19

The Ember Adamant

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Canilun 13

When Renata reentered her bedroom after breakfast the next morning, it took her a moment to notice that Clever Natalya was making futile kitten leaps up the wall, claws scratching at the smooth birch panels. Renata, following her unwavering gaze, saw a familiar splash of color clinging to the molding, safely out of Natalya’s reach.

How Master Peabody had gotten into her room she didn’t know, but he made far too tempting of a target for the cat. Renata interposed herself, and Peabody flung himself onto the front of her surcoat. Covering him with one hand, she hurried out to the sitting room, where Tess was sorting through her morning correspondence, and shut the door behind her.

She expected a flood of enthusiastic and overly proper greetings and thanks to follow, but after a moment of bobbing in place on her shoulder, he scuttled down her arm and waved his front legs toward the desk. Tess’s eyes widened at the sight. “Is that—”

The door to the sitting room was closed, but Tess caught herself all the same. Renata came closer, letting Peabody scuttle down to the desk and herself whisper to Tess. “Yes. I’ve no idea what he’s doing.”

The spider had climbed onto the stack of letters and was laboriously trying to nudge the top one off. When Tess moved it away, he retreated to the one below, and repeated this process until he got to a flat package a little too thick to be the usual invitation or letter. Then he hooked one leg through the ribbon tying it closed and threw his minuscule weight into a futile effort to undo the knot.

The package was from Vargo. Brushing Peabody gently aside, Renata untied the ribbon and found herself in possession of a folded piece of fabric that, once shaken out, proved to be a painted numinat with a note.

Put the focus in the middle and pin the cut bit together.

Tess cleared her throat. “Seeing as how winter’s coming on, would now be a convenient time to discuss additions to the alta’s wardrobe? It’ll be a difficulty to get the best fabrics with Eret Vargo’s warehouse closed to us, but I’ve an idea for…”

She launched into a thoroughly detailed account of the state of the textile trade in Nadežra while Renata, grateful, sat on the floor behind her desk. The focus was pinned to the corner of the fabric; she arrayed everything according to Vargo’s instructions, then used the pin to close the encircling line.

No sooner had Peabody jumped into the middle than a flood of words swept through her mind.

::—working? Please say it’s working. We weren’t certain if you would be able to hear me away from Vargo, since your connection seems to be through him. You must tell me how you did it; the details he provided were scanty at best. You’re so quiet. Oh dear, perhaps you still can’t respond. Blink! One if you can hear me, two if you can’t. No, wait. That makes no sense. Two if you can hear me, three if—::

“I can hear you,” Renata said, fighting a smile. So long as she kept her voice to a whisper, nobody would hear her over Tess waxing rhapsodic about the weave of a particular heather-fine twill shipped in from Ganllech.

::Oh! Yes, I suppose you could answer like that.:: His front limbs curled bashfully up against his mouth, but a moment later he was off again. Raising his brightly patterned body in a reverse bow, he said, ::Where are my manners? Altan Alsius Acrenix, at your service. A sheer delight to make your acquaintance properly. We have so many interesting topics to discuss—I do hope this isn’t an inconvenient time. It may not be far from Eastbridge to the Pearls, but it isn’t precisely an easy jaunt for me. Quite a few birds out at this time of day, and I feel so cruel when I have to bite them. My venom is very painful, you know. I could refrain from using it, but that would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?::

“I thought the two of you were indestructible.”

::I’d rather not test that in the digestive tract of a seagull.::

She stifled a laugh at his prim reply. “That’s fair. I’m sorry about the cat.”

::I suppose you’re attached to her?:: At Renata’s lifted brow, he shook himself. ::Can’t be helped, then. Now that I know that beast is a danger, I’ll take precautions. Vargo thought it would be convenient were I the one to relay messages between you. I am so relieved you set your estrangement aside. And quite scandalized! I knew Letilia, you know. Not well. But I must say, I always felt you were too interesting to possibly be related to her. Meaning no insult. Though I suppose you wouldn’t take insult, since she’s not really your mother.::

There would hardly be any risk of someone overhearing her when every ten words from Renata invited a thousand from Alsius. But if the only person he could talk to was Vargo, she hardly blamed him for being excited about this new opportunity. “May I ask… how did you end up like this?” She gestured at the peacock spider.

::Ah, that.:: He shuffled around, his movement curtailed by the borders of the numinat. ::I understand you heard the conversation the night you brought Captain Serrado to us? Mine was a similar situation. A curse my brother sent to kill me.::

How many people in Nadežra would believe that, when Ghiscolo seemed so affable? “That part, I know. But I’ve never heard of a situation like yours.” She hesitated, then said, “If I’m prying too far, I apologize, but… I misjudged Vargo rather badly. I’m trying to mend that. And you’re clearly a vital part of his life.”

::Vital, hmm.:: Tucking his legs close, Alsius settled into a little lump opposite the focus of the numinat. His four main eyes shone like polished onyx. ::It didn’t start that way. You see, Vargo was the messenger boy who delivered the cloak that held the curse. And I… I was more concerned with my own survival than his. If it weren’t for Master Peabody—the original, I mean—tucked in Vargo’s pocket, matters might have fallen out very differently.::

He went silent in contemplation, save for the faint whisper of his front legs against his mandibles. ::If you wish to understand Vargo, then you only need know that the unintended consequences of his actions trouble him more than he will ever admit.::

The Night of Hells. Kolya Serrado. Undoubtedly others she would never know about. But from the weight in Alsius’s voice, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. While she knew very little about numinatria, she could speculate: Alsius Acrenix, trying to save his own life without concern for the messenger boy… If it was possible for a spirit to be transferred to a new body, she doubted it was the spider he’d been aiming for.

Yet somehow they’d gone from that to the oddly familial relationship they had now. “Am I right in thinking you had a hand in his rise?”

::Eight of them,:: Alsius said with a mental chuckle. ::It took quite some effort to mold Vargo into someone the Praeteri would accept into their ranks, but I was right to be concerned about what they do—as you yourself have experienced. And now with… Did Sedge relay to you that Ghiscolo somehow influenced Nikory as well? Though it’s faded, for both of them. Vargo says the immediate pressure eased off quite abruptly a few days ago, though the impulse lingers. We’re not sure why.::

She breathed out, understanding. “He tried to use it on Grey Serrado last week. Fortunately, Captain Serrado didn’t know what Ghiscolo wanted to hear.”

Alsius’s feet tapped. ::So perhaps he can only affect one at a time? That’s reassuring, I suppose. Inasmuch as anything about this can be reassuring. I wonder who he used Sessat on, after Nikory? You’d be wise to stay away from my family. Well, Sibiliat and Mother are mostly harmless.::

Harmless as vipers. The influence of the medallion Ghiscolo held would bleed out into his whole register, a desire for authority and power. How was it that the Acrenix had never taken a Cinquerat seat before now? Either they’d come into the Quinat medallion only recently, or the link between that numen and excellence meant they’d played their game very well. Didn’t House Acrenix have influence all throughout Nadežra, without ever showing their hand openly?

And if Ghiscolo had Sessat now as well, that explained a great deal about his actions as Caerulet. He’d fallen very rapidly into the impulses of that numen. As bad as one medallion was, maybe it was worse to have two.

Renata hesitated, trying to think of a way to share her concerns with Alsius without saying anything about Kaius Rex’s chain of office. Before she could, Alsius shook himself. ::You don’t need me to tell you about dangers to avoid. You’re adept enough on your own. Quite astonishing, what you’ve made yourself into with no help at all. I’m very pleased you’re our ally. Speaking of which, is there any chance you might have a word with the Rook? I’ve never much cared about that vigilante, but it upsets Vargo, you know. And our plans, of course.::

If Alsius thought she’d done this with no help at all, Vargo must not have told him about Ondrakja. Or else—and this was possible—Alsius wrote Ondrakja off as insignificant, since after all, she hadn’t been a noblewoman. However genial his manner, he’d grown up a cuff, with all the assumptions and arrogance that meant. And perhaps some lingering traces of Quinat.

But they would have marked him as dead in the register, so he wouldn’t be affected now. As for his request… she hunched over the numinat, so she could speak just above a breath. “The Rook wants Ghiscolo taken down. And the Praeteri. So long as that remains, Vargo need not fear.”

::Thank you. I’m glad Vargo has you for a friend. That boy is entirely too serious, though I’ll never admit to saying it.::

A sound in the corridor interrupted Tess’s monologue: one of the junior maids, calling out to someone else. Peabody uncurled from his huddle but stayed in the numinat. ::Before I go—and if it isn’t too much an imposition—I do have a favor to ask.::

Renata answered with a brief, inquisitive noise, peeking around the desk in case she needed to sweep her floor clear—numinat, spider, and all.

::I’m very impressed with Tess’s work. Since she’s here, would you ask if she might be willing to make me a pair of gloves? Or rather, four pairs?:: He raised two of his legs in cheerful semaphore, though the voice in Renata’s head was a mournful wail. ::Sixteen years now, I feel as though I’ve been walking around naked!::

Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 13

Ever since the adoption ball, notes from Sibiliat had arrived at Traementis Manor, inviting Giuna to one thing or another. Every single one, Giuna consigned to the hearth in her mother’s office.

Until she accepted that she couldn’t dodge them forever, and sent back a note of her own.

Securing a table in the atrium of Ossiter’s was easier than she expected. Her mind still lived in the days when the Traementis name couldn’t buy her an unmatched glove, much less attention at an exclusive business. Armored in one of Tess’s newest designs, a split surcoat of copper net weighted down with a spray of pink tourmalines that matched the gown underneath, Giuna made sure to arrive early.

For so long she’d been the little bird. The minnow. The one who stood meekly and quietly in the shadow of her elders. Today, she took her cue from her cousin. Renata would position herself to catch the light—the better to make certain every eye was on her.

“Giuna! You made it,” Sibiliat said in greeting when she arrived, as though Giuna were a pet who’d come when called.

But Giuna refused to be thrown off her footing. She dodged Sibiliat’s attempt to take her hands, pulling out the chair that would leave her guest squinting into a sunbeam. “I would hardly invite you out and then not show up.”

That cool reception dampened Sibiliat’s condescending effusiveness. She sat, then discreetly tried to adjust her chair so she could look at Giuna without scowling from the brightness.

Waving for a server to bring the wine she’d ordered, Giuna prepared a plate for Sibiliat of autumn fruits, nuts, and cheeses. And she let Sibiliat look her fill. She didn’t have the skill to hide from those sharp eyes, so why bother? Let Sibiliat see. Let her think she could fix what she’d broken. Let her try.

“You’re angry with me,” Sibiliat murmured after the server had poured them both a chilled white wine as bright as an autumn afternoon. Sucking on a candied hawberry, she slid her gaze away from Giuna to study the atrium, cataloging the witnesses to their little drama. So far it was a pantomime rather than a play, Sibiliat keeping her voice low enough to deny them dialogue.

Giuna took her time selecting a creamy soft cheese to spread across a thin round of toast. “Whyever would you think that?” she asked. Usually when she spoke, she couldn’t hide the sweetness, but now it felt as false as ivory teeth. “Unless you think I’ve some reason to be angry. Perhaps something your family recently did against mine?”

“Damn Fadrin for a fool.” Sibiliat’s glass clinked hard against the table when she set it down after a too-large swallow of wine. “You know what an idiot my cousin is. My father can barely control him. Trust me, he was soundly reprimanded for—”

“I heard you, Sibiliat.” Giuna folded her hands to keep them—and her voice—from trembling. “The night of the adoption ball. I heard Benvanna offer you something on my cousin, and I saw you send Fadrin off to retrieve it.”

Sibiliat offered Giuna a tentative smile and her hand, as though there were still anything to salvage. “Little bird—”

“Don’t.” Giuna’s voice rang through the atrium as she smacked Sibiliat’s hand aside.

Now there wasn’t an eye in Ossiter’s that wasn’t watching avidly. Keeping her spine straight, Giuna brought her voice back down to a murmur. Let their audience fill in the quiet with their own assumptions. “I am not a bird. Or a minnow. Or a puppy you can train to be your loyal hound. I am not a child, and I neither asked for nor want your protection. You’ve lied to me, and you’ve claimed to lie for me—but the truth is that you only lie for yourself. I am done with the lying, Sibiliat. And I am done with you.”

Her cheeks were hot even though she hadn’t taken a sip of wine. It felt good, saying the words she’d practiced and having them come out exactly as intended. She almost wished she’d spoken loud enough for everyone to hear.

But no. These words were meant to sever ties, not to flay the pride from someone who didn’t know what it felt like to be hurt.

Giuna took a single sip of wine, then dabbed her lips with her napkin. “I’m leaving this afternoon to spend a few days with my mother at His Grace’s villa. When I return, I’ll be occupied with learning to take over my duties as the Traementis heir. Too busy for frivolity; you needn’t bother sending any more invitations. It would only be a waste of paper.”

With that, she’d said what she needed. There was no reason to stay.

But Sibiliat caught Giuna’s wrist as she rose, and her own voice sank to the low, hard note she usually tried to keep Giuna from hearing. “Are you certain of this? You don’t want me as your enemy.”

“Enemy?” Twisting her arm in a move Leato had once taught her to escape bullies, Giuna broke Sibiliat’s grip on her. She smiled. Even managed a genuine laugh. “So dramatic. Who said anything about enemies? Aren’t you the one who loves to point out that House Acrenix is everyone’s friend?”

“But—”

“There’s no reason we can’t be cordial in public.” Leaning over the table, Giuna set her lips to Sibiliat’s ear. “As long as you remember this. You might be Acrenix… but I’m Traementis. We protect our own. When you threaten my family, that is when you become my enemy.”

Pulling back, she caught a flash of fear in Sibiliat’s eyes, quickly veiled. No, the Traementis reputation was not forgotten.

With a satisfied smile, Giuna paid the bill and left Sibiliat alone on the stage.

Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Canilun 14

Tess was in her tiny workroom, blocking out the pattern for Faella Coscanum’s winter surcoat, when Suilis brought news that Pavlin was waiting in the kitchen yard.

“What happened to the brute? This one’s pretty enough, but the other had shoulders I could die over,” Suilis said, poking through Tess’s notions basket. Even though it held nothing more incriminating than a length of embroidered facing smuggled out of Ganllech, Tess snapped the lid shut like it was a turtle looking to take a finger.

Suilis mistook her urgency for ire, holding up a placating hand. “Not that I’d try for Sedge without your nod.”

“You’re welcome to him,” Tess said, smoothing her curls and biting color into her lips. “But fair warning: Between his kisses and Meatball’s, I couldn’t tell a lick of difference.”

You’ll thank me, Sedge, she thought as she dragged a shawl of cranberry-shot tiretaine over her maid’s uniform and went downstairs. Even if Suilis turned out to be no more than she seemed, she wasn’t Sedge’s type. Anyone with eyes could see that Tess’s brother preferred them quiet and vaguely menacing.

Pavlin stood with his face turned up to the sun, the golden light bringing out the warmth of the wool coat Tess had tailored for him and the honey of his hair. Tess couldn’t understand Suilis’s criticism at all. Those shoulders looked plenty broad.

Maiden and Mother, get ahold of yourself. You’re the ninny who pushed him off.

And he’d not pushed back. Tess was wise enough to appreciate that respect… and fool enough to wish he’d done it anyway.

“You’ve news for me?” she asked, striving for and failing at severity.

Pavlin nodded, holding out a basket of cakes for her. “Though I wish I didn’t. It’ll chase away that smile.”

And there he went saying things like that, and how was Tess supposed to avoid becoming entirely a fool?

But never so much a fool that she didn’t worry about who might be listening from one of the windows. “Not here,” she whispered. Fishing two cakes from the basket, she stashed the rest in the kitchen and led him along the route she usually took when walking Meatball.

The autumn winds blustered, making Tess glad for her shawl, and the warmth of the spice cake on her tongue, and Pavlin acting as a break as they meandered down the river walk, answering her questions about his family and the bakery as though nothing had changed between them. She let a sigh join the wind as they came to the Becchia Bridge and turned to head back. She could only pretend for so long that she was an alta’s maid out with her courting constable.

“I was right, then?” she asked after silence had settled too long between them. “About Suilis?”

Pavlin stopped and leaned his elbows on the river wall, forcing Tess to stay as well. The winds whipped lace froth on the rippled gold of the Dežera. From this distance, even Staveswater looked like a picturesque ruin of smoke and seagull nests.

He said, “She’s been a housemaid before—mostly daywork—but that’s not her real job.”

The confirmation chilled Tess more than a few river gusts. She clutched her shawl tighter. “And what is?”

“She’s tied into the Oyster Crackers.” His searching glance was punctuated with a nod when she frowned at the name. Who wouldn’t recognize it? One of the most legendary Upper Bank burglar crews. Fingers dreamed of earning an invitation into their ranks, the way they dreamed of meeting the Rook.

You’ve managed the latter. Doubt Suilis is sussing you out for the former.

Pavlin’s next words were the last stone atop the burial cairn of Tess’s optimism. “She’s part of the team Sibiliat Acrenix hired to toss your house in Westbridge.”

Tess’s fingers dug into her arms. “When my alta was recovering from her sleeplessness.”

“And during the Dreamweaver Riots, when you…”

She didn’t need the words he swallowed. Tess recalled too well the fear that had taken her when she heard the breaking window, the thump of furniture overturned. That fear drove her into the streets—and the cordon Pavlin held with his fellow hawks.

He was fidgeting, shoulders hunched and soft hair hanging over sun-warmed eyes. “Tess, I—”

“Would you have told me?” Suilis’s betrayal didn’t hurt, which forced Tess to admit to herself why Pavlin’s had. Only he had the power to make her feel vulnerable. “If I hadn’t met you that day, would I even know now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was sorry for lying from the day we met.”

Her heart twinged. I could just as well be saying that to you.

Pavlin babbled on to fill her silence. “You have every right to be angry—”

“No. I’m a hypocrite, being angry,” Tess murmured, then realized what she’d just said. No taking it back; she swiftly considered what she could tell him. Not Ren’s secrets, no. But… maybe some of her own?

In a soft voice, she said, “You weren’t wrong to suspect something amiss. You or the captain. My alta and I fled Letilia’s house with a casket of jewelry and little else.” Even true, it still tasted like a lie. “There’s more to the story—but that’s not mine to tell.”

His hand caught hers. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”

“I do. If I want…” She met his liquid gaze, then couldn’t look away. “I do.”

She wanted. Honesty and spice cakes and a shop of her own that wasn’t a cramped workroom in someone else’s house, a kitchen to hang her sampler while she fixed his poorly tailored coats and sewed binders for his comfort. His eyes on hers, his lips on hers, and so much more, even if it did make her a fool.

Maiden help me become a mother. It was an old Ganllechyn sweetheart’s prayer, and maybe she didn’t want quite all that yet. But she could imagine it happily enough.

Tess said, “I was born in Ganllech, but I grew up in Nadežra. There.” She waved across the channel to Lacewater. “I was one of Ondrakja’s Fingers.”

At his look of disbelief, Tess dredged up the tears that always came so easily. Not the real ones that left her face patchy red and snot-slick; the false ones that made her eyes shine and her lip tremble enough to shake coins from the pocket of any slumming cuff. “Her best pity-rustler.”

After a moment’s shocked silence, Pavlin dug through his coat. He came up with a few centiras and pressed them into her hands.

“What—?”

“Don’t look at me like that; I don’t think my heart can take it. Lacewater’s best pity-rustler.”

Tess giggled, blotting away her false tears with one hand. The other was still entangled with Pavlin’s, and she wasn’t inclined to ever let go.

“What do you intend to do?” he asked after they’d spent too long grinning foolishly at each other. “About Suilis, I mean. Can I help?”

Tess would need to talk to Ren, but already a plan was forming. Suilis wanted information about Renata’s secrets? Then Tess would become a font of them… and see what bait attracted her the most.

She said, “The Oyster Crackers. Suilis is probably passing what she learns through them. Do you think you can find out where they lodge?”

“I can try.” Pavlin lifted her fingers to his mouth. “If only to keep you from seeking them out yourself.”

His breath warmed her skin against the autumn’s chill. Sweet Maiden, but this was unfair. Tess tapped his lips in reprimand before he could tease away her determined mood. “As though I’d do anything so senseless.” Leave the hero’s doings to Ren. Tess preferred her life quiet, uneventful, and deception-free.

And she preferred having Pavlin in it. “Come along,” she said, tugging him in the direction of home.

“Where are we going now?” he asked, though he followed her readily enough.

“My workroom. I’ll need accurate measurements if I’m to make you a proper constable’s coat.”

Whitesail, Upper Bank: Canilun 14

Ren was almost late to her appointment at Tanaquis’s house. She’d gotten caught up in writing letters to Donaia and Scaperto, explaining the interference found at the prismatium workshop—interference Orruciat had obligingly reported, saving Ren from having to come up with a reason for how she’d learned of it—and if her window hadn’t been open, the ringing of the nearest clock tower might not have caught her attention.

She hurried north and found she wasn’t the only person running late. Vargo was disembarking from a sedan chair as her own bearers trotted up, and he waited while they set her down and received their payment. In keeping with the facade that they were doing business together only reluctantly, he limited his verbal greeting to a chilly “Alta Renata.”

But over his link to Alsius, she heard him say, ::Is this about more Praeteri shit?::

Ren almost hadn’t told him what happened to her in the prismatium workshop, because she knew he wouldn’t take it well. But it seemed a pity to go back to the days when they hid things from each other. In his mental voice now, she could hear the leashed fury of a man who’d had enough of sitting at the center of his web and was about ready to kick someone’s teeth in for a change of pace.

Heading for the townhouse, she said, “Not that. Business of my own, and tricky enough that I need both Tanaquis and the two of you to help untangle it.”

“At this rate, we’re going to have trouble keeping up the pretense that we’re at each other’s throats.”

They could stage some kind of hostility, but the prospect made Ren tired. She was already playing with three decks of secrets; she didn’t need to add a fourth. “Giuna’s working on pulling the fangs from anything Sostira might dig up on me. I say we behave as normal, and let people assume I forgave you after you sank her attack in the Charterhouse.” It was only off by a day or two.

Inside the townhouse, Zlatsa waved them upstairs with a surly mutter of “Unless you want to wait in the parlour until dusk.” Her scowl softened when Vargo handed her two deciras and instructed her to bring refreshments from the nearest ostretta.

Compared to her odd behavior at Renata’s last visit, today Tanaquis was practically sedate. Perched like an owl on a rung of her bookshelf ladder, she looked as though she’d gotten caught up in reading and hadn’t bothered to finish her descent. She lost her balance when Vargo cleared his throat, and would have toppled if he hadn’t lunged forward to steady her. The book hit the floor with a thud. Tanaquis shook off Vargo’s hold and scrambled to retrieve it.

“Don’t worry about me!” She carefully smoothed out the pages, checking them for damage. They were old enough to crumble at the edges, and she clicked her tongue. “I really should make a copy of this to preserve the original.”

::Is that Mirscellis’s Mundum Praeterire? How did she come by that? I spent a small fortune acquiring mine.::

The other reason for not continuing the pretense of estrangement was that Renata wasn’t sure she could maintain her icy facade while listening to Alsius’s ramblings. It was only a pity that Tanaquis couldn’t hear him, too; the pair of them would have gotten on like the Dežera in flood.

With the book’s well-being secured, Tanaquis blinked at her visitors. “Did we have an appointment? I’m afraid now isn’t a good time.”

She sounded more irritated than upset, but it still gave Renata pause. “Is something wrong?”

“Utrinzi said…” Tanaquis made an impatient noise. “It seems the Rook paid Eret Simendis a visit yesterday. How that man—if indeed he is a man—found out so much about the Praeteri I don’t know, but I got dragged into the Charterhouse for a tongue-lashing such as I’ve not had since childhood. His Worship is very upset that I didn’t inform him more thoroughly about the nature of the numinatrian work our circle conducts.”

Vargo managed something like a sympathetic expression, but silently he asked, ::Did you send him, Ren? Never mind—you can’t answer that.::

“Oh dear,” Renata said. “Is he simply angry that he didn’t know, or—”

“He’s determined to break the cult up.” Tanaquis laid the book gently down. “I’ll miss it, I suppose… but I’ve learned all I can, and it seems most of the members were using our arts quite irresponsibly. He instructed me to talk to you, Vargo.”

That sudden swerve made his eyebrows rise. “Am I under arrest for being part of the cult?”

“No, you’re to do the breaking. He wants as many other members as possible arrested, preferably in the midst of a ritual. I have a charter for you here somewhere—Ah! There it is.” She fished a packet out from under an astrological chart, held shut by the seven-star seal of Iridet. As Vargo accepted it, she added, “Apparently you come recommended by the Rook.”

The sound that slipped from him suggested he might be choking on his own tongue. Tanaquis thumped him absently on the back and turned to Renata. “I remember now. Yes, you did ask to meet at this hour. Why is Vargo here?”

“Because this may require both your minds—and because he and I have mended our rift.”

Tanaquis looked like she was scribbling notes inside her own head. “Interesting. Perhaps not all the effects are negative ones.”

“Effects?” Vargo paused in the act of stowing Iridet’s charter in his satchel.

“That’s what I need to discuss with you.” Renata gave him the same explanation she’d given Tanaquis, about the numinatrian jewelry she’d lost in the dream.

Halfway through the recital, Alsius said, ::I read her testimony when we were investigating her sleeplessness. Wasn’t she supposedly in Seteris, having nightmares about being her mother’s maidservant?::

Vargo leaned forward to pour the tea Zlatsa had brought, concealing from Tanaquis’s view the smile tugging at his lips. ::Perhaps we might hear the true tale later.::

While Renata went on, Tanaquis set a number of small cakes on her plate in an order comprehensible only to her. By the time Renata finished, she still hadn’t eaten any of them; she was too eager to add her own thoughts. “Under normal circumstances, I’d merely be curious about a numinatrian piece falling into the realm of mind. But the evidence suggests this is a piece of some power, or something in the realm of mind acts as a great amplifier. Or both.”

::That explains the Mirscellis.::

“That explains the Mirscellis,” Vargo echoed.

Eyes bright, Tanaquis asked, “Oh, you’ve read it?”

“I’ve heard summaries.” His drawl left Renata in no doubt as to whom those summaries came from.

Before Tanaquis could embark on what looked to be a lengthy exploration of numinatrian history, Renata said, “She believes that my jewelry being in the realm of mind is affecting all of Nadežra—to the city’s detriment. Which is why I’m hoping the two of you can tell me how to get it out of there again.”

Tanaquis swiped the icing off the top of a cake and licked it thoughtfully from her finger. “Nadežra. Hmmm. Have either of you heard of similar problems elsewhere? Through your trade connections and such?” When Vargo and Renata exchanged glances and shook their heads, she said, “That suggests the medallion might actually be here, instead of in Seteris. We know the realm of mind has denizens—spirits and the like; perhaps they’ve moved it. How fascinating!”

::Fascinating, indeed!::

“As fascinating as this all is,” Vargo said in a tone as dry as next-day bread, “I’m more interested in how we retrieve it. Mirscellis only ever traveled in spirit.”

“You brought back Renata’s prismatium mask,” Tanaquis pointed out.

“And I still don’t know how.”

The pinch of Tanaquis’s mouth said she still didn’t find that a satisfying answer. Diverting her, Renata said, “I lost the pendant under more or less the same conditions as the mask. Perhaps a spirit journey like Vargo’s could bring it back the same way? Even if we don’t understand how.”

She couldn’t follow half of the flurry of conversation that followed, even the parts where Vargo repeated Alsius’s interjections. The general consensus, however, seemed to be that nobody thought it likely. Not with that fragment of her spirit no longer present in the dream.

“There are other possibilities, though,” Tanaquis said, brightening as she turned to Renata. “Vraszenians call the realm of mind ‘Ažerais’s Dream,’ and there does seem to be some connection with pattern. Perhaps we could experiment more with using cards as secondary foci. Is there one you’d recommend for this purpose?”

Of course she saw this as an opportunity to further her research into the intersection of pattern and numinatria. Renata sighed. “Yes… but unfortunately, it’s out of the question.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s one of the clan cards I told you about—the ones that fell out of use. And it wouldn’t simply be a matter of finding a copy. It was the Ižranyi card, and according to the stories, all copies of it went blank when the clan died.” Nobody knew why, but they assumed it was a consequence of the Primordial horror that obliterated the people. “That’s why the clan cards are rarely used these days, even though the other six survive.”

Tanaquis drew breath, no doubt to dive into the sinkhole of mystery Renata’s words had just opened. Vargo’s words snagged her by the collar. “What about ash?”

It was the obvious answer. Aža let a person see into the dream, but ash let them interact with it physically. Tanaquis had mentioned it before; Renata had known it would come up again.

Even braced for it, she couldn’t hide the shudder that went through her at the thought.

“I do have access to Iridet’s confiscated samples,” Tanaquis said slowly. “And Renata traveled there bodily on a double dose—”

“I meant myself,” Vargo said. “Using something like the numinat in the Great Amphitheatre. I crawled across the whole thing and made extensive notes afterward; I think they’re enough to let us re-create a similar effect. So long as we’re not stupid enough to leave out a proper containing circle and don’t use the fucking wellspring as a focus, it should be safe.” Taking in Tanaquis’s offended look, Vargo cleared his throat. “Apologies for the language.”

“I don’t care about your fucking language,” Tanaquis said, with a crisp precision at odds with her profanity. “But copying that numinat…”

The way she trailed off was all too familiar. Finally, with grudging respect, she said, “It makes sense.”

Vargo looked smug. Renata threw cold water on that by saying, “If no other plan will work, then so be it. But I’m the one who lost the pendant. I will retrieve it.”

She didn’t want to. She would have preferred to pull out her own fingernails and salt the wounds afterward.

But Vargo didn’t know what the medallion was. If he took it…

“I concur,” Tanaquis said briskly, cutting off Vargo’s protest. “Given your respective birth dates, Tricat’s associations, and Renata’s previous connection with this piece, she has a greater chance of success.”

::You could always lie about your birthday again.:: Alsius’s snide comment to Vargo made Renata choke on her tea.

Tanaquis swept the food aside to lay a sheet of paper on the table, and she and Vargo bent over it to begin drawing lines and arguing. Renata stood up and drifted over to a window, using that as her excuse to put her back to the room, so no one could see the dread she was fighting.

Almost no one.

The bright splash of Peabody crept up onto the windowsill. ::If you whisper very quietly, Tanaquis won’t hear you; she’s busy impugning Vargo’s memory. Are you all right, my dear?::

Ash. That desecrating poison coursing through her body again, warping everything to nightmares. “I will be.”

::Are you certain?::

Not in the slightest. But—“I have to fix this. Gammer Lindworm had the medallion; I pulled it from her during the fight, and I didn’t think to pick it up.”

::I see.:: Alsius paused, legs dancing restlessly. ::Then let us speak of more pleasant things.::

She was happy to let him natter on, filling the time with any thought that came into his head, speculating whether that copy of Mirscellis’s book might be his own, sold off after his death. Vargo didn’t even complain about the distraction—not until Alsius asked, ::And how are the gloves coming along?::

::Gloves?:: That interruption came not from Alsius, but from Vargo. Renata glanced over her shoulder. Tanaquis was huddled over their scatter of notes, but he sat straight, arms above his head and mulberry coat stretched tight across his shoulders.

::I requested that Mistress Tess make me some.::

Vargo was removing his own gloves, hopelessly streaked with graphite, charcoal, and chalk from the afternoon’s activities. His coat followed, and then he hunkered back down to work. ::How would they be gloves? You don’t have thumbs. Mittens, at best.::

::I beg your pardon!:: Alsius said, indignant. ::If they go on my hands, they’re gloves. My thumbs or lack thereof do not enter into it.::

::Feet. Not hands. They’d basically be socks.::

Their banter was an effective enough balm that when Tanaquis straightened and cracked her back, Renata was able to speak with convincing equanimity. “I’d like to make some arrangements regarding Traementis business before we do this, since Giuna is visiting her mother in the bay, and I don’t know how long it will take me to recover.”

Tanaquis rolled up the final draft. “The inscription will take a while, anyway. I’d prefer to do it in the amphitheatre, but I doubt Her Elegance would allow—Oh! I can use the temple. It sits more or less under the amphitheatre, and I won’t have to worry about others trampling through. I’ll do that this afternoon, once I’ve sent a message to His Worship about the ash samples.”

“Then I’ll retrieve my kit and meet you there to help.” Shrugging back into his coat, Vargo diverted past Renata to scoop up Peabody. “Shall I escort you out, Renata? And while I’m at it… I don’t suppose I could interest House Traementis in adopting some darling Lower Bank orphans?”

Temple of the Illius Praeteri, Old Island: Canilun 14

Learning numinatria under the tutelage of a spider meant Vargo had never practiced cooperative inscription—at least, not with anyone who had a body he could bump into. Working with Tanaquis was surprisingly easy, though. She had an intuitive understanding of how each curve and line should flow into the others, and a concentration that was frankly daunting. She didn’t criticize his own technique, either, and she brushed her hands off with dusty satisfaction once they’d finished and stood aside to admire their handiwork.

From the point of Illi-zero, the spiral cycled through the sequence of numina Vargo had crawled along that night at the Great Amphitheatre, each secondary figure dormant and waiting for its focus. The whole was encased in Quinat, encased in Illi-ten—body and spirit. Plus a containing Uniat for mind, because he wasn’t the madman Breccone Indestris had been.

He was a different sort of madman.

::I don’t suppose there’s any talking you out of this,:: Alsius said as Vargo followed Tanaquis out of the Praeteri temple.

Vargo didn’t bother pretending he didn’t know what Alsius meant. If you thought there was, you would have tried already.

Alsius hadn’t. Other than offering a few suggestions while Tanaquis and Vargo inscribed the numinat, he’d said very little since they left the townhouse in Whitesail.

“I’ll head to the Sebatium now to see about collecting the ash,” Tanaquis said once they were free of the tunnel and back in the empty Suncross storefront that hid the entrance. “And send a note to Renata that we’re ready when she is. Shall we meet again tomorrow morning at third sun?”

“Not earlier?” Vargo teased, surprised she was showing such restraint.

Tanaquis laughed. “Even I know not to bother Renata before she’s had her morning coffee.”

But Renata—Ren—had admitted to Vargo that she despised the stuff and only drank it to maintain her ruse as a cultured Seterin noblewoman. She did that often, he was coming to realize. Forcing herself through things she disliked, even feared, because she had to.

He wasn’t going to let fetching the pendant she’d lost be one of them. That woman had suffered enough nightmares because of him.

Vargo asked Tanaquis, “Are you certain it’s safe to leave the numinat alone for the night?”

Surprise chased off her amusement. “Why wouldn’t it be? The temple is secure from outsiders, and none of the Praeteri would disturb a numinat they found there.”

“Of course.” The concern was secondary to Vargo’s main worry, that Tanaquis would decide to return early to check on it. Her naive confidence gave him confidence that he’d be able to proceed uninterrupted.

After putting her in a sedan chair and bidding her farewell, Vargo bought a quick dinner of fried scallion cakes and crispy bluegill at a corner stall, waiting a bell to make certain Tanaquis didn’t return. For all her focus, she also seemed entirely capable of forgetting something and doubling back to retrieve it.

Then he made his way back into the temple, and the central chamber where they’d inscribed the numinat.

::At least bring me with you,:: Alsius said as Vargo finished setting the foci and closed the circle that would activate the numinat. It hummed to life, the charge lifting the hair on his arms as he pulled out a vial of ash. Iridet wasn’t the only one who’d kept a sample handy after most of the street drug was destroyed.

“Do you want to risk guessing at the safe dose for a spider?” Vargo asked, grimacing, after he’d choked down his own dose. The ash sat unpleasantly in his gut, though perhaps that came from the knowledge of how the stuff had been made rather than its actual effects. Those, he knew from bitter experience, took roughly a bell to kick in. “Besides,” he added as he repacked his inscriptor’s kit and slung the bag over his shoulder, “if you come along, who’s going to say kind words over my body at the Ninatium when this fails?”

::Not I,:: Alsius said primly.

Vargo smiled at all the things left unsaid. “You mean, your words won’t be kind?”

::I mean there won’t be a body to say them over.::

They both fell silent, neither one voicing what Alsius really meant. Don’t fail.

The charge in the air slowly strengthened to a faint hum, and the lines of the numinat took on a scintillating glow, like they’d been chalked with prismatium. Setting Peabody safely onto a column base, Vargo stepped past the containing circle and onto the path of the spira aurea where it intersected Illi-ten.

The spiral stretched before him like a road. The longest argument they’d had over how to do this had concerned the sequence of the numina, with Alsius shouting in Vargo’s head that walking the path backward was sacrilege, and Tanaquis stubbornly maintaining that the paradox of starting the path at its terminus was a necessary element. An argument Vargo finally ended when he pointed out that the outermost numen on the amphitheatre numinat had also been Ninat.

He saw the truth of Tanaquis’s insight now as he passed along Ninat and the air around him shifted like a veil parting between one world and the next. If Illi-ten was the gateway, then Ninat was the guard.

But he also understood Alsius’s concerns. This inverted path was meant to be traversed by the spirits of the dead. Supplicants at a temple walked the numina up the central aisle when they entered, but exited along the bare side aisles. The Lumen’s judgment weighed on Vargo as he broke the taboo; it pushed down on his shoulders, slowing his steps to a slog, stealing the breath from his body. It was like swimming against the Dežera in flood. The world around him grew dim, dark, until he was the only thing left. Then even that was stripped away, flesh dissolving, thoughts fading, spirit scattering like leaves in the water.

Until it all slammed back with a painful jolt as he stumbled into the wine-dark twilight of Noctat.

Vargo took a moment to fill his lungs, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. A few weeks ago he wouldn’t have recognized these sensations, but now he knew them too well. He’d felt this the night he’d killed himself and Serrado, that moment before the jolt when his life faded—the moment when he grabbed on, leaned into the burn, the physical pain a reminder that he still lived.

Other sensations bombarded him as he pushed on through Noctat: Sibiliat wrapped warm and wet around him, Fadrin’s hand, Iascat’s mouth, nails down his back and broken glass slashing his throat. The ache when Ren licked sticky wine off her fingers like the river rat she was under her mask; the impact of Serrado’s fist driving into Vargo’s gut and the bar of his arm cutting off breath. There was no pleasure or pain in this vision of Noctat: just sensation, reminding him that the separation of mind and body was an illusion.

An illusion that shattered like a prism into rainbow light as Vargo escaped Noctat’s allure and spun into Sebat.

It was the bliss after orgasm, the floating haze of papaver smoke, the shimmer of aža. Vargo was aware of his entire self, but from a distance he could see the cracks running gold through him.

Cracks—and threads finer than silk.

Alsius?

The threads vibrated with Vargo’s thought, like chords struck, rippling out beyond sight. No answer came, but the returning ripples were enough to reassure him that he wasn’t alone.

Never alone. The cord that connected him to Alsius was spun of guilt, affection, purpose, familiarity, instruction, need. Vargo never would have chosen it, but he couldn’t regret it. Sebat: perfection in imperfection.

He spider-climbed that line into Sessat. All around him were strung complex nets of endless connected nodes: tangles, knots, looms, an entire cosmos built between warp and weft, and Vargo with only two threads to cling to. One thick and sturdy under his feet, the road of the spira aurea; the other a gossamer-thin wire of steel in his hands.

Ren. He could sever it here, undo whatever he’d done when he brought her soul out of the realm of mind. Whatever she’d reciprocated and strengthened during Veiled Waters. He could free her from the web that had tangled him and Alsius for sixteen years. But even thinking it, Vargo could imagine the fury of her response. That wasn’t a choice he should make alone.

She was going to be pissed enough at him as it was. Smiling, he laid his hand on her thread and used it as his guide as he passed from Sessat to Quinat.

