safe until we can,” she whispered back, tugging his token to stress her warning.

“Heed your own advice, Szeren,” he said, and kissed her to ensure his word was the last on the matter.

But the world couldn’t wait for long. Reluctantly, Ren let him go, hugged Tess farewell, and gripped Vargo’s knot-bound wrist. And then they were gone.

She was still in her wedding clothes, koszenie and all. After a moment’s hesitation, she stripped that off and tied it under her skirt instead. Although the threads might not be cut, that didn’t give her the right to claim Volavka connections, not when she hadn’t even met her mother’s kin.

As she finished smoothing her skirt, movement caught her eye.

The zlyzen that had taken her to Fiavla was there, slinking through a shadow. Ren swallowed hard. Even knowing what the creature was, fear and horror still tainted her pity. Whatever the zlyzen had been through, they’d also torn Leato apart.

Ignoring the creature, Ren drew a deep breath and said to Sedge, “Guess it’s up to us to stop a war.”

Dawngate, Old Island: Cyprilun 13

Before Ren left, diplomacy between the Anduske and the Cinquerat was supposed to take the form of a quiet meeting with Scaperto, Iascat, and Cercel on one side, Koszar and a few of his people on the other. She didn’t know if that meeting had occurred in her absence, but the image was replaced by a new reality: two groups shouting across the fractured span of the Sunrise Bridge, with the sludge-brown Dežera passing below. The Liganti had the benefit of numinatria amplifying their demands—along with every petty disagreement muttered between them. The Vraszenians made do with speaking trumpets.

It wasn’t just them, either. Crowds had gathered to watch and hear what they could, on both sides of the river. This wasn’t like the Dreamweaver Riots, with furious Vraszenians against flights of hawks with dogs, but Ren felt no safer. People looked at her and Sedge as they worked their way forward, and she could feel those gazes weighing her appearance and his. Her Vraszenian finery earned her north-touched features a pass, but he collected an increasing number of scowls and curses.

Finally they broke through to the line of guards holding people back. At the sight of Ren, the guards’ reflexive move to grab her stuttered to a halt.

She leapt on that opening. “I am Arenza—” What name should she add to that? None at all; that wasn’t where her authority lay. “By the szorsas of the clans I was chosen to speak for the Ižranyi in the next cycle. I have a right and an obligation to be at this meeting. Let me pass.”

A man wearing dull Meszaros browns scoffed. “Convenient that you’re showing up now, Arenza of no clan. Where were you this past week and more?”

“In Ažerais’s Dream, receiving insight from our goddess,” Ren shot back. It wasn’t even a lie. “Think you that you understand her wisdom better than I?”

Idusza shoved her way past the guard. “I know this one—and that brother of hers. Let them pass.” She grabbed Ren, dragging her toward Andrejek’s group. “You have Ola Tlegu’s own timing, coming now, after all that has happened.”

“It seemed only a few hours,” Ren murmured back, studying the people at Koszar’s side. Mevieny and Dalisva were nowhere to be seen. But Laročja was there, watching Ren’s approach with hard eyes and a death-stiff smile.

On the far side of the bridge, Cibrial’s sails were full with the wind of outrage. “—expect us to do what, relocate every Liganti currently living in this city? And I’d almost like to see you try to take over our trade agreements, just to place bets on how long it would take them to collapse. But you underestimate your bargaining power, Master Andrejek, if you think your control of that island is enough to bring the Cinquerat to its knees. I say we adjourn this waste of time. We’ll see what tune you’re singing after a week of drinking from your beloved Dežera.”

Ren’s heart leapt to see Donaia standing with the Cinquerat delegation. Her aunt clutched Scaperto’s arm when she spotted Ren, the other hand pressing her heart. Though Donaia couldn’t out-shout Cibrial, her lips formed words Ren could make out: Grey? The others? Ren nodded, and Donaia sagged with visible relief.

It was the only relief to be had. Koszar snapped back, “Polluting this whole city to preserve your power is evidence of why you deserve it not. How will your own people feel, reduced to begging at your feet for clean water? And we control more than just this island—tell me, how fare those trade agreements you’re so concerned with?” Then someone touched his arm, and he turned and saw Ren.

He handed off his speaking trumpet and swapped his cane to his left hand so he could touch his brow in respectful greeting. “Thank the Faces you’re back safely. I regret we could not wait for your return, but the Great Dream approaches. Our people must have free access to our Lady’s wellspring. I have promised it.”

Ren wondered how he meant to keep his promise if the Cinquerat refused to deal with him. Already she regretted rushing here. A successful con relied on knowing the mark and the stage, and negotiations were no different. From Cibrial’s words, she could guess that he’d demanded the Cinquerat cede Nadežra in its entirety: an opening gambit intended to soften them to more-balanced demands. Whose idea had that been—his, or Laročja’s? If Ren had been here, she would have advised him to start at a less extreme point.

Now she was fighting a rearguard action. “Too much force will break a reed,” Ren said. Empty words of clichéd wisdom, buying herself time to come up with better ones, but Koszar had never met a metaphor he didn’t like.

“You have advice on how to bend our enemies?” Koszar asked. “You know them best.”

“Yes.” Laročja raised her voice, turning a private greeting into a public play. “Are you not one of them? Arenza Lenskaya Traementatis.”

The wind over the river whipped her words to the other delegation. Donaia stepped forward, hands balling into fists. “You have the gall to chide my niece for her choice of family?” she shouted back, the numinat magnifying her reply. “Breathtaking arrogance from a harridan whose abuse drove her own grandsons to this city, just to escape her!”

If Ren could have leapt across the shattered gap to push Donaia’s words back into her mouth, she would have. Laročja grinned like a shark scenting prey. “Her Liganti aunt defends her! If this girl wishes to join the negotiations, on the other side of the bridge she should be. Among us she has no standing—only a title she won by theft and deceit. A title whose responsibilities she abandoned as soon as they suited her not. I stand with Ča Andrejek, as the voice of the lost Ižranyi. This slip-knot has no place here!”

The answer surged in Ren’s throat. I’ve found the lost Ižranyi, you fraud. If I asked, one of them would probably tear you apart!

But her last shred of self-control kept her teeth clenched shut. She’d already misstepped, rushing into this confrontation without taking time to prepare. Both sides were looking at her with contempt, the Cinquerat because she stood with Koszar, the rebels because of her Liganti ties. The truth about the zlyzen was too horrifying; revealing it here would only add to the chaos—if anyone even believed her.

She had to wait. Bide her time, regain her footing, plan her next move. Be the calculating manipulator once more, for the good of Nadežra and everyone in it.

Her posture was Renata’s cool assurance, even if her accent wasn’t. “When all shout, none listen. If you regard me as an advisor, Ča Andrejek, then with Idusza I will go until you are ready to speak. If I am reviled as a spy, then I submit myself to her custody.” She reached for Idusza, leaving it ambiguous whether she meant to take the other woman’s hands, or offer her own wrists to be tied. “But there are things I must tell you, and things that must be done… or these bridges you’ve destroyed will never be mended.”

The Depths, Old Island: Cyprilun 13

“You’ve got to admit there’s some irony in you doing this,” Vargo murmured to Ryvček as she led them through the tunnels. She might not be wearing the real hood, but she’d steeped herself in its impulses for years.

“Pragmatism,” she answered, equally soft. “So far Andrejek has restrained his more bloodthirsty allies, but no sense waving more fresh meat than necessary. And if his grip fails, it will only drive support to the more bloodthirsty nobles.”

She cast a glance over her shoulder. “Besides… half these people are shopkeepers. Not noble, not even delta gentry. Not all Liganti are cuffs, much less the target of my mandate. But some among the rebels don’t make that distinction.”

Vargo expected a comment from Alsius, but there was only silence as the Rook stopped and dragged a sack into the light. “Put these on,” she said, passing wads of black cloth to the refugees. “If the shore watchers see light heads, they’ll shoot. These will confuse them long enough for us to get away.”

She sounded more confident than Vargo felt. The cloth turned out to be coats and hoods, stitched with flimsy spangles, the dye bleeding black smudges on whatever skin or fabric it touched. Rook costumes, and cheap ones. Vargo swallowed a snort.

“How many tailors did you rob for these?” Grey asked as Tess helped the Amananto boy squeeze into a too-small coat. The unmistakable noise of a ripping seam made her click her tongue in annoyance.

“Only three.” The Rook bowed with a swirl of black wool and more than a little mockery. “I’m a popular costume.”

The mob of mismatched Rooks forming in the dim tunnel looked more like a street farce than the terrifying night of Vargo’s rescue from Tserdev. Ryvček might be right, though; the rumors flying about that night might buy them the hesitation they needed.

“Where’s ours?” Vargo asked. The peacock-blue brocade of the coat he’d worn to the wedding wasn’t suitable for a vigilante.

“Guests who fail to notify the host of their attendance have to fend for themselves.” Ryvček tossed one last bundle to the tunnel’s floor. “This was for Sedge. You two can fight over it.”

Any hope that Grey had the real thing tucked away died when the other man shook his head. “Take it,” Grey said. “I’ll manage.”

Lowering his voice, Vargo said, “You’ve got more experience with this shit than I do.”

“And you look less Vraszenian than I do. We don’t have time to argue. Put it on.”

Ryvček shook her head at Grey while Vargo, swearing inwardly, stripped out of his coat and shoved himself into the stupid costume. “Caught so unprepared? I’m disappointed. Well, if you take a crossbow bolt between the eyes, maybe you’ll learn a valuable lesson.”

“Duck?”

Grey’s flat tone and Ryvček’s snort were a poignant reminder of Vargo’s relationship with his own mentor. You still there, old man? Tell me you can hear me. If what Ren did in the dream had faded…

The response was small and subdued, like the spider body tucking itself deep under Vargo’s borrowed collar, but it made him sag in relief. ::I’m here. Just… thinking.::

Not exciting intellectual thoughts about the realm of mind, not with that tone. As Ryvček led them onward, a graceful black swan capping a file of awkward cygnets, Vargo thought back, It was hard, not hearing you. All those times I swore I’d give somebody’s left arm to have my head to myself again—I take it back. I was worried. But we made it through; Ren fixed us. He could still use a week of sleep, but he no longer felt like there was a hole in his heart, draining the life out of him. The aches of broken bones and bruised muscles were already fading.

Something tickled Vargo’s cheek, Peabody venturing out. ::What you said in the dream… Truly, you think of me as a father?::

Think, nothing. It’s official. Laid it out in the register. With a ward around Vargo’s own name to protect Alsius from Sessat.

Peabody quivered with emotions too strong for a spider’s small body to contain. ::I—::

Dull pain thudded through Vargo as the woman behind him swatted Peabody off his shoulder, followed by a second thud as the spider hit the wall. Vargo dove to catch him before he could tumble into the sloshing stream.

“The fuck is your problem?” he snarled, glaring up at the woman.

“Sp-spider!” she shrieked.

“Yeah, I know!”

Ryvček’s hissed “Shut! Up!” came too late. From a branching passage came a shout, demanding to know who was there.

They were completely unprepared for a confrontation. Ryvček was armed, but Grey, still in his wedding clothes, had only one of the decorative swords she’d stolen along with the costumes. Beyond that, it was all useless shopkeepers and delta pups. As Alsius scrambled onto his sleeve, Vargo fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for the blasting numinat he hadn’t used in Fiavla. In this tunnel, it ought to work quite nicely… but if they needed more than one, they were fucked.

Then the darkness shifted up ahead—writhed—melted into a trio of living, wrong-jointed shadows.

Vargo froze. He didn’t doubt Ren that the zlyzen were the surviving Ižranyi—if you could call it survival when they’d become horrible monsters. That didn’t change the fact that they were monsters, and whatever kinship they felt toward Ren, he doubted it extended to anybody else—

Grey stepped forward.

All the moisture in Vargo’s mouth dried to dust. Ren hadn’t said it outright, but Vargo had caught the look in Grey’s eyes when she said the creature that dragged them into Fiavla was Ižranyi. And hadn’t Vargo seen it, following the trail of dead bodies from Grey’s previous lives? A charred lump that looked like a dead zlyzen.

Looked like… or had been.

Grey didn’t speak. Only stood, unmoving, his back to the whimpering tangle of Liganti.

Then the zlyzen darted away, toward the approaching sound. A moment later, there were screams.

Of terror rather than pain—at least Vargo hoped so. There were people he would gladly set zlyzen on, but random Vraszenian rebels weren’t on that list. And Grey wasn’t the killing sort.

But he’d just sent them off like a pack of well-trained hunting dogs.

Grey’s eyes were wide enough to show the whites when Vargo came up to his side. “I remember it now,” he said, barely audible. “I remember being… that.”

The last, bleeding scrap of hope that Vargo’s new-sworn brother hadn’t once been a fucking zlyzen died. Then its corpse got booted out of his head by Ryvček’s hand slamming into his shoulders. “Go!”

They were in the lowest passages now, filling with the rising tide, and there was light up ahead, an exit to one of the river’s channels. There they found the centerpiece of Ryvček’s plan: a splinter-boat, just narrow enough to fit into the tunnel. “We can’t wait for the distraction I arranged,” Ryvček snapped, pushing the refugees into the boat. “This will have to suffice.”

Which meant the shore guards would still be alert. Even with Rook hoods hiding pale heads and stories of Rook flocks to introduce confusion, the boat would be an easy target—especially while it floundered up to speed under the disorganized rowing of people more used to paying skiffers.

“Give Serrado your oar. I need your back,” Vargo said to Amananto. He didn’t remember if the boy had been in the canal races, but he trusted Grey’s strong arms.

With the young man’s back as an unsteady desk, Vargo used a pencil stub to dig a Tricat into the wax of his two-part blasting numinat. Time and stasis. He didn’t need a big explosion. He needed something longer-lasting and more contained.

The boat shoved out into the river, blindingly bright after so long in the dark. Shouts came immediately from up above; how long before arrows followed? Vargo folded himself over the stern, trying to reach the water, and had a vision of taking a bolt to the ass.

“Everyone, hang on,” he shouted. And to Amananto, more quietly: “Don’t let me fall overboard.”

Then he clapped the two sides of the numinat together, slotting the focus into place.

Only Amananto’s grip on Vargo’s hips kept him from staying behind when their boat bucked straight out of the water. Timbers groaned in protest as they splashed down; the boat was made for the Dežera’s muddy current, not the swells of the open sea. Vargo almost lost his hold on the numinat. The power flaring out of it churned the murky water to yellow foam.

But they were unquestionably moving, and the fast-receding shouts from the island’s shore reached them better than the accompanying arrows. Despite everything, Vargo cackled with glee as Grey did his best to steer the boat toward a landing on the Lower Bank.

His cackling faded when water began swirling around his boots. Pretty soon the race wasn’t between arrows and escapees, but between the river and reaching safety. By the time they got to a stair, the boat was wallowing, succumbing to its wounds.

Vargo’s cheap coat slapped against his knees, a dragging weight as he crawled from the river, the last in a line of sopping Rooks. He stank of dead fish, but the knowledge that he’d be shivering harder in only waistcoat and shirtsleeves kept him from throwing it off. Not what that was designed for, eh? he thought at Alsius. But it worked.

Then, with horror, he realized Peabody wasn’t with him. “Alsius!” He splashed back the way he’d come, searching the thigh-deep water. If the spider had fallen into the river—

::It’s all right, my boy. I’m on the island.::

What? Why?

::You’ll be able to communicate better with Ren if I stay. My turn to play messenger boy, I suppose.::

The humor sounded forced. Why didn’t you tell me you were planning that?

::Because by the time I thought of it, you were getting ready to shoot that boat between the moons. I didn’t want to distract you. Go; I’ll be fine.::

He hated the thought of leaving Alsius behind, but their explosive flight had drawn attention from the hawks patrolling the Lower Bank. Catching Grey’s conflicted grimace, Vargo echoed Alsius’s own words. “Go. You need to make sure everything’s secure at the townhouse. Fancy cuff, en’t I? I’ll take care of matters here.”

Ryvček had already disappeared into the shadows. With a nod of thanks, Grey caught Tess’s arm and did the same. Vargo straightened his stinking coat and waved the hawks down with a cheery hand. “Eret Vargo. Yes, I know we’re all dressed as the Rook; don’t you just hate it when everyone else picks the same Night of Bells costume as you? These people need shelter. I’m invoking my right to the Vigil’s assistance.” For however much longer that right existed.

Between them, the Anduske and the Cinquerat had done a fine job of fucking things up while he was gone. Who knew what would still be standing when the dust settled? If Vargo had been in charge of the revolution, it wouldn’t have begun until his victory was already assured.

Which might have meant another fifty years with nothing happening. The choice wasn’t in his hands.

And since he couldn’t take back those eleven days and stop what Andrejek had started, the only alternative was to hope the Nadežra that emerged on the other side was preferable to the one they went in with.

No. Not hope. Following a woman with a captain’s hexagram pin, Vargo thought, I’ll make sure of it.

Dawngate, Old Island: Cyprilun 13

Ren and Sedge were left to twiddle their thumbs in the entry hall of the Charterhouse for at least an hour before Koszar showed up. It gave her plenty of opportunity to study the defaced statues, and the new mottoes painted in below the old: I deceive all. I manipulate all. I bribe all. I kill all. I damn all. The words the statues had spoken on the Night of Hells.

Ren shuddered. Had Mevieny told someone? Had the reports filed with Tanaquis gotten out? Or were those nightmarish phrases echoing through other people’s dreams?

She forced herself to look away, gaze settling on the next bench over… where a familiar splotch of color waited just outside swatting distance. “Alsius?” she whispered.

He scuttled up to perch on her knee. If he was talking, she couldn’t hear him; she hadn’t thought to bring the numinat from the temple. But they’d come up with some stopgaps over the past weeks of silence.

“Have they made it safely?” she whispered, slumping with relief when he waved his forelimbs once for yes. “You came back?” No. “Chose to stay?” Yes. “I imagine Vargo loved that.”

… No.

She covered her laugh.

Peabody hid when Koszar entered, his cane clacking against the stone. “A boat just flew through the air from Duskgate to Westbridge, filled with Rooks,” he said. “Most of whom seem to have been Liganti. Know you anything of this?”

Sedge answered for her as smoothly as he would have in their Finger days. “En’t there been stories of the Rook all over the island? Seems to me it’s probably his doing.”

“Like you getting onto the island?” Koszar asked, raising an eyebrow at Sedge. “A report I had of someone matching your description swimming across three nights ago—but he vanished, apparently with the Rook’s help.”

“Sounds like a good trade to me,” Sedge said nonchalantly, lounging back on the bench. “Pack of useless Ligs for one expert fist.”

The amusement that bent Koszar’s mouth had a sour cast, but he didn’t press the point. “If your sister’s safety I pledge, may I speak with her alone? Thank you.” He gestured for her to follow him. Ren waited until his back was turned to slip Peabody into her pocket.

They went to Fulvet’s office, which showed little evidence of mayhem. To Ren’s relief, they truly were alone once Koszar closed the door behind them. He sank into Scaperto’s large, padded chair with a relieved sigh and propped his cane against the desk. His leg must be paining him, she realized. He likely ran out of Alinka’s imbued medicines after the occupation began.

“I’m sorry,” she said, before Koszar could speak. “For barging into that meeting—I acted without thinking. And for not being here before.”

“Where went you? From your sister we had a mad tale about zlyzen kidnapping you into—” Koszar stopped, searching her expression. “It wasn’t a tale.”

Ren rubbed her face. “I wasn’t kidnapped, but… yes. Could I have been here to help you, I would have. Koszar, what was that madness at the bridge? You must know the Cinquerat will not cede the whole city without a fight!”

“Certainly I know. But if they are tensed to keep the whole together, they may relax when we let them have a portion.” Koszar waved at a map of the city that hung on Fulvet’s wall, the river sparkling like crushed lapis, the buildings and banks picked out in shining gold. “Against the Upper Bank Elsivin the Red broke herself, trying to claim it for her own. I have learned from her mistake. Let them have it; we will keep the rest.”

Dividing the city in two. “Or in fifty years a lesson you will be for your successor, as Elsivin was for you. Draw lines on a map all you wish; people are not so easily divided. Have you forgotten your pattern, the meaning I read in The Mask of Hollows? Or have you placed your trust in a different szorsa?”

Koszar’s expression hardened. “I have ideas of my own, Ren, and you have not been here. But I cannot disregard Laročja’s counsel—not when half my forces came here at her word. If too timidly I act, they will abandon me. Or worse, overthrow me. How think you this rebellion will proceed then? Leaving the Upper Bank in Liganti hands may be a temporary solution, but better that than no solution at all.”

“A solution that breeds more ill will is worst of all,” Ren snapped.

Tense silence gripped the room. Ren broke it by sighing and spreading her hands on Scaperto’s desk. “We fight each other instead of the Cinquerat.”

“That is how Vraszan fell,” Koszar agreed, sagging back. “After the loss of the Ižranyi, the city-states were less unified than before. By the time they recognized the scope of the Tyrant’s threat, it was too late.”

The Ižranyi. So often invoked at moments like these, when Vraszenians lamented the divisions among them. “Koszar, the Ižranyi are not all lost. A fragment of the clan survives. This is the revelation I went seeking.”

If his leg could have borne it, he probably would have been on his feet. “How? Where?”

“You will like it not,” Ren warned him.

By the time she was done explaining, she doubted any force could have helped Koszar stand. Into the hand braced over his mouth, he said, “The zlyzen… they have been defending the island. The stories say they cannot stay past dawn, yet for days they have been here. Even in daylight.”

Ren’s skin prickled with unease. The ordeal, with the zlyzen striking at Branek but leaving Koszar untouched. She was certain now that had been her work, all unwitting. When she’d prayed to Ižranyi for Branek’s failure and Koszar’s success, she’d called them. Was their defense of the island the same? But how could they remain here, when before they could not?

The kanina. A dance to call the ancestors—including twisted ancestors who’d burned their own koszenie to protect the rest from Fiavla’s fall. In the moment before Kolya’s appearance, she’d thought she glimpsed a wrong-shaped shadow in the corner. Was she responsible for both? His unexpected solidity, and zlyzen remaining in the waking world, rather than fading with the dawn?

Rather than share that horrifying thought with Koszar, she said, “For now you must keep this secret. I want to help them, and there must be a way to use this to our benefit—but my lesson I have learned. I will not act until I have thought.” Not until she was prepared to confront Laročja. There had to be a way to pry her off the board, while aligning her supporters solidly behind Koszar and the Anduske.

He nodded, and Ren traced the wood grain on the surface of Fulvet’s desk, thinking. “Koszar… know you that I was the woman seen in the dream? On the Night of Hells. When I met Dalisva and Mevieny.”

“That was you?” His disbelieving snort was almost a laugh. “Is there a pot in this city to which you’ve added no salt? I trust you, Ren… but is it any wonder others question where your loyalty lies, when so many lies you have told?”

I deceive all. The twisted inscription under Argentet’s statue. And it gave her an idea.

Ren said, “My loyalty lies with those who call this city home. What if, instead of tearing our home apart and leaving it to bleed, there was a way to stitch it together? Instead of mimicking the Liganti by drowning out all voices but our own, letting all voices speak?”

“Even if the Liganti agreed, know you how hard it is to get our people to accept new ways?” Elbows planted on the desk, Koszar buried his head once more in his hands. “I wasted reams of ink and paper trying to make it happen.”

“Not new ways. Old ways.”

That got his attention. “Mevieny and I saw seven statues in the Charterhouse that night,” Ren said. “You know Nadežra’s history better than I; was it not always ruled by a council? But of seven, rather than five.”

Koszar said slowly, “Yes. One representative for each clan. But you are suggesting—”

“That it represent the Nadežra we have today,” Ren said. “Vraszenian, and Liganti, and those who are neither—only citizens of this city.”

In her pocket, Peabody twitched. She could only imagine the questions Alsius wanted to ask, the objections he wanted to raise. Koszar sat back, his gaze lost in details. He said distantly, “I would need to seed the suggestion so it comes from other mouths than yours. If you said the Dežera runs north, Laročja’s faction would agree it flows south. But… it is worth consideration. Think you the Cinquerat would accept a weakening of their power?”

“I think they are tensed to keep the whole together,” she said, throwing his words back at him. “This at least offers them a portion to hold.”

And if they could destroy the medallions… then for the first time in two centuries, the balance of that power might be fair.

Koszar retrieved his cane. “Look frustrated when you leave, as if our conversation went poorly.”

Grinning, Ren stood and offered him a pert, Seterin-style curtsy. “I can manage that.”

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 13

The door to the townhouse didn’t open when Grey tried it. He could lift the latch, but something held the door shut.

From behind the thick panels came a shout: “Piss off! En’t none of you getting in here, ’cept over our juicy, rotting corpses!”

Tess had shed her Rook costume; Ryvček had stripped down to nondescript black breeches and shirt. A swift glance said they were no more enlightened than he. Of course not: They’d been on the island.

The voice was that of a child. One of Arkady’s lot, though Grey couldn’t remember who. “It’s me, Grey,” he said through the door.

“En’t falling for your tricks, neither!”

“You could just…” He pounded the door frame in frustration. “Didn’t anyone think to make a peephole?”

“So you can poke out our peepers? We en’t stupid. Give us the passphrase or get crusted.”

Tess nudged Grey aside before he could kick the door. “Doomclaw’s real name is Constable Fuzzybritches.”

There was a moment of silence. Then scraping as something heavy gouged grooves into the hall flooring. “How did you know the passphrase?” Grey asked.

“I don’t.” Tess winked, and the door creaked open.

A boy scowled and beckoned with one scrawny arm. “Well, get in here! Before somebody sees our guard is down!”

There was no one on the street except ordinary residents, but the three of them hurried inside, past the kids and the cabinet they’d hauled back from the door. Through the opening to the parlour, Grey saw other furniture had been tipped up to block the windows. “Are you worried the Old Island situation will spill over?”

“Naw.” That was Arkady, giving the front hall a suspicious peer before advancing. “Some shitlicker broke in a few days ago. I figured him for a thief—and he sure didn’t expect the welcome he got.” Snickers came from the kids, but Arkady wasn’t laughing. “Only, after that somebody came around and said we was squatting here. Tried to get the Vigil to drive us out, but that man of Tess’s been keeping them off. Still, we been bottling our piss in case they come back.” She waved at a stockpile of wine bottles by the door, wedding trash they hadn’t had a chance to dispose of.

Fear gutted Grey as he raced downstairs. They’d filled the wine cellar with junk to cover up the flagstone that hid Tricat, but Arkady and her gang had ransacked the room for barricade material. Or was that someone else’s work, searching for Tricat? The flagstone was in place, but he couldn’t trust it. He waited an endless moment while Tess shooed off the onlookers before he pried it up.

Since the containment numinata he’d devised seemed not to be much use, Vargo had instead taken inspiration from his own adventures retrieving Tricat from the dream and scribed one that held the medallion down like a magnet. The silk pouch they’d placed the medallion in was still there. Grey dared not touch it, not even to check its contents, but a lump the right size and shape showed through. No sign of disturbance. He put the flagstone back and slumped, exhaling slowly.

Tess had been consulting with Arkady in the hallway. “She said Pavlin’s running the water station on the border of Kingfisher and Westbridge.”

“Go,” Grey said. He recognized the yearning in her posture; it was the same yearning he felt, to be with the one he loved.

Her curls were too lank and matted to bounce with her nod. “Might be he knows who was trying to get in.”

“I’ll reinforce Arkady’s defenses.” Grey pressed fingers into his brow to ward off a headache. “But all the people who might be seeking it have the power to force their way. It can’t stay here.”

Tess bit her lip. Because while what Grey said was true, with Ren trapped on the Old Island, there weren’t many who could take it without cursing her. He might be married to her, but he wasn’t in the Traementis register.

Once Tess was gone, Grey found Ryvček at the kitchen door, helping the kids improve a booby trap that would swing a wine bottle into the skull of any intruder. “Safe?” she asked, and when Grey nodded, she said, “Good. I should see to my own.”

He wondered where she kept Quinat, and wrestled with whether he should ask. Before he made up his mind, pounding came from the front door, intermingled with the jangling of the bell. Grey had retrieved his sword; now he bared the steel as the two of them raced upstairs.

A familiar voice came through the door. “Ren! I’ve figured it out! That dance at your wedding gave me the idea, though I had to work out how to redirect the energy into— Oh, no one ever cares about explanations, never mind—just let me in!”

Grey sheathed his sword and seized the cabinet himself, not waiting for the kids. If Tanaquis meant what he hoped…

She pushed inside without a single question about where he’d been. “Why did you put a cabinet in the front hall? Never mind. We’ll need to do this in the temple, but—”

He cut her off by the expedient of a hand over her mouth, suspecting that in Tanaquis’s current state of distraction, nothing else would suffice. “Not here,” he said, nodding at the children. “Come with me. Arkady, nobody listens in.”

“Got it!” Arkady said, and stationed herself at the bottom of the staircase like she would bite anyone who tried to get by. Anyone except Ryvček, who gave her a look that said try it and walked right past.

“Where’s Ren?” Tanaquis asked, brow furrowing as Grey steered her upstairs. The study was equally disheveled—Arkady and her kids had been thorough—but it had a door they could close behind them. “I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”

Ryvček leaned against the door, clearly listening for anybody who might get past Arkady. They’d already fed Tanaquis a story about the Rook passing Quinat off to a safer holder—it wasn’t even false, though it was seriously incomplete—so she didn’t give Ryvček a second look. Grey righted a chair, saying, “Ren’s still on the island. When we came out of the dream, we were in the temple.”

“You were in the dream? Why? Has Ren been talking to that szorsa’s spirit again?”

Had Tanaquis really failed to notice their disappearance? Had nobody told her after the fact? Apparently so. Grey weighed the benefits of explaining their journey to Fiavla against the likelihood that Tanaquis would become irreparably distracted, and decided it wasn’t worth it. “You’ve figured out how to destroy the medallions?”

“Yes!” Confusion vanished in the fire of her delight. “We don’t even have to kill anyone, because she’s already dead. We put the medallions in a modified funerary numinat, and then we give her a funeral. Send her soul to the Lumen. It’ll be like pulling a thread and having a whole seam come undone.” Tanaquis waved a sleeve at him. Now that he looked, he could tell it had been pulled off, then reattached with stitches so bad they would embarrass even Arkady.

“Her? Meaning the Zevriz szorsa?” Tanaquis hadn’t sat in the chair; Grey almost sank into it himself. “You want to send her to the Lumen? She’s Vraszenian.”

Tanaquis merely blinked, as if this were irrelevant.

He gritted his teeth. “We don’t go to the Lumen.”

She brushed the reminder aside. “Clearly. And if you had proper funeral rituals, we might be able to do this your way.” Tanaquis raked gloveless fingers through her hair, so oily they left furrows. “But Vraszenian rituals require family members, or those koszenie shawls, and we don’t have either. So that’s no use. If we can send her to the Lumen, at least she returns to some kind of cycle.”

“No.” Grey set his sword gently on the desk so he wouldn’t be tempted to use it. “Figure out another way.”

Tanaquis shrugged. “There is another way. We’ve had it for ages. Kill all the holders and send ourselves to the Lumen, or give all the medallions to one person and kill them. Their soul takes the Primordial energy out of the world, and all our problems are solved. But no one wanted to do that. My way harms nobody, and it helps a trapped spirit move on!”

Ryvček shifted off the door and spoke quietly. “Will she not be reborn into corruption? Our dream perhaps can purify a soul, or at least divide its poison. But your Lumen cannot remove this stain.”

That earned her an impatient chop of Tanaquis’s hand. “Not the Lumen, no. Living. It may take her soul lifetimes, but it will recover.”

“What?” The weight on Grey’s heart lessened by a hair. “Faella told Ren it stays with you through death.”

“Yes, because it’s living that cleanses your soul. Not the purifying tribulations of the numina.” Tanaquis clicked her tongue. “Faella told me that herself, from her vision during Ghiscolo’s ritual. She should have known better.”

No doubt she had known better, and had given Ren a half-truth out of spite. Grey sagged against the desk. Living. Living burns it off. As he had lived through life after life, clan after clan.

Laročja was wrong. He wasn’t atoning for a crime. He was purging the last traces of the Primordial stain that had blighted his soul, five hundred years ago.

“Can we move along?” Tanaquis asked, twitching. “I’ve been working on this for so long—now that we have an answer in hand…”

Whatever relief Grey had found for himself, it didn’t ease his reservations about the szorsa. “You want to tear a woman’s soul away from her people. Send her to an unfamiliar afterlife—and how will she be reborn? Among strangers? We can’t condemn her to that.” He directed his plea to Ryvček. She might be city-born Vraszenian, but surely she understood.

And his teacher nodded. But what she said was “Think you the choice should be ours?”

The Zevriz szorsa had cut herself from her name, from her people, out of shame for what she’d done. What if that shame drove her to cut herself from Ažerais as well? Assuming they could even make her broken spirit understand the cost.

But Ryvček was right. They shouldn’t make that choice for her.

Heart heavy, Grey said, “I’ll get word to Ren.” She would hate this option as much as he did… but maybe she could find a better way. “And I’ll start looking for a way to smuggle a group of nobles onto the Old Island.”

21

The Mask of Ashes

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Cyprilun 13

Even with most routes across the river closed off by the conflict, gossip spread remarkably fast. A Vigil report said Grey Serrado and Derossi Vargo had rescued a group of Liganti shopkeepers from the Old Island, and it seemed like the whole Upper Bank knew about it a bell later.

As soon as she heard, Giuna set off on foot to Eastbridge. The report hadn’t mentioned Ren, but Vargo might be able to tell her what under the Lumen’s light had happened between the wedding and now.

She was right, though she had to pick the explanation out of his sulfurous curses toward whatever idiot had deactivated the river numinata. “It wasn’t Mother’s decision,” she assured him seven times over, worried that his fury might spill onto the wrong target. “The Cinquerat did it without asking.”

“Of course they did,” Vargo said darkly, and went back to cursing.

Giuna had only just managed to extract the full tale when more people arrived. “Tess!” she yelped, throwing her arms around the other woman. “I’m so glad you’re all right! First Ren gone, and then you disappeared, too—we didn’t know if you’d gone after her—”

Tess patted her shoulder. “No, I was on the island when the bridges blew. Ren’s still there—”

“Mother said she saw her at the bridge. But why—”

Their questions and explanations tumbled over one another like anxious puppies seeking comfort. Tess wasn’t alone, either; Pavlin had brought not just her across the guarded Floodwatch Bridge, but Grey and Oksana Ryvček. And, to Giuna’s absolute surprise, Tanaquis.

Tess soon hurried off with Pavlin to tell Donaia what she could. Giuna turned to her cousin, demanding, “Where have you been? You might as well have vanished with Ren, for all we’ve seen of you.”

Tanaquis was sitting with one hand pressed to her heart, staring at the wall. At Giuna’s question, she blinked awake. “What?”

“She’s been helping us,” Grey said. “And thanks to her, we may have a plan at last.”

Giuna could hardly understand half of what followed, especially once Vargo started asking Tanaquis questions about numinatria. But she understood enough to anticipate the objections he raised at the end. “It might work, magically speaking. The pragmatics are a different matter. Getting everybody onto the island…” He rubbed his brow. “Hell, that’s the easy part. First we have to convince Cibrial and Faella to stop sucking at the Primordial teat.”

“Grey and I have swords,” said Ryvček, with a sharp smile. “Not to mention the Rook. The three of us can prod them into cooperation—or pry loose what they hold.”

“But—” Giuna said, before catching herself. Ren must not have told Ryvček she’d guessed the Rook’s identity. Oh, the piles of secrets! Would anything ever sweep them entirely away?

Then again, she was holding a secret of her own.

Nerves made her fiddle with a loose thread on her surcoat as she said, “You won’t have to do that. At least, I hope not. I’ve got someone I trust in the Oyster Crackers working to retrieve Quarat, and Parma’s made arrangements for Illi-ten. Mede Beldipassi’s still in question, but I’ve seen shoals that were more stable—and besides, Mother blasted him with the Lumen’s own fire recently. I suspect he’ll go along with what the Rook tells him.”

When silence greeted her news, she looked up. Tanaquis was distracted again, and the other three were all too self-controlled to openly gape, but the silence itself measured their surprise. Giuna swallowed. “I hope I didn’t overstep?”

Ryvček broke their tableau with a bark of laughter. “Blood be damned; no question that you’re Ren’s cousin. Well has she mentored you, Alta Giuna.”

It shouldn’t have felt like high praise. But it was.

Then Tanaquis deflated the mood. “If Ren is trapped on the island, who’s going to retrieve Tricat? It would be a shame if she isn’t the one to destroy it. I wouldn’t have known pattern held any substance at all if it weren’t for her.” Her eyes gleamed like those of a fever victim.

Giuna’s throat clogged with loathing. Everything Ren had said about the medallions, the ongoing horror she saw in her mother every time Donaia realized how thoroughly Tricat had poisoned their house, the ways Cibrial and Faella were using that power to keep Nadežra in their grip… Giuna wanted to crawl right out of her skin to get away from her own thoughts.

But if she understood how these things worked, there were only a few possible answers. And only one she could accept.

“I’ll take it.”

Grey understood first. Before he could object, Giuna said, “That way it stays in the register, right? So Ren won’t be cursed, and I can give it back to her for your ritual. I won’t have it for very long.” Even a heartbeat was too long. But if this helped them get rid of it forever, she’d take the risk.

“It isn’t just you,” Vargo said. “If you take Tricat, its influence, however small, will spread through your register. Ren’s warded, but you’re not.”

“I think we’re all warded. Right?” Giuna looked to Tanaquis for confirmation. Her cousin nodded hesitantly. “Mother told me. There’s marks around all the names.”

Vargo snorted. “Chalk one up for overkill.”

That didn’t assuage Grey’s worries. “Your mother would never agree,” he said, gently, the fond worry in his eyes reminding Giuna of Leato.

But Leato always begged forgiveness instead of asking permission. “I won’t tell her. Mother would take it herself, to spare me—but she grew up under Tricat’s influence. She’s far too vulnerable. I was born after Letilia stole the medallion. I’m the safest choice.”

“She’s right,” Tanaquis said. “Well, Idaglio would be safe. And Nencoral—wait, she left, didn’t she? And Meppe… hmmm. I wonder if there would be any interesting aftereffects from House Indestor, given the resonance between Tricat and—”

“You and I can discuss that later,” Vargo said smoothly. “I have to go to the Lower Bank anyway, to keep in touch with Alsius and let Ren know the plan. I’ll take Alta Giuna to retrieve it—assuming she doesn’t mind my company.”

Grey exhaled his objections unspoken. “As much as I dislike involving more people… this isn’t a problem we can solve without help.” It ended on a wry snort. “Which is true of everything in Nadežra these days. Go; we’ll see to the rest.”

It wasn’t until Giuna and Vargo were out the door that she recalled Carinci Acrenix at the Theatre Agnasce, months ago, saying, I’ll ask that you not gossip about my son.

“Vargo,” she said, “who’s Alsius?”

He eyed her, then groaned. “I’ll explain on the way.”

Westbridge, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 13

Shortly before everything went to hell, Vargo had acquired an ostretta on Coster’s Walk in Westbridge. It was closed for renovations—he hoped it would still be standing for renovations when the dust settled—but that meant it was empty when he crept inside at sunset and headed for a window overlooking the river.

You there, old man?

::Aren’t you going to call me ‘Father’ now? It would be more respectful.::

Vargo leaned against the wall, grinning in relief. I’ve gone, what, sixteen years without being respectful? Don’t see no reason to start.

::Ren’s listening.::

Your point?

Vargo spotted the bright copper and green of Ren’s wedding sash on a short landing jetty. A cluster of Vraszenians patrolling the shore walk watched her warily, but didn’t hassle her.

Pushing the window open, Vargo settled in the casement, one boot propped against the frame, the other swinging free over the edge. Looks like the Anduske haven’t given Ren too much trouble. You’re both safe?

::For now. But Caerulet’s strategy with the river numinata is distressingly effective. They’ve gone through most of the clean water they had stored.::

In the long pause that followed, Vargo could only watch the movement of Ren’s hands and wonder what she was saying that Alsius refused to pass on. Finally Ren’s arms crossed, and Alsius sighed. ::People are starting to get sick. And there have been some scuffles over water distribution.::

Scuffles. Alsius could be dramatic, except when he was deliberately obfuscating. You mean riots.

::Nothing on the scale of last spring.::

Not yet. But the longer this went on… Well, this doesn’t solve the water problem, but it will help on other fronts. Tanaquis thinks she has a workable plan at last.

Predictably, his account of the plan perked Alsius up immeasurably. At this distance Vargo couldn’t see the bouncing dot that was Peabody—hopefully Alsius retained enough sense to avoid being seen by others—but it came through in the excited mental replies, his lament that he couldn’t personally examine Tanaquis’s design. Ren all right with this? Vargo asked, when Alsius paused to regroup. Grey accepted on the grounds that the szorsa be allowed to choose, but…

He wished he could hear her reply directly. After a moment, Alsius said, ::She says her mother, Ivrina, was cremated Liganti-style. She believes—I apologize, Ren; I will use your precise words—she chooses to believe that this does not cut a person’s soul off from Ažerais.::

It wasn’t an issue Vargo had ever given much thought to; theology was more Alsius’s field. But he hoped for Ren’s sake that she was right.

Rather than say that, he added, Mind you, we still have to get onto the island. I’m open to any bright ideas.

Another pause. ::Ren believes she can arrange something with Koszar. She also wants to know how on earth you persuaded Cibrial and Faella to play along.::

We didn’t. Giuna and Parma have been busy while we were away. They won’t move until we’re ready to head for the island—we don’t want to tip our hand—but we’re done waiting for that pair to cooperate. Vargo picked at a bit of peeling paint. His broken hand was mending fast, as if making up for lost time. When we take their medallions, the curse will hit their families, hard.

::The worst effects shouldn’t manifest immediately,:: Alsius said. ::We’ll do something about it after the medallions are gone—presuming the destruction doesn’t solve that problem for us.::

Vargo huffed a humorless laugh. Sure, normally it takes a while. But it’s quicker and worse the more you use your medallion, right? Those two have dived headfirst into the Primordial sea, trying to keep Nadežra under their control. He didn’t think they were using Quarat and Illi-ten to influence anyone’s desires, but only because neither of them was inscriptor enough to know how.

He liberated a strip of paint, steeling himself for the next part of this conversation. Giuna’s at the townhouse right now… collecting Tricat.

Silence.

Alsius?

::Ren hasn’t said anything yet.::

Vargo watched her across the brown waters of the river, and saw the moment her shoulders sagged. A few breaths later, Alsius said, ::She accepts the necessity, though neither of us is pleased. Giuna is… a sweet girl.::

She would still be a sweet girl when this was over. Because Vargo wasn’t going to let that medallion stay in her keeping one heartbeat longer than it had to.

