6

The Mask of Night

East Channel, River Dežera: Colbrilun 29

To look at the pleasure barge easing slowly up the East Channel, oars churning against the river’s current, Nadežra was a world where no one went hungry, no one lived in fear, and certainly no one ever committed mass murder.

The horrors of the Scurezza slaughter had been good for a week or so of gossip, but the Vigil was keeping its collective mouth shut tight about the details—including what Quaniet had said to Giuna. With no fresh news about who killed them or why, the Upper Bank had soon moved on. Aided and abetted by Sibiliat, who had paid for today’s revelry out of her own pocket.

But not for her own sake. No, this was a celebration of Renata’s twenty-third natal day.

A canopy sheltered the revelers from the summer sun, while bottles of wine rested in buckets chilled by numinata. The musicians playing in the stern could scarcely be heard over the chatter of the guests. Nobles and delta gentry all, and skewing heavily toward the young, unattached set—men and women who might hope to win a place in House Traementis, Renata’s bed, or both.

So far as Ren could tell, the process of adopting new members into House Traementis bore more resemblance to competition over charter administration rights than anything she recognized as familial. Her would-be cousins submitted applications and gifts, and were weighed more on the assets, skills, and connections they would bring to the house than on any personal feeling. Not that the latter was irrelevant—Donaia was still hoping for Tanaquis’s acceptance, and Giuna drowned the hopes of Diambetta Terdenzi by quoting some of the choicer insults she’d flung in the past—but with the Traementis ranks and coffers so depleted, they couldn’t afford to support anyone who wouldn’t bring much benefit with them. Vraszenians seeking to insult the Liganti often said they bought and sold their relatives, and now Ren had a box seat from which to watch the horse fair go.

Not everyone was angling for her bed or her register, of course. At Renata’s suggestion, there were a few guests closer to Giuna’s age, and Benvanna Novri had for some reason insisted on accompanying Iascat… but on the whole, this party might as well have flown the sign she’d jested about at Nightpeace Gardens: Here Be Marriage Bait.

The most awkward thing was, she suspected Sibiliat was trying to be helpful. Ever since the New Year, her erstwhile rival had been distinctly friendlier. Because of Renata’s newfound connection with her father, through the Illius Praeteri? An attempt to comfort Giuna after the horror they’d stumbled upon that night? Or some other reason?

Of course, even Sibiliat’s friendship carried an edge. She’d led the social world of Nadežra’s young cuffs before Renata came, and today she seemed eager to make Renata prove her right to that role… or lose it.

Part of Renata wanted to let her have it. No—part of Ren. Even as she met Sibiliat’s challenges and answered with some of her own, even as she laughed and flirted with the guests, she felt hollow. None of these people were really her friends. They gave her gifts, but they’d turn on her like sharks if they knew the truth. Even the occasion was a lie: This wasn’t her birthday at all, and she wasn’t twenty-three.

Ahead rose the shimmering arcs of the cleansing numinat that spanned the East Channel. The silver of the containing circle curved like a bridge of spun sugar over the prismatium spiral that held the figures themselves. Her guests took it for granted, and the clean water it brought them; they didn’t even look up as the barge passed through the spira aurea. They were too busy listening to Bondiro Coscanum mock the absent Giarron Quientatis for trying to adopt an entire orphanage—an impractical move even for a man as kindhearted as he was reputed to be.

Renata intervened before the mockery could get too cruel, then drifted along the barge to make sure Giuna was doing all right. Her cousin was playing hexboard with Orrucio Amananto, and seemed happy enough.

“More wine?” Sibiliat appeared at Renata’s elbow. She hadn’t quite gone so far as to propose a drinking contest, but she seemed disappointed that Renata kept declining refills. “I’m sorry there’s no aža. Magistrate Rapprecco has been cracking down on the illicit trade.”

“It’s too hot for alcohol,” Renata said, cooling herself with a fan that wafted citron with each pass. “How do you endure the heat?” She should get back under the canopy… except too many people lay in wait there.

Sibiliat smirked. “If you think this is hot, wait until Lepilun.”

She made even that sound competitive. Hoping to blunt it, Renata said, “Thank you for arranging this. I’ll admit, I wasn’t intending to have any kind of party—it seems too soon.” A year would have been too soon. They were all toasting her as the heir to House Traementis, but every time she heard that phrase, all she could see was Leato left behind at the bottom of the empty wellspring.

Sibiliat leaned in and murmured, “Oh, it is. But you also have to keep up appearances, don’t you? House Traementis is recovering. People need to see that. If Donaia can’t do it, you must.”

It sounded like genuine advice. And Sibiliat wasn’t wrong. Donaia was handling as much business as she could, but her mourning left her no will to face the social side of Nadežra’s politics. Whether this was Ren’s idea of a good time or not, she owed House Traementis her best effort.

You used to dream of this. But every dream has both a Face and a Mask.

The barge made its slow way upriver, past the Point, which split the Dežera, to where the heavily built-up islets began to give way to more open space, houses interspersed with vegetable gardens and goats. Up ahead lay the heavy stone bridge at Floodwatch. The party’s mood grew more raucous as they neared it; some of Renata’s suitors started taking dares, competing with each other to impress her.

When the barge moored on the far side of the bridge so one of the servants could go buy fresh berries, those dares wound up sending Iascat Novrus over the rail to chisel off the river mussels encrusting the embankment. He’d shed his shirt to avoid ruining it, and by the time he slopped back on deck, his pale shoulders were already turning pink. Everyone retreated a step to avoid being splattered as he tossed a large, encrusted clump of mussels onto the deck. “Get to shucking,” Iascat said, examining the scrapes lining both of his hands. “There better be a pearl in one of those, or I’ll have injured myself for nothing. Fintenus, if I lose a hand to infection, I’m telling my aunt it’s your fault.”

“What, you want us both to lose a hand?”

For the first time that day, Ren felt a touch of real pleasure. She and Tess and Sedge used to duck Ondrakja’s eye every so often and make the walk up to Floodwatch for fresh mussels. Now she readily joined the others in claiming shells and whatever sharp implements could be found to pry them open. But her guests tossed theirs aside with disappointed mutters, meat and all, when each one proved to be empty.

