The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (lightest ebook reader txt) 📗

as a szorsa. Anything other than staying in the tangle she’d created around herself. Tess would come with me. And Sedge.

Instead she got up, strung twelve of the forri from her nytsa game on a cord, donned her Vraszenian costume, and went out into the streets.

At ninth earth, the city was as close to silent as it ever got. Drunkards and gamblers had mostly gone to bed; servants hadn’t yet risen. Fog wreathed the buildings, swirling around Ren’s legs as she walked, thick enough that she suspected Veiled Waters had officially begun. The fog wouldn’t lift for seven days: a reliable pattern every year, but not one that began on a set date.

Illogical and unpredictable, just like Tanaquis had said. But also the way of Ažerais.

She headed west, into Seven Knots. The dampness gave her good reason to pull her shawl over her head—the shawl the Rook had sent her, with its hidden throwing knives bumping gently against her shoulders and back. People in Seven Knots might recognize Arenza. She wished, much too late, that she hadn’t run from the Kiraly granddaughter. Ren suspected the young woman hadn’t meant to frighten her. Maybe she wouldn’t even have blamed Ren for the Night of Hells. But deprived of sleep, Ren had been frightened by everything.

Few people, if any, would be at the labyrinth at this hour. She could give thanks for the lifting of the curse and pray for aid, then be gone before the streets filled.

Twelve forri. One for each of the gods of the pattern, the deities that assisted Ažerais’s children in the early days of the Vraszenian people. It was a stupid amount of money for someone in Ren’s situation to give away, and she still wasn’t sure she would follow through. Her normal purse held enough deciras and centiras to use as offerings instead. But with the depth of trouble she’d gotten herself into, it didn’t feel right to pinch mills.

Fog veiled the entrance to the labyrinth when she arrived at the plaza. A swirl of disturbance signaled someone not far ahead, though, and Ren veered sideways, hovering at the edge of a nearby building, waiting for that person to go through the gate first.

Instead they stopped. She—it looked like a woman. Fairer-haired than most Vraszenians; in fact, she looked Liganti. And she held a sack, casting a glance around as she untied it to make sure she wasn’t observed. Ren resisted the urge to shrink back into the shadows, knowing the movement might give her away; instead she trusted the fog to keep her hidden.

The woman pulled something from the sack and threw it at the gate of the labyrinth before turning and running.

Ren came forward, apprehension clogging her throat. What the woman had thrown—even in the muffled light of Corillis it gleamed, green and blue and violet, unmoving on the threshold.

It was the corpse of a dreamweaver bird.

A shout came from within the labyrinth. Ren froze, torn, wanting desperately to yank away the desecrated and desecrating body before anyone saw it. But it was too late for that, and maybe too late for anything else.

She bolted. Praying as she went that the person who shouted hadn’t seen her face, because Arenza Lenskaya had already been blamed for enough trouble. Through the cramped lanes of Seven Knots, blessing the thin soles of her cheap Vraszenian shoes; it bruised her feet to run in them, but they made no sound.

That eddy in the mist up ahead—yes, it was a person, moving quickly and quietly. Ren followed as closely as she dared, tracking glimpses of that fair Liganti head. The woman’s face… She’d seen it before.

The same woman had served the ash-spiked wine to her and Leato in the Charterhouse on the Night of Hells.

Once into Westbridge, the woman’s pace slowed. Another shadow emerged from an adjoining street, swathed in a cloak, and the woman strode to meet him. A brief conversation, too muffled for Ren to hear, then they set off in the direction of the Sunset Bridge.

They walked briskly, but no longer kept to the shadows, nor cast wary glances at every stoop and landing. They had no reason to hide here. When they reached the Sunset Bridge, a third shadow broke from the parapet to meet them. And this one, Ren knew on sight.

Mezzan Indestor.

She made for a river stair, blessing the absurd hour that meant no skiffers were waiting below. It let her creep close enough to overhear them, without being heard.

“Were either of you seen? Followed?” Mezzan asked.

“At this hour? The gnats are all in their nests.” That was the woman, and Ren bit down on her tongue. She’d heard that voice once before, from a different hiding spot—in Mettore’s office.

“So it’s done?” Mezzan again. A pause—Ren guessed the woman was nodding—and then he said, “What about the numinata?”

This time the man answered him. “Yes, altan. They’re all in place.”

Numinata. Ren remembered that voice and that face from Mezzan’s engagement party: Breccone Indestris, the inscriptor from House Simendis, married into Indestor.

“Then head back and tell my father we’re ready. I’ll take care of the Anduske.”

His boots scraped against the ground, but no footsteps sounded; he’d stopped. The woman said, “Altan, is that wise? Who’s to say they won’t turn against you?”

Mezzan’s cocky laugh set Ren’s teeth on edge. “That stupid bint eats out of my hand. She won’t question anything I tell her. And I’ll make certain I’m clear of the Lower Bank before anything starts.”

More footsteps, and this time they didn’t stop. Ren glanced up the river stair to see Mezzan striding in the direction of Seven Knots. Her hand brushed the edge of her shawl. Once upon a time, she’d been very good at throwing knives.

But that time was five years in the past, and she hadn’t practiced. Even if she struck home… murdering the heir to House Indestor wouldn’t make anything better. A dreamweaver corpse desecrating the labyrinth could set off a riot.

From the sound of it, that was exactly