The burnished bronze light of sunset was fading, sinking both Ren and the river into shadow. The patrols along the bank were lighting lanterns. Vargo said, I’ll keep working on an alternate plan in case Koszar doesn’t come through.

It seemed Ren had been speaking in the pause. Alsius said, ::Before you go, Ren has a favor to ask. Can you contrive a way to get something small and lightweight to us? She needs one more thing from the townhouse.::

Duskgate, Old Island: Cyprilun 15

“For your own safety this is,” Andrejek said, loud enough to be heard well beyond where Sedge stood. Laročja’s supporters were gathered on the quay, to make certain Sedge really left. “And to respect our debts to Ča Vargo, for the aid he’s given our cause.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Sedge grumbled as he boarded the scow set to take him across to the Lower Bank. He didn’t have to fake the worried look he cast toward Ren. He hated leaving her here alone, especially since isolating her played right into Laročja’s hands.

Even if Ren was the one who’d manipulated Laročja into insisting that he leave. It was all part of the plan, she assured him.

Sometimes, being Ren’s brother gave him headaches and ulcers.

“Just don’t dump me halfway ’cross,” he told the rowers, casting a wary glance at the murky water. “Don’t fancy taking a bath in piss.”

Not that he was worried with this particular pair. They might have left the Leek Street Cutters to take up the fight for the Vraszenians of Nadežra, but he’d known Smuna and Ladnej since they were ickle, gap-grinning runners. No longer tied didn’t mean all loyalty was gone.

That was why he’d suggested them, when Ren insisted she needed him to leave the island.

“You let her get hurt,” Sedge said to Andrejek, nodding meaningfully at Ren, “and you and I are gonna have our own war.” That was for the crowd, too… but he meant every word.

Andrejek nodded, and Smuna pushed off.

The scow was a nice one, fresh lacquered and not leaking even a little. Much better than the one sunk after the Dockwall prison break. “We should make you row,” Ladnej said as she set to work with her oar.

“Sure, if you want to go in circles,” Sedge muttered, sitting in the bow with his back to the rowers and the Old Island so nobody could see his face. “But if you help me with something, I’ll be your bilge boy for a week.”

Silence, except for the splashing strokes. Then: “What you need?”

“Boss—I mean, Vargo—he’s got a package for Ren. Don’t worry; it’s little. Just pass it to her when nobody’s looking.”

He didn’t need to turn around to see the look they gave each other. Sedge almost added, and don’t peek, but bit it back. That would only guarantee they did peek.

Smuna asked, “How’s he gonna get it to us without anybody seeing? Cinquerat’s got guards on the bank. They en’t gonna let him ship something back across with us.”

“Vargo will have a plan,” Sedge said, with complete confidence and absolutely no clue.

“How little?” Ladnej asked. She’d always been the more world-wise of the two. “If it’s poison, I’m dumping it in the channel.”

Sedge chewed down his flash of fear. Just what they needed, Ažerais’s gift swept out to sea. “No poison. Nothing that’ll hurt anyone. Just a message, and Vargo’s got no other way to get it to her. No way he trusts.”

He leaned into the implication of that. Vargo’s trusting you.

Once, that trust was as good as a gold forro. But seemed everything on the Lower Bank lost value one day. Hopefully, a debt from Vargo at least was still worth something.

They hadn’t responded. Sedge finally twisted in his seat and found Smuna studying the gleaming brass of the oar lock and the shining lacquer of the boat’s rail. She said, “Suppose it couldn’t hurt, helping out the boss again.”

Not even one last time. Grinning, Sedge turned back to face the rapidly approaching bank—

And fell off his bench as a crossbow bolt thudded into the scow’s pretty rail. A bolt, Sedge realized a moment later, with a tiny, wax-coated parcel stuck to the shaft.

“This was Vargo’s plan?” Smuna hissed.

“Ah…” A glance at the bank revealed Vargo, Varuni, and a squad of hawks screeching blame at each other for the misfired bolt. Tess’s man Pavlin was among them, sheepishly taking the brunt of it. “Guess so.”

The scow jerked with the force of Ladnej yanking the bolt free of the wood. Sedge didn’t have time to steady himself before she shoved him into the water. “You owe me another scow, fucker!” she shouted at Vargo as Smuna hastily turned them about and began rowing hard for the Old Island.

Lips pressed tight to avoid swallowing murky water, Sedge swam for shore. Varuni, bless her, kept to her usual silent judgment. Vargo greeted him with a smirk. “Good to have you back.”

Sedge spread his dripping, stinking arms. “Keep smiling like that,” he promised, as sweetly as Ren might, “and I’ll thank you with a hug.”

Dawngate, Old Island: Cyprilun 15

Judging by the look Smuna gave Ren—and the time that elapsed between their return and the wax-coated packet being palmed to her—they’d opened Vargo’s delivery. Ren had known the risk, and taken it anyway.

Because she wasn’t at all sure that she could manage another private conversation with Koszar. After that first time, Laročja had been haunting him closer than his own shadow, making sure Ren had no chance to interfere.

The Black Rose was a different matter.

She was just another shadow in the night as she spider-walked a ledge outside the Charterhouse. Climbing into Fulvet’s office through his window, she had an abrupt, powerful yearning for the Rook at her side. This kind of thing was more fun with company.

She was sitting tailor-style on the desk, playing dreamweaver’s nest, when Koszar came through the door. The half dozen advisors who’d been at the Sunrise Bridge negotiation clogged the hallway behind him.

And at his shoulder stood Laročja.

Djek, Ren thought, even as she dropped her thumbs and twisted her hands to make a rose out of string. In Liganti she said, “Ča Andrejek. We must speak. Alone.”

Calculation flashed across Laročja’s face, replaced a moment later by insincere awe. “The Black Rose! Of you I have heard many tales. A spirit sent by our Lady herself… That is what people say, at least.”

“People tell many stories about me,” Ren agreed, giving Laročja a knife-sharp smile. Still in Liganti, with the Black Rose’s Nadežran accent, though Laročja had spoken in Vraszenian.

Awe turned into artful puzzlement. “But your voice. I heard it said—I believed it not—how odd, that the hand of Ažerais should speak thus.”

“Why is it odd? The Wellspring of Ažerais sits at the heart of Nadežra. Many who venerate her sound like I do.” The truth was that Ren didn’t dare speak Vraszenian in front of Laročja or Koszar. Her ease with the language had improved enormously, but not so much that she trusted her ability to disguise her voice in it.

“All the more reason to regain the purity we had before the Liganti corruption.” Laročja spread her hands, head low in feigned humility. “But I am an old woman, with only road dust in my wrinkles and hope for a free Nadežra in my heart. What know I of such things?”

Ren untangled the string and looped it around her wrist. “Road dust, hmmm. I’d expect anyone who speaks proudly of that to be aware of how often her people intermarry along the Dawn and Dusk Roads.”

“Mingling bloodlines abroad is different.” Laročja’s smile hardened. “Our holy city should not be polluted.”

Behind Koszar, still in the hallway, several of his advisors shifted uncomfortably. Thank you for taking the bait, Ren thought. Nobody liked hearing their family called “polluted,” and the odds that they had kin abroad were high.

Sliding off the desk, she said, “Do you also embrace such views, Ča Andrejek? Perhaps I wasted my time in coming here. Ažerais disdains closed minds and closed hearts.”

“Wait,” Koszar said, before Ren could take more than a step toward the window. “Lady Rose, my mind and heart are open to your counsel. The rest of you, leave us.” His grip on Laročja’s arm was firm as he guided her across the threshold and closed the door.

Giving Ren a lopsided smile, he limped to one of the chairs Scaperto kept for visitors. “May I sit?”

“By all means.” Ren didn’t join him. Grey had said once, The Rook doesn’t do anything so ordinary as sit in a chair. The Black Rose should be the same. But she leaned against the desk, her manner casual, until Koszar was settled. Then she said, “I have a favor to ask. And I’ll warn you now that it’s a big one.”

“You saved my life, Lady Rose. Anything I can do, I will.”

She smiled with better cheer than she felt. “Excellent. I need you to allow a group of people onto the Old Island and off it again. With no interference, and no questions.”

He gaped. Ren added, “You have my word that this is no attempt to undermine your rebellion. In fact, what I’m doing will make it easier to achieve your goals.”

“But—”

She watched his protest snag on no questions. Koszar’s grip tightened on the head of his cane, as if he dearly wished to get up and pace, but couldn’t. Muscles tensed in his jaw, releasing only enough for him to say, “You ask a great deal.”

“I know. I wouldn’t if it weren’t important.”

His head bent. Then, softly, he said, “You ask a great deal for someone I know not.”

Before she could respond, he went on. “Lady Rose, you saved our sacred wellspring, and you saved me. But at other times… Where were you when this rebellion began? When I faced Branek in the ordeal? Nothing have I seen of you since the Kiralič was rescued—yet in Floodwatch you appeared, when Derossi Vargo needed aid. If you are Ažerais’s servant, if you are the protector of Nadežra… why is what we do here of so little importance to you?”

His plaintive query cut deep. I’ve been at your side, Ren thought. But not recently, and he didn’t know about the other times.

How could she convince him to trust her? She couldn’t admit who the people were; they’d have far too much value as hostages. She couldn’t tell him their purpose, not when Primordial magic was involved. She didn’t even have the deck of cards Grey had given her in the dream—and that was more Arenza’s tactic, anyway, not the Black Rose’s.

So let Arenza persuade him.

“You know not what I have been doing.” Ren slipped into Vraszenian, into the tone and cadence he’d come to expect from another. “You know not that I have been helping. And would have been here… had I not been walking in Ažerais’s Dream.”

Silence. Koszar couldn’t seem to find his voice.

Ren didn’t dare take off her mask. Fulvet’s door was imbued against eavesdropping, but it was also unlocked; anyone could walk in. She hoped the admission would be proof enough. “For some time Mevieny has known. Dalisva, too. I would prefer you keep my secret, as they have.”

“But…” He stared, as if trying to see through the black lace mask. “How?”

“During the last Veiled Waters, Ažerais blessed me with this guise so I could stop Mettore Indestor from destroying the wellspring. I cannot say I understand her purpose in doing so, but I have tried to honor it. I honor it still when I ask this favor of you.”

Koszar let out a slow, wavering breath. Then inhaled, and let out another. “If Laročja knew the truth—djek. The Black Rose, half-Liganti. She might drop dead of apoplexy.”

Would save us all some headaches if she did. “Can you do what I need? Time is extremely pressing.”

He thumped his cane and pushed to his feet. “If two days more you can wait, then the Night of Bells. We’re arranging a celebration—such as we can, under the conditions. All eyes will be elsewhere.”

The Night of Bells. When the Tyrant had died, and his chain of office was broken.

Koszar would ask the reason if he saw the smile that wanted to break through. Ren only said, “Two nights from now. So be it.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Cyprilun 17

Only four days off the Old Island, and Tess found herself in the soup again—this time by her own choice.

Her feet ached and lower back was kinked from standing on the hard marble floor of a Rotunda annex. Five chairs had been dragged in, probably from nearby townhouses. Mismatched but comfortable, except for the one supporting Utrinzi Simendis’s bony ass; he seemed to thrive on discomfort. Though if that was what it took for him to resist the lure of his medallion, Tess could only cheer him on.

She only faced four Cinquerat members, though. Cercel had abandoned her chair once it became clear Tess had little information of value to Caerulet; she had bigger fires to put out than one Ganllechyn seamstress with questionable loyalties.

Cibrial Destaelio, perching on the edge of her chair as though it was padded with needles, clearly did not agree.

“You claim you had no foreknowledge of this violent attack on our city?” she drawled, in the disbelieving tone of someone who’d already decided the answer.

That didn’t stop Tess from disappointing her. “I didn’t, Your Charity.” She turned to the other three members of the tribunal, appealing to logic since she lacked much skill for lying. “Would I have been on the Sunrise Bridge when it blew if I knew what they were about?”

“Perhaps you were on that bridge precisely because you knew,” Cibrial said. “Perhaps you were working with them. We know your accomplice and former mistress has been. You expect us to believe that gnat told you nothing?”

“As she’s said multiple times,” Scaperto Quientis cut in, tapping his knee impatiently. “I doubt her answer will change just because you harp on it. May we return to more-useful matters?”

His interruption was a kindness, and perhaps a response to the rising color in Tess’s cheeks. Much more of Cibrial’s vile talk against her sister, and Tess might be tempted to feed the woman a good old Lacewater lunch: a generous helping of her fist, served with a side of Cibrial’s own bloody teeth.

“Yes, please,” Iascat Novrus said. “Or the rebels will have won the city before we learn anything of use.” Between them, Fulvet and Argentet had been doing a good job of goading Prasinet into digressions. Which was helpful, since Tess could hardly concentrate on what she was here to do when she was arguing for Ren’s innocence—and her own.

She has the Quarat medallion on her, I’m sure of it, Giuna had cried in frustration the morning after Tess escaped the Old Island aboard a raft of Rooks. She’s using it too often to keep it elsewhere.

But Esmierka couldn’t spot it, and with only one chance to make the lift—her scar was too recognizable to allow for another—they couldn’t risk being wrong.

So like the helpful fool she was, Tess offered to present herself to the Cinquerat to answer questions about her time on the occupied Old Island. If anyone could spot a hidden medallion in the broken drape of a skirt or a strange misalignment of tailoring, she could.

She’d hoped her own efforts to save a gaggle of gentry would protect her from accusations of treason. She failed to account for Cibrial Destaelio’s fury at Ren and everyone connected to her.

Fulvet won’t let you land in prison, she told herself, wiping her sweating palms dry on her skirts and focusing her attention on the fall of Cibrial’s surcoat. Though Tess had created ensembles for several of the Destaelio daughters, she’d never outfitted the house head herself. Cibrial still favored older styles, shapeless dresses stiffened with reed and whalebone. The cornucopia of falling fruit embroidered on it was picked out in gold. Or threads that shimmered like it, anyway—Tess would eat her own apron if they were truly gold. The stitching was so thick, it almost obliterated the background of verdant green velveteen; with real gold, Cibrial wouldn’t be able to stand for the weight.

How was she supposed to puzzle out the location of one thumb-sized medallion by sight alone, when Cibrial wore the contents of an entire coffer spilling down the front and back of her surcoat?

Something Iascat said must have snapped the last thread of Cibrial’s patience. She stood with barely a rustle. “This entire endeavor is a pointless waste of my time; you’re all too much in that liar’s thrall to do anything to stop her. If you’ll excuse me, I’m returning to Whitesail, where I can do some good.”

Tess’s pulse leapt. Cibrial was leaving, and taking with her what might be their last chance to steal Quarat.

Before Tess could think better of it, she lunged forward and caught Cibrial’s trailing sleeve. “Your Charity must forgive me for not giving adequate answers. It’s just… I was so distracted by this embroidery. Who did the imbuing? It’s so good, I could almost mistake the fiber for real byssus!” As she babbled, she tugged and pulled, testing the weight and drape of Cibrial’s clothing for anything out of place.

Yanking the cloth free of Tess’s groping hands, Cibrial snapped, “It is real byssus, you charlatan! You think I’d waste money on false goods?”

“Is… is that what you were told?” Tess cringed under that glare, honestly cowed. Still, she got the rest of her insult out. “Well, you must know better than I what’s real, and what’s only gilt imbued to fool an easy mark.”

Cibrial shoved her so hard that Tess’s aching back collided with the unforgiving marble of a Rotunda column. Then she was sailing away, with a frothy wake of daughters trailing behind.

But Tess didn’t need to follow to do her part. Calling on old signals from her days working for Ondrakja, she trailed two fingers down her side to tap a spot just southwest of her sitbone. A spot corresponding to a particularly juicy pomegranate on Cibrial’s surcoat.

Near the entrance, a temporary clerk with a burn scar blazoned across her face stumbled into Cibrial’s path in an explosion of fallen papers and apologies.

“Bravely done,” Iascat murmured, helping Tess to her feet.

Leaning into his support, Tess said, “Now let’s hope Parma manages her part.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Cyprilun 17

Holding the black hood in his hands, Grey wondered if this would be the last time.

His mind kept helpfully listing all the ways tonight could go wrong. Esmierka might not manage to steal Quarat; whatever Parma had in mind might not secure Illi-ten. Beldipassi might lose his nerve, or someone else succumb to the temptation of keeping their medallion. Koszar could take them all prisoner the moment they reached the Old Island. The ritual itself could fail.

But if it succeeded…

Then the city will still need a Rook. He was about more than just the medallions, now. Grey and Ren had seen to that.

He drew the hood over his head.

It wasn’t quite like before. The disguise still flowed around him, coat and boots and the sword at his hip. But now being the Rook was a conscious choice: a performance, not a force threatening to take him over. The spirit was still there, two centuries’ worth of memories, and it rose around him like fog as Grey thought, I am the Rook. The black-hooded figure glimpsed in alleys and on rooftops, undercutting the powerful, helping those in need. Always with a hint of danger and a touch of panache.

When he pivoted, the skirts of his coat flared satisfyingly. Grinning to himself, the Rook sped across the quiet street and vaulted the garden wall.

Everything was where he’d left it. Mede Beldipassi’s flightiness served a use tonight; after he stopped hiding at the Gawping Carp, he’d taken another house much closer to the trading nexus of Whitesail. Leaving this one in Eastbridge empty.

Whether Koszar upheld his end of the bargain or not, nobody could simply ask Cercel to relax her guard and let them across the East Channel. Those guards had to be distracted instead.

The Rook touched a tiny incendiary numinat to the bundled fuses stretched along the path.

Then back over the garden wall, down the street, moving with the swift silence only the Rook’s true disguise could bring. He was well away by the time the fireworks started, booms and flares of light erupting from Beldipassi’s garden. From a distance, it could easily be mistaken for an attack.

He arrived at the mouth of the Pomcaro Canal to find Vargo and Ryvček loading their cloaked and masked crowd into a skiff. “Fireworks?” Vargo said, gaping like the Rook had just made the most inappropriate joke he’d ever heard.

“Of course.” The skiff rocked as the Rook pushed them off. The onyx-dark river sparked with reflected flashes of ruby and citrine, sapphire and emerald. “It’s the Night of Bells. It’s traditional to celebrate.”

Hidden temple, Old Island: Cyprilun 17

Ren couldn’t keep herself from pacing. How much longer until the others arrived? Was it already past time, and something had gone wrong?

::I can’t hear Vargo yet,:: Alsius said when she stopped to peer again into the darkness of the passage. ::I’ll let you know the moment I do.::

She had no doubt, if only because the spider was nearly as twitchy as she was. He sat in the middle of the communication numinat, but he kept skittering restlessly within its confines.

Until he hunkered down and spoke in a voice so soft she might have imagined it. ::Before he gets here, there’s something I wanted to ask you.::

Gabrius, Ren thought. Alsius had taken the disappearance of Mirscellis’s spirit as hard as she had, in his own way. And now they were back in the temple, where she’d stood by and let the nameless szorsa snap Gabrius’s connections. She still didn’t know how to mend that damage—but in truth, she’d given it little thought lately. Too many other things had crowded it from her mind.

She was still racking her brain for some useful idea when Alsius said, ::It’s about what you saw in the realm of mind. That is, me.::

Ren knelt by the numinat. “Yes?”

With his legs tucked under him and his abdomen low, Alsius looked almost as small as a regular king peacock spider. ::I find myself wondering… you’ve pulled things into reality before. Could you do so again?::

Alsius’s human form. Ren sighed. “I… honestly don’t know. Yes, I created the Black Rose. But—I tried, when we stepped back across. To hold on to you in that shape. I failed.”

His response attempted to be casual, but the way he hunkered even lower showed the lie. ::Ah well. It was just a foolish fancy.::

“Not foolish,” Ren said, aching inside. “And I can try again. If there will ever be a time when such things are possible, it will be during the Great Dream.” The wellspring granted true dreams, insight that went far beyond the glimpses offered by pattern. It might show her how to do this. Perhaps even how to help Gabrius—she couldn’t let his light be lost forever.

::You’ll have more to worry about that night than an old man like me. Oh! They’re coming!:: Alsius sprang so high, he jumped out of the numinat. He scurried back in while Vargo reported that they’d made the crossing without difficulty.

Even with the stream of mental conversation to reassure her, Ren didn’t relax until the group filed into the temple, cloaked and masked in case someone spotted them along the way. Esmierka’s scarred face she expected, once they began to unmask, but that lanky figure next to Parma—

“Bondiro?” Ren murmured to Giuna as she took Tricat. “That’s how Parma got Illi-ten away from Faella?”

Giuna’s giggle was a relief. As though a few days with the medallion could have tarnished her shine. “She told him the sooner these were destroyed, the sooner they could get back to their old fun.”

The Rook had slipped around the crowd to stand at Ren’s side. “Guess even the laziest man will act with the proper motivation,” he said. Then, amusement fading from his voice: “Let’s get started.”

Hidden temple, Old Island: Cyprilun 17

The numinat stretched across the floor, an echo of the blasphemous one Ghiscolo and Diomen created in their bid to restore the Tyrant’s power.

This one, however, would end it forever.

Creating it went quicker than the Rook could have hoped for. With three of Nadežra’s best inscriptors there, he had a chance to see true mastery at work—when he wasn’t prowling the shadows and adjoining chambers, restless as a cat searching for prey. Even knowing they’d gathered to destroy the medallions, some part of him twitched at being so close to those blasphemous artifacts, at working with the people who held them.

“Should’ve brought snacks,” Bondiro mumbled, and Giuna smacked him. Apart from that, silence reigned.

Until Tanaquis stood and dusted off her hands, looking more excited and alive than the Rook had ever seen her. “We’re ready to begin.”

It wasn’t precisely a funeral. There were no relatives to bid farewell to the deceased, no pallbearers to carry the body to the terminus of the spiral. But there was a body, after a fashion: a chain of new-forged tin Tanaquis had brought. She laid a black cloth over it with as much formality as a mourner veiling a corpse.

Grey couldn’t say what he wanted to; it was his concern, not the Rook’s. But if Tanaquis had forgotten—

“The szorsa must agree,” Ren said. “We will not by force send her to the Lumen.”

I’m going to kiss that woman the moment we’re back home.

Tanaquis nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes. But first we have to call her. Join hands, everyone.”

It was easier this time, without Cibrial and Faella. Esmierka grinned unrepentantly at Ren and Ryvček as they clasped palms. I pray it works, the Rook thought. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that replacing three links in the chain—his own included—might affect the living Uniat. How much was it tied to the holders, and how much to their medallions?

His concern vanished as soon as it formed. The moment Bondiro took Beldipassi’s hand, closing the circle, the szorsa faded into view.

She crouched on the outside spiral, surrounded by overturned cards like fallen leaves. No amount of sweeping her hands across the ground would collect them; no sooner did she touch the paper than it tumbled away, as if blown by a wind.

“Zevriz,” the Rook said softly, wary of invoking the ire and violence of her last appearance.

But the spirit who looked up at him was drained of such passion. The return of her szekani had steadied her. Only one piece was still missing, flickering in a circle around them like heat lightning. The last part of her soul, caught in Kaius’s Uniat chain.

“Apologies, dream-seeker,” the szorsa said. “Your pattern I cannot read. No bowls have I to collect offerings for the Faces and the Masks; no cards have I to consult.”

The numinat wasn’t active yet. He ducked under Ren’s and Esmierka’s hands and knelt by the szorsa. “It’s all right,” he said in Vraszenian. “I’ve come not to ask for a pattern. I’ve come to give you a choice. If you wish it, you can be free… though it carries a price.”

“All pearls have a price,” she whispered. She caught a card at last, but her tears washed the colors away, leaving it blank.

Then his words registered. “Free?”

“Your soul will pass on. But not according to the rituals of your people. We think your freedom, and the destruction of the medallions, will require numinatria.”

She dropped the blank card and clenched her hands. “I swear to you, I knew not what he intended. Perhaps even he intended it not, when he began. We thought only of what we might achieve—what might come from the joining of traditions.”

Just like Tanaquis did. It was hard to imagine Kaius Sifigno as something other than the Conqueror and the Tyrant… but there would have been a point in his life before those things. Gently, the Rook said, “I condemn you not.”

“Our Lady might.” More cards bled white as her tears fell. “Our Lady does. See how she rejects me?”

It was her own guilt that severed her from her kin; he suspected the blank cards had the same cause. If Ažerais didn’t abandon the Ižranyi for burning their koszenie—if she didn’t abandon him—he had to believe she wouldn’t abandon this lost daughter. “Not to Ažerais will you go, but to the Lumen.”

“Ah.” The tension ran from her like ink, leaving only the stain of exhaustion behind. “Better that light than living in shadows. What must I do?”

She was Zevriz, and dead two hundred years. He couldn’t offer to find her kin and tell them of her passing, couldn’t dance the kanina for her. All he could do was guide her to the center of the numinat, where the tin chain lay covered by its black veil.

“May the Lumen light your road back home,” he said, exiting the numinat. At Tanaquis’s instruction, he set the focus in place, then stepped out and closed the circle.

Heat flared, the dust in the air burning out in a bright flash like a firework, the veil burning quick as paper, the tin melting into a puddle. But the flames didn’t touch the szorsa. Only a sun-fierce brightness that overwhelmed the Rook’s enhanced sight, making Grey’s eyes water and leaving spots in his vision when he looked away. On the other side of that light, Tanaquis sang the traditional hymn to Anaxnus, the Liganti god of death, in an uneven mezzo.

The air rang like a bell, like the bells on the night of the Tyrant’s death. The medallion holders’ hands parted, each person stepping back. As if he’d taken aža, the Rook saw that the tin-dull thread binding them had burned away.

“Uniat has been destroyed,” he said, voice almost as unsteady as Tanaquis’s singing. Two hundred years, and this was, at last, the beginning of the end.

No. The beginning of the end was over there, between Bondiro and Iascat. The Rook moved to stand in front of Illi-zero. “Mede Rimbon Beldipassi. Cast off that which shackles you to your desires.”

Beldipassi hesitated. But it was in Illi-zero’s nature to fall from its holder’s hand, each new beginning a mere transient spark. The Rook bowed him forward, and he tossed his gold medallion into the burning numinat.

The air rang a second time.

“Eret Iascat Novrus, cast off that which shackles you to your desires.”

The air in the temple had thickened, the space around Iascat swirling with the desires that tempted him. A shadow of Vargo—but the man’s back was turned away. Iascat, like Sostira Novrus, craved the sort of love where souls met in complement, and he would never get it from that source. Other things, yes, good in their own way, but not the tender warmth that Grey shared with Ren.

And Iascat knew it. Straightening his shoulders, he stepped forward and surrendered his silver to the flames.

A third chime, and Ren. “Alta Arenza Lenskaya Traementatis, cast off that which shackles you to your desires.”

He didn’t need visions to know what Ren wanted. That gaping void within her had filled, though—with Tess and Sedge, with the Traementis, maybe even with the Volavka. With her bonds to Grey and Vargo, giving her a different warmth to complement that of kin.

“You have enough,” he murmured in Vraszenian.

Ren’s gaze went past him to where Giuna stood breathless and rigid, outside their circle. Giuna, who’d risked Primordial taint to help her.

“Yes,” Ren said. “I do.” And bronze, too, burned.

The Oyster Cracker cracked a grin when he stood before her. “Isn’t this a lucky day, meeting the Rook! An old friend of mine knew you—or so he claimed. Not certain how I’m supposed to give up this bauble, though.” Her fingers curled hard around copper Quarat. “I’m a thief. Luck’s something I need, and wealth is why I need it.”

Fortune and bounty, Quarat’s domain, swirling around her like a dance. But if it was a dance, then Esmierka was the dancer. “Is it the prize you love, or is it the chase?”

Her smile faltered, then came back rueful and true. “Fair. And really, I can do without this sudden craving for kids and a womb to cook ’em in.” She chucked the medallion into the numinat, and the Rook turned to the next in the circle.

His predecessor. His teacher. His mentor.

Ryvček had made herself the best at everything she set her hand to. As a duelist she was unmatched; as the Rook, she’d been everything Grey aspired to. Yet it was Grey who’d brought them to this point, to the fulfillment of the Rook’s mandate at last.

That impulse to excellence bent all too easily into competition, into the need to surpass those around her.

“It’s never been about any one of us,” he whispered, his voice going no farther than her ears. “It’s about all of us, together. Without you, I would fail.”

She managed a grin, wry and only a little sick from what she held. “Forget it not.” With a flourish, she rid herself of Quinat.

“Fuck me,” Vargo said when the Rook turned to him, scrubbing his face with his free hand. The other clutched Sessat close like a gut wound. He’d removed his gloves to inscribe the numinat, and his knuckles shone white against the blue of his coat. “I know. I know. I’m trying.”

When they’d agreed to take the medallions, they thought Grey was a safer pairing for Quinat’s drive for excellence and power, Vargo for Sessat’s order and camaraderie. And it was true, after a fashion: Those things aligned with their better urges, rather than their worst failings.

But even good desires gave A’ash a foothold in their spirits. And now the Rook was asking Vargo to let go of those things that made him more than a ruthless bastard, climbing over everyone in his path. All around Vargo, the things he’d built were crumbling: his network of knots, the elite among whom he’d clawed his way to stand. He wasn’t just gripping Sessat; in the vision that surrounded him, he was holding desperately to what remained.

The Rook didn’t dare touch the medallion. But Grey tugged his glove down, baring the skin beneath. The cut, mostly healed now, yet still visible.

He gripped Vargo’s forearm, pressing wrist to wrist. Scar to scar. In Vraszenian, knowing the only ones who spoke it weren’t a threat, he said, “You won’t lose everything. Trust us, and let go.”

Some of the tension bled out of Vargo. And steel went onto the pyre.

The ringing no longer faded between destructions. It built each time, resonating in Grey’s bones, making his teeth ache. Dust sifted down, as though the Point itself felt the press of building power. He hurried on to Utrinzi Simendis, who stood with his eyes closed. Surrounded in darkness. The protective cocoon of seclusion he’d woven around himself, trying to stay safe—even as that, too, fed Sebat’s Primordial desire. At this point he couldn’t even see that escape had become possible.

Unshielding the lightstone on his wrist, the Rook shone its light directly into Utrinzi’s face. The other man flinched and awoke.

“It’s time,” the Rook said, and led him out of the darkness of solitude. The scintillating flash of burning prismatium bathed them all in rainbow light.

Parma also stood with her eyes closed, in a mimicry of Utrinzi’s isolation, her breathing slow and even. The dream around her remained strangely empty of the fleshly visions the Rook expected. She cracked an eye when his boots scuffed the stone in front of her, but not even that marred her aura of serenity.

“Is it time?” she said over the tolling bells. At his nod, she sagged in relief. “Thank the Tyrant’s rotting nutsack. Which I’d honestly rather hold than this diseased thing.” She dusted her hands after casting her cinnabar medallion into the flames, muttering, “Can’t believe that meditation shit actually worked. Don’t you dare tell Utrinzi.” As though he weren’t standing right beside her, fighting a proud smile.

Two more to go. The Rook ached with eagerness, with the urge to see this done, his mandate fulfilled, victorious at last. They were unbinding the medallions’ power, one numen at a time, but he had a dreadful feeling that power wasn’t dissipating. Instead it built like an unseen thundercloud, raising every hair on his body.

No way out but through. “Alta Tanaquis Fienola Traementatis. Cast off that which shackles you to your desires.”

It should have been easy. Destruction was Ninat’s domain; if any of the ten would hasten its own end, surely this would be it.

But the moment he looked at Tanaquis, he knew he’d miscalculated.

A transcendent light had come upon her, and all around her spun the beautiful dance of the cosmos. Not just numinatria’s geometric perfection, but pattern’s threads weaving through it all, binding things together. The deeper truths Tanaquis had always craved. Some of Ninat’s past holders had been assassins, and certainly she’d never flinched from death… but that wasn’t what gripped her tight. Tanaquis wanted to understand.

And A’ash promised to give her that.

“Tanaquis,” he shouted, over the cascading knell of the air. “Tanaquis! You must accept that there are things which lie beyond you!”

She gave no sign that she even heard.

The stone of the temple trembled beneath his feet. Primordial power surged, like water about to break over a dam. He was certain now: If they stopped, if they even hesitated too long, that unbound power would drown them all. The legend of Fiavla’s fall would fade in the face of a new cataclysm. And Tanaquis… she wanted, too badly to give it up.

He could barely see, his vision blurring as the air shook. He was out of time.

The Rook seized Tanaquis by the wrist, trying to shake the medallion loose. He’d kick the damn thing in if he had to, and worry about curses later. He only succeeded in hauling her off balance. She stumbled forward, both of them within brushing distance of the circle. The stone beneath his boots was cracking open. What would happen if those cracks reached the numinat?

He couldn’t let this go on—and she wouldn’t let Ninat go.

She didn’t even react as he shoved her hand into the flames.

The stench of roasted flesh washed through the room as the Rook hauled Tanaquis back. The medallion was gone… and so was her hand, burned away in an instant by the pyre. Her arm ended in a cauterized stump.

Giuna screamed. Tanaquis’s face had gone chalk white, her eyes now firmly fixed on this world, on the Rook. He didn’t have time to apologize; he didn’t have time for anything. Only Illi-ten remained.

“Altan Bondiro Coscanum. Cast off—”

“Yes! Right!”

Gold flashed as the last medallion sailed through the air. The Rook had a heartbeat of praying that his aim was true…

Then it landed in the flames.

And the terrible mounting toll of that Primordial bell stopped. Like a thread snapping, the tension broke. The fires roared high—then died down to nothingness.

Leaving an empty numinat behind.

22

The Mask of Unraveling

Hidden temple, Old Island: Cyprilun 17

Ren had never felt so free.

It was as if she’d been struggling under a terrible weight, one she’d been carrying so long she hardly remembered it was there. Then she set it down, and suddenly she felt as if she could leap the Dežera without trying.

For an instant she floated… then came back to where she was, and what had happened.

“Tanaquis!” She lunged toward her cousin. Tanaquis sat on the floor, staring, not even clutching the charred stump where her hand had been. Livid red marks flowed along her throat and face, branching like a tree. Her remaining hand pressed over her heart, as if trying to keep it in place.

Giuna followed Ren, supporting Tanaquis, tears streaming down her face. A physician, Ren thought, the ice of her horror warring with that beautiful feeling of lightness. She needs a physician. None of them knew what to do for this, and just because shock gripped Tanaquis too tight for her to scream didn’t mean she wasn’t in agony.

In her peripheral vision she saw the others moving, Vargo deactivating the numinat, Ryvček wiping her brow, Bondiro folding himself to fit in Parma’s embrace. “Making everyone my puppet’d be too much work anyways,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

And Grey. Like iron to a lodestone, he drew Ren’s gaze. As always, the magic of the hood cloaked his face in shadow… but the sheer looseness of his body spoke the magnitude of his relief.

He came and crouched at her side. “I’m so sorry. I—I had to do it.”

“There was no time and less choice,” Ren said, torn between sorrow and joy. The medallions were gone. After two hundred years, the Rook had succeeded. Nadežra was free of that poison at last. However horrifying the price… it was worth it.

“Is she—”

A soft gasp from Tanaquis silenced him, the hand clutching her heart spasming as her pain-hazed gaze snapped back to the present. “I did it.”

Ren gripped her cousin’s shoulder, trying not to look at the charred flesh below it. “You did. We all did.”

Giuna flinched from the Rook. She knew it was Grey under the hood… but maybe that made it worse. A faceless stranger mutilating her cousin would have been easier than someone she knew and cared for. Helping Tanaquis to her feet, she said, “We need to get her out of here.”

“I’ll help. I know a bit about burns.” Esmierka tugged loose the ribbons that tied Giuna’s billowing sleeve to her surcoat bodice and wrapped the cambric around the nightmare of cracking char and seeping fluid. Then she lifted Tanaquis’s arm over her shoulders, her height helping to elevate it. Ren doubted it was an accident that Esmierka placed herself between the injured woman and the Rook.

Ryvček took charge, getting everyone to cloak and mask again and leading them from the temple. The dank air of the tunnels was a comparative pleasure, because at least it didn’t smell like burned flesh. In silence they filed along, following Ryvček’s lightstone, with Ren, Vargo, and the Rook bringing up the rear.

Until they neared the barrier, and suddenly the line stopped.

Ren heard Ryvček say, “I thought the deal was that you’d allow us to come and go unhindered.”

“Unhindered, but not unwatched. And we know who’s beneath those masks.”

Koszar’s voice washed the exhaustion from Ren like a splash of icy water. When she pushed her way through the crowd, she was drearily unsurprised to find Laročja standing with Koszar and a small cluster of others, blending smugness and fury into a seamless whole. “As I feared,” the old woman said, dripping relish rather than regret. “With her Liganti friends this slip-knot conspires in secret. And to what end?”

“To destroy the last remnants of the Tyrant’s power,” Ren snapped. “A power your enemies have been using against you. Heard you that noise just now, like the tolling of the Night of Bells? That was its destruction, at our hands.” Fortunately, no one with her was likely to let slip the word “Primordial”—though her heart ached to think of what had silenced Tanaquis.

Laročja’s lip curled in disbelief, but Koszar drew a sharp breath. More quietly, Ren said, “Koszar, to the Black Rose you gave your word. Keep it now. Let us pass.”

His cane tapped a rapid tattoo, the only sound in the tunnel. Ren wondered how Laročja had discovered them; she had no doubt the old woman was behind it. Koszar wouldn’t have pried. But now that he knew what she’d hidden from him, he couldn’t simply ignore it. Not when the group before him included five nobles and two members of the Cinquerat itself.

Koszar bowed his head, and Ren thought, He can’t even meet my eyes as he betrays me.

“I cannot,” he said.

“Your word is nothing?” Ren fought and failed to keep her voice steady.

He shook his head. “Knot oaths I have also sworn—an oath you were once offered and refused. Would you have me break those instead? If by breaking my word to one person, I can save the lives of many and end this conflict sooner…” He flipped his hand as though weighing the balance. “That burden I must bear.”

Ren couldn’t even blame it on Laročja. The old woman might have pried into their secrets tonight, but Koszar was the one speaking now, with the voice of a commander at war.

The silken whisper of a drawn blade drew attention to Ryvček. “Lives you will still lose, if you force us to fight past you.”

“I doubt not the threat some here pose,” Koszar said, not bothering to remind her of his own threat. He had numbers, and an entire island under his control. They would feel the pain of a fight more than he would. And they would lose.

“So we stay here,” Ren said, nodding at the tunnel behind her. “You have not the secret of passing this barrier.”

“A hostage under siege is still a hostage. How much food and water have you?”

None at all—and then a horrible realization seized Ren. The nameless szorsa had been the source of that ward… but now she was gone. Which likely meant the only thing preventing Koszar from walking across that line was his assumption that the ward remained. A single rebel poking at it out of curiosity would leave them with no defenses at all.

That wasn’t Ren’s most pressing concern, though. The soft moan behind her was Tanaquis, emerging from her daze into the burning pain of her injury.

Could Ren at least trust Koszar to see her cousin tended to? The rest… She didn’t know what to do. She had the Black Rose’s mask with her, but retreating to the temple and coming back in that guise wouldn’t change anything. Koszar already knew who the Rose was, and Ažerais herself wouldn’t move Laročja.

Tanaquis had to come first. Everything else later.

As she drew breath, Iascat pulled off his mask and stepped forward. “I will stay,” he said, “if you let the rest go.”

Tension cropped Koszar’s laugh short. “Why should I settle for one, when I can have many?”

“Because one on his own will negotiate with you in good faith to find a satisfactory end to this war. One among many will not.”

“Empty Liganti words,” Laročja scoffed. “When with the Cinquerat our people negotiated before, what came of it? A yearly ritual of submission and humiliation.”

Iascat offered her a shallow bow. “Then that’s the first point we can discuss: an end to the Ceremony of the Accords. Perhaps to be replaced with something better, should all go well. I imagine you also want to discuss the Great Dream, and the ruinous price my predecessors have charged for access. All of these things are possible… if you let the others go.”

Koszar was considering it, Ren could see. His gaze flicked past Iascat, searching the rest of the group. With an unsteady hand, Utrinzi unmasked as well. “I—I suppose that I—”

“Should go back to the Upper Bank,” Iascat said, smiling the unspoken offer away. “I’m sticking you with the worse job, Utrinzi; you’ve got to explain to the rest of the Cinquerat what I’m doing and why.”

Because who else would they believe? Not Ren, nor any of the people connected to her, Giuna and Vargo included. The strongest alternatives were Parma and Tanaquis. The latter was in no state for politics, and the former looked like Ren had felt when facing a leap off the Floodwatch Bridge.

“We want clean water again,” Koszar said. “Before we discuss anything.”

Utrinzi’s fingers curled as though searching for something to strangle. “The foci were removed against my recommendation. And unfortunately, we can’t simply put them back—”

“There’s no easy fix for the East Channel numinat,” Vargo said, eeling through the crowd to stand at Iascat’s side. “But let us go—and guarantee Argentet’s safety—and I’ll make restoring the West Channel numinat my first priority.”

The Upper Bank would be furious, but Koszar’s wry smile suggested their anger held some appeal. When Laročja made a sound that heralded a new objection, he quelled her with a look, then stepped to the side with the tiniest of bows. “Very well. Follow us, Eret Novrus; we’ll take you to the Charterhouse. The rest of you may go.”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Cyprilun 18

It was past dawn, the light streaming into the hallway a delicate pearl pink, when Donaia was roused from her front hall vigil by noise outside. She yanked open the door before the bell could ring.

“At least you’re not climbing in through the windows,” she said—then choked on the words. It wasn’t just Giuna on the stoop, but Tanaquis carried by Bondiro Coscanum and an earthwise woman who looked no better than a ruffian.

And Ren.

Donaia couldn’t stop herself from hauling the girl in for a hug. “Thank the Lumen you’re safely off that island.”

Giuna was hurrying past, leading the others to the parlour. Belatedly, Donaia registered the harrowed look on Giuna’s face, the livid marks spidering up Tanaquis’s throat. “What’s going on?”

“Vargo’s sending a doctor,” Ren said. “Tanaquis—she—”

Following them into the parlour, Donaia saw what she’d missed before, in her relief at Ren’s safe return. Tanaquis’s right sleeve ended in charred horror… and so did the arm inside.

Donaia’s shriek brought the servants running. Within moments it seemed like all Traementis Manor was awake, and helpless to do much in the face of such appalling injury. Vargo’s physician, when he showed up, banished them all while he tended to her wound. Bondiro and the stranger took their leave; Donaia retreated to her study with the girls, where Colbrin had a pot of fortifying tea waiting.

“What happened?” she whispered, blotting the sweat from her brow. “How—how could that…?”

“We destroyed the medallions.”

