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

least Grey could do something useful about the latter; here he had no way to avoid being used as a tool against House Novrus. “Yes, Altan Breccone. At once.”

Breccone left without waiting to see his orders carried out. Grey nodded at four of his lieutenants who’d been idling nearby—delta gentry sons and daughters who might have a chance of convincing the wife of a Cinquerat seat to leave quietly.

When he’d finished dispatching them, he saw Era Traementis beckoning to him from the shelter of a pillar.

She obviously didn’t want to be seen talking to him. Grey drifted over and took up his watchful stance again, close enough to speak quietly and be heard. “My apologies, era. I should have taken steps to avoid Leato.”

Her sigh was heavy enough to carry over the Rotunda’s noise. “No, I should have kept a better rein on him. He’s missed you lately.”

There was nothing Grey could say to that, and she saved him from needing to. “Have you learned anything about the Viraudax girl?”

“The house she’s renting belongs to Vargo. I don’t think they’re colluding, though; she was surprised to meet him. He pretended the same, but he’s much too well-informed not to recognize her as one of his tenants. I’m not sure why he feigned ignorance.”

In his peripheral vision, he saw Donaia’s lip curl. “Because he’s too crooked to see straight. But Vargo isn’t connected to—”

She stopped short of finishing the sentence. To Indestor. Grey left that part unspoken as well. “She can afford to rent from him, so clearly she isn’t hurting for money.”

“And yet she can’t seem to afford enough fabric for sleeves.”

Across the Rotunda, he watched as Renata pointed at something on a distant table, that drape of fabric curving gracefully beneath her bare arm. She was taking every opportunity to draw attention to her daring style—to great effect. “I imagine Vargo vetted her finances thoroughly before renting the house to her, but I can still check with the usual banking families and see where her money is coming from. In the meanwhile, I thought I might hire a few street children to watch the house. Keep an eye on where she goes, and who comes to visit her.”

“After today? Half of Nadežra will.”

“Yes, but there’s still value in knowing who she sees, and who she turns away.” He watched as Renata handed another package to her dowdy servant. With the coloring and accent of Ganllech making the girl nearly as foreign as Renata, she shouldn’t have been so unremarkable. It was as though her dull uniform was a deliberate blind to turn focus toward her stylish mistress.

Well, Grey had noticed her. “I’ll also have someone look into the maid and ask around Little Alwydd for any relations she might have.” Ranieri would suit the task. He was Lower Bank born, which would raise fewer questions if he went nosing about. And it would make use of those looks of his, which were usually more hindrance than help. “She’ll know things about her mistress that nobody else will.”

Donaia sniffed. “If she’s half as good as Colbrin, you’ll get more from a stone.”

“There are few servants in this world as good as Colbrin. And few women who can inspire loyalty like you.”

He tipped his head at her startled look. “You… stop flattering me, you rapscallion,” she sputtered, but a flush warmed her cheeks, and he’d managed to chase the frown away.

“Apologies for my presumption, era.” A squabbling flock of nobles and hawks was approaching the gate. At their center was a dazed-looking Benvanna Novri and her furious wife. “And apologies for having to cut this conversation short. Duty calls.”

Many duties. Between his assigned work for the Vigil, Donaia’s commission, the problem of the missing children…

Grey sighed. It was going to be a long night.

3

The Hidden Eye

Suncross and Lacewater, Old Island: Suilun 4

Even at the Gloria, immersed in a world that had never been hers, little reminders of the past kept knocking Ren’s mask askew. Now, disembarking from her sedan chair in the post-twilight bustle of Suncross, she didn’t feel like Renata; she didn’t even feel like an actress playing that role. She felt like a puppeteer, moving Renata around on long sticks, while behind the curtain hid Ren of the Fingers.

How often had she begged or tagged likely marks in this plaza? Or before that, coming here with one hand tangled in the drape of her mother’s panel sash. The man who used to sell her sesame buns was gone—he lost a hand when she was eleven, supposedly for thieving, and died of infection afterward—and the flower sellers with the river-dark roses of Ažerais wouldn’t be back until spring, but Ren still remembered Suncross as one of her favorite parts of the city.

Mama. What would you think of my life now?

Ren’s jaw tightened. If she let thoughts like that start surfacing, she would never make it through the night.

She paid the chair bearers and scanned the plaza. Even after sunset, it was crowded with people selling broadside newssheets, secondhand clothing, toasted foxnuts, and more. Four competing ostrettas spilled customers onto the flagstones, drinking and eating in the fall-chilled air. A girl with a branched stick dangling knotted cords tried to push one into Renata’s hands: a good-luck charm in the knot named for the roses of Ažerais. Renata waved it away and fought the urge to rise up on her toes, as if another few inches of height would make a difference. Sibiliat seemed the type to invite her to a rough part of town and then not show up.

But Leato had told her to come here. And while his family might have a reputation for obliterating their enemies, so far as he knew, she hadn’t done anything to put herself among them.

Unless they hate Letilia that much.

Instinct sent Ren eeling to one side as a hand reached for her skirt. But the child it belonged to was a beggar, not a pickpocket, and