18

Aža’s Call

Eastbridge and the Pearls: Canilun 9

In the years that had passed since she was part of the Fingers, Ren had forgotten: Some kinds of cons were easier to pull off when you had more people helping.

She legitimately had gone to talk to Vargo about demonstrating a model of the river numinat for Donaia and Scaperto. And anyone asking would learn that their meeting had gone on for quite some time, due to arguments over his approach. But the actual conversation lasted barely a bell, and after that, a Ganllechyn woman slipped out Vargo’s back door to meet up with Tess and Sedge.

Tess groaned when she saw Ren in the striped woolens of her country. “Just don’t try to do the accent,” she begged. “I’ve heard you be Vraszenian and Seterin and Liganti and even Isarnah, but your Ganllechyn is a pity.” She tched. “And you living there five years…”

“Does she still sound like one of them puppet show characters?” Sedge asked.

“Worse! She sounds like me!”

“Ooch, that’s enough from the both of you.” Grinning at their paired groans, Ren linked her arms through theirs. Her makeup gave her fuller, rosier cheeks than nature ever had, but Tess was right about the accent; she couldn’t hear it in her head or feel it on her tongue except as her sister’s voice. “Fine. I won’t try the accent. The point is, this way I don’t have to worry about being seen by anybody who knows me. Let’s go!”

For all her lighthearted tone, Ren felt faintly guilty as they headed off. Spending this time with Tess and Sedge meant missing “family dinner” at Traementis Manor—a ritual Giuna had insisted on after the adoptions, and one Renata couldn’t admit to loathing.

It would have been easier if Donaia had stayed. In her absence, Renata had to take her place at the head of the table, with Giuna and Nencoral and Meppe and Idaglio, and Tanaquis on the one occasion so far that she’d joined them. Keeping her posture perfect while course upon course was served dragged up memories of Ondrakja’s training exercises, where she taught her favored Fingers to pass themselves off as cuffs or infiltrate houses as staff. The lack of mildew in the carpet and the fine cooking of the various dishes didn’t stop it from feeling like one of Ondrakja’s tests—with all the implied consequences for failure.

Meals had been more comfortable before the adoptions, when it was only her and Donaia and Giuna, dining less formally. But even that just made her yearn for the happy memories of her childhood, sitting at the table where Ivrina laid patterns for clients during the day, with Ren herself small enough that her feet didn’t touch the floor. Or those few precious evenings in the Serrado house, with Grey singing nonsense at Jagyi while Alinka panfried lotus root and crispy bluegill and Ren kept Yvie distracted.

Thinking about Grey was a mistake. He’d left a terse note on her balcony, giving her some of the story; gossip had provided other fragments. Between the two, she could imagine far too well what Ghiscolo had done to him. Part of her wanted nothing more than to rush across the river and confirm with her own eyes and hands that Grey wasn’t permanently hurt.

But he’d told her to stay away for now. The odds were too high that Ghiscolo had people watching him, looking for anything that might lead to Beldipassi or the Rook.

Those thoughts weighed her down as she and her siblings purchased street noodles from a stall near the Rotunda, then found an empty river stair to perch on while they wolfed them down. “I know we can afford a proper table now,” Tess said between slurps, “but they taste better this way.”

“That they do,” Sedge said, eating a pepper as red as sunset that he’d requested special from the cart.

“Like you can taste anything but fire.” Laughing, Tess knocked gently into him.

Ren bent her head to her own bowl. She hadn’t considered, when she started being honest with the people around her, that it wouldn’t actually solve all her problems—not when some of those people had secrets of their own. Would Grey let her tell Tess and Sedge the truth about him? Or more to the point, would the Rook?

Lacking an answer to that, she chose instead to fill Sedge in on what had happened with Vargo in Whitesail, and the conversation where she unpeeled all her layers for him. Sedge was so busy chewing on those revelations that when the clock towers chimed the tenth and final sun hour, he had to hurry up and shovel his cold noodles down at speed.

Handing his bowl off to Tess to return to the vendor, he said, “Guess that explains why I’ve been summoned to Froghole tonight. Don’t know how I’m supposed to look the man in the eye, knowing he knows I know. You sure he en’t holding a grudge?”

“He’d better not, or he’ll answer to me,” Tess said, making them both grin. “Go on with you, then. I’ve got to get this one changed and back home.”

Home. That word stuck in Ren’s mind as they returned to Vargo’s townhouse, made the switch back to Renata, and headed north to the Isla Traementis. Was the manor home? Had the Westbridge townhouse been home, or the lodging house in Lacewater before that? Or had “home” vanished in flames when she was six—and if so, what would it take to build it anew?

Those thoughts dogged her as she came inside and hurried to the staircase. Partway up, Giuna’s voice caught her. “Renata!”

She turned and found Giuna hovering at the newel post. Seeing that Renata had stopped, Giuna came to join her. “I swear, you’ve been dodging me since—Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“With what?”

“Whitesail! That letter from your father! I heard about what happened in the Charterhouse, with Her Elegance accusing you, and Vargo saying there was nothing in the letter. I know there must be more to the story. And you just spent all of dinnertime at his house. What’s going on?”

The hall was empty, with no one else to hear. “It’s taken care of, at least for now. You don’t need to worry.”

Giuna caught her arm as she turned away. Not her usual birdlike plucking; this was a solid grip. “No,” Giuna said, her voice low but intense. “We’re working together, remember? Soon I’ll be eighteen, and I’ll be Mother’s heir. I need to understand our family’s affairs, not to be protected from them. And whatever’s going to happen, we’ll stand by you.”

Would you stand by a half-Vraszenian criminal from Lacewater?

Of course not. They never would have let Ren in their front door.

It wasn’t bad enough that she’d gotten Leato killed. Her masquerade was putting House Traementis in danger. The only way out of that was to survive until Giuna came of age, and then—

Then what? Leave the Traementis? Leato’s face rose up in her memory, his reaction when he learned she’d been an imposter all along. Do you even know how much it meant to us, gaining family for once instead of losing it?

They had other family now. Meppe, Idaglio, Nencoral, Tanaquis. With the exception of Tanaquis, though, how much personal warmth was in those bonds? Building a true relationship there might happen, but it would take time. Renata had been through fire with Donaia and Giuna. She wasn’t a good enough liar to convince herself that walking away wouldn’t hurt them.

Some part of that must have shown through, because Giuna touched her arm again, this time a gentle lead. Together they went into Donaia’s study, and Giuna closed the door before sinking into one of the new chairs, upholstered in sueded brown leather. “Tell me,” she said. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

That was it, Renata realized—or at least part of it. Her own childhood had ended the day she became a Finger, if not when the fire sent her and Ivrina onto the street. Some part of her envied Giuna’s sheltered life and wanted her to keep it for as long as she could.

But that was foolish and unfair. Giuna had been through hardships of her own, even if they didn’t involve starvation and abuse. She wasn’t a little bird in a cage.

Renata scrubbed one hand across her eyes, trying to think what she could safely say. Not everything; never that. But enough to arm Giuna and House Traementis against the risks.

“Vargo did destroy the letter,” she said. “For my sake. We’ve reconciled, though we’re keeping that concealed so Novrus can’t prove we’re colluding. As for its contents…”

There was a simple way through that one, like the trick knots that came apart when you pulled in the right place. “I imagine it said that Eret Viraudax has no daughter named Renata. Your mother already knows—he isn’t my father. That’s what Tanaquis was talking about at the Theatre Agnasce. Letilia was pregnant before she left Nadežra, courtesy of a total stranger during Veiled Waters. But I told your mother Eret Viraudax adopted me, and that part is a lie. He took my mother as his mistress, nothing more. Not even a contract wife.”

“But you’re ours now. None of that should—” Giuna struck the arm of her chair in frustration. “Stupid. They’ll make it matter, won’t they? And you and Meppe are already struggling enough, trying to get all the new charters in order. Mother won’t care—I know she won’t, beyond admiring Eret Viraudax’s good sense—but others will.”

The weight of it dragged Renata down. “I don’t see a way out of this, Giuna. Short of falsifying a letter from him that somehow persuades everyone there’s nothing interesting about my past… the fact is that I’ve lied, and eventually those lies will out. When they do, they’ll hurt the rest of you—which is the last thing I want. It’s death by a thousand pricking needles.” Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have cared.

But once upon a time, her intent had been to siphon money off what she thought was a house so wealthy they wouldn’t miss it, then vanish without a trace.

Giuna was already shaking her head. “Not if we change their needles into… noodles?” She giggled, then schooled her expression into seriousness. “We could. You’ve already stumbled on how. There are still whispers about what Tanaquis let slip at the theatre, and not all of them are about Alsius Acrenix. If you take control of the whispers, everyone will be so busy wondering if your blood father is in Nadežra that they won’t care when it comes out that Eret Viraudax isn’t. When people are starved for gossip, feed them what you want them to eat.”

It was the last response Renata had expected. And it was something she should have thought of herself.

No matter how often Giuna told her they were family, her thoughts still didn’t go to the Traementis in her moments of need. Not after so many years with Tess and Sedge as the only ones she could trust.

But now there was Grey, and Vargo. And Giuna, at least in part, even if she didn’t know who Ren really was. Donaia, and Tanaquis as well. Even Dalisva, after a fashion. When Ren stopped and made herself count… she actually had a startling number of allies.

It eased some of the tightness inside. “That’s an excellent thought, Giuna. But before you ask, no: I haven’t the faintest clue who my father is. Nor do I particularly care. Neither history nor register binds me to him, after all.”

Catching her in a crushing hug, Giuna said, “You’re bound to us now. And we won’t give you up that easily.”

A moment later, Renata was free, and Giuna was flushed and sparkling with ideas. “I’m meant to play bocce with Bondiro and Marvisal tomorrow. I can let something slip for Alta Faella to chew on. Once you’ve hooked her, all the other fish will follow. Oh, and Tess is making a dress for Avaquis Fintenus, isn’t she? I’m certain she’d be happy to gossip.”

For the briefest heartbeat, Renata felt a chill. They were in Donaia’s study, where in the nightmare she’d ruled over the Traementis like Ondrakja over the Fingers.

But it didn’t have to be like that. Giuna was an ally, not a minion. No one would be punished for disappointing Ren. She wouldn’t use people and then throw them away.

Giuna leaned close, peering at her. “Are you still worried?”

“No—well, yes, but I’m sure what you said would help. It’s only…” Saying it was like slowly committing her weight to a rope, unsure if it would hold. “Twice now I’ve told you, by the way, I lied. About my finances, and now about my father. Despite that…”

“I haven’t turned on you?” Giuna rolled her eyes. “I know; I’m a disgrace to the Traementis name. Hardly a vengeful bone in my body. But, Renata—it doesn’t bother me that you weren’t rich, or that you don’t know who your father is. The only thing that bothers me is that you haven’t felt like you can trust me with the truth.”

Because the truth is so much bigger than you know. Stepping over a small pebble was far easier than climbing a wall. And yet…

For the first time, Ren found herself wondering if Giuna might climb that wall after all.

It wasn’t a decision she could make tonight, nor even tomorrow. Maybe not until after the medallions were dealt with. But the thought was there, and she hadn’t laughed it out of her own skull.

And it made one little truth burst out. “Does family dinner have to be so dreadfully stiff?”

Giuna blinked in surprise, then ducked her chin in embarrassment. “I was trying to make it like it used to be, back before… but we’re not who we used to be before, are we? We’re a new House Traementis. And you’re right, it is pretty dreadful. Meppe and Idaglio excusing themselves as fast as they can so they can enjoy each other’s company, Nencoral hardly saying two words—no wonder Tanaquis doesn’t join us. Yes, we can change it.”

Renata threw her arms round her cousin for her own hug. “Thank you. For that, and so many other things.”

Froghole, Lower Bank: Canilun 9

Sedge was pretty sure the moons were setting in the Erassean Sea these days. Ren—his closemouthed sister, who held her secrets tighter than a mussel with its pearl—had apparently spilled everything to Vargo, the man she’d been out to destroy only a few months before. If that was possible, anything could happen.

But the atmosphere in Vargo’s Froghole headquarters reminded him life wasn’t that easy. When Sedge arrived as summoned, all the Fog Spiders were gathered there, but nobody would look him in the eye. Not even Nikory.

So much for forgiveness. He’d been dumb to ever wish for it. Hope Tess will avenge me proper.

His sisters or his knot: Sedge had made his choice. He wasn’t about to let anybody see how much it made him bleed inside.

Vargo was alone in his office; even Varuni left, shutting the door behind her. Sedge’s spine knotted with tension. The spice and grease of the noodles he’d devoured too quickly roiled uneasily in his gut. Guess we’re talking about Ren. At least Vargo was keeping that truth to himself.

“Yeah?” Sedge said after the door shut, crossing his arms like his time had a price Vargo hadn’t paid. It was even sort of true.

“So.” Vargo’s enigmatic stare broke into a smirk. “Sister?”

“Oh, fuck you.” If that was how it was going to be, Sedge wasn’t going to stand around like a brown-beaked hawk. He dropped into one of Vargo’s chairs with a belligerent thrust of his chin. “Don’t go sending summons to my flophouse if all you want is to gossip like a Seven Knots gammer. I en’t one of your fists no more.”

“I’m just recalling all those times you made moon eyes at Tess. Also your sister, I understand.”

“To hide the truth—and if you go making moon eyes at either of them, I’ll black at least one before Varuni adds mine to her marble collection.” In spite of everything, a smile tugged at Sedge’s lips. Vargo had always kept a bit of distance between himself and his fists, but you didn’t spend years bleeding with and for another person without some level of camaraderie building up. Sedge found himself slipping into it like his favorite boots.

The quirk of Vargo’s scarred brow questioned whether he was even capable of anything resembling moon eyes. Sedge had to admit, he couldn’t imagine it. Lust, sure; romantic goop, not so much. Vargo said, “It explains a lot. Though I’ll admit, I didn’t think you had that kind of deception in you.”

“Learned from the best,” Sedge said curtly, and let Vargo wonder if he meant Ren or Ondrakja.

Vargo nodded. “You have to admit, though, it creates a problem. You’ve got secrets you can’t share with a knot.”

And there it was, as bare as the face Ren had shown Vargo. Sedge wondered if she’d considered that it weren’t just her secrets she was exposing when she confessed.

But too late now, and the accusation cut deep. Maybe Sedge didn’t betray his knot oath when he protected Ren over Vargo on the night of Veiled Waters… but he’d broken it before that, hiding her identity when she got involved in Fog Spider business.

He shrugged stiffly. “Don’t see how it’s a problem. I en’t sworn to a knot no more.”

“You could be.”

Sedge’s breath hitched as Vargo went on. “Nikory wants to tie you back in. Now that I know about Ren, you can consider your secrets duly shared.”

It wasn’t uncommon. Knot oaths might say “no secrets between us,” but that didn’t mean everybody knew everything. The leader of a knot stood a bit higher than everybody else, and sometimes that person knew things others didn’t.

Problem with that was, Vargo wasn’t Nikory’s knot leader. He wasn’t anybody’s—because he hadn’t tied himself to nobody.

Forcing the word out felt like the time a bonesetter had to pull one of Sedge’s teeth, but he made himself do it. “No.”

Vargo’s expression shuttered. No more genial comrade; Sedge was now facing the man who’d taken the Lower Bank because he didn’t take “no” from anyone. “Why not?”

“’Cause you en’t tied into the Fog Spiders. You can’t say it’s okay to keep my secrets from a knot you en’t in. Being cut out reminded me that knot oaths mean something. Least to me, if not you.”

Sedge almost regretted that last sentence—almost, but not quite. Because instead of getting hard or angry, that shuttered expression cracked a little. And instead of responding, Vargo sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on his desk. Sedge wondered if he was talking to the spider.

“They mean something,” Vargo said… but nothing more.

Long enough to make Sedge fidget and finally break the silence. “Guess that’s that.” The chair creaked as he started to rise.

“What if I promised to keep Ren out of Fog Spider business?”

Sedge sank back into his seat, not quite certain he’d heard right. “En’t you working with her?”

“Not out of my business,” Vargo clarified. “But as you pointed out, I’m not a Fog Spider. Your problems come up when you have to stand in front of Nikory and your knot-mates pretending ‘Arenza Lenskaya’ is just some patterner you yanked off the street. If that stops happening—if Ren, in whatever guise, stays clear of that knot—then your sister isn’t Fog Spider business, and you’re not obliged to talk.”

It was still a bit of a dodge. On the other hand, Vargo was sitting there offering to inconvenience himself just so Sedge could feel like he was doing right by his word.

Vargo had secrets, too. Like that spider of his, and whatever made him want to become a cuff, and a lot of other things Sedge told Ren he didn’t want to know.

Maybe the reason Vargo didn’t tie himself to nobody wasn’t that he didn’t respect knot oaths. Maybe it was because he did.

In the end, it came down to what Sedge owed Nikory. He said, “I’m gonna tell Nikory there’s something I’m holding back. But that it’s your business, too. If he’s okay with that, then—yeah. I’m game.”

“Don’t sound quite so enthusiastic,” Vargo drawled, opening a drawer and pulling out a small, shimmering vial.

That was the moment it really hit. Because just like oaths, aža wasn’t something Sedge took lightly. His hand trembled when he reached for the vial, and he wasn’t even ashamed.

“Go on out,” Vargo said softly. “Your knot’s waiting.”

Froghole, Lower Bank: Canilun 9

Vargo would have preferred to wait out Sedge’s reinitiation from the shelter of his office, but most of the fists thought Nikory was tied to Vargo. It would look strange if he wasn’t present—like Vargo was ambivalent about bringing Sedge back.

The ambivalence had nothing to do with Sedge. Watching an initiation felt like being a boy on the street again, looking through the windows of a shop or an ostretta, seeing all the things he couldn’t have.

At least nobody would find it odd that he stationed himself at the edge of the room, lurking in the shadows. The enigmatic boss spider keeping an eye on them all.

::Well, now we’re certain we can trust Sedge,:: Alsius said from his own shadowy hideout in Vargo’s collar. ::How long before Nikory can make him his second, do you think?::

That had been part of the debate over tying Sedge back in. Nikory wanted to install him right away, but Vargo pointed out that Sedge’s life would be simpler if he eased in before getting dragged to the center again. Knot memories weren’t long, but they could get tangled around issues of seniority.

And there were a few who would always have such issues—mostly the older guard from Ertzan Scrub’s days who raised a fuss when Nikory took over and allied them with Vargo. Those people hung back now, while the younger men and women clasped hands with a grinning, aža-spun Sedge and reaffirmed their ties and oaths with a lot of teasing and good-natured insults.

A year, maybe, Vargo replied after consideration. Depends on how things play out with the Stretsko. Assuming Andrejek recovers and can talk them down—get them out of our turf—people will remember Sedge brought us that thread. The beating Andrejek had taken in Dockwall had set those plans back, but frankly, Vargo was just as glad to have some breathing room to clean his own house first. Until he found out who in his knots was playing both sides of the river, he was just asking to be sold out again.

::We should ask Renata. I mean, Arenza. I mean… bother. What should I call her?::

Vargo’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter. A few of the fists caught his smile and returned it tentatively. Let them think he was pleased at Sedge’s reinstatement, rather replying to someone they couldn’t hear. Ren for her face. Otherwise, whatever name matches the mask she’s wearing. What do you want to ask her?

::I’m fascinated by her claims about pattern. Perhaps she can advise us on the timing.::

I don’t think it works like astrology, Vargo thought, straightening as Varuni approached. Getting a read on her was always tough, but the set of her shoulders said her intent was business, not a chewing out for whatever asshole thing Vargo had annoyed her with this time.

She kept her voice low. “Arkady Bones is outside. Says she has news for your ears alone.”

Arkady didn’t enter with her usual swagger. She stuck like a burr to Varuni, keeping the Isarnah woman between herself and the celebrating Fog Spiders, and followed Vargo into his office with none of the expected boasting or commentary on his headquarters. She barely even shrugged when he told her he’d found a possible home for Pitjin and he had some leads for a few of her other kids that needed shelter.

“Any of your people know I was looking into your business?” she asked once they were alone and the door closed. Even then, she spoke softly.

“It defeats the purpose of having someone outside my organization look into it if I admit that’s what they’re doing.”

“Right. Smart,” she breathed, fiddling with the patchwork coat sleeve that hid her knot charms. “Yeah, so it’s like this. You’re gonna wanna leave here real quiet and quick. Tell ’em I came crying to you like a little baby, whatever. We just gotta get out without anyone coming with. Maybe that Isarnah. Not sure what her deal is.”

“I trust her.”

“Trusted your knot leaders, too, and look where that got you, porridge-brain.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nikory’s the one who marked you for the hawks.”

Any amusement at Arkady’s skittishness chilled at those words. She was serious, and she was scared. But she’d still come into enemy territory to warn him.

Even then, he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. “Impossible. He hates the Vigil.”

“Fine. You stay and see if those fists out there are loyal to you or to him. But I wouldn’t take a soft bun for you, much less a knife. I’m scarpering.”

“Not before you tell me how you found out.”

Arkady glanced over her shoulder as if she expected Nikory to come through the door. “Visits szorsas, don’t he? People spill all kinds of things to them. He went to one all in a lather after you got nabbed, saying he din’t know what to do now.”

Not Ren; she would have warned him. Vargo could ask for the szorsa’s name, track her down, question her… but that would mean leaving Nikory where he was. And Vargo couldn’t let that knife stay at his back any longer than he already had.

“Scarper,” he said. “I’ll deal with this.”

By the time Varuni brought Nikory in, Vargo was ready. He had knives to hand and ice in his heart. He didn’t enjoy killing—and he’d enjoy even less explaining the necessity to Sedge and the Fog Spiders—but you didn’t keep Lower Bank knots in line by being soft.

Nikory came in readily, no suspicion at all. His pupils were aža-spun, a doped grin lingering in the wake of the laughter still ringing through the main room.

Until the door closed and Varuni put her back to it, and Vargo said with no humor at all, “Have a seat.”

Vraszenians said aža gave true visions. Vargo didn’t know if he believed that, but he didn’t doubt that it helped people make intuitive leaps over gaps too big to cross sober.

“Fuck. You know,” Nikory whispered.

A heartbeat later, he sank to the floor and began sobbing.

Vargo stared at Varuni, who stared back at him, as though one of them had an explanation. Meanwhile Nikory was babbling, or trying to, between heaving sobs so harsh they shook his whole body.

::Vargo, this… is not normal.::

No fucking shit. Rounding his desk, Vargo crouched next to Nikory. If this was a ruse to bring him close enough for knifing, Nikory was wasted in Froghole. He should be headlining at the Theatre Agnasce.

“I—I—” Nikory could barely form words through the retching gasps. “I don’t even know why—it bothered me, yeah, but—I just—I couldn’t—”

“Try breathing, then talking,” Vargo said, passing Nikory the clove-scented cloth he used on warm days when their headquarters’ old life as a fishery rose up like a ghost from the floorboards.

After cleaning his face and catching his sobs, Nikory stared down at the soiled kerchief like a man looking at his own shroud. But when he raised his chin, his expression was unexpectedly fierce.

“You en’t tied to us,” he said. “You pretend you are, but it’s all lies. You let folks like Sedge think you’ve got loyalty and bonds, that you’ll have our backs the way we’ve got yours—but you en’t never taken an oath. I knew that when I took over the Fog Spiders, and I was willing to live with it then, but lately—” His hand clenched hard on the handkerchief. “They deserve better than you.”

Vargo’s voice sounded cold even to his own ears. “So you’d take my place.”

“No! Or—I don’t know. It en’t about taking over. It’s about what we owe each other. I want them to have a real knot. If that’s the Fog Spiders on their own and your organization gone…” Nikory trailed off. In a dull, hopeless voice, he said, “I kept your secrets. Even when they wanted to know what went down with the Stretsko in Seven Knots. You know why they let me go? As a favor to you. And I walked out of there thinking, why the fuck am I being so loyal to a cuff?”

They—not the Fog Spiders. The Ordo Apis.

Caerulet’s stingers.

“Nikory.” Vargo waited until the man’s eyes were on him. “This is important. Did you talk to Ghiscolo Acrenix?”

Nikory nodded miserably. “Back in Colbrilun, when I went to spring Lurets from the Aerie. Acrenix told the stingers we wasn’t to be touched ’cause we’re yours.” His mouth twisted around the last word like he’d tasted something foul.

::You don’t think—::

I very much do.

::But whatever he used on you seemed more Quinat’s domain. This feels like Sessat.::

Sessat, the strength of the many, the numen of friendship and organizations. What Vargo had felt was Quinat: the hand that holds the world, the numen of individual power and personal achievement. Something tells me Ghiscolo’s gone farther into his research than we suspected.

But Praeteri numinata didn’t make something out of nothing. Willing to live with it, Nikory had said. That wasn’t the same as being happy about it. And hadn’t that been the crux of Vargo’s conversation with Sedge?

He’d called Nikory in here expecting to ask someone to carry the body out. But Nikory’s accusation was a fair one—and as for the decision to act on it…

“It’s not your fault.”

Vargo’s words fell like lead into the silence, calling Ninat to the last of Nikory’s hitched sobs.

Nikory stared like Vargo had just turned into a fish. “You take aža with the rest of us when I wasn’t looking? I tipped the Vigil to the Lacewater meet. I can’t explain why—”

“I can. Acrenix did something to you. It’s probably still there. I know.” Sinking back against his desk, Vargo scrubbed at his face. “He did something similar to me. That’s why I told you and the others to question any orders I gave about taking Sostira Novrus down.” He tensed to resist the impulse—

—but it didn’t hit like he expected.

Still there, sure; the thought of himself in Argentet’s seat still looked like a good one. But it wasn’t clutching at his throat the way it had before.

A whispered curse broke that distraction. It came from Varuni, and when Vargo glanced up, even her stony mask couldn’t hide her alarm. Possibly I should have told her about that.

“I’m dealing with it,” he said. Vargo wasn’t going to lose the Lower Bank or his ennoblement charter. Not to Ghiscolo fucking Acrenix. Not to nobody.

“Ask a szorsa for help,” Nikory said eagerly. “Lenskaya, maybe. I got a charm from one, and—it’s helping. I think. The feeling en’t as strong now.” He interlaced his fingers in the sign for luck.

Just as it wasn’t as strong for Vargo. “Did it fade gradually, or all of a sudden?”

“Sudden-like, yeah. ’Bout two days after you got nicked.”

More than a month after Nikory himself was affected. For Vargo, it was less than two weeks. What triggered the shift?

He didn’t know, but it didn’t change his next moves. “Not Lenskaya; I won’t be involving her in our business anymore. But I’ll look into getting a charm. Meanwhile, Nikory, you tell Sedge and nobody else about what happened to you—but everyone stays away from Acrenix. Not just Ghiscolo, but anybody in that register.”

::And the other Praeteri?::

So far, Ghiscolo seems to have kept this power for himself. Let’s hope that stays the case. Vargo stood, brushing dust from his knees and ass. Nikory scrambled to his feet, tentatively holding out the damp and snotty kerchief. At Vargo’s lifted brow, he crumpled it in his hand.

“I—” Nikory hesitated. Then: “I was sure I was a dead man.”

If Vargo hadn’t gotten bored at an orgy, Nikory might have been.

“You’re not,” he said. “But Ghiscolo Acrenix sure as fuck is.”

Villa Quientis, Bay of Vraszan: Canilun 10

As the small boat bucked its way across the choppy waves, Vargo leaned in and murmured to Ren, “Are you feeling all right?”

She didn’t answer immediately, because she wasn’t sure what would come out if she opened her mouth: an answer or her lunch. Only when the nausea ebbed did she say through her teeth, “The sea and I don’t get along.”

“Oh.” Vargo looked surprised, then sympathetic. “I could have asked Donaia and Quientis to come into the city, instead of us going to them.”

“No,” Ren said, then bit down briefly before continuing. “This is supposed to be her retreat. And a bit of seasickness won’t kill me.” If it could, it would have done so on the journeys to and from Ganllech.

She pulled herself back into persona as they arrived at the villa’s dock. Two Quientis footmen waited there; once they’d helped Renata and Vargo onto dry land, they shouldered the crate that was the reason for this visit, and led the two of them up to the house.

Vargo was a careful man. He’d tested his theory of layered numinata for cleansing the river before he ever approached her, at least on a simplified scale, and he’d built another model of more refined design after his consultations with Tanaquis. But since he was still technically administering a Traementis charter, granted by Fulvet, he wanted to demonstrate it for them before he began assembling the enormous version that would span the West Channel.

Scaperto was too gracious a host to rush directly to business, even if he still didn’t entirely trust Vargo. “You must join us for afternoon tea,” he said after he greeted them. “Please—Donaia insists.”

Although Donaia had left for the bay less than a week before, she was already looking better. Her hair was properly cared for again, silver shining through auburn, and she no longer moved like she was dragging a great weight behind her with every step. She still fell silent at moments in the conversation, especially when Scaperto spoke about members of his family, but she looked…

Alive again, Renata thought. And then, seeing the way Donaia smiled at her host: In ways she perhaps hasn’t been for a very long time.

But Vargo was impatient, and so before long he excused himself to oversee the setup of the model in a long trench dug for the purpose. Renata updated Donaia on House Traementis business while he took measurements, made adjustments, and had the servants set up a windbreak when the bay breezes shook the half of the spiral arching delicately over the surface of the trench.

“The winds over the Dežera can be strong, and you won’t have any breaks to shield against it. Won’t that be a problem?” Scaperto asked, eyeing the prismatium arch with concern.

“I’ll put Tricats on the supports. But I’ve also added an extra Sebat figure here.” Vargo ran a finger along a curve of prismatium that scattered rainbow light from the sun beating down. “People think of it as purification, but it’s also the harmony of the spheres. The winds will excite that harmony and make use of it.” With a wry chuckle, he added, “It may get a little noisy at times, but the music should be pleasant.”

Scaperto still looked dubious, as well he might. Numinata that worked fine in miniature didn’t always scale up—the reason the river numinat was so difficult to replace. But the sludge the servants had prepared at Vargo’s instruction was far more contaminated than even the West Channel; if the figure worked on that, then its larger cousin should be able to handle the Dežera.

So they all hoped, anyway. Nobody would know for sure until Vargo had built the full thing.

The scent of the sludge ripened in the early autumn sun as Vargo fiddled with the mechanism that would drop all seven foci into their respective layers at the same moment. Donaia used the back of her glove to blot at the sweat beading her brow and lip, until Scaperto handed her a linen kerchief.

::Moment of truth.::

Renata heard Vargo’s voice, and it took her a breath to realize it was a thought directed at Alsius rather than anything spoken aloud.

He shifted the block on the mechanism, and seven foci of rainbow-shimmering prismatium slid down their chutes and slotted into place. The hairs stood up on Renata’s arms, energy vibrating under her skin like heat lightning. Then, with a hum and a snap, it dissipated, leaving only the warmth of the day and the shirring of cicadas.

And the water, set loose to flow through the numinat, came out…

Somewhat cleaner, she thought. More translucent than opaque. But still nothing she would want to put her hand in, much less drink.

“Perhaps if you ran it through again?” Donaia no doubt meant the suggestion kindly, but it still acknowledged the unspoken truth: The numinat had not performed as Vargo had promised.

The scar through Vargo’s brow puckered as he raised it. He looked so composed, Renata almost wondered if she’d imagined the disappointing result. When she looked at his shoulders instead of his face, though, she saw the anger he was masking. “Thank you, Era Traementis, but unless the Dežera is willing to flow backward for our convenience, I’m afraid that won’t make a difference.”

::I don’t understand, Vargo. The previous model worked perfectly!::

Scaperto cleared his throat. “I’m afraid this is… not what I’d hoped for, Eret Vargo.”

His tone wasn’t as suspicious as it might have been, but Renata still heard the current beneath. Nadežra was full of people promising more than they could deliver; she’d done it herself, as part of a hundred cons. He would be wondering if this was more of the same.

“Something must have gone wrong,” she said. “It worked perfectly when I saw it. But that was a different model. Perhaps this one was damaged in transport?”

Vargo’s gaze flicked to her. She’d seen no such thing; this was her first demonstration, too. But if Alsius said it had worked, then she trusted them.

His startlement only showed for an instant before he picked up the thread of the conversation. “It wouldn’t have worked at all were that the case. I’ll need to analyze what went wrong. Your Grace, Era Traementis, I do apologize for wasting your time this afternoon.”

“Not a waste. We had a lovely lunch.” Donaia slid her hand into the bend of Renata’s elbow. “And you forced my niece to come for a visit.”

Scaperto frowned. “You’ll need to delay moving forward on construction until we know why the model didn’t work.”

“Of course.” Vargo spoke as though welcoming the setback, hands open and shoulders relaxed. Nothing to indicate the proportions of this disaster. “I wouldn’t dream of wasting public funds on something I wasn’t certain would work.”

The noise Scaperto made sounded less than confident. As Vargo began dismantling the model, Renata saw a flash of color scuttle up the prismatium: Peabody, examining it more closely. How well can spiders see?

Well enough, it seemed. ::Vargo, the metal. Do these colors look right to you?::

Vargo’s hands paused in their work. ::They do. Why?::

::They seem off to me. As if something went wrong in the transmutation.::

::Then… I didn’t fuck it up.::

Vargo’s back was to Renata; all she could see was the fabric of his coat, easing from its taut line as some of the tension bled out. And his mental reply held everything his face hadn’t shown: the fear that he couldn’t deliver on his promise. That he’d staked not only his public reputation but his opinion of his own skill on this endeavor, and come up short.

::Your inscription was perfect,:: Alsius said gently. ::The problem is in the metal.::

Vargo’s reply sounded like a curse. ::Sabotage.::

Donaia was still talking, trying to lead everyone back into the house for tea. Renata patted her aunt’s hand and said, “I’m afraid we can’t stay. Eret Vargo will need to talk to Iridet.”

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 12

The man Iridet sent to inspect the prismatium workshop two days later found nothing, and neither did Vargo himself. But as Vargo growled to Renata afterward, that meant absolutely nothing. “They knew we were coming,” he said. “If there was anything to hide, they would have hidden it by then.”

And there was almost certainly something to hide. Vargo’s prismatium was coming from multiple workshops, because of the quantity he needed. His first model—which he insisted on demonstrating for Renata after the sabotage, and which worked as advertised—came from House Terdenzi. The prismatium he’d gotten from Amananto, though, was flawed somehow. Ren couldn’t follow Alsius’s technical explanation, but the takeaway was that the metal was about more than its rainbow sheen of colors. The shipment Vargo had received was flawed… in ways that remained imperceptible until the power of the Lumen flowed through and exposed them.

It might have been an accident. Vargo didn’t believe it, though, and neither did Ren. Which was why the Black Rose now lurked on an Eastbridge rooftop, waiting for a second shadow to join her.

Of course she didn’t hear him coming. “You told Derossi Vargo who you are?”

Looking at the Rook was unspeakably strange. Even knowing who was inside the hood, she couldn’t spot anything identifiable in either his face or his voice. Then again, having this conversation with Grey might not have been any easier.

She sighed. “We’ve finally been honest with each other—on both sides. There’s no denying the things he’s done…” Not just to her. To Kolya. Ren pressed her lips together, then said, “But about his motives, I was wrong. He wants to bring the Praeteri down, and to make this city a better place. And I believe he has no medallion.”

“He doesn’t.” That came quietly enough that she almost didn’t hear it. After a hesitation, the Rook crouched on the rooftop at her side, close enough to be pleasantly distracting. “Ghiscolo used Quinat on him, too. It can’t make something from nothing; Vargo must want power already, for him to have responded so strongly. But anyone who has a medallion would be immune to that influence.”

She could believe Vargo wanted power. Can you imagine what this city might be if everybody just did their fucking job for once? It had been part of a rant, halfway through their drunken afternoon together. But there was a difference between wanting power for one’s own benefit, and wanting it for the sake of others.

Sometimes there was a difference, anyway. Kaius Rex’s poison tended to blur that line.

“I ask not that you trust him with your secrets,” she said. “Only that you trust me to be right about him. I laid his pattern, and now much more of it is clear. He can help us—you—do what the Rook was made for.”

After a moment, his gloved hand came to rest over hers. “I do trust you. Now, what are we here for?”

She explained as they made their way toward the Eastbridge Sebatium. The roof of a bookbindery next door made a good vantage point for checking the area—and the shadowed recess of a dormer window made a good hiding spot when someone unexpectedly turned the corner and headed for the temple.

“Hello, Meda Amananto,” Ren whispered as a swaybacked old woman trailing several scarves hobbled up to the door and unlocked it. “Whatever are you doing here at this time of night?”

“Good thing you invited me to back you up,” the Rook murmured into her ear. “She looks very dangerous.”

The tickle of his breath, the pressure of his chest against her back… They’d laid aside their masks, but Ren didn’t know where that left them. Or what was even possible, given all the complications that surrounded them.

She only knew what she wanted, with an ache that went through her from head to foot.

The Rook asked, “Shall I sit on her while you ask questions, or would you prefer to be the bully?”

Steadying her voice, she said, “Cuffs expect it from you. I’ll be the nice one.”

“As my Lady Rose wishes.” His scent lingered as he slipped away to climb through one of the windows of the Sebatium. And the sensation of his glove, brushing her cheek.

Ren dragged her wits together and followed him inside.

The old woman was Orrucio Amananto’s grandmother, Orruciat, and her workshop was in an upper chamber of the Sebatium. An open door and a muffled squeak told Ren the Rook hadn’t waited, trusting she’d be hard on his heels.

She entered to find him gripping Orruciat in a lock, with one hand over her mouth. “Now, now,” Ren said, dropping into the Black Rose’s voice. “Surely there’s no need for that.”

The Rook huffed a laugh. “She may look like a kindly old granny, but her elbows are sharp and she knows how to apply them.”

As if to underscore his point, Orruciat tried to stomp on his foot. When he evaded that, she twisted her head free of his muffling hand. “Let me go, you ruffian, or I’ll garotte you with my scarf!”

She almost stumbled into the purification basin when the Rook complied. Catching her balance, she straightened the scarves like a huffy pigeon. “Impudent boy.”