That was all Ren got out before a sob jerked through her. Donaia pulled her into another hug, and Giuna nestled in like the little chick she’d always be in her mother’s heart. Donaia stroked the hair of both, trembling in relief. “I heard the bells last night, but I thought… Oh, you brilliant girls. You truly did it? That poison’s gone from our house? From our city?”

They stood together for a long time before finally separating and pouring the tea. Gone were the days when Meatball obeyed his training to stay off the furniture, but Donaia found she needed his weight sprawled across her lap, his warm ruff and wiry hair under her fingers as the girls told her how Tanaquis had come to be injured—and how that injury had bought their freedom from Primordial hell.

“House Destaelio will be cursed now,” Ren said, gripping her teacup like that and pragmatic concerns were the only things keeping her grounded. “Not Coscanum, though; we think the destruction will have freed those of us who gave our medallions to the fire. Though we need to be sure. Tanaquis—Tanaquis was going to verify it for us.”

“I’ll speak to His Worship,” Donaia said.

Silence fell. Giuna had kicked off her shoes and sat with her knees bent under her skirt, tea cradled to her chest. Ren was dressed in wedding clothes that looked much worse for wear. Ren herself didn’t look much better. The last time Donaia had seen her so wan and red-eyed had been during that time of hellish sleeplessness.

She hadn’t yet said what happened while she was gone, but Donaia didn’t think that was secrecy at work; there was just too much to say at once. But even thinking of that made a new question bubble up—one she hadn’t been able to ask before now.

“Would you have told me, if you hadn’t disappeared?” At the furrow of Ren’s unvoiced confusion, Donaia said, “This Vraszenian uprising. Were you planning to warn me? Did you know this was going to happen?”

After all, Koszar Andrejek had been at Ren’s wedding. At Grey’s insistence, he’d tried to sit down with Cercel, Iascat, and Scaperto. Only after that failed had the Anduske destroyed the bridges.

Ren had promised honesty, and Donaia wanted to believe it. But a splinter of distrust remained in her heart, that not even release from Primordial influence could dislodge. If Ren knew…

“Yes, I knew,” Ren said. Her eyes were soft, and full of regret—but not repentance. “No. I was not going to tell you.”

Part of Donaia knew it must be coming. And yet the admission drove the air from her.

“I couldn’t,” Ren went on, voice strained. “For them to succeed, they needed surprise. You would have felt obligated to tell the Cinquerat. And they have to succeed.”

“You want our home in chaos?”

“I want it cleansed! Not as Laročja would do, purging everyone not pure enough for her—but Liganti power here has stood on a foundation of those Mask-damned medallions for two hundred years. It isn’t enough to pull those out; we need more. We need changes in the laws, my people permitted a voice.”

My people. And she spoke with a Vraszenian accent—with her natural accent.

Meatball whined. Donaia forced her hands to relax. “I know there are problems. But the way to address them is through diplomacy. Not through bombing the bridges, trapping people on the Old Island as hostages. Not through chaos and bloodshed.”

“We’ve tried diplomacy. Koszar told me how the meeting went. They refused to recognize him as a legitimate representative of Vraszenians in Nadežra.”

“Because he’s a criminal seditionist—”

“Nor will they recognize the ziemetse, because they’re foreign powers. So no one has the authority to speak for Vraszenians here, and even the most reasonable people in the Cinquerat take that as reason to leave things as they are.”

This wasn’t the conversation Donaia wanted to have with her niece, not with everything they’d been through. But having started, they couldn’t simply stop. “Ren, can you be certain this isn’t Tricat influencing you? Vengeance for your mother’s death, for your own suffering… I know what it’s like to want someone to pay.”

Ren met her gaze, unflinching. “Tricat is justice, too. And yes, perhaps I was influenced. But that’s why I’m glad this rebellion isn’t mine to lead. Koszar Andrejek, Idusza Polojny, the Kiraly clan elder… never have they touched Primordial power. Think you that so many people fight for this simply because I want it? I could not stop it if I tried.”

“But you didn’t try. You didn’t even warn me. You promised me honesty, and then you put your family in danger, without so much as a thought for us!”

Despite everything Donaia knew, she didn’t believe it was calculation that put such anguish into Ren’s expression. “I could not sleep for thinking of it. I knew this was more secrecy, more dishonesty, after I’d promised you truth. But… this matters more.” She flinched from her own words. At Giuna’s soft exhalation, some understanding passed between them—an understanding that left Donaia outside.

Ren’s final words were barely audible. “I couldn’t put personal promises above that. No matter how much it hurt you.”

The silence that followed was the horrible, echoing rift of everything that separated them. Upper Bank from Lower. Liganti from Vraszenian. Rich from poor. Donaia had thought family ties might bridge that chasm, but…

Setting aside her teacup, Giuna rose and sat next to Ren. One hand sought out her cousin’s and gripped it tight.

“I understand,” Giuna said, meeting Ren’s tear-edged gaze. “And you’re right. This matters more. What we have stands on a rotten foundation. We’ve got to tear it out and build a better one—together.”

Her last words were aimed not at Ren, but at Donaia. “Leato would have agreed.”

Giuna’s soft observation hit like a slap. Donaia recoiled, mouth opening to defend herself.

But over the rush of blood to her ears and cheeks, she heard the words of that barman at the Gawping Carp, all the sharper for the lack of judgment in them.

Your son was a good kid. I expected better of his mother.

If Leato were still here…

Donaia looked at Ren, and she didn’t see the masterful manipulator, the con artist who’d fooled her and all of Nadežra time and time again. She saw the motherless young woman who’d sat across from her in Westbridge and confessed that she didn’t know how to be family. A young woman who’d taken countless blows from life, but kept reaching for ways to make things better. To help others. Even when the cost to herself was high.

All the fight bled out of Donaia. Every argument her mind raised, every protest about how this problem should have been handled, failed in the face of one simple truth: She’d rather admit she was wrong than be at odds with her family.

She heaved Meatball off her lap, ignoring his whine, and knelt in front of the two young women, taking their free hands in her own.

“You’re right,” she said. “Both of you. And since Leato isn’t here… I’ll try to make him proud.”

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 18

Grey wanted nothing more than to go with Ren to Traementis Manor. Not because he thought he was needed there or could do anything to help, but simply so he wouldn’t have to leave Ren’s side. They hadn’t had a single quiet moment together since the wedding: Instead it had been zlyzen, Fiavla, the Old Island.

Destroying the medallions. His fingers still remembered the feel of Tanaquis’s arm in his grip, the shock of her hand going into the flames and nothing coming out. If he hadn’t done it, though, they might not be free now, the poison gone at last.

But others needed to know, too. That miraculous news was poised on Grey’s tongue when he entered Alinka’s house.

It died when he found his father sitting at the table, a square of black silk in front of him and a needle in his hand.

“I need more blue, for your great-grandmother.” Jakoslav wasn’t talking to Grey; he spoke to Jagyi in his lap, stubby fingers knotted up in tangles of floss. “She was Varadi. Can you find me blue, little bandit?”

He didn’t even acknowledge Grey’s arrival. Swallowing down the unpleasant jolt, Grey said, “Where’s Alinka?”

“Good boy.” Jakoslav took the thread Jagyi offered him, ruffling his dandelion-fluff curls. Only then did he look up at Grey. Redness rimmed his eyes, as though he’d been drinking. “Upstairs. Sleeping. You leave that poor girl to run herself ragged, after she’s had such a shock.”

Grey leaned against the door. “She told you what happened with the kanina.”

“I should have been there.” Jakoslav pitched his voice low, but the curl of his lip and the tension in his arms were too reminiscent of Grey’s childhood. Only the distance of years and iron control kept him from flinching. “What evil have I done, that you would deprive me of seeing my son?”

Not drink, then, but the ragged remains of tears. And anger. That was how it had always gone, after Grey’s mother died: grief for Noeri transmuted to anger at the one blamed for her loss.

“Tell me truthfully,” Grey said. For Jagyi’s sake he tried to keep his voice casual, but it was like trying to hold back the Dežera. “Would you have come and wished good fortune to me, marrying a half-breed?”

“So as usual, the fault is mine. For my efforts to protect this family, I must be robbed of its joys.”

You can’t even pretend you would have been happy for us. Grey wouldn’t have believed it anyway. But once again, in Jakoslav’s mind, he and Laročja were the innocent victims of a cursed son.

If Laročja hadn’t been a fraud—if she could have seen clearly what lay in Grey’s past—how different might everything have been?

Asking that question was asking for pain.

“If the son’s a thief, look to the father.” Refusing to be cowed, Grey pushed off the door and approached the table, catching the corner of the silk. Jakoslav had already embroidered the first lines, silver for the Szerado, warm chestnut brown for Noeri’s Meszaros kin. “I told you I’d make Jagyi’s koszenie.”

“Yet here it lay, untouched. While you yourself were nowhere to be found. Alinka needs family she can rely on.”

“She has family she can rely on. What she needs not is family that wishes only to use her.” Seeing how Jagyi had gone silent, his floss-tangled hands limp in his lap, Grey leashed his anger. He plucked his nephew from the trap of Jakoslav’s arms and set him on the stairs. “Go wake your mother, Jagyi. Tell her I’m home and your grandfather is leaving.”

They watched Jagyi hoist his slow way up, each step a hurdle to be mounted. At least Jakoslav waited for the door to close before rounding on Grey. “You make decisions that should be left to his mother.”

“Alinka tolerates your presence because she’s kind. But she knows what Kolya would have wanted.”

“So you ruin her life, as you ruined his?”

Without warning, the rage slipped its leash. Grey slammed his hand onto the table, looming over his seated father. The hood was tucked safely away, but he didn’t need it to play this role. He wasn’t a frightened, abused child anymore. And he would make Jakoslav see that.

“You cannot face it, can you?” he said, his voice suddenly and chillingly conversational. “That your own fear and cruelty ruined everything. That your mother’s so-called guidance convinced your wife her only choice was to take her life and mine. That your attempt to beat the ill fortune out of me did nothing but harm. That Kolya was so horrified by what he found when he returned from his apprenticeship, he chose to take us both away from you. That your own hand has snapped the threads of this family.”

“No threads have I cut. Nor have you, for all your disrespect.” Shoving the chair back, Jakoslav rose to meet Grey’s anger. Age had rounded his chest like a barrel, but in other ways he seemed diminished. No, Grey had just grown. Tall enough to meet him eye-to-eye; confident enough to make the choice Kolya had always left in his hands.

His koszenie was folded inside his shirt, where it wouldn’t be damaged. Grey drew it out now, the memory of what the Ižranyi had done dragging at his spirit like a lead weight.

The burning of their koszenie had been blasphemy. But it was a reminder that sometimes, to protect others, to protect oneself, to get rid of old poison… a binding must be severed.

Snatching a thumb knife from the tangle of embroidery floss, Grey slipped it under the silver stitches marking him as Szerado—

And cut them.

Jakoslav cried out, hands reaching too late. For all his cruelty, he’d never cast Grey out. He’d even overruled Laročja when the old woman suggested sending Grey to be adopted by another kureč—because in the end, Jakoslav couldn’t let go of his own blood. Even if that was selfish pride rather than love, it mattered to him.

Now he staggered backward. “You—you—”

“You have no sons, Jakoslav Jakoski Szerado. One is dead, and the other you drove away.” He’d expected it to feel like opening a vein, bleeding himself dry of everything that made him Vraszenian. Instead it felt like the medallions being destroyed at last. Not without cost… but worth it all the same.

A creak dragged Grey’s attention from his speechless father. Alinka stood on the stairs, hair mussed and pillow creases on her cheek, but composed and calm. “In light of this,” she said coolly, “I must ask you to leave, Ča Szerado.”

To Jakoslav.

The old man sputtered. “Me? He is the one who severed our thread. Who cast himself out of this family.”

“He did.” Descending the last few steps, she stood at Grey’s side, hand slipping into his. Clammy cold, but firm in its grip. “My sympathy you have for what you’ve lost… but Grey is my kin. Which makes you kin no more.”

Grey tightened his hand on hers, not caring if his relief showed.

Jakoslav’s rage rose in familiar defense. “Your son—”

“Is not yours to take, as replacement for what you’ve lost. Better a small family than one that would treat him so.” Alinka stood tall, unafraid of Jakoslav’s curled fists. “I said you should leave, Ča Szerado. I will not ask again.”

Grey let go of Alinka so he could step forward. Jakoslav retreated, fumbling for the door. He couldn’t seem to find the latch, until Grey reached past him to open it.

Into the ear of the man who had been his father, he murmured, “Get over your Mask-damned obsession with blood purity and call Oramir from Gursoven to be your heir. Then, should the kanina call Kolya from the dream again, you’ll be able to look him in the eye.”

The door opened. Jakoslav stumbled out. And Grey closed it on him forever.

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Cyprilun 18

Tanaquis wasn’t the first person Ren had seen lose a hand. The Fingers were thieves; one of the punishments for thievery was amputation. Some of the magistrates held back from sentencing children to that fate, but not all.

Sitting by her cousin’s bedside, she felt simultaneously like she was back in Lacewater, and a world away from the slums of her childhood. Unlike the Fingers, unlike most people outside the Upper Bank, Tanaquis had received the best care possible. The physician had cleaned the stump and stretched a flap of skin over its raw end; he was confident it would heal well, and he’d left behind restoratives and imbued ointments. Tanaquis wouldn’t have to fear infection, much less starvation in a gutter.

But she was sun-handed. Ren had seen how fragile Tanaquis became after Iridet fired her, when she was barred from performing inscription except to deal with the medallions. Now she wouldn’t be able to perform it at all.

If she’s denied her compass, her edge, and her chalk… is there any self left?

Ren scrubbed a tear away. This wasn’t the end. Tanaquis was strong. She’d made thoughtful, approving noises when she heard how Alsius made Vargo practice inscription with both hands and even, on a basic level, with his feet. She could learn to use her other hand. They would all help her.

That didn’t make the loss any less horrifying.

And so Ren sat her vigil praying to the Lumen and Šen Asarn alike that her cousin would recover, until a rustling brought her head up. Tanaquis shifted in bed—and then her eyes opened.

Ren leaned forward, ready to still her if necessary. “Try not to sit up. You’ve been dosed with papaver.”

“Water,” Tanaquis said, in a desiccated whisper.

Ren gave it to her in little sips, until Tanaquis coughed. Then she set the glass aside. “Tanaquis… recall you what happened? In the temple?”

Her cousin’s eyes glittered before she turned away, exposing the branching marks on her neck and face. The doctor had promised they weren’t painful. He’d seen such marks as a result of numinatrian accidents; they would fade with time. The sight still made Ren want to look away.

“The medallions,” Tanaquis whispered.

“Yes.” Ren inhaled, steeling herself. “Everyone else gave theirs to the fire. You… The Rook had to force you. And your hand—”

A tiny nod saved her from having to say it. “I know.”

Ren waited, but no outburst came. Either emotion hadn’t yet made its way through the haze, or Tanaquis hadn’t yet absorbed the consequences of her loss. Ren wasn’t about to shove them in her face.

One thing, however, couldn’t be left until later. “Vargo’s examined the others, and none of them are cursed.” House Destaelio was, their medallion taken from them by theft, but not Esmierka. “You having held on to yours… there’s a risk you may be.”

“I’m not.”

Tanaquis spoke with simple certainty. Ren’s lips pressed together. “You can’t be sure of that.” And she’d held Ninat. Tanaquis might have vowed not to end her own life like her uncle had, but after the loss of her hand…

Her cousin turned back. That glassy-eyed look was unnerving, like Tanaquis was seeing past her into some other realm. Not the visions of aža, but whatever papaver showed her. After a moment, Tanaquis said, “I designed the numinat that verified the presence of a curse. I designed the numinat that removes the curse. I designed the numinat to destroy the medallions. Who in this city knows more about Primordial power than I? And I tell you, I’m not cursed.”

Ren regretted having raised the issue at all as Tanaquis sagged deeper into her pillow. But her cousin’s certainty came as a relief. It was true; Tanaquis knew more about these matters than anyone. If she was sure, Ren could trust that.

It eased some of the fear, though far from all. The rest would have to wait for the days to come. “Then sleep,” she said, “and heal.”

She meant it to be reassuring. Instead it broke the barrier that had held back her own tears. “Masks have mercy,” Ren whispered. “Tanaquis—I’m so sorry—”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” Tanaquis said, her eyes drifting shut. “I promise.”

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Cyprilun 18

Given that they’d just destroyed blasphemous Primordial artifacts, Vargo expected Alsius to fill his head with chatter as they wearily made their way home. Prayers of thanks to the Lumen, after-the-fact evaluation of the numinat, theological speculation about what would happen to the szorsa’s soul, horror over what Tanaquis had suffered—all of the above and more, in a never-ending flood of giddily analytical relief.

Instead he got silence.

The emptiness of the house only drove that in harder. He hadn’t seen Varuni since they delivered the Black Rose’s mask via crossbow bolt; for all he knew, her people had already sent her home to Isarn. He ought to send a message to ask, but all he really wanted to do was strip down, scrub himself from head to foot, and fall asleep, possibly without getting out of the tub first.

There would be no relaxation, though, with that echoing silence in his head. To break it, Vargo said out loud, “You all right, old man? I thought you’d be dancing with the moons.”

::Oh. Yes, of course. Naturally I’m pleased.::

Instead of his usual rounds making certain no vermin had invaded their bedroom, Alsius tucked himself into the curling scrollwork of Vargo’s headboard. Watchful and quiet. Pensive.

“Out with it. What’s going on?” Vargo gave up his dreams of a scrub-down and settled onto the bed. The knobs and divots of the headboard pressed unevenly into his back.

After a pause long enough that Vargo started to nod off, Alsius said softly, ::I’m tired.::

“We both are. I know there’s more to do, with the uprising and the river numinat, but I think we’re allowed a half day’s rest.”

::No. I mean… It was terrible, being cut off from you. Voiceless. So helpless. And then, in the realm of mind, I was myself again, and I’d forgotten. How do you forget what it’s like to be human?:: The shadows stirred. Something soft brushed past Vargo’s cheek, and then Peabody settled on his chest, lighter than the lump constricting Vargo’s throat.

Past that lump, Vargo said, “Are you sorry you came back?”

Alsius didn’t answer directly. ::I sometimes worried about how I would occupy myself after we took down Ghiscolo and the Praeteri. But then there were the medallions to deal with. They had to be destroyed, and I’m glad I was there for that, even if what happened to poor Tanaquis was awful.:: His shiver was as light as a butterfly’s kiss. ::Now this rebellion, and the river numinat again. I know it’s all important, but…::

“You’re tired.” Of being stuck in this life. Of being stuck as a spider.

Maybe even of being stuck with Vargo.

Not that, he thought, where Alsius couldn’t hear. The bruised part of himself that expected others to turn away was healing, and he knew Alsius’s joy at being scribed in as his father hadn’t been feigned. But… for sixteen years, the old man had only one person to talk to. Now he had two—but maybe that only drove home how tightly his circumstances constrained him.

“Ren can find a solution,” he said, clutching at a thin strand. “She made the Black Rose out of nothing. Maybe she can— I don’t know. Make you a new body.”

Alsius sagged flat, the spider equivalent of a sigh. ::I asked. But some things, I fear, are beyond even her.::

The doorbell ringing felt like a reprieve. Vargo couldn’t marshal the right words to comfort Alsius, not with exhaustion numbing his thoughts. He didn’t much want to entertain guests, either—but it might be Ren, or Grey. Groaning, he heaved himself off the bed, Alsius coming along for the ride, and went downstairs.

Fadrin Acrenix was on his front step.

“The fuck?” The words sprang from Vargo’s mouth before he could stop them.

Fadrin stepped aside and jerked his thumb. A plain-sided carriage stood at the foot of the steps, its open door revealing Carinci Acrenix. Her expression a stony mask, she called out, “You can join me in here, or Fadrin can bring me inside.”

No fucking way was he getting into an Acrenix carriage. Vargo jerked his own thumb at Fadrin, then waited while the other man carried Carinci up the steps and into his parlour. A trembling warmth at the back of his neck was Alsius, hiding from the woman who had been his mother.

She settled herself with dignity, straightening her skirts and gloves. Vargo hovered, wondering if he should skip the intervening steps and just draw a knife. Months since Ghiscolo had died—since Vargo killed him—and not a word from Carinci. Had it upset her at all? Ghiscolo was born to a contract wife; Carinci adopted him only after Alsius died. Vargo had no idea if there had ever been any love there. He had no idea what to expect from Carinci at all.

When her appearance was tidied to her satisfaction, Carinci drew her own verbal knife. “For months I was something Faella Coscanum couldn’t scrape off her shoe fast enough, and then this morning she shows up at my door. Are you trying to pick up where Ghiscolo left off? Fancy yourself a better Tyrant than he would have been?”

“A saner one, at the very least.” Without a trapped szorsa to act as his chain, Ghiscolo had tumbled into power-madness far quicker. “But if you mean to imply I’m trying to gather more medallions in my own hands, you’re laughably off mark.”

“Am I? And yet you haven’t asked why Faella came to me.”

Vargo’s indifferent sprawl concealed his tension. “I assume because her Illi-ten medallion went missing. She can stop looking. It’s been destroyed. All of them have.”

Carinci went as rigid as a statue. Hesitantly, Alsius asked, ::Are you certain it’s wise to tell her?::

Wiser than leaving her searching for them. What can she do? They’re gone.

A decorative bowl flew past Vargo’s head, smashing into the wall and leaving a star of porcelain dust on the wood. Carinci’s grip on her chair’s arms was white-knuckled like she’d launch herself next.

“You! How could you let this happen?” she hissed. Her gaze was set not on Vargo’s face, but on his shoulder.

::She—she knows I’m here?::

Ghiscolo had figured it out, that his half brother was somehow stuck in the body of a spider. Perhaps he’d told Carinci, or Sibiliat had. It didn’t matter. The point was, she knew.

“Face me,” Carinci snapped. One bony hand gestured imperiously at Vargo. “You. Tell me what he says. It’s long past time my son and I talked.”

Vargo felt the tremor as the bright blot of Peabody crept into view. ::I’m listening, Mother.::

Feeling half like a fool, half like a protective son, Vargo parroted Alsius’s words.

“And? Answer my question, boy. How could you let our family come to this?”

::Ghiscolo is the one who brought us to this. He’s the one who sought the power of Primordials. He’s the one who was going to kill most of the Cinquerat—and Faella, too! He’s the one who killed me.::

Vargo’s voice wavered on those last words. Ghiscolo might have given the order, and Diomen created the numinat for the cursed cloak, but Vargo had delivered it.

Carinci sniffed. “Clearly, he didn’t kill you thoroughly enough.”

::… Mother?::

That whisper was a plea Vargo didn’t—couldn’t—repeat. Instead he sat up straight and asked for himself: “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Any one of his fists would have known by his tone to choose their next words with great care. Even Fadrin shifted in discomfort. Carinci’s lip curled like she’d stepped barefoot on a slug. “I knew from early on that this useless son of mine had his head too firmly up the Lumen’s ass to properly use the power granted to our family line. He probably would have colluded with that fool Utrinzi to destroy it all the sooner. I told his father he would make a terrible heir. Ghiscolo at least understood how to lead House Acrenix.”

Vargo stilled. “You told Ghiscolo to have Alsius murdered?”

“The idea was his. But I certainly didn’t stop him.”

In one swift move Vargo was on his feet, fist raised, Carinci’s age and infirmity be damned. Fadrin caught his wrist before he could strike. For a brief moment they strained against each other; Fadrin had bigger muscles, but Vargo had six ways to break the deadlock, each one increasingly vicious. He transferred his murderous glare to the Acrenix cousin, and Fadrin dropped his wrist like he was holding hot iron.

Vargo spat at Carinci, the spittle striking her cheek. “You should have died alongside your precious heir. And your register should have been burned like Indestor’s. Get the fuck out of my house.”

Fadrin obeyed without waiting for Carinci’s response. Vargo didn’t follow, certain he would kick them both down the stairs if he did. Carefully picking up the pieces of broken bowl, he waited for Alsius to speak.

He was sweeping up the last splinters with a hand brush when it came. ::I’m glad you didn’t strike her.::

Vargo wasn’t. Why should her condition or her age protect that woman from the consequences of her abject cruelty? “You’re better than that whole fucking family.”

::Am I? You’re forgetting how I tried to save my life. What landed me in this body in the first place. Perhaps this is the punishment I deserve.::

Every response Vargo could think of was too barbed. He sank onto the bottom step of the staircase, head in his hands. “You would have dedicated your life to destroying them. She was afraid because she knew you were a better person than Ghiscolo. And I’m proud that we got the chance to prove it.” He tried to channel his sincerity through the link, even though it had never worked that way before. Ren had remade it for them; maybe it worked that way now.

But it didn’t. Or it wasn’t enough.

::I… I’m sorry. I need some time to think.:: Hopping away, Peabody scuttled up the banister.

His weight was tiny, but with it gone, Vargo’s shoulders sagged. He should get up, clean up, sleep, but his body felt too heavy to move.

He didn’t know how long he sat there before the doorbell rang again. Vargo rose to his feet, half hoping it was Fadrin and Carinci come back to let him have another go.

Instead it was Grey, recoiling when Vargo yanked the door open.

“Now’s really a bad time,” Vargo snapped.

“I can see that,” Grey said, taking in his appearance. “Do you want to talk about it?”

There was a bottle of zrel dangling from Grey’s left hand, and he looked about as ragged as Vargo felt. Vargo weighed the question, passed a weary hand over his face, and swung the door wider for his brother to enter. “I suspect we both do. Come on in—and get that zrel open.”

23

The Face of Weaving

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 23

Waiting in line to cross the guarded Floodwatch Bridge, Ren shielded her eyes with one hand to study the crane rising over the deactivated West Channel numinat. True to his word, Vargo had moved to get it repaired as soon as possible, aided by Koszar granting the release of some of his Liganti hostages.

Even for Vargo’s design, though, repair was easier said than done. The original setup had relied on slotting all seven foci into place simultaneously; placing them one at a time risked cracking the whole structure. The mechanism for the activation having long since been dismantled, his workers had to build a new one before the water would flow clean again.

Still, it was an encouraging sign of progress. Iascat on his own was proving a more effective diplomat than the whole Cinquerat shouting across a broken bridge—helped in part by the sudden chaos in Whitesail. Without her medallion, Cibrial’s control over the foreign merchants had disintegrated like cheap paper in the rain; worse for her, several creditors had called in their loans before Vargo and Utrinzi could remove her curse. The pressure was on for some kind of compromise to be reached.

Assuming Koszar didn’t lose control of his own people first.

Rumor said his decision to let Ren and the others go had put a rift between him and Laročja—and therefore between the Anduske who followed him, and the newcomers who followed her. If that rift grew too wide, it could threaten everything they’d achieved so far. But Ren had no way to intervene there, and she hadn’t yet figured out a way for the Black Rose to help, either.

By comparison, her purpose today felt frivolous. Having got hold of one end of a thread, though, she couldn’t stop until she unraveled the whole thing.

The preparation hadn’t even been difficult. A few questions in knowledgeable ears; an afternoon spent gossiping with some gammers only too happy to talk. It was enough to net her some names and a destination.

In western Floodwatch she turned north. Past one of the distribution points for clean water; past clusters of Vraszenians muttering about the approach of Veiled Waters. That was another fire waiting to break out: If people started to believe they wouldn’t get access to the Old Island in time for the Great Dream, the Lower Bank might see another riot. The last time they’d been denied their holy festival had been under the rule of the Tyrant, and no one had forgotten.

Worrisome thoughts—yet almost preferable to the ones trying to sink their claws into her mind. It was ridiculous that she’d faced down Gammer Lindworm, survived the nightmare of Fiavla, and helped rid the world of a Primordial poison, but this was what made her afraid: a Floodwatch inn rented out from cellar to ceiling by three kretse.

She stepped through its gate into a yard filled with painted caravans, pickets of horses, and Vraszenians everywhere she looked. Exchanging news, striking deals, beating out dusty blankets; behind the open stable door, two youths had concealed themselves not quite well enough to hide their clumsy kisses.

Ren’s heart beat loud enough that she could barely hear any of it. Only momentum carried her across the yard, toward the inn door, where a boy on the cusp of adolescence lounged with the unspeakable boredom of that age. A roll of cinnamon bark dangled from his teeth, the end dark and gummy from chewing.

“Can you help me?” Ren asked in Vraszenian, touching the end of her braid for comfort. Her mouth was dry. She should have stopped for some of that water. Or brought Grey. But no—she had to do this herself. She had to know.

The boy looked up, his boredom only faintly cut by curiosity. Ren made herself say, “I’m looking for the Volavka.”

“Yeah.” The boy’s flat look asked, And?

Her information-gathering said there was a Volavka man named Lenismir; shortened for a patronymic, that would become Lenskaya. But was he the one she sought? “I would speak with an elder of that kureč.”

The boy dragged the stick from his teeth, sucking spittle off the end. “Elders are usually busy.” His bored eyes drifted to the purse stitched into Ren’s sash.

A centira quickly palmed, and the boy rose from his slouch. “What name?” he asked, leading her through the inn’s common room to an alcove whose sheltering curtain was tied open. “Ai, Ama. City stitch looking to talk trade.”

The woman there quickly finished pinning a braid back into place and stood—then stopped. The braid, insufficiently fixed, slipped free to dangle over her right shoulder as she stared.

She looks like me, Ren thought, even as the woman whispered, “Ivrina?”

“Arenza.” The name dropped from her numb lips, barely audible.

The woman’s mirror fell to the floor in a clatter of bronze. She pushed past the boy, hands coming up to frame Ren’s cheeks. Warm and road-worn, chafed red across the knuckles. Her face held the same warmth, a deeper shade than Ren’s and spattered with dark spots.

Spattered with tears now, too. “Arenza? You’re… you’re Ivrina’s girl. You must be.” A sob hiccuped free; then Ren was swept into a hug, tears dampening her shoulder.

It was one thing to see the koszenie, its threads uncut. This was confirmation. They didn’t cast her out.

But then… why? Why had Ivrina tried so hard to make certain Ren would never find her kin?

The woman pulled back to say, “I am Tsvetsa. Your mother’s sister. Ivrina—is she—”

Ren shook her head before the woman—her aunt—could force the rest of the question out. “Many years ago.”

Tsvetsa’s chin dipped to her chest. Her voice shook as she said, “Alenši, fetch your grandfather.”

His mother’s reaction sparked more alacrity than Ren’s coin had. Once he’d darted off, Tsvetsa’s grip eased. She smoothed the bunched cotton of Ren’s sleeves, an unspoken apology. “How came you to find us? Why came you not before?”

How to answer that question? The explanation was a lifetime long. “I knew not who you were. My mother—she never told me. And her koszenie…”

Before she could say more, an older man appeared, led by Alenši. Apparently the boy had conveyed some portion of what was going on, because while the man touched the wall for support at the sight of Ren, he didn’t collapse. “It’s true. Oh, child… you have the stamp of your mother.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “My poor, lost Ivrina.”

“She named her Arenza,” Tsvetsa said.

Vraszenian tradition named the eldest son after his paternal grandfather, the eldest daughter after her maternal grandmother—Lenismir’s wife. Alenši caught the older man before he could falter completely. The boy’s sullen glare said he blamed Ren. “She could be lying. Planning to cheat us somehow. Isn’t Arenza the name of that—”

“Alenši!” The boy flinched at the smack of Tsvetsa’s hand on the table. “See to your cousins. Keep them out of trouble.”

Once he’d slunk away like a scolded cat, Tsvetsa tugged Ren to sit. “Forgive him. He’s at that age.”

Lenismir caught Ren’s wrist across the table, his own fingers gnarled and knobbed like brown roots, but holding tight. “You must tell us everything.”

“I hardly know what to tell,” Ren said, her voice unsteady. “I grew up thinking you had cast my mother out. Because of me.”

“Never,” he said, fierce and sure.

It stole her breath again. The gossips said the Volavka weren’t like that… but one had only to look at the Szerado to know that public and private weren’t always the same. She’d come here hoping, not knowing.

They’d wanted Ivrina. They wanted Ren.

Tsvetsa said, “Ivrina left us. She— Oh, Masks have mercy. Because of you, yes, but not any fault of yours.”

Ren’s hands were clasped so tightly her knuckles ached. “Tell me.”

“She was gifted, my sister. Meant to become a great szorsa.” Tsvetsa settled into a worn cadence of a kureč’s memory-keeper, only her fretful touches on Lenismir’s sleeve giving away that she was telling their own story. “We’re not a wealthy kureč, as you see, but we paid well for her to drink from the wellspring. To have from Ažerais a true vision.”

“The price was too high,” Lenismir muttered. Ren didn’t think he was speaking of Argentet’s fees.

“We couldn’t have known,” Tsvetsa said. “The vision your mother had… for months she shared it not with us. But anyone could see it left her unsettled.”

“Me.” Ren forced the word out. She could see the pattern taking shape, inevitable and true. Hadn’t something similar happened to Grey? “There was something wrong with me.”

“Not wrong!” Tsvetsa reached across to grasp her wrist, mirroring her father. “But the cards Ivrina laid, when she knew she was bearing…”

Lenismir said, “She became convinced that if ever her child danced the kanina, a great terror she would bring into the world.”

It was so unexpected that it cut through the tension and pain. Dancing the kanina—that would explain why Ivrina lied, why she kept her koszenie hidden. If Ren didn’t know her kin and thought they wouldn’t want her, she had no reason to seek them out. But what would Ivrina have done when Ren was grown and ready to—

To marry.

Dancing the kanina with Grey. Pulling Kolya into the world; that was no great terror. But neither was he a mere shade. He’d been solid enough to touch.

And something else had come. Something that stayed, long after dawn should have banished it back to the dream. Something indeed born of terror.

The zlyzen.

“She was right,” Ren whispered, her wrists slipping free. Right—but unable to see the whole of the weave, even guided by Ažerais. Ren touched the token braided into her hair. “When I danced at my wedding… It is a story for later. I know not why, though. It cannot be only that I was conceived on the Great Dream.”

“I refuse to believe my granddaughter is the source of some great evil.” Lenismir spat to the side. “No, if there’s blame, it belongs to that Mask-damned spirit who seduced her.”

“That was no seduction, Papa.” Tsvetsa’s eye roll was worthy of her son, and probably where he learned it. “Think you Ivrina’s head was so easy to turn?”

Their words burned through the fog in Ren’s mind. “Spirit? What spirit? I thought—the way I look—was my father not Liganti?”

“Seterin,” Tsvetsa said. “At least, once he was. Ivrina claimed he was a philosopher, one whose spirit became lost in the dream.”

Had Ren not been sitting, she would have fallen down. The last piece of the pattern wasn’t a mere card; it was the stroke of chalk that activated a numinat. “You’re saying my father is Gabrius Mirscellis?”

Over Lenismir’s well-worn mutters, Tsvetsa said, “Yes, that was the name. She said he walked this world during the Great Dream—that at the next cycle she would seek him. To see if he could keep us all safe. We looked for her then, and the next as well, but…”

But Ivrina’s house had burned mere months before the Great Dream—taking with it nearly everything she and Ren owned. She could barely afford food, let alone entrance to the amphitheatre. And by the cycle after that, Ivrina was dead.

Gabrius. That bright, energetic spirit, with hazel eyes like Ren’s own, so long caught in the dream that he moved in it like his natural home. What would happen when a man like that sired a child?

Ren had found her father. And then she’d lost him, all his connections snapped, before she had a chance to realize what they meant.

Lenismir was weeping again. “All this time… Where were you? What became of my Ivri?”

Her throat closing with tears—for Lenismir, for Gabrius, for herself—Ren said, “A happy tale it is not.”

“We are Vraszenian,” Tsvetsa said. Her uneven smile included Ren in that statement. “Sad words are better than silent weeping.”

Ren took a deep breath. “Very well.” And she told the tale.

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 25

This should have been Ren’s life, Grey thought, following his wife into Floodwatch with the rest of their group. A loving kureč, not the hardship of Lacewater. And yet, that hardship and everything that followed it had brought her to him, just as his own troubles had brought him to her. How was one supposed to weigh those things against each other, the suffering and the joy?

Hearing music up ahead, he smiled wryly to himself. You make a song out of it. Like Vraszenians had been doing for ages uncounted.

The inn the Volavka shared with two other kretse was blazing with colored lanterns, and the melody spiraled up to the twilight sky like smoke. To celebrate the return of a lost daughter, they’d spared no effort. That the daughter was half-Seterin, a registered noblewoman of Nadežra, and a famous—or infamous—szorsa slated to be the next speaker for the Ižranyi only seemed to delight them all the more.

“She’s here!” shouted a wiry beanpole of a boy with sly amber eyes and a girl Yvie’s age on his shoulders. “Arenza Lenskaya Volavka, who comes with you, and what bring you from your travels?”

It was an old road greeting. Demanding gifts was rude, but travel spoils were different when kin met kin. After Ren said she wanted her family to meet the Volavka, Grey had warned the others what to expect, so they wouldn’t arrive empty-handed.

Tess, predictably, brought fabric: a caravan blanket quilted out of rich brown silks, river-sleek satins, and cat-soft velvets. Sedge, equally predictably, brought alcohol: Grey had talked him up from zrel, so instead it was a bottle of chrysanthemum wine. Pavlin brought baked goods—but his introduction ran aground on an unexpected shoal. “I’m not family yet,” he said, “but Tess and I are to be married, so—”

“You’re what?”

That burst from Grey and Ren in tandem. Tess and Pavlin gaped; then Tess clapped both hands over her mouth. “Oh, Crone chide me for a fool… We never told you.” Cheeks flaming, she shifted her hands to her hips. “Well, it was your wedding day! We didn’t want to distract! And then you were gone, and—”

Ren cut the explanation short with a hug. “Bright news would have been no distraction,” she said into Tess’s curls, as Grey clapped Pavlin into his own embrace and Sedge muttered something not at all angry about damned hawks. “I’m so glad for you both.”

The Volavka waited patiently through the congratulations, one road-worn gammer already on her third tear-soaked handkerchief. Recalling them to their purpose, Grey stepped forward, self-consciously touching his stubby wedding braid. “I am Grey, Ren’s husband. Once threads bound me to kureč and clan, but no longer.”

Thus far Lenismir had been accepting the gifts, but now two men took his place. The first was the Volavka kurenič, and the second—to Grey’s shock—was the Dvornik clan elder. “Kiraly’s loss is Dvornik’s gain,” the latter said, quoting a well-known fable about foxes raising raccoon kits as their own.

The kureč leader nodded. “Indeed. You are welcome among us, as Grey Noeski Volavka.”

The sound of his mother’s name taking the place of his father’s made Grey’s throat tighten with welcome tears. Then a snicker came from the sentry boy. “Just proves, better to be a chicken thief than a gutter cat—ow!” He smoothed the hair ruffled by Tsvetsa’s gentle smack. “I meant it nicely!”

That released the tightness enough for Grey to chuckle. “It seems Ren is not the only Volavka with Ažerais’s gift.” Picking up the cage he’d carried all the way from Eastbridge, he flipped up the cloth cover.

The fat hen inside squawked with displeasure. She didn’t know or care that she was the traditional gift from a husband to his wife’s family; she just knew her nice dark shelter had suddenly gotten very bright. Grey let the cloth drop again. “Not stolen. But given in the hope that to you new wealth comes every day.” The hen was duly handed over to Lenismir.

Alinka followed with her expected gift of healing tisanes, and Yvie’s unexpected offering of her Elsivin doll. Lenismir examined it with the gravity of a man who’d raised many children and grandchildren, then returned it, saying, “I must count on you to keep brave Elsivin safe in your hands, and her dreams safe in your heart.”

Once Yvie had solemnly accepted this charge, Grey sent Vargo forward with a none-too-gentle nudge. His brother had given five flavors of excuses not to join them, most of them having to do with Alinka’s comfort. All of them foiled when Ren tapped his wrist—the knot bracelet and the pale scar beneath—and reminded him he was doubly bound.

“I’m Vargo. No relation to the Varadi, whatever the rumors might say.” He brushed empty hands along the nap of his sueded coat, an uncharacteristic admission of nerves. “And I’m afraid my gift’s still at the wainwright’s waiting for the finishing touches. Figured these two might have opinions on their new caravan. Even if the rest of the family’s more likely to use it once you return to the road.”

Leave it to Vargo to keep his gift secret, then offer one more extravagant than appropriate. And yet, Grey’s heart surged with gratitude and warmth. Never mind the exclamations from the Volavka, embarrassment and approval and one gaffer shaking his head over the young these days; Ren’s shining eyes said the words Grey couldn’t voice. Vargo had given them a home. Just as he’d done with the Westbridge townhouse: a home for each half of their lives.

Fitting, then, that after the excitement died down, Giuna was last to step forward. Donaia had declined to come tonight—not out of reluctance, Grey thought, but out of awareness that her presence would make an already awkward meeting that much stiffer. Her daughter would serve as the first, tentative embassy from the Traementis to the Volavka.

Giuna tugged her gloves until they came off. Bare-handed, she said, “I’m Giuna Traementis. Ren’s cousin by register. I was told spices were a good gift, so I’ve brought that.” She passed over a small coffer containing the traditional saffron and salt. “But I wanted to do more if I could. I don’t know how matters will go, with the negotiations and all. But if the usual vouchers are distributed for the Great Dream this year, House Traementis will happily give ours to the Volavka.”

The musicians in the courtyard were still playing, and Floodwatch had its usual noise, but a blanket of silence fell over the courtyard entrance. The Volavka knew Ren had been adopted into a noble house… but it was one thing to know, and another entirely to have Giuna standing before them offering what, in a more just world, would have been theirs by right.

The Dvornič settled the matter with a few short words. “You are welcome among us, Giuna Traementis,” he said, and she exhaled visibly.

It didn’t make the situation any less strange, a Liganti noblewoman joining this Vraszenian celebration. But it was a cautious strangeness, not a hostile one. And looking at the mixed group Ren had brought—Pavlin, Sedge, and Vargo Nadežran, Tess with her red Ganllechyn hair—Grey thought, This is who she is. If they want her, they must have those who come with her.

The Volavka kurenič bade them enter, and twilight faded into boisterous night, with Ren being introduced to every Volavka who hadn’t met her yet: countless cousins and aunties and uncles, everybody wanting the story of her. They’d heard rumors about the con artist who pulled one over on the Liganti, but had never dreamed that con artist was one of theirs. She was well on her way toward becoming the new Clever Natalya—and, Grey thought with amusement, they didn’t even know about the Black Rose.

As far as he was concerned, the celebration was a feast for a starving heart. Even as a child, he’d never truly been welcomed, and having cut his threads a mere week before, it was disorienting to suddenly be woven into a family that bore him no ill will at all. He found it easier to help the others, teaching Giuna the steps of a dance, guiding Tess toward some gammers she could talk embroidery with, warning Pavlin away from a dish that carried a heavy dose of Isarnah peppers and passing it to Sedge instead. Vargo needed little help: He already had his head bent with several road-worn elders, trade talk drifting from them like campfire smoke. Grey fully expected at least three deals by dawn.

