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

her as sharing in Mezzan’s troubles rather than enjoying his humiliation. Her glove slipped free, and she folded it into a small, neat package. Tess will kill me. Gloves were a pain to sew.

Renata held the folded glove up in her bare hand, for all the crowd to see. “Since you enjoy putting things into canals so much,” she said—and threw.

Perhaps he’d been expecting that, too. Or perhaps he was the Rook, and a two-hundred-year legacy of standing against the powers that ruled Nadežra was more than a match for a bit of pettiness. His hand shot out and caught the glove as neatly as if Renata meant for him to do it. Then he flipped it open and brought it to his lips as though it still covered her hand, breathing deeply.

“A shame to ruin a fine scent with canal water, don’t you think?” He tucked the glove into his coat and looked down to the canal, where Mezzan was splashing and sputtering. “Indestor. Next time you think to beat anyone, remember this night—and know that any injury you give to someone, the Rook will repay in kind.”

Three strides along the rail gave him enough momentum to catch the eaves of a roof and swing himself atop it. A heartbeat later, he was gone.

Lacewater and Suncross, Old Island: Suilun 4

The crowd had enough sense to scatter before the nobles could take note of who had been cheering Mezzan’s downfall. Fishing him out of the canal cost Bondiro the cleanliness of his cream-colored breeches; the river was at low ebb, and the surface of the water some distance down from street level, leaving the canal walls slick with slime.

Renata sacrificed her hair ribbon to bind up Egliadas’s broken wrist, while Parma held him steady and murmured dark things about what she would do to that hooded leech. “We have to report this to the Vigil,” Marvisal insisted as Mezzan emerged from the filthy water, her voice rising toward hysteria.

Sibiliat rolled her eyes. “And after centuries of failing to catch the Rook, tonight they’ll finally succeed? Mezzan has a better chance of retrieving his sword.”

But Marvisal insisted on dragging them all in search of a hawk. Unlike the Upper Bank, the Island had no sentry boxes; they had to thread their way through the streets, with Marvisal declaring she would walk all the way to the Aerie if she had to.

Which might have been necessary if a familiar figure hadn’t slipped out of a narrow alley just before they reached the Lacewater Bridge.

Renata was the only one who’d seen him. Leato cast a swift glance about as he emerged, sliding a simple white mask over his face. Orienting himself, he strode in the direction of Lifost Square—then stopped short at the sight of their group.

He started up again a moment later, calling out, “Leaving so soon? I can’t be that late—” Then he recoiled from the stench coming off Mezzan. “Pfaugh! What happened—are you so drunk already you fell in a canal?”

Mezzan snarled, but Bondiro kept him from lunging at Leato. “We’re going to the Aerie,” Marvisal said shrilly. “We have a grave crime to report. Two!”

“Three. There’s still that dirty gnat who assaulted Sibiliat,” Egliadas said. “And we can’t find a bloody hawk anywhere.”

Leato’s gold-lined eyes had gone wide behind the mask. “I saw Captain Serrado in Suncross just now. And if he’s not there anymore, it isn’t much farther to the Aerie. Come on.”

Those last words were a formality; Mezzan was already stalking across the Lacewater Bridge. Instead of leading the way, Leato hung back to walk at Renata’s side. “If I’d known Mezzan was invited, I’d have told you not to come. I’m sorry my tardiness left you to deal with him on your own.”

“I would have met him sooner or later,” Renata murmured.

The party straggled to a halt on the far side of the bridge, looking around as if expecting Captain Serrado to appear like a summoned servant. Leato waved for them to follow him, heading toward the Duskgate—only to pull up short as they passed the mouth of a narrow alley, so abruptly that Renata almost collided with him.

Looking past Leato’s shoulder, she saw Captain Serrado kneeling on the paving stones, holding what seemed at first to be a lump of rags. But when he gently lowered the lump to the cobbles, a thin, grubby hand flopped free and struck hard enough to make her wince.

The child Serrado knelt over made no sound. The hand lay limp and still on the stone until he folded it back under the rags.

Without looking, Leato shot one arm out and stopped Mezzan’s forward charge. Ignoring the other man’s scowl, he advanced a few steps and called out softly, “Grey?”

Serrado stood slowly. Gone was the finery of the Gloria; he wore the loose broadcloth and dusty breeches of a common constable. Renata counted his breaths—one, two, three—before he turned his head just enough to answer Leato. “What.”

“Is that boy…”

“I should have found him sooner.”

The buoyant delight from having watched the Rook thrash Mezzan drained away like the tide as she caught sight of the dead child’s face, leaving Ren feeling cold and dirty. “That boy,” she whispered, her lips gone numb. “I—I saw him in Suncross Plaza earlier. He said he couldn’t sleep.”

“You spoke with him?” Whether he intended it or not, she heard recrimination under Serrado’s words. You left him.

The last of Mezzan’s patience evaporated, and he shoved his way in front of Leato. “You. Man. Fetch your captain.”

Serrado’s eyes were colder than a winter canal. With a slow hand that verged on insolence, he lifted his collar so his rank pin caught the light. “I am a captain.”

Fortunately, the others chose that moment to intervene. The story poured out from several mouths at once, the Vraszenian man and the Rook and what happened to Mezzan and his sword.

Renata should have tried to insert herself, to make them think of her as one