11

Labyrinth’s Heart

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Lepilun 27

The Pearls were as different from Dockwall as a place could be, but gossip cared little for such separations. Only four hours since Tess had woken from her vigil to find Ren climbing back through her balcony doors, hardly even pausing to scrub off Arenza’s face before collapsing into bed, and the parks and plazas around Traementis Manor were flooded with speculation.

Ren hadn’t been conscious enough to relate the details of her nighttime prison break, only that it was a success, and something bitter about how she was an idiot who should just stop guessing. By the time she roused in the morning, the risk of other servants overhearing meant she couldn’t talk at all.

But between kitchen conversations over mushroom porridge and snippets caught on the street, Tess winkled out the details. Someone had escaped the inescapable Dockwall Prison, or had tried and failed. The Stadnem Anduske prisoners had blown a hole in the wall. Or the rooftop. Or themselves. They’d had help from the inside. Or the outside. From the Stretsko. The Rook.

The Black Rose of Ažerais.

Tess wished for a third ear as Meatball tugged her along the walk that bordered the East Channel: one for the gossips, one for Meatball’s snuffles when he spotted something interesting, and one for Suilis’s ramblings as the other maid walked beside her.

“—must have been the Rook,” Suilis declared with a decisive nod. “Who else would have the nerve to break into the Dockwall? And I heard about what he did to Mede Essunta with that firework. Poor man—do you think his hands will heal?”

Tess made a noncommittal sound and wished she could walk the dog alone. But after a week of Suilis’s whinging terror whenever she had to take out Donaia’s Alwyddian wolfhound, Tess had made the mistake of saying it didn’t seem like such a chore. Now that chore was unofficially shared. “After all,” Suilis had blithely declared, “you’re practically countrymen.”

Their usual walk took them around the perimeter of Isla Traementis while Meatball examined and marked every lamppost, bush, and building stoop. If the canal walk was empty, Tess would let him off the leash to harass the gulls, but today she wasn’t in a mood to listen to Suilis’s yelps of fear.

Their whole friendship was like that. Tess was closer to Suilis than to anyone else on the Traementis staff, them both being new, but too many of the things the other maid did chafed her patience… and her suspicions.

Like now, when Suilis squeezed her arm and leaned in, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s not the only thing I heard about the Essunta party, though. One of their maids says she saw Alta Renata coming back from meeting her secret lover.”

This was a needle Tess had to thread carefully. She hated encouraging false gossip, but rumors of Renata’s lover kept suitors at bay and provided the cover necessary for Ren’s increasing absences.

Suilis didn’t seem to need confirmation. She sighed happily, tilting her face up to the sun as if it weren’t trying to broil them all alive. “Who do you think he is? Or she, though your alta seems to prefer men. I wonder where they meet up? If I had a secret lover, I’d want a nice little nest where we could be alone.”

Tess might not be the con artist Ren was, able to talk people into spilling all their secrets, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize the signs of someone else doing the same. Despite the sweltering heat, a trickle of ice went down her back.

Thankfully, Meatball could be depended on to provide a distraction. Tess loosened her hold on the lead, and he took it as permission to charge toward an unsuspecting gull. With an “oof!” of false surprise, Tess let him drag her free of Suilis’s grip, then caught his collar and pulled him back with a soft command before he made a second breakfast of the gull.

“Time we head back,” she told Suilis. Then, to Meatball: “Come, my lad. Let’s get you back to your mistress.”

When Suilis turned to lead the way, Tess pulled a chunk of dried mutton from her pocket and fed it to the hound. “Good boy,” she whispered. “If I ever form my own knot, you’ll be my top fist.”

Colbrin was waiting for them when they reached Traementis Manor. “Keep him collared. The era wants you to bring Lex Talionis to her study.” He was the only one stickler enough to use Meatball’s official name.

Knowing Colbrin would want Suilis to handle the task, Tess blurted, “My alta’s at an appointment, and I’ve nothing else to occupy myself. I can take him up.” Without waiting for approval, she unhitched Meatball’s lead, buried her fingers in his ruff, and led him upstairs.

She expected to find Donaia alone, or perhaps with Giuna. She didn’t expect to find them both sitting across from a dark-skinned Vraszenian woman with a toddler in her lap and a wide-eyed little girl clinging to her knee.

Mother and Crone, they found us out! Tess had never met Alinka Serrado, but she’d heard enough from Ren to leave little doubt of the woman’s identity.

She had to run. Get the bags. Get Ren. Find Sedge. First ship out of Nadežra, and Ren could just swallow down her seasickness.

Donaia waved for Tess to enter, then blinked in confusion. “Where is Suilis?”

The question knocked Tess’s frantic thoughts off their course. “Below. She’s that frightened of Meatball, so I’m the one who walks him.” Only after she’d spoken did Tess realize she’d spilled on the other maid. But better Suilis for a small offense than Ren for a high crime.

Donaia frowned, but it wasn’t aimed at Tess. To Alinka, she said, “This is Meatball. He’s part of the family and will be joining me later at Eret Quientis’s villa. I assure you, he’s not as dangerous as he looks.”