He assumed he’d barely see Ren the rest of the night, but after a while she came and perched beside him on a traveling chest. Strands of hair had slipped free of her braids, edging her face like lace. Eyes wide, she said, “Masks have mercy. Once I had almost no family; now I need a chart to track them.”

Not just the extended numbers of the Volavka, he suspected, but the Traementis as well, overlapping like the figure inscriptors called a vesica piscis. Vraszenians in one circle, Liganti in another, and Ren in the sliver between. Plus Tess and Sedge; normally the oath they’d sworn would have been witnessed by Ren’s kurenič, but he seemed willing to accept it after the fact. Plus Grey, and through him, Vargo.

And Mirscellis, Grey thought. Ren had wanted to rescue his spirit anyway; she felt she owed it to him, after dragging him into their problems. Now that she knew the truth, nothing would stop her, even if the task was impossible.

Not tonight, though. Ren leaned against him, sighing. “How is this done when Vraszenians marry outsiders along the Dawn and Dusk Roads? Who belongs to whose family?”

“It’s complicated,” Grey said. “And it depends on the people in question.”

He put one arm around her shoulders, and she nestled in close. “Can it even work to be both?” she asked. “Volavka and Traementis?”

In Nadežra, the answer was usually no. By law, no one linked to Ren by marriage or blood counted as Traementis, not unless they were inscribed in the register. Grey didn’t even have the status of a contract husband. They hadn’t had time to figure out what to do about that.

But in Nadežra, noble families didn’t usually adopt Vraszenians. Mixing had happened, countless times in the last two hundred years, but very little of it enjoyed legal recognition.

Grey kissed the top of her head and gazed out at the celebration for the Volavka’s daughter, an alta of the Upper Bank. “Perhaps now, it can.”

The Dvornič approached them, and they both rose to their feet. “Thank you for your kindness to Giuna,” Ren said, twitching as if reflex wanted to offer Renata’s Seterin curtsy.

A smile flickered at the corner of the Dvornič’s mouth. “Thank me for more in a moment—or not, perhaps. With Miškir I have been speaking.”

The use of the Kiralič’s given name was a pointed reminder of who they were talking to. The clan elders weren’t rulers; they governed none of the city-states to the south. Nevertheless, they held a great deal of power and authority in Vraszan.

Like an actress changing masks, the newfound daughter became the political tactician. “About the negotiations.”

“About Laročja Szerado,” the Dvornič said. “Little could we do for you before; thanks to her, all know that your only standing among us is a position dubiously won. Without kin, without kureč, without clan…”

Things Ren now had. Grey inhaled, wondering if the Dvornič aimed where he thought.

An elaborate fox-knot charm swung from the hand the Dvornič extended. “Speak on my behalf,” he said.

Grey’s pulse leapt. In the eyes of the Cinquerat, the ziemetse were foreign powers; they officially couldn’t negotiate on behalf of Nadežrans. So the clan elders had unofficially chosen representatives: Vraszenians born and raised in the city, with no formal rank, but with a voice in Koszar’s councils.

Ren didn’t take the charm yet. “How would you have me speak?”

“As Ažerais guides you,” the Dvornič said. “And I pray you speak louder than a certain carrion crow.”

Dislodging Laročja would take more than words. But Ren accepted the charm, her fingers curling around its silken twists. “One way or another, I will.”

Floodwatch, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 25

After nearly two hours of too many hugs and back claps and not enough wine to make them welcome, Vargo escaped the raucous Volavka reunion. The location in Floodwatch gave him a ready excuse; it was scarcely a bell’s walk from the inn to the Isarnah compound.

And it was long past time he visited. Varuni might be a woman of few words, but there was a difference between silence and avoidance.

She hadn’t gone home to Isarn while Vargo was off touring the Primordial-haunted nightmare of Fiavla. Instead she’d been in Floodwatch, leaning on the Isarnah ambassador to support the Vraszenian rebellion. She must have annoyed someone, because the ambassador’s secretary led Vargo to the courtyard where Varuni was training without bothering to warn her of her visitor.

Veiled Waters was perhaps a week off, so the mists breathed out by the river were purely the product of nature, but that didn’t lessen the chill that rode with them. Despite the weather, Varuni had changed into the clothes favored south of the mountains that cleaved Vraszan from Isarn: a sleeveless cotton tunic, formfitting and wax-resist dyed in deep purples and greens, with voluminous white trousers full through the hips and gathered tight around the calf.

Her gaze flicked briefly to him, but she didn’t stop, making her slow, staccato way across the courtyard. Her chain flashed as it spun, changing direction whenever she whipped it around her elbow, her leg, her neck. The only sounds were the rattle of steel and Varuni’s steady breathing.

On her return, she didn’t stop at the transition from packed dirt to stone-paved walkway. The chain swept closer and closer to Vargo’s face until he felt each pass like a lover’s breath.

With a final twist of her elbow, Varuni caught the end, flipped the chain, and caught it again so it folded neatly in her hand. No danger to Vargo.

Unless she decided to punch him.

She didn’t make any move for it, though. “That bell sound everybody heard,” she said, pulling a towel from a hook on the wall and wiping away sweat. “Was that the end of it?”

“Yeah,” Vargo said warily. He hadn’t forgotten that in their last real conversation, he’d confessed to almost using Sessat on her.

Nor had she. “You got anything to say to me?”

“I shouldn’t have thought about using a medallion to make you stay.”

“And?”

And? Oh. Right. “And I shouldn’t have leaned on your fear of that to make you leave.”

“No. You shouldn’t have,” she said.

And then she punched him.

Later, after he was seated on the walkway with his back against the rail, the blood from his nose sopped up by her sweaty towel, she sank onto her haunches before him. “Guess you’re back to healing quicker than a drunk denying he’s soused,” she said, ignoring his hiss when she pulled the towel away to examine her work.

“Yeah, after we came back from… Wait. You didn’t know?” Vargo demanded, gingerly testing his sore nose. A beat later, he caught her sly, close-lipped grin. “Oh, fuck you.”

“I prefer to be the one doing the fucking,” she said, which was more about her relationship with Sedge than he really wanted to know. She spared him the torment of dwelling on that by asking, “You still being poisoned by anything?”

She deserved his honesty. “Poison like this doesn’t go away easy. Might take lifetimes before I’m clean. But… it can’t hurt anyone else. I can’t hurt anyone else. At least, not that way.”

Varuni nodded. Then she said, “I’m still going home.”

He was braced for it; his shoulders didn’t slump. “Understood.”

The silence lasted just long enough to make him reach for more words, but there were none he felt comfortable using. Then Varuni snorted. “I’m going home for a visit. I’ll be back in autumn. Try not to get killed before then.”

“That was a test?”

Varuni punched his shoulder, a tap compared to what she’d inflicted on his nose. “And you passed. Congratulations. As your reward, you get to help me find gifts to take back to my family. I have a lot of cousins.”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Cyprilun 26

A welcome spate of rain began falling as Ren hurried up the steps of Traementis Manor with Grey and Vargo at her heels. Although Scaperto had arranged carefully supervised water deliveries to the Old Island as part of the negotiations, even a brief rain would improve the situation there.

Shaking off the droplets that had beaded on her surcoat, she asked Colbrin, “Is Donaia here?”

“In her study, alta.” Colbrin’s behavior toward her hadn’t changed in the aftermath of the revelations; so long as she was a registered member of the Traementis—and not hurting Donaia—his manners remained impeccable. But he had a touch of Vraszenian ancestry, Ren knew, and she wondered sometimes what thoughts flowed behind his courteous, disciplined mask.

Donaia’s thoughts were much easier to read. Her warm welcome for Grey cooled to closed-lip cordiality when Vargo entered, though she didn’t reach immediately for her gloves. “I didn’t expect you two would bring company. Eret Vargo. You appear in good health.”

::I don’t understand. Why does she still dislike you?::

::It’s the game we play, old man.:: Vargo seemed more amused than offended. Taking Donaia’s bare fingers in his own, sheathed in grey sueded leather, he bowed with all the elegance that wasn’t his birthright. “Kept so by the ill wishes of my enemies—isn’t that the saying, Era Traementis?”

Her lips pressing flat on an unwanted smile, she buried her reclaimed hand under her new surcoat of soft rose twill. “What brings all three of you to me?”

Ren sank into a chair. Her mind reached reflexively for graceful ways to phrase the news, but these days, Donaia preferred blunt honesty. “I found out who my father is. And even by the standards of my life, it’s…”

::Complicated,:: Alsius said, and Vargo echoed it with a twitch of his mouth.

Donaia’s gaze flicked between them. “Politically complicated?”

“Metaphysically.” Ren pressed her fingers to her brow. “Have you heard of the Seterin philosopher Gabrius Mirscellis?”

“I recognize the name.”

“Over two hundred years ago, he came to Nadežra and got his spirit lost in Ažerais’s Dream. But during the Great Dream, he can manifest—thoroughly enough that apparently he can sire a child.”

For a moment, Donaia was perfectly still. Then laughter escaped her in a bark worthy of Meatball. Then more, until she was bent over her knees and gasping for breath. “Completely inappropriate. I apologize,” she said between wheezes, waving away Grey’s offer of assistance. “It’s only… no wonder you developed a habit of lying. Who would believe the truth?”

Certainly the lies were sometimes more comfortable. Ren kept remembering the pain she’d given Lenismir and Tsvetsa by telling them about her life, and her mother’s. She might be about to upset Donaia, too. “We’ve been in contact with his spirit, before I knew he was my father—I’ll explain later, if you wish. The problem is that all connections to him in the dream have been severed. So now we have no way of finding him.”

“Unless we make one,” Vargo said. “That’s where my inscription services come in.”

Ren would have preferred it to be Tanaquis. Vargo didn’t have her cousin’s admiration for Mirscellis, nor her fascination with pattern. But with her injury, Tanaquis was in no shape for inscription—nor in any mood for company. She’d retreated to her townhouse at the first opportunity, over Donaia’s fierce objections. It worried Ren, too, leaving Tanaquis on her own with only her maid, Zlatsa, to tend such an awful wound. She wasn’t even sure they were in Whitesail; no one had answered the door when she knocked.

Or perhaps that door was closed only to her.

The silence had stretched out long enough for Donaia to fill in what hadn’t been said. “You want this Mirscellis added to the Traementis register.”

“As my father. Yes.” Ren fidgeted with the cherry-piped edging of her surcoat. She’d donned Liganti attire and gloves for this visit; if she intended to accept her Seterin father, it seemed only right to acknowledge her northern heritage. “I know not if he’d wish it. I doubt he even knows he has a child. But all our other efforts to find him have failed. Once we restore him, he can make his own decision.”

Donaia tipped her forehead onto her fingertips. “You know I don’t do this lightly. Scribing someone in makes them family.”

Like the scar on Ren’s wrist—and the ones Grey and Vargo shared. Ren said, “If you would prefer we not—”

“This isn’t about what I prefer. It’s about what you des—” Donaia caught on the word, smiled ruefully, and said, “What you want. If it matters to you that he’s your sire, then it matters to me. But if this is just a pragmatic way of solving a problem…”

Then they could do it by other means. Add him to Vargo’s register—Alsius had suggested it already—or ignore the fact that Fulvet regulated such things and make a new one.

Ren thought about Gabrius, that sense she’d had of his spirit when the numinat called him into her body so he could speak to the others. Was it only that experience which made him feel so familiar, so fond? Would she have cared so much when his threads were severed, if that possession hadn’t forged an odd bond between them?

The question was ultimately pointless. Whatever the road they’d traveled, this was where she stood now. From the moment Gabrius pulled her from a Primordial trap, she’d liked him. And yes, it mattered to her that he was her blood—spectral though that blood might be. She was Vraszenian enough for that to carry weight.

“He’s a good man,” Ren said quietly. “Whether he cares that I am his daughter, I cannot say. But… I care that he is my father.”

Donaia rose and retrieved a scroll case from the lockbox behind her desk. The wood grain was rich and well-oiled, the bands and fixtures shining Tricat bronze. She frowned at them as she opened the case and unfurled the heavy scroll. “I hope you don’t mind working here,” Donaia said to Vargo. “I’d rather not send our register out like a rug in need of cleaning.”

He flourished his straightedge. “I can perform anywhere, Era Traementis.”

The innuendo in his voice deepened her frown, but she stepped aside and let him begin.

Grey poured Ren a cup of tea and laced it with aža while Vargo marveled at the extent of the protections Tanaquis had inscribed and Ren tried not to think of her cousin. As she drank the tea, Donaia settled on the couch next to her. “How did matters go with the Volavka? Giuna said everyone was kind, but she’s picked up Leato’s penchant for coddling me.”

“I won’t pretend there was no awkwardness, but…” Ren squeezed her aunt’s hand, glove against skin. “I’d like you to meet them.”

Donaia patted her arm. “And I will. Though with the way things are right now, who knows when that might be possible.”

An oblique way of saying what they both dreaded: The longer negotiations between the Cinquerat and the Stadnem Anduske went on, the closer they came to the Great Dream without a resolution, the likelier it was for everything to collapse.

Vargo’s work took no longer than the aža. By the time he finished, Ren was beginning to see into the dream.

She’d never looked at a register while spun. The crisp lines of the numinatria became a beautiful tapestry, colored all the warm tones of Tricat. Even death didn’t cut them; family remained family after they were gone. Tanaquis’s protections were a delicate net, filtering the strands running from her name to Donaia, Giuna, Tanaquis, all the Traementis—and others besides, branching out from the register’s surface.

And a new thread, tenuous but present. The connection to Mirscellis.

When Ren concentrated on it, on the thought of Gabrius as her father, it sang like a plucked harp string, that single note resonating off the others into complex harmony. Heart aching, Ren thought, If only Tanaquis were here to see. The ways threads and people wove together into family, notes and melodies becoming songs. She was trying to craft how she would describe this to her cousin later when the thread suddenly brightened… and then Gabrius was there, stumbling to his knees on the carpet before her.

For a moment he gasped for air, as if surfacing from the river. Then he looked up, and his eyes widened.

So it was not merely my imagination. Your face… mirabile scitu. I know you. Or—that is—you look like—

“Ivrina Lenskaya Volavka,” Ren said softly. “You met her at the Great Dream, many years ago.”

One pale finger traced the line that linked them. I remember her. She and I… A faint blush tinged his translucent features. I suppose what we did has become obvious. You’re her daughter?

Obvious—but he still didn’t dare make the claim. “And yours.”

His chin tucked like a penitent, but then his gaze flicked up to meet hers. What of Ivrina?

“She died. Years ago.”

To everyone else, she was talking to thin air. They were speaking Vraszenian, which Donaia didn’t understand, but she would know the cadences of grief. Her hand tightened on Ren’s. Alsius had left Vargo’s shoulder and was hovering near the focus of her gaze, as if sheer willpower could show him what she saw.

“I only learned of our connection recently,” Ren said. “When I found the Volavka for myself.”

Is that how… Gabrius touched the thread, and she felt the resonance in her bones.

“No. A Seterin connection for a Seterin father.” She waved at the desk, at the rainbow array of threads spun by ink and parchment. “You’re now in my family’s register as Altan Gabrius Mirscellis Traementatis. Should you wish it.”

He rocked back in surprise, gaze darting to the desk. What did he see, looking from the dream into the waking world? Was it the same tapestry to his eyes?

For once, she was the one thinking too metaphysically. Gabrius said, You’re an alta? How came that to be?

It startled a laugh from her. They’d met when she was masked as the Black Rose; then he’d possessed her—and wasn’t that a profoundly strange thought, in hindsight—then he’d seen her briefly when he tried to help them break Uniat’s chain. Long enough to recognize a familiar cast in her features, but with no chance to learn who she was. What life she’d led.

Ren turned to Donaia, blinking past the dream layers of weariness and sorrow until she perceived the woman underneath, as strong and resilient as a river reed. Reeds Unbroken: She didn’t need her deck to know that was Donaia’s card. In Liganti Ren said, “Can we have fresh tea brought in? I have much to tell him while the aža lasts.”

“Of course.” Donaia stood, brushing off her skirts. “We’ll—”

The door burst open to admit Scaperto Quientis. Anger flushed his cheeks, and the iron-dulled gold of his hair was in disarray. “Those damned Anduske go too far. Donaia, you won’t believe—”

He stopped when he spied Ren and Vargo. “You two. If that boy ends up mutilated, I’m holding you responsible.”

Ren shot to her feet. “Which boy?”

He answered her, but the weight of his scowl was on Vargo. “Which one do you think?”

“Iascat,” Vargo said, his compass falling to the floor with a dull thunk. Grey reached out to steady him.

Scaperto hurled a crumpled wad of paper at Vargo. “That patterner of theirs says her cards prove he’s only stalling, making promises he has no intention of keeping, while we bring up soldiers to cut them all down. I won’t deny that Caerulet has continued with military preparations, just in case—”

“But Iascat’s negotiating in good faith,” Ren said as Grey stooped to pick up the wad. She knew him well enough to believe that—and knew Laročja well enough, too.

“What have they threatened to do?” Vargo’s quiet anger brushed over Ren’s skin like spiderwebs, leaving a cold shiver in its wake. He’d declared his restoration of the West Channel numinat contingent on Iascat’s safety, but he’d hardly stop the repairs when they were so close to done. Which gave Laročja leverage.

Grey smoothed the paper flat on the desk. In a controlled voice, he said, “Argentet’s traditional punishment for lies and sedition. A split tongue.”

“At least he’ll survive it.” For all the dismissal in Vargo’s words, his flat tone said that if they went through with this, someone would regret it. “When and where?”

Vargo’s solution would be bloody. The only question was whether Ren could find a better one. Looking at her, Grey said, “They’re making a public example of him. Ninth sun, in Suncross Plaza.”

That didn’t give them much time—which, no doubt, was by design. Ren calculated. She’d still be aža-spun, but not so much that she couldn’t function, especially with Grey to lead her.

She’d almost forgotten Gabrius. He stood, drawing her eye. You are needed elsewhere. A bow forestalled any apology she might have made. Go. Now that I know… we will have many opportunities to speak again.

She hoped that was true. As Gabrius faded deeper into the dream, she said, “The Dvornič made me his representative. I can get onto the island. Possibly you two as well—” That was to Grey and Vargo, who’d helped the Anduske in the past. But Donaia and Scaperto were out of the question.

“I’ll make my own preparations,” Scaperto said. It didn’t sound like they’d be much less bloody than Vargo’s. He was fond of Iascat, in an avuncular way.

“Do nothing rash,” Ren pleaded. “Once we get there…”

What, then? A daring rescue by the Black Rose? That would only save Iascat, not fix the underlying problem.

“Once we get there,” Ren said, her voice darkening, “we’ll deal with Laročja.”

Suncross, Old Island: Cyprilun 26

To facilitate negotiations, a single plank now spanned the gap in the Sunrise Bridge. The Faces smiled on Ren; the Anduske guarding it recognized both Grey and Vargo, and they didn’t question the fox-knot charm Ren shoved at them. Then it was a run through the streets of Dawngate to Suncross Plaza, with an all-too-familiar voice shouting through a speaking horn up ahead.

Between them and that was a wall of bodies. “I’ll find another way,” Vargo muttered, and then he was gone. His “other way,” Ren suspected, would involve knives, numinatria, or both. These days, he always had a few of those blasting numinata stuffed into his pockets.

She had to stop it from going that far. Not because she faulted Vargo, but because if things started down that path, there would be no stopping. If Iascat was maimed, the Cinquerat would retaliate; if the Cinquerat retaliated, it would be outright war.

They might be too late already.

Both Grey and Ren had plenty of practice at slipping through crowds, and at fighting dirty when slipping ceased to be enough. They left angry protests in their wake, but they managed to break through into the open space at the center.

Where Ren found Iascat chained to the plaza’s flogging post with a placard around his neck proclaiming, I deceive all. Aža layered him with the shades of countless people who’d suffered in this place, bleeding for crimes great and small, or just for making the wrong cuff angry. But blinking through those, Ren saw that Iascat didn’t seem to be wounded yet, and the pliers and knives on the table before him were clean.

And Koszar stood between Iascat and Laročja’s men, cane raised in defense.

“So quickly you turn against me?” he demanded. His words were addressed not only to Laročja, but to the supporters flanking her. They wore the knotted charms of kureč leaders, and they outnumbered the ones wavering at the edges of the standoff. Idusza stood in the grip of a thick-armed man, though his broken and bloody nose said it hadn’t gone easy for him. “At the labyrinth in Seven Knots, you proclaimed that our Lady guided you to support me. Which was false: your words then, or your words now?”

Then his gaze fell on Ren—and so did Laročja’s.

Threads stretched around the old woman like a spider’s web, but she was no kindly spinner, dancing with grace along their strands. Her step, as she came forward, landed with unfeeling force on the connections that wreathed her. “Yes, Ča Andrejek, speak to us of that night in Seven Knots. When the very demons that profane our Lady’s dream rose to your aid—called, no doubt, by this kinless slip-knot!” Her hand rose to point dramatically at Ren.

So much for that idea. Ren hadn’t been sure whether she or Grey could do anything to call the zlyzen, but to try it now would only strengthen Laročja’s net.

Like she’d done at the bridge, she’d rushed in without preparation. But what other choice did Ren have? Iascat was watching her with mute hope; Vargo was nowhere to be seen. Koszar was about to lose control of this rebellion. Striking Laročja would make her a martyr, but merely denouncing her would have all the effect of a pebble in the Dežera.

Ren had the Black Rose’s mask with her. But before she could play that final card, Grey caught her wrist and kept it from plunging into her pocket.

He spoke to Laročja, but loud enough for all to hear. “So quick you have always been to speak poison against those with no defense or shield from you. Poison so potent, it drove your daughter by marriage to her death, drove your grandsons far from the kureč of their birth. How many others have you forced into misery, too frightened and cowed to speak out?”

Grey turned to gesture at the watching crowd. It wasn’t the Rook’s polished theatricality; Ren could feel his hand shaking on her wrist. Still, he went on. “And now this liberation, this glorious chance to finally regain Nadežra for our people—to certain failure you would drive it, all because you insist on shouting over Ažerais’s voice instead of listening.”

His voice, too, had begun to shake—but with passion, not fear. He drew a settling breath and shook his head. “No more. This woman you would silence has kin, and a name to speak from. She is Arenza Lenskaya Volavka of the Dvornik.”

Ren had seen where his thrust was aimed. When he dragged her hand high, what she held was not the mask of the Black Rose. That would only distract everyone from the true problem here, Laročja’s arrogance and her lies. Instead, the mist-tinged afternoon light caught on the green threads of the complex knot given to her by her new ziemič: the emblem of her right to speak on his behalf.

“A fool might refuse to heed one conceived on the Great Dream, touched by Ažerais herself,” Grey said, strong now and sure. “A fool might refuse to heed one chosen in fair judgment by your fellow szorsas. But beyond foolishness it would be, heeding not the words of one recognized by the Dvornič himself. Will you shout over the voice of an entire clan? Will any here who wear a fox’s colors and bear the Dvornik name stand for such an insult?”

“If to her he entrusted his token, it’s the fox who’s been made the fool!” Laročja snapped. Those around her in Dvornik green, who’d shifted with discomfort or surprise when Grey revealed Ren’s token, bristled with indignation at being called fools… by a Kiraly, no less. Dvornik’s twin, and his constant rival.

Realizing her misstep, Laročja rushed to speak before someone else could shout her down again. “So proudly you declare her names, but have you not forgotten one? Traementatis. This woman, Liganti by blood and by register, has profaned the purity of our rituals by seizing the right to speak for the Ižranyi! A szorsa she calls herself, while with her foreign arts she summons monsters! Ažerais spits upon her—and I call upon pattern itself to condemn her!”

Without shuffling, without prayers, Laročja drew a card and threw it to the ground in the direction of the dawn.

A hush fell. Not for the card—Ren could barely make out The Mask of Fools from only a few paces away—but for the words and gesture.

The calling of a curse.

Laročja snarled, “From the farthest edge of dawn, Ži Babša sees you. The Mask of Fools: As you listen not to the wisdom of your elders, so may you and those who stand at your side grow deaf in old age.” Another card, this one to the west. “To the farthest end of dusk, the twin moons see you. Orin and Orasz: As you are two-faced in your dealings, so may the tears of sorrow cleave your cheeks and drown those who follow your lead.”

Empty words, vague threats: a fraud’s stock in trade. Ren would have laughed, save that those around her had already stepped back. They believed in Laročja’s power. Only Grey remained at her side, his grip on her hand just short of pain. And Vargo, hidden somewhere in the crowd.

A third card, to the south. “From the waters’ birth, your ancestors see you. Sword in Hand: May the swords of those who oppose you find a home in your heart, and the swords of those who support you break in their hands.”

Ren caught her frown before it could crease her brow. That one came without an invocation of her sins, as if Laročja couldn’t think of how to connect them. Yet the other szorsa wasn’t even looking at the cards she threw; she already knew what they were.

She’d planned this scene, and she’d stacked the deck accordingly—but not for Ren. Her curse had probably been intended for Koszar; Laročja was altering it on the wing.

And it was reaching its climax. “To the Dežera’s final rest, Ažerais sees you. Sleeping Waters: May you and yours forever be denied our Lady’s blessings.” Stepping out of the scissored cross of the four cards, Laročja threw down the fifth and last card. “The final judgment of the Faces and the Masks upon you—”

She gasped and clutched her remaining deck to her chest. Her whisper carried in the sunset hush. “The Mask of Bones. Death.”

How many times had Laročja done this before? But there was nothing to fear from a fraudulent szorsa. Aža still spun Ren’s vision; no threads bound the pattern Laročja had laid, much less connected the cards to their target.

Ren allowed a heartbeat to pass. Then she spoke, boredom dripping from her tone like melted ice. “Are you finished scaring people and making mock of our deities?”

At her side, Grey stifled a laugh.

She gave him a squeeze before letting go and stepping up to the table set before Iascat. A sweep of one hand knocked the implements of torture to the ground; a sweep of the other spread her deck in a smooth fan.

Ren faced Laročja. “Let the Faces and the Masks judge us both. We will see who ends up cursed.”

She didn’t even have to search her deck. The cards practically slid into her hands, The Face of Glass and The Mask of Mirrors. And thanks to Laročja, now she knew how to use them. “From the farthest edge of dawn, let Hlai Oslit Rvarin judge our truths and our lies.”

When she threw them both in the air, they fluttered down in separate directions. The Face of Glass at Ren’s feet, and The Mask of Mirrors at Laročja’s. Ren smiled, as sharp as broken glass. “For your falsehoods and manipulation, you stand judged. Let none ever again believe a word you say.”

Laročja spat. “You are the liar, and all here know it. You came to save your Liganti master!”

Another pair: The Face of Stars and The Mask of Night. “To the farthest end of dusk, let Ir Entrelke Nedje judge which szorsa has served them well.”

A gust of wind carried The Mask of Night past Laročja to land behind her. For the first time since Ren began, people started murmuring. “For your perversion of pattern, you stand judged,” Ren said. “Let the eyes that refused to see become a warning to those who look.”

“She wastes our time! Clear this slip-knot from our path, and let the prisoner be punished!”

But no one was listening to Laročja. They were all staring, aghast. Because while she looked about, gesturing imperiously at her followers… swirling pitch had seeped into her eyes, dyeing them the unrelieved black of a starless night.

When Ren had shaped pattern to restore the Rook, she’d done so with intention. Now she hardly felt like it was her hand turning the cards. Their course was laid out like the river, divine power flowing through her.

The Face of Crowns and The Mask of Knives. “From the waters’ birth, let Dov Szarit Rožny judge who leads these people well.” Ren wasn’t even surprised anymore when the cards parted in midair. Every word, every action, was inevitable. Pattern did not so much predict the future as see where the present could lead, and this path had only one end. “For your malicious guidance, you stand judged. Let the mark of your authority be taken from you.”

And Laročja’s hair began to fall.

Silver strands drifted like rain to the ground, taking with them everything braided within: her wedding token, a rose of Ažerais knot, the charm that marked her as the senior szorsa of her kureč. Laročja’s hands flew to her head, but she couldn’t stop the cascade; within moments, her scalp was as bare as an egg.

She didn’t shriek condemnations anymore. For the first time, Ren thought, she believed in what was happening.

But Ren wasn’t done.

“To the Dežera’s final rest, let Šen Asarn Kryzet judge who brings health or sickness to this city.” The Mask of Worms had shown up in her patterns before, indicating the Primordial corruption of the medallions… but there was more than one kind of poison. The Face of Roses drifted down before Ren, while its counterpart completed the bracket around Laročja.

The worms Sedge vomited, those long months ago when Ren set out to win Idusza’s trust, were palmed into his mouth. Laročja’s hands were nowhere near her face when she doubled up and retched worms onto the cobblestones.

Ren swayed, the world spinning so fast there could have been a riot around her and she wouldn’t have seen. The only fixed points were the cards. It needed one more… and though her heart ached, she knew which one she must choose.

And what she must do.

The Constant Spirit. The card of the Meszaros. Ren raised it high. “From your daughter by marriage you had this card, a gift to the szorsa of her new kureč. But you lack even the wisdom to see where your limits lie… and that lack killed Noeri Evriskaya Szerado. In the name of the ancestors, and for the destruction you have wrought, I revoke the gifts you have been given.”

Ren tore the card in half—

—and Laročja’s scattered deck began to burn.

The old woman’s shriek was an animal thing. She tried to save the flaming cards; when that failed, she lunged at Ren, night-shot eyes wild, hands twisted into claws. Only Ren’s stumble of exhaustion saved her face from being gouged. Grey caught her; Koszar’s cane caught Laročja, its end jabbing into her gut. While Grey gently lowered Ren to the ground, others dragged the spitting, howling old woman back.

Ren tried to see who, whether it was only the ones who’d backed Koszar or whether Laročja’s supporters had turned. But a dagged sleeve, its edges embroidered in red thread, eclipsed her view and blotted the exhausted sweat from Ren’s brow. It belonged to Idusza, blood between her teeth and smile fierce as a rat’s, kneeling over Ren where she lay across Grey’s lap. “Say what you like,” Idusza said. “Never will you convince me that was a hoax.”

“It wasn’t.” Ren let her head fall back, meeting Grey’s concerned blue gaze. “Your mother’s card. I—”

“I know. Thank you. No longer can she profane Ažerais to hurt others.” He closed his eyes, and she thought he murmured a prayer of gratitude.

Ren struggled to sit up. She’d thrown everything she had into discrediting Laročja. Was it enough? “Iascat. Is he…”

Idusza looked up and twitched in surprise. “Gone while we were distracted. The chains are empty.”

A breath of a laugh seeped from Ren. “Vargo. Good.”

She wanted to say more. To stand up and speak in support of Koszar; to use whatever credit she’d gained to push the tide in a useful direction. But she’d poured herself empty. She didn’t even protest as Grey scooped her up and carried her home.

24

The Living Dream

The Rotunda, Eastbridge: Cyprilun 31

Several hours of listening to nobles squabble like gulls over a soggy bun had given Vargo a headache that not even his renewed connection to Alsius could banish.

Almost makes you want to burn our register and move back to Froghole, doesn’t it? he thought at Alsius. The old man had roused himself for the rescue of Iascat and the mad escape across the Sunrise Bridge gap, but in the days of diplomatic haggling that followed, he’d sunk back into his doldrums.

A mood that wasn’t improved by the meeting Iascat had begged Vargo to attend.

::Those were better times,:: Alsius agreed wistfully, as Cibrial Destaelio picked apart yet another trade concession Iascat and Andrejek had hammered out between them.

“Forget the minutiae,” Faella Coscanum said, pinching her snoozing nephew to wakefulness. Apparently Bondiro’s punishment for stealing the medallion was having to attend these meetings. “The entire premise is laughable. Abolish the Cinquerat and replace it with a pack of foreigners? The Old Island can wash away before I’ll agree to that nonsense.”

With a sound more groan than sigh, Iascat said, “That’s not what we’re proposing. The Setterat is a redistribution for a more equitable division of power: two Liganti representatives, two Vraszenians, and three Nadežrans of mixed background. Your Mercy, if Caerulet’s house member can’t resist clouding this discussion with silt, I request that you remove her.”

Cercel’s lips flattened like she dearly wished she could. “We’re overlooking the core problem. How can we accept any design for peace from people who used violence to force it? If we bend now, we’ll invite more chaos in the future. Let them surrender their position and turn over their leaders; then we can settle terms.”

“You know that won’t happen, Agniet,” Scaperto growled. “Asking them to give up every bit of leverage they have, with only the promise that we’ll play nice afterward? I wouldn’t trust that. Would you?”

Vargo could feel the frustration rising off Ren like heat from an oven. She’d achieved a miracle both figurative and literal, removing Laročja from the board; her blatant display of power had put her into bed for two days and rallied the entire rebellion behind Koszar. With that wind in his sails, he’d brought his side around to a remarkably sane compromise—one that recognized the mixed nature of Nadežra and made sure no one would be left without a voice.

It was far from perfect, of course. How were these representatives to be chosen? How could they make sure no group came to dominate the council later on, without forcing everyone into rigid divisions between Liganti, Vraszenian, and Nadežran? Not to mention all the smaller details tucked in alongside the big one, like the repeal of certain regulations that kept Vraszenians in poverty and robbed of influence. Nobody was under any illusions that the agreement would solve all the city’s problems in one go, and a scant few of the objections raised so far today had actually managed to improve it.

But none of that would matter if they couldn’t get the cuffs to support it.

Shouldn’t have let everybody else in here, Vargo thought sourly as Era Cleoter started enumerating, yet again, the supposed dangers of allowing Staveswater to be recognized as a formal city district, rather than an eyesore the Liganti could smash whenever they pleased. Hard enough to get five people to agree, without letting the entire Upper Bank stick their oars in.

He’d directed the thought at Alsius, which meant Ren could overhear it. “If they weren’t here,” she murmured, nodding at Era Cleoter, Faella, and the other attendees without Cinquerat seats, “we wouldn’t be, either.”

Vargo’s drifting gaze caught on Carinci Acrenix, a sullen Fadrin at her shoulder. So far, Carinci hadn’t said much. Her scornful sniffs and swallowed tuts were more than enough to communicate her displeasure.

Fuck her, Vargo thought, keeping that bit of simmering rage to himself. She couldn’t have squashed Alsius flatter if she’d stepped on him. Even if her cruelty was the result of a life under the Quinat medallion, Vargo couldn’t forgive her. The Primordial only fed desires that were already there, and Carinci, it seemed, loved power more than her own son.

Fifteen years spent taking down Ghiscolo, and this was what they had to show for it. Carinci in charge of House Acrenix, and the Cinquerat still mired in mud. He’d held more real power—and been able to get more shit done—when he’d been the boss of the Lower Bank.

You’re still that same man.

::What?:: Alsius said, suddenly alert, and Ren shot Vargo a worried look. Apparently he’d let that thought slip.

If Pearls politics en’t working, time for some Froghole practicality, Vargo replied. He stood, cutting off an argument between Cibrial Destaelio and Tastral Cleoter about lading fees nobody had been trying to claim.

The look Iascat shot him was half-grateful, half-pleading. His voice courteous, he said, “You have something to add, Eret Vargo?”

“Yeah. You’re empty-skulled idiots if you refuse this.”

That caught their attention. All those bickering nobles straightened as if somebody had jammed a rod up their collective asses. Ren muffled a laugh behind her gloved hand.

“This is a good solution,” Vargo said, slipping between chairs until he stood at the center of the Rotunda, before the Cinquerat’s makeshift thrones. “A fair deal. Better than I expected, honestly, and the best you’re going to get. Toss it, and you’ll find out what a bad deal looks like.”

Carinci sniffed. “I see weakness runs in your register,” she said, as cloyingly sweet as poison hidden in Extaquium wine.

“I see impotent griping is all that remains in yours,” Vargo snapped back. “I’ll lay this for you plain. Half of you already know Kaius Rex used the power of a Primordial to conquer this place, and that the noble houses have been leaning on that power ever since. Well, it’s gone now; you can’t rely on it to prop you up anymore. And if you don’t accept the very good deal Argentet has managed to broker for you, I’ll tell the entire city your secret. Let’s see how they feel about their leaders controlling their minds and slowly poisoning their everlasting souls.”

The half of the room that hadn’t known about that murmured in shock and confusion. Scaperto had gone rigid; Donaia’s mouth hardened in grim acceptance of Vargo’s point. Iascat looked like he was torn between kissing Vargo and ripping his own hair out.

Cibrial, predictably, shot to her feet. “That’s sedition,” she snarled.

“Call it what you like, Your Charity.” He gave her a mocking bow. “I notice you didn’t mind accepting my help in getting your family uncursed, after we liberated the Primordial artifact you refused to surrender. But honestly, I don’t give a wet leech what you think. I’ve got a printing press all set up, ready to paper this city with the secrets you’ve tried so hard to keep.” His second bow, to Iascat, was more ironic than mocking. “Somehow I don’t think His Elegance will be in a rush to prosecute me.”

::When did we set up a printing press?::

It’s a good thing I’m the face of this operation, old man. You’re a shit liar.

Ren didn’t even bother to hide her amusement. Alsius huffed, ::Just remember whose brains got you out of Froghole to begin with.::

No, I won’t ever forget that. Vargo gently patted Peabody. His fond smile bloomed into a full smirk when Cibrial gave a tiny shriek and recoiled from the spider peeking out from under his collar.

“Your threats won’t work on me,” said the cadaver-thin head of Fintenus. “I’ve had nothing to do with any supposed Primordial artifacts.”

If he thought bringing down the current Cinquerat meant the wheel would turn in his favor, Vargo was only too happy to smash him under the rim. “Oh, I wouldn’t specify which noble families were involved. Let people draw their own conclusions.”

When nobody else dared protest, Vargo approached the desk where Iascat had laid out the draft of the treaty. “You know, I think you might be right. Peaceful negotiation can be effective,” he said. Taking the pen Iascat offered him, he signed his name with a flourish.

They still argued, of course. If they didn’t, he would have had to look outside to see if the Dežera was flowing backward.

But in the end, they signed.

The Point, Old Island: Cyprilun 33

How Dalisva could talk cheerfully while darting up the path to the Great Amphitheatre, Ren didn’t know. She herself couldn’t spare breath for anything other than trudging along, eyes on the rocky slope. The confrontation with Laročja wasn’t the first time she’d imbued a pattern, but it was the first time she truly understood how imbuing a numinat could kill someone. All she had to do was imagine that outpouring continuing without end.

Vargo caught her when she stumbled, and Ren smiled at him. “I’m fine,” she murmured. “We’re almost there.”

Grey had reached the top a step after Dalisva, and Ren leaned gratefully against him while the other woman spoke. “We’ll be stringing a rope down the path to separate the people coming up from those going down, and you can see they’re already building fences to channel the crowd entering the amphitheatre. We’ve based the lottery size on Argentet’s figures for past attendance—though this being the end of a Grand Cycle, we’ve scaled up as much as we dare.”

The lottery was an unfortunate necessity. If the Wellspring of Ažerais manifested in the middle of an open field, it might be possible to let in everyone who wanted to drink from it, but here atop the Point, there simply wasn’t space. They had to limit the crowd somehow—and this year, at long last, control over that was in Vraszenian hands.

The fact that Vraszenians would therefore catch the brunt of any dissatisfaction wasn’t lost on Ren. But dissatisfaction was inevitable, and she preferred this to Liganti extortion any day.

Dalisva was still talking. “An hour before sundown, the first pilgrims will be allowed into the amphitheatre, but the labyrinth path we’ll keep clear for you and the ziemetse to walk when the wellspring appears. Have you appropriate clothing?” She cast a skeptical eye at Ren’s outfit—the same attire she’d worn for her wedding, now cleaned and mended. But what was fitting for a street szorsa was as inadequate for the incoming speaker for the Ižranyi as nettle cloth would be for a Liganti alta.

“I’ll manage something,” Ren said, offering a mental apology to Tess and her poor, overtaxed fingers.

“You need a mask of dreamweaver feathers. I’ll arrange it.” Waving for Ren and the others to follow, Dalisva led them through one of the tunnels that pierced the stands. Her voice echoed off the walls as she said, “In one of the noble boxes you’ll wait with the ziemetse until the procession begins. Traditionally, Ižranyi fills her cup last, but drinks first.”

The amphitheatre opened up around them. Someone had laid markers on the stage, tracing the labyrinth pilgrims would walk. It reminded Ren of the blasphemous numinat painted in dreamweaver blood the previous year… but this was its holy opposite, an echo of the sacred site the Tyrant had torn down.

A cluster of people stood nearby, talking. She knew the Kiralič and the Dvornič, of course, and the Anoškinič she remembered from a few months previously. The other three she’d seen during the Ceremony of the Accords last year, but she could identify them only by their coats and colors.

She hesitated on the threshold, nerves sapping her strength. This past year she’d danced with and lied to many important people… but these were her elders. How could she—a half-blooded con artist who couldn’t even name her kureč a month ago—stand among them?

As if Grey could hear Laročja’s denunciations echoing in Ren’s head, he nudged her forward. Dalisva said, “They’re looking forward to meeting you, speaker-to-be.”

It wasn’t just the ziemetse, Ren saw as she came onto the stage. Koszar and Idusza were there, too, along with Mevieny. The process by which Setterat members would be chosen was still being hammered out, but rumor had Mevieny as the leading contender for the religious seat.

Koszar, by contrast, would hold no seat at all. That had been one of the conditions the Cinquerat demanded: that the radical who led the rebellion not be rewarded with further power.

Ren touched her brow in respect to the ziemetse, and tried not to twitch when they responded in kind. “Speaker-to-be,” the Dvornič said. He looked like a fox well-fed with chickens; his decision to support her against Laročja had added considerably to the prestige of his clan. “Consider this a rehearsal for the Great Dream. Embarrassing it would be, if we stumbled over each other before our gathered people.”

His wink didn’t reassure Ren. But then, she had other reasons to be nervous. Only hours of rehearsing what she intended to say gave her the confidence to stop Dalisva from marshaling them to their starting points for the procession. “Before we begin,” Ren said, “news I have that I must share with you all as the coming speaker for the Ižranyi. News about the Ižranyi.”

Koszar straightened, his eyes widening. When she met his gaze, he nodded encouragement. Ren said, “Always we have believed that when Fiavla fell, the Ižranyi died with it. But recently, in Ažerais’s Dream, I learned this is not quite true. Some Ižranyi are not lost. Some of them… became the zlyzen.”

Stares all around, as if she’d told them the Dežera flowed with zrel instead of water. It was too absurd to sink in immediately. Before the initial disbelief could curdle into horror, Ren said, “We must help them. Too long have their souls been trapped. If for the Ižranyi I am to speak, then no other words can I give you.”