Her annoyance at their waste almost made her stab her thumb as she opened another shell. The bitten-off curse turned into a gasp as she saw the contents. “I found one!”

She held up the pearl like a trophy in her filthy glove, stained with river water and grit. “That means good luck,” Parma told her, clapping.

Benvanna’s voice rose above the congratulations and good-natured grousing. “So the Vraszenians say… but only if you eat the mussel you found the pearl in. Raw.”

The congratulations turned to hoots and cheers, chanting for her to eat it. Benvanna was wrong about having to eat the mussel; the actual tradition said she was supposed to keep the shell in her purse, to attract more wealth. But Renata wouldn’t know that—and she would think eating a raw mussel was disgusting, especially above the cleansing numinat. Giuna was protesting, not that anyone paid her any heed.

Benvanna gave her a sharp-edged smile and propped her chin atop her forefingers, tucking the rest of her fingers between her palms. “Come on, Renata. Eat up.”

Renata almost dropped the pearl as she recognized the hand gesture. Benvanna was her sponsor for the second gate? Tanaquis had promised to pick someone who didn’t hate her.

But it explained Benvanna’s presence today. And regardless of what they thought of each other, for Renata to continue her initiation into the Praeteri, she had to follow any order her sponsor gave. At least this one didn’t bother her nearly as much as Benvanna probably expected.

She struck a pose, raising the mussel with a brave flourish—then slurped it right down. “Mmmm,” she said, dabbing her lips with exaggerated delicacy. “Not bad.”

She grinned cheekily at Benvanna while the barge erupted in drunken cheers. The other woman gave her an unreadable smile in return. Satisfaction? Or annoyance that Renata hadn’t been more put off by the mussel?

Renata didn’t get a chance to ask. As she palmed the mussel shell and tucked it into her pocket, a Galbiondi man whose name she didn’t remember said, “Hey—aren’t we near the Scurezza house? Little Giuna, didn’t you and Sibiliat find them? Let’s have the tale firsthand!”

The laughter fell to dead silence. In that hush, Renata heard the strangled sound Giuna made. Her cousin wavered, hands rising to her mouth—then broke and fled.

Sibiliat followed immediately. Renata didn’t. Instead she pinned the Galbiondi with a cold gaze. Then she went to the rail, stripped off one stained glove, and put her fingers to her mouth for a piercing whistle. The skiffers near the river stair began poling toward her, racing to see who could get there first.

Renata pulled a decira out of her purse and pressed it into the Galbiondi’s palm. “For your passage home.”

Then she went after Giuna.

She found her cousin with Sibiliat at the stern. The musicians were taking a break; no one was nearby to hear. Sibiliat was stroking Giuna’s back, murmuring softly in her ear.

Only when Renata saw her cousin did she realize what her knee-jerk response had been. Defend Giuna. The same way Ren had once defended a copper-headed Ganllechyn girl who’d just joined the Fingers.

When it came to comforting, though, she was out of her depth. This had always been Tess’s strength, not Ren’s—but Tess wasn’t there. “I’m so sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I should have thought… We should have gone downriver instead.”

“It’s all right,” Giuna whispered, though it clearly wasn’t. “Of course they’re talking about it. Everybody wants to know what happened.”

Renata wondered what would eventually come of that. High Commander Dimiterro knew the truth, but since the culprit was already dead, Ghiscolo had seen no benefit in sharing what Giuna and Sibiliat had seen and heard. If the Upper Bank knew Quaniet Scurezza had killed her entire family because Coevis had applied to House Traementis, the gossip would be all about the return of the Traementis’s ill luck. It was a stigma they couldn’t afford.

Renata glanced at the skiff now headed downriver, with the Galbiondi man aboard. “Do you want to go back to the manor? I’ll come with you. I’ve had enough of this heat.”

That made Giuna straighten and wipe her cheeks. “No. No, we can’t show weakness like that. And I don’t want to ruin your special day.”

The only thing special about the day was how much of a masquerade the whole thing was. But Giuna was right about maintaining the show. As Sibiliat had been earlier.

Renata hugged her cousin. Then she drew in a deep breath and settled her mask back into place. If people expected the ruling star of the social scene, then she would give them that.

Striding back toward the bow, she stripped off her other glove and flung the ruined fabric into the water. “More wine!” she commanded, and the party floated on.

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Colbrilun 30

In some ways Tanaquis lived the life Renata had pretended to in the Westbridge townhouse. She had no footman and kept only one maid, a taciturn woman named Zlatsa whose chief recommendation was that she took all of Tanaquis’s oddities in stride. There was no cook; whether Tanaquis realized it or not, her food came from nearby stalls and ostrettas, when she remembered to request a hot meal at all. If rooms went days without being dusted—or even months—she didn’t mind, so long as her workshop remained clean. Many of the things others would rely on servants for were instead done with numinatria, or not done at all.

Which was why Renata arrived for her meeting with Tess in tow and a hamper of food. Tess made quick work of dusting the relevant bits of the parlour, then laid out plates, glasses, wine, pastries, and Liganti-style sandwiches with cheese and ham. Much to Ren’s surprise, she’d found that she quite liked cheese, as long as it wasn’t the type that stank like it was rotting.

“Thank you, Tess,” she said when that was done. “You may go. I’ll have Zlatsa bring the hamper back later.”

It was both a relief and a wrench to send her away. Ren had seen almost nothing of Tess lately, except in the mornings when she woke—after far too little sleep, and that little bit disturbed by nightmares of zlyzen.

The only upside was that Tess had more liberty to pursue her own work. She was in high demand as a dressmaker now. Soon Tess would have enough to reach her dream: a shop of her own. Then she could be free of the lies that bound Ren tight.

None of which they had discussed. There wasn’t any opportunity… and it was a conversation Ren dreaded having.

For now, Tess left with a curtsy and a worried pinch between her brows, and Renata settled in to wait for Tanaquis.

But her plan to arrive early so that she and Tanaquis could discuss private matters ran aground on the rocks of Vargo’s punctuality and their hostess’s absentmindedness. “I’ll remind her you’re here. Again,” Zlatsa said with a long-suffering sigh after she led Vargo in.

“Renata.” Vargo took both her hands in greeting before she could occupy them with tea. “Is that a bit of color in your cheeks? Summer suits you.”

