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

He steadied her and swept her along before her stumble left them in the path of Sibiliat and Parma. They escaped the collision, but not Parma’s glare.

“The threat of Alta Parma’s wrath does provide incentive, yes.” His tone was so dry, Renata couldn’t tell whether he was serious or joking. “Perhaps you could divert it by teaching us a Seterin dance.”

Bastard. He knew about her letter of credit; was he also beginning to guess at more? The ring should have convinced Donaia beyond a shadow of a doubt that Renata was Letilia’s daughter… but maybe he suspected Letilia had never made it to Seteris.

Her only defense against that question was to give him something else to think about. “Are you flirting with me, Captain Serrado?”

“An alta and Leato’s cousin? I’d rather face Alta Parma’s wrath.” Serrado turned her—sunwise—so smoothly into the sagnasse hold that they were face-to-face over clasped hands before Renata realized they’d spun the wrong way. “That is how it’s done.”

Parma growled, but Renata had to admit it felt much smoother. “Perhaps I’ll start a new trend for it.”

Another promenade, another change of partners, brought her face-to-face with Sibiliat.

“A trend for what?” Sibiliat asked, gaze lingering on Serrado, now partnering Giuna. “Not your Gloria sleeves—not in this weather. Perhaps jewelry? I imagine you’ve brought some interesting pieces from Seteris.”

“Not a great many,” Renata said. After two repetitions of the set, it was easier to divide her attention. “Travel is such an uncertain thing—pirates and thieves, you understand. I didn’t want to risk losing anything too valuable.” Was everyone here out to uncover her vulnerabilities?

“Oh.” Sibiliat’s disappointment was as false as a snake pretending disinterest in a mouse. “But you didn’t come completely empty-handed. Giuna told me you’d returned something to her mother.”

Had Donaia originally come from House Acrenix? No, she was from a cadet branch of the Traementis—but Renata couldn’t imagine why else Sibiliat might care. “A ring,” she admitted cautiously. “An heirloom of her mother’s.”

“How kind of you.” Sibiliat drawled the platitude, but her tone was brighter when the dance brought them together again. “If you’re lacking in jewels, I can introduce you to a jeweler whose master came from Seteris. Nobody makes better numinatrian pieces.”

Renata couldn’t afford anything of the sort. Sibiliat’s interest in her was clearly more than idle, though. She didn’t know what the Acrenix alta wanted… but there might be merit in finding out.

So she smiled as they executed the sagnasse and entered the final promenade. “Thank you, Alta Sibiliat. Giuna has nothing but praise for your taste; I’d love to see what you consider worthy.”

“Excellent.” With a final squeeze, Sibiliat unwound herself from Renata and progressed back to Giuna. The harpist ended the tune with a coda of cascading notes, and Renata was left facing Leato again.

“Did you survive?” he asked, smiling over her wrist as he bowed.

Renata made a show of checking her feet and hands—for Leato’s benefit only, as Sibiliat was wrapped around Giuna, whispering something in her ear, and Parma had caught Serrado mid-escape to impart her corrections. “I believe everything is intact. It helps when you have a good partner.”

“Indeed it does,” he said, holding her gaze, his blue eyes shining. Renata pressed her fