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

choice but to join her. The dim light and faint fragrance of gardenias drifting from Sibiliat’s skin wrapped them in a blanket of intimacy.

“I’m not jealous,” Sibiliat said. Then she sighed. “All right, I am—but that’s not why I’m worried. I’m worried because I know her. I know what she’s doing. I do it myself.”

Giuna frowned. “What do you mean?”

Sibiliat glanced down at her gloves, tugging on the fingers of one until it slipped off. “Getting people to like you—our sort of people—it’s not something you manage by being kind or good. It’s a game. Part flattery, part disdain. You make them want you to want them.”

This was why Giuna didn’t like coming to these parties. Her mother had only brought her because people were starting to gossip about her being shut away in Traementis Manor—and with so few members in the family, everyone needed to do their part.

“Alta Renata is very good at that game.” Sibiliat’s bare finger crossed Giuna’s lips when they parted in protest, warm, dry, and terribly distracting. “Just consider. Out of nowhere, a cousin you didn’t even know existed pays your mother a visit. Then, while your mother is still deciding what to do about that, Renata attends the Gloria, creates a spectacle. She does something slightly daring—the sleeves, talking to Vargo—she makes herself interesting. And someone that interesting isn’t a person your mother can just drown in the Depths.”

Her words were a steady flood, as relentless as the Dežera. Giuna felt like she was in a skiff without a paddle. True, Renata had done those things—but they sounded so different when Sibiliat described them.

“And that’s just the beginning. Now that the stage is set, it’s time for her to make connections to influential people.” Sibiliat’s finger slipped from Giuna’s lips. “I don’t know what she had planned for the night the Rook attacked Mezzan, but she was oddly quick to step forward and confront an armed stranger. And—again—to make herself the focus of gossip and admiration.” Her glove landed in Giuna’s lap.

“But—” Giuna touched the glove, addressing it as if the embroidered silk, not Sibiliat, were the one she had to convince. “Yes, she did those things. That doesn’t mean it was calculated, the way you make it sound. Or even if it was… people who want people to like them do likable things. What’s wrong with that?”

“Why does she want people to like her?” Picking up Giuna’s limp hand, Sibiliat began to strip her glove away as well. “People who are honest in their wanting—people like you—are honest about what they want. Renata said she wanted reconciliation, but she hasn’t lifted a finger to make it happen. I thought perhaps she wanted to be added to your register, but if so, she hasn’t admitted it. You think she might want Leato—but if so, where’s the passion?”

Her bare fingers twined with Giuna’s. It might be the most minimal flesh-to-flesh contact this room had ever seen, but the brush of Sibiliat’s skin, warm against her own, stole Giuna’s breath. She prayed no one would walk in and see them.

Sibiliat used their linked hands to tug her closer. “Alta Renata is very good at learning what other people want, and making use of that. And I worry because it isn’t at all clear what she wants.”

Giuna’s voice came out a whisper. “Maybe this is what she wants. Just to be here—to live here. Away from her mother.”

Caressing Giuna’s lower lip with her thumb, Sibiliat said, “Oh, little bird. Listen to that from afar. A rich Seterin noblewoman with Renata’s beauty and wit decides to settle in Nadežra, just to escape her mother? As though there aren’t a hundred places such a woman would prefer, if freedom were her only aim?”

Places without any family. Giuna tried to shape an argument that would stand against the point Sibiliat was making. But her head felt like it was spinning, and every time she opened her mouth to speak, another touch against her lip sent the words whirling away again.

“I’ve heard stories of your aunt Letilia. How manipulative and selfish she was—how she could hide her cruelty long enough to make people love her.” Sliding her cheek against Giuna’s, Sibiliat delivered her closing thrust as a whisper in Giuna’s ear. “Rather like I’m doing to you right now.”

It hit like a splash of icy water. Giuna blinked at Sibiliat, not understanding—not wanting to understand. Then tears sprang to her eyes, pricking hot. “You—but—”

Sibiliat had always been kind to her. More than kind, sometimes… to the point where Giuna had wondered, without ever letting herself think about it directly, if there might be more to it. But now Sibiliat’s words had torn that open, and humiliation spilled through Giuna’s veins.

Sibiliat wouldn’t meet her eyes. She disentangled their hands, gently pulling Giuna’s glove back on. “I’m sorry, little bird,” she said, her voice hoarse. She donned her own glove as well, fumbling her fingers into their proper places. “Your mother and brother protect you too much. You need to know the kind of person she is—the kind of person I am—so you can protect yourself.”

Giuna refused to let her tears fall. “Everything you’ve done—not just right now, but the whole time I’ve known you—you’re saying I shouldn’t trust it.”

Sibiliat finally looked up, and her expression crumpled into guilt. “May the gods drown me in the river. Giuna, you know me better than that. Come here, little bird.” She looped an arm around Giuna and pulled her into a hug. “I’m only worried about you.”

Giving in, Giuna let herself sag against Sibiliat. The acid of embarrassment began to fade. “Because of Renata. But I think you’re wrong about her. Not that she isn’t doing the things you said, and maybe even for those reasons, but… she gave Mother back a ring Letilia stole, and it made Mother so happy. Even if she did it to make us like her, if it works out well for everyone, what’s wrong with that?”

Giuna wasn’t accustomed to