Then she told them the story. Not the entire truth; Grey had agreed that unless it became necessary, nobody else needed to know the “great sacrifice” made to save the other clans was the blasphemy of burning their koszenie. But she related enough to cut through the questions they would have asked, to bypass the protestations that she must have somehow become hideously confused. The Ižranyi of beloved memory, trapped as zlyzen. How could she suggest such a thing?

“For us they have fought,” Koszar said when she was done. “On the Old Island, they worked in the shadows of our people to free Nadežra. We owe them at least as much, to free their spirits of this curse.”

Ren might have overleapt the others’ doubts, but that just brought her more rapidly to their revulsion. “Surely this curse is a sign of great wrongs,” the sour-faced Varadič said. “The judgment of the Faces and the Masks upon them. Who are we to counter the will of Ažerais?” He spoke to the other ziemetse, but chanced a sidelong glance at Ren, no doubt thinking of Laročja’s recent fate.

Grey answered him, admirably steady. “A curse it is—but one they took upon themselves to save the rest of our people. And one they can be freed of. As I was: The dream showed me I was once Ižranyi, twisted into the form of a zlyzen and later killed. So I lived and died, and was reborn.”

Into the shocked silence that followed Grey’s confession, the Kiralič said, “The ill fortune your grandmother claimed to see…”

“Was one I’d paid off, over many lifetimes. I would spare the others that undeserved debt.”

The Varadič still looked doubtful that it was undeserved, but Mevieny stretched out one hand until Ren took it in her own. To the ziemetse, Mevieny said tartly, “One moment you call her speaker-to-be; the next, you question her words. Had I come with this tale to you, what would you say? If we can heal a great wrong, we must.” She huffed a quiet laugh. “It seems to be a year for such things.”

Ren squeezed her hand in thanks as the Anoškinič said, “Speaker-to-be, I doubt not that Ažerais has blessed you. But can even your gift cleanse them?”

“My gift, no,” Ren said. “But there is another way.”

As with the Traementis register, she would have preferred Tanaquis’s aid. Though she had the greatest respect for Vargo’s and Alsius’s skills, neither of them quite had her cousin’s brilliance, her ability to stretch the bounds of what numinatria could do. And Tanaquis adored this kind of thing, a chance to explore the place where different traditions met. The loss of her hand might prevent her from performing the inscription herself, but her mind would have leapt on this challenge like a starving alley cat.

But Ren still hadn’t seen or heard from her cousin, nor had Donaia. Zlatsa, Tanaquis’s maid, turned away all callers with sullen assurances that her mistress was well but didn’t want company. If it hadn’t been for the light in the garret window at night, Ren might have wondered if Tanaquis had left Nadežra entirely. As it was, she’d given serious thought to climbing in through that window, law and courtesy be damned.

What stayed her hand was the fear that Tanaquis had withdrawn because she blamed them all for her loss. That she didn’t want to see them—not now, and maybe not ever.

Vargo edged forward, but the Stretskojič sneered before he could even speak. “You’d have us accept solutions from an inscriptor? An ambitious man who values no oaths and, from reports, has extended his own life using profane magics—not much different from Kaius Rex—”

“Excuse me? I have much finer discernment in my vices.” At Ren’s not-so-surreptitious kick to his ankle, Vargo sighed. “I also have experience removing similar curses using a numinat with a pattern card as a focus. So it would be a mix of traditions. Rather like me.”

That last was half buried under renewed mutters from the ziemetse. “Wish you our blessing for this?” the Meszarič asked, his light voice freighted with doubt.

“More than your blessing,” Grey said. “Ižranyi was sister to Meszaros and all the others. To free the souls of her people, we need the clans—and you represent them. For this ritual, we must have your aid.”

A chop of the Meszarič’s hand killed that idea. “I will not give it. Where the spirits of our people are concerned, only our own ways will I trust. There is no place here for Liganti figures.”

“Pattern alone can’t do this,” Vargo said. His frustration was boiling close to the surface, and so was Ren’s: Everything they tried to do, someone stood in the way. They’d kicked down or leapt over one obstacle after another, but new ones sprang up like weeds. “We didn’t even think numinatria could do it, until Tanaquis Fienola figured out—”

As the voices rose in argument, Ren groaned and pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead. She wasn’t rested enough for this debate; she’d hoped the awe of what she’d done to Laročja would carry her through.

Her gaze fell upon the labyrinth path marked on the amphitheatre stage.

“Wait,” she said.

Apparently the awe was enough to make them listen, because the argument died down immediately. “A labyrinth path,” she said.

Grey touched her shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

“That Tanaquis said once— Look.” With renewed energy, Ren darted to its edge and began pointing. “As the path wraps, see how it creates layers? Count them, from center to edge.”

“Seven,” Vargo said. “Sebat. Purification.”

“We walk the labyrinth to purify ourselves of ill fortune. It may not be a numinat as the Liganti construct it, but Tanaquis thought it might hold power nonetheless.” Along with knotwork charms and Ganllechyn stitchery. Seterins and Liganti embroidered numinata into their clothing; such a figure had killed Alsius and almost done Grey in as well. Was this that much different?

She heard Alsius’s objections before Vargo shared them. ::What focus would it have—the bowl of water at the center? And there’s no enclosing figure to activate it!::

“But we walk the path,” Ren said. “As Diomen did. Performing the figure, instead of inscribing it.”

“Prayer can be a form of imbuing,” Grey whispered. They shared a look between them. A braid of three traditions, together stronger than any one on its own.

The Anoškinič had his head bowed toward Andrejek, so close that salt tangled with pepper. Drawing away from that conference, he said, “The ghost owl’s role is to remember the past and protect it in the present, just as the speaker’s place is to advocate for the… apparently not-so-lost Ižranyi. I am in agreement with Szorsa Arenza that we must purify them of this curse and return them to our Lady’s cycle—but not here. The wellspring appears for a single night only, and our people have waited too long.”

Vargo snorted to Alsius. ::Not to mention that asking them to wait in line while we deal with nightmare monsters might not go over well.::

“The Seven Knots labyrinth,” the Dvornič suggested, his quick support warming Ren. True, there might be political benefit in backing her, but there were risks as well. “And before the Great Dream. Better to send lost souls on at the end of a cycle, rather than start a new one with mourning and death.”

One by one, the others fell into line—the Varadič last and most grudgingly. When they had all agreed, Ren said, “Seven Knots, then. And may the Ižranyi find release at last.”

The Depths, Old Island: Cyprilun 34

With the river rising and Veiled Waters swiftly approaching, the usual passages Grey used to enter the Depths as the Rook were no longer safe. And someone in Koszar’s faction had discovered the ward to the old temple no longer protected it, so now the clans did. The discovery of a forgotten place once holy to Ažerais, underneath the old labyrinth, was almost as exciting for his people as the retaking of Nadežra.

That was how people were starting to speak of it, even with the concessions made for the Liganti to have some voice in the new council. Nadežra was a Vraszenian city once more. People were flooding downriver more swiftly than the waters to celebrate a victory they’d had little part in.

The lightstone strapped to Grey’s wrist cast bouncing shadows along the uneven stone walls, emphasizing the perpetual slickness. Dirty water from puddles in the lower reaches spattered Grey’s boots up to his ankles. Ren was busy wrangling the ziemetse and details of the ritual; Vargo had hesitated for all of a heartbeat at the prospect of again entering the zlyzen- and disease-fouled Depths, before declaring that even blood brotherhood had its limits and Ren probably needed his help. When Grey had grumpily called him a coward, Vargo accepted the title with pride.

So it was Grey’s footsteps alone, echoing in counterpoint to the sound of dripping water. With no other notion of how to track his quarry, he followed the cold dread pooling like stagnant river water in his gut.

He’d always feared and loathed the zlyzen. After that journey to the dream of Fiavla, it was worse instead of better. He didn’t want to accept that he’d once crawled alongside them, wrong jointed and foul. That he’d fed on dreams. Maybe killed people.

You’ve killed people as a hawk.

But that was different. Wasn’t it?

Heedless of the damp stone, he braced one hand against the wall and closed his eyes. They were human, once. They deserve to pass on to Ažerais’s grace. He was living evidence of that. A small, shameful part of him had considered that killing the zlyzen would also release them—but to lifetimes of slow purification, working off the stain while those around them struck out or flinched away. Better to cleanse them now, and let their souls be reborn freely. So they wouldn’t suffer like he had. So they wouldn’t suffer like they were doing now.

So they can’t kill again.

Opening his eyes didn’t banish the memory of Leato’s body, the blood-wet shreds of his sparkling Rook costume covered by Pavlin’s coat. Grey couldn’t undo the choice he’d made that night, dragging Ren up before going back for Leato. He couldn’t even bring himself to regret it, knowing Pavlin’s coat could have been Ren’s shroud. But it was hard not to hate himself a little for that lack of regret. Even harder not to hate the zlyzen, who were only acting under Ondrakja’s control.

That was what Grey told himself, forcing one foot in front of the other as he ventured farther into the Depths.

His route took him toward the old cages where Ondrakja had trapped children and fed their dreams to the zlyzen. The actual passages leading there were blocked by floodwaters, murky mirrors of black glass that Grey’s eyes avoided for fear of what he might see.

Instead he crouched at the lip of one of the pools and placed his palm flat against the surface. During the ordeal, the zlyzen had come in answer to Ren’s prayers. They’d also come when he desperately needed something to distract the patrol in the Depths so the Rook-costumed refugees could escape. Her connection to them was the thread she’d spun in the dream; his was something else.

Grey called with the part of his soul he’d always feared existed, no matter how much of a fraud he knew Laročja to be. Called with the last, fading remnants of a curse that hung off him like wisps of fog, soon to be banished by the morning light.

The water shifted, a smooth carbuncle rising like a shell encasing the shape underneath. Then the shroud broke, water flattening the corpse grass hair and sheeting down the elongated muzzle of a zlyzen. It dripped from the creature’s fangs, spattering the bare back of Grey’s hand. Another rose, and another, the zlyzen surfacing from the underground pool like clicking beetles from a burrow.

Every instinct in his body screamed run. The Primordial that destroyed the Ižranyi was fear, and knowing that didn’t do anything to reduce its scrape along his nerves. So many in one place, and he was alone, in the dark, with nothing but hope and a sword to defend himself—

The head of one dipped low. He thought it might be the one that had appeared in Westbridge, the one that took them into the dream. A leader, inasmuch as they had one.

Except now that leader was bowing to him.

Grey remained perfectly still. Breathing through his fear, his horror, his revulsion. This is what Laročja felt when she looked at your pattern. But how different would things have been if she could have seen past that, to compassion?

He had to be better than she was. Had to look the zlyzen in the eye. Had to accept that among them were the ones who’d killed Leato, tearing apart a man he could have called brother. He’d forgiven Vargo for Kolya’s death; these creatures—these people—deserved his mercy, too.

The fear didn’t leave. It wouldn’t, not until the Ižranyi were purified and released. But he breathed until it settled onto his shoulders like a cloak, until he could carry its weight.

Until he could reach out and touch the twisted shoulder of the Ižranyi in front of him, and think of it in those terms. A person he was touching, not a monster.

Then he said, “Come with me. It’s time for you to be free.”

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 34

From where she stood in the plaza outside the Seven Knots labyrinth, Ren could only see the fireworks as bright spots through the fog. In a display of both excellent and abysmal timing, the lottery to choose who would enter the amphitheatre for the Great Dream had fallen on the first night of Veiled Waters, when the mist rose from the river and would not dissipate for a week. But Argentet had provided fireworks to mark the occasion, and so they were duly set off, even if their glow was muffled. Perhaps the people gathered at the amphitheatre for the lottery could see them, the Point lifting them above the murk.

Ren felt a little bad for abandoning Dalisva and Mevieny to handle the lottery themselves. As the incoming speaker, she probably ought to be there. But once the Stretskojič suggested that the event would create an ideal opportunity to sneak the zlyzen into Seven Knots, she knew she was needed more elsewhere.

Just as Grey was needed, to find and guide the zlyzen to the labyrinth where the ziemetse waited. Just as Vargo and Arkady were needed, to clear the streets so some poor soul didn’t wander down the wrong alley at the wrong time and trip over a pack of walking nightmares. “We’re the red thread what keeps everybody else safe,” Arkady had told her kids, handing out thread labyrinths, and they trusted her enough to follow that lead.

A soft light warmed the fog drifting across the plaza, lower and gentler than the blooms of color in the sky. Ignoring the pockets of shadow that could be mistaken for mist if not for the low, hissed greetings, Ren met Grey in the middle of the square.

“Any difficulty?” she asked, withdrawing from a too-brief embrace.

His hand lingered in her hair, brushing dampness from her braids. “No. I cannot tell if I’m unnerved because that bodes ill, or just due to the company.”

Her gaze followed his gesture. No mistaking the shadows now for anything but what they were. Zlyzen, skulking like a pack of cadaverous hounds. “Is this all of them?”

“I think so,” Grey said, though they had no way of confirming it. “I think they know what we intend. I think they welcome an end to their suffering, and hope for a return to Ažerais’s grace.”

I hope we can give it to them. Her suggestion of using a labyrinth was an untested theory. For all she knew, it would corrupt the sacred space and leave the zlyzen untouched. The confidence she’d felt at the amphitheatre was thinner and more tenuous in the darkness and the fog, with zlyzen all around.

Or that was just the fear they exuded, making her imagination spin dreadful scenarios. Ren swallowed and said, “Let’s bring them inside.”

The ziemetse were all elders of their clans, regardless of their age. They wouldn’t have held those positions if they couldn’t maintain an air of dignity in the face of provocation. Still, several retreated an involuntary step when Ren and Grey entered the labyrinth, the zlyzen at their heels.

The Meszarič, demonstrating the true spirit of his clan, showed no such hesitation. He was short and slight compared to the born men leading the other clans, but he held his chin high as he stepped forward. To Ren he said, “If along the path you will guide us, szorsa, then I am ready to lead these who were once our kin.”

Grey’s memories from their journey to Fiavla had given them a map. Six lifetimes he had lived, each washing away some of the corruption staining his spirit. To release the zlyzen, they would try the same, starting with the eldest of Ažerais’s children.

Ren had already made her offerings to the Faces and Masks. Now she dug under the drape of her mother’s koszenie to retrieve her cards. As she set her foot on the path, her lips moved with the first prayer. The rasp of shuffled cards sounded loud in the hush of the labyrinth.

Back and forth, following the looping, ever-turning way. It took concentration to shuffle while walking, but her training in card tricks and false shuffles stood her in oddly good stead. She even paced it correctly, reciting the final prayer as she arrived at the center. “Ižranyi, favored daughter of Ažerais, bless me with your insight, that I may honor my ancestors and the wisdom of those who have gone before.”

His deep breath visible even from across the labyrinth, the Meszarič began to walk—and the zlyzen followed.

They were numerous enough to trail out in a long line behind the ziemič. This was the first time Ren had been able to count them, though, and her heart ached at the sight of how few they truly were. Less than a hundred. Where had the rest gone? Some zlyzen had no doubt died, like Grey, like the one Ondrakja killed. But five hundred years ago, the Ižranyi would have numbered in the tens of thousands. More, even. Only a few became zlyzen; the rest were lost even to the dream. Would purifying these survivors also save them?

She didn’t know. Still, the reminder of how much had been lost helped her hold steady as the Meszarič reached the center, trailing fear in his wake. Deck in hand, Ren dealt a card onto the wide, flat edge of the bowl at the labyrinth’s heart.

It almost tipped into the water as her hand shook. The Constant Spirit: the card she’d torn up to bring Laročja down. It shouldn’t have been in her deck; the halves had blown away in Suncross, her sacrifice to the Faces and the Masks. Yet here it was, whole once more.

The Meszarič cleared his throat, dragging Ren’s attention back to the moment. She gestured at the card on the shining silver rim. “Honest and enduring, the children of Meszaros are a constant spirit in memory and deed. Will you reclaim kinship with these, Ažerais’s lost children, and grant them forgiveness on her behalf?”

It was a delicate weave of words and implications. The corruption of Fiavla’s fall needed to be cleansed… but if she left the secret blasphemy of the burned koszenie unaddressed—if they let those threads remain severed—then the spirits of the lost Ižranyi might end up like the nameless szorsa, untethered and wandering.

The clan of the horse was constant, but not necessarily clever. Hearing nothing worrisome in Ren’s words, the Meszarič said, “I will.” He dipped his hand into the bowl of water. One by one, the zlyzen approached, and he touched his finger to their foreheads as they passed.

As each was anointed, the zlyzen crossed straight over the twisting pathways of the labyrinth, leaving their sins and troubles behind. Ren hoped it was not her imagination that, as they passed the far edge, their torn skin smoothed, their twisted limbs straightened, and the miasma of curdled fear eased, like the lifting of a horse’s yoke after a long day.

The Stretskojič looked like he retained serious doubts, but he wasn’t about to let his Meszaros counterpart upstage him. When the last of the zlyzen had reached the colonnade, he began the walk anew, leading them along the path. And Ren, waiting for them, dealt a second card.

This time it was more than a mere gift, restoring what she had sacrificed. The zlyzen crossed freely over the barrier between waking and dream; it seemed they blurred it for those around them, too. The Friendly Fist had never been in Ren’s deck, but what she dealt onto the bowl’s rim was the card of the Stretsko.

No terrible bell shivered the air as the cycle continued. Instead the atmosphere lightened with each pass, as if the sun were rising in this flame-lit space. One by one the ziemetse led the zlyzen along the labyrinth; one by one Ren dealt cards that were nowhere in her deck, The Silent Witness, The Kindly Spinner, The Artful Gentleman, The Hidden Eye. The clan elders acknowledged the zlyzen as their lost kin, and every time the creatures crossed the labyrinth path, they left a little more of their inhumanity behind.

Until it came to Grey. Who’d walked that road before them, purifying himself through one life after another.

The figures that followed him walked upright now. Still hunched, heads bowed, translucent as though the more human they became, the less they belonged in the waking world. Ren’s cheeks were damp, and it wasn’t from the dense fog spilling through the labyrinth’s open roof. But she couldn’t dry her face; already she held her cards in the folds of her skirts to keep the dew from them.

Grey’s fingers brushed the tears away when he came before her. “I’m here, Szeren,” he said, his voice for her alone. “Though lifetimes it’s taken me to find my luck again.”

A suppressed laugh caught her chest like a hiccup. She pressed her cheek into his palm, briefly, before turning to the bowl to deal the last card. If the pattern held, it would be one that hadn’t existed since Fiavla’s fall. Her fingers slipped on her deck, numb with fear that here, at the last moment, the dream would fail her. That they might release the zlyzen, but the card wiped from the world would remain lost forever.

A soft intake of breath from Grey drew her attention down to the bowl.

The water was as still as glass, but something lay in its depths. Color rippled around it like inks bleeding into fog. Hand shaking, Ren reached in and closed her fingers around a piece of stiffened paper.

It came out as dry as her throat, as clear as if newly painted—and real.

“The Living Dream,” Ren whispered, reading the name from the scrolled panel at the bottom. Was that what it had always been called? Or was this a new card, a new dream to take the place of the old?

She might never know the answer to that question, but she knew what the card meant. “Our Lady’s most profound blessing. Ižranyi and her gift were the threads that wove seven clans into one people. Ažerais’s lost children, of your nightmare you have been cleansed. Will you tie your threads to ours once more?”

As insubstantial as they looked, the people who had once been zlyzen were solid enough for Grey to touch. Dipping his hand into the water, he anointed each one in turn, and sent them out with his own murmured blessing. They were individuals now, male and female, young and old, the chance survivors of unspeakable horror. Ren’s vision blurred as they went, and she thought at first that her tears were responsible for what she saw.

But it was no delusion. The Ižranyi didn’t fade into the dream. When they reached the colonnade, they stood clean—human—solid. Spirit transformed into flesh.

Naked flesh. The Meszarič was the first to respond, jolting out of his shock to strip off his panel coat and wrap it around the woman nearest to him. An older woman, sagging dark skin striped with paler lines across her belly from bearing children, her hair shot with white. When his panel coat touched her shoulders, she broke into sobs, dragging the Meszarič to his knees as she fell. He wrapped his arms around her, breathing prayers as he wept.

Others were kneeling, crying, burying faces in shaking hands as though unready to face the world they’d returned to. After a frozen moment, the rest of the ziemetse followed the Meszarič’s lead, shedding panel coats and vests and even shirts. But there were only six of them, outnumbered by the Ižranyi gathered beneath the watching Faces and Masks.

“Grey,” Ren whispered, not certain what she wanted to say. What she could say. They’d expected to send these spirits on to rebirth, like they had with the nameless szorsa. Not… this.

His blue eyes mirrored her shock and wonder. And the smile he gave her, the smile that was only for her, she reflected back at him. Her husband. Her love. The thread she happily wound around her heart, with whom all things seemed possible.

Grey kissed her, pressing his lips to her brow. Then his fingers touched the same spot, cool with the water from the bowl. Ren did the same, blessing him as he’d blessed her.

The clan cards were still there, balanced on the rim. And in her other hand, The Living Dream. It was as real as the Ižranyi.

“We must help them,” Grey said. And Ren, gathering up her cards with a whisper of thanks, followed him to welcome the clan that was no longer lost.

25

The Peacock’s Web

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Fellun 4

“Are you certain you’re not the one leaving for Isarn?” Iascat asked as Vargo navigated around the trunks that had sprung up throughout his parlour like mushrooms. Either Varuni had enough cousins to form her own Vraszenian clan, or they expected a lot of gifts. He’d let her use his house as a temporary depot, and she was milking his guilt for all it was worth.

With the other seating taken over by sacks of Lumen only knew what, Vargo was left to squeeze onto the couch next to Iascat. Anticipating this, he’d only prepared one bowl of tolatsy for them to share. A big bowl. They’d worked up an appetite the previous evening.

“Gotta admit, the thought’s tempting,” he said, passing the bowl and a second spoon to Iascat.

“Then I’ll have to tempt you to stay,” Iascat said, leaning forward. He might prefer his tea cloying, but Vargo didn’t mind the sweetness that lingered on his lips afterward.

He pulled away, though, before they could fall too deeply into distraction. “We should get dressed. Interruptions will be here soon.”

“If you insist. But I’m stealing this robe,” Iascat said, smoothing a hand over the river-blue patchwork of silks Vargo had tossed to him when they woke.

Vargo laughed and swiped a chunk of seared pork before Iascat could scoop it up. “See, this is why you wouldn’t last a day on the Lower Bank. A good thief doesn’t warn their mark.”

“Oh? And what would you know about Lower Bank thieves, Eret Vargo?”

He must have caught Vargo’s flinch, a bruise as tender as the ones Iascat had left on his skin. Too bad Vargo couldn’t heal spiritual hurts like he did physical ones. Grin fading, Iascat said, “Sorry.”

“For speaking the truth? You’re not the one who sold me out.” That had been Sibiliat, with Carinci’s help. But he’d left himself open for it, knowing all the while that somebody could plant a knife there.

They ate quietly after that, and parted sooner than Vargo might have preferred. When Varuni arrived with a wagon and two Isarnah porters, she led them inside to take stock of her haul; Vargo bade Iascat farewell and then lingered on his stoop, watching the mist of Veiled Waters swirl in his wake.

He should have known better than to stake himself out like a target dummy for the Masks. No sooner had the fog swallowed Iascat’s sedan chair than it coughed up two new figures, drawing close enough to resolve into Nikory and Sedge.

But only the two of them. No other Fog Spiders slipped out of their namesake weather. Not a drub-gang then, come to teach their former boss a painful lesson.

::What do they want?:: Alsius grumbled. It was the first he’d spoken all morning. If not for the familiar lump shifting the set of his collar, Vargo might not have known he was even there.

Nikory winced when Vargo echoed the question aloud, complete with Alsius’s surly intonation. “Knot bosses want to talk to you. Figured you’d trust the message from us more’n someone else.”

He was half-right. “You, I trust. The rest of that lot can drink piss,” Vargo said, luxuriating in pettiness like a warm bath. “If anyone wants to speak to me, they know where to find me. My Dockwall warehouse, for example.”

Where he’d been jumped by the Roundabout Boys. Where Orostin died defending him because nobody in his knots gave Vargo the courtesy of a warning before they turned on him.

Nikory flinched. Sedge looked like he would speak, but his mouth clamped oyster-tight when Varuni emerged from the house to stand silent at Vargo’s side.

“We didn’t sell you out,” Nikory said. “We tried to help with the swap for Dmatsos.”

“You two did. The rest of them threw me in the gutter like I wasn’t even worth selling at a remnants stall.” Years of habit, of hiding his heart like the deepest currents of the Dežera, kept Vargo’s tone as bright and sleek as a knife’s blade.

::I didn’t realize you were so angry.::

Neither did I. He’d been too busy to think about it, what with trapped spirits and Primordial medallions and a revolution cleaving his city in half. But the hurt Iascat had accidentally brushed against wasn’t just a bruise. It was an open wound. “I’m not walking into another trap. If they’ve something to say, they can come to me.”

“It en’t a trap. And I think you’ll want to hear this.” Sedge finally spoke up as Vargo turned away. The only voice from his old knots Vargo was willing to take a risk for. Not because of oaths never actually sworn, but for two that were. Vargo touched his wrist, the knotted cord of his oath with Ren, the faint scar of his oath with Grey. He trusted them, and they trusted Sedge.

Vargo gave Varuni a rueful, twisted smile. “You up for protecting my ass one more time?”

Froghole, Lower Bank: Fellun 4

It ends where it started, Vargo thought with grim amusement as Nikory led him to the old lace mill in Froghole.

He’d refitted the place since Ondrakja and Breccone Indestris used it to make ash out of zlyzen blood, and by day it almost looked respectable. The bird shit had been scoured off, the rot-pitted floorboards replaced. Not even the memory of that blasphemous numinat remained. It could hardly be called the same building—no more than Vargo was the same boy who hid here after his life was bound to a Liganti noble trapped inside a spider.

::Stop being so morbid. They won’t hurt you. They can’t. Not with me here.::

Vargo was inclined to argue—by nature, Alsius would say—but he couldn’t afford the distraction when he entered the wide-open warehouse and saw too big a crowd for his comfort. Knotted cords were everywhere, on wrists, around necks. Pinned to coats or braided like wedding tokens into hair. And every color: the sapphire blue of the Fog Spiders, the crimson and cream of the Odd Alley Gang. No Roundabout Boys—and a good thing, too, because Vargo would have walked right back out if they dared show—but Moon Harpies, Leek Street Cutters, and even Blackrabbit Drifters all the way down from Dockwall. A score of people, easy, many of them former seconds of his old bosses—names he didn’t know attached to faces he recognized. The bosses he’d worked with before had the most dour expressions, like they’d just as soon see Vargo floating in the Dežera as walking into the lace mill.

A clank from his other side said Varuni already had her chain whips out in case. But Vargo knew the look of people who wanted something from him. He stepped forward, as though daring one of them to throw the first punch. “You’ve got something to say to me? Then say it.”

“I’ll start,” said Mirka, the head of the Moon Harpies. Mileka stood beside her, hair hacked short and bowed head not enough to hide her swollen nose and cut lip. Given the knot boss’s sharp grin and blood-scabbed knuckles, Vargo assumed Mirka had won whatever disagreement her twin had raised about coming here. “Things’ve gone to shit since we… Well, it en’t cutting knot if there was no knot to cut, but you know what I mean.”

Quiet as the mist of Veiled Waters descending, the other bosses murmured their grudging agreement.

“And now, with this new treaty, gonna be a lot more’n just rats moving in on our turf,” grumbled the new boss of the Odd Alley Gang. Their patch bumped up against Tserdev’s, and had always been one of the bloodiest of Vargo’s holdings.

“Gutter cats, chicken thieves,” spat a woman with the recognizable fur cap of the Blackrabbit Drifters. “Whole swarm of vermin looking to take what’s ours.”

Nikory huffed, crossing his arms. “Let ’em try. Fog Spiders will be as close as any Varadi gets to taking over the Lower Bank.”

::We just ended one possible war; now we’re saddled with another. Lovely.:: Alsius sounded tired. Resigned. Like he often did these days.

I don’t think so. Vargo rubbed idly at his chest, a vain attempt to soothe a hurt that wasn’t his. Every eye in the room snapped to his hand. More than a few awed whispers followed. It seemed his time with Tserdev had done more good for his reputation than bad.

“Sounds like a problem that isn’t mine anymore,” Vargo said. He suspected he saw the shape of what they wanted, but he was going to make them ask, rather than giving them the satisfaction of his guess.

“Could be,” said Odd Alley’s new boss. “We got agreement from the fists, and any boss that en’t in has been cut out.”

Nikory lifted a shoulder when Vargo cast him a surprised glance. “Told ’em I weren’t bringing you here if they was just going to waste your time.”

::But everything’s finally settled down,:: Alsius whined. ::Is this a headache we really want again?::

Most of our investments are on the Lower Bank. Might be a headache worth taking. Vargo hadn’t worn gloves, but he toyed with the lace edging of his cuffs, a subtle reminder of why they’d given him the boot. “And what do you want from me?”

“What we should have had before. You take the aža, you take the oath. You make yourself one of us instead of keeping apart.” One man was talking, but every person in the room nodded—except Sedge, massaging his brow, and Varuni, whose lips were flat against what Vargo suspected was a laugh.

Having no such reservations, Vargo chuckled dryly. “Tie myself to a dozen different horses? That’s asking to be ripped apart. You want a boss that crazy, talk to Arkady Bones.”

“Told you this was a waste of breath,” muttered Mileka. Definitely the one who’d given him trouble on the canal during the boat races. “Cuffs en’t got loyalty to nobody.”

The temptation to lift his sleeve and show off the knot charm around his wrist rose and ebbed without breaking. Vargo said, “En’t my loyalty you want, is it? It’s my ability to keep the peace and make you money. Don’t need oaths for that. I just need charters. And with Fulvet having to repair the East Channel numinat so the cuffs aren’t drinking their own piss-water, I’ve got the leverage to get them.”

“Fulvet?” Mileka scoffed. “Don’t militia charters come from Caerulet?”

“Right. Because what the rookeries need is more blood in the streets.” Under Vargo’s steady stare, her shoulders curled in like scorched paper. “A Fulvet charter sets the boundaries of your patches, then has you doing what you’re doing already: keeping people safe, seeing after the nippers without family to do it for ’em, getting the sick what they need so we don’t come down plague-ridden, finding a squat for everyone so they en’t clogging our gutters. Only with a Fulvet charter, the hawks can’t hassle you, and you get paid.”

That was only part of what his knots did, of course. They also smuggled goods, made sure local merchants dealt fairly and didn’t get run out by newcomers, ran gambling dens and other enterprises on the more illicit side of the line. Pulling any of that muck up into the light would require negotiation with other seats, Prasinet in particular. But he’d start with Fulvet and see how far that got him—and how many of his knots were tired enough of street war that legitimacy looked good.

They sent Vargo outside with Sedge and Varuni to cool his heels while they debated his counteroffer. The rise and fall of voices behind the repaired walls made it sound like the lace mill had been invaded by seagulls again.

“Hope your sister will advocate for me in this,” he said to Sedge. “Fulvet trusts her more. Which hurts, since of the two of us, I’m the one that en’t juggling masks and names like a street performer.”

They were all three laughing when the lace mill door opened and Nikory stepped out with Mirka.

“They want agreement from Fulvet that he’ll consider the charters before they agree to anything,” Nikory said, “but the truce should keep things quiet until then.”

At a nudge of his elbow, Mirka grimaced and said, “And to show we mean to play fair, I’ve got something to confess. It’s old news, but maybe you can still make use of it. It’s about that man you were looking for, Stezze Chetoglio. The one who turned up as a corpse in the Depths.”

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Fellun 4

The streets around Grey were full of uninhibited revelry. The previous year’s Veiled Waters had been marred by blasphemy and riots; as if to make up for it, this year was bestowing on Nadežra the end of the Cinquerat. Here on the Lower Bank, nobody mourned its imminent passing. Soon enough that would give way to cynicism and complaints, Grey knew—the new Setterat would hardly be an instant cure for all the city’s ills—but for the time being, people just wanted to celebrate. They ran through the streets in fantastical masks, everything from the clan animals to branching trees to the divine Faces and Masks themselves, drunken, singing, laughing whenever they collided at a fog-shrouded corner. A woman in a sea-crested mask circled Grey with a dancing step, crying, “Bright dreams to you in the coming cycle!” When she swooped in for a kiss, he let her have a good one. It was hard not to be exuberant, with so many of his burdens lifted.

Duty, unfortunately, dragged him away from the boisterous chaos. Grey didn’t know who the ziemetse had bribed, blackmailed, or beaten to obtain lodgings for the reborn Ižranyi, but something of the sort must have happened; even though the city was leaking at the seams with revolutionaries come for an uprising and pilgrims come for the Great Dream, the ziemetse had somehow freed up an entire section of a courtyard house at the western edge of Seven Knots.

It was still tight quarters, the former zlyzen sleeping in close ranks on the floor for lack of sufficient beds. They didn’t seem to mind, though. Released from five centuries of cursed existence, reborn into a world unlike the one they remembered, they flinched from everything. Their behavior reminded Grey of prisoners the Vigil locked into solitary cells for days or weeks on end. Only their clan-mates were familiar, a source of comfort.

He wondered how much they remembered of their time as zlyzen, but didn’t ask. He didn’t really want to know.

Communication was difficult enough anyway. Ren might be speaker-to-be for the Ižranyi, but Grey had unofficially become the speaker to them. The memories regained in the dream gave his tongue and ears just enough familiarity with their speech to get by—better than anyone else could, at least. Most people could barely understand anything the Ižranyi said, let alone respond.

The residents of the house’s other sections had a bonfire going on the courtyard flagstones, banishing the mist within the gates; musicians were playing an oszefon tune, couples dancing around the flames. Seeing them, Grey promised himself that before long, he and Ren would have a proper dance. Then, sighing, he knocked on the Ižranyi door.

Szorsa Olena had taken up residence in the topmost room of the three-story building. Middle-aged and rimasz, she’d led that desperate sacrifice in the Fiavla labyrinth, burning their koszenie to stop the spreading terror of the Primordial. With their clan elder long gone, she was the closest thing the Ižranyi had to a leader.

Six others were with her when Grey reached the top of the stairs. He’d learned all their names, determined to overwrite his memories of the zlyzen with those of people. The six came from five different kretse; the two from the same kureč weren’t close cousins. Broken threads, all of them. It was one thing for the ziemetse to acknowledge the Ižranyi as lost kin, but another thing entirely to weave them back into the fabric of Vraszenian life. Would the surviving lineages be restored from those individual roots? How many had been lost forever?

The question Grey brought today was smaller, and hopefully easy to address. Shaping the formal greeting to unfamiliar vowels, he said, “Ažerais blesse the weye that hyder broght thee sauf and sounde unto me.”

Olena waved the others off, though they didn’t leave the room. So far as Grey knew, none of the Ižranyi had been alone since their transformation. Not moving from her high-backed chair, she said, “By thy contenaunce, so as it semed me, thou bryngest muche matere for to speken of here.”

He did have matters to speak of, though it took him a painfully long time to stumble through them, guessing at how to adjust his words for Ižranyi pronunciation, sometimes running aground entirely when the word used five hundred years ago had a completely different modern equivalent. That happened especially with Liganti terms that had seeped into the Vraszenian spoken in Nadežra.

The news he brought today, though, required few such words. People must be told the Ižranyi were back; the ideal time to do that was during the Great Dream, when the wonder of the night and the significance of a Grand Cycle ending could justify many miracles.

When he finished relating this to Olena, he said, “Al the ziemetse made forward also that thy folk sholde habban leve for to drynke of the welle-spryng.”

Instead of looking delighted at the prospect, she recoiled. “That honour we deserve nought. Through oure folye, al this wrak was y-wroght. Of oure Lady grace, othere folks be moore worthy.”

Grey’s Rook-honed instincts sharpened. The destruction of the Ižranyi was centuries ago and a long road away… but the cause had never been revealed. Fiavla had been one of three city-states consolidating power over its neighbors, with all the enemies that brought. In the aftermath of its fall, people had pointed fingers in every direction: at Fiavla’s rivals, at discontented client cities under its sway, at foreign powers with no desire to face a more unified Vraszan.

But Olena claimed the disaster was because of their folly. Maybe someone in Fiavla had entertained the same ambitions as the Tyrant, by way of a different Primordial, and their attempt to become a conqueror went wrong.

When Grey asked, Olena went silent, and he wasn’t sure at first if she’d failed to understand his words. Then she lifted her head and called out, “Dmitri.”

He was one of the oldest Ižranyi, a man whose shoulders remained stooped even after losing his twisted zlyzen posture. He came and sat on a stool by Olena’s chair, and she said something too rapid for Grey to follow.

Dmitri blanched. Grey, regretting having asked, said, “Thou nedest nat tellen that tale.”

“Ih moste,” Dmitri said, bleakly. “Lest som othere wight that thilke mysded again wolde doon.”

Olena had enough skill with languages to bend her speech a little toward modern sounds; Dmitri lacked that, and many teeth besides. She had to repeat his words for Grey, more slowly and clearly. “Stoones rounde ther were, and ech of them y-corven was with signes of that namelesse thing demonyak—”

Stones instead of medallions, but the mention of Primordials—what she called nameless—brought a familiar chill all the same. “Som wight used them?”

Listening to Dmitri’s reply, Olena shook her head. “No. Nothyng good cometh of that namelesse thing demonyak, for it bodeth noght but daungers. The wiseste of Fiavla bad that they be brogth to destruccioun. But thir wisdom fulfild nothyng of swich entente. It unbond al the wikkednesse withinne the stoones, and unbounde, that wikkednesse overwheyld us al.”

Drowning in Primordial power. Grey remembered all too well the atmosphere in the temple as the medallions went one by one into the fire. The air around him, tolling like a terrible bell. The feeling that by destroying the medallions, they were setting something loose—that if they didn’t finish, it would fly beyond control. But they had finished. “Hadde ye ech of them? And som al-hole endured…” He could imagine all too well what would have happened had they left one medallion intact.

“Elleven stones,” Olena said, on the heels of Dmitri’s reply. “Lik to the custume of the north. Al were destroyed. So was oure kyth and kinn.”

Grey’s mind spun, snatching at points of difference. Medallions instead of stones; perhaps they’d been made by different means. The Primordial of desire instead of fear. The nameless szorsa as a living Uniat, her soul remaining trapped even after she died. Maybe she’d taken that unbound power with her into death.

But they’d sent her soul on before they destroyed the medallions. Before he felt that mounting pressure.

We did it the right way, he told himself uneasily. The people in Fiavla wouldn’t have used numinatria. Tanaquis’s method was safer—that’s all. The fact that Nadežra hadn’t dissolved into a maelstrom of unchecked desires was proof of their success. Eleven days of nightmare terror preceded Fiavla’s fall. More than three weeks had passed since the destruction of the medallions.

Still, he’d feel better after he shared this with Ren and Vargo. They could assure him there was nothing to fear, no devastation like Fiavla’s in their future.

Olena was watching him sharply. “Ye drede daunger in Nadežra. Ih swere, we wol doon nought for to dreden.”

“I know you mean us no harm,” Grey said, forgetting to say it in her dialect. He shoved himself to his feet. “But I must go.”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Fellun 4

“Apologies, alta,” Colbrin said as he let Ren in. “Era Traementis and Alta Giuna have not yet returned from Extaquium Manor, though I expect them shortly.”

Ren stifled a laugh. Parma was celebrating her return to society with a party every single day of Veiled Waters. For today she’d gotten her hands on a small cleansing numinat, and had invited everyone to pour the last of her uncle’s abominable wine through it. If Ren hadn’t been so busy preparing for the Great Dream, she would have been there herself. But she’d only just collected her finished sash belt from Tess, adorned with shimmering, iridescent dreamweaver feathers. She wanted to show it off to her aunt and cousin before going home to rehearse her part one last time.

“That’s all right,” she said to Colbrin. “I can—”

From the direction of the service area she heard a voice, accented with Vraszenian and raised in strident fury. “Tell who you like; I care not! I am done. Not a day more will I work in that house!”

“My apologies,” Colbrin said, moving to close the servants’ door. “It is no problem with Traementis Manor, I assure you. Alta Tanaquis’s maid is here.”

Ren stopped him with one outstretched hand. Zlatsa hardly ever spoke, much less in such a passion. And she rarely ventured from Tanaquis’s townhouse unless it was her day off. “I’d like to speak with her.”

If she’d been raised an alta, she would have asked Colbrin to bring Zlatsa to her. Instead she went downstairs, to the servants’ dining room, and found Zlatsa haranguing a helpless-looking footman.

“—owed my wages for the entirety of Cyprilun, and be glad I demand nothing for these first days of Fellun.” Spying Ren, Zlatsa shoved past the footman and planted herself in Ren’s path. “Your cousin is not well.”

Guilt surged in Ren’s throat. I should have broken in. “Has the wound become infected?”

Zlatsa shuddered. “Her head is infected—with what, I know not. All day and all night she spends in her workshop, scribbling, muttering. Then today she left, and I came straight here. I am done. Her oddities I mind not, but this is something else.”

The guilt chilled to fear. For Tanaquis’s behavior to put off the phlegmatic Zlatsa, it must be extreme indeed. “Where did she go?”

“Who knows? Her words are as much a tangle as her workshop, nothing more than ravings.”

Ren hadn’t given her coat to Colbrin. Curling one hand around Zlatsa’s arm, she said, “You still have the key, yes? Show me.”

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Fellun 4

It was worse than Ren had imagined.

Tanaquis and her workshop always displayed a certain untidiness, but now it looked like a great storm had swept through the space. Cups of coffee going fuzzy with mold decorated the windowsill, next to untouched plates of food. Books and papers were everywhere, not just on tables but on the floor, chalky footprints showing where she’d stepped on them. Her scrawled handwriting had degenerated into a tangle of ink—did that predate her injury, or had she done it with her off hand? The bits drawn on the walls had to be from earlier: sketches of numinata, of labyrinths, both the complex layout used for religion and the simpler back-and-forth shape Kaius and the nameless szorsa had used in binding the medallions.

Zlatsa spat a curse when Ren picked up a small metal framework, the poured cast of a numinat. “I should have known something was wrong when she got that one marked on her. Tattoos are for sailors, not inscriptors.”

Ren spun. “Tanaquis got a tattoo? When? Where?”

“While you were missing. Right here, over her heart.” Zlatsa thumped her own chest. “Numinata should not be marked on the body. It’s not safe. Even I know that.”

Vargo and Alsius had numinata on their bodies, linking their souls. Had Tanaquis taken the idea from them? But for what purpose? If she’d done it while Ren was missing, then it happened long before they destroyed the medallions and she lost her hand.

And she’d kept it secret.

