13

Saffron and Salt

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Lepilun 36

Summer’s heat was finally starting to loosen its grip on the Lower Bank, and Coster’s Walk was busier than ever with mid-autumn traffic. With the breezes down the Dežera helping ease the stink of the channel and the crowd, Tess lingered longer than she had time for over the pieces at her favorite remnant stall. Not that she had need of scraps these days, not with Ren’s adoption and the custom of all the cuffs who wanted to follow her fashion… but Tess wouldn’t always be clinging to Ren’s purse. And no sense losing a forro over what you could get for a mill.

No sense getting weepy over a bit of lace, either, but she found her face clogging up as she fingered a length that would look lovely as a ribbon in Ren’s hair. I miss my sister. They’d had bad times before—under Ondrakja, or in Ganllech, or when Ren couldn’t sleep—but somehow this one hurt… not worse. Differently. Like the treasures Tess used to peer at through shop windows. Visible, but out of reach.

She put the lace down firmly and wiped her eyes. One thing she and Ren had in common: They were both busy. Squaring her shoulders, Tess headed for the old townhouse on the Isla Prišta, locked up and empty since they moved out.

She regretted that they’d lived in the house mostly during winter, when the weather was dreary, the canal clogged and sluggish, the pavers dark with weeping rain. The back walk at the start of autumn was a different world. Mellow sunlight painted the stonework gold; late-blooming flowers cascaded from every window box, their scent masking any foulness in the water, and lush green moss stretched tendrils up from the waterline. A heat bloom rendered the waters a milky jade, blindly reflecting the hazy sky above.

Tess half hoped the message she’d left at the Ranieri bakery hadn’t been delivered, or that it had been ignored, but no. Pavlin leaned against the canal abutment, a familiar basket at his hip. He was in one of the coats she’d tailored, and one of the imbued binders, too, by the look of it. She tried to examine him with a seamstress’s eye, but her thoughts drifted to decidedly unseamstressy places… like his shoulders, and how they would feel under her hands. And how much she wanted to wrap her arms around—

Stop admiring him, you ninny. You asked him here for his function, not his form.

The smile that lit his face when he spotted her weakened her resolve. The scent rising from the basket broke it. “I wasn’t certain if you’d take offense, but I brought the spice cakes you like,” Pavlin said in greeting.

Tess took the basket out of habit, then poked through it for a moment to collect herself. There were spice cakes, and lemon and honey-seed besides, and tarts with custard and fruit. Marry a man what brings you food…

She studied the silk fall of his hair, the soft curve of his lip, trying to see past his lies and her resentment. This man. Did he have to be so sweet?

“If you mean to bribe your way back into my graces, I’ll not accept it,” Tess said sternly.

“No! I just…” He scrubbed his palms on his coat. “I know you like them.”

Relenting, she said, “Sit,” and perched on the canal abutment, swinging her legs over so they dangled above the jade waters. She handed him a lemon cake and took a spice for herself. They nibbled to the tune of the eave finches squabbling above and the lapping of the canal.

“You’ve settled well into Traementis Manor?” he asked, breaking the silence. “It must be a relief, not having to care for an entire house on your own.”

Something he only knew from his spying. Tess arched a brow, and Pavlin grimaced, too late to take the words back.

Taking pity on him, Tess said, “It’s nice, but I’ve still eleven hours’ work for a ten-hour day. Just that now it’s all sewing. There’s my alta to dress, and Alta Giuna as well, and half the nobles of this city crying for my services.”

“You could say no.”

“Lending my services out helps my alta’s reputation. It’s the least I can do.” After all, Ren was the one who took all the risks. Who’d given up her life. Who couldn’t sleep or say more than six honest words to Tess for fear of discovery. If Tess’s needle could ease Ren’s burden even one bit, she was glad to help.

I just wish I knew when it would end.

“Do you plan to be her maid forever?” Pavlin asked, as though she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. When Tess gaped like a popped seam, he said, “I know you’re grateful to her for getting you out of Ganllech, but you’ve said you want a shop of your own someday. It’s not my business—”

“You’re right. It’s not,” Tess snapped before he could read her other thoughts. How she feared for her sister. How lonely she was even when they were together; how each day it felt more like this trap had become their lives, and she couldn’t share her worries, because Ren had enough troubles for three lives, and how could Tess add to them?

Sighing, Pavlin asked, “Why did you invite me here, Tess?”

She felt bad asking now, after snapping at him. But he was the one most likely to help her and not ask questions. “I think one of the Traementis servants is spying on my alta. I need your help finding out if she is, and who for.”

She’d prepared for him to call her a hypocrite. It’s different, she would say, and recite the litany of justifications she’d rehearsed on her walk from the Pearls.

But after several silent moments, Pavlin said, “You’re asking for my help because if you take this to Era Traementis, she’ll sack the girl whether she’s guilty or not.”

“Sack, or worse. Even I’ve heard tales of Traementis vengeance.”

He hummed agreement. “And your alta can’t ask for Vigil help because…” He chewed on his lip. Just as Tess was about to answer, he said, “You think the maid is working for Eret Acrenix, don’t you?”

Tess’s breath caught. He was so kindhearted, she sometimes forgot he was smart, too. “Alta Sibiliat already paid someone to break in and search the townhouse,” she said, waving at their old home. “How did you know it’s them I suspected?”

“Ghiscolo Acrenix is Caerulet now.” Flicking the crumbs of his cake to the ground as an offering to the finches, he said, “Era Traementis asked for the captain instead of another hawk because she feared Renata was working for Indestor.”

A laugh burst from Tess, startling the finches from their feast. “Well, the world knows that for a lie.”

Pavlin caught her hand in his, as rough-skinned as her own, though she supposed that was from soldiering rather than sewing. “I’m sorry. Not for what I did, but for how I went about it. The captain warned me not to make it personal, but… I wanted so badly to prove myself.”

It wasn’t the apology she wanted, but she supposed it was the only one he could give. She’d been nobody to him at the start, and he was just a hawk doing his duty. And didn’t they all have reason to be suspicious? Weren’t Tess and Ren keeping secrets of their own?

Secrets that meant she couldn’t reconcile with him, even if she wanted to. Not when it would mean more lying. Tess tugged her hand free and swung around, hopping down from her perch. A few crumbs scattered from her skirts.

“Her name is Suilis Felsi,” Tess said, watching the birds edge their way back and start squabbling like they were a debut performance at the Theatre Agnasce. “She looks to have some Vraszenian blood, but she’s Nadežran through. Leastways, she hasn’t said anything about her people.”

Sighing, Pavlin stood and handed the basket to her. “I’ll see what I can find. Give me a couple of weeks?”

Tess nodded. His fingers brushed hers, and she couldn’t say if her heart twisted for that… or for his easy agreement and the prospect of seeing him again. Mumbling her thanks, Tess turned and fled the conundrum he posed.

Why had she thought this a good idea? She really was a ninny.

Dawngate and Lacewater: Canilun 1

The Charterhouse never put Renata in a good mood. The gears of bureaucracy had ground to a slow enough crawl that even advocates with forty years’ experience were threatening to quit, and all Renata’s charm and tricks weren’t enough to make her obstacles budge. By the time she came out, having wasted three hours waiting to see a Prasinet functionary who dismissed her petition without reading it, she was in a foul enough mood that she didn’t ask where Tess was leading her to. She couldn’t remember what was next on her schedule—something she was probably late to—but if she wasn’t getting in a sedan chair, that meant it must be close enough to walk to.

Which was true… after a fashion.

The door Tess opened for her led not to an office, but to a room with a lightstone, a good mirror—and a set of clothing Alta Renata would never wear.

She stopped on the threshold. “What’s this?”

A nudge of Tess’s hip propelled her into the room. “Something long overdue, if you ask me. Which you didn’t. That’s why Sedge and I put the plans together ourselves. Go on with you. There’s soap for your face as well.” Tess waved at the clothes, her grin turning saucy. “Or have you forgotten how to dress yourself without help?”

Tossing off her own grey-and-white maid’s surcoat and underdress, Tess stepped into the full skirts, twill half jacket, and woolen stockings of a girl born on the streets of Little Alwydd, while Renata—Ren—blinked. “Don’t I have an appointment?”

“Alta Renata is meeting with a very exclusive and mysterious merchant from Ghus who’s only in Nadežra for a few hours. Ren is putting on this outfit and going out to celebrate her brother’s birthday.”

“Sedge doesn’t know when his birthday is.”

“Then there’s no saying it isn’t his birthday, is there? Hurry, or he’ll be beating people back from stealing our table.”

Equal parts wary and bemused, Ren asked, “What table?”

“At the Whistling Reed. We’re going to be customers instead of robbing them blind!” Tess grinned as though it was a treat to visit the seedy Lacewater music hall from their Finger days. And Ren realized, blushing for shame, that for Tess and Sedge… it probably was.

Her mind reflexively summoned objections, even as she leaned against the wall and began unlacing her tight, fashionable boots. If the Ghusai merchant wasn’t real, she could and should be doing other things with this time. Donaia had made her final decisions on the adoptions, but Renata was behind on filling out the paperwork. She had letters to answer, clerks to bribe, a warehouse in Dockwall she was supposed to go inspect. Adding this to the list—

That thought stopped her dead, like she’d walked straight into a blade. Since when did my brother and sister become just another item on my schedule?

“Usually one takes both boots off,” Tess said. “But if you want to wear one and go barefoot with the other, you’ll fit right in at the Whistling Reed.”

Ren had no idea what her expression looked like to Tess, but to her it felt like a horrible mélange of guilt and desperation. “Tess—”

Her sister took the boot from her limp hands, nodding with more understanding than she deserved. “Get on with you. I know how fast you can be when you want.”

In changing her disguise, yes. Tess had only put out the soaps to wash away the imbued cosmetics—nothing to replace them with. When was the last time she’d worn her face bare, for more than the brief moments between masks? Her hands trembled as she worked.

With friendly impatience as soothing as warm tea in winter, Tess bundled Ren out the door. She chattered with all the familiarity of a sister and none of the respect of a maid, and the sheer bloody relief of that made Ren want to stop in the middle of the street and—

“Oof!” Tess patted her on the back with a confused hand. “What’s this for?”

“I just wanted to,” Ren said, pulling back from the hug. And if her eyes watered as she said that, Tess was kind enough not to mention it.

Together they pushed through Suncross’s bustle into Lacewater. Ren kept her head down, even though the odds that anybody would recognize her as the fourteen-year-old Finger who’d tried to murder her knot leader were low. But she kept watch in her peripheral vision, and what she saw troubled her.

Lacewater had always been one of the poorer parts of Nadežra, with overcrowded tenements and the occasional grasping landlord who raised his rents until he drove the “undesirables” out. But it had gotten much worse since she lived there, and worse still in the last few months. She saw more beggars on street corners, ragged enough that they must be sleeping rough, their faces pinched with hunger even though the markets were flooded with the harvest. Ren kept a hand over her purse out of reflex, then wondered if she should just let some pickpocket take it. They needed those coins more than she did.

The Whistling Reed was as lively as ever, though. The noise of chatter over the sawing of fiddles and shrieking of fipple flutes shook the dust from the rafters; it hung heavy on the air, thickened in places with the haze of pipe smoke. Ren and Tess pushed along the edge of the dance floor until they reached the table Sedge was guarding. His theatrical scowl split into a boyish grin as Tess flopped into a seat and wiped imaginary sweat from her brow.

“You did it,” he said, winking at Ren and sliding a mill across the stained table to Tess.

She pocketed it before grabbing one of three waiting mugs and taking a hearty swig. “I didn’t even have to bind her!”

Indignation popped Ren upright on her stool. “You placed bets on whether I’d come?”

“No,” they answered in tandem, gazes sliding away from hers.

“Just on which version of you we’d be getting.” Though Sedge spoke through a lopsided smile, there was an edge of worry to it.

Tess’s, too, as she pushed a mug toward Ren. “Don’t be fashed with us. It’s only that we’ve missed you.”

Ren’s throat ached. “I’ve missed you, too.”

She truly had—to a depth she hadn’t let herself think about, because it would only bring misery. She was playing so many roles, even this had started to seem like one of them: Ren the sister.

Before she could try to put that into words, Sedge said, “But you’re here now! Tess, watch the table.” With no more warning, he grabbed Ren by the wrist, his hand warm against the scar the three of them shared, and dragged her into the diamond-shaped sets of dancers.

It was nothing like the elegant dances she’d learned as Renata. There, someone would occasionally bump into her out of drunkenness or error; here, the bumping more or less was the dance, given how close people were packed together. She had no lead to watch carefully for the cues that would tell her which way to move—but if she stepped wrong, nobody noticed or gave a wet leech, because half the time the step was “whatever you’re sober enough to manage.” At first the lack of structure was disorienting. Once she warmed to it, though, it felt like putting on an old and comfortable dress.

One that stank of millet beer after somebody spilled theirs on her. But even that, she could laugh off.

Tess replaced Sedge, then Sedge claimed Ren again. By the time she was allowed to retake her seat, she drained her mug in one draw, and they were all ruddy with laughter and drink.

“I only had to smack a hand twice, going for my pocket,” Tess said, shoving back sweaty curls from her face. “Is it just me, or are the filchers not as good as we used to be?”

“It’s ’cause everyone knows that Ganllechyns en’t got two mills to rub together,” Sedge said, then laughed harder when Tess forlornly pulled out the single mill he’d given her and wiped away fake tears.

Their banter had a well-worn rhythm to it. Ren was the one out of step, sitting with her beer—sour stuff, its poor quality not disguised by the lemon squeezed into it—and trying to find something to say.

Catching the distance behind Ren’s smile, Tess’s laughter faded. She reached over to tuck a few stray tendrils behind Ren’s ear. “Here now. Don’t make us drag you back to the dance floor. My feet can’t take much more.”

“I’m fine,” Ren assured her.

Sedge exchanged a look with Tess—another one that left Ren on the outside. And she wondered how often they’d done that lately… not because they’d grown away from her, but because she’d closed herself off from them.

Her heart surged like it was trying to leap out of her mouth in place of words. “Oh, fuck,” she said, and it wobbled like the drunk shoving past their table. “I’m not fine at all.”

She didn’t start crying—but only because she’d learned years ago not to. Tears were a tool, Ondrakja had always said; they should only be used when they were useful. Her hands shook as she reached out, though, and she gripped Tess and Sedge as if they were the only thing keeping her from drowning in the river. It didn’t feel far from the truth.

“You’ve been so busy,” Sedge began.

Tess shook her head. “She has time enough to skiff over to Kingfisher for an afternoon—”

Guilt knifed through Ren again. Yes, she had—or rather, she’d found ways to make time, even though the Serrados were near strangers. Why hadn’t she done the same for her siblings?

Because I can’t stand to be myself.

That was the ugly truth under the mask. It was easier to be the Black Rose. Or Arenza, even though she felt like a fraud every time she passed herself off as a real Vraszenian. Or even Renata, however much that felt like a trap Ren couldn’t escape.

All of those were preferable to being the half-Vraszenian liar who’d betrayed her knot twice, who’d gotten Leato killed, who didn’t deserve the trust of the Traementis or the friendship the Anduske had offered or the Black Rose’s mask.

The tears that came then weren’t useful, at least not in any way Ondrakja would have recognized. But they had to come out, because she couldn’t get the words out with them in the way, and she needed words for Tess and Sedge to understand. Which they did, even though what she said was a tangled mess. They knew her well enough to finish the half-completed sentences, to follow when she leapt from one thought to the next, to fill in what she didn’t say when she told them about the knot offer she’d refused, or the hole it left when she realized Grey wasn’t the Rook.

“Djek,” Ren said when the flood finally tapered off. She’d already soaked her own handkerchief and Tess’s—Sedge didn’t have one—so she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Thank the Faces nobody likes to look at a sobbing drunk. Otherwise the whole city would know my secrets now.”

“If they could hear anything over this noise,” Sedge said. She’d wound up leaning into his side somewhere halfway through, and her back protested when she straightened up.

Tess blew out a slow breath. “If you can’t even have a good cry with your friends without worrying about your secrets getting out, I’m thinking you need more crying, more friends, and fewer secrets.”

A watery laugh bubbled up at the truth of Tess’s assessment. Ren did need those things, badly. And she wasn’t surprised they’d planned this—not just the visit to the Whistling Reed, but a conversation that was long overdue.

“I’m sorry,” she said, holding Tess’s gaze, and then repeated it to Sedge. “I’ve been an absolute ass to you both.”

“Not an absolute ass,” Sedge said. “I know asses that would put you to shame. You’re just…”

“Trying to spin moss into emeralds,” Tess suggested, refilling Ren’s mug with the dregs of their pitcher and nudging it toward her. “But you can’t eat neither of those, and none of this life of yours was part of our plan. So stop thinking for a moment about the con and all those things you need to do. What do you want?”

Ren’s mouth opened, but no words came. What did she want? Not piss-poor beer and meat whose origins she shouldn’t question. But also not a bed that was still too soft and too lonely, and cold friends who would drop her like hot iron if they knew the truth.

She’d gone into the con thinking she wanted money. In truth, it was safety she’d craved. Safety, though, was about more than living on the Upper Bank with enough wealth to pay her way out of problems. Victory wasn’t being able to buy Tess a dressmaker’s shop—not if it meant the two of them parting ways.

But she couldn’t see a path to having everything. Wealth and status and the protections those brought, and her family and the ability to be herself. Nadežra just didn’t work that way.

When she voiced that, Tess pulled her close into a hug, unpleasantly sweat-damp from the dancing—and yet it still felt like home. “We may not have a solution now, but we should be smart enough to get out of this mess. Weren’t we smart enough to get ourselves into it? But that means no more hiding. Not from us, and not from yourself.”

“And no more sniffling,” Sedge said, joining the hug by slinging a long arm around them both. “At least, not tonight. It’s my birthday, you know.”

“Is it?” Ren asked, mustering something like her usual deadpan.

“Hey, if you and Vargo can make up birthdays, why can’t I?”

Falling out of the hug, Ren tossed back the remaining beer and thunked her mug onto the table. “Then we must change the subject—and order another pitcher. I care not where I’m supposed to be right now; I want only to drink this terrible swill and talk about anything other than my problems.”

Her stomach regretted that by the time they stepped out of the Whistling Reed, but her heart felt lighter than it had in months. Light enough that instead of hurrying back to her disguise, she lingered with Tess and Sedge, chatting and laughing—

—laughter that faded when she saw the man crouched on the stoop across from the Whistling Reed.

It was Stoček, the old aža seller who used to give honey stones to his favorites among the street children. He’d lost finger joints to the Cinquerat’s punishments before; now he was missing an entire hand. Rapprecco, one of the senior magistrates, had been cracking down hard on the illicit aža trade. By the stump of his wrist and his starved look, Stoček was feeling the loss.

Ren had been one of his favorites. Of all the people in Nadežra, he would definitely recognize her. She ought to get out of his sight as fast as possible.

Fuck being afraid. She might be a knot-cutting traitor, but she could still do something for an old friend.

Turning toward him, Ren dug into her pocket. But before she could go pour her handful of deciras into his lap, Sedge blocked her with his body, his grip a manacle around her wrist. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Helping him!”

“D’you want him to get mugged as soon as you’re gone?”

His words stopped her dead. It was one thing to toss a beggar a coin or two—but she’d been about to give Stoček what by the standards of Lacewater was a small fortune.

To Alta Renata, it was pocket change.

Frustration welled up like bile. I just want one Mask-damned thing to be simple. No politics, no unintended consequences. Just help for a man who had once been kind to her.

Sedge pressed his nose to the top of her head, then turned her about before releasing his hold. “I’ll find a place for him to stay,” he said. “You go with Tess. I’ll see you later.”

Tess slipped an arm around Ren’s waist. “We’ll figure something out,” she said softly.

For Stoček, for herself, for all of Nadežra. Ren didn’t know how to solve any of those problems. But she looped her arm through Tess’s and reminded herself that at least she didn’t have to solve them alone.

Splinter Alley, the Shambles: Canilun 1

This time when Vargo ventured into the Shambles to check in with his newest knot ally, he left his guards behind.

“I don’t like this,” Varuni said when he dumped her at an ostretta on the edge of Arkady Bones’s territory.

“She’s thirteen,” Vargo said, laughing as he stuffed his concealed purse with mixed coins and his pockets with interesting things for the friskers to find—a puzzle box, a shark’s tooth, a handful of black powder flash-crackers. “If that girl can take me down, I don’t deserve to run the Lower Bank.”

Privately, he didn’t doubt that Arkady could kill him if she found reason. She had enough kids to swarm him, so long as they didn’t mind taking the losses. But this was as much about how his other knot bosses saw him as it was about what she was capable of. If he took protection to talk to a gaggle of children, he’d lose what little respect he was clinging to.

“Don’t worry. Arkady likes mocking me too much,” he said, slipping a knife he didn’t mind losing into his boot sheath. “The only thing that might take a hit is my pride.” Pride was just another commodity for him to peddle, and Arkady might be the only person in a place to trade for what Vargo needed. Handing his sword cane off to Varuni—that was one thing he wouldn’t sacrifice to Arkady and her grasping little flock—he sauntered alone into the Shambles.

As predicted, he was thoroughly patted down before they let him into the converted papaver den. He even lost the bottom two buttons of his waistcoat before he caught the hand nicking them off and moved it away with a soft declaration of “That’s enough.”

“Yeah, shove off and let him through.” The crowd of children parted for Arkady. They had to; she was shorter than half of them. And just as grinning mad as always. “I already seen enough nekkid nobles. I en’t no pervert like the Rook.”

Vargo smiled through the urge to wince. He wasn’t certain how the story of his encounter with the Rook had gotten out, but if he ever found out who’d talked, he was adding them to his list of people to ruin.

Arkady didn’t lead him back to her gallery throne, where every child in her knot could witness her exerting power over Eret Derossi Vargo. Instead she took him to a cozy side room that was a threadbare version of Vargo’s own office in Froghole. No hangers-on; just Arkady, Vargo, and the biggest, surliest, ugliest yellow tomcat in Nadežra—the one he’d seen at Staveswater. The tom lifted his head from an Uniat-perfect curl and cracked one sulfuric eye, a yowl simmering low in his chest.

A yowl that broke when Arkady grabbed him and draped him over her shoulder like an alta’s winter stole. Vargo found himself grateful that he’d left Alsius at home. If the kids hadn’t confiscated the spider, that monster cat would certainly have pounced on him. Vargo didn’t want to test whether the bond between them could keep Alsius alive through that.

“Have a seat,” Arkady said, nodding at the other chair as her raging hellbeast went as limp as an overcooked noodle. “And don’t try nothing. Doomclaw the Yowler don’t like cuffs anymore’n he likes biggies.”

“I en’t here to try nothing,” Vargo said, dropping into rookery accents as he sat. “Got a job, ’n’ I think you’re the only one who can do it. The only one I trust, leastways.”

The ever-present grin cracked into something more genuine, and a flush darkened Arkady’s sparrow-brown cheeks. “Yeah, heard you been getting bent and drilled by your own people. Tired of taking it, I take it?”

Vargo chuckled at her attempt at Upper Bank speech. “I’m ready to dish it. I want to know who sold me out to the stingers.”

Arkady’s nails dug into Doomclaw’s ruff as she thought, drawing out a stuttering purr. “You’d have less trouble with your people if you swore oaths direct to each of ’em.”

Vargo eyed the rainbow of knot bracelets circling up her arms. There was even one around her neck, matching the collar buried deep in Doomclaw’s rough fur. “That why you tied yourself to the cat? So he won’t give you trouble?”

Her laugh cracked through the room, startling the tom. He launched off her shoulder, thumping down hard onto the floor. “Naw, it’s ’cause he eats nightmares for breakfast.” Her expression flickered, as if that use were more than theoretical.

“I know your turf’s the Shambles,” Vargo said, abandoning banter for business. “But your kids can go anywhere and nobody pays them much mind. Including the Aerie.”

“If it’s Aerie gossip you’re wanting, I’ll send Pitjin. The laundresses like her, and nobody guards their tongue around a dawn child.”

They underestimate her was the unspoken meaning behind Arkady’s hard look. Just like people underestimated Arkady herself. But Vargo was learning to see past the lack of years, so he asked the question he’d ask of any other knot boss. “What do you need in return?”

Sitting back, Arkady pulled her feet under her, tucking into the chair like she, too, was a surly old cat who’d found a spot of safety in a hard world. “You hear about that mad cuff who tried to adopt a whole orphanage?”

“Giarron Quientatis,” Vargo said. His husband had talked him down, but the entire notion had been absurd. Enough so that Vargo had assumed Praeteri interference. He hadn’t been able to find any sign of it, though.

“Got me thinking,” Arkady said. “Orphanages en’t great—you don’t need me telling you that. Kids like you and me, we’re better off on the street.”

Vargo nodded. Nadežra’s orphanages were too few and too crowded, and too many of their administrators only cared about how much work they could squeeze out of their underfed charges.

Arkady lowered her voice, leaning forward. “But some kids en’t like us. They need to get off the street, ’fore somebody scoops them up or hurts them bad. Pitjin, for one.”

He couldn’t argue with that. If Arkady hadn’t been protecting her, the street would have chewed Pitjin up and spat her out long since. Even so… “If you’re asking me to—”

Arkady squawked with laughter before he could finish. “What, you as somebody’s papa? Not bloody likely. But you’re a respectable man now, en’t you? I figure you know some respectable people who could use a kid. Without using them, if you follow.”

Vargo did. He might get in trouble if somebody accused him of circumventing the orphanage charters, but… “Bring me the name of the person who sold me out, and I’ll see what I can do.” He’d do the latter anyway, but he didn’t much fancy starting a new round of bargaining with a girl bidding fair to someday replace the Stretsko as his biggest competitor.

He spat in his hand and held it out. Hocking an impressive and entirely unnecessary loogie into her own palm, Arkady grinned and squished her hand into his. “You got it!”

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Canilun 1

After Ren’s afternoon with Tess and Sedge, pulling Renata’s persona back on was as painful as shoving her feet back into fashionable boots. She barely listened to the footman as he told her there was a visitor waiting in the library. He must have said who that visitor was… but it hit like a shock of cold water when she walked in and found Diomen standing like a statue in the center of the floor.

