15

The Liar’s Knot

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Canilun 3

Gut still aching from Serrado’s sucker punch, Vargo led Varuni through the maze of warehouses and wharves that made up riverside Whitesail. He was wearing a coat bought off one of the sedan chair bearers; his own coat and Varuni’s chain whip were on their way back to his Eastbridge townhouse. Nothing to mark the two of them as Eret Vargo and his bodyguard.

Although most of Vargo’s shipping ran out of Dockwall, he’d been a smuggler long enough to know his way around the port offices of Whitesail. A decira in the pocket of a night watcher bought word that the Stella Boreae was still at anchor in the bay awaiting port authorization… but a dinghy had come upriver and docked near the Novrus warehouse office.

“Better if we had a few more people,” Varuni said as they surveyed the darkened building. Her hand brushed over the place her whip normally coiled.

::She’s right,:: Alsius said, his legs twitching against the back of Vargo’s neck. ::We should wait until—::

“I’m done with waiting,” Vargo snapped. He’d sent a message along with his coat, but the time it would take to get to the Froghole den or his Dockwall warehouse was time for Iascat’s promised information to slip out of Vargo’s grasp.

He and Varuni pressed themselves against a wall as footsteps approached. Not the irregular beat of people walking normally, but the heavy and rhythmic tread of chair bearers. Peering around the corner, Vargo saw a sedan chair approaching with two guards flanking it. Black cloth covered the crest on the side, but the red-lacquered panels were familiar enough on their own.

The reason for the identifiable chair became obvious as soon as the bearers set it down. House Acrenix had people who understood subtlety and delicate operations… but Fadrin wasn’t one of them.

Vargo’s lips shaped a curse. He didn’t know how Fadrin had learned about the message, but nothing else would have brought him to this part of Whitesail at this time of night. Seems like everybody wants leverage over Renata Viraudax.

He edged back so Varuni could size up the situation for herself. “Doable?” he asked quietly.

She wasn’t reckless like some of his fists, so invested in proving her toughness that she charged stupidly into situations that would overmatch her. She held still, massaging her knuckles, calculating odds.

Then she nodded.

“Let’s do it,” Vargo said. He was looking forward to finally throwing a punch tonight.

Neckcloths served as makeshift masks, though they weren’t enough to provide total anonymity, especially with an Isarnah woman at his side. And Vargo couldn’t risk being identified. Ghiscolo Acrenix was the pot for every gamble he and Alsius had made since the night they met, and Fadrin was a card Vargo couldn’t afford to sacrifice.

So while Varuni kicked over a crate to make a distraction in front, he slipped up behind Fadrin, taking extreme satisfaction in blinding him with a handful of mud slapped across his eyes. Four-on-two still wasn’t a fair fight, but with Fadrin swearing and scrubbing at the grit on his face, Vargo had less to be concerned about when one of the chair bearers hooked a finger under his mask and clawed it down from his nose. He unhooked it with a twist of the bearer’s arm, followed by an elbow to his throat. A drumbeat of meaty thuds and low grunts said Varuni was doing what she did best: taking care of the guards quietly and efficiently.

With one chair bearer retching for breath, the other looked around, weighed his odds, and ran. Vargo might have gone after him, but Fadrin had regained his feet, if not his vision, and charged blindly. Vargo locked him close in a shoulder-to-shoulder hug and brought his fist up again and again, tenderizing Fadrin’s gut and bits farther south. When Vargo’s arm became the only thing keeping Fadrin up, he was about to switch to the ribs and the face—but Varuni pulled him off, and Alsius’s shouting finally pierced the need to break his knuckles on someone else’s bones.

::—that’s enough! I agreed to come here, but it wasn’t for this.::

No. This wasn’t what Vargo had come for. But it was what he’d needed.

Shaking the pain out of his bruised hands, he nodded his thanks to Varuni. She understood. Just like she’d understood enough to step aside and let Serrado deliver his hits.

“What do we do with them?” Varuni asked, crafting makeshift bindings out of the neckcloths and the bunting from the Acrenix sedan chair.

Vargo wasn’t sure how long it would take him to find the papers, and he didn’t want this lot having a chance to draw attention. He jerked his chin at a nearby dinghy, and Varuni hoisted one of the men over her shoulder.

They’d loaded three and were going back for Fadrin when Vargo’s gaze fell on the sedan chair. It was lightweight. Well-made. And wooden.

Keeping his voice rough and unrecognizable, he said, “I bet that thing would float.”

They sent Fadrin off in style, floating downriver in his remarkably seaworthy sedan chair, with the dinghy following behind—leaving its paddles on the dock. Watching it go, Vargo said, “Remind me to give you a raise.”

“You’re not the one who pays me,” Varuni reminded him. The twitch of her lips was as good as a laugh from anyone else. “We should move. Before we have to deal with whatever problems that noise brings.”

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Canilun 3

Ren knew what the gossips would say. Derossi Vargo had shown up at the Traementis adoption ball and been escorted out scarcely one bell later by Captain Serrado—the man whose brother he’d murdered. Shortly after that, Alta Renata had retired to her room, apparently fleeing what should have been a night of triumph.

She didn’t care what explanations they invented for her absence. The worst would pale next to the truth, if it got out: that Renata Viraudax Traementatis had been a fiction from the start.

Her mind had begun shuffling possibilities the moment Giuna told her what she’d overheard. By the time Ren changed into inconspicuous clothes and climbed down from her balcony, she knew exactly what the threads of her future looked like.

Learning she wasn’t a Viraudax didn’t mean people would know she was half-Vraszenian. She could still pass herself off as Letilia’s daughter, even; that part didn’t require noble Seterin connections. There would be no legal difficulty, because what mattered under Nadežran law was who had signed the contracts, not what past that person claimed. Nor could she, as a registered noblewoman, be tried for the crime of having previously pretended to be one.

But none of that would matter. This was what Sostira had threatened, and why the woman had been both vague and certain: She knew something damaging was on its way, but not what form that damage would take.

And Sostira was right to be confident. The scandal of having adopted a liar like her would destroy House Traementis’s newfound credibility. And if Donaia threw Ren out—which was all too likely—a trial would become a very real danger.

So that was the ill of her future. It was up to her, now, to ensure she saw the Face and not the Mask… by getting those papers before anyone else could.

She arrived in Whitesail to find the competition for that prize was dismayingly fierce. Bad enough, though not unexpected, to see Fadrin Acrenix getting out of a sedan chair with several people at his side; Giuna had told her Sibiliat wanted the papers, and given the need for haste, it wasn’t surprising that she sent her cousin. But then two figures sprang from the shadows and went to work on the Acrenix crew—and even though they were masked, she’d spent enough time watching Vargo to recognize his movements.

Djek. How had he found out about the papers?

It didn’t matter. Vargo wouldn’t hesitate to use any leverage he had; she could no more let him get hold of them than anyone else. But he was unwittingly doing her the favor of taking care of Fadrin and the others, and while everybody else was distracted, she had the perfect chance to act.

Ren knew which office to go for. Her lightstone was shielded like a thieves’ lantern, casting its illumination only where she wanted it. She swept it around the interior, noting desks, cubbyholes, cabinets, an incendiary numinat for disposing of waste paper. Once she found the packet from Seteris, one toss would preserve her secret.

For now. A message sent once could be sent again. She’d hoped to forge a replacement letter once she saw the real one, but there was no time for that now. And if Sostira kept pressing—or anybody else, for that matter—then sooner or later the truth would come out. All Ren was doing was buying time.

Better to have time, though, than to face that crisis tomorrow.

She was swift in her search. The Novrus office wasn’t as well-organized as anything under Indestor control, but it wasn’t a shambles; it didn’t take long to find the cabinet where important packets were kept. Ren tore open the one on top, spilling papers onto the floor, and found a letter marked with the seal of House Viraudax in Seteris.

Her triumph was short-lived. A board creaked in the hallway an instant before she heard Vargo’s mocking baritone. “Lady Rose. What possible interest could Ažerais have in the business of a Seterin alta?”

He leaned against the doorway—blocking it—and in the shadows behind him, Varuni cracked her knuckles. Over his shoulder, Vargo said, “Make sure the Rook isn’t about to drop in on us. I can handle her.”

His tone wasn’t exactly a threat. After all, hadn’t he and the Rose worked together before? But Vargo’s expression in the dim light was as unforgiving as she’d ever seen it, and he absently massaged one hand, the action of a man who’d been employing it as a weapon. There was no hint of the cuff about him now, in his clothes or his bearing. This was the crime lord who’d taken over the Lower Bank.

One Poppy Weeps. He’d caused plenty of pain in the past, and that wasn’t behind him now.

She tried for the Black Rose’s usual careless tone. “Thanks for taking care of the others. Whitesail’s oddly busy for this time of night.”

“Sostira’s ship has more leaks than she realizes.” Edging into the room, he closed the door behind him. Not locked, but it was another barrier to slow her down if she fled.

Ren couldn’t see the spider, but she heard his voice. ::Vargo, if she gets away with that letter—::

::She won’t.::

::Even if that means making her an enemy?::

::I already have plenty of those. What’s one more?::

Ren’s pulse spiked. That bleak tone didn’t offer much hope for her getting out of here with the letter in hand, and she was too far from the incendiary numinat to throw it with any accuracy. Nor did she want to imagine what Vargo might do if she tried.

But she’d talked her way out of worse situations. “I imagine we both have a use for the information in here. As I recall, I gave you Dmatsos Očelen back in Staveswater. You still owe me for that—so how about I take this, and we call it even?”

The curt shake of his head didn’t pause for even a moment of consideration. Vargo, advancing, backed her into a corner between desk and cabinet. “I’m not here for deals or trades or favors. Whatever interest you have in Renata Viraudax, mine takes precedence. Hand it over. Now.”

::Before someone else shows up,:: the spider added.

When she still hesitated, a knife flashed into Vargo’s hand. “After the way my life has gone lately, I’m done fucking around. You’ve been useful to work with, but if I have to, I will fight you for that letter.”

And he would win. Ren had a knife, too, but she couldn’t have taken down Fadrin and the others the way he had. Even without Varuni to back him up, Vargo could beat her. Then she wouldn’t have the letter or any trust between him and the Black Rose.

But if she gave it to him, that knife would be at Renata’s throat.

Deal with that when it happens. It’s that, or lose right here and now.

Good, rational thinking. None of which made it any easier for her to seal her fate by handing Vargo the letter.

For the briefest instant Ren thought about rushing him while he was distracted, looking down at the envelope. But before she could, a casual flick of his wrist sent the letter flying—into the incendiary numinat.

Fire surged abruptly, then died away.

It was too sudden for her to do anything more than yelp. Or for her to read the complicated expression on Vargo’s face, before it sank back into shadow. “I don’t know why you want leverage against Renata,” he said. “I’m guessing the Rook asked for it. But I’m warning you now: Leave her alone, or we will be enemies.”

His words were a pattern she couldn’t read. “But—” All her eloquence had deserted her; she stared at the ashes drifting out of the numinat. “Why come all the way here, just to destroy it?”

Vargo sheathed his knife, as though she wasn’t any sort of threat anymore. “Because I’m the only one I trusted not to fuck it up.”

“You didn’t even read it.” Renata had torn into him with every vicious word she could find, unleashing all of her pent-up rage—at him, at Nadežra, at everything she’d suffered—and he’d just protected her. “You could have used—”

“No. I really couldn’t have. I’ve made that mistake one time too many.” He ran a palm down his face as though trying to pull a mask over the bitter lines there. “Her secrets are her own.”

A performance. He’s doing this for your sake, because he knows who you are.

But even the most suspicious part of her, the part that saw the world as a constant dance of manipulation, didn’t believe it. Vargo had no idea who the Black Rose was. And he had no reason to think Renata would ever know what he’d done here. He was protecting her because—

Because she hadn’t been wrong, when she believed that she mattered to him. That he cared what happened to her, and didn’t just see her as a tool.

Yes, Vargo had used her. He’d sent her into the Charterhouse, knowing Mettore wanted her there, and he hadn’t told her either before or afterward. He kept things hidden from her.

But he also regretted hurting her.

Vargo’s gaze flicked up. “Go home. Or back to Ažerais’s Dream, or wherever it is you bed down.” His hand touched his stomach, and he winced. “Masks know that’s where I’m headed.”

Then he turned and walked out. And Ren stood where she was, not breathing, until a shout outside reminded her she was somewhere she shouldn’t be, and she ran.

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Canilun 3

Light and music still drifted from the windows of Traementis Manor, though the crowd of carriages out front had thinned. The upheavals of the evening hadn’t prevented Nadežra’s elite from enjoying themselves late into the night.

Ren was cautious as she entered the side garden overlooked by her balcony, but there was no sign of any guests having migrated there in search of privacy. Her windows were dark, signaling to all the world that Alta Renata was asleep. The moons shed enough light for her to make her way silently through the flowerbeds and trees.

Not enough to keep her from almost tripping over the dark figure on the ground beneath her balcony.

The Rook roused at her choked-off cry of surprise. He shoved himself up with his elbows, then with his fists, but made it no further than sitting. “Good. You came down. I was about to climb up. How late is it?” Exhaustion threaded through his voice, and the hood dipped and swayed like a drunkard’s as he took in the dark garden around them, the moons headed for the horizon. “Too late. Fuck. It might be too late.”

Ren crouched at his side. If he’d been too dazed to notice her approaching along the ground, instead of from above—“Too late for what? And what happened to you?”

“Beldipassi. There’s no time. Help me stand.” But even as his gloved hand landed on her shoulder, shaking and too heavy, he slumped against the manor wall like a man who’d given up. “There’s… no time.”

“Rimbon Beldipassi? He’s in trouble?” Ren wasn’t sure how to measure the health of a man cloaked in shadow, but she didn’t need to be a physician to know the Rook was unwell. “Or he hurt you?”

His laugh creaked like a gallows rope. “Ambushed, on my way to meet him. They’re going after him next. Garden of his house. Pomcaro Canal, in Eastbridge. I need… You need to help him.”

That was clear enough. Whatever was wrong with him, the Rook was in no state to be doing anything. Ren had the Black Rose’s mask in her pocket—but when she drew it out, the Rook caught her wrist.

“No,” he said. “Beldipassi expects the Rook. Won’t talk to anyone else.”

Ren went still. Given time, she could assemble a Rook costume; people wore such things to parties, thinking it made them daring. But he’d said it himself: There was no time.

His hand rose—then hesitated, trembling. “No questions. I’ll explain later. Don’t waste time. The hood will help.”

She wanted to tell him to stop, that she’d given up on guessing, that she didn’t want to know. But before she could find the words, he dug his fingers into the wool.

It was like watching her own transformation from the outside. The black leather and silk and wool poured off his body, draining upward into the hood. In the shadows of the garden, the blue fabric of his coat was almost as dark.

She knew, even before it finished. Even before he lifted his head and extended one shaking hand, offering the hood to her.

Grey.

“Go,” he whispered.

His strength was fading. When she took the hood, his head fell back against the wall, eyes sliding shut in a grimace of pain.

Grey Serrado. And he looked like he was dying.

But he’d begged her to go.

She pulled the hood on, and went.

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 3

Ren wasn’t alone.

The hood might work like her mask, but there was far more to it. Her steps were unnaturally silent as she ran; when she dropped from the top of the Traementis Manor wall, the impact was cat-soft. The shadowed streets and canals unfolded their secrets to her eyes.

And there was… something there. Not a thing she could converse with, the way Vargo did with Alsius, but a presence nonetheless. The Rook was more than just the men and women who’d played that role; it was the hood and the coat and all the components that made up the disguise, all coming together to form something greater than the assemblage of parts.

It was aware of Ren.

And it did not accept her.

I’m on your side, she thought fiercely as she slipped southward toward Beldipassi’s house. I’m trying to help.

No answer. She didn’t expect one. But nothing fought her, either, and so she went on. Trying not to think about Grey, about the fact that she’d been right and he’d somehow tricked her. Trying not to think about the fact that he was dying.

She could feel it, distantly, like the resonance of a harp string next to the one plucked. She might wear the hood, but he was the Rook’s bearer. And something connected them still—something weakening badly, now that the two had been separated.

Ren had to finish this, fast. Before it was too late for him.

But she also had to be careful. Ren’s steps slowed as she neared the Pomcaro Canal, with Beldipassi’s manor up ahead. The streets were deserted—

Not quite. Someone crouched on a balcony, with a good view of Beldipassi’s garden and the northern approaches.

At the sight, a tension built in the Rook. Ren could translate it well enough. I won’t kill, she promised.

And she didn’t have to. When the Rook had used his coat to conceal her and Vargo in Dockwall, she’d seen three darts tucked into a reinforced inner pocket. It wasn’t hard for Ren to climb the building and get above the watcher. He had a crossbow in his hands, but he wasn’t looking up; one quick flick sent the dart into his shoulder. A moment later he slumped.

Where there was one, there might be more. Despite the urgency, she circled south and found another watcher there. Only those two; any other traps must be inside Beldipassi’s garden.

Grey’s worries of too late, too late haunted her as she approached and heard voices. She recognized Beldipassi’s. The other sounded familiar—bombast toned down to a whisper—and too large for his garden stage. “I don’t mean to rush you, Mede Beldipassi, but you should know I’m not often one to give command performances.”

As Ren levered onto the garden wall and caught a glimpse of the speaker, the urgency driving her flickered with an impulse to laugh.

“Yes, yes, sorry.” Beldipassi’s ornate lounging robe of silver-shot brocade caught the light of both near-full moons, making him an easy beacon to see in the dark. He twisted the sash in his hands. “It’s just… I expected you to be… different.”

“If you’re hoping I’d flirt with you, I’m afraid I save that for lovely women.” The false Rook sauntered closer, tugging Beldipassi’s sash from his hands and using it to draw him closer. “Now, you’ve teased me enough. Shall we get to it?”

She knew her own entrance cue when she heard it. With a very satisfying flutter of the coat, Ren vaulted down into the garden.

“By all means,” she said. “Let’s get to it.”

She heard her words in a double layer: her own familiar voice, and the deeper tones of the Rook. Beldipassi yelped, tried to retreat, and stepped on the hem of his robe, tumbling unceremoniously onto his ass. The false Rook also backed away, but he managed to keep his feet.

“You—” he said, and for a moment his voice wasn’t nearly so deep and resonant. Then he regrouped. “An imposter!”

Ren laughed. “Really? That’s your line? Though I suppose you don’t have any better option, at this point.”

“Ah, but isn’t a point always an option?” the false Rook cried, drawing his sword and setting himself between Ren and Beldipassi. Sotto voce to the man behind him, he hissed, “You should hand it over to me before this thief tries to make off with it. Or with you. Or with your life.”

“But th-the Rook doesn’t kill,” Beldipassi said, scuttling backward and casting confused looks between the two hooded figures.

“Yes,” the false Rook explained patiently. “Which is why you’re safe with me and not with this charlatan.”

Ren rolled her eyes before remembering no one would be able to see it. The Rook’s sword had come along with the gloves and boots and coat; she drew it and took a stance, point dipped low. “I don’t have time to waste on this.”

“Then let us end it!” the false Rook said triumphantly, and leapt forward.

She didn’t bother parrying. Based on the voice and the behavior, she suspected she knew whom she faced; sure enough, his flashy swings were too far away to really threaten her. She retreated one step, two—then caught his blade with her own, binding it against her quillon. A simple twist of her wrist sent his sword clattering to the gravel of the path, and she followed up with a hilt-punch to his face.

This time the false Rook did go down. And his hood, unlike the real one, slipped off his head.

She might not be able to win against Grey or Vargo… but against an actor from the Theatre Agnasce, her skill was more than sufficient.

“Give me that,” she said, yanking Beldipassi’s sash free of its loops, then roughly binding the actor’s hands and feet like a market hog. His nose dripped blood into the garden dirt. The sense of a thread ever unraveling robbed Ren of any delight in her victory: Every moment wasted here was another moment Grey wasted away.

It made her words to Beldipassi curt. “Someone found out about this meeting. Enough to ambush me and try to get to you. Just what do you have, Mede Beldipassi, that so many dangerous people are interested in it?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered, hand dipping into the deep pocket of his robe. “I hoped you could tell me. Because you’re so old. I mean, the Rook is. And you’re the Rook, right?”

With another confused glance at the bound man bleeding on a cluster of marigolds, Beldipassi pulled out a wad of white silk and began unwrapping it. “I collect things, you know. Like my exhibition. I found this old numinatrian piece. It’s special. I mean, all the things I collect are special, but this…”

The last corner of silk fell away, revealing an antiquated-looking gold medallion, many-sided and etched with a sigil in archaic Enthaxn script at the center.

A medallion very much like one Ren had seen before.

As had the Rook.

She couldn’t have reached for it if she wanted to. Her muscles were locked tight by that wordless presence—by the simultaneous awareness that this was the poison the Rook existed to fight… and that Ren herself had held such poison, not long ago.

“Illi. For beginnings. I thought it would bring my endeavors luck, but…” Beldipassi’s whisper grew hoarse with fear. “I think it does more than that.”

The medallion she’d stolen along with the rest of Letilia’s jewelry when she fled Ganllech had been cast in bronze and etched with Tricat instead of Illi, but otherwise it was identical: the many-edged sides, the flat silhouette, the minute signs of wear that spoke of great antiquity.

Gammer Lindworm had torn it from Ren’s neck in the nightmare. Ren had returned the favor at the amphitheatre when she pulled the knot charm loose. So far as she knew, it was still there.

The pressure in her head eased slightly. Because I don’t have it anymore, Ren realized. But—the Rook was right to suspect me.

Now wasn’t the time to ask the thousand questions swarming in her throat. She wasn’t the real Rook; that man was dying in the gardens of Traementis Manor. Ren folded the white silk back over the medallion, careful not to touch it, and closed Beldipassi’s hand around it. “You’re right to be afraid. People have tried to kill me tonight because of this. They may well try to kill you, too.”

She thought fast while Beldipassi whimpered. The actor must have been sent to lure him into handing over the medallion. If he failed, there would be a backup plan. But how could she protect Beldipassi and Grey alike?

Ren pivoted and crouched over the actor. Fontimi, that was his name—the one she’d kissed at the theatre. She let her shadow fall across him, and knew the intimidation was working when he cringed against the gravel. “Fontimi. Whoever hired you for tonight won’t be pleased with your failure. You have two choices: find out whether their displeasure is lethal, or go with Beldipassi to safety.”

“What safety?” Beldipassi yelped as Fontimi nodded vigorously.

Not Traementis Manor. If the Rook had hiding places, she didn’t know where. She could only trust her instincts, and the picture that logic was swiftly assembling in the back of her mind.

“Isla Stresla, in Kingfisher,” she said. “Oksana Ryvček’s house. Tell her the Rook sent you.”

The Pearls and Eastbridge: Canilun 3

She ran back north.

Stealth be hanged; it would hardly be the first time the Rook had been spotted on the Upper Bank. Only when Ren neared Traementis Manor did caution reassert itself. She eased over the garden wall, praying to Čel Kariš Tmekra that she wasn’t too late.

Grey was where she’d left him, slumped against the wall. His chest barely moved, but he still lived.

With the Rook enhancing her sight, she saw now what she’d missed before: lines arcing up from his collar and across his face. Ren dragged his coat and shirt open and saw they continued downward onto his chest; when she pushed his sleeve up, she found them on his arm.

Lines like numinatria—except these shifted as she watched, sliding beneath his skin like worms.

Ren dragged the hood off, a gasp shuddering out of her as the Rook went away. There was magic of every kind worked into the components of his disguise. Not just imbuing and numinatria—a combination she’d have to think about later—but something like pattern, too, like the threads she’d seen that night in the amphitheatre. Outside the dream, she couldn’t see or manipulate them, but she hoped that restoring the hood to Grey would do some good.

He didn’t stir, though. Not even after the Rook lay before her again, shadowed and unreadable.

“Come on,” Ren whispered, gripping his shoulders. “You have to tell me what happened to you. How do I fix this?”

An ambush, he’d said. Some kind of numinatria.

Tanaquis. But she’d left for that Praeteri ritual—would she be back in Whitesail by now? Or Ren could try the temple—

No. It would take too long, with no certainty of finding Tanaquis in either place, and too much risk of the Praeteri. Grey couldn’t survive that kind of mistake.

That left only one inscriptor.

Despite the horror of Grey dying beneath her hands, Ren bit down on a hysterical laugh. It was all well and good to believe that Vargo regretted hurting her… but that didn’t answer all her other questions about him. Let alone what would happen if she showed up on his doorstep with Grey Serrado.

None of that matters. She would kiss the ground Vargo walked on if that was what it took to make him help.

But Ren couldn’t run all the way to his townhouse carrying an unconscious man. She pulled the hood off Grey; then, on further consideration, she wrestled with his Vigil coat until it came free. No sense making him any more identifiable than he had to be.

She stuffed the coat under a bush and went out into the plaza. By now the ball had ended, but the lights at the front of the manor hadn’t been extinguished yet; to her relief, two chair bearers still waited in the hope of one last passenger. Ren dug in her pocket, finding the money she’d taken to Whitesail in case she needed to bribe anyone, and shoved it at the larger of the pair.

“I have a sick man who needs transportation to Eastbridge,” she said, remembering at the last instant to use her Seterin accent. “This is for the journey—and your discretion.”

For almost a forro in assorted coins, they were delighted to comply. They loaded Grey’s unconscious body into the chair, and Ren jogged alongside as they threaded a path across the bridges and canals of the Upper Bank to the Isla Čaprila.

At her direction, they left the chair at the base of the steps and retreated to a respectful distance while Ren pounded on the door. She dragged herself back into persona just in time for Varuni to open the door.

The set of the bodyguard’s shoulders wasn’t promising. “It’s late, Alta Renata. Eret Vargo is in bed.” And not interested in seeing you, her tone implied.

“Wake him,” Renata said. “Please. I wouldn’t trouble him if it weren’t urgent. I know he has no reason to help me—I know I’ve given him every reason not to—and I’ll owe him whatever he likes afterward, but—”

Varuni stepped aside, and Vargo appeared in her place. It was clear he’d been listening from just out of sight; his gaze was level and unreadable. “It must be something urgent indeed, to bring you to my door.”

Even apologies might be a luxury she couldn’t afford right now. Renata simply descended the steps and flung open the door of the sedan chair. The light from Vargo’s front hall spilled in, showing Grey’s slumped form.

“He’s dying,” she said. “And it’s some kind of numinatria. Please.”

She expected questions, and had a lie waiting on the tip of her tongue.

Vargo only said, “Let’s get him inside.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 3

“There’s a lounging couch in my bedroom. Drag it into my study,” Vargo called to Renata as he backed up the stairs, hugging Serrado’s torso while Varuni carried his feet.

Peabody hopped onto the man’s chest, trying to nudge his shirt open wider. ::We’ll need to strip him to see the full shape of the curse. Strange that it hasn’t settled.::

Strange, and lucky, Vargo thought. A curse that had fully dug in wouldn’t have left such obvious traceries.

Together he and Varuni hauled Serrado’s limp weight onto the couch. Vargo said, “Get the restoratives—anything we can pour down his throat. Renata, how long ago did this happen? What happened? Anything you can tell me might help.”

::Anything she keeps back could hurt,:: Alsius added as Vargo checked Serrado’s pulse. It was too faint to feel, but a weak, rattling breath confirmed that the man wasn’t dead yet.

I don’t know why she came to me for help, he told Alsius, but I’m not going to scare her off with something that sounds like a threat.

“I… I’m not certain,” Renata said. The lack of conviction sounded odd, from a woman whose usual tone was cool silk over steel. “I brought him immediately after finding him in the garden, but he might have been there for a while. Perhaps an hour?”

Vargo started cutting Serrado out of his clothes. Any other time, he would have taken a perverse joy in destroying a set of dress vigils—but when the shirt fell away, shock overrode everything else. Alsius, is that—

::The same curse that killed me. Yes.::

The traceries shimmered through Serrado’s brown skin like stretch marks of iron-dark hematite. Ninat, attacking his life energy; Quinat, sapping his health. Even just touching the lines, though, Vargo felt the difference: not just physical pain, but the inescapable agony of the spirit within.

The sort of agony that could only be created by eisar. “Renata,” Vargo said softly. “Is there a reason why Captain Serrado would have enemies among the Illius Praeteri?”

The answering silence stretched long enough that he glanced up. Renata looked utterly stricken. At his pointed glare, she stumbled into speech. “I—no. Not that I’m aware of. This… Is this like what Diomen put me in?”

::If Ghiscolo wanted him gone, there are easier ways to do it.::

“Not important right now,” Vargo snapped, at himself as much as anyone. A distorted gap centered on Serrado’s left shoulder and dragging down his arm explained how the curse hadn’t killed him before Renata discovered him. He’d somehow managed to tear through a section of it as it dug in, slowing its effect.

But a slow death was still death.

Varuni returned with the restoratives. While she propped Serrado up and enlisted Renata’s help in massaging tonics down his throat, Vargo escaped to his workbench, putting his back to the room while he thought.

::You know those medicines won’t slow it for more than a bell. We’ve never tested our theories for how to counteract this, and even you on your most reckless day can’t freehand a numinat fast enough to save him.::

So we let him die? Vargo started assembling his tools. Ink and brush instead of chalk. A soft cloth for blotting. A thin metal drafting template so he didn’t have to resort to compass and edge for his basic geometric forms. What focus would be best? Svalthu was an aspect of Tuat, the one Alsius had used on him sixteen years ago. Vargo sorted through his chops and found the right one, fingers brushing over the raised, wax-stained marble.

::There’s no ‘letting’ involved.:: Alsius’s voice was gentle, and full of regret. ::The curse has drained too much. Unless you propose to sacrifice Renata or Varuni to buy time, he will die.::

“Not them,” Vargo whispered. Aloud. To make it real. Because he couldn’t believe he was even fucking proposing this. Setting the Svalthu chop back in its box, he pulled out the chop for Teruv instead.

Teruv, an aspect of Tricat. Because what would kill one or two, three might survive.

Alsius’s voice became shrill. ::Have you gone completely mad? Stop. Put that down. I will not countenance this. You could kill us both!::

We’ve survived worse. And it would give us the time we need. Vargo swept his tools onto a tray and carried it over to the lounging couch. Varuni had finished cutting Serrado out of his breeches, leaving only his smalls, and now was cleaning up the various bottles. Renata sat tense, watching Vargo with an odd look. Half-worried, and that made sense—but half-wary, as if she were afraid of what he might do. She must have heard about Serrado punching him.

Alsius saw the connection, too, but from the other side. ::Just because you feel guilty about his brother—::

“I do.”

“Vargo?”

He ignored Varuni’s prod. I won’t do this if you don’t agree to it, he told Alsius. It took all his will not to add that it was more choice than Alsius had given him.

But then, guilt had motivated Vargo the first time, too.

He stalled, setting out the ink and the other tools onto the table Varuni had dragged up for the medicines. Alsius?

::It… would be a chance to examine the death numinat at our leisure. Well, not leisure, since we’ll be in considerable pain and metaphysically bleeding like slaughtered pigs, but you understand what I mean.::

Vargo choked down a laugh. So, we’re doing this?

::Why do I let you talk me into these things?::

Because you’re a softhearted old man.

::Softheaded, more like.::

Vargo uncapped his inkwell, raising his voice to spin a lie for Renata. “I’m going to inscribe a temporary Quinat numinat on him. It should keep his health stable while I remove the curse.” He took one of the half-full bottles from Varuni and downed it, ignoring the vile taste. A moment later his senses shocked awake like he’d drunk a whole pot of coffee in one gulp. Serrado’s pallor, Varuni’s scowl, Alsius’s skittering, Renata’s masklike tension: all were cut as sharp as panes of glass in the Sebatium.

“I have my compass, my edge, my chalk, myself. I need nothing more to know the cosmos.” Vargo set his template and brush to Serrado’s bare shoulder.

The cold sweat made things harder, threatening to blur his ink. Without being asked, Renata used a cloth to blot it away. Vargo worked fast, both from a sense of urgency, and to keep himself from reconsidering. Quinat for health—a mere handkerchief to stanch the sucking chest wound draining the life from Serrado—balanced by Tuat and both linked to Illi, joining Serrado to the inscriptor’s self. Or in this case, selves. He didn’t use a wax seal for the focus; instead he painted the Teruv chop with ink and printed it directly onto Serrado’s skin.

Despite everything, an odd pride glowed through him. What he was about to do, no other inscriptor in Nadežra could do. Not if they hoped to survive.

He closed the circle of Uniat, and the mark on his chest seared like someone pressing a branding iron into his flesh. For an instant he went blind with pain—just like he’d done in an Eastbridge study, sixteen years ago.

But Serrado’s breathing grew steadier. Now Vargo had time. “Let’s get him onto the floor.”

This time he let Varuni and Renata do the carrying. With his and Alsius’s joined life energy pouring into Serrado, Vargo didn’t trust himself not to drop the man, and he didn’t want Varuni realizing what he’d done.

After that, the process shattered into moments of hard-edged focus, each one careful and precise, but disconnected from the others. A step, and a step, and a step. He etched two wax blanks with simple Quinat figures, leaving the Uniat line just short of closure; he would have liked to make three, but he couldn’t craft one small enough for Peabody, not with sufficient precision. The connection between him and Alsius would have to be enough. The growing pain was an odd sort of blessing: There was no chance of Vargo losing himself to imbuing anything, not when each breath carved its way into his lungs before rasping back out. When the blanks were prepared, Vargo began scribing a counter to the curse, a complex net of lines through the prismatium framework laid into the floor.