If this was how Donaia introduced her dog to Suilis, no wonder the maid was terrified of him. The toddler buried his whimpers in his mother’s chest, and the girl silenced hers by chewing on the head of her doll.

Giving Meatball the signal to stay where he was, Tess released his ruff and ventured closer to the family. “What’s your name?” she asked the girl. If Ren had shared it, Tess couldn’t remember. Probably she hadn’t. They had so little time for talking these days.

“Yvieny,” the girl mumbled around the head of her doll. Her gaze was no longer on Meatball. Instead, she seemed transfixed by Tess’s hair. “Are you Elsivin?”

Ignoring Alinka’s cough, Tess asked, “Who?”

The doll was shoved in her face, all spit-sogged hair and ratty clothes. “Elsivin the Red. She’s a hero.”

“Is she.” Donaia’s cool words warned there were currents here Tess couldn’t see.

To avoid them, she said, “I’m Tess, and this is Meatball. We’re both from Ganllech.”

“Does he bite?” Yvieny’s expression walked the tightrope between fascination and fear.

Donaia’s “no” tipped it toward disappointment. Tess, recalling the delight over destruction that came with Yvieny’s age, winked and said, “Unless you tell him to. The princes of Ganllech use Alwyddian wolfhounds to snap a boar’s legs so it can’t charge during a hunt.”

Paying no mind to the horrified gasps of the adults, Tess sank to her knees. “But they’re well-trained to tell the difference between boars and little girls.” She gestured to Meatball and he trotted up, tongue lolling in a doggy smile.

“Gulša,” Yvieny breathed in admiration. For an instant she sounded like Ren as a child, marveling over some street magician’s tricks. Keeping her hand well away from the teeth that had caught her eye, she gave his rump a tentative pat. “I bet he could chomp through a whole cone of honey stones.”

“Like that,” Tess agreed with a click of her fingers.

Now that the tension had broken, Yvieny was happy to take over explaining to her mother and brother that, see, Meatball was sweet. Meatball was harmless. Meatball could viciously maul people and chomp their legs off, but only if they were enemies. This last was accompanied by much snapping of her jaws.

Tess stood, dusting off her skirts, and stepped back to stand by Donaia. Who studied her and said, “You seem familiar with Alwyddian wolfhounds. Did you have them back home?”

“Me?” Tess’s incredulous laugh earned her an arched brow. She swallowed the rest and kept her eyes downcast. “No, Era Traementis. Wolfhounds and red-points were bred for princes. But we did have a few hearth mutts with a smidge of the blood.” The memory of those rawboned old hounds had kept Tess from fearing dogs the way most of Ondrakja’s Fingers did. She never could convince Ren or Sedge they weren’t all bad.

“There’s a merchant out of Ganllech who’s gotten his hands on a pair of braches,” Donaia said. “He wants Meatball to act as stud for them. He’s offered a pup from the first litter, in addition to a fee.”

“That’s a royal gift.” Old Ganllechyn law had required a prince’s edict for anyone else to own one.

Donaia made a pleased sound. “I’d need to leave Meatball here for the breeding. And I’d prefer to have the braches stay at the manor until the puppies are weaned. But it’s clear Suilis doesn’t have the temperament for it. Could I trust you?”

“It would be a genuine pleasure,” Tess said. “And I’ll help with the new puppies.”

That thought put a bounce in her step as she left Yvieny trying to ride the endlessly patient Meatball and went to lay out clothing for Renata’s appointment with Meda Capenni that afternoon.

But the bounce went dead as she went into Renata’s bedroom and found Suilis inside.

“There you are!” Suilis said brightly. “And good, you’ve gotten rid of that beast. I wanted to ask what you have planned for your next day off. I was thinking…”

Tess kept a sunny smile up as the other maid nattered on about Nadežra’s summer diversions, but underneath it was winter’s ice.

Suilis ought to have been helping with the decorations for the upcoming Traementis adoption ball, not looking for Tess. Not using me as an excuse to snoop in Alta Renata’s rooms.

She was spying. Tess had been right to suspect her.

The next time they walked the dog, she might just let Meatball terrorize Suilis. But more importantly, she would find out who that snoop was working for, and why.

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

The boards of the staircase creaked in protest under Grey’s heavy tread. Masks have mercy, but he was tired. Dockwall had been a success, on all fronts; the Anduske were stowed in a safe house of Vargo’s, with no one the wiser. And seeing Grey and the Rook in separate places at the same time should put any suspicions Ren might harbor to permanent rest.

But Dockwall was also the latest in a string of very late nights. He didn’t remember the last time he’d gotten so much as four hours of unbroken sleep. Even when he snatched a brief rest during the day, it was too easy for some idiot or another to bang on his office door and wake him up.

So he came home. Alinka wouldn’t begrudge him an afternoon nap in her bed, and with any luck, nobody from the Aerie would look for him here.

Yvie was sitting quietly for once, working on a simple button knot charm with tongue-biting intensity. Jagyi was under the table, playing some game known only to him. After an exchange of growls with Jagyi and a kiss dropped onto Yvie’s hair, Grey headed up the stairs.

The door at the top was closed. Grey elbowed it open, saying, “Alinka, if you mind not—”

“Shhhh!” Alinka shot into view, simultaneously gesturing for him to keep his voice down and at the bed behind her.