A second shock came when he addressed her with her title. “Alta Renata. I’m glad I found you at home.” He swept one hand to the opposite shoulder and bowed in the Seterin style.

In hindsight, that much beer was a mistake. Closing the door bought her a moment to gather herself before saying, “Altan Diomen? Eret? I’m not sure how to address you outside… the usual context.” It felt wrong to have him standing here, in Traementis Manor. Like an ordinary visitor. But unless he was able to dim the burning intensity of his gaze, nothing about him seemed ordinary; the servants would gossip about this for days to come.

“Master will suffice. Worldly titles mean nothing to me. The Lumen has blessed me in other ways.” He regarded her with that unsettling gaze, hooded and unblinking. “It has blessed you as well. My only wish is to help you see it.”

Conflicting impulses warred within her. “When you brought me through the second gate, you said it was your duty to remedy the gaps in my education. But when you put me inside that numinat in the temple, you treated me as if I were still an ignorant initiate, explaining nothing at all. Now you claim you want to help me see my blessings—but how?”

“I erred that night, yes. I fell to my zeal, instead of mastering it. May we sit?”

His response was neither answer nor apology, but there was no profit in being hostile. Renata gestured him to one of the high-backed chairs and took another, making sure the light from the windows fell on his face, so he couldn’t retreat into shadow. “Then educate me, Master Diomen. Speak plainly of these blessings, these gifts.”

His hand made a slow sweep of their surroundings. “Places such as this are profane, and not meant for such secrets. It would be far better for you to rejoin our circle. I came here today hoping to persuade you to do so.”

“Master Diomen, I’ve been given a variety of reasons for why I should wish to be a part of your circle. The political benefit of having such allies—but I can manage House Traementis’s business without that. The answer to a question Meda Fienola and I have been investigating—but that, we have already achieved.” After a fashion, at least. Even if Tanaquis was right about eisar, that didn’t tell her who had cursed the Traementis. “And finally, the deeper mysteries of the Lumen. But I am not an inscriptor. So if you wish to persuade me to return, you will need to convince me those mysteries are worth what I went through that night.”

There was a fourth reason, of course: Vargo, and whatever goal he was pursuing. But she wasn’t about to admit that.

Diomen frowned. “The mysteries of the Lumen are not merely about inscription. Can you honestly say that you do not wish to understand yourself better? Your education in Seteris was lacking, but surely it was not so barren as to strip you of all interest in self-discovery.”

Weaving his long fingers together in a net, he said, “The threads of the Lumen connect us all, sometimes in obscure ways. They brought you to our sect, and they brought you to that circle. Will you step off that path before you’ve followed it past the point illuminated by your present understanding?”

His words and gestures held an echo of pattern imagery, and once again, she wondered what he might have heard, and from whom. “Tell me, Master Diomen. What have you discovered about yourself, past the edge of illumination?”

“My path is not your path. But if it will help you to see another’s…”

The weight of his gaze lifted off her, drifting to the sunbeams that cut through the windows. From the flicker of his pupils, she couldn’t tell if he was searching his past, or only following the dance of dust.

In the silence, the air became so still that when he spoke at last, the dust motes shifted with his breath. “When I left Seteris, I thought I was the enlightened one, bringing my knowledge to beat back the darkness.” Diomen waved at the window as though implicating all of Nadežra in his past self’s disdain. “You surely must know what I mean. Every person from Seteris comes to Nadežra with certain… opinions.”

“Disdain, contempt, pity. Yes. Go on.”

“These opinions are foolish.”

She didn’t bother stopping her eyebrows from rising. Diomen said, “I do not speak of politics or culture, but of wisdom. We Seterins are the inheritors of the great wisdom of Enthaxis—but we have allowed that inheritance to ossify. We behave as if we know all there is to know about the Lumen, the numina, the divine sigils we use to call on the Lumen’s grace. But as you yourself have experienced, there is more to numinatria than the mere channeling of heat and force and sound. There are emanations we have no names for.”

A chill ran down her spine at the memory of rage. “You mean eisar.”

“Eisar are the smallest part of what I mean. I cannot unfold to you all the secrets of the Praeteri; it is for good reason that one must pass the Gates of Revelation before entering into the Great Mysteries. But I can tell you that when I came to Nadežra, I discovered there is wisdom outside the rigid boundaries of Seterin orthodoxy. There is power.”

The sunlight made Diomen’s eyes gleam with the fervency of his words. Studying that gleam, Renata thought, He’s sincere. This wasn’t the pitch of a charlatan; it was the sermon of a true believer. And she understood why Tanaquis might find the Praeteri worthwhile.

She understood why Vargo might, too.

Renata kept her voice steady as she said, “What if I have no interest in power?”

“Power is a means to an end, not an end in its own right. Is there truly nothing you desire? Nothing lacking in your life? Nothing you wish to achieve?”

Nothing the Praeteri would want to give me. Numinatria could not provide the feeling of safety she craved, the safety she’d lost the night her childhood home burned down. Nor could it resolve the conflict inside her. The gap between Renata Viraudax and Arenza Lenskaya, with Ren drowning in between.

Diomen was waiting, watching her with those too-intense eyes. Her stomach churned uneasily, though she couldn’t say how much of that was him, and how much was the Whistling Reed’s beer. What was he driving at? What secret did he think she was holding back?

Renata said, “I’ll grant you this, Master Diomen; you’ve given me a great deal to think about. When is your next ceremony?”