Summer plagued her. In addition to her usual imbued cosmetics, she had to invest in creams to shield her skin from the sun’s kiss. Renata tugged out of his grip on the pretext of covering her cheeks. “I’m afraid I spent more time out on the river than was wise.”

“Your natal day, yes? I’m sorry to have missed it.” He followed her to the mismatched couch and chair—selected for comfort rather than style, Renata suspected. When she took the chair, hoping for some distance, he flipped back the crisp poplin skirts of his mulberry coat and settled on the footstool at her side. “Though I suppose I wouldn’t have been welcome among your guests.”

Before Renata had to offer an insincere apology for leaving him out, Tanaquis wandered into the parlour, nose pressed close to a scroll. She seemed startled to find them there. “Is it noon already? Next time, don’t depend on my maid. Come up and announce yourselves. She’s always interrupting me, so I’ve learned to ignore her.” Tanaquis marked her place in the scroll with a clip and perched on the edge of a chair, studying the repast as though she’d never seen food. “Did she do this?”

“No, I arranged it, as I imagine we’ll be working for quite some time.” Renata poured coffee for them all and took faint pleasure in seeing Vargo’s smile grow fixed as he took it. Apparently he liked coffee no better than she did.

Tanaquis, by contrast, drank it black and with evident pleasure. “Did you serenade Carinci Acrenix at the Rotunda yet, Vargo?”

“This morning,” he said. “If you have any other pointless orders for me, can you make them less inconvenient to my schedule?”

She frowned at him. “But the inconvenience is the point. If it’s easy, then it misses the purpose. ‘Submission is the door to freedom.’”

So Tanaquis was the one ordering Vargo around for the second gate of the Praeteri. Renata had assumed they were forbidden to talk about it, but Tanaquis turned to her and said, “Though it isn’t supposed to be too dreadful. Has Benvanna asked you to do anything that goes too far?”

“Not at all.” Renata hesitated, weighing what she should say in front of Vargo. Likely he knew already; Sostira had hardly been subtle about showing her interest in Renata, and Benvanna couldn’t be subtle about her jealousy if she tried. “I’m merely surprised. You promised you wouldn’t choose an enemy.”

“I didn’t.” Tanaquis paused in her dismantling of one of the sandwiches, apparently so she could eat each element separately. “I thought you were on good terms with House Novrus.”

“That’s hardly the same thing.”

Tanaquis nodded as if to say she understood, while her expression made it clear she never would—and didn’t care. “Well, I think you’ve both done enough to count as having passed the trial. I’ll talk to the Pontifex and arrange the second initiation. One more challenge after that, and you’ll be properly in.”

“I was surprised to hear a Seterin voice at the first ceremony,” Renata said before Vargo could speak up. “Has the Pontifex been in Nadežra long?”

Tanaquis’s reluctance to break the secrecy of the Praeteri apparently didn’t extend to discussing their leader. “Sixteen years or so. Would you consider that long?”

“Compared to me, at least.” Renata forced herself to sip the coffee. “What brought him to Nadežra, of all places?”

::Money.::

At the intrusion of the spirit’s voice, Renata spilled coffee into her saucer. While she mopped that up, Tanaquis said, “I believe it had to do with the law passed against mystery cults back in your homeland. Too many of them were being used as breeding grounds for political coups.”

::No one in Nadežra would dream of staging a coup.::

That sardonic response was in Vargo’s mental voice, and got a chuckle from his spirit. But Vargo sounded only impatient when he said, “As interesting as the Pontifex’s history may be, could we get to the actual purpose of the meeting?”

“Yes, certainly.” Tanaquis patted her pockets and glanced around before finally discovering her scroll under the table. “I’ve drawn up a few charts for you. Early Similun is much too soon, but there are other possibilities. If you’re expecting to make a cleansing numinat work on that scale simply by timing your efforts to the stars, though, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”

Vargo set down his coffee like a man determined to “forget” it was there and passed over a leatherbound folder much like the one he’d given to Renata so many months ago. “The details of my plans are with Fulvet’s office and the Traementis, but I made you a copy as well. In the absence of a skilled inscriptor willing to give their life to imbue the working…” He and Tanaquis exchanged ironic smiles. “The fragment I fished out of the river turned out to be layered, as I suspected. I don’t think it was a simple matter of passing the water through multiple numinata, each of a more reasonably achieved scale and sustainable level—but it supports my theory that an approach of that sort could work. Better than what we have now, anyway.”

“Hmm. Inefficient, expensive,” Tanaquis muttered, tossing aside the pages until she got to the design sketches for the numinat. “Inelegant.”

::I beg your pardon?!:: the spirit squawked. ::I spent years devising this plan!::

::What happened to ‘Oh, I like that girl; excellent chalking’?::

“It’s the only feasible route open to us,” Vargo said, as though there weren’t an incensed spider grumbling at him. “Or that’s my best prospect, anyway. Though after Veiled Waters, I’m wondering if there might be an alternative—given what I saw of the numinat in the Great Amphitheatre.”

“You don’t propose to use the wellspring?” Renata was astonished that she could keep her voice steady.

::It’s an idea…::

“No.” Vargo might have been answering both her and the spirit. “But it does prove that numinata can be powered by sources other than ordinary foci. Perhaps even by the Lumen itself—without the limitations imposed by foci.”

Tanaquis lit up. “Yes! I’d previously discounted pattern as mere superstition, but Renata’s proven it can have actual metaphysical validity. Not in the rational, predictable fashion of astrology, though. It’s more… intuitive, you might say. Or unreliable.”

::Now what’s inefficient and inelegant?::

Renata tensed to keep from glaring at Vargo—or rather, at the rose-hued shadows of his collar, where she could just see the spider lurking. Tanaquis, oblivious, was still talking. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to connect the two, though. There are sixty cards in a pattern deck, which divides neatly into ten groups of six, following the calendrical division of months and weeks in the year, leaving out the intercalary period. Renata, if you were to associate each card with one of the numina, how would you sort them?”

“I wouldn’t,” she said, gathering her scattered attention. “They aren’t organized that way—and there used to be more than sixty, you know.”