Ren stifled a laugh and held up one gloved hand. “We aren’t here to hurt you, Meda Amananto. We’re only curious what you’re doing here so late at night.”

“What business do you have with my business?” Taking out a pair of spectacles, she slipped them on and peered at Ren. “And who are you? Never heard stories of the Rook having a sweetheart. Watch yourself, my girl. Can’t trust a man who doesn’t show you his face.”

“Who says I don’t?” the Rook asked, and Ren heard the echo of Grey in his laugh.

“You shush. I’ve nothing to say to you. You!” She leveled a crooked finger at Ren. “Do you know who’s been tampering with my prismatium?”

Her indignation could have been a facade, but Ren doubted it. “That’s what we’re here to discover. If we may?” She gestured at the numinat laid into the floor.

Orruciat wavered visibly, then stepped aside, turning so she could keep the Rook in view. “Just so long as that one doesn’t break my hands if he doesn’t like what he finds. I made it correctly—my word to the Lumen. I would never disrespect the Great Work. If something went wrong, it wasn’t me.”

Ren made a grand display of pointing at the door, and caught the playful shrug the Rook gave her as he made a grand display of grudgingly complying. When he was leaning against the frame like an ornamental column, arms crossed over his chest, she came forward and began to examine the numinat.

What she expected to find, she didn’t know. If there was anything wrong with the prismatium or the way it had been set into the floor, Vargo and Iridet’s inscriptor would have found it—or Orruciat would have. The figure wasn’t active, but the metal shone like a rainbow in the glow of the lightstone fixtures. “All the work has been done here?”

“Right here,” Orruciat confirmed. “And the floor is new-laid, too—no warping to worry about.”

The floorboards weren’t emitting so much as a sigh when Ren stepped on them. But she heard something else, so faint it was almost inaudible. “Does anyone else hear that?”

Silence from the other two. Then the Rook said, “Hear what?”

“Music.” Ren turned her head, trying to locate the source. “In the distance, maybe. It’s…”

She trailed off to listen better, but the sound remained maddeningly faint. If it wasn’t in the room, though, it wasn’t relevant. She shook off the tingle dancing across her skin and looked up, as if Vargo might have missed a second numinat painted on the ceiling.

When her head came down, the metal in the floor looked different.

Ren knelt to examine it more closely. Still a rainbow of colors, red and gold and green and blue and violet—but parts of it had dulled. No, not dulled; simply changed. Where there had been orange and turquoise, the prismatium now gleamed more like the steel it had previously been, shading from polished grey to shining white. The colors of the Vraszenian clans: Anoškin white and Kiraly grey replacing the outsiders.

“There is something wrong,” she murmured, and tugged off her glove to touch it.

Or tried to. Her glove wouldn’t come off.

She looked at it, frowning. The black leather seemed to have fused with her hand, giving her no slack to pull. And the cuff now blended seamlessly with her sleeve. As if—

As if it wasn’t something she was wearing. As if it was just… her.

“What’s wrong?” the Rook asked, straightening from the doorway. Orruciat made a warning sound at him, but he paid her no heed.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Nothing except her own foolish refusal to see until now.

She remembered that moment in the dream, when she reached for a way to hide her identity from Grey. Except… that wasn’t what Ažerais had given her, was it? Hadn’t she thought, more than once over these past few months, that she felt the happiest, the most free, when she wore the Black Rose’s mask? Renata was a lie, and so was Arenza, but the Black Rose was real.

This was a gift from Ažerais. Not a mask to hide her true self; a transmutation, a way to make something better out of the impure metal that was Ren. I am born of Ažerais. Conceived on the Great Dream. Perhaps this is what I was always meant to be.

“Are you speaking Vraszenian?” Orruciat snapped. “I don’t understand that gibberish.”

The Black Rose must have spoken her thoughts out loud, in the only language she was meant to speak. But to communicate with the old woman, she would have to sully her tongue. “You understand me not because you belong here not.”

“Who doesn’t belong here?” The bent old woman shook like a cypress tree in a strong wind. “Don’t get pert with me, missy! It’s my workshop.”

“And it is my land!” The Black Rose surged at her, arm raised. She didn’t have her thorns, but to cleanse this place of an old woman, she didn’t need them.

Her strike glanced off the Rook’s back instead. He shoved the protesting Orruciat out of the room, slamming the door behind her, then returned to catch the Black Rose’s wrist.

“Ren,” he hissed. “What’s doing this to you?”

“I am not Ren,” she spat back in Vraszenian. “She was broken, flawed. Our goddess has remade her into something better. She made me to defend this place, just as someone made you to take down her enemies. Why deny you the truth? You are the Rook, down to your bones! Accept it, as I have done, and be who the Faces and Masks mean you to be!”

His grip jerked and went slack. She twisted free and retreated, closing her eyes. Chasing that music. It was stronger now; it grew as she stopped fighting against her nature. She had always been the Black Rose, even if she hadn’t known it. Ren was just as much a performance as the others. And that music—it was the song of the dreamweavers, the voice of Ažerais, which she had been deaf to for far too long.

But she was listening now. And she would never close her ears again.

The music splintered like wood. Ren’s eyes flew open.

The Rook had slammed the hilt of his sword into the floor, cracking the boards. Wedging the blade into the crack, he set his boot as a fulcrum and pried up a central section of the numinat in a ragged maw of wood and bent prismatium.

A plug of rainbow-swirled glass pinged and bounced across the floor, stopping at Ren’s toes.

She wanted to weep for the dream that had just slipped through her fingers. The pure, unwavering certainty of the Black Rose, leaving behind all the messy imperfections of Ren. And at the same time… now that it was gone, that certainty terrified her.

The door burst open again, and Orruciat made a croaking sound like a stomped frog. “What—you—my numinat!” Dodging the Rook, she sagged to her knees next to the hole he’d pried into her pristine new floorboards.

New, she’d said. Ren bent to pick up the bit of glass at her feet with one shaking hand.

“Praeteri,” she whispered, nausea twisting in her gut. Her glove was a glove again—as it had always been. She should have recognized the signs. But this one had felt so good, so right. Not like the rage she’d fought to keep in, that night in the temple; just her rationality slipping away like the ebbing tide. Turning her around until she didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.

It didn’t seem to have hit Orruciat nearly so hard. But the old woman didn’t spend her life tangled in a knot of lies, playing dreamweaver’s nest with the truth.

Ren recoiled as if the focus were a viper. The Rook caught it before it could hit the floor. He toed over one of the boards Orruciat was mourning; on the bottom side were painted markings. Lines of another, hidden numinat. “But to what purpose?”