“Two days hence,” he said without hesitation. “The night of Canilis Tricat. Meda Fienola leads a small group in celebration of the minor holy days.”

Renata frowned. The adoption ceremony was also scheduled for the third day of the third month. With Tricat being the numen of family, everyone agreed that was the ideal timing. Although the ceremony would be in the afternoon, the celebratory ball was that night. Was Tanaquis intending to leave early? Very likely, she supposed; a numinatrian ritual was more Tanaquis’s preferred sort of celebration than a ball would be.

“I’m afraid my duties prevent me from attending that night,” she said. “But I will speak with Tanaquis and see whether there’s another I might join you for. Next month for Suilis Quarat, if nothing else.”

“I hope to see you sooner.” Diomen stood, looming over her. Renata stood as well, refusing to give him such an advantage.

And she made a point of giving him only the minimal curtsy expected from an alta to a commoner. “We shall see, Master Diomen.”

The Aerie, Duskgate: Canilun 1

When Grey stalked into the Aerie, he was tired, bruised, and pissed off. The entirety of Nadežra seemed in a mood to pick a fight with the first person who breathed at them wrong; this time the spark had been a puppet show in Remylk Square. Whether it had actually mocked House Destaelio or not, Grey didn’t know and didn’t much care. Somehow that had escalated into a full brawl, and by the time Grey’s patrol put that down, the puppeteers had gone missing.

Grey found them in a neighboring alley, in the custody of Lud Kaineto. Who claimed to be questioning them over possible Anduske sympathies, as if criticizing the Cinquerat made one a radical.

These stingers of Caerulet’s were becoming more and more of a problem.

I should have known better than to trust those soft words. Grey had wanted to believe Caerulet’s promise that he wasn’t looking for scapegoats. He’d wanted to believe Nadežra could change—that he could help change it, from within.

But lately he felt like the only good he did was when he was wearing a hood.

He planted one hand against the Aerie’s stone wall and made himself breathe deeply. The Rook’s anger surged up within him more and more these days. Ryvček had warned him: Many who wore the hood wound up losing themselves to it. She’d taught him to cultivate a separation between his two lives, to be Grey when he was Grey and the Rook when he was the Rook. But he wasn’t as good at the divide as she was. Ryvček had survived for over twenty years, then achieved the rare feat of letting go. Grey doubted he would last half so long.

With those thoughts roiling in his mind, he was less than pleased to enter the main room and be accosted by Rimbon Beldipassi.

“Captain Serrado!” The man hurried forward with his usual broad smile and ready hand, clapping Grey familiarly on the shoulder. “Just the man I was hoping to see! In fact, even more perfect than I’d realized—how intriguing. Can I bend your ear for a moment?”

“If you’re offering me a business opportunity, Mede Beldipassi, I’m afraid I’m busy.” It was a coin toss whether it would be some new business scheme, or complaints about troubles with an existing one. The turmoil among the Lower Bank knots had already collapsed one of Beldipassi’s concerns in Kingfisher—not that he seemed to care. He always had three more to replace it.

Beldipassi leaned closer. “No, no, not that. Something a bit more… private. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“My office is this way.” If nothing else, the cramped space might encourage him to be brief. But in case it failed: “Coffee?”

At Beldipassi’s nod, Grey diverted them past the officers’ nook to secure two cups, then headed upstairs. Someone had dumped a box of confiscated possessions from the Kingfisher raids on his desk: items too worthless for any hawk to pocket, which would be sold off through a shop in Suncross. It made his office seem even smaller. Grey hesitated in the doorway before shifting the box to the hall outside and ushering his unwanted guest in.

“This is where you work? How—ah—cozy.” Beldipassi resorted to putting one foot up on a stack of reports so he could lean aside for Grey to shut the door. It placed them awkwardly close together, but unfortunately, he didn’t seem to mind.

“Now, this will sound a little strange, but hear me out. I understand that there’s nobody in Nadežra more dedicated to finding the Rook than you. I need you to—well—help me find him. For a conversation. Set me up as a sort of bait, maybe. And then once I’ve had a chance to talk to him, you can swoop in and capture him! Profit for everybody.”

Grey stared, half expecting one of his fellow captains to pop their head through the doorway and shout Surprise! But nobody did, and Beldipassi watched him with an air of eager conspiracy, as though his proposal made any sort of sense.

“I don’t have time for pranks, Mede Beldipassi,” Grey said, reaching for the door.

“This isn’t a prank!” Beldipassi leaned against the door, though that might have been for lack of anywhere else to go. “I’m quite serious. I have—oh, it’s difficult to explain. You heard about my cabinet of curiosities, yes?”

Everyone had, for the brief window of time when it was popular. “I have. Please get to the point.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. I collect old things; history is a passion of mine. And a while back I came into the possession of a fascinating artifact—something I never put on display. I believe that the Rook, being immortal, is the one person who might be able to tell me more about what it is and where it came from. I don’t mind if you capture him afterward, but I need the chance to speak with him first. Please! I’m prepared to pay handsomely, if that’s your concern.”

It stank of a trap. It wasn’t possible that what he was looking for would just land in his lap.

Still, he had to ask. “What sort of artifact?”

“A numinatrian piece that fell into my hands while I was putting together my exhibition,” Beldipassi said. “A medallion. At one point somebody welded a loop onto it so it can be worn as a pendant, but there are remnants along the sides that make me think it was once part of a Seterin-style chain of office.”