The speculation in Tanaquis’s eyes brightened. “There were? How many? Perhaps we don’t have to discount the five intercalary days after all.”

I shouldn’t have said that. Improvising, Renata said, “I’ve been reading up on pattern—what little I can find that isn’t written in Vraszenian, at least.” She made a mental note to buy such books. Surely some had to exist. “One of them said there used to be seven more cards, one for each of the clans. They’ve fallen out of use, but still.”

It dammed the flow of Tanaquis’s enthusiasm. “Seven. Drat.”

Vargo drummed his fingers against his knee. “You mentioned this at Nightpeace. Using pattern to augment a focus, I believe?”

In a minor miracle, Tanaquis hesitated and looked at Renata, rather than immediately spilling the whole tale of the curse. But Renata had already spilled that tale herself, back when she thought she could trust Vargo. She said, “The spiritual affliction I told you about, the one affecting House Traementis. Tanaquis was, thank the Lumen, able to lift it from us. And yes, she used cards in the numinat.”

The discussion that followed was too abstruse for Renata to follow, but that was fine. It gave her the freedom to focus instead on Vargo, watching his reactions, listening to the brief comments his spirit interjected.

That comment about a coup… was that Vargo’s aim? She wanted to laugh it off—if Elsivin the Red’s rebellion failed, Vargo with his knots was unlikely to succeed—but not long ago she would have laughed off the idea of Vargo becoming a noble.

She had no love for most of the Cinquerat, but the idea of him ruling over the city was no better.

In her distraction, Renata failed to steer the conversation into safer waters. She was startled when Vargo turned to her. “You read pattern?” The scar through his brow flexed into view as he arched it.

“If a few experiments deserve that name,” she said, hoping her tense laugh sounded like embarrassment. “I find it intriguing, but there was only so much I could learn in Seteris.”

“Another fortunate reason for you to come to Nadežra,” Tanaquis said. “I’m so eager to learn more.”

The ringing for seventh sun echoed faintly from the street. Vargo eyed the slant of light gilding the dust in the air and grimaced. “As am I, but I can’t be late for my appointment with Meda Fienola’s boss. Not when it’s taken me three weeks to get that appointment.” He straightened his coat with an aggrieved tug. “Some clerk in His Worship’s office has apparently decided now is a good time to revive an old rule that all requests must be made within the hour of seventh sun—to honor Sebat—and filed in triplicate. With brown ink, mind you, not blue. I’d assume they’re stonewalling me specifically, but I’m not the only one having problems.”

Renata would have enjoyed his frustration more if she didn’t share it. “I had a petition rejected because apparently when the clerk said I had three days to file, he meant down to the bell.”

“Exactly. And unless someone has a better proposal than mine, I need to get started on transmuting prismatium for the numinat.”

“Yes, you’ll need rather a lot of it,” Tanaquis said, her fingers drifting across the spread of pages that had overtaken the table. “For that alone, you have my sincere support in finding some other method. Creating prismatium is so dull.”

::Dull? What does she mean, dull? The Great Work is the highest form of…::

Renata could at least take comfort that Vargo departed on a tide of telepathic pique. She hid her amusement with a frown as the door to the parlour closed, leaving her alone with Tanaquis.

“Something troubles you?” Tanaquis asked in a rare moment of observation, looking up from restacking and bundling the designs.

Now it was Renata’s turn to hesitate. Of anyone in Nadežra, Tanaquis was the most likely to be able to answer her questions. But asking them would require her to thread her way through a very delicate maze.

“Ever since my sleeplessness,” she began, then wiped that away with a stroke of her hand. “No, I think… ever since Vargo rescued me from the realm of mind. I’ve been noticing something… odd.” It hadn’t actually begun until the amphitheatre, when she strengthened the thread that connected her to Vargo, but Tanaquis didn’t need to know that.

Tanaquis’s nod prompted her. “I’ve been hearing a voice,” Renata admitted. “Around Vargo. I think it’s a spirit of some kind, speaking to him. And he answers it.”

“A spirit?” It was almost unnerving, how Tanaquis watched her without blinking. “What does it say? How does he answer it? Aloud?”

“No, I—I think I’m hearing his thoughts. But not all of them; only the ones he sends in reply. It happened a few times just now, while Vargo was here. The spirit seems to know a great deal about numinatria.”

“Fascinating.” Tanaquis sipped her coffee, not seeming to mind that her cup had gone stone cold. “I wonder if it has anything to do with the numinat on his chest. You’ve seen it, yes? Though I imagine you were preoccupied with other concerns.”

Something about the way she said that… “We aren’t lovers, Tanaquis. But I caught a glimpse of it on the Night of Hells.” Through the body paint that had nearly been the most opaque part of his costume. The flash of heat that went through her at the memory was chased by a cold touch of anger. “When did you see it?”

“He showed it to me—Ah, right; you were not of sound mind at the time. Why do you think I let him go into the realm of mind after your spirit? It’s some sort of anchor or binding numinat, so I thought him less likely to become lost. Beyond that, however, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’d dearly love to take a tracing of it.”

Half the people in Renata’s life would have meant that as innuendo. Tanaquis’s interest, though, was purely intellectual. It helped distract from the memory of dancing with Vargo that night—the paint on his skin, the interest in his kohl-smudged eyes. “You think that numinat binds him to the spirit?”

“It’s the most likely answer. Could you sketch what you recall of it?” Before Renata could protest, charcoal and a mostly blank sheet of paper were thrust into her hands.

It was months ago, eclipsed not just by the paints covering the mark but by the other events of that night, and Renata was no artist. She drew a dubious, lopsided circle, then attempted to fill in some lines. “But how did he do it? And why?”

“If this spirit is as knowledgeable about numinatria as you claim, there’s your why right there. I’d wondered how Eret Vargo managed to learn so much, given his background. How amazing it must be, to have a conduit of cosmic wisdom at your disposal! As to the how… That’s even more of a mystery, if he managed it without any guidance.” She wrinkled her nose at Renata’s sketch. “You can stop. That isn’t the least bit useful.”

“I’m afraid I was always hopeless at even basic inscription.”