The Mask of Mirrors, Ren thought, sick with guilt. When she patterned Tanaquis, she’d told her cousin there was a secret she must keep. But this wasn’t it. Whatever Tanaquis was hiding, it was a dangerous cancer, not a truth in need of guarding.

Careful not to step on any floor-chalked lines, Ren picked her way toward the worktable on the far side of the room. Perhaps there were notes legible enough to take to Vargo. Or she could drag him here.

Ren stopped before she got to the table. In a clear patch of floor lay a scatter of pattern cards, all faceup and too evenly spaced to be accidental. Too many for a seven-card wheel, and they followed the dusty chalk outline of a spiral instead of a true circle.

Mouth dry with dread, Ren bent to examine them. The Mask of Fools; Sisters Victorious; Three Hands Join; The Face of Crowns; The Face of Glass; Two Roads Cross; The Face of Balance; Four Petals Fall; Storm Against Stone; Aža’s Call; The Face of Flame.

Eleven cards. And underneath the final one, at the tail end of the spiral, a symbol she’d only seen etched into the Tyrant’s medallions.

The sigil for A’ash.

Tanaquis didn’t give up her medallion. The Rook had to force it from her. Ren felt sick. Had that caused this madness? Or was it something else—something to do with that tattoo?

Zlatsa was still in the doorway. She wasn’t a fair target for Ren’s fear and fury, but they wouldn’t stay caged. “Why said you nothing before now? Why send us away when we came to make sure she was well?”

She expected Zlatsa to snap back. Instead the other woman looked shaken. “I tried, but the words would not come. A hundred times I meant to go fetch you. But then… always I would do something else. Eat lunch, take a nap. Telling myself, I can leave afterward.”

Until Tanaquis vanished. And whatever eisar numinatria she was using to control Zlatsa lost their effect.

“It is not your fault,” Ren said, past the panic clawing her heart. “And thank you for coming to us instead of fleeing. I’ll see to it that you’re paid. But will you do one more thing for me? Send runners for Eret Vargo and Grey Serrado. Tell them they must come at once.”

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Fellun 4

With Zlatsa gone, Ren searched the townhouse for more hints of what had driven Tanaquis to this state, or where she’d gone. She found her answers mostly in absences: the sturdy boots Tanaquis preferred were missing, as was the coat with many pockets that Tess had made for her at the start of winter. Her inscriptor’s satchel hung from its hook by the door, useless to Tanaquis without her sunwise hand.

Ren was pacing the entry hall when a pounding came at the door. It opened on Vargo, breathing hard like he’d run the entire way, cheeks flushed and hair swept off his brow, slick with mist or sweat or both.

“Tanaquis! You—oh.” He shook off his surprise and strode past her, making for the stairs. “Good. Saves me having to look for you. Where’s Tanaquis?”

“You got my message not?” Ren chased him up the stairs. “I sent one to your house.”

“Came straight from Extaquium Manor. I may have ruined Parma’s party.”

What has Parma to do with anything? Ren opened her mouth to ask, but a second knock pulled her back to the door. As she let Grey in, Vargo’s yell came from above. “What the fuck happened here?”

They took the stairs two at a time. “Tanaquis has vanished,” Ren said. Breathless from her climb, she related in quick gasps what Zlatsa had said—including the numinat Tanaquis had placed on herself.

Vargo picked up the metal figure and blanched. “I don’t think she tattooed it. Not unless the tattooist was also an inscriptor. I think she heated this up and burned it into herself.”

Even the thought made Ren flinch. “What’s it for?”

::It’s a conduit,:: Alsius said, his mental voice faint. ::Not unlike the one I placed on Vargo all those years ago. It’s meant to draw energy into her. And… I think it’s related to the numinat she designed. The one that destroyed the medallions.::

Ren could barely make herself echo that for Grey. When she did, he went ashen. “With Szorsa Olena I was just speaking. She—she made it sound like destroying the medallions should have released their power into the world. That was how Fiavla fell.”

Vargo’s voice was strangled. “Those marks on her afterward. It wasn’t just that she touched the numinat. Tanaquis drew the energy into herself.”

Zlatsa, constantly giving in to other urges besides the one to walk out the door. It was the kind of thing someone with a medallion could do, without need of a numinat… but the medallions were gone.

The power they held was not.

But Tanaquis wasn’t Kaius Rex. Whatever had happened to her cousin, Ren didn’t believe this was some mad bid to dominate the world. “Could she have known?” Ren asked. “That we would destroy ourselves if we destroyed the medallions? She kept saying someone had to die—she was willing to be the one to die—”

Papers snowed the air as Vargo slapped them off the table. “Of course she fucking was. Got news from my old knots. One of ’em had Chetoglio—that delta cuff that had Ninat—stashed away in the attic of the Wailing Plum. They didn’t tell me, ’cause they was looking to use him as leverage against me. But here’s the interesting part: According to them, he din’t have the medallion long. Found it back in Canilun, on the floor of a sedan chair he hired in Eastbridge. Not far from my house.”

The floor of a sedan chair? That made no sense. But Grey saw what Ren, still reeling, didn’t. “You think Tanaquis had it before that? She ditched it when she learned of Ghiscolo’s plans?”

Who could give up a medallion like that? No one—except, perhaps, the one who held Ninat. Death, and endings…

… and transcendence. The ability to see beyond the horizon, into the deepest mysteries of the cosmos.

“She wished us not to know,” Ren whispered. Tanaquis, who learned at an early age that she could rely only on herself. Who’d been scolded by her mentor when she showed interest in heretical ideas. Whose family had died out… but then she was welcomed into a new one. A family whose register she’d defaced with protections on every living name, additions to close Ren and Tricat off from everyone else. Additions that masked the need to protect them against herself, too—herself and Ninat.

Vargo kept talking right over her whisper. “—said he wandered right out of the bolt-hole in the middle of the afternoon, like he was in a trance. Like something was controlling him.”

The way Diomen and Ghiscolo had controlled the medallion holders. Ren’s hand found Grey’s, but even his warm grip wasn’t enough to steady her. “That’s why you went to speak with Parma.”

“Noctat could call Ninat to itself,” Vargo said. “Parma’s just been going where we pointed her, so she didn’t think much of it when Tanaquis asked for her help with another ritual. Even knew it was eisar-based, but she didn’t mind hiding the attempt from Simendis; if it meant getting rid of these things sooner, she thought that was a fair trade. But she claimed it didn’t work.”

“Or Tanaquis had Chetoglio stopped before he arrived.” Grey’s voice sounded more like the Rook’s, low and grim.

Stopped. How had his body wound up in the Depths, right where Tanaquis’s riddles led Vargo and Grey? If she’d shown up with Ninat in hand, they would have had questions. Instead the two men found it under circumstances where neither of them could risk taking it. She might have even guessed why Grey couldn’t.

Ren was hiding from the rest of that thought. From the possibility that Tanaquis’s hands were stained, not just with ink, but with blood.

It seemed impossible. But if Tanaquis had held Ninat before Ghiscolo’s ritual and abandoned it to protect that secret, giving it up would have left her cursed, doomed to be destroyed by her own Ninat-related desires. And Tanaquis had hounded Ren with that new pattern deck of hers, asking for a nine-card spread, as the life she’d built slowly crumbled around her. Had she tried the removal first with a pattern she laid herself, and met with no success?

Vargo prowled the room like an anxious tomcat, taking in the chalk lines. “Apart from being a blasphemous atrocity, does this look familiar?” He’d stopped at the spiral of pattern cards, tilting his head for another perspective.

Alsius answered. ::The amphitheatre numinat?::

“Breccone Indestris was a mediocre inscriptor. I never understood how he came up with that one. Or the numinat to make ash.”

“But—” Ren’s tongue was lead in her mouth. “She helped us stop that.”

“Right. After she realized that pattern was more than just Vraszenian superstition, and that destroying the wellspring would be a shortsighted waste.”

Grey released Ren’s hand, but only so his arm could go around her shoulders. The szorsa in her wanted to trace the threads; the con artist in her wanted to figure out how the game had been played, and why.

But the member of House Traementis, the woman who had become Tanaquis’s cousin and friend, was too heartsick to do anything but stand frozen.

Besides, all of it, the how and the when and the why, mattered less than what came next. Swallowing hard, Ren said, “More than anything, Tanaquis wants to understand. How the cosmos works. How pattern and numinatria fit together.”

“Tomorrow night comes the Great Dream,” Grey said. “If pattern she seeks to understand… the source of it all is the wellspring.”

“She’ll be there,” Ren said softly. Would it be enough for Tanaquis to witness the Great Dream? To drink from Ažerais’s waters, experiencing the insight they bestowed?

With the power of the medallions flowing through her, Ren feared it would not.

Vargo’s expression was that of a man who was all too accustomed to putting necessity above friendship. “Yes, she’ll be there. And so will we.”

26

Labyrinth’s Heart

The Great Amphitheatre, Old Island: Fellun 5

A sea of mist lapped against the stone foundation of the amphitheatre, the Point rising above Veiled Waters’ fogs to kiss a sky painted jewel-bright by the setting sun. On the opposite horizon, the twin moons of Orin and Orasz rose to supplant it, dripping gold like fresh-minted forri. It was a rare meeting of siblings, brother and sister promenading together before spinning off to dance through the heavens apart.

On such a night as this, their light joined with that of Ažerais, and her seven children were conceived. On such a night as this, the Vraszenian people were born.

The Great Amphitheatre was packed with people: mostly Vraszenians, and many of those pilgrims from outside the city, but among them a good scattering of mixed-blood Nadežrans who honored Ažerais. Part of the stands held the first segment of the long line waiting to drink from the wellspring, trailing out an exit and across the Point. The rest held onlookers, families waiting to welcome their kin who came bearing true dreams, and even a few Liganti who’d paid to see the event.

It was a far cry from the night Ren and Grey had attempted to con Nadežra into approving of their marriage. But Faella hadn’t been entirely wrong, even if she’d missed the mark on how her assistance could bear fruit. They’d indeed been part of bringing peace to Nadežra—along with many other people.

Grey adjusted the hang of his panel coat. The silvered embroidery Tess had added for his wedding remained an unfamiliar texture under his nervous fingers. It was the finest coat he’d ever worn—and carefully cleaned after his adventures in Fiavla and the Depths—but it paled like the stars at dawn against the finery of the ziemetse. Their panel coats were entire tapestries of silk thread, each one imbued so the landscapes and creatures they depicted almost seemed alive.

Ordinarily he would have no business standing among them. Ren had a place here, as speaker for the Ižranyi—though she’d almost insulted Dalisva when she refused a dreamweaver mask. All the ziemetse wore masks that evoked their clan animals, and szorsas were permitted dreamweaver feathers on theirs. Ren braided the feathers into her hair and had Tess work some onto her sash belt instead. Her mask, though, was the prismatium one Vargo had bought, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Grey was the one in a dreamweaver mask. Olena had insisted, when she agreed that she and two other Ižranyi would accompany him tonight. He tried not to think about what that might imply as the sun touched the horizon, and together with Ren and that trio, he strode out onto the amphitheatre’s stage.

The waiting crowd expected Ren, after all the stories that had circulated, but to the clans outside the city, Grey was a nonentity. The three behind him were even more unknown, and a confused murmur passed through the crowd when he stepped into the amplification numinat.

Grey wasn’t like Ren, used to baring his face and performing for all to hear. He was more comfortable with his hood and the Rook’s shadows. But Olena insisted, and the ziemetse agreed, and now an entire amphitheatre full of people were wondering who the hell he was. They only wanted the sun to set, the wellspring to appear.

Fighting the urge to clear his throat, Grey spoke.

“Five hundred years ago, our people suffered an unspeakable wound. A terrifying force tore through the city of Fiavla and all the members of the Ižranyi clan. Eleven days later, when the chaos died down, they were gone.”

He didn’t quite have silence. People were shifting, murmuring to each other. Asking why he would evoke such horror at so sacred a moment.

Grey might not be used to doing this unhooded… but he knew how to play to a crowd.

“Or so we thought.”

A ripple of sound that died away to stillness.

“A remnant of the Ižranyi survived,” Grey went on. “Trapped deep within Ažerais’s Dream, held captive by the zlyzen, they slept away the centuries. Until Arenza Lenskaya Traementatis Volavka, a szorsa of the Dvornik and speaker for the Ižranyi, found them. Together with the help of the ziemetse, we have returned them to the world.”

A politic tale, woven of equal parts truth and lies. Ren had been the one to suggest it. “If everyone knows they were the zlyzen,” she’d said, the night the Ižranyi were restored, “the fear of that will haunt them until the last one passes away—perhaps even after. But the zlyzen are no more. Say instead that by those creatures they were held captive, and when at last they were freed, the zlyzen vanished. Those who need to will know what happened.”

Grey gestured, and the trio behind him stepped forward. Olena, Dmitri, and the youngest of the Ižranyi, a fifteen-year-old girl named Svetlana, who’d been preparing to make the pilgrimage to Nadežra in her first life. Grey could see them fighting not to cringe from the countless eyes upon them, not to retreat into the shadows they’d called home for so long.

“A bare sixty have returned to us.” It was probably coincidence, the survivors numbering the same as the cards in the core of a pattern deck, but Grey wasn’t above squeezing the symbolism for sympathy. “Three braved this changed world to join us here today. Let us praise the Faces for the kindness they have shown, and give thanks to the Masks for withdrawing their wrath. The clans are seven once more!”

An unsettled murmur greeted his words. Just as when the ziemetse had heard, people were more surprised and confused than anything else. The Ižranyi, returned to the world? It sounded wonderful—and also impossible. Especially when Grey had no more to show for it than three Vraszenians standing awkwardly at his side. They were simply people, like any other. If the crowd had been there to see their transformation… but then the crowd would have seen the nightmare that preceded it.

Whispers rippled through the amphitheatre as one by one, the ziemetse embraced the three Ižranyi, offering their own prayers of thanks. The Kiralič finally broke the odd tension of the moment, casting his voice up into the stands. “How happy my clan is to be the youngest no longer!” A scattering of laughter greeted his words, probably from other Kiraly. But the true reaction… that would take longer to come. Grey only hoped it would be the warm embrace of a family restored, not the hostility of a world that preferred the Ižranyi as a golden, untouchable memory.

For now, Mevieny took her place in the amplification numinat. “The Grand Cycle ends; a new one begins. What better omen than this for the next seven times seven years? In the future, for themselves will the Ižranyi speak once more. But as Arenza Lenskaya Traementatis Volavka helped bring this miracle about, one last time we shall hand off the honor of being the first to drink from our Lady’s cup.”

The sun was sinking below the horizon now, traveling the Dusk Road into night. As Mevieny presented a silver chalice to Ren, the last sliver of light slipped away, and the gold-burnished sky flashed green.

Light answered it from below, iridescing from the stage of the amphitheatre, as the Wellspring of Ažerais flowed into the waking world.

The Great Amphitheatre, Old Island: Fellun 5

Ren had seen the wellspring in many forms. Mist-veiled radiance when she rescued Vargo from the zlyzen; a pulsating wound of poisoned light when Mettore tried to destroy it. The dry, empty scar of the Night of Hells.

Manifested as it should be, it took her breath away.

The light was a gentle caress along her skin, whispering of dreams. It shimmered through all the colors of a dreamweaver’s feathers, cool as water, entrancing as fire. All the traditions of her people had their roots here, in this miraculous moment, when the veil parted and something impossible became real.

Her fear of what Tanaquis might be planning was a mouse’s squeak drowned by the wonder flooding through her. For a moment she wasn’t sure her legs would hold; it was fortunate she didn’t have to move first. That honor went to the Meszarič, who walked the labyrinth path with a measured, steady tread, to fill his cup in the shifting waters. Then the Stretskojič, and all the other ziemetse in the order their founders were born. Ižranyi, youngest and most favored daughter of Ažerais, came last.

Ren’s hands trembled as she dipped her silver chalice into the wellspring. But she didn’t spill a drop as she lifted it high.

“Ages past, led by their sister Ižranyi, our ancestors came to this place, a rocky stone caught in the spreading skirts of the Dežera. Here they prayed, and here their mother gave them her most sacred gift: a wellspring of her waters, which bring the insight of pattern into the world. Tonight, we drink in thanks, and accept the true dreams Ažerais bestows upon us.”

The silver was a silken kiss against her lip. The liquid it held was cool as a shiver and electrifying as a stormfront, rippling down her nerves and warming every part of her. Unlike with aža, there was no delay; her senses bloomed open like a flower, and Ren saw all the hidden connections of the world.

A great, intricate tapestry, weaving all her people together. Strong ropes from the ziemetse to the members of their clans; delicate threads from person to person, binding sister to brother, lover to lover, friend to friend. More threads spinning outward, through the whole fabric of Nadežra, of Vraszan, of the world. The sheer beauty of it brought tears to Ren’s eyes. None of us are separate. None of us are alone.

Seven guards ringed the wellspring as she and the ziemetse stepped back to let the masked pilgrims approach. But three others would go before the rest of the line: the three Ižranyi, who had reluctantly agreed to accept that honor.

As Grey coaxed them forward, Ren turned from the crowd. The insight flooding her knew what she would find even before she saw it.

Instead of the light-beaded choker of Floodwatch Bridge to the south, she faced a down-soft blanket of fog. The pinks and golds of sunset were rapidly giving way to the deeper blues and violets of night, chased silver by the rising moons. And a straight-backed figure sat on the edge of the stage, his booted feet dangling over mist that looked solid, but was no more of this world than he.

Mirscellis. Gabrius. Father. All true names, but she wasn’t sure which one to use. The Volavka she was coming to know; he remained all but a stranger to her.

“I hoped you might be here,” Ren said, drawing off her mask and perching next to him.

His smile, like his eyes, was familiar. She’d seen it in a mirror often enough to know it. Ren had always thought of herself as looking like her mother, and she wasn’t wrong; the resemblance was strong enough for Tsvetsa to have recognized her on sight. But some details came from her father.

“As though I would miss it,” he said, shifting to face her, one boot braced on the stage, the other still hanging over the mist. “I’m relieved to find you safe. And that boy you were worried about? Did you make it in time?”

So much had happened since she last saw him, it took her a moment to recall what crisis had interrupted their meeting. “Iascat. Yes. He helped broker peace for this city.”

“I thought the arrangements looked different this year.” He glanced at her sash belt, worked through with dreamweaver feathers, then over his shoulder at the line wending its way through the amphitheatre. The pilgrims looked stately, distance masking their excitement. “I think you have other duties than entertaining me.”

“Yes.” She was meant to draw a card for any pilgrim who drank from the wellspring. They were waiting for her. Ren took a dragging step away. She’d hoped to see Gabrius, but now that she had, she couldn’t say what she wanted. “Perhaps we can speak later. Before dawn.”

“Or after. I suspect you’ll always be able to find me with aža. But there’s something I’d like that only tonight allows.” He opened his arms, lowering them when she didn’t move. “Ah. You might not want a father… but perhaps at least a friend?”

She hadn’t even realized what invitation he was offering. Hesitantly, Ren stepped forward and let him hug her.

This is what I should have had. A father to take her in his arms: warmth and affection when Ivrina was alive, shelter when she was gone. But the strange circumstances of her life had made that impossible.

Here, now, she had this. And Ren’s own arms came up to hug her father back.

“Go,” he said, tears thickening his voice as he released her. “My daughter.”

The Great Amphitheatre, Old Island: Fellun 5

Vargo prowled the lowest tier of the amphitheatre, close enough to the milling grounds to make out faces, but elevated enough to see over the crowd. For once he wished it weren’t such a firm Nadežran tradition to wear masks at festivals. How was he supposed to recognize Tanaquis?

Look for the woman missing a hand.

He shuddered, curling his own hand tight. The sad truth was that looking at arms would only narrow the field, not catch her out. The decision to shift access to the Great Dream from expensive tickets to a cheap lottery had opened the event to many who wouldn’t have been able to afford it before… including the sorts of Nadežrans on whom the Cinquerat’s notion of justice fell most heavily.

Still, the people they’d stationed everywhere knew to look for that. Tess, Pavlin, and a contingent hired by House Traementis were in Whitesail, in case Tanaquis returned to her house. The Cut Ears were loitering near the base of the path up the Point; Iascat’s guards, managing the line outside the amphitheatre, were requiring everyone to lift their masks before they entered. This afternoon they’d conducted a thorough search of the chambers below the amphitheatre, blocking all of them off. Unless Tanaquis had figured out a numinat that could let her fly, they should see her coming.

Vargo lifted his own spiderweb, crystal-dewed mask long enough to wipe his face dry. No sign of her yet, he thought at Alsius—and by proxy at Ren, though he wasn’t sure if she heard. She sat at the back of the stage, outside the labyrinth’s path, but he could barely see her past the crowd waiting to have a card drawn by the infamous szorsa. Anything on your end?

::None of the warning flares have gone up. I wonder if I should have gone with Varuni and the Fog Spiders to the temple. If Tanaquis went there after all, they have no way to signal us. I could—:: He cut off abruptly.

Alsius? Alsius! Vargo elbowed his way past a family of delta cuffs come to watch the spectacle even if they couldn’t drink. When it looked like one might take his rush as an opportunity for belligerence, Vargo let an inch of steel slide free of his new sword cane. “Don’t give me a reason,” he growled.

Face crumbling into pale chalk, the man scrambled out of Vargo’s way.

What’s happened, old man? Where is she?

::Sorry, sorry! It’s not Tanaquis. Gabrius is here. I’m explaining the situation. Keep looking.::

The wash of panic drained away, leaving behind irritation. How was it Alsius could talk privately to Mirscellis? Squelching the reaction that tried to rise, Vargo made another pass through the stands. And another. Every thought he sent to Alsius was brushed aside with a dismissive ::Nothing yet.::

The moons were high, Vargo’s feet aching and his nerves as frayed as a retired fist’s charm, when he gave in to frustration. We missed something, I know it, he said to Alsius. Maybe I should check the temple, if you’re too occupied. Tanaquis might be putting the finishing touches on a numinat there.

He wished the scar he shared with Grey gave them a way to communicate, but his brother was nearly as busy as Ren: Half the people in the amphitheatre, including some who weren’t in line for the wellspring, were trying to mob the Ižranyi. Vargo pitied the three who’d agreed to show up. Now that the initial confusion had worn off, they were a miracle and a sideshow, all in one. The only question was whether the gawkers who thought they were the divine personified on earth would outnumber the doubters who questioned the story they’d been fed. He hoped nobody’s true dream tonight showed them the part about the zlyzen.

::Vargo, I— No, never mind. Now isn’t the time; I don’t want to distract you.::

Alsius’s sober tone brought Vargo up short. What do you mean?

::My conversation with Gabrius. You and I must talk later. Before the night ends.::

Meaning before the Great Dream ended. Shifting his gaze from the grounds, Vargo searched the stands. Alsius had perched on the top wall so he could watch both sides. The spider was too small to see, but Mirscellis stood on the rim like a misplaced statue. Spit it out. Otherwise I’ll be more distracted, wondering.

After a pause as long as the Dežera, Alsius said quietly, ::My boy… I’m not needed here anymore. My revenge is done; the medallions have been destroyed. You have people now. Ren, and Grey, and that Novrus boy, and your knots, and—and I’m tired of being a spider. Of having only two people I can speak to. Of not having hands.::

Heat flashed through Vargo, leaving a chill colder than winter in its wake. He steadied himself against the barrier to the next tier. “You want to leave me?”

Oblivious to Vargo’s spoken whisper, Alsius continued laying out his reasons. ::I’m in no rush to return to the Lumen, but ever since I met Gabrius—since our bond was damaged—since I got to be myself again in Fiavla, I’ve wondered if there might be another option. And Gabrius thinks it’s possible. To move on without any harm to you. But it would have to be done tonight, before the wellspring fades back into the dream.::

You’re just bringing this up now? Vargo turned his glare on the wellspring, as though its shimmering radiance were to blame for the tightness in his chest, the tremor shaking him loose from his moorings. Don’t you think we should make certain there still is a wellspring in the morning before we—

His nails scraped stone as he clutched the barrier, leaning over it as though a handspan closer could change what he’d just spotted: a shift in the line shuffling toward the wellspring. People who’d won a precious chance at the sacred waters, shifting aside without complaint for a minnow-thin form crossing the path, clothed and masked in unrelieved black.

They’d underestimated her.

Yes, they had guards stationed everywhere, with descriptions and accurate sketches and strict orders not to let Tanaquis anywhere near the wellspring. But she held the unleashed power of A’ash. It would tell her where to go, the exact moment to move, to get what she wanted without interference. It would help her shift people out of her way, leaning on their desires to pause or step forward or turn to speak with a friend.

For all Vargo knew, it had just leaned on him. Making him argue with Alsius when he most needed to stay alert.

And now Tanaquis had a clear path to the wellspring.

With voice and with mind, Vargo yelled, “Ren!”

The Great Amphitheatre, Old Island: Fellun 5

True dreams. That was what the wellspring granted—and Ren, conceived on the Great Dream, born to a szorsa mother and a father whose spirit had walked in dreams for two hundred years, was drowning in them.

Card after card she drew for the pilgrims, and each one carried a whole tale. Dawn and Dusk: This woman would have great fortune on her next trade journey, but only if she left soon. The Face of Seeds: Far to the south, that man’s daughter was being born this very night. Grief for a lost lover, guilt over an unconfessed theft, a feud that could be resolved with an apology to the right person. Pattern was the connections between things; now Ren saw everything, the way those threads could be plucked and tied and released.

She wanted a moment to herself. A moment to breathe and absorb the torrent of knowledge, the way everything she looked at evoked more. A moment to stop and think, to apply these insights to the problem of her cousin, because buried in all the rest of it were things she needed to know. But she was like the Ižranyi, overrun by everyone who wanted a moment of her time, a little of her reflected blessing. The crowd around that trio was growing thicker, Grey calling out in futility for a little patience and peace.

Labyrinth’s Heart. The card of stillness, of patience. The card that had, in Fiavla, warned her that by helping the zlyzen, they might put the wellspring in danger.

The crowd. Shoving forward, their voices increasingly shrill, until three of the guards ringing the wellspring stepped away to intervene before the press could break into chaos. Because all those people wanted nothing more than to speak with the Ižranyi, to touch them, to verify the miracle for themselves.

They wanted.

::Ren!::

Vargo’s shout plucked a thread. It vibrated like the note of a harp, off-key, tuned too sharp—a thread woven of gold and silver and prismatium and lead.

Ren reached for it, too late and targeting the wrong thing. The crowd was the distraction, drawing the guards away. Making an opening for the black-clad figure of Tanaquis.

Who stood poised on the edge of the wellspring—

—and then, smooth as an otter, dove in.

The world changed.

On the Night of Hells, its fabric had shredded out from underneath Ren, dumping her into Ažerais’s Dream. Now it pulsed like the skin of a drum. The crowd surged around her, almost like a dance.

A dance with the power to reach into the dream.

“Mama?” Ren whispered, watching Ivrina’s shadow flicker and take form in the moonlight. Not lost to the Lumen. She was there, just out of reach. But Ren knew how to bring her forth.

As she’d brought the zlyzen forth. As she’d brought Kolya.

She couldn’t make the body Alsius wanted. He wasn’t her ancestor. But Ivrina was.

“I can fly!” proclaimed the eagle-masked man who’d been waiting for a card. Laughing with joy, he ran to the back of the stage, to the edge of the Point dropping off into a cloudy sea, and leapt with arms flung wide.

Ren let him go. Her feet knew the dance, stamping it out to the pulsating shouts of the crowd. Grey had taught her the steps. She didn’t need anyone to dance it with, not even the Volavka. She was touched by Ažerais. She was enough, all on her own.

Mama. I’m coming. You will live again.

“Fight me!” a man shouted, brandishing his fists. “I’m the strongest in Vraszan—the strongest in the world! Against any comer, I will prove my might!”

Fool, Grey thought. But he was used to fools. As a hawk he’d broken up countless pointless fights; as the Rook he’d taken down plenty who thought themselves his match. He had nothing to prove.

But he had people to save.

“I’m Ižranyi, see?” A woman in a mask of camellia blooms waved her koszenie at the cringing Olena. “In my heart I’ve always known it! My father said my grandmother hundreds of years ago was Ižranyi—I’m one of you!”

“Take me with you!” a man cried, pushing past her. “Among the children of Ažerais, you are the most blessed! Everything wrong in my life, you can make right!”

They shoved forward, forgetting even the wellspring, while the Ižranyi shrank back farther and farther. Behind them someone knocked a Liganti man to the ground, roaring that Nadežra would be pure once more… but Grey knew where his duty lay. He’d been Ižranyi. He’d been a zlyzen. He’d helped bring them back, and now they looked to him as a leader.

I can protect them. I can save them.

We will not be lost again!

The challenge wasn’t in finding chalk, or a chop for the focus. Vargo had everything he needed in his inscriptor’s satchel. The problem lay in finding a large enough space safe from people running through it.

He’d had to reposition and restart his numinat twice thanks to some asshole under the delusion that he was the greatest actor of all time. Vargo had kicked the man to the base of the stage, and now the numinat was taking shape by the back wall, not far from the shrieking crowd mobbing the Ižranyi. The noise didn’t bother him, so long as nobody stepped on his work.

“I have my compass, my edge, my chalk, myself,” he chanted over and over as he freehanded the most important numinat of his life. Alsius didn’t want to leave; Alsius only wanted a body. A normal existence. A reason to stay in Nadežra, at Vargo’s side. Ren couldn’t give that to him—but Vargo could, if he just made his brain shut up for once in his life and let instinct guide his chalk.

It was the easiest inscription he’d ever done. He moved like the old man had moved, that night so many years ago in a darkened study, trading one life for another.

Vargo had been frightened then, and reluctant. Unwilling to surrender what he had.

He gave it happily now.

Ren could work miracles. She’d done it before. But she danced, wild and fast, and still Ivrina wasn’t there. It wasn’t enough.

Because I must be more than just myself. The way she’d felt that night in the fall, when she and Grey had investigated the prismatium workshop. Only it hadn’t been them; it was the Black Rose and the Rook.

The Black Rose, born of nothing more than a dream. Why else would Ažerais have given that to Ren, if not for her to weave another, more precious dream into reality?

The lace mask was in her pocket. Ren drew it out, drew it down over her face—

And everything solidified with a jolt.

Light whirled out of the wellspring in a dizzying storm. Not the poisoned sickness of last year’s ash-tainted numinat; this was different. The true dreams of the wellspring had been twisted into something else, blazing outward through the city.

Delusions. The belief that anything was possible—if you wanted it badly enough.

Tanaquis!

There was no sign of Ren’s cousin. Only the wellspring, pulsing with an unholy blend of A’ash and Ažerais.

But sheltered by the mask of the Black Rose, Ren’s mind was clear. It wasn’t too late to stop this. Whatever Tanaquis was doing, she hadn’t finished it yet.

And that meant Ren could still stop her.

The crowd battered at Grey, straining to get at the Ižranyi huddling behind him. He didn’t want to hurt anyone—but did he have another choice?

His heel caught on something, and he nearly fell. Mevieny’s cane, the szorsa herself nowhere to be found. Grey snatched it up; with his sheathed sword in his other hand, he used them as bars to shove people back. To the Ižranyi he yelled, “Gooth thee to the bak! Ih kepe the gate!”

It opened a big enough gap for them to flee. A gap through which Grey could see the Black Rose of Ažerais bloom into being, black leather petals and silver bladed thorns and red lips that were his to kiss.

Lust seized his gut and twisted tight, before easing into warmth. He didn’t need to chase her. They were already each other’s.

But the Rose ought to have her Rook.

Grey shoved through the crowd, breaking through into open air. He dropped the cane so he could pull out the hood—and nearly stumbled over some fool crouched in his path.

A fool he’d had to save before. A fool he had to save again. Vargo, kneeling in the center of a numinat… and slicing just above the scar of their brotherhood to ink a focus.

He’s imbuing it. The man’s rapt attention, not acknowledging Grey tripping over him, made that obvious. Whatever Vargo was doing, he was about to give his own life to make it happen.

The Rook could save him. As he’d saved countless others before.

Unfolding the soft black wool, its edge intricately stitched with numinatria, Grey dropped the hood over Vargo’s head.

Vargo fell on his ass as something enveloped his mind and chased away the fog of delusion.

Scowling at a world brighter than daylight, at the unrelieved black that had replaced the watered emerald of his coat, he scrambled to his feet. The unwelcome weight of the foreign presence steadied him, like ballast in a narrow-hulled skiff.

::What is that?:: Alsius’s voice was creaky with confusion, and Vargo got the distinct impression that the third presence imposing itself on them was profoundly dubious about sharing a mind with not one but two noblemen.

We’re the Rook, Vargo thought, clamping a hand around his wrist to stop the blood pulsing out of the slice he’d just carved across his inner forearm. An incredulous giggle escaped him; he swallowed the ones jockeying to follow. And Tanaquis jumped into the wellspring. Hold on.

He seized Grey, leaning into the Rook’s strength and instincts to pin the other man against the back wall of the stage. Grey’s shirt ripped open easily enough, but Vargo couldn’t release him to get to his inscriptor’s satchel.

“No compass, no edge, no chalk,” he muttered with grim humor, another voice layering over his own until even he couldn’t recognize it. “Leastways I still got myself.”

In the nightmare of Fiavla, he’d used Uniat and the sigil for Celnis to call Grey back to himself. Without ink and brush, Vargo made do with what he had: the seeping cut on his wrist. Yanking apart the Rook’s sleeve and glove, he dug a finger into the gash and carefully wrote out the sigil, then drew a simple circle around it, for the self-awareness of Uniat.

That protection wouldn’t last for long. But maybe it was good that it wouldn’t, because Vargo was pretty sure he’d just imbued it.

Grey’s voice came, unsteady but clear. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be my successor.”

“Definitely not,” Vargo said, his heartfelt sentiment echoed by the spirit wrapped around him. “But thanks for snapping me out of it.” The numinat he’d been inscribing… it would never have created a body. That wasn’t what numinatria was for. But for a moment, he’d believed it.

Believed it enough to die for it.

Because the wellspring was spitting out madness like a viper. The entire amphitheatre was in chaos; for all Vargo knew, the entire city was. What was Tanaquis trying to do?

A figure all in black was silhouetted against the coruscating light. Not Tanaquis this time: Vargo would know Ren anywhere, no matter what guise she wore.

“Come on,” he growled, and dragged Grey off the wall.

Ren stood balanced at the edge of the wellspring.

She’d always known it was more than a mere pool of water. It was the greatest blessing of the Vraszenian people; it was the holiest site of Ažerais; it was the source of pattern’s power. Drinking from it gave true dreams, an insight into all the connections that bound the world together.

It was a conduit. The means by which Ažerais’s power entered the world.

And if it could channel that… it could channel the power of A’ash instead. Unleashing the Primordial of desire, not just in a brief cataclysm, but in an ongoing flood.

Ren couldn’t see any shadow that might be Tanaquis in the shimmering, brilliant light. To find her cousin—to stop her, before it was too late—Ren would have to follow.

As she swayed toward the pulsing waters, someone caught her wrist.

“Thought you weren’t much of a swimmer,” the Rook said.

Even as he spoke, Grey came up on her other side and took her hand more gently. “Still you think, Szeren, that you must do things alone. You know better now.”

The Rook on one side; Grey on the other, with a numinat on his chest that looked like it had been fingerpainted in blood. It wasn’t Ryvček in the hood. “Vargo?”

“Explanations later,” Grey said with a trace of humor. “Saving Nadežra now.”

“We making an annual event of this?” the Rook muttered. Vargo: Even true dreams couldn’t wrap Ren’s mind around that.

There was no time to argue. Not if she wanted to stop Tanaquis. Ren swallowed, whispering, “I know not what we’ll find inside. I know not if we’ll come out again.”

The Rook shrugged Vargo’s shrug. “En’t letting you go alone.” And Grey, lifting her hand, kissed her fingers.

Together, the three of them leapt into light.

Ažerais—

Lady—

Goddess of my people—

—I know what you are.

Ren floated in a place without ground, enveloped by waters that were not water. What flowed past her in dizzying, twisted streams was Ažerais’s power, laced with the overwhelming desires of A’ash… and with something else Ren recognized.

The force she’d sensed that night in the prismatium workshop, standing in the Praeteri numinat that made her forget she was anything other than the Black Rose. A numinat that called on the Primordial of delusion.

That called on Ažerais.

They were the same. Not Mask and Face, but Primordial and goddess. One the relentless, elemental, destructive force that would overtake and annihilate everything if given the chance; the other transmuted, like steel to prismatium, into a power humans could draw on safely. Through pattern, through aža, through the wellspring. Not delusion, but intuition. Seeing connections where they truly lay, rather than imagining them where they lay not.

Perhaps this was what the ancients had reached for when they made artifacts like the medallions. But those were a failure. The Wellspring of Ažerais was success.

A success the raw hunger of A’ash threatened to destroy. It was unraveling the conduit, releasing the unfiltered, delusional energy of Ažerais’s Primordial self. They had to stop this, had to find Tanaquis, and Ren knew where to look—or perhaps she made it true. Here, perhaps, there was no difference.

Labyrinth’s Heart. The card of stillness, the eye at the center of the storm. The path to the source from which Ažerais came.

A purifying path, seven layers deep. It was a serene current, tracing loops of intuition through the turbulence of delusion and desire. Ren flowed along it, pulling the others after her, praying this would be enough to protect them. Vargo had the Rook, but he wasn’t its true bearer. Grey was, but he didn’t have the hood. Then again, did that matter? Like her lace-patterned mask, the hood was merely a vessel to hold the connection.

She wanted to stop and explore that idea, the relationship between the nodes where pattern’s threads crossed and the physical manifestations that represented them. Understanding was there, just out of reach. If she gave it a moment—

The current swept her forward, into the labyrinth’s heart. Where Tanaquis stood, seeking the answers to all those questions and more.

She was a sucking vortex of chaos, eating away at the pocket of stillness. From head to foot she was clothed in black, Ninat’s color, but the collar of her shirt was pulled aside to expose the numinat burned over her heart. Power rose from it like clouds of smoke, like a snake’s coils. It concentrated in a mass where her right hand had been, gloving her arm like sleek eelskin—and somehow that writhing, Primordial mass held a knife.

Vargo’s experience recognized her intent faster than Ren’s Ažerais-given insight. “Don’t let her cut the lines!”

And the Rook answered.

From behind Tanaquis he came, defying the strictures of distance and direction. His gloved hand closed around the smoke-like shape of her wrist; the tip of her knife gouged a line across her chest as he wrenched her arm away, but the bloody track didn’t touch the numinat. Razor filaments of Primordial chaos struck out, shattering like ice against the Rook’s coat. He’d been made to stand against Kaius Rex, against the power of the medallions. A’ash could not harm him.

Vargo stood at Ren’s side, no longer hooded. Grey… Grey held Tanaquis pinned. Here, it was the connections that mattered, not the objects themselves. Grey was the Rook. He’d made himself so.

Though he’d stopped Tanaquis from destroying her numinat, the stillness continued to shred and shrink. She wailed like an inhuman thing. “Let me go! It isn’t enough—I see what Ažerais is—but I have to see what lies beyond! Imbuing, pattern, numinatria, there’s something that unifies them all, something that holds all those pieces in the palm of its hand, something—”

“Something Primordial,” the Rook growled, tightening his grip.

Even now, even here, Tanaquis brightened. “Yes! Unleashing it in the temple would have created a second Fiavla. I didn’t want that to happen. But now, with this conduit, I can bring A’ash fully into the world. We’ll see things no one has seen since the dawn of time!”

Vargo spat a curse. “And when did you get that idea—before or after you drew the power of a Primordial into yourself? You’re smarter than that, Tanaquis. You know what A’ash wants—what any Primordial wants. To pour unfettered through the world. It’s using your desires to serve its own ends.”

“And you’ll destroy the conduit,” Ren said, desperately. “Tanaquis, look around you; already it unravels this place. A’ash will come through, but not safely. Not as Ažerais does.”

And they would lose Ažerais in the process. All that remained would be the Primordial of delusion. No more pattern, no more Great Dream. An end to everything that defined the Vraszenian people.

Tanaquis attempted to twist free, but no amount of desire to escape could break the Rook’s hold. Half to her, half to the others, he said, “Tell me how we stop this.”

Around them, the stillness heaved, trying to tear apart. “We pull her out,” Ren said, gesturing at the path behind her.

“It won’t solve the problem,” Vargo said. “She’s still got A’ash in her.”

“People outside are going mad,” Ren snapped. “Even dying. If we pull her out, time at least we will gain.”

“Time isn’t what we need.” Vargo’s voice didn’t carry the hard edge Ren expected. In his gaze, she saw compassion. But also resolution.

And she knew what he would say.

“We cannot kill her,” Ren breathed.

The arm the Rook held across Tanaquis’s chest shifted toward her throat. “Would that work? If she dies with that numinat intact, this ends?”

Vargo’s gaze flicked to the hooded figure. “Yes. Like we could have done with the medallions. If her life ends, her soul will take the power with her. Out of this world. No second Fiavla.”

“We cannot,” Ren repeated. To the Rook and to Grey—because unlike that time in the temple, there was no longer a conflict between the two. “You wouldn’t before, when it was me.” But he loved her. He didn’t love Tanaquis.

Regret shadowed his voice without softening it. “There were other options then, and no immediate danger if we didn’t act.” His hood jerked to the chaos closing in around them. “We don’t have time now to find the perfect solution.”

He was right—and she still couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t stand there and let her cousin die.

“It’s all right.” Tanaquis sagged in the Rook’s arms. “I was willing to die before, to destroy the medallions. Before A’ash showed me that more was possible. But this way… this way, at least my soul will get to go beyond. Past the limitations of the Lumen.”

To dwell forever with a Primordial.

Ren couldn’t let that happen.

“Tanaquis.” Ren ventured a step forward, just out of reach of the swirling chaos of A’ash. “Tanaquis, you can fix this. All you must do is let go.” Like she hadn’t before, with the medallions. Like the Rook had forced on her, against her will. “Right now, you can see how to get anything you want. Is this truly what you desire? If you unleash A’ash here, the wellspring you will destroy, and pattern with it. Think you that you understand everything now? Ažerais is only the beginning. There is so much more. You can protect it; you can end this safely, simply by wanting to. And you can live.”

“Ninat is the gateway.” Tanaquis’s lips were grey ash, her whisper barely stirring the embers of her usual bright-eyed passion. “We reach understanding through death.”

“Perfect understanding isn’t ever achieved,” Vargo said. His words sounded very much like Alsius, though Ren couldn’t hear the older man’s voice. “The journey through the Lumen is a cycle. If A’ash uses your desires to lure you off that path, you’re walking away from everything you’ve dedicated yourself to. Away from the world itself, and all that remains to know.”