Then he had to pin the curse down on Serrado so it could be countered.

That was a bad moment for everybody involved: Vargo bit down on a scream, and Serrado went into a seizure. So did Peabody, twisting onto his back with legs twitching, but fortunately neither Renata nor Varuni noticed; they were too busy holding Serrado down, keeping him from spasming right out of the numinat.

Pinning the curse made the pain more visceral, a Primordial agony Vargo couldn’t ignore. Blood welled in his nail beds, and he had to hold one hand steady with the other to join Ninat to Illi, passing the energy of the curse back into the cosmos while a recursive loop fed Serrado’s life back through Illi to Uniat.

Simple, really. The only way to remove a death curse was to let it finish what it started. The only way to survive it was to be reborn.

Varuni saw the bloody fingers and the shaking of his hands when he passed her one of the prepared wax rounds. Vargo spoke before she could say anything. “In a moment, you’ll need to put one of those on Serrado’s chest and one on mine, over the heart, and close the circle. Just press your fingernail into the gap.”

Renata pulled off her gloves and took the other round from him. “Why? What will this do?”

“Restart our hearts,” Vargo said, and activated the numinat.

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 3

Varuni was lunging for Vargo even as he collapsed, filling the air with what Ren presumed were Isarnah curses. That left her to dive for Grey—and for one horrible instant, haste made her hand slip, the wax sliding from his chest to the floor. But she slammed it back in place and dug her fingernail into the gap in the circle, and the jolt that ran through her hand was nothing, because Grey gasped in a sudden breath of air, and he was alive.

She wrenched around and saw Vargo was breathing, too, and something like awake, because one blood-smeared hand batted feebly at Varuni as if that mothlike touch could move the very angry brick looming over him.

“Peabody,” Vargo managed, more groan than word, and flinched when Varuni scooped the limp spider off the floor and dumped it into his lap.

“Can you believe this asshole?” she ranted at Ren. “Cares more about a bug than his own life!”

::Alsius?:: Vargo’s mental call was as weak as his physical voice.

Two fuzzy legs lifted and waved like surrender flags. ::Mm’fin. S’rado?::

Vargo struggled to sit up. “How is he? Serrado? Did it work?”

“He’s alive,” Ren said, and felt her own hands tremble. “Unconscious still, but the lines from the curse are gone.”

Relief and exhaustion made her stupid; she pronounced the r’s too distinctly for a Seterin accent. But Varuni was occupied with chewing Vargo out, and Ren didn’t think either he or Alsius were in any state to notice.

“Good. That’s good.” Vargo nodded longer than he needed to, cupping his spider carefully to his chest. Without bothering to rise, he wiped away a portion of the circle on the floor, then rolled a bottle of liniment toward Renata. “Use that to remove the numinat on him.”

::Does it matter? It’s ’nnert.::

::Do you want a hawk listening in on our conversations?::

::Hmm. Point.::

She dragged her gaze away from Vargo—from the layers of clothing that covered the brand on his chest. A brand Tanaquis thought connected him to Alsius. And they had used that connection to save Grey, risking their own lives to keep him from dying before they could undo the curse.

The same curse that had also killed Alsius.

She had a thousand new questions, and no chance to ask them. Instead she found a rag and wiped the ink from Grey’s skin, as gently as she could, even though there seemed no risk of him waking.

By the time she was done, Vargo had regained his feet. Even without Alsius offering commentary, Renata could tell it must be sheer force of will that pushed him upright; she knew all too well what it felt like to hide the full extent of one’s weakness.

Before she could speak, Vargo said, “You promised whatever I like in return.”

She stood, hiding the knot of worry that tightened inside. “I meant it.”

“Then you don’t tell Serrado I had anything to do with this.”

She was too tired not to gape at him, and gaping was the appropriate response anyway. “What?”

“Not a word. I don’t care what you say. It’s possible he won’t even know what hit him. But you weren’t here, and I didn’t do anything.” He scowled down at Grey, absently rubbing his own stomach. “It would be awkward, and I don’t need that shit.”

Awkward? It might be the one thing that could ease the fury over Vargo’s involvement in Kolya’s death. But Vargo hadn’t hesitated before issuing his demand, even though he had leverage to get anything he wanted out of Renata.

Just like he hadn’t hesitated before throwing that letter in the fire. Or before risking himself to save Grey.

They needed to talk. She had no idea what to say, though, nor the energy with which to say it—and Vargo, she suspected, needed to collapse as soon as possible. “Understood,” she said faintly.

“Good. Varuni, can you handle delivering Serrado to his house? I trust your discretion.” Lurching to a sideboard, Vargo splashed something the mellow gold of warm honey from a decanter into a glass.

“Sure.” Varuni’s expression didn’t change, but she waited just long enough for Vargo to lift the glass to his lips—deliberately, Renata was sure. “As is, or should I put some clothes on him first?”