Forcing himself to act normally was the hardest thing Grey had ever done. He backed into his chair, gestured Beldipassi to the guest chair he tried to keep clear for Cercel’s use, and took a long draw from his mug to steady his heart—never mind that coffee usually had the opposite effect.

“You heard about the Rook’s accusations the night of the Essunta attack?” Grey said, setting his cup gently back on the table. At Beldipassi’s nod, he lowered his voice. “This doesn’t leave my office, you understand. But… a few nights later, the Rook paid me a visit.”

It was like watching a small child react to a good storyteller. Beldipassi’s eyes went as wide as Jagyi’s. “Of course,” he breathed.

The fish was on the hook. “He offered to help me avenge my brother. So if you’re serious about this, Mede Beldipassi… I have a way of getting a message to him.”

“Yes! Please do! Er—I suppose that means you won’t be trying to arrest him afterward. Probably for the best; he would blame me. Quite rightly, as it happens. Yes, better to keep this all friendly. As friendly as a meeting between him and someone like me can get, that is.” His nervous laugh was almost a giggle.

If this was a trap, then Beldipassi was an ignorant tool in someone else’s hands. Grey would have to take extra care—but that was a concern for later.

Because there was a chance, however faint, that Beldipassi held not just a relevant thread… but the first loop in the process of undoing a knot.

He’d thought all along that Vargo might have it—Vargo, who according to Ren was somehow tied to the ghost of Ghiscolo’s dead brother—but so far his searching had turned up nothing. And he’d be an idiot if he let that assumption blind him to this opportunity.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Grey said. “If I’m able to arrange something, I’ll leave a message with the place and time at your house.” Already he was considering options. And risks. And precautions.

Beldipassi stood and wrung his hand. “Thank you, Captain Serrado.”

No, Grey thought, barely able to contain his smile. Thank you.

Charterhouse, Dawngate: Canilun 2

The meeting was supposed to be an ordinary business matter. House Indestor’s charter for the translation of foreign books had been granted to the Traementis after Indestor’s dissolution, but it had gotten caught in the bureaucratic snarl of the Charterhouse for months. Renata thought she was visiting Argentet’s office to sign the necessary documents that would finalize the transfer.

She knew as soon as she walked in that Sostira Novrus had something else in mind.

Like the other Cinquerat offices Renata had been in, Argentet’s overlooked a central atrium, a small stamp of greenery caged in marble and stone. Instead of taking the position of authority at her desk, Sostira led Renata out to the small balcony behind, where a carafe and cups had already been laid on a table. In the courtyard below, several clerks argued, their voices echoing off the walls.

Renata accepted the coffee Sostira poured with a graciousness as false as her hostess’s. After doctoring her own cup with honey and a liberal dollop of cream, Sostira said, “We’ll get to your charter concerns in a moment. But first… though we haven’t had a chance to speak privately since the Indestor trial, I’ve heard rumors that you and Eret Vargo are no longer on good terms.” Her smile as she sipped the bisque-pale coffee was the satisfied one of a woman whose schemes had paid off after too long a wait.

Benvanna Novri had been at the initiation ritual in the temple. Of course she would have mentioned it to her wife. Renata made herself smile and said, “I don’t believe I thanked you for your warning on the day of the Indestor judgments, Your Elegance.”

“No, I don’t believe you have.” Sostira let that hang just long enough to resemble a threat. Then she said, “But since House Traementis is eager to show their gratitude, I hope I can count on their support during these trying times.”

She might have simply meant the tensions and unrest in the city. But the Rook’s accusations against her had rekindled the resentment Mettore Indestor once stoked against her house. And not just in the streets, but within the Charterhouse… and House Novrus itself.

The last thing Renata wanted was to dive headfirst into the center of such a tangle. She tried for flattery instead. “Small dogs may yap, Your Elegance, but there’s nothing to fear from their teeth.”

Setting her cup down with a decisive clink, Sostira said, “Wolves, my dear. Don’t mistake us for anything else. We’re all wolves. And unless you wish to feel my teeth, you’ll use your confounding popularity to shore up my support.”

The harshness of her response took Renata aback. “Your Elegance—”

“Do not take that for an idle threat, Alta Renata, nor the desperate flailing of a woman in peril. House Traementis’s fresh reputation rests largely on your shoulders. Cross me, and I will bring you down. And your new family will fall with you.”

Renata’s pulse leapt as if she were in battle. Which, in a sense, she was. What leverage did Sostira have, or imagine she had? This was the moment where ordinarily Renata would expect a blackmailer to hint at the nature of her leverage, but Sostira gave no specifics. Yet she also spoke with utter confidence: not the bravado of someone making a bluff, but the certainty of someone with a weapon in hand.

Nodding in satisfaction at Renata’s speechlessness, Sostira stood and made her way back inside, pulling a folder off her desk. “But enough of personal matters. You came to settle business. It took considerable effort on my part to push this through, but here’s the foreign translation charter. You only need to sign and put your seal here.”

Out of sheer defensive reflex, Renata read the entire document Sostira laid in front of her, because she wouldn’t put it past the woman to have drafted an additional clause binding House Traementis to support Novrus. But the text was as it ought to be, and she silently did as told.

“A pleasure as always to see you, Alta Renata,” Sostira said, even walking her out as though they were more friends than acquaintances—let alone possible enemies. “Please pass along my regards to your aunt.”

And with that strange farewell, she left Renata alone in the autumn-chilled atrium of the Charterhouse.