It wasn’t enough. They were fighting Tanaquis on her own ground, on the logic and symbolism of numinatria. But they stood in the very source of pattern—and what was pattern but the connections between things? Not just glimpsing their existence, but the creation and severance of those bonds. Ren had done that again and again over the last year, her understanding and control growing with every trial she faced.

That was the tool best fitted to her hand.

The thread from Ren to Tanaquis was there: Tricat’s warm brown, laced with the faint iridescence of Sebat, the inscriptor’s numen. But it was fraying, thinning down to the last, fragile strands.

She wouldn’t force it to strengthen. Not against her cousin’s will. Instead, Ren let spill the tears she’d been holding back. “Please, Tanaquis. You’re the first Liganti I’ve known to actually care about pattern. To look at what my people have, to look at what I do, and see its value.”

“But it annoys you every time I try to understand, because I don’t understand already. You don’t think I can.” The thread frayed further, strands snapping one, two, three.

All the times Tanaquis’s high-handed explanations had grated on Ren’s heart. All the times she’d tried to make pattern fit into numinatrian clothing. The memories threatened to choke Ren silent. She forced herself past them. “I was wrong. Because of our conversations, I’ve come to understand more than I ever did before. You challenged me to look deeper. Leave me not to ask these questions by myself, when we can learn so much more together. We have learned so much together. Were you truly more content when it was you alone?”

The smile on Tanaquis’s face was bitter and sad. “I’m still alone. I always have been.”

Even in House Traementis. Even working for Iridet. She’d said it herself, when Ren patterned her: Why would she need help? Not because she didn’t, but because she’d learned at a young age that no one would give it to her. If she wanted answers, she had to find them. Others would only get angry at her incessant questions. Or they’d grow bored or impatient, interrupting her so they could move along to what they considered important.

As Ren herself had done, more than once. All of them had.

She drew off the Black Rose’s mask. In her other hand, a card took shape: The Mask of Unraveling. The card of solitude… of self-reliance… of loneliness.

Every Face had its Mask; every Mask had its Face. Just as the numina could be turned against their sunwise or earthwise spins, double meanings layered into one.

Tanaquis didn’t merely want to understand. She wanted to be understood.

Ren turned the card around. On the reverse side, instead of the familiar triangle of spindle and shuttle and shears, it showed The Face of Weaving. “Tanaquis… if you leave. If you die. Then I’ll lose my chance to know you. To truly become your cousin and your friend.”

The broken strands of their fraying thread stretched, yearning toward each other. Breath hitching, Tanaquis said, “You won’t like it. The things I’ve done…”

Chetoglio’s death. Her involvement with Mettore Indestor. They’d already guessed at some of it; Ren knew there would be more.

The card vanished, leaving only her open, reaching hand. “We’ve all done things we should not have. Things we regret. I want the story behind them, before I decide. Will you let me have that chance?”

Tanaquis stared at Ren’s hand like it was a foreign thing, beyond understanding. “That part of me burned away.”

In spirit as well as in flesh. “But Ninat’s flames lead to new birth. Have you not told me that, so many times? If you go beyond, Tanaquis, you will never return. I will lose you forever. Please… let this be a beginning, not only an end.”

The Rook loosened his grip at Ren’s nod, though he tensed again as Tanaquis reached out with the chaos she’d wrapped around herself to replace her missing hand. She stopped a breath away from touching Ren’s fingers. “I don’t see how I can… Oh.” A spark flared amid the ashes, a tiny smile touching her lips. “Like invoking eisar. I can imbue it.”

She opened her hand, fingers unfurling like a blossoming flower. The chaos giving it shape unraveled and reformed, becoming a perfect cabochon focus, etched with the sigil of A’ash.

Then she threw it. Out of the sanctuary of the labyrinth’s heart, past the boundary where delusion transformed into intuition. Delusion was a thing outside reality… and that was where the Primordials dwelt.

Ren drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then stretched her arms wide. From the wellspring she had drunk, before A’ash began tearing it apart; she knew how this place should feel.

She expected a tremendous outpouring of effort, like when she’d cursed Laročja. Instead it was as easy as releasing a held breath. All around them, the damaged fabric of the conduit wove itself back together, and the riverine flow eased into a steady, unpolluted stream.

The Rook released Tanaquis. In his place, Ren wrapped her arm around her cousin’s shoulders. And Vargo, sagging in relief, said, “Wellspring en’t going to stay open forever. Let’s go home.”

27

Pearl’s Promise

The Labyrinth of Nadežra, Old Island: Fellun 5

At the last moment before they stepped through into the world, as Ren put the mask of the Black Rose back on, Grey dragged the Rook’s hood off his head. How many people had been lucid enough to pay attention, he didn’t know… but anyone who’d seen him going into the wellspring needed to see him come out again.

He had enough wit left to think that far ahead. Not enough to realize he should have put it back on Vargo—not until it was too late.

Might be for the best, he thought in resigned amusement. I don’t think either of them enjoyed the exp—

And then his thought stopped dead, because they weren’t in the amphitheatre.

Atop the Point, yes, with the sea of fog spreading below them. The night they left, yes, because the twin moons were nearing the horizon, both still shining full. But where the Great Amphitheatre had been—the stage, the stone-tiered seats, the entire massive edifice Kaius Rex used to try to destroy the wellspring…

Graceful columns rose all around, each side bearing a finely carved Face or Mask. Within their embrace, a path wound across the mossy ground, its line traced by wooden markers sculpted with the clan animals.

The Labyrinth of Nadežra. Destroyed two hundred years ago—but Vraszenians had never stopped mourning its loss. On this night, at the end of a Grand Cycle and the beginning of a new one, with the return of the city to Vraszenian rule, the return of the Ižranyi fresh in everyone’s mind, and the power of desire and dreams spilling through the city… they’d wanted it back.

And it had come.

The crowd atop the Point had thinned—or perhaps it only seemed that way, without the walls of the Tyrant penning them in. But Grey wasn’t the only person stunned into silence. Along the great colonnade, reverent petitioners gaped up at the open sky, or knelt and pressed their brows to the mist-damp paving stones. One old man with tears funneling down his care-wrinkled cheeks lifted a trembling hand to place an offering in the mouth of An Mišennir. The Face of Weaving; the deity of community.

Grey turned to Ren, but he couldn’t bring himself to break the reverent hush that hung like cool mist in the labyrinth. Her lips were parted in awe, the iridescing light of the wellspring casting shades of sapphire, emerald, and amethyst across the lace rose petals engraving her cheeks.

“Lady Rose!” someone cried, before he could warn or hide her. That call was the first pebble in an avalanche of cries, of people jostling closer and calling for answers, for explanations, for her blessing.

Despite everything she’d been through, Ren snapped visibly into persona. “Is this how we comport ourselves when offered the grace of Ažerais?” she called—not in the Black Rose’s voice, but in her own accented Liganti. “Is this proper behavior for this place? This night?”

The growing uproar quieted, and she nodded. “Give your thanks to Ažerais for this miracle. See to those harmed during its birthing. And let me speak with the ziemetse.”

Her words carried enough authority to make people fall back. The clan elders were in one of the box seats on the right side of the stage, some looking disoriented, others embarrassed by whatever they’d done. Grey was relieved to see the three Ižranyi among them. Poor souls. First one Primordial, now another. It might have been better had we let them stay away.

Before he could go to them, there was one matter more pressing. In a low voice, Grey said to Ren, “What do we do with Tanaquis?”

Her cousin was leaning against Ren as if almost too tired to stand. But however wounded and exhausted she might be… Tanaquis still had things to answer for. To the ziemetse, to the Cinquerat, to the people of Nadežra.

Ren’s arm tightened around Tanaquis’s shoulders. “She comes with us. Whatever happens next, it will be after we’ve all had a chance to think. Not in the heat of the moment.”

Nodding, Grey followed her to the gathered clan elders.

The Labyrinth of Nadežra, Old Island: Fellun 5

Vargo dragged behind the others until he could sidestep into the shadow of a column. They didn’t need an outsider mucking around in Vraszenian issues, and now that disaster had been averted, he had a conversation to finish.

Ren would be an unwilling eavesdropper, but he couldn’t wait. Alsius?

::Thank the Lumen you’re safe! It was like before, when you went into the realm of mind; I could sense you, but not hear you. What happened?::

A small body landed on Vargo’s head and scuttled down to his shoulder. That tiny weight was a heavy stone on Vargo’s chest. Ren saved the world with talking.

::I suppose if anyone could…::

Alsius’s pause invited a laugh. Vargo couldn’t dredge one up.

::What I mentioned—before everything devolved into madness—::

“You should go,” Vargo said out loud. The words sliced his throat worse than the glass bottle that left him scarred, but what he had to say was for Alsius alone. “I don’t want you to. I’ll never want you to. But this is about what you need, not what I want.”

Ren’s plea to let go had been aimed at Tanaquis. Vargo was only caught in the blast.

But it didn’t make what she’d said any less true.

After a moment, Alsius bumped gently against Vargo’s neck. ::My boy. I wish more than you can know that I had arms right now to put around you. I know this isn’t easy; we’ve been through too much for it to be easy. But I’ve taught you…::

A ragged laugh pulled free. “Everything you know?”

::Hardly! Enough for you to find me, though, in the realm of mind. We’ll still be connected—tonight proves that—though it won’t be the same.::

Never the same. Not the constant stream of exasperated, affectionate chiding in his mind. Not a gaudy little weight beneath his collar, faceted eyes peeking out from the shadows. Not there for the best and the worst of everything Vargo went through.

“You’ll have a host of new stories and ideas to pester me with whenever you come back.” Nobody was paying attention to him, but Vargo still ducked his head to hide that he was blotting his cheeks dry with his sleeve. “I’ll try to keep everything we’ve built from crumbling into dust.”

::As though Nadežra could do anything but improve under your hand,:: Alsius said, and somehow the raw pride in that affirmation made the floodwaters rise. Vargo banged his head gently against the column, wet eyes on the cut crystal clarity of the stars. They were set in a sky of black velvet, but he imagined he saw a hint of blue rising at the eastern edge.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Not much time left if you need the wellspring. And we’ll have to get past the guards.”

“I can help with that.”

The soft reply was Ren’s, delivered in her own voice. When Vargo turned, wiping his eyes, he found her no longer masked as the Black Rose, with Grey at her side. By the compassion on her face, she’d heard enough to understand.

Spiders couldn’t cry, especially not in their minds, but Alsius still managed to sound clogged as he said, ::Oh, good. I was hoping to make my farewell to you.::

She offered him Alta Renata’s Seterin curtsy, one hand sweeping up to the opposite shoulder. “Altan Alsius, it has been an honor.”

And together they went to the wellspring, once more glowing with serene light, as the last of the pilgrims—those who’d neither had their chance sooner, nor fled during the chaos—drank from its waters. One of the guards was missing, but someone else had taken the man’s place: a figure Vargo recognized from the bust that once stood in his office.

“Altan Gabrius,” Vargo said with a crispness rivaling Renata at her cuffiest. He might let Alsius go, but he didn’t have to like the man taking him away. “Say farewell to your ears. They’re about to be talked off.”

::Here now!:: A fuzzy leg whacked Vargo’s jaw. ::I only speak when I have something worthwhile to say!::

Out of respect for the moment, the twitching at the corners of Mirscellis’s mouth didn’t bloom into a full grin. But a veil of amusement crept over his words as he said, “Which I’m sure is quite often.”

Then he turned to Vargo and bowed. “I hope we’ll come to know one another better over time. From what Alsius has said of you, I suspect we could have many interesting conversations. I’ll try to end them before you throw anything at me.”

A little of the tightness eased in Vargo’s chest. If Alsius had to leave, at least he’d be safe with Ren’s spectral father.

I guess this is goodbye.

::No. What are Vraszenians fond of saying? We will meet again when the road leads me home.::

When the river meets the sea, he thought back, because he couldn’t make the words come. Scooping Peabody from his shoulder, he struggled for any words before finally managing to ask Mirscellis, “So… how does this work? Should I just… fling him in?”

::Don’t you dare!:: Alsius squeaked. ::I knew you were spending too much time with that defenestrating lout.::

Mirscellis said, “If Ren lowers him in, I should be able to separate his spirit from that body.”

The sky was noticeably lighter now. The last push of pilgrims vying for a taste of the waters was starting to crowd too close. Ren hugged Mirscellis tight, and through the fog of sorrow over Vargo’s heart, he realized that she, too, was saying goodbye to her father.

With a hand steadier than it had any right to be, Vargo passed Peabody over to Ren, and stepped back.

Unlike Tanaquis, Mirscellis didn’t dive in. He just stepped forward and dissolved into light. Then Ren knelt and, with a whispered farewell, lowered Peabody toward the water’s glowing surface.

Just… promise me you won’t return to the Lumen without letting me know.

Ren paused just above the lapping waters. Alsius raised Peabody’s forelegs and colorful abdomen in salute. ::I won’t go until you do, my boy.::

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But the promise encompassed more than just the binding of their lives. It was a reminder that, even separated, they walked this cycle together.

At Vargo’s nod, Ren’s hands dipped into the light. And when she removed them, the spider cupped there lay still, the colorful marks on his abdomen bleached away.

Hidden temple, Old Island: Fellun 6

Tess had near worn the hems off her skirt with pacing when noise finally came down the tunnel to the hidden temple. Ignoring Sedge’s caution and Pavlin’s restraining hand, she flung herself at Ren the moment she emerged. Caught between giddy relief and frazzled exasperation, Tess could only squeeze and squeeze harder, breathing in the warm comfort of a sister safely home.

“Mother and Crone, I’m that tempted to sew a sleeveless casing and stitch you up in it for all the Veiled Waters to come,” she whispered into Ren’s cheek.

“Sedate me while you’re at it,” Ren said, with a tired huff of laughter. “Just to be sure.”

Pulling back, Tess worked off the rest of her worry by patting down Ren’s Vraszenian finery like a hen pecking at her chick. “I only arrived a bit ago—took me forever to find a skiffer to bring me up from Whitesail—but Sedge says things got strange for a bit before they settled down. You found Tanaquis in time? Is she…”

The sobering of Ren’s expression didn’t look like grief, and Tess breathed out the last of her tension. “Locked up until we can decide what to do with her. But she backed down before it was too late. She had no desire to hurt anyone.”

Desire or no, she’d certainly managed a fair bit of that. Sitting with Pavlin in the Whitesail townhouse, Tess had been outside the spreading fog of chaos, but fringes of it brushed against them in their rush to the Old Island. She’d gotten off lightly, compared to some others: For a few moments, the urgency to find her brother and sister had unraveled and she’d embraced Pavlin… and the extremely unlikely chance that they could overcome certain physical facts to make a child.

A yearning they’d set aside to discuss later, after the delusion faded and they hurried to make certain it wasn’t a temporary reprieve.

Without dislodging Tess’s limpet-cling, Sedge made his own quick check to confirm Ren had come to no harm. “What about the others?”

“Grey’s gone to see to Alinka and the children. Vargo—”

Ren’s eyes gleamed wet as she drew back from the embrace. “Alsius is gone,” she said softly. “Not dead; with my father he chose to go into the dream. So he can be himself again. Vargo is distracting himself with politics.”

Tess groaned, sinking against Pavlin’s chest and hiding her face in her hands. “With the peace so fragile, this had to happen. Are we facing another riot? Revolution? How bad will it be?” Practicality of the whole business aside, wouldn’t it have been a kind of madness, she and Pavlin bringing a child into a world this unsettled?

Ren drew Tess’s hands down. She’d always been more willing to face troubles than hide from them. “I think not. Enough Vraszenians were there, with enough desire to reclaim what was once ours. The amphitheatre is gone. The labyrinth stands once more in its place, drawn whole from the dream. The ziemetse say it is a miracle from Ažerais. It may be enough to keep the peace intact.”

If the ziemetse believed that, Tess suspected it was only because Ren had convinced them of it. She squeezed her sister’s hands in thanks. “And you? How are you?”

Seven different moods chased each other across Ren’s face. Worry and relief and exhaustion and wonder and more, like even her layered identities weren’t enough to contain everything she felt.

“I am well,” Ren said at last, half smiling as if she couldn’t quite believe the words. “And I would like to sleep for a week.”

Owl’s Fields, Upper Bank: Fellun 9

Ren had never visited Utrinzi Simendis’s house. There was a Simendis Manor closer to the river, but he dwelt in a smaller structure on the eastern outskirts of Nadežra, where he could have the solitude he desired.

Though he’d had an unusual number of houseguests in the last year. First Parma, living in ascetic seclusion to protect herself against Noctat; now Tanaquis, living under house arrest.

“It’s my fault,” he said wearily when he let Ren in, four days after the Great Dream. “When she was young, Tanaquis asked me questions about numinatria beyond Illi, about the Primordials. I thought the stern lecture I delivered would teach her not to dabble in such blasphemies. Instead it taught her she couldn’t trust me with the secret of the medallion her uncle left behind after his suicide. All that time she had Ninat, and I didn’t see it—not even as her family dwindled down to one.”

Not from a curse, but from Ninat’s lethal energy filtering through their register. They weren’t the first, either; a few bells digging through Fulvet’s records showed that House Ciagne had suffered the same fate, until their last survivor, Bonavaito, was adopted into Fienola—and brought that fatal force with him.

Tanaquis hadn’t let that mistake repeat itself. She’d protected the Traementis, placing wards around all the names to hide the fact that what she was containing was her own dangerous association.

One of the many points the Cinquerat was arguing over in their final days of authority, trying to decide what to do with Tanaquis. She’d protected the Traementis; she’d protected the city, absorbing a power that would otherwise have made Nadežra a second Fiavla. She’d also willfully ignored the kidnapping of children for the creation of ash, committed blasphemy and murder, and helped Mettore’s attempt to destroy the Wellspring of Ažerais.

“You’re not to blame,” Ren said heavily. “Or many of us are. We didn’t see the signs.” Because they hadn’t really looked. They’d taken Tanaquis for granted.

Utrinzi escorted Ren to a small study bare of books but full of strange stringed instruments. In a plain surcoat and underdress of moss-green linen, her hair tidy and her brow dry despite the humid warmth that followed Veiled Waters, Tanaquis looked better than she had since long before the Great Dream. Sleepless bruises no longer darkened the skin around her eyes… but those eyes also no longer sparked with the excitement of inquiry.

Without a second hand to steady it, the pot trembled when she poured the tea.

“I’m renouncing my membership in House Traementis,” Tanaquis said, before Ren could speak. “To protect you from any consequences for my actions, but also to save Donaia any conflict she might feel over removing me. It will be several lifetimes before she’s able to burn away Tricat’s influence, and I don’t want her struggling over which aspect is stronger in her, family or vengeance.”

Ren swallowed her surprise. Tanaquis might not always be alert to social nuances, but that didn’t mean she didn’t understand Donaia in her own way. The revelation of Tanaquis’s actions had cut deep into Donaia’s heart—a heart that had taken too many such blows already. That her dear friend had designed the numinat to create ash, thus indirectly leading to Leato’s death… Donaia had recused herself from all the debates over how to address Tanaquis’s crimes, rather than face that impossible struggle.

Instead Ren said, “You realize that will strip you of your legal protections. You’ll be an ordinary commoner.”

“And more likely to be executed. I know.” Tanaquis grimaced. “And I know what you’ll say. I don’t… want to die. Not like my uncle did, in the end.”

“He had Ninat before you.”

There was no humor or pleasure in Tanaquis’s smile. “He thought it was what protected Kaius Rex against death. Which it was, in a way; the Tyrant didn’t want to die, and so the medallions guided him. But Uncle Bonavaito thought it was a good luck charm. When he finally realized it was responsible for the death of his own family, for the Fienola dying off, he killed himself in shame.”

She took a deep breath and straightened. “That was never how Ninat affected me, though. And I didn’t intend to be a murderer, either—though I realize I became one. If the Cinquerat decides death is what I deserve, so be it.”

Ren wanted to take Tanaquis’s good hand, but she knew it wouldn’t be welcome. Wrapping her fingers around the teacup, she said, “Your death would serve no cause but retribution. Which some people want; I won’t pretend otherwise. But we’ve had enough of that in this city. I’m arguing for other solutions—ones that might create some good, in the wake of the bad.” Her advocate’s license had unexpected application, giving her the right to represent House Traementis in the Cinquerat’s debates.

“I only wish they’d decide already.” Tanaquis hugged herself, looking small. Her tea steamed forgotten at her knee. “It’s the not knowing that makes it hard. And the waiting, with nothing to do. I’m not even allowed pen and ink to record what happened.”

The cruelest punishment of all. Forbidding Tanaquis the free use of her mind. A room empty of books, of paper, of pen. She’d lost her hand; she had nothing with which to hurt anyone… but people were still afraid.

And it wasn’t quite true she couldn’t hurt anyone. Utrinzi had left them alone, and Ren doubted he would eavesdrop, but she lowered her voice all the same. “Tanaquis. When we were in the wellspring—what I said about Ažerais—”

“Yes. It makes sense. Explains so much, really. The Primordial of delusion, refined and brought into the world as intuition. As pattern.” Absently, Tanaquis lifted her tea to drink, then winced at the heat.

“Have you told anyone?” Ren asked. Then: “You cannot tell anyone.”

Tanaquis cocked her head, the light of connections being made bringing life back to her eyes. “I remember. You laid The Mask of Mirrors for me. A secret I must keep… I thought it meant the secret I was already keeping.” She grimaced, the same face she’d made when she sipped the tea. “You know, pattern would be taken more seriously by scholars if it bothered to be more specific.”

For once, the deprecation of pattern made Ren smile instead of fume. Tanaquis’s training had started with the clean lines and clear logic of numinatria; that would always be her intellectual home. “I care not if scholars take it seriously. Only that you do.”

The grimace softened. “I’m sorry I almost ruined it. Twice. The first time, Mettore proposed it to me as a puzzle: Could the wellspring be destroyed? I’d never even given it thought before, and once I did…” The teacup clinked back into its saucer, too hard. “Destruction. It was more tempting than I expected. Yet I was so sure I was in control of what I held, that self-awareness could protect me from its influence. Delusion of a different sort—the ordinary kind.”

“I understand,” Ren said. “But in the end, you acted to protect it. Twice.” First when she’d sent Vargo to dismantle the wellspring numinat, and again when she relinquished the power of A’ash.

Ren meant it when she added, “I forgive you.”

Tanaquis didn’t acknowledge the words. “Of course I won’t tell anyone. I presume the others have promised the same. I want to learn more about it, but…”

That brief flare of life faded. But no one will let you, Ren thought. Questions of that sort had already led Tanaquis to the brink of destruction once.

“Whatever the Cinquerat decides, your mind burns too brightly to be smothered.” Ren braved reaching out. Not taking Tanaquis’s hand, but offering hers like she had before. “And I meant what I said that night: I want to understand you, too.”

Tanaquis looked at the outstretched hand, then put her own in it, with the air of someone stepping off a bridge into the river. “I hope you get the chance.”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Fellun 12

One of the many benefits of having a dog was that Donaia could blame her nervous fidgeting on the animal’s misbehavior. Or she could if Meatball weren’t a panting lump thanks to the first hot day of the season, barely raising his head when Ren, Grey, and Vargo were shown into her parlour.

While Colbrin hurried off to fetch Meppe and Idaglio, Giuna fussed with the tea and Donaia gloved her twitching fingers in Meatball’s thick ruff. Once everyone was settled, she cut off Meppe’s attempt at small talk to say, “You’ve brought news.”

News she still wasn’t certain she wanted to hear. Half her heart ached for Tanaquis. One of the only friends Donaia could claim in foul times and fair, who’d never let on that she struggled with her own worries and loneliness.

The other half burned cold with fury. Because if it weren’t for Tanaquis, Leato would be here to gentle her desire for vengeance.

Ren sat close to her. “The Cinquerat passed sentence today. Tanaquis will not be executed.”

Idaglio hugged Meppe, and Donaia let go of Meatball long enough to wipe away a tear. “Thank the Lumen.” Even at her angriest, she hadn’t been able to see anything in Tanaquis’s death but more pain.

Giuna was a warm bolster of support at Donaia’s side. “Then what’s to become of her?”

A tinge of Vigil efficiency crept into Grey’s response, though his accent remained Vraszenian. “Tanaquis’s personal possessions—her house, her library, and so forth—will be confiscated and sold. To House Chetoglio a portion of the money will be paid, in reparation for Stezze’s death.”

It wouldn’t make them whole. Nothing could. Donaia wasn’t surprised when Vargo added, “Utrinzi passed up any share of the money. Tanaquis may have used her medallion to nudge Breccone into killing himself, but the man wasn’t of Simendis anymore. With no Indestor left to claim reparations, and in light of Breccone’s own crimes…” He shrugged.

“To the Ižranyi will the rest of the money be given,” Grey said. “Our elders have agreed they need it the most, since they have no homes or lives to go back to.”

“But that’s just money,” Donaia said. There had to be more. “What of Tanaquis herself?”

Ren let out a slow sigh. “Indentured servitude. For her crimes against the wellspring, the elders have decided she will serve Szorsa Olena in whatever capacity she requires for the next seven years.”

It was unexpected enough to crack some of Donaia’s worry. Indentured servitude had been common after the conquest of Vraszan; any number of Liganti settlers had come to Nadežra on those terms, working off the cost of their passage after their arrival. The practice had largely fallen out of use, though. Which member of the Cinquerat had suggested reviving it? Donaia suspected Utrinzi; it was kinder than execution, and he’d always had a fondness for his disciple.

Servitude to the Ižranyi szorsa… Donaia couldn’t begin to guess what this Szorsa Olena would ask of Tanaquis. But after five hundred years out of the world, the Ižranyi would certainly need people to help them.

The other question eating at her heart wasn’t one she wanted to ask in front of everyone. Thankfully, Vargo stood, the iridescent violet skirts of his coat catching the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “I believe Tanaquis hasn’t been stricken from your register yet. If you’d prefer not to involve others in private matters, I’m willing to make the necessary adjustments.”

That offer, from a man she’d treated with chill civility at the best of times, startled a choked laugh from Donaia. “Thank you, Eret Vargo. I suspect you’re one of the few who can undo the tangled mess she made of it.”

He bowed. “Then if I might make use of your study? Altan Meppe, Altan Idaglio, perhaps you can show me the way.”

At a prod from his husband, Meppe blurted, “Of course!” and scurried ahead of Vargo. Idaglio gently shut the door on his way out.

“And what of you?” Donaia said to Ren before the click of the latch faded. “Now that you’ve found your mother’s kin and your place among your people… what do you wish to do?”

Ren was too alert not to understand what that question meant. And it seemed she’d healed enough inside not to read into that question a blow that wasn’t coming. “I understand there are some legal complexities around claiming membership in both a kureč and a register. But someone must be the first to do it, and once the members of the Setterat are chosen, they can determine how to untangle those threads.”

Donaia, by contrast, had still been afraid. I shouldn’t have been. I know her heart. Yes, for Vraszenians, the only true family was that of blood… but Ren wasn’t only Vraszenian. She stood with one foot on each bank—and if she had her way, that idiom would cease to have meaning. Nadežra would become a strong fabric, not two fragments badly stitched together.

Now you’re thinking in their metaphors. It brought a smile to Donaia’s face as she said, “If your Volavka kin don’t object, then you know I’m glad to keep you. But what of you, Grey?”

He straightened, head tilted in surprise. “Ask you if I wish to become Traementatis?” he asked, accent thickening to a depth she hadn’t heard from him since he was a boy.

“You and Ren are wed, and I won’t have anyone think we insult you by keeping you only as a contract husband.” Her primness softened at a poke from Giuna. “And you have long been like family. Though I don’t know if it matters to you, ratifying it in this manner.”

Leaning forward to catch her hand in his, Grey said, “It matters that you asked.”

The touch felt strange. Neither of them was gloved. His hands were rougher than Leato’s had been, with calluses from more than just a sword. His grip was warm and firm, though, and she squeezed back just as tightly. “But the answer is no?”

“I hope there will be more unions like ours, and that they will have the same chance. But if I were made an altan…”

She felt his shudder through his grip, and laughed a little tearily at his rejection of that notion. “So you’ll rewrite this city around yourselves, to make room for others to live in new ways. I knew you were daring, but the courage that takes is something else entirely.”

Meatball nosed at their hands, wet tongue coming out in an exploratory lick. Grey laughed and let go of Donaia to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “Old waters grow tedious. We must find new currents to sail.”

Donaia watched as he wiped his hand dry and smiled at Ren. The Rook and the Black Rose: What an odd pair of people had wandered into her life.

But she wouldn’t trade them for anyone.

Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Fellun 14

Apart from a chatty spider, Vargo had lived alone since he was a boy. In the early years, “home” was whatever squat he could talk his way into, or scrape together the mills for, or squeeze between the walls of when words and mills were lacking. But after he got himself spirit-bonded to an angry cuff, things changed. One of Alsius’s first demands had been proper shelter at night, and one of the first things he’d done was help Vargo get it.

That came in handy when Vargo developed the habit of talking to himself. Now he wandered around his Eastbridge townhouse, truly alone, and he kept having the impulse to speak.

But there was no one there to hear.

Iascat had extended an open invitation to provide any distraction Vargo needed, but accepted with patient understanding when that invitation was declined for now. Not that Vargo didn’t want sex, or even companionship, but…

“No, you’d rather rattle around in an empty house like a maudlin ass,” he muttered to himself. “You en’t alone, and you know it.” It wasn’t only Iascat’s company he’d turned from. Ren and Grey were just a skiff ride away. The Fog Spiders offered him his office back if he’d reinscribe the cooling and airing numinata in their headquarters. Varuni had promised to return before winter snows closed the passes from Isarn. He could even scratch together a numinat and contact Alsius if the solitude became unbearable, dragging his father away from whatever realm of mind adventures he was having with his numinatrian idol.

Still, the house felt… dead, without that gaudy little lump and that haughty mental voice.

The jangle of the bell was a welcome cacophony. Vargo hurried downstairs in his dressing gown and stocking feet, almost hoping for a new crisis to distract him.

A hope that was answered, after a fashion, in the form of a scrawny girl in a piebald velvet coat that looked like a poor, stained cousin of Vargo’s.

“Mistress Bones. I assume you’ve come with a message?” It was unexpected—usually she sent one of her kids—but maybe it was of a delicate nature.

She at least had the decency to scrape her boots on the landing before clomping into his foyer uninvited. “Naw.” Arkady barely gave him a look as she spoke, instead studying her surroundings like she was planning a break-in. Vargo might need to make his defensive numinata less lethal when he reinforced them, lest he end up with dead nippers on the landing. “It’s more of what you might call a ‘business proposition.’”

Or perhaps he’d remove the numinata entirely. It might be less painful to just let her rob him outright. Praying to the Lumen for the survival of his carpets, Vargo led her up to his study.

“What sort of business proposition?” he asked, leaning on his desk rather than sitting behind it like the sort of cuff who thought the Lumen shone out his ass.

After a circuit of the room—she was checking out his window locks; didn’t even bother hiding it!—Arkady settled before him with feet planted and arms crossed. “Hear you’ve been telling your knots you can get ’em administration rights for Fulvet charters. Making ’em official-like, setting borders and paying them to take care of their turf. I want in.”

Vargo hid his wince. Working out the maps had been a nightmare, and three different knots had already staked out territory in the Shambles. He hadn’t even gotten Quientis to buy into the plan yet, though with Ren backing it, the poor bastard would fold like wet paper. But Vargo nodded as though he hadn’t already promised away Arkady’s patch. “Are you certain your kids could fulfill the administration duties? You’d be expected to—”

“Don’t want the ones you’re passing out to the others. I’m already fulfilling the doodies.” She snorted, as though he needed more than the emphasis to recognize the pun. “Fulvet does the orphanages, right? Figure I’m doing as much as any of those nipper-nabbers, and better’n most. Shouldn’t I get paid for it?”

Fulvet wanted to tear down the current orphanage system and replace it entirely, though whether he would get the chance was a very open question. The plan for the Setterat called for the civil seat to be allocated to a commoner, and Vargo didn’t see Quientis giving up his charter of nobility to keep it.

Which was actually a pity. Though Vargo would never admit it to the man’s face, Scaperto Quientis was a surprisingly decent Fulvet.

Just like Arkady’s point was surprisingly solid. Too bad her age and Lower Bank background worked against her. Even if Vargo could scrape an allowance for the latter, there was no way Quientis or his successor would accept the former.

Unfortunately. Because if anyone could pull off administering such a charter on wits and bravado alone, it was Arkady Bones. Facing her was like looking into a distorted mirror.

Although…

Where once Alsius’s squawks of outrage and dire predictions of failure would have filled Vargo’s head, there was only quiet. His voice felt like a thing separate from him as he said, “Charter administration might be more than I can manage. But would you consider a counteroffer? I don’t have an heir.”

“Eh?” Arkady tilted her head, even whacked her ear a few times. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“As heir to House Vargo, you’d have an allowance, and patronage rights. You could petition for your own charter and pick your own administrator. We might even be able to hire House Traementis’s advocate.”

Rising on her toes, Arkady sniffed his face. “You drunk?”

“I assure you, I’m completely sober. And serious. Don’t you know I have a reputation for assimilating my rivals?” If this one agreed, he wouldn’t be rattling around in silence anymore. And just thinking about Alsius’s reaction when he learned about his new granddaughter made warmth blossom in Vargo’s chest.

She snorted. “Yeah, right. Me, Alta Arkady Vargi or Vargitatis or whatever—”

“Vargonis.” Maybe I should have taken the chance to swap it for something fancier. Or not. He’d done that once already as a kid, bestowing on himself the grandest-sounding name he could think of: Derossi. He didn’t need two stupid names to regret.

Arkady’s expression narrowed into a stink eye of suspicion. With the air of one testing, she said, “That mean I move in here? And Doomclaw. I en’t leaving him behind. And you’ll teach me that number magic? I wanna blow things up like you do.”

Instead of regretting his impulsive offer, Vargo grinned. “I en’t teaching you to blow up nothing till I’m sure it won’t be my ass getting blown.”

Arkady’s cackle was a terrifying thing. She spun in place, making her tattered coat flare, then spat into her hand and held it out. As Vargo spat in his own and gripped her tight, she said, “Guess I can agree to that, old man.”

Old man. Somewhere, he was sure, Alsius was laughing.

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Fellun 19

The sun had long since set, but Alinka’s courtyard glowed with light from lanterns of dyed paper, oil lamps of cut tin filigree, and numinatrian lightstones shielded by glass. The shifting colors vied with the koszenie of the gathered guests and the iridescent dreamweaver feathers braided into their hair or pinned to their collars. Or, in the case of Yvieny, Jagyi, and a few of the younger Volavka children, tucked safely away until the feathers weren’t in danger of being chewed on or pulled apart by curious, sticky fingers.

It was tradition, Olena had told Ren—through Grey, but Ren was getting better at parsing out the archaic language on her own—that every Ižranyi wore such a feather to mark their lineage, even when their koszenie was put away. Ren still felt like she was going to ruin her feather… but her new status meant she had to wear it.

“How can you be her apprentice!” Tsvetsa had exclaimed, when she heard the arrangement Ren had made. “You, conceived on the Great Dream, sired by a spirit in the dream—the Black Rose of Ažerais herself! You are no one’s apprentice!”

That last secret had slipped out in the aftermath of the events at the amphitheatre. Too many people had seen Ren put on the lace mask and transform into the Black Rose for her to pretend it wasn’t true. And they’d seen something else, too: the Black Rose going into the wellspring with Grey and the Rook at her side… and coming out with Grey and Vargo.

Grey had laughed himself to collapse when he realized people now thought Vargo was the Rook. It wasn’t just what happened at the wellspring; rumors had spread about the strange mass of Rooks that flocked to rescue him from Tserdev, and the daring escape from the Old Island. Vargo himself had merely looked resigned. “My heart to protect yours,” he muttered, echoing the words of their brotherhood oath. “En’t the worst thing people have ever called me.”

Touching her feather as she watched the Volavka mill about the courtyard, Ren didn’t at all mind being Olena’s apprentice. The last formal instruction she’d had was from her mother, years ago; as the ordeal at the labyrinth and the choosing of the Ižranyi speaker had shown, there were countless traditions Ren didn’t know. And Olena was the only szorsa accustomed to working with all the clan cards—cards that were now a part of Ren’s deck, including The Living Dream.

A hush fell over the gathering when Grey entered, followed by the Ižranyi. Not just a few representatives, but all of them, skulking and cringing in a manner too reminiscent of the zlyzen for Ren’s comfort. It would be a long time, if not a lifetime, before the horror of Fiavla and the following centuries ceased to weigh them down.

“Poor dears,” Tess whispered, twisting her hands in her skirt as though she wished she could reach out to the skittish Ižranyi. “Strange to think I was ever afraid of them.”

Sedge grunted. He’d actually seen and fought the zlyzen. But all he said was “Maybe we should have done this in the daytime.”

“Most of them still can’t handle bright light,” Ren said, and went to talk to the Dvornič and her grandfather Lenismir, who were gossiping together like old gaffers.

The Dvornič sighed theatrically at Ren. “Such a short time I was able to claim you and your husband as our own… alas, other things come before my pride.”

“I would have been glad to stay,” Ren said with absolute sincerity. She’d called herself Dvornik many times before—when she wasn’t calling herself Meszaros or Varadi or Anoškin. Always lies, told to suit the con of the moment. She’d had less than a month to be Dvornik in truth.

But the Ižranyi were too few and too scarred to fend for themselves in a changed world. They needed Ren, the Black Rose of Ažerais, to train as their szorsa. And they needed a clan elder who could mediate between them and the city they now lived in—someone who could speak both to them and to Nadežra.

They needed Grey to be their Ižranjič.

Ren might be Traementis and Volavka both, but no one could lead one clan while belonging to another. When she’d tearfully confessed to her grandfather that she and Grey had to leave her kureč, so soon after joining their ranks, he’d hugged her tight and proposed a better way. The Ižranyi needed more than two people to hold them steady and teach them how to walk in this strange new world. And so some of the Volavka would remain Dvornik… but others, those most closely tied to Ren, would follow their lost daughter onto a new road.

Lenismir took Ren’s hand in his own and held it tight, as if to squeeze out any remaining guilt. “Blood is a river with many branches. We abandon not our Dvornik ancestry in joining now with the Ižranyi.”

“Nor will we forget our cousins just because the river has swept them downstream,” the Dvornič said. He dipped his chin toward the tense Ižranyi. “But a kindness it would be to begin, I think.”

Ren had sworn kinship to Tess and Sedge in a grubby corner of the Lacewater labyrinth, hurrying through the words before someone kicked them out; Grey and Vargo had made their bond in her parlour. Heart mattered more than the trappings of ceremony. So while adoptions were supposed to be grand affairs, conducted in a labyrinth with offerings to the Faces and the Masks and everyone invited to witness, for the sake of the Ižranyi they kept it simple.

And they kept it short. By Vraszenian tradition, no ritual had been needed for Ren to become Volavka; she already was one, by virtue of her mother. By virtue of the marks on their wrists, so were Tess and Sedge; by virtue of his marriage to Ren and his severance from the Szerado, so was Grey. Alinka formed the bond for her children, mingling her blood with that of Lenismir. Then it only needed three: Grey, Ren, and Lenismir exchanging oaths with Olena, bringing all the others, born and bound, along with them.

Ren wondered if even that was too much, with the Ižranyi—the original Ižranyi—shrinking back from their new cousins. But then the music started up, and people began dancing, and she saw some of the uneasiness bleed out of the former zlyzen. In a city where so much was new and strange, this was familiar: a melody they knew, steps they could follow. Joy they could share in.

Grey had spent three finger-mincing days with Tess finishing Yvie’s koszenie, but it was worth it to see her stamping and spinning her way through the kanina, taking hands with everyone. Jagyi was passed from hip to shoulder to back and hip again, the Ižranyi clinging to him as long as the dance allowed, his smile and giggles and wisp-wild curls drawing out their fear like poison from a wound.

Like the fear that had once lived in Ren’s own heart. Now she had her Volavka kin at her side, knowing her for who she was, and welcoming her into their ranks. She had the Ižranyi, rescued at last from their torment. Would the kanina call forth their ancestors, those who’d died before the fall of Fiavla? Could it bring back those who didn’t survive to become zlyzen, those whose souls were said to be lost even to the dream?

She didn’t know. But as she danced, she lost all sense of time, all sense of the world beyond the whirling bodies around her. Thought dissolved, and she gave herself wholly over to the performance.

And at the edge of a courtyard, a vision took shape. A familiar face, because she’d seen one so much like it in the mirror, every time she disguised herself to look fully Vraszenian.

Ren whirled herself out of the dance, and went to embrace her mother.

Epilogue

Victory wore many faces.

It looked like the restored labyrinth atop the Point, columns lifting gracefully to the sky where once the amphitheatre had hunched in ugly reminder of the Tyrant’s reign. Even as workers began clearing away the ruined East Channel numinat, the feet of worshippers tracing the seven-layered path revealed a secret lost to time: that once the labyrinth had been not only a place of faith and pilgrimage, but a way of cleansing the Dežera’s divided waters. With the growth of the city, both methods would be necessary, but it brought some much-needed relief to the Upper Bank.

Victory looked like Tess and Pavlin’s wedding, which filled Little Alwydd to bursting not only with all those closest to Tess, but with Ganllechyn nans like Old Mag, Tess’s newly acquired Vraszenian cousins, some of her more open-minded customers—Donaia escorted by Scaperto, Giuna by Kasienka—and a burn-scarred Upper Bank thief who could outdrink, though not outflirt, Oksana Ryvček. Everyone sang and ate and drank and danced, and no one got hurt, no monsters appeared.

Victory looked like the different parts of the city gathering to select who would represent them. In the final agreement, the cultural and crafting seats went to Liganti residents, the economic and religious seats to Vraszenians, and the civil, military, and diplomatic seats to Nadežrans of mixed heritage. Mevieny won Albet, the new religious seat; Scaperto took Caeset, overseeing the guilds. Iascat held on to the cultural seat, now called Viridet for its new association with Dvornik green, though he openly admitted he’d rather step down once the transition between Cinquerat and Setterat was more secure.

As for Ren and Vargo…

“Welcome!” Dvaran said as the two of them followed Grey into the Gawping Carp. “I’ve been to your house; ’bout time you came to mine.”

“Actually,” Ren said, grinning, “I was here once before. During the riots, when you were kind enough to loan Alta Renata a Vraszenian shawl before she went into Seven Knots.”

It pulled him up short. “So you were. I—ah—what do I call you?”

Vargo swept a grand bow, like he was a herald announcing her at a ball. “You have the honor of addressing Her Serenity, Alta Szorsa Renata Arenza Lenskaya Mirscellis Traementatis Volavka, formerly of the Dvornik, now of the newly restored Ižranyi, Black Rose of Ažerais, and Ostrinet of the Setterat.”

Ren smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand.

“Call her Ren,” Vargo added.