Where Arenza lay asleep, half-curled on her side, one hand flat beneath her cheek.

The sight threw him almost as badly as the day he had come into the house and found her at the kitchen table. Now she was asleep in the bed?

Alinka hustled him back out onto the landing and eased the door shut. “What’s she doing here?” Grey demanded.

“Sleeping,” Alinka said tartly. “She claimed she wasn’t tired—pfah! As if she could fool a healer. With her head on the kitchen table I caught her, ‘just resting her eyes.’ If she spent half as much time sleeping as pretending she’s fine, she’d be much better off.”

Grey was used to ignoring Alinka’s pointed looks; he shrugged this one off with ease. “I myself hoped to rest,” he said. It came out sounding more plaintive than he intended.

“That is wise,” Alinka said, softening. “You can sleep in the children’s truckle bed.”

He swallowed a protest before it could burst free. The truckle bed? He’d have to fold himself in half to fit into that thing. Arenza was several inches shorter than he was; why couldn’t she have taken the smaller bed?

An absurd question, and Alinka would smack him if he voiced it. “I’ll sleep in the chair,” Grey said sourly. He couldn’t afford to forgo the rest.

“As you please.” Alinka edged past him on the narrow stairs. “I’ll make sure the children stay quiet.”

When she was gone, Grey rested his forehead against the door, cursing silently. Then he went inside.

Arenza hadn’t shifted a muscle. Either she was feigning sleep so she could observe what he did, or she really was out cold. Grey’s money was on the latter. She knew how to use cosmetics to hide the weary lines, the circles under her eyes… but with her face slack in repose, the exhaustion was plain. He couldn’t have turfed her out of the bed even with Alinka’s blessing.

Grey knew all too well the strain of maintaining a double life, but he’d also come to know her. Whatever troubled her sleep was more than just her ongoing deception. It was only by comparison that she looked better rested than she had during her nine nights of sleeplessness after the Night of Hells. He wished he could prod her into seeking help, as he had then.

Prod. A kind word for frightening her into a complete breakdown. The memory of her shivering helplessness that night dragged at his conscience and made him wish all the more that he could help her now, by kinder means. Captain Serrado’s relationship with Alta Renata didn’t permit such familiarity, though.

Would she accept it from the Rook?

That wasn’t a question he could answer today. Sighing, Grey contemplated the chair. If he put his feet up, it wouldn’t be too bad. And she’d been considerate enough to curl up so the lower half of the bed was empty.

He moved the chair into position, setting it down as silently as possible. Then he pulled off his boots and stockings and shrugged out of his uniform coat, rolling up his sleeves in the room’s heavy warmth. Serve her right if I broke into her house and went to sleep in her bed.

Thoughts like that were hardly conducive to rest. Sighing again, he settled in, propping his feet on the empty corner of the straw-stuffed mattress and laying his head on the back of the chair. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but he’d slept in worse. His eyes drifted closed.

He jolted out of a half doze with the sensation of falling, splaying his hands to catch himself. But he was safe in the chair. The sunlight had drifted less than an hour’s span across the floor. As for the noise that had awoken him…

Ren was having a nightmare. Half-choked sounds slipped between her lips, and her limbs twitched, reacting to something in her dream. The tendons in her neck drew tight as her jaw clenched and released.

His first instinct was to wake her. His second was to consider how dangerous that might be. He doubted she was the type to wake gently under the best of circumstances, and if she escaped a nightmare’s grip only to find him looming over her, that might frighten her worse.

“Arenza,” he said. Quietly at first; then a bit louder, without result. However good she was at masquerades, he wasn’t sure even she would respond to an assumed name in her sleep.

So: either shake her awake, or let her keep dreaming. She’d folded the knife-laden shawl he’d given her between herself and the wall, probably to keep Yvie from finding the blades. No other weapons within immediate reach, not that he could see. Which didn’t really mean anything… but oh well. He was a Vigil captain, not to mention the city’s most notorious outlaw. If he couldn’t defend himself against a half-asleep woman armed with nothing worse than a knife, he should return the hood to Ryvček permanently instead of merely loaning it for a few bells.

Kneeling so he presented as minimal a threat as possible, Grey reached out and shook her knee.

She came awake swinging, as expected. But she punched like she fenced, more instinct than training. Only when her nails came near his face did he catch her wrists. “Arenza! It’s all right. Only a dream.”

Her eyes focused on his face. “Grey.”

She breathed it like a prayer. His grip eased on her wrists, cradling them like two fragile birds. She’d never used his name before. As Arenza or Renata, she always called him “Captain Serrado.” But the shift wasn’t a calculated decision, some part of her masquerade. For one suspended moment, she saw him, and he saw her.

Not Arenza or Renata or the Black Rose, but Ren. Her true face.

“I’m here,” he said. The words were rougher than they should have been, snagging on the tangle of feelings welling up inside. I just moved the moons to deceive her. I don’t deserve to see this.

He released her as she slumped, letting her sink back onto the mattress. She lay there for several heartbeats, damp with sweat, gaze skittering back and forth as if she were trying to gather up the frayed threads of her composure. He wanted to stroke the hair from her face, but he reined the impulse in. The kindest thing he could do was to wait in silence, giving no hint that he’d seen her come apart.