Ren couldn’t answer past the tightness in her throat. How many times will they invade my mind?

Orruciat answered for her, sobs quieting into a huff. “That… that’s not right.” On hands and knees, she crawled to an undamaged part of the transmutation numinat. “This… this should be earthwise, not sunwise. How did I not see that?”

Ren forced herself to look at the blank focus the Rook held. A Praeteri focus—and those, unlike ordinary numinatria, could affect the mind.

“Delusion,” she said, meeting the Rook’s gaze in the shadows of his hood. Searching for Grey underneath: the man, not the mask he wore. “Warping your perception of reality. You aren’t to blame, Meda Amananto.”

The Rook’s reply was as soft as the shadows, but as sharp as steel. “We know who is.”

Westbridge, Lower Bank: Canilun 13

Grey didn’t go home that night.

He clawed the hood off as soon as he parted company with Ren, and stood, shaking, with it in his hands. He kept hearing Ren’s voice, declaring herself to be the Black Rose in truth. Those Praeteri bastards had gone inside her head again, and if whoever was responsible for that hidden numinat were in front of Grey now, the Rook’s oath not to kill might not stay his hand.

The Rook.

Accept it, as I have done, and be who the Faces and Masks mean you to be!

A shudder ran through him from head to toe. For just an instant, when she said that…

It wasn’t only the Praeteri numinat at work. Every time he put the hood on, the ledge beneath his feet got narrower and narrower. He ought to look for a successor, as Ryvček had done—but who? Ranieri? Sedge? Andrejek? There was no one he trusted with this. And the end was within reach; so Ren promised him, and so he had to believe.

He walked the streets until the towers rang first sun. Then he forced himself to draw the hood back on, and went to find the best protected and least interesting person in Nadežra.

Even by the standards of his Iridet predecessors, Utrinzi Simendis was a recluse. Except when Cinquerat business dragged him to the Old Island, he spent his days in his small manor on the edge of Owl’s Fields, surrounded by layers of defensive numinata. The Rook had tried to infiltrate several times, but never made it past the retaining wall surrounding the property. Iridet’s Charterhouse office was less secure, but so little used the servants hardly bothered to dust it.

But the man did have one vice. And Viljin Dmariskaya Gredzyka, proprietor of the Gredzyka Exotic Goods Emporium, owed the Rook a favor.

“I’m sorry, Your Worship,” she said as she led Utrinzi Simendis into her parlour. “He said he only wanted to talk, and I…”

Simendis had gone very still at the sight of the Rook. After several heartbeats passed without violence, he moved enough to nod at Gredzyka. “Thank you for your honesty. You could have claimed he threatened you. I suppose this means you have not, in fact, found a seven-stringed zither for me?”

“I did!” She gestured to a battered leather case leaning against the settee, then clutched that hand to her chest. “I hope—I hope you’ll have a chance to play it.”

“That depends on His Worship,” the Rook said softly. He’d doused the lamp, creating a pocket of shadow between the window hangings and the display shelves. “I’m here about someone else’s sins. The question is whether he’ll do anything about them… or cover his eyes, as he so often does.”

Gredzyka left reluctantly. Simendis was one of her best clients; the Rook could only assume that house in Owl’s Fields was stuffed to the rafters with imported musical instruments. The man apparently loved them so much that he had the single-minded audacity to open the case Gredzyka had used as bait and lift into his lap an elegant instrument of lacquered wood, stringed with twisted silk.

The Rook watched him warily. Some Iridets—or rather, some holders of the Sebat medallion—had orchestrated religious purges across Nadežra; they were the reason no labyrinths survived on the Upper Bank. This one seemed content to be useless. But that wasn’t the same as ignorant, and although Simendis’s hands were on the strings, his eyes were on the Rook.

Or rather, on the subtle numinatrian embroidery along the edge of the hood.

Rather than wait to see if the man could unravel his own secrets, the Rook spoke. “The Illius Praeteri. What do you know of them?”

Simendis plucked one string, contemplatively, and adjusted a tuning peg. “A numinatrian mystery cult. My protégé, Tanaquis Fienola, is a member. As are a number of our leading citizens.”

Silence fell, except for the plangent note of another string. The Rook said, “That’s it?”

“I take it from your tone that there is something more you think I ought to know.”

Only respect for good craftsmanship and his cordial relationship with Ča Gredzyka kept the Rook from breaking the instrument across his knee. “As Iridet, I would think you’d be concerned with the fact that the Praeteri are using unlicensed numinatria all across Nadežra. And yes, it is unlicensed; I broke into your office to examine the charters there.”

Simendis shrugged as if the break-in was only to be expected. “It’s impossible to track or control every use of numinatria. But I take it these particular uses are of concern.”

The Rook began counting them off, switching between hands as he ran out of fingers. Ren had left a list on her balcony a few days before; some of the items on it matched the ones that survived the booby trap in Vargo’s office.

It had the desired effect on Simendis. There was no more tuning; the man’s hands went flat on the strings, and his eyes shut as though he were meditating. His expression, however, was anything but serene.

When the list was done, Simendis wet his lips, then spoke in a whisper. “Eisar. She… did not tell me that.”

Fienola, the Rook presumed. He reined in the urge to drag Simendis out and hang him by his ankles from the Dawngate. “This is what happens when you abdicate your job to other people, Your Worship.”

Simendis opened his eyes and studied the Rook. “I wonder. How much do you know of such things?”

“More than you, apparently.”

“I doubt that,” Simendis said, in a nearly inaudible voice.

Or the Rook could punch him a few times, right here. Leather creaked as his hands tightened into fists—but beating up an old man wouldn’t accomplish anything. Instead he growled, “Worms breed in dark places. This needs to be dragged into the light. I’m counting on you to do it.” The Rook leaned close enough for his hood to eclipse the light. “Clean your house, Your Worship. Or I will.”

He would have left it at that. But before he could slip out the back door, Simendis spoke again. “You aren’t in the habit of polite conversation with members of the Cinquerat. I presume you’ve come to me because you recognize your own limits—but have you considered my own? Iridet commands no military force. I rely on Caerulet to supply what is needed. That will hardly work in this case.”

The Rook stopped. That was the objection of a man who actually wanted to root out the cult.

He fought with himself internally, and couldn’t even say for sure which side of the argument was the Rook, and which was Grey Serrado.

“Derossi Vargo,” he said at last. “He’s infiltrated the Praeteri. And he holds a mercenary charter—granted by the previous Caerulet.”

Touching his hood in a rare gesture of respect, the Rook left Utrinzi Simendis to his business.