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

not even the sort of pity-rustler who played up their injuries and malnutrition for sympathy. His appearance was too off-putting for that, with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a corpse.

“Help me,” he said in a bloodless whisper, staring at Ren without blinking. “I can’t sleep anymore.”

For an instant she was a child again, begging for comfort after a nightmare. Mama, I can’t sleep.

Hush, Renyi. It’s all right. I will lay a thread around your bed to keep the zlyzen from you.

“Alta Renata!”

Ren recoiled from the boy. With a wrench that was almost physical, she dragged herself back into character and turned to face Sibiliat.

The sculpted paper mask Sibiliat wore clearly marked her as a noble out slumming, but she showed good sense, choosing a sedate aubergine half piece pierced with eight-pointed cutouts. Her voice was all bright edges as she said, “What a lovely mask. Is that the one Master Vargo gave you?”

“Alta Sibiliat,” she said, forcing lightness into her words. “I’m so glad you like it. I didn’t realize we would be such a large group tonight. But where’s Altan Leato?” She couldn’t see his golden head among the people clustered around Sibiliat.

“Traementis isn’t here yet?” asked a slender man in shades of cream and coffee and a plain coppery domino. He draped himself languidly over Sibiliat, resting a pointed chin on her shoulder and making no effort to disguise his slow perusal of Renata. “So this is her. You didn’t mention she was so pretty.”

Sibiliat dropped her shoulder, leaving him to stumble. “Yes, I did. You just never listen when other people talk.”

“Because other people are boring.” He stepped in front of Sibiliat and bowed over Renata’s hand. He’d painted his eyelids the same copper as his mask, gleaming bright in the shadows. “Bondiro Coscanum. That one’s my sister Marvisal. Over there, Parma Extaquium and Egliadas Fintenus.”

Noble sons and daughters all. None of their kin held seats in the Cinquerat, but the Acrenix family had a wide array of alliances, and Alta Faella Coscanum—the great-aunt of Bondiro and Marvisal, if Renata remembered correctly—ruled polite society with an iron fist. Befriending them would be very useful.

“Don’t bother trying to get between Parma and Egliadas,” Bondiro added, as Renata cast a smile of greeting at the whole group. “I’ve been failing at it since spring.”

Marvisal was as slender as her brother, and almost as tall. She stood like a willow in a surcoat of gauzy green too thin for the night’s chill, bending to whisper something to the short and round Parma. Waving Marvisal off, Parma stuck her tongue out at Bondiro. “That’s because you’re as lazy in bed as you are out of it, Coscanum.”

“I like to take my time.”

“Speaking of, are we waiting for Leato?” asked Marvisal, scanning the plaza.

“Can we not?” Bondiro groaned. “He makes me look punctual.”

Sibiliat took Renata’s arm. “He can meet us at the Talon and Trick. I’m certain he knows where it is.”

Her dry comment caused the rest of the crew to snicker. Renata wondered how Leato got away with such a life, when his mother was so tightfisted that his sister couldn’t have any luxuries at all. Maternal favoritism? Quite likely; Letilia always said the impending birth of Leato was what tipped Donaia from insufferable to unbearable.

“You wouldn’t leave me behind, would you?” The voice was deeper than Leato’s. And although Renata hadn’t heard him speak over the noise of the Gloria, she recognized the straw-colored hair and the five-pointed stars, now decorating his mask as well as his coat.

“Mezzan!” Sibiliat released Renata to kiss both of his cheeks. “We would never go without you. We need you to keep us safe.” One hand caressed the hilt of his sword as she stepped back.

Half of being a good con artist was the ability to read other people. Ren could have been the world’s worst sharper and still read the meaning in how Marvisal stepped up to Mezzan’s side, slipping her arm around his waist. “Alta Renata, let me introduce my betrothed, Mezzan Indestor.”

The man who had maimed an actor over an insult in a play. Renata smiled at him and curtsied without any attempt to flirt. It should be easy to get Marvisal on her side; all she had to do was swallow her bile around Mezzan, and not behave as if she could have any man or woman she wanted with a snap of her fingers. “I’m glad for the protection, altan. This looks more dangerous than I expected.”

“There’s nothing to fear,” Bondiro said. All the men wore swords, and Sibiliat as well; Marvisal and Parma had knives. “We won’t go to any of the truly bad areas—they smell far too foul.”

“And if anyone gives us trouble,” said Egliadas, thumping his fist against Mezzan’s shoulder, “we’ll give them more than they can handle in return.”

While the Vigil looked politely the other way. “Oh, that’s a relief,” Renata said.

“Shall we begin?” Sibiliat led them across the Lacewater Bridge without waiting for an answer.

The district was named for its countless tiny canals, too small even for splinter-boats to navigate; they served only to drain the marshy ground at the northern end of the Old Island, where the rocky heights of the Point descended to something scarcely higher than the flat mud of the delta. On the Upper Bank, numinata helped keep the ground stable, but not here; although the original land had long since been built up into the stone foundations of islets, their slow sinking made the houses lean drunkenly toward one another until they almost kissed.

Ren breathed more easily when Sibiliat angled right at the other end of the bridge. The streets she’d known best, both before her mother’s death and after, were on the western side of Lacewater. Walking those as Renata might have been one challenge too many.

Still, every alley and bridge held as many memories as stray cats. On that stoop she’d found a drunk with three forri hidden inside