“I’m sorry.” Ren’s apology came out a rasp. Her throat worked as she swallowed, a brief hitch in the rapid pulse of her breath. “I—I hope I hit you not.”

She spoke in Vraszenian. When Alta Renata Viraudax Traementatis woke in the night, did she remember to speak with the clipped accent of a Seterin noblewoman? “I train with Oksana Ryvček,” he said, striving to sound unaffected. “I managed.”

His weak attempt at banter called forth no response. Asking felt like presumption, but seeing her like this made his heart ache. “Would it help to talk about it?”

She managed a small shrug. “A nightmare. At least for once it was not zlyzen.”

Masks knew she had enough terrors to haunt her dreams. The Night of Hells. Gammer Lindworm. The Rook himself, ambushing her when she was half-insane with lack of sleep.

She hauled herself upright with the kind of slow, weary movement he recognized all too well. If she’d been alone, she probably would have groaned. “Alinka browbeat me into lying down—I meant to take a few minutes only, to satisfy her. What time is it?”

When he told her, she shot to her feet with a good deal more energy and snatched up the shawl, flinging it around her shoulders, stuffing her feet into her boots. What engagement of Alta Renata’s had she just slept through? He simply nodded at the mumbled excuse she gave, and then she was gone, down the stairs in a clatter. Alinka’s startled voice rose up through the floorboards. A few moments later the door banged shut below, and Grey sank onto the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands.

Soon after, he heard Alinka’s tread on the stairs. “I roused her not,” he said, the words muffled by his palms. “She woke on her own. And woke me.”

“So she said.” Alinka laid one hand on his shoulder. “You too are tired. You have no peace sleeping in your office. Truly, you could stay here.”

It was a conversation they’d repeated all too often since Kolya died. But now, thanks to Ren, there might be a solution. “How went the meeting with Era Traementis?”

“Well,” Alinka said. “With the dog Jagyi is a little shy, but Yvie—”

“Has a new pony,” Grey guessed, and smiled at Alinka’s fond but long-suffering nod. “Let’s just hope she teaches him no bad habits around biting.” Then a yawn overtook him. “Wake me at sunset?”

“I will.” Alinka eased the door shut behind her, and the room was quiet.

He lay down with a weary groan. The bed was warm where Arenza had lain, and the pillow held traces of her scent. His palms tingled with the memory of her wrists, that moment when they lay loose and trusting in his hands.

Hoping he might see her again soon—and knowing the wish was foolish—Grey went back to sleep.

Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

Ren’s steps slowed as she left the Serrado house. There was no point in rushing; she couldn’t possibly make it to the Charterhouse on time for her appointment in Fulvet’s office, which meant his secretary wouldn’t let her in.

But it had been so good to sleep peacefully for a little while. While the nightmares still found her eventually, they’d been blessedly zlyzen-free. Alinka had laid a red thread around the bed for her children, and whether it was magic or just the comfort of a familiar charm, it had helped. Even waking to find Grey there hadn’t been the source of fear it would have been, not that long ago. The sight of him had brought a sense of calm—of safety. He might not be the Rook, but she’d come to enjoy his company.

Be honest with yourself, if with no one else. You more than enjoy it.

Not just the chance to be Vraszenian. Alinka and the children gave her that, or Koszar and Idusza, even if Ren could never shed the awareness that she was pretending to a legitimacy she didn’t have.

But Grey… there was more to him than just the dutiful hawk. He had a wry sense of humor that rarely showed when he was in uniform, and it called the same out of her. She laughed more around him, and more sincerely, than anywhere else.

If she were smarter, she would stop visiting their house at all. But she couldn’t deny herself that chance to live a more comfortable lie.

Ren was so lost in thought that she had to swallow a yelp when a man stepped up to block her way. A second yelp tried to follow when she recognized him: Nikory, the leader of Vargo’s Fog Spiders. And when she reflexively glanced over her shoulder for an escape, she found two others behind her.

Nikory said, “Lenskaya. Vargo wants another word with you.”

Froghole, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

The worst five words for a fist to hear were boss wants to see you. Yet Sedge welcomed them when Lurets showed up at the door of his boarding house. Wouldn’t drop a word about what Vargo wanted, but after the cock-up in Lacewater—a cock-up Sedge had deliberately missed, which was cause enough for Vargo to suspect him—a friendly face delivering the message said that Vargo only had questions.

His confidence took a hit, though, when Lurets brought him through the Froghole headquarters and into a back room that held Vargo, Varuni, Nikory…

And Ren.

He couldn’t hide his surprise and didn’t bother trying. Instead, he let it dribble into confusion. “You brought me here to get patterned?”

At least Ren didn’t look hurt beyond a bit of mussing. Tense, yes, and no wonder; it was sheer fucking stupidity for her to be in front of Vargo as Arenza again. Which meant this meeting was Vargo’s idea, not hers. How had he nabbed her? Sedge remembered what Tess had told him, how often Ren was sneaking off to Kingfisher to spend time with Serrado’s family. Might be Vargo had caught wind of it, too.

Vargo snorted at his question. “Does this look like a patterner’s shop to you? No, this is just a meeting between old friends. You said you didn’t know where to find the szorsa, so I found her for you.” He leaned his elbows on his desk, lips resting against steepled fingers. “Unfortunately, she’s being… less than forthcoming. Almost like she has something to hide.”

Ren had plenty and then some to hide. “What’re you trying to ask her?” And why am I here for it?

“Lacewater,” Vargo said. “Someone betrayed that meeting. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t the Anduske. That leaves the go-betweens. You… and Szorsa Arenza here. She claims she didn’t know about the meeting. Convenient, don’t you think? I’d love to hear more.”

Something dropped in the pit of Sedge’s stomach as Vargo lounged back in his chair, tugging his cuffs straight. “You’re going to loosen her tongue.”

He knew immediately what Vargo was saying. But he asked anyway, because horror made him disbelieve. “You don’t mean—”

“Work her over, Sedge. I know you know how.”

Out in the street, someone was having a shouting match. It sounded like it was a thousand leagues away. There was only this room, and Ren in a chair, and Vargo waiting for him to beat her bloody.

Stall. He had to stall. Give Ren time to get them out of this without giving them away. “Why me? There’s a half dozen others still tied in who could do it as good.” No. Wait. Don’t give Vargo ideas about having some other fist hurt her. “But you brought me in. What’s your game?”

“My game,” Vargo said softly, “is that I want information, and I want you to get it. You don’t need to know more.”

Sedge could guess without being told. Tests of loyalty were meant to be hard. Ondrakja had taught him that, using Ren and Tess. She’d taught his sisters the same lesson using him.

He cracked his knuckles. Not threat; habit. He looked to Nikory, Varuni, even Lurets, but there was no help from them. And Ren…

Ren was braced in the chair, but not afraid. Because she knew Sedge wouldn’t do it? Because she was ready to take it? Could be either, and he couldn’t ask her. They were too out of practice from their days of working together against Ondrakja—only they’d never had to do this, because Ondrakja was careful not to push them that far.

Right up until the day she tried to murder Sedge, and Ren poisoned her for it.

Vargo wasn’t Ondrakja. And Sedge had never been good at playing people, neither. He could toss the ball to Ren, though, and see what she did with it. Leaning in close, Sedge said in his most menacing voice, “You heard the man. But if you talk, you can save yourself some pain.”

Ren stayed silent, her eyes telling him to do it. Was she fucking kidding? Even if he would, there was nowhere he could hit her. People—Vargo—would ask questions if Alta Renata turned up with a bruised face. But if Sedge hurt her where it wouldn’t show, Ren might hate him almost as much as he’d hate himself. Because Ondrakja had always protected Ren’s pretty face.

Do it. Get in with Vargo. Don’t give up the con. He could almost hear her thoughts beating against him.

Sorry, Ren. En’t gonna happen.

“Fuck this.” Turning his back on Ren, Sedge planted a hand on Vargo’s desk, displaying the fading stripe on his wrist where a charm used to be. “I en’t one of your fists no more. Got cut out, din’t I? And even then, I weren’t the sort to work someone over on a suspicion. You show me proof she did you up, I’ll plant a whole garden of purple roses under her skin. Until then, play your games on someone else. And leave her alone.”

He expected cold rage. Masks knew he’d seen that often enough from Vargo, when somebody sauced off at him. Instead—incredibly—Vargo smiled.

“Good to know you haven’t changed, Sedge,” he said. Lurets looked confused; Nikory looked relieved. Only Varuni’s expression remained stone. But then, reading her was like trying to decipher Enthaxn.

Sedge was slow, but he wasn’t a snail. “This en’t some loyalty test?” But what else could it be? And if it was, how the fuck had he passed by refusing?

Vargo said, “Of course it is. A man who’s determined to worm his way back into my organization would do anything I said, just to ingratiate himself—and to prove his innocence.”

“You thought it was me,” Sedge breathed. “You thought I sold you out.”

“Your bout of stomach illness was very convenient.”

It hadn’t been convenient at all. Sedge had to go rooting through trash heaps to find some mussels that had gone off, and then there had been all the puking that followed. But he couldn’t risk Idusza recognizing him as the bullyboy she’d slugged the day she met Arenza—or Varuni paying him a visit and deciding he was malingering.

He sagged, only his braced hand keeping him from sinking to the floor. “You asshole.”

“Mm.” Vargo’s attention moved back to Ren. “Though that still leaves her under suspicion. No personal enmity, szorsa; you understand that I have to tie off every thread here. And you haven’t exactly been helpful.”

“Because you ask the wrong questions,” she said, sounding not at all offended. “What would I gain from betraying the Anduske, or you? Seem I an ally of the hawks?”

“You visit the house of one often enough.”

“A Vraszenian hawk. And while to the Anduske I may not be sworn, they are my friends. No, Ča Vargo, I betrayed them not. You have a patterner before you—why not ask pattern for answers?”

“Will the answer come in the form of another dropped card?” Nikory asked curtly. He had faith in patterners, and no respect for frauds. Especially when he thought they were trying to play his boss.