His hold tightened as the blue-tinged mindscape dimmed to a malevolent red, sliding blood-thick and warm against his skin, pulsing in time with his heart. The ash was sinking its claws in deeper, and need and revulsion lodged in his throat, choking him like that alien urge to unseat Sostira Novrus. Only the prismatium path beneath his feet and the steel wire in his hand kept him steady and on course, passing through the blood tide of Quinat into the green fields of Quarat.

It should have been beautiful, a relief after the ominous pressure of Quinat. But with ash coursing through him, the farther Vargo walked, the more he smelled the rot under the honey-thick air, felt the mulch of dead vegetation under the verdant growth. Excessive wealth was built on the poverty of others. Bounty came from seeds planted in corpse-rich soil. Vargo knew. He’d been the soil, the seed, the fruit, the farmer. He might eat at the table now, but it was laid with his own death feast.

Nausea roiled his gut. His own feast, and that of countless, nameless others.

Not all nameless, he realized as he passed from lush Quarat into the sunbaked desert of Tricat. There he saw shades he recognized, their faces twisted with fury. Leato Traementis with Donaia, Giuna, and even Renata arrayed behind him. Kolya Serrado standing next to his brother. So many fists and knot bosses who’d been trampled in the course of Vargo’s rise.

And Alsius Acrenix, looming on the path ahead, wearing a face Vargo hadn’t seen since he was a boy. Alsius had seemed old then, to Vargo’s childish eyes. But he’d only been a few years older than Vargo was now, barely thirty when he died.

When I died? You mean when you killed me. Now you owe me. It echoed through his mindscape, a thread crossing at a tangent that led from past to present to future.

“I owe a lot of people.” Vargo’s voice rippled out along that thread. I’ve killed a lot of people. It planted a chill under his skin that he couldn’t shake no matter how hard he shivered. Justice fell under Tricat’s purview. So did vengeance.

Beyond the faces, at the edge of those ripples, other eyes watched. Eyes set in shadows made of teeth and claws and backward-bent limbs. The scars down Vargo’s back burned as he hunched his shoulders to avoid being seen, until Tuat’s moonlight washed over him and hid him from sight.

The vengeful shades were gone, leaving Vargo on the spira aurea—alone. Given the patterns of the other numina, he’d expected to see… someone. Tuat’s self-in-other. But while Vargo stood in Corillis’s silver-blue light, the copper mirror of Paumillis reflected nothing.

He supposed it made sense. He stood on the borders between everything: neither Liganti nor Vraszenian, neither hero nor monster, a cuff who was Lower Bank scum. He fit nowhere. He had connections, but did any of them really mean anything? To those around him he was an obstacle or a tool, nothing more. Even Alsius had only taken him on because he was useful, a means of first investigating and then avenging his own death. Vargo was what he needed to be—what other people needed him to be—to do what needed doing.

And what he needed to do now was not get caught up with his head planted in his ass. Vargo stepped through a mirror’s pane, becoming his own reflection and passing to the Illi of the self—

—and nearly toppling into the wellspring, glowing like one of Ažerais’s roses in the middle of the amphitheatre.

The mist that surrounded it was a radiant veil, coyly hiding the waters themselves. But the sickly, poisoned cast it carried during Mettore’s attempt to destroy it had washed away, leaving the light pure and shimmering. That light shone through all the visions of different amphitheatres laid atop each other, plays and festivals and the bloody entertainments of Kaius Rex, each as thin as a pastry layer—but not moving. They were fixed in place like paintings.

In all of them, a small circle of bronze glittered only a few paces away from the glowing wellspring.

Relief flooded through Vargo: that he’d found it so easily, that it hadn’t fallen into the wellspring. Skirting the lip, he bent to pick it up.

In the days before he met Alsius, when he’d been a runner for any sort of job that paid, some of the rats he’d run with had a game of gluing coins to the stoop of a rich merchant’s shop. Sometimes as a distraction for a quick dip and pass, sometimes just for the amusement of seeing a cheese-eater dirty their gloves trying to pry a mill free, and then huffing and pretending they didn’t care when they failed.

Vargo felt the frustration and embarrassment of those cuffs now. Face burning, he stripped off his gloves, dried his sweaty hands on his coat skirts, and tried to dig his nails underneath the pendant. Then he drew out his boot knife. Then the metal form he used to trace basic numinata.

By the time he’d failed to pry it up with every compass, edge, caliper, and instrument in his inscription kit and every curse word he knew, Vargo was hot, sweaty, and shaking with irritation. The thing was still stuck fast like it had been welded there.

“Fucking Tricat,” he growled. Immobility: the same Mask-damned facet of that numen that had been poisoning the Charterhouse for months.

Unlike when he’d come here to retrieve the missing part of Ren’s spirit, though, he knew how to deal with this. Out came the tools again, Vargo tracing a new spira aurea on the ground, with the medallion at its heart. But he drew it sunwise, so that the triangle he inscribed within the numinat inverted Tricat’s basic meaning. Not immobility, but movement.

He kept his head down as he worked, grateful that the medallion also seemed to be keeping everything around him fixed in place, so he didn’t have to worry about his nightmares attacking him. It was a simple figure. He set a new record for speed of inscription, and this time when he touched the bronze disc, it came up easily.

Vargo stuffed it into his pocket and stood, joints aching, wondering if he would need to reinscribe the damned temple numinat—this time the right way round—to get out of here.

With the medallion moved, the fixed layers around him came unmoored. The ground rolled beneath him, and by the time he caught his balance, he was in the amphitheatre as it had been that night during Veiled Waters. But now, two numinata were inscribed on its floor: the one he’d dismantled, and the one he’d walked to get here.

Here, where shadows flowed down the tiers of the amphitheatre like a tide of monstrous insects. Backward-bent limbs, tatters that were neither flesh nor fur, claws that scraped and ticked across the stone as they crept closer.

The scars on his back burned like they’d been reopened, the pain only made worse by a wave of nausea when the mold-damp stink hit him.

I’m a fucking idiot.

He’d taken ash—and the zlyzen had come for him.