Tanaquis didn’t appear to find that suspicious. She patted Renata’s hand absently as she took the charcoal away. “You have pattern instead. A whole realm of the cosmos I never gave much thought to before! So short-sighted, attempting to destroy the wellspring. There’s much to be learned here—from you and Vargo both.”

Westbridge, Lower Bank: Colbrilun 33

In the Vraszenian calendar, the holiday of Six Candles was a time of nonviolence, out of respect for the memory of the dead Ižranyi. People flocked to the river to float reed votive boats down the Dežera, then visited the nearest labyrinth to make offerings to Čel Tmekra, the deity of death, that the lost spirits of that clan might someday find their way to Ažerais’s Dream.

Ren hadn’t celebrated Six Candles properly since her mother died. And she wouldn’t this year, either—because she was busy helping Koszar and Idusza shift to the new refuge she’d found for them.

In a normal year, it would have been an ideal time to move someone who didn’t want to be seen. The streets and bridges away from the river were relatively quiet, with fewer eyes to note a man who still couldn’t walk without support. But with all the tensions in this city, it wasn’t a normal year.

“More of Branek’s knot-traitors,” Idusza hissed in Arenza’s ear, nails digging into her arm as they both peered past the corner of an ostretta. The squad of armed fists lounging in the plaza were the third they’d run afoul of since Arenza, Serrado, and Idusza sneaked the hooded and limping Koszar out of Alinka’s courtyard tenement. “They have Gria Dmivro’s own courage, to still wear that cord on their wrists. But if they catch us, we’ll be wearing a red smile at our necks.”

She kept her voice low, but Koszar heard her. He pushed himself painfully off the wall and said, “We must go back, and try at night.”

At night there would be more Vigil patrols. They’d been keeping a close watch on the Lower Bank since the riots, and especially since Branek had begun inciting trouble. Arenza said, “More danger to go back now than to press forward.”

“I can distract them somehow,” Serrado whispered. “Long enough for the three of you to sneak past.”

Koszar shook his head. “They’ll know you for a hawk, and one I’ve worked with before.”

“Will they know me?” Arenza asked. The silent look Idusza and Koszar exchanged spoke louder than words. “I thought not. I will distract them.”

Serrado’s hand on her arm stopped her as she pulled her shawl tight. His hand narrowly missed landing on one of the knives hidden in it—though she supposed he would hardly wonder why she went armed, given the situation. “You don’t have to,” he said, his voice rough.

“This was my idea,” she said. Not just moving Koszar today; the refuge itself. She’d arranged it through some of Renata’s resources, hiding the connections seven layers deep. “On me it lies to keep you all safe.”

She drew away before anyone could say more and strode out into the square.

Szorsas weren’t priests, but at certain times of the year—the Night of Bells, Veiled Waters, Six Candles—they stood for the voices of the dead Ižranyi. Rather than softening her footfalls as she had before, Arenza let her bootheels strike the cobbles with authoritative force. In strident Vraszenian, she demanded, “You scoundrels! Why sit you here, idle and drinking, on this sacred day? You should be at the river, at the labyrinth, praying for those whose spirits are lost even to the dream! Is this how the Ižranyi are remembered now by our people in Nadežra? Truly, I weep for our holy city, when such disrespect profanes the day of mourning!”

Several of the fists jerked upright at her words, as if their own mothers were scolding them. The leader was made of sterner stuff, though. He spat onto the cobbles. “Fine words from one wandering around idle herself.”

He was still sitting, leaning back on a stool. One swipe of Arenza’s foot took it out from under him, dumping him on his ass. “I remember the Ižranyi by making certain others forget them not!”

One of the fists knuckled her brow. Giving Arenza a jerky little bow, she said, “Szorsa, we mean no disrespect. Those chalk-faces blasphemed already on Veiled Waters; what if they cause more trouble today? Our orders are to keep everything under control.”

Gesturing at the silent plaza, Arenza demanded, “See you anyone who might cause trouble? No? Of course not, because trouble follows our people, and all our people are at the river or the labyrinth. As you should be. Come, I will show you the way, since you seem to have forgotten our ways.”

Not even a szorsa’s haranguing would move Branek’s fists from their post, but she hadn’t expected it. She’d achieved enough to distract them, though. When the respectful woman promised she’d visit the river before dusk, then spend the night in prayer with her family, Arenza accepted that as sufficient victory and left.

Looping around to the far side of the plaza was much easier when she wasn’t trying to hide an injured man. She met the others along a back canal that threaded between townhouses, just as they were climbing out of it. The summer’s dry weather had drained the channel down to mud, which clung to the bottom of Andrejek’s cloak and spattered Serrado’s and Idusza’s boots.

“Ažerais blessed me with the more pleasant route,” Arenza said, holding the end of her shawl to her nose at the pungent scent.

“Or punished us for our sacrilege,” Idusza said, smiling wryly. “The three of us weren’t even the target of your ire, and yet my feet itched to take me to the river, just to escape it.”

“You serve the ancestors more than they do,” Arenza assured her. “Come, let us move on.”

They made it to the half basement she’d rented on the Uča Drošnel without any further difficulties, and none too soon. Koszar sank down onto the cot with a muffled sound of pain, and Serrado produced a flask of something Alinka had brewed before they left. Koszar drank it while Idusza settled their few belongings and twitched the ragged curtain shut over the high window that looked out onto the pavement.

“We’ll leave you to rest,” Serrado said, accepting the empty flask back.

But when Arenza turned to follow him, Idusza caught her sleeve. “Szorsa—Arenza—if you would spare us just a moment more?”

After the door closed behind Serrado, Koszar pushed himself upright, groaning. “Your words to Branek’s people… It may have been a ruse, but the words you spoke were true. Too much time in this city robs us of the memory of who we are, and what is important: the ties we have to the past, and to each other.”

Reaching into his pocket, he took out a length of braided cord, purple and white and black. White for Anoškin, Arenza surmised; that was Koszar’s clan. Purple for the dead Ižranyi; the Stadnem Anduske were the “faithful children of the dreamweaver.” Black evoked the koszenie, the shawls on which Vraszenians recorded their ancestry.

Then she stopped thinking about the individual strands and realized what he was holding.