But Vargo merely raised a brow, intrigued. “Even a dropped card can provide information.”

Ren knew better than to subject Vargo to an elaborate show. She merely took out her deck and gave it three quick shuffles, then cut and drew a single card. Whereupon her brow knitted in what looked like honest confusion. “Seven as One,” she said, turning it so everyone else could see. “The card of institutions. An enemy of yours in the Cinquerat?”

“Cinquerat’s five people,” Lurets said.

She gave him an exasperated look. “The names are not literal.”

“You can learn to be a szorsa later,” Vargo told Lurets, scowling at him for the interruption before turning back to Ren. “I want to know more about this enemy of mine. How did he know about the meeting?”

He. Not she or they. So Vargo already had a suspicion of who was behind the ambush.

Ren was still frowning at the card. “You have more than one enemy, I think, in more than one place. Of your troubles with the Stretsko, many people know—and they are an institution, as much as the Cinquerat. But no, this came not from them. Perhaps…”

She trailed off in a way Sedge recognized. He wasn’t surprised when Vargo said, “Give us a minute.”

Sedge didn’t want to leave Ren alone with Vargo, no more than Varuni or Nikory did. It was a reverse race to see who could dawdle slowest out of the room, until Vargo’s glare prodded them along.

After several silent moments of everyone staring at the closed door, Varuni said, “Never should have cut you out.”

“Huh?” Sedge wanted to shush her, even though Vargo’s office door had been scribed with numinata to prevent eavesdropping for exactly this reason. But then Varuni’s words caught up to him. His hand went to his bare wrist. “Thought you was madder at me than anyone.”

Varuni made a noise in the back of her throat, something between a growl and a purr. “I was. But I also know what it’s like trying to guard that asshole’s back.”

“It was politics,” Nikory said, as much to Sedge as to her. “A bodyguard don’t come back with a few scratches when the boss is filleted like a trout. Had to feed the fists some blood before they started asking why Sedge was still allowed to be walking.” He redirected his gaze to Sedge. “But you din’t deserve that. And you’ve been good despite it. I told Vargo you en’t leaky, tied or not.”

Sedge blinked hard. It had hurt bad when Nikory cut him out—worse than he’d admitted even to his sisters, though he was sure they’d guessed. Nikory trusting him enough to speak for him when there weren’t any oaths between them was the balm he hadn’t known he needed.

“Thanks.” Sedge turned his head away and coughed to remove the thickness from his throat, and then they all waited some more until the door opened and Vargo gestured Ren out—with way more courtesy than he’d shown at the start.

Courtesy enough that she offered him a respectful touch to her brow. “One card alone says little. A full pattern says more. But for that… I would humbly accept your offering to Ir Entrelke Nedje.”

“Just make certain I know where to send it, so I don’t have to disturb you on your way home again.” It was as good a promise as Vargo ever gave that he wouldn’t send fists next time to pluck her off the street.

The veneer of warmth vanished a moment later. “Nikory, Varuni, back in here. Sedge, see her wherever she wants to go.” He started to turn back to his office, then paused and glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll talk again. Don’t worry—next time it won’t be a test.”

The Shambles, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

After they left Vargo’s place, Ren and Sedge kept silent except for a few muttered cues. They both knew it was even odds whether Vargo had sent someone to follow them and see where “Arenza” lived; if so, she had to give him an answer. They walked to a seedy lodging house in the Shambles; then she bid Sedge goodbye, went inside, and bribed the landlady to say she lived there if anyone came asking. Then it was out the back door, to the stinking canal behind the house.

Where she found Sedge waiting on a walkway so narrow his shoulders almost pushed him off. “Nobody saw me go round,” he promised. “And I en’t letting you walk the whole way home alone.”

“I thought to take a skiff.”

“That en’t what I meant, and you know it.” He scrubbed at his scalp. “’Sides, nobody’s poling across the Dežera today. Skiffers went on strike.”

She ground the heels of her hands into her eye sockets as if that could press away the headache. This is what Scaperto was afraid of. A magistrate had sentenced a skiffer to death for dumping a passenger in the river when he refused to pay the fare. A slumming noble, it turned out. The punishment was egregious, and Fulvet had commuted it, but the skiffers had been whipped into a fury. It could have been Branek’s work—most of the skiffers were Stretsko—but she suspected it was just more of Nadežra’s tensions boiling to the surface.

By water or walking, getting home posed other problems. She didn’t dare go back to where she’d stashed Renata’s clothing and makeup, not right now, and maybe not ever. Not if Vargo had people watching the Serrado house. But she could hardly walk into Traementis Manor looking like Arenza.

Well, if she had to walk across the whole city, it would be dark by the time she arrived. That would make sneaking in easier.

Her attention refocused on Sedge, and the jittery tension that hadn’t left his shoulders. Her memory echoed back Vargo’s smooth, menacing voice. Work her over, Sedge. I know you know how.

There was no room on the walkway for a hug. Ren nudged Sedge off it into the slightly less cramped alley between buildings. Once they were on less precarious ground, his arms landed heavy around her. Sedge’s voice scraped raw as he said, “What did Vargo say to you, in private? You’re sure you’re safe from him?”