“Call him Your Grace.” Ren’s purr was as sweet as honey-soaked cream and vengeance. “Dvaran, Grey mentioned you had some opinions to share with the new civil seat? Well, here he is.”

Dvaran needed no encouragement. He trapped Vargo with a hand on his arm and a litany of improvements that could be made to the disposal of waste, while Ren was dragged into a nytsa game with the old gaffers, one hand for every name she had. She played fair, and lost almost every round.

“That was cruel,” Vargo grumbled once he’d escaped, joining Ren and Grey at a back table with a fresh pitcher of autumn brew and a third cup. They’d already run through most of the pitcher on the table, and Ren was feeling the warmth of bad drink and good friends.

“Get used to it,” she said, amused. “You’re the one who decided to relinquish your ennoblement charter and put yourself up for Auret.”

Vargo knocked back a gulp of beer and said, “Well, Scaperto wasn’t going to do it. And the only thing worse than doing it myself would be watching somebody else botch the job.” Wiping foam from his lip, he set the mug down. “Though Arkady won’t let me hear the end of it. ‘You mean I don’t get to be Alta Arkady Bonis Vargonis?’”

His imitation of her voice was uncannily good. Grey poured him more beer. “Careful, or she’ll jump ship for a better prospect.”

“It en’t half a joke,” Vargo grumbled. But he was smiling as he said it.

Ren sank back in her chair and nursed her drink as the conversation ranged from Dvaran’s wished-for improvements to the Ižranyi’s new housing to whether the mark on the table looked like a raccoon poling a skiff—a debate that only got more impassioned as the level in the pitcher got lower. Eventually the two men swayed unsteadily to the bar to insist Dvaran adjudicate, leaving Ren to guard the table by herself.

But not alone. Not anymore. She had a kureč and a clan now, as well as a register and a house. Friends, family—more names than she knew what to do with—love and the safety she hadn’t known she craved when she returned to Nadežra. A future she could face without need of a mask.

Truly, a favored daughter of Ažerais.

~Illi~

Acknowledgments

What do you say when you reach the end of a path this long and grueling?

You thank the people who helped you along the way.

We’ve been thanking them at the end of each book, of course, but gratitude can survive a little repetition. Adrienne Lipoma, Kyle Niedzwiecki, Wendy Shaffer, and Emily Dare continue to be patient, supportive, and even (dare we say it) enthusiastic about this six-hundred-thousand-word digression from some humble gaming roots. To that set we must add the members of our Carrickmacross Discord, aka the Screaming Peaches, who have bonded over Discord’s most terrifying “welcome” GIF and provided us with a wonderful community as we wrestle this kraken of a plot to its conclusion. The Wailing Plum is for you.

For this particular book, one bit of research assistance stands out. After Marie had the masochistic idea of representing the archaic speech of the Ižranyi with Middle English, she knew right away that she wasn’t going to be able to make that happen with only a dictionary and a reference grammar to help. A PhD candidate in the English department at Harvard University stepped into the breach: Ahmed Seif, who went above and beyond mechanical translation of the original dialogue, navigating the multiple dialects of Middle English to find options that would balance accuracy against something approaching comprehensibility for the modern reader. If you still have difficulty with the Ižranyi speech, blame Marie for having this idea in the first place; she freely admits it’s her fault.

When it comes to the publishing front… do you realize how many people it takes to make a book happen? Even we authors sometimes lose sight of the number, but we’ve done our best this time around to collect the full list. On the editorial side, our glorious and indefatigable editor Priyanka Krishnan is joined by Jenni Hill, Tiana Coven, and Tim Holman; on the publicity and marketing side, Alex Lencicki, Ellen Wright, Angela Man, Paola Crespo, Natassja Haught, and Nazia Khatun; on the managing editorial side, Bryn A. McDonald shepherded this whole thing through the transition from laptop to bookshelf. Our gorgeous covers are brought to you by Lauren Panepinto, Stephanie A. Hess, and the wonderful artist Nekro. Nikki Massoud has done a tremendous job with all the shifting accents of the audiobooks—we apologize (again) for the Middle English!—with Tom Mis and Caitlin Davies bringing her work to all our listeners. And we must also thank our tireless agents, Eddie Schneider and Paul Stevens, with Cameron McClure coming in on the home stretch to help carry us through to the conclusion.

Thank you all for coming with us on this journey. May we meet again when the road leads you home, when the river meets the sea.

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Glossary

advocate: An individual licensed to conduct business within the Charterhouse, usually on behalf of a noble house.

alta/altan: The titles used for nobility who are not the heads of houses.

Argentet: One of the five seats in the Cinquerat, addressed as “Your Elegance.” Argentet oversees the cultural affairs of the city, including theatres, festivals, and censorship of written materials.

aža: A drug made from powdered seeds. Although it is commonly spoken of as a hallucinogen, Vraszenians believe that aža allows them to see into Ažerais’s Dream.

Ažerais’s Dream: This place, called “the realm of mind” by inscriptors, is a many-layered reflection of the waking world, both as it was in the past, and as it may be metaphorically expressed in the present.

Ča: A title used when addressing a Vraszenian.

Caerulet: One of the five seats in the Cinquerat, addressed as “Your Mercy.” Caerulet oversees the military affairs of the city, including prisons, fortifications, and the Vigil.

Ceremony of the Accords: A ritual commemorating the signing of the peace agreement that ended the war between the city-states of Vraszan and Nadežra, leaving the latter in the control of its Liganti nobility. The ceremony involves the ziemetse and the members of the Cinquerat, and takes place each year during the Night of Bells.

Charterhouse: The seat of Nadežra’s government, where the Cinquerat offices are located.

Cinquerat: The five-member council that has been the ruling body of Nadežra since the death of the Tyrant. Each seat has its own sphere of responsibility. See Argentet, Fulvet, Prasinet, Caerulet, and Iridet.

clan: Vraszenians are traditionally divided into seven clans: the Anoškin, the Dvornik, the Ižranyi, the Kiraly, the Meszaros, the Stretsko, and the Varadi. The Ižranyi have been extinct for centuries, following a supernatural calamity. Each clan consists of multiple kretse.

era/eret: The titles used for the heads of noble houses.

Faces and Masks: In Vraszenian religion, the divine duality common to many faiths is seen as being contained within single deities, each of which has a benevolent aspect (the Face) and a malevolent one (the Mask).

Festival of Veiled Waters: A yearly festival occurring during the springtime in Nadežra, when fog covers the city for approximately a week.

Fulvet: One of the five seats in the Cinquerat, addressed as “Your Grace.” Fulvet oversees the civic affairs of the city, including land ownership, public works, and the judiciary.

The Great Dream: A sacred event for Vraszenians, during which the Wellspring of Ažerais manifests in the waking world. It occurs once every seven years, during the Festival of Veiled Waters.

Illi: The numen associated with both 0 and 10 in numinatria. It represents beginnings, endings, eternity, the soul, and the inscriptor’s self.

imbuing: A form of craft-based magic that has the effect of making objects function more effectively: an imbued blade cuts better and doesn’t dull or rust, while an imbued cloak may be warmer, more waterproof, or more concealing. It is also possible, though more difficult, to imbue a performance.

inscriptor: A practitioner of numinatria.

Iridet: One of the five seats in the Cinquerat, addressed as “Your Worship.” Iridet oversees the religious affairs of the city, including temples, numinatria, and the pilgrimage of the Great Dream.

Kaius Sifigno / Kaius Rex: See The Tyrant.

kanina: The “ancestor dance” of the Vraszenians, used on special occasions such as births, marriages, and deaths. When performed well enough, it has the power to call up the spirits of the dancers’ ancestors from Ažerais’s Dream.

knot: A term derived from Vraszenian custom for a street gang in Nadežra. Members mark their allegiance with a knotwork charm, though they are not required to wear or display it openly.

koszenie: A Vraszenian shawl that records an individual’s maternal and paternal ancestry in the pattern of its embroidery. It is usually worn only for special occasions, including when performing the kanina.

kretse: (sing. kureč) A Vraszenian lineage, a subdivision of a clan. The third part of a traditional Vraszenian name marks the kureč an individual belongs to.

lihoše: (sing. lihosz) The Vraszenian term for a person born female, but taking on a male role so as to be able to lead his people. Lihoše patronymics end in the plural and gender-neutral “-ske.” Their counterparts are the rimaše, born male but taking on a female role so as to become szorsas.

meda/mede: The titles used for members of delta houses.

The Night of Bells: A yearly festival commemorating the death of the Tyrant. It includes the Ceremony of the Accords.

Ninat: The numen associated with 9 in numinatria. It represents death, release, completion, apotheosis, and the boundary between the mundane and the infinite.

Noctat: The numen associated with 8 in numinatria. It represents sensation, sexuality, procreation, honesty, salvation, and repentance.

numina: (sing. numen) The numina are a series of numbers, 0–10, that are used in numinatria to channel magical power. They consist of Illi (which is both 0 and 10), Uniat, Tuat, Tricat, Quarat, Quinat, Sessat, Sebat, Noctat, and Ninat. Each numen has its own particular resonance with concepts such as family or death, as well as associated gods, colors, metals, geometric figures, and so forth.

numinatria: A form of magic based on sacred geometry. A work of numinatria is called a numinat (pl. numinata). Numinatria works by channeling power from the ultimate godhead, the Lumen, which manifests in the numina. In order to function, a numinat must have a focus, through which it draws on the power of the Lumen; most foci feature the name of a god, written in the ancient Enthaxn script.

pattern: In Vraszenian culture, “pattern” is a term for fate and the interconnectedness of things. It is seen as a gift from the ancestral goddess Ažerais, and can be understood through the interpretation of a pattern deck.

pattern deck: A deck currently consisting of sixty cards in three suits, called threads. The spinning thread represents the “inner self” (the mind and spirit), the woven thread represents the “outer self” (social relationships), and the cut thread represents the “physical self” (the body and the material world). Each thread contains both unaligned and aspect cards, the latter of which allude to the most important Faces and Masks in Vraszenian religion.

Prasinet: One of the five seats in the Cinquerat, addressed as “Your Charity.” Prasinet oversees the economic affairs of the city, including taxation, trade routes, and guilds.

prismatium: An iridescent metal created through the use of numinatria, and associated with Sebat.

Quarat: The numen associated with 4 in numinatria. It represents nature, nourishment, growth, wealth, and luck.

Quinat: The numen associated with 5 in numinatria. It represents power, excellence, leadership, healing, and renewal.

rimaše: (sing. rimasz) The Vraszenian term for a person born male, but taking on a female role to act as a szorsa. Rimaše patronymics end in the plural and gender-neutral “-ske.” Their counterparts are the lihoše, born female but taking on male roles to lead their people.

Sebat: The numen associated with 7 in numinatria. It represents craftsmanship, purity, seclusion, transformation, and perfection in imperfection.

Sessat: The numen associated with 6 in numinatria. It represents order, stasis, institutions, simplicity, and friendship.

soul: In Vraszenian cosmology, the soul has three parts: the dlakani or “personal” soul, the szekani or “knotted” soul, and the čekani or “bodily” soul. After death, the dlakani goes to paradise or hell, the szekani lives on in Ažerais’s Dream, and the čekani reincarnates. In Liganti cosmology, the soul ascends through the numina to the Lumen, then descends once more to reincarnate.

sun/earth: Contrasting terms used for many purposes in Liganti culture. The sun hours run from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; the earth hours run from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sun-handed is right-handed, and earth-handed is left-handed. Sunwise and earthwise mean clockwise and counterclockwise, or when referring to people, a man born female or a woman born male.

szorsa: A reader of a pattern deck.

Tricat: The numen associated with 3 in numinatria. It represents stability, family, community, completion, rigidity, and reconciliation.

Tuat: The numen associated with 2 in numinatria. It represents the other, duality, communication, connection, opposition, and the inscriptor’s edge.

The Tyrant: Kaius Sifigno, also called Kaius Rex. He was a Liganti commander who conquered all of Vraszan, but according to legend his further spread was stopped by him succumbing to his various desires. Reputed to be unkillable, the Tyrant was supposedly brought down by venereal disease. His death is celebrated on the Night of Bells.

Uniat: The numen associated with 1 in numinatria. It represents the body, self-awareness, enlightenment, containment, and the inscriptor’s chalk.

The Vigil: The primary force of law and order within Nadežra, nicknamed “hawks” after their emblem. Separate from the city-state’s army, the Vigil polices the city itself, under the leadership of a high commander who answers to Caerulet. Their headquarters is the Aerie.

Vraszan: The name of the region and loose confederation of city-states of which Nadežra was formerly a part.

Wellspring of Ažerais: The holy site around which the city of Nadežra was founded. The wellspring exists within Ažerais’s Dream, and manifests in the waking world only during the Great Dream. Drinking its waters grants a true understanding of pattern.

ziemetse: (sing. ziemič) The leaders of the Vraszenian clans, also referred to as “clan elders.” Each has a title taken from the name of their clan: the Anoškinič, Dvornič, Kiralič, Meszarič, Stretskojič, Varadič, and (formerly) Ižranjič.

extras

meet the author

John Scalzi

M. A. CARRICK is the joint pen name of Marie Brennan (author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent) and Alyc Helms (author of the Adventures of Mr. Mystic). The two met in 2000 on an archaeological dig in Wales and Ireland, including a stint in the town of Carrickmacross, and have built their friendship through two decades of anthropology, writing, and gaming. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Find out more about M. A. Carrick and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at orbitbooks.net.

if you enjoyed

LABYRINTH’S HEART

look out for

THE PHOENIX KING

The Ravence Trilogy: Book One

by

Aparna Verma

In a kingdom where flames hold magic and the desert hides secrets, an ancient prophecy comes for an assassin, a princess, and a king. But none are ready to face destiny—and the choices they make could burn the world.

For Elena Aadya Ravence, fire is yearning. She longs to feel worthy of her Phoenix god, of her ancestors who transformed the barren dunes of Sayon into a thriving kingdom. But though she knows the ways and wiles of the desert better than she knows her own skin, the secrets of the Eternal Fire elude her. And without them, she’ll never be accepted as queen.

For Leo Malhari Ravence, fire is control. He is not ready to give up his crown—there’s still too much work to be done to ensure his legacy remains untarnished, his family protected. But power comes with a price, and he’ll wage war with the heavens themselves to keep from paying it.

For Yassen Knight, fire is redemption. He dreams of shedding his past as one of Sayon’s most deadly assassins, of laying to rest the ghosts of those he has lost. If joining the court of flame and serving the royal Ravence family—the very people he once swore to eliminate—will earn him that, he’ll do it no matter what they ask of him.

But the Phoenix watches over all, and the fire has a will of its own. It will come for all three, will come for Sayon itself… and they must either find a way to withstand the blaze or burn to ash.

CHAPTER 1

Yassen

The king said to his people, “We are the chosen.”

And the people responded, “Chosen by whom?”

—from chapter 37 of The Great History of Sayon

To be forgiven, one must be burned. That’s what the Ravani said. They were fanatics and fire worshippers, but they were his people. And he would finally be returning home.

Yassen held on to the railing of the hoverboat as it skimmed over the waves. He held on with his left arm, his right limp by his side. Around him, the world was dark, but the horizon began to purple with the faint glimmers of dawn. Soon, the sun would rise, and the twin moons of Sayon would lie down to rest. Soon, he would arrive at Rysanti, the Brass City. And soon, he would find his way back to the desert that had forsaken him.

Yassen withdrew a holopod from his jacket and pressed it open with his thumb. A small holo materialized with a message:

Look for the bull.

He closed the holo, the smell of salt and brine filling his lungs.

The bull. It was nothing close to the Phoenix of Ravence, but then again, Samson liked to be subtle. Yassen wondered if he would be at the port to greet him.

A large wave tossed the boat, but Yassen did not lose his balance. Weeks at sea and suns of combat had taught him how to keep his ground. A cool wind licked his sleeve, and he felt a whisper of pain skitter down his right wrist. He grimaced. His skin was already beginning to redden.

After the Arohassin had pulled him half-conscious from the sea, Yassen had thought, in the delirium of pain, that he would be free. If not in this life, then in death. But the Arohassin had yanked him back from the brink. Treated his burns and saved his arm. Said that he was lucky to be alive while whispering among themselves when they thought he could not hear: “Yassen Knight is no longer of use.”

Yassen pulled down his sleeve. It was no matter. He was used to running.

As the hoverboat neared the harbor, the fog along the coastline began to evaporate. Slowly, Yassen saw the tall spires of the Brass City cut through the grey heavens. Skyscrapers of slate and steel from the mines of Sona glimmered in the early dawn as hovertrains weaved through the air, carrying the day laborers. Neon lights flickered within the metal jungle, and a silver bridge snaked through the entire city, connecting the outer rings to the wealthy, affluent center. Yassen squinted as the sun crested the horizon. Suddenly, its light hit the harbor, and the Brass City shone with a blinding intensity.

Yassen quickly clipped on his visor, a fiber sheath that covered his entire face. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing them to readjust before opening them again. The city stared back at him in subdued colors.

Queen Rydia, one of the first queens of Jantar, had wanted to ward off Enuu, the evil eye, so she had fashioned her port city out of unforgiving metal. If Yassen wasn’t careful, the brass could blind him.

The other passengers came up to deck, pulling on half visors that covered their eyes. Yassen tightened his visor and wrapped a scarf around his neck. Most people could not recognize him—none of the passengers even knew of his name—but he could not take any chances. Samson had made it clear that he wanted no one to know of this meeting.

The hoverboat came to rest beside the platform, and Yassen disembarked with the rest of the passengers. Even in the early hours, the port was busy. On the other dock, soldiers barked out orders as fresh immigrants stumbled off a colony boat. Judging from the coiled silver bracelets on their wrists, Yassen guessed they were Sesharian refugees. They shuffled forward on the adjoining dock toward military buses. Some carried luggage; others had nothing save the clothes they wore. They all donned half visors and walked with a resigned grace of a people weary of their fate.

Native Jantari, in their lightning suits and golden bracelets, kept a healthy distance from the immigrants. They stayed on the brass homeland and receiving docks where merchants stationed their carts. Unlike most of the city, the carts were made of pale driftwood, but the vendors still wore half visors as they handled their wares. Yassen could already hear a merchant hawking satchels of vermilion tea while another shouted about a new delivery of mirrors from Cyleon that had a 90 percent accuracy of predicting one’s romantic future. Yassen shook his head. Only in Jantar.

Floating lanterns guided Yassen and the passengers to the glass-encased immigration office. Yassen slid his holopod into the port while a grim-faced attendant flicked something from his purple nails.

“Name?” he intoned.

“Cassian Newman,” Yassen said.

“Country of residence?”

“Nbru.”

The attendant waved his hand. “Take off your visor, please.”

Yassen unclipped his visor and saw shock register across the attendant’s face as he took in Yassen’s white, colorless eyes.

“Are you Jantari?” the attendant asked, surprised.

“No,” Yassen responded gruffly and clipped his visor back on. “My father was.”

“Hmph.” The attendant looked at his holopod and then back at him. “Purpose of your visit?”

Yassen paused. The attendant peered at him, and for one wild moment, Yassen wondered if he should turn away, jump back on the boat, and go wherever the sea pushed him. But then a coldness slithered down his right elbow, and he gripped his arm.

“To visit some old friends,” Yassen said.

The attendant snorted, but when the holopod slid back out, Yassen saw the burning insignia of a mohanti, a winged ox, on its surface.

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Jantar,” the attendant said and waved him through.

Yassen stepped through the glass immigration office and into Rysanti. He breathed in the sharp salt air, intermingled with spices both foreign and familiar. A storm had passed through recently, leaving puddles in its wake. A woman ahead of Yassen slipped on a wet plank and a merchant reached out to steady her. Yassen pushed past them, keeping his head down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the merchant swipe the woman’s holopod and hide it in his jacket. Yassen smothered a laugh.

As he wandered toward the homeland dock, he scanned the faces in the crowd. The time was nearly two past the sun’s breath. Samson and his men should have been here by now.

He came to the bridge connecting the receiving and homeland docks. At the other end of the bridge was a lonely tea stall, held together by worn planks—but the large holosign snagged his attention.

WARM YOUR TIRED BONES FROM YOUR PASSAGE AT SEA! FRESH HOT LEMON CAKES AND RAVANI TEA SERVED DAILY! it read.

It was the word Ravani that sent a jolt through Yassen. Home—the one he longed for but knew he was no longer welcome in.

Yassen drew up to the tea stall. Three large hourglasses hissed and steamed. Tea leaves floated along their bottoms, slowly steeping, as a heavyset Sesharian woman flipped them in timed intervals. On her hand, Yassen spotted a tattoo of a bull.

The same mark Samson had asked him to look for.

When the woman met Yassen’s eyes, she twirled the hourglass once more before drying her hands on the towel around her wide waist.

“Whatcha want?” she asked in a river-hoarse voice.

“One tea and cake, please,” Yassen said.

“You’re lucky. I just got a fresh batch of leaves from my connect. Straight from the canyons of Ravence.”

“Exactly why I want one,” he said and placed his holopod in the counter insert. Yassen tapped it twice.

“Keep the change,” he added.

She nodded and turned back to the giant hourglasses.

The brass beneath Yassen’s feet grew warmer in the yawning day. Across the docks, more boats pulled in, carrying immigrant laborers and tourists. Yassen adjusted his visor, making sure it was fully in place, as the woman simultaneously flipped the hourglass and slid off its cap. In one fluid motion, the hot tea arced through the air and fell into the cup in her hand. She slid it across the counter.

“Mind the sleeve, the tea’s hot,” she said. “And here’s your cake.”

Yassen grabbed the cake box and lifted his cup in thanks. As he moved away from the stall, he scratched the plastic sleeve around the cup.

Slowly, a message burned through:

Look underneath the dock of fortunes.

He almost smiled. Clearly, Samson had not forgotten Yassen’s love of tea.

Yassen looked within the box and saw that there was no cake but something sharp, metallic. He reached inside and held it up. Made of silver, the insignia was smaller than his palm and etched in what seemed to be the shape of a teardrop. Yassen held it closer. No, it was more feather than teardrop.

He threw the sleeve and box into a bin, slid the silver into his pocket, and continued down the dock. The commerce section stretched on, a mile of storefronts welcoming him into the great nation of Jantar. Yassen sipped his tea, watching. A few paces down was a stall marketing tales of ruin and fortune. Like the tea stall, it too was old and decrepit, with a painting of a woman reading palms painted across its front. He was beginning to recognize a pattern—and patterns were dangerous. Samson was getting lazy in his mansion.

Three guards stood along the edge of the platform beside the stall. One was dressed in a captain’s royal blue, the other two in the plain black of officers. All three wore helmet visors, their pulse guns strapped to their sides. They were laughing at some joke when the captain looked up and frowned at Yassen.

“You there,” he said imperiously.

Yassen slowly lowered his cup. The dock was full of carts and merchants. If he ran now, the guards could catch him.

“Yes, you, with the full face,” the captain called out, tapping his visor. “Come here!”

“Is there a problem?” Yassen asked as he approached.

“No full visors allowed on the dock, except for the guard,” the captain said.

“I didn’t know it was a crime to wear a full visor,” Yassen said. His voice was cool, perhaps a bit too nonchalant because the captain slapped the cup out of Yassen’s hand. The spilled tea hissed against the metal planks.

“New rules,” the captain said. “Only guards can wear full visors. Everybody else has to go half.”

His subordinates snickered. “Looks like he’s fresh off the boat, Cap. You got to cut it up for him,” one said.

Behind his visor, Yassen frowned. He glanced at the merchant leaning against the fortunes stall. The man wore a bored expression, as if the interaction before him was nothing new. But then the merchant bent forward, pressing his hands to the counter, and Yassen saw the sign of the bull tattooed there.

Samson’s men were watching.

“All right,” Yassen said. He would give them a show. Prove that he wasn’t as useless as the whispers told.

He unclipped his visor as the guards watched. “But you owe me another cup of tea.”

And then Yassen flung his arm out and rammed the visor against the captain’s face. The man stumbled back with a groan. The other two leapt forward, but Yassen was quicker; he swung around and gave four quick jabs, two each on the back, and the officers seized and sank to their knees in temporary paralysis.

“Blast him!” the captain cried, reaching for his gun. Yassen pivoted behind him, his hand flashing out to unclip the captain’s helmet visor.

The captain whipped around, raising his gun… but then sunlight hit the planks before him, and the brass threw off its unforgiving light. Blinded, the captain fired.

The air screeched.

The pulse whizzed past Yassen’s right ear, tearing through the upper beams of a storefront. Immediately, merchants took cover. Someone screamed as the crowd on both docks began to run. Yassen swiftly vanished into the chaotic fray, letting the crowd push him toward the dock’s edge, and then he dove into the sea.

The cold water shocked him, and for a moment, Yassen floundered. His muscles clenched. And then he was coughing, swimming, and he surfaced beneath the dock. He willed himself to be still as footsteps thundered overhead and soldiers and guards barked out orders. Yassen caught glimpses of the captain in the spaces between the planks.

“All hells! Where did he go?” the captain yelled at the merchant manning the stall of wild tales.

The merchant shrugged. “He’s long gone.”

Yassen sank deeper into the water as the captain walked overhead, his subordinates wobbling behind. Something buzzed beneath him, and he could see the faint outlines of a dark shape in the depths. Slowly, Yassen began to swim away—but the dark shape remained stationary. He waited for the guards to pass and then sank beneath the surface.

A submersible, the size of one passenger.

Look underneath the dock of fortunes, indeed.

Samson, that bastard.

Yassen swam toward the sub. He placed his hand on the imprint panel of the hull, and then the sub buzzed again and rose to the surface.

The cockpit was small, with barely enough room for him to stretch his legs, but he sighed and sank back just the same. The glass slid smoothly closed and rudders whined to life. The panel board lit up before him and bathed him in a pale blue light.

A note was there. Handwritten. How rare, and so like Samson.

See you at the palace, it said, and before Yassen could question which palace, the sub was off.

if you enjoyed

LABYRINTH’S HEART

look out for

THE JASAD HEIR

The Scorched Throne: Book One

by

Sara Hashem

In this Egyptian-inspired debut fantasy, a fugitive queen strikes a deadly bargain with her greatest enemy and finds herself embroiled in a complex game that could resurrect her scorched kingdom or leave it in ashes forever.

Ten years ago, the kingdom of Jasad burned. Its magic was outlawed; its royal family murdered down to the last child. At least, that’s what Sylvia wants people to believe.

The lost Heir of Jasad, Sylvia never wants to be found. She can’t think about how Nizahl’s armies laid waste to her kingdom and continue to hunt its people—not if she wants to stay alive. But when Arin, the Nizahl Heir, tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to her village, staying one step ahead of death gets trickier.

In a moment of anger, Sylvia’s magic is exposed, capturing Arin’s attention. Now, to save her life, Sylvia will have to make a deal with her greatest enemy. If she helps him lure the rebels, she’ll escape persecution.

A deadly game begins. Sylvia can’t let Arin discover her identity even as hatred shifts into something more. Soon, Sylvia will have to choose between the life she wants and the one she left behind. The scorched kingdom is rising, and it needs a queen.

CHAPTER ONE

Two things stood between me and a good night’s sleep, and I was allowed to kill only one of them.

I tromped through Hirun River’s mossy banks, squinting for movement. The grime, the late hours—I had expected those. Every apprentice in the village dealt with them. I just hadn’t expected the frogs.

“Say your farewells, you pointless pests,” I called. The frogs had developed a defensive strategy they put into action any time I came close. First, the watch guard belched an alarm. The others would fling themselves into the river. Finally, the brave watch guard hopped for his life. An effort as admirable as it was futile.

Dirt was caked deep beneath my fingernails. Moonlight filtered through a canopy of skeletal trees, and for a moment, my hand looked like a different one. A hand much more manicured, a little weaker. Niphran’s hands. Hands that could wield an axe alongside the burliest woodcutter, weave a storm of curls into delicate braids, drive spears into the maws of monsters. For the first few years of my life, before grief over my father’s assassination spread through Niphran like rot, before her sanity collapsed on itself, there wasn’t anything my mother’s hands could not do.

Oh, if she could see me now. Covered in filth and outwitted by croaking river roaches.

Hirun exhaled its opaque mist, breathing life into the winter bones of Essam Woods. I cleaned my hands in the river and firmly cast aside thoughts of the dead.

A frenzied croak sounded behind a tree root. I darted forward, scooping up the kicking watch guard. Ah, but it was never the brave who escaped. I brought him close to my face. “Your friends are chasing crickets, and you’re here. Were they worth it?”

I dropped the limp frog into the bucket and sighed. Ten more to go, which meant another round of running in circles and hoping mud wouldn’t spill through the hole in my right boot. The fact that Rory was a renowned chemist didn’t impress me, nor did this coveted apprenticeship. What kept me from tossing the bucket and going to Raya’s keep, where a warm meal and a comfortable bed awaited me, was a debt of convenience.

Rory didn’t ask questions. When I appeared on his doorstep five years ago, drenched in blood and shaking, Rory had tended to my wounds and taken me to Raya’s. He rescued a fifteen-year-old orphan with no history or background from a life of vagrancy.

The sudden snap of a branch drew my muscles tight. I reached into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the hilt of my dagger. Given the Nizahl soldiers’ predilection for randomly searching us, I usually carried my blade strapped in my boot, but I’d used it to cut my foot out of a family of tangled ferns and left it in my pocket.

A quick scan of the shivering branches revealed nothing. I tried not to let my eyes linger in the empty pockets of black between the trees. I had seen too much horror manifest out of the dark to ever trust its stillness.

My gaze moved to the place it dreaded most—the row of trees behind me, each scored with identical, chillingly precise black marks. The symbol of a raven spreading its wings had been carved into the trees circling Mahair’s border. In the muck of the woods, these ravens remained pristine. Crossing the raven-marked trees without permission was an offense punishable by imprisonment or worse. In the lower villages, where the kingdom’s leaders were already primed to turn a blind eye to the liberties taken by Nizahl soldiers, worse was usually just the beginning.

I tucked my dagger into my pocket and walked right to the edge of the perimeter. I traced one raven’s outstretched wing with my thumbnail. I would have traded all the frogs in my bucket to be brave enough to scrape my nails over the symbol, to gouge it off. Maybe that same burst of bravery would see my dagger cutting a line in the bark, disfiguring the symbols of Nizahl’s power. It wasn’t walls or swords keeping us penned in like animals, but a simple carving. Another kingdom’s power billowing over us like poisoned air, controlling everything it touched.

I glanced at the watch guard in my bucket and lowered my hand. Bravery wasn’t worth the cost. Or the splinters.

A thick layer of frost coated the road leading back to Mahair. I pulled my hood nearly to my nose as soon as I crossed the wall separating Mahair from Essam Woods. I veered into an alley, winding my way to Rory’s shop instead of risking the exposed—and regularly patrolled—main road. Darkness cloaked me as soon as I stepped into the alley. I placed a stabilizing hand on the wall and let the pungent odor of manure guide my feet forward. A cat hissed from beneath a stack of crates, hunching protectively over the half-eaten carcass of a rat.

“I already had supper, but thank you for the offer,” I whispered, leaping out of reach of her claws.

Twenty minutes later, I clunked the full bucket at Rory’s feet. “I demand a renegotiation of my wages.”

Rory didn’t look up from his list. “Demand away. I’ll be over there.”

He disappeared into the back room. I scowled, contemplating following him past the curtain and maiming him with frog corpses. The smell of mud and mildew had permanently seeped into my skin. The least he could do was pay extra for the soap I needed to mask it.

I arranged the poultices, sealing each jar carefully before placing it inside the basket. One of the rare times I’d found myself on the wrong side of Rory’s temper was after I had forgotten to seal the ointments before sending them off with Yuli’s boy. I learned as much about the spread of disease that day as I did about Rory’s staunch ethics.

Rory returned. “Off with you already. Get some sleep. I do not want the sight of your face to scare off my patrons tomorrow.” He prodded in the bucket, turning over a few of the frogs. Age weathered Rory’s narrow brown face. His long fingers were constantly stained in the color of his latest tonic, and a permanent groove sat between his bushy brows. I called it his “rage stage,” because I could always gauge his level of fury by the number of furrows forming above his nose. Despite an old injury to his hip, his slenderness was not a sign of fragility. On the rare occasions when Rory smiled, it was clear he had been handsome in his youth. “If I find that you’ve layered the bottom with dirt again, I’m poisoning your tea.”

He pushed a haphazardly wrapped bundle into my arms. “Here.”

Bewildered, I turned the package over. “For me?”

He waved his cane around the empty shop. “Are you touched in the head, child?”

I carefully peeled the fabric back, half expecting it to explode in my face, and exposed a pair of beautiful golden gloves. Softer than a dove’s wing, they probably cost more than anything I could buy for myself. I lifted one reverently. “Rory, this is too much.”

I only barely stopped myself from putting them on. I laid them gingerly on the counter and hurried to scrub off my stained hands. There were no clean cloths left, so I wiped my hands on Rory’s tunic and earned a swat to the ear.

The fit of the gloves was perfect. Soft and supple, yielding with the flex of my fingers.

I lifted my hands to the lantern for closer inspection. These would certainly fetch a pretty price at market. Not that I’d sell them right away, of course. Rory liked pretending he had the emotional depth of a spoon, but he would be hurt if I bartered his gift a mere day later. Markets weren’t hard to find in Omal. The lower villages were always in need of food and supplies. Trading among themselves was easier than begging for scraps from the palace.

The old man smiled briefly. “Happy birthday, Sylvia.”

Sylvia. My first and favorite lie. I pressed my hands together. “A consolation gift for the spinster?” Not once in five years had Rory failed to remember my fabricated birth date.

“I should hardly think spinsterhood’s threshold as low as twenty years.”

In truth, I was halfway to twenty-one. Another lie.

“You are as old as time itself. The ages below one hundred must all look the same to you.”

He jabbed me with his cane. “It is past the hour for spinsters to be about.”

I left the shop in higher spirits. I pulled my cloak tight around my shoulders, knotting the hood beneath my chin. I had one more task to complete before I could finally reunite with my bed, and it meant delving deeper into the silent village. These were the hours when the mind ran free, when hollow masonry became the whispers of hungry shaiateen and the scratch of scuttling vermin the sounds of the restless dead.

I knew how sinuously fear cobbled shadows into gruesome shapes. I hadn’t slept a full night’s length in long years, and there were days when I trusted nothing beyond the breath in my chest and the earth beneath my feet. The difference between the villagers and me was that I knew the names of my monsters. I knew what they would look like if they found me, and I didn’t have to imagine what kind of fate I would meet.

Mahair was a tiny village, but its history was long. Its children would know the tales shared from their mothers and fathers and grandparents. Superstition kept Mahair alive, long after time had turned a new page on its inhabitants.

It also kept me in business.

Instead of turning right toward Raya’s keep, I ducked into the vagrant road. Bits of honey-soaked dough and grease marked the spot where the halawany’s daughters snacked between errands, sitting on the concrete stoop of their parents’ dessert shop. Dodging the dogs nosing at the grease, I checked for anyone who might report my movements back to Rory.

We had made a tradition of forgiving each other, Rory and me. Should he find out I was treating Omalians under his name, peddling pointless concoctions to those superstitious enough to buy them—well, I doubted Rory could forgive such a transgression. The “cures” I mucked together for my patrons were harmless. Crushed herbs and altered liquors. Most of the time, the ailments they were intended to ward off were more ridiculous than anything I could fit in a bottle.

The home I sought was ten minutes’ walk past Raya’s keep. Too close for comfort. Water dripped from the edge of the sagging roof, where a bare clothesline stretched from hook to hook. A pair of undergarments had fluttered to the ground. I kicked them out of sight. Raya taught me years ago how to hide undergarments on the clothesline by clipping them behind a larger piece of clothing. I hadn’t understood the need for so much stealth. I still didn’t. But time was a limited resource tonight, and I wouldn’t waste it soothing an Omalian’s embarrassment that I now had definitive proof they wore undergarments.

The door flew open. “Sylvia, thank goodness,” Zeinab said. “She’s worse today.”

I tapped my mud-encrusted boots against the lip of the door and stepped inside.

“Where is she?”

I followed Zeinab to the last room in the short hall. A wave of incense wafted over us when she opened the door. I fanned the white haze hanging in the air. A wizened old woman rocked back and forth on the floor, and bloody tracks lined her arms where nails had gouged deep. Zeinab closed the door, maintaining a safe distance. Tears swam in her large hazel eyes. “I tried to give her a bath, and she did this.” Zeinab pushed up the sleeve of her abaya, exposing a myriad of red scratch marks.

“Right.” I laid my bag down on the table. “I will call you when I’ve finished.”

Subduing the old woman with a tonic took little effort. I moved behind her and hooked an arm around her neck. She tore at my sleeve, mouth falling open to gasp. I dumped the tonic down her throat and loosened my stranglehold enough for her to swallow. Once certain she wouldn’t spit it out, I let her go and adjusted my sleeve. She spat at my heels and bared teeth bloody from where she’d torn her lip.

It took minutes. My talents, dubious as they were, lay in efficient and fleeting deception. At the door, I let Zeinab slip a few coins into my cloak’s pocket and pretended to be surprised. I would never understand Omalians and their feigned modesty. “Remember—”

Zeinab bobbed her head impatiently. “Yes, yes, I won’t speak a word of this. It has been years, Sylvia. If the chemist ever finds out, it will not be from me.”

She was quite self-assured for a woman who never bothered to ask what was in the tonic I regularly poured down her mother’s throat. I returned Zeinab’s wave distractedly and moved my dagger into the same pocket as the coins. Puddles of foul-smelling rain rippled in the pocked dirt road. Most of the homes on the street could more accurately be described as hovels, their thatched roofs shivering above walls joined together with mud and uneven patches of brick. I dodged a line of green mule manure, its waterlogged, grassy smell stinging my nose.

Did Omal’s upper towns have excrement in their streets?

Zeinab’s neighbor had scattered chicken feathers outside her door to showcase their good fortune to their neighbors. Their daughter had married a merchant from Dawar, and her dowry had earned them enough to eat chicken all month. From now on, the finest clothes would furnish her body. The choicest meats and hardest-grown vegetables for her plate. She’d never need to dodge mule droppings in Mahair again.

I turned the corner, absently counting the coins in my pocket, and rammed into a body.

I stumbled, catching myself against a pile of cracked clay bricks. The Nizahl soldier didn’t budge beyond a tightening of his frown.

“Identify yourself.”

Heavy wings of panic unfurled in my throat. Though our movements around town weren’t constrained by an official curfew, not many risked a late-night stroll. The Nizahl soldiers usually patrolled in pairs, which meant this man’s partner was probably harassing someone else on the other side of the village.

I smothered the panic, snapping its fluttering limbs. Panic was a plague. Its sole purpose was to spread until it tore through every thought, every instinct.

I immediately lowered my eyes. Holding a Nizahl soldier’s gaze invited nothing but trouble. “My name is Sylvia. I live in Raya’s keep and apprentice for the chemist Rory. I apologize for startling you. An elderly woman urgently needed care, and my employer is indisposed.”

From the lines on his face, the soldier was somewhere in his late forties. If he had been an Omalian patrolman, his age would have signified little. But Nizahl soldiers tended to die young and bloody. For this man to survive long enough to see the lines of his forehead wrinkle, he was either a deadly adversary or a coward.

“What is your father’s name?”

“I am a ward in Raya’s keep,” I repeated. He must be new to Mahair. Everyone knew Raya’s house of orphans on the hill. “I have no mother or father.”

He didn’t belabor the issue. “Have you witnessed activity that might lead to the capture of a Jasadi?” Even though it was a standard question from the soldiers, intended to encourage vigilance toward any signs of magic, I inwardly flinched. The most recent arrest of a Jasadi had happened in our neighboring village a mere month ago. From the whispers, I’d surmised a girl reported seeing her friend fix a crack in her floorboard with a wave of her hand. I had overheard all manner of praise showered on the girl for her bravery in turning in the fifteen-year-old. Praise and jealousy—they couldn’t wait for their own opportunities to be heroes.

“I have not.” I hadn’t seen another Jasadi in five years.

He pursed his lips. “The name of the elderly woman?”

“Aya, but her daughter Zeinab is her caretaker. I could direct you to them if you’d like.” Zeinab was crafty. She would have a lie prepared for a moment like this.

“No need.” He waved a hand over his shoulder. “On your way. Stay off the vagrant road.”

One benefit of the older Nizahl soldiers—they had less inclination for the bluster and interrogation tactics of their younger counterparts. I tipped my head in gratitude and sped past him.

By M. A. Carrick

ROOK & ROSE

The Mask of Mirrors

The Liar’s Knot

Labyrinth’s Heart

Praise for the Rook & Rose Trilogy

“The characters are fun, the setting is magnificent, and the writing is smart and accessible.”

—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Lush, engrossing and full of mystery and dark magic… sure to please fantasy readers looking to dial up the intrigue.… Jump in and get swept away.”

—BookPage

“Immersive.… A feast to savor slowly.”

—BuzzFeed News

“Utterly captivating. Carrick spins an exciting web of mystery, magic, and political treachery in a richly drawn and innovative world.”

—S. A. Chakraborty, author of The City of Brass

“A web of intrigue, magic, and the art of the con, this novel will catch hold of your dreams and keep you from sleeping.”

—Mary Robinette Kowal, author of The Calculating Stars

“Ushers you into the fascinating city of Nadežra, replete with complex politics, intricate magic, and mysteries that readers will be racing to unravel. Wonderfully immersive—I was unable to put it down.”

—Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter

“For those who like their revenge plots served with the intrigue of The Goblin Emperor, the colonial conflict of The City of Brass, the panache of Swordspoint, and the richly detailed settings of Guy Gavriel Kay.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“An escape into a vast, enchanting world of danger, secret identities, and glittering prose.”

—Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne

“The richly layered city of Nadežra, combined with the deeply intertwined politics and rivalries of its residents, creates a perfect backdrop for the enchantment of Carrick’s plot and characters. A fantastically twisty read.”

—Fran Wilde, author of The Bone Universe trilogy

“An intricate, compelling dream of a book that kept me turning pages, with a world and characters that felt deeply real and plenty of riveting twists and turns. I loved it.”

—Melissa Caruso, author of The Tethered Mage

“A tightly laced plot dripping with political intrigue. Carrick has built a strong foundation for things to come.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This book was like nibbling my way through a box of gourmet chocolates curated just for Reader Me. A large box of gourmet chocolates.”

—Fantasy Literature

“Has it all: complex, believable characters; a fast-moving, intricate plot; rich details of attire, cuisine, religion, and so much more, all of which lead the reader to believe that Nadežra exists in more than dreams. This novel starts off strong and only gets better.”

—Jane Lindskold, author of The Firekeeper Saga

“A terrific heroine, intricate worldbuilding, and a bewitching combination of comedy-of-manners and action hooked me from the start and never let me go!”

—Sherwood Smith, author of Inda