“Idusza has said you are alone here. For one of our people, that is no fit state.” Koszar smoothed the knot bracelet over his knee. “Many times I have thought of inviting you to join us. But I was cautious before—cautious of the wrong things, it turned out. Now I am weak, and all but alone. This is not the act of a leader to a recruit, but rather of a friend to a friend.”

A quiet huff from Idusza. “I know it must feel like embroidering what has already been sewn—you have helped us so much already—but we would tie ourselves to you. If you will tie yourself to us?”

Bitterness flooded Ren’s mouth as she stared at the braided strands of the charm, unable to even blink. Twice she’d tied herself into a knot, and twice she’d betrayed it: six years ago when she poisoned Ondrakja, and again during Veiled Waters when she begged Ondrakja to take her back, then turned the zlyzen against her. I’m a murderer and a knot-cutting traitor. Just like Branek. They would never invite her to swear if they knew.

They didn’t see that, though. They only saw Arenza, the pattern-reader newly come to Nadežra. Just like the Traementis, they had grown attached to a mask.

In a knot, there were supposed to be no grudges between members. No debts. And no secrets. It wasn’t a spiritual compulsion, and even faithful knot members sometimes bent the oath a little… but hiding the truth about herself would go well beyond a small bend. Either she’d have to tell them everything—Renata, the Black Rose, the lies she’d told to gain their trust, all her masks and the half-Vraszenian outcast behind them—or the oath would be broken the moment she swore it.

The silence had stretched out long enough that they could tell something was wrong. “We will not ask for you to risk yourself against Branek,” Idusza assured her. “You are a szorsa, not a fist. Your gift must be protected.”

I don’t deserve your protection. Nor their trust. Ren wasn’t worthy of a knot bond, just as she hadn’t been worthy of a life among her mother’s kin. She wasn’t Vraszenian enough for that.

Only Vraszenian enough for it to hurt.

Disappointing the hope in their eyes cut deep, but not as deep as the alternative. “It isn’t that,” Arenza said heavily. “I…” She should have some clever excuse, but the weight had crushed all agility from her mind. “I cannot.”

Awkward silence followed, as Idusza stared at the flagstone floor, and Andrejek tucked the bracelet away.

“If you cannot, you cannot. Forgive us if we presumed too far,” he said. Arenza was braced for suspicion—for anger—but he only sounded sad. And tired. “If you wish not to risk yourself further by helping us, then we understand.”

“It is not that!” The words burst out of her, startling them both. She dragged her voice down with an effort. “I will still help you.” She had to help them. If she couldn’t be their knot-mate, she could be the Black Rose, the thorn in their enemy’s heel.

But she couldn’t say that to them. Weakly, she said, “I—I am still your friend. If I have not offended you too much.”

Idusza’s laugh was too loud for the small room. Bright like the thin line of sunlight streaming through a gap in the curtain, and with the same hard edge. “Think you it takes so little to offend us? Of course we are friends. But we should not keep you any longer. As you reminded all of us, it is Six Candles. Since we cannot visit river or labyrinth, we can only light our candles here in the dark.”

“Perhaps you can take our respects to them for us,” Koszar said. Gently, but it was a dismissal all the same.

She had nowhere to go but back to Traementis Manor, and the life of a cuff. “I will,” Ren promised, and hated herself for the lie.

Westbridge and Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Colbrilun 33

Grey told himself it was because of Branek’s fists on the streets that he loitered outside the new safe house, waiting for Arenza Lenskaya. It was a lie, but one that made him feel slightly less awkward.

When she finally came out, only a few moments after he’d left, he was glad he’d stayed.

She didn’t look upset. Instead her face was a stone mask, her gaze fixed straight ahead without any of the lively wariness she’d shown on the way here. Which meant he was probably right about why Idusza had asked her to stay… and right in his guess about how she would respond. He didn’t know the full story of how she’d ceased to be one of Ondrakja’s Fingers, but he’d caught some of the words that passed between them that night in the Great Amphitheatre.

It seemed she held that bond sacred enough to despise herself for breaking it.

Having Koszar under his roof had forced him to interact with Arenza more often than was wise, and interacting with her had made it hard not to empathize right now. “Walk back with me?” he asked softly. She nodded once, a sharp jerk, and fell into step with him.

Twilight was beginning to fall as they threaded the lanes between the river and the plazas where Branek’s fists still loitered. Apart from a mumbled apology when their elbows bumped or their fingers brushed, neither of them spoke. With nothing to hide—Well, he thought wryly, no Anduske fugitives—they didn’t need to worry about avoiding notice from the Stretsko making themselves a visible and threatening presence on the streets.

Until they came to the edges of Kingfisher, and her step began to drag.

“I should…” She made a feeble gesture in the opposite direction from the way to Alinka’s house. He’d never pressed Arenza on where she lived, but he suspected Ren had a lie prepared if he did.

He should let her go. Every moment he spent with her was another opportunity for her to untangle his web of deception. But sending her back to Renata’s life—tonight of all nights, when she’d refused a gesture of trust from her friends—it felt wrong. Grey reached out when she started to turn away, hand hovering just short of touch.

“You could spend the evening with us. It’s Six Candles. Isn’t it less lonely, to remember what has been lost together?”

She ducked her chin, but not before he saw the flicker of reaction, like he’d gut-punched her. He hadn’t expected the offer to hit so hard, and he was still trying to find a graceful way to apologize when she whispered, “Yes. Thank you. I—I will.”

They went from the thickening gloom of the streets to the bright comfort of the house, from painful silence to the bustle and chaos of a kitchen with two small children underfoot. Alinka was predictably delighted to have a szorsa as their guest, and just as predictably refused the proffered help; instead Grey got assigned to vegetable-chopping duty and a report on how the transfer had gone, while Arenza told fables of the clan animals to Yvie and Jagyi. The latter chewed on a wooden block, listening raptly, while the former ricocheted around, one moment a fox, the next a noble horse.

Eventually the chaos resolved into a meal and a table cleared for the dishes. Grey wound up with Arenza at his right hand, and Yvieny beyond her. “Wish you to lead the prayers?” Alinka asked her.

Arenza shook her head. “No, this is your family and your home. Please.”

Six precious beeswax candles went onto the table, carefully wedged between the bowls. “Ažerais, mother of us all, hear our prayers.”

Grey closed his eyes as Alinka began the recitation. The substance of her version was the same as the one he’d grown up with, a recounting of how the Ižranyi had died: the eleven nights and days of horror that swept through Vraszan, as every person who bore that clan name fell into madness, tearing themselves and those around them apart. The city of Fiavla, their main stronghold, was a haunted wasteland to this day. No one knew how the terrifying power of a Primordial had come to be unleashed upon them; they only knew that one of those demonic forces, older and wilder than the gods themselves, had destroyed the seventh clan.

But Alinka’s approach to that subject was different, and he preferred the way she told it. The version repeated around his childhood table, before Kolya returned from his carpentry apprenticeship to take Grey away, had dwelt heavily on the possible causes of the disaster: the wrongs some unknown person must have perpetrated, to bring such calamity down on their entire clan; the ill luck some people were simply born with, bringing death in their wake, striking everyone else while leaving them unscathed. Always told with meaningful looks that weighed on Grey despite his tightly clasped hands and determinedly bowed head, wishing, wishing, wishing the meal would end.

A soft touch on his arm dragged him back to the present. Alinka, holding up a beeswax candle, new-bought and taller than the remnants from years past. Compassion furrowed her brow. She knew, without ever being told directly, why Grey and Kolya lived in Nadežra with no clan or kureč beyond each other.

He fumbled with the flint, striking several times before the spark caught and the flame burned for the Ižranyi.

Once it had flared and settled, Alinka touched the wick to each of the six stubs to light them. A prayer for the souls of the Ižranyi, lost even to Ažerais’s Dream; a hope that someday they would find peace. A promise that their lineage would be kept alive in the other clans, through those who bore their blood. No one had ever attempted to reconstitute the Ižranyi—not after that incomprehensible tragedy—but their memory would never be forgotten.

When the prayer finished, she blew out the seventh candle.

It made for a subdued meal under the flickering of the six remaining lights, and he almost regretted inviting Arenza to join them. But despite the somber mood, the tension gradually eased out of her shoulders. How often did she get to do things like this? Not often, he suspected. He’d seen her at the Seven Knots labyrinth when his clan gathered to mourn their dead ziemič—a loose thread that let him follow her back to the Westbridge townhouse, unraveling her deception at last—but he didn’t think she made a regular habit of visiting such places. Alta Renata was a busy woman. So was the Black Rose; he’d heard tales of her interfering with Branek’s attempts to consolidate the Anduske under his control. Neither left much time for her to be an ordinary Vraszenian.

Maybe she needed that.

When Alinka carried the sleeping Jagyi upstairs, Arenza helped Grey clear the table of dishes. “We’ll wash them later,” he said quietly, nodding toward Yvieny dozing next to her empty bowl.

“Thank you,” Arenza said. “You were right. This was a good way to spend this evening.”

Her gaze flickered toward the door as Alinka came downstairs to collect the sleepily protesting Yvieny. She ought to leave; he ought to let her go.

“The evening isn’t over yet.”

He ought not to have said that.

Her eyebrow ticked upward. “Are you suggesting something, Captain Serrado?”

That tone… The hint of playfulness in it sounded like something she would have said to the Rook. His sense of humor had slipped free during the preparations for dinner, jesting comments at odds with the stoic facade of Captain Grey Serrado. Had they sounded too much like what the Rook might say? Did she know—or at least suspect?

Either way, she’d handed him a perfect opening. A false hole in his defense that he could use to lure his opponent in for the disarm. And as much as Grey hated to end this gentle night with a trick, he couldn’t pass up the chance to deflect any suspicions she might have.

He sent up a silent prayer that the deities would forgive him for interfering with a szorsa’s cards. The Masks might curse him for it anyway… but they’d already cursed him, long ago.

“What better night than Six Candles to seek a szorsa’s insight?” He dug into his pocket and laid a centira on the table. The standard prayer was bitter with irony on his tongue. “May I see the Face and not the Mask.”

Westbridge, Lower Bank: Colbrilun 33

Ren stared at the coin, then at Serrado. Her visits to this house had made it all too clear that he didn’t like szorsas. So why was he now asking her to pattern him?

Not asking—challenging. His bland expression seemed to question whether she had the confidence to accept. And that made her straighten up, take out her deck, and shuffle with all the flair of which she was capable.

But she didn’t want to seem too much like a streetside performer, either. They often skipped the prayers to the ancestors, so she made a point of including them—only to get a sardonic look in response, as if he could tell she was trying to be more authentic. By the time she passed the deck to him for the last shuffle and cut, she had to glance away to escape the weight of those blue eyes. She muttered the final prayer to Ižranyi with her gaze fixed on the extinguished candle, and didn’t look up until he handed the cards back.

“This is your past, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

The Ember Adamant, Wings in Silk, and Sword in Hand. The first and third from the woven thread; the second from the spinning. She touched the first card. “Like your sister, you are not from Nadežra. But people helped you when you came here. A debt you have repaid many times over, I think.”

“The story of every Vraszenian who comes to this city.” His voice was deeper when he spoke their language, with a pleasant burr at odds with his unimpressed tone.

“Not all of them Vraszenian,” she added, even though she shouldn’t. She knew that as Renata, from things Donaia and Giuna had said, not from the cards. She pointed to Sword in Hand. “This debt you have repaid partly through your duties in the Vigil. Unusual, one of our people rising so far… but I think you see it as a challenge.”

“Most ‘true’ Vraszenians call me a slip-knot for that.”

She’d called him that before, in her own thoughts. Not anymore, though; not since she’d seen him with his family, and with the Anduske. He was more Vraszenian than she was. “Wings in Silk. Transformation. To be in this city, you have changed—a necessary change, but one that comes with a price. And with regret.” She frowned at the card, then at him. “But this is no simple matter of cutting your hair. You have in other ways changed, I think. Just as the Vigil is not the only cause you have taken up. The Anduske, for one.” Also vengeance for his murdered brother. Perhaps other things as well. There were more layers to Grey Serrado than she used to believe.

He crossed his arms, a defensive gesture. “I have a lot of causes to pick from. And a lot of regrets.”

His brother’s death lay like an open wound between them. She’d never told him that Vargo was responsible. She couldn’t; if Serrado knew, nothing would stop him from going after Kolya’s killer. And there was only one way that could end.