She blew out a long breath. “I told him that I think it’s someone in his own organization. Not you; someone else.”

“That’s it? He din’t go after you?”

They’d been alone—the perfect chance for Vargo to intimidate or threaten her. But he’d just nodded thoughtfully, and his spider had agreed that they needed to take a closer look at their own security.

“He was never going to hurt me,” she said. “When he told you to do it—”

She knew what she’d heard, and yet it still baffled her. Pulling back from the hug, she said, “That spirit of his was outraged at the order he gave you. And then Vargo said not to worry—that he’d stop you before you could follow through.”

“But you—I thought you were telling me to do it.”

Ren rubbed at her eyes again. “I read him wrong. I thought the test was to see if you would obey. Not if you would defy him.” She offered Sedge a half smile. “Turns out you know your own boss better than I do.”

A familiar hardness came into his jaw, and he turned as if to make sure nobody was spying on their alley. “Vargo en’t my boss. Nikory said I was cut on account of politics, but…” With his back to her, maybe he thought Ren wouldn’t see the sheen of a tear, or the surreptitious hand that came up to knuckle it away.

She might be a knot-traitor twice over, but Sedge wasn’t. Ren touched his shoulder gently. “I’m sorry. I…”

She’d been thinking of Sedge’s snapped bond as a connection she could use. Not as a broken, jagged thing that would cut him every time he touched it.

“You don’t have to spy on them for me,” she said. “I should not have asked you to.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug—the shoulder he wrapped now in one of Tess’s imbued braces, because he’d dislocated it so often defending his knot-mates. Sedge would do anything for people he claimed as his. Even to the point of hurting himself. “Who says I’m doing it for you? I weren’t ever tied to Vargo, but leastways I can look out for Nikory and the others by keeping an eye on him.”

Ren bit down on the regret that surged inside. She missed that kind of loyalty. Not that she didn’t have the loyalty of family, from Sedge and from Tess—however poorly she’d been repaying it lately—but a knot was a different thing. There had been good times in the Fingers, however badly that had ended. She missed having friends who would have her back.

She hadn’t told either of them about the knot offer from the Anduske, and now wasn’t the time. Ren was grateful when Sedge turned back and said, “So what now?”

“Now,” Ren said, “I get back to the Pearls before Donaia deploys the full complement of the Aerie to find me. And I figure out some way to grab the clothes I left stashed in Kingfisher before Renata Viraudax’s latest surcoat turns up in a Coster’s Walk stall. As for Vargo…” She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll leave Vargo to you,” Sedge said, the old grin returning as he bumped hips with her. “You leave the dress to me.”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Lepilun 27

True to his word, Sedge stuck with her all the way through the strangled traffic on the Sunset Bridge, past the skiffers in their boats chanting protests from the river; through the crowds of the Old Island, with the Vigil keeping wary watch; even across the Sunrise Bridge, as choked with people as its western cousin. It was full dark by the time they reached Eastbridge, and they only parted company when Ren pointed out that a Lower Bank fist and a Vraszenian szorsa walking the streets at this hour were just asking a hawk to arrest them for vagrancy. “I’ll go the rest of the way by rooftops,” she said.

He snorted. “Yeah, that’s a lot safer. Naw, I know you’ll be fine—go. I’ll see you later.”

Ren would have liked to keep his company, and not only because she’d seen Sedge even less often than Tess lately. Having him there would have meant not being left alone with her thoughts.

I don’t understand Vargo. Every time she thought she had the man’s measure, he did something that didn’t fit. For someone in Ren’s position, whose safety depended on being able to read those around her and anticipate how they would act, that was terrifying.

But she couldn’t solve that riddle tonight. Right now, her priority was getting back into Traementis Manor. She would have to sneak in her own window, redo her face and clothing, then climb out again and return through the front door. And hope that in the meantime she came up with some sufficiently plausible story for where she’d been, and why she was wearing a different dress.

When she got to the manor, though, there was a shadow on her balcony.

Ren froze, wondering if she’d interrupted the Rook in the middle of delivering a message. But he sat on the balustrade, and she heard a soft murmur as he… talked to someone?

“Ah, no—ow. Is that any way to treat someone who’s trying to help you? Sheathe your daggers, alča. You need to make a good impression.”

Several contradictory possibilities warred in her mind, most of them absurd. None were likely to be answered from the ground, so she climbed the tree to her balcony.

He heard her coming and acknowledged her with a distracted nod. “Here’s the lady herself.” He seemed more interested in his coat than Ren’s arrival. “I’ve been waiting a while. Do you ever sleep?”

“Do you?” She slipped over the railing, perching on the balustrade cornerwise to him. Was something moving in the Rook’s coat?

His laugh was rueful. “Not today. I was dealing with unexpected intruders.” He lifted the edge of his coat. Clinging halfway up the lining, so dark it almost became invisible, was a small fuzzball. It rolled its head back, looking at Ren from an impossible upside-down angle, and its eyes flashed like moonstones when the light caught them. A high, squeaking mew revealed a pink tongue and white, pinprick teeth.

Apparently one of the absurd possibilities was right. Alča was Vraszenian for “kitten.”

The Rook said, “The Anduske found her in their safe house today. Unfortunately, cats make Ljunan sneeze.” He tried to free the kitten, but for every claw he unfixed, two more snagged on his coat. “Fine altas keep cats, don’t they? Or perhaps your kitchen could use a good mouser. Though she seems to prefer climbing to stalking… Could you—a little help, please?”

It shouldn’t have taken four dexterous hands to detach a kitten from a coat, but cats had never shown much concern for logic. Once extracted, the kitten displayed no interest in being cradled and petted, but instead began exploring Ren.

Given what Ren needed to say, she was grateful for the distraction. “I had no chance to tell you—not with Dockwall being such an urgent matter—but I’ve learned more of the Praeteri.”

He listened in grim silence as she told him about the hidden temple and the numinat Diomen had put her in. When she was done, he said, “You’re sure it was your emotions it affected? Not a physical reaction? Numinata can affect the body in ways that make it feel like it’s your thoughts that are the cause.”

“Tanaquis confirmed it. She sees it as normal enough, but…” Ren sighed, using one hand to make sure the kitten’s explorations didn’t take her off the balcony. “To Tanaquis, all parts of the cosmos are normal. They divide only into ‘known’ and ‘not yet known.’”

The Rook made a thoughtful sound as the kitten began scaling the mountain of his shoulder. “The incidents I found among Vargo’s notes sound a lot like the effects of what you just described. Praeteri numinatria at work.”

“He’s new to their ranks,” Ren said, then chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “But he knew of them, and I think all along his goal has been to join them. They have no one below gentry in their ranks.”

Whatever the Rook might have said in response was forestalled by the kitten, who had discovered the fascinating world of his hood. Ren couldn’t suppress a snicker as the tiny head disappeared into its shadowy depths; then, when he gently eased her out—with a stifled noise that suggested her whiskers had found his ear—she took an interest in the loose fall of the fabric itself.

He didn’t seem inclined to ask for Ren’s help this time, but after significant effort to pull the kitten free without dislodging the hood, the Rook sighed. “Two centuries of mystery, about to be undone by the cleverness of cats. Would you?” He tipped his head to Ren in invitation.

A spark of curiosity flared to life within her. All it would take was one poorly calibrated attempt to pull the cat free… and he’d never speak to her again. Ren looked at the kitten, looked at the hood, and made a face. “I will regret teaching her this trick.”

Then she leaned forward and dangled her braid at prime pouncing distance.

Moonstone eyes went wide, and the skinny tail lashed. The kitten missed her leap, but wound up in Ren’s lap. A stuttering purr started up, louder than she was large, as she rolled onto her back and began attacking the braid with all five pointy ends.

“Thank you.” The depth of the Rook’s voice suggested the thanks wasn’t only for the kitten-wrangling.

Trying to keep her tone light, Ren said, “I couldn’t let a mere cat succeed where I have—ouch!—failed.” The last word was delivered from an odd angle, as one well-hooked paw dragged her head down.

Apparently, it wasn’t light enough. “Don’t feel too bad about not unmasking me. People have been trying for centuries. If I weren’t good at what I do, I wouldn’t still be here.”

“It isn’t that.” Once the temptation of the braid was removed, the kitten’s antics became more of a reflexes game than a knife fight. Ren kept her attention on that, not only to preserve her skin, but because if she looked at the Rook, she would lose her nerve. “I… Several times now, I’ve had a suspicion about your identity. Every time, I’ve been wrong.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t.” She tucked her hand to her chest, out of harm’s way. It was pure imagination to think she still felt the warmth of Grey’s touch on her wrist. Pure folly to want more. “I—I got attached. To the idea that you might be someone I knew. The idea that… I could trust that person with my secrets. That with him, I wouldn’t have to keep up the lie.”

“And you don’t have many people like that.” The Rook distracted the kitten with a gloved finger, nearly lifting her from Ren’s lap when she latched on. The scratch of back claws on leather was almost as soft as his words. “I’m sorry.”

Ren managed something like a smile. “Not your fault.”

His breath caught. Then he gently detached the kitten from his hand and engulfed her bat-eared head with his palm to settle her down. The tips of his fingers were a whisper away from brushing Ren’s thigh.

“She’ll need a name,” he said. “I suggest something like Shadow Stalker or Night Vengeance.”

The suggestions startled a laugh from Ren. “Who taught you the naming of cats? What about Velvet? Coal? Thorn?”

He picked up the kitten and held her facing Ren. “Thorn? Does this look like a Thorn to you?”

The kitten squirmed free, but not to cause more mayhem. She curled herself into an impossibly tiny circle in Ren’s lap and laid the tip of her tail over her nose. Without thinking, Ren said, “Clever Natalya.”

The trickster heroine of Vraszenian folklore. It was foolish for Alta Renata to have a cat with a Vraszenian name, but—“Of course, a proper cat needs three names, one for each thread of the pattern deck. Her public name will be Nox. And her secret name… to herself only will that be known.”

“Like kitten, like mistress. Here’s hoping the mistress will sleep as easily.”

Ren didn’t watch him go. She only sat with the kitten in her lap, feeling the trace of warmth where he’d touched her cheek before leaving.