She took refuge in the next line of cards, and a soft breath huffed from her at the sight. “All from the spinning thread; that is a strong sign.” For the good, Aža’s Call—straightforward enough. “Slip-knot others may call you, but there is a difference between the mask you wear and the face beneath it. You keep up appearances because it is necessary… but beneath that, you pursue your dream.”

What dream, though? Neither logic nor the other two cards told her. Lark Aloft and The Mask of Nothing… three from the same thread ought to be significant, but she couldn’t tease out their meaning. “You seem not the sort of man for rash action or blind assumptions, neither for good nor for ill. But perhaps this has to do with Lark Aloft—have you had a recent message? Bad news from some quarter that into foolishness might provoke you?”

His shoulders relaxed, arms resting on the table as he leaned over the spread to give her a teasing look. “Besides right now? I think we need to finish the reading before we can determine that. Is it foolish to purchase protection charms?”

She fought the urge to make a rude gesture. His own sister by marriage crafted such things, at this very table; she doubted he scorned the charms themselves. But hawking them was too often the hallmark of a charlatan, who would first scare the client and then offer to avert their doom, promising more protection than a mere piece of knotwork could provide. Ren’s mother, Ivrina, had despised that practice.

Hopefully the future line would give her something solid enough to prove her skills once and for all. “This is your future, the good and the ill of it, and—”

The words died in her throat, strangling tighter with each card she turned over. Labyrinth’s Heart. The Mask of Bones. Sleeping Waters. All from the cut thread, and this time there was no mistaking their meaning. It writhed through her like the touch of ash, warping the world into nightmare.

She tried to speak, but nothing would come. Her breath rasped in her ears, too shallow, too fast, and her pulse beat like a dying moth in her throat. She couldn’t even reach out to turn the cards back over, to hide their meaning from her view. Pain spiked up her fingers as her nails scraped the table’s edge, seeking something, anything to steady her.

She found it in Grey’s hands, lifting her own before she gouged splinters under her nails. The teasing smile had vanished into wide-eyed concern. “Szorsa? Arenza. Breathe. It’s all right. Whatever you see, they’re only cards.”

“They are—wrong,” she whispered, forcing the words out. “I have nothing to sell you, I’m not playing a trick—this is bad. Not simply bad meaning, but something worse.” As if someone had cursed him.

Grey’s voice remained steady. “But they hold the solutions to the problems they show, yes? We won’t know until we read them.” He released her hands and tapped the cards in succession. She couldn’t hold back a flinch as his fingers touched each one. “Labyrinth’s Heart. Calm, patience, stillness. That’s nothing to fear. The Mask of Bones in the ill position is… well, it’s death. But other kinds of endings, too. Unhappy ones, in this case. Sleeping Waters simply means that some sort of place is important.”

He knew the cards well for someone who scorned them… but there was a difference between knowing and interpreting. “No. Yes, but no. The Mask of Bones—this is not the alternative to Labyrinth’s Heart, choose stillness or choose death. It will come either way. Different deaths; you cannot avoid them all.”

“My death?”

His voice was neutral, controlled. Ren shook her head. “I—I don’t think so. Not the death of your body, at least. And the stillness…” It was like the pattern Ivrina had laid in the nightmare, where even the good cards were warped to malevolence. “You must choose which action not to take. ‘Both’ is not possible. Whatever you do not do…”

Someone would die for it. She couldn’t make herself say it, but his nod acknowledged the meaning in her silence. “And Sleeping Waters? Is it a place I should go, or somewhere I should avoid?”

The card depicted the Old Island, the Point rising up from the river. At its top, the Wellspring of Ažerais, which he’d helped protect from the bombing. But it didn’t mean that place specifically, not again—and yet, not not there. “There is a place you must go, a place you will be. But—” Her vision blurred, doubling. “You will not be there. You will and you will not. It all depends on what you choose.”

Tears burned at the edges of her eyes. “This is all wrong,” she whispered again, more to herself than to him.

But he heard. Grey exhaled noisily, his bare fingers sliding along the edge of Labyrinth’s Heart. “You’re not the first patterner to tell me that.”

He tried to keep the words light, but she could hear the weight of old resentment dragging it down. “Pattern is not fixed,” she said fiercely, seizing his hand. “Whatever has gone wrong can be mended.”

For a silent instant he sat, his hand in her grip, his gaze meeting hers. What she saw there wasn’t doubt; he didn’t disbelieve in pattern. The wound he carried was of a different sort.

Then the window closed and his hand pulled away. “Perhaps. But the only mending I’ll be doing tonight is my socks.” He dug out another two centiras and set them on either side of the cards. “For the Face and the Mask… and an apology to you. I should not have asked you to do this.”

Money for her, when she was Alta Renata and he was struggling to keep his brother’s family fed. “I—would like to help. If I may.”

The stairs creaked under the soft shuffle of Alinka’s slippers. “I’m sorry I took so long. Help with what?”

She stopped at the base of the stairs, blinking in astonishment at the cards laid on the table, the coins set on either side. Ren swept them up, cards and coins alike, before Alinka could study them.

It didn’t hide what had happened, though, and Alinka’s jaw sagged. “You let her pattern for you?”

“I asked,” Grey said mildly.

She turned her astonished look on Arenza, now tinged with concern. “Tell me he insulted you not.”

“Alinka! I have better manners than that.” His aggrieved look showed no hint of what had gone before, that bitter resignation to a twisted fate. Idusza was right: The Kiraly were never without their masks.

And Ren needed to protect her own. “I’ve stayed far too long,” Arenza said. The people in her other life would be wondering where she’d vanished to.

Alinka frowned at the darkness showing through the window. “You will be safe going home? Perhaps Grey should—”

“I would not trouble the captain,” Arenza said, heading off Alinka’s suggestion. “He has mending to do.”

“And here I thought you were offering to help with that,” he murmured, amused, as he held the door open for her.

It was a friendlier comment than she was used to hearing from him. The warmth of it stayed with her as she headed for the clothing she’d stashed under the eaves of a nearby house—until she remembered it was Arenza Lenskaya he was being friendly to.

If he ever found out the truth, that would change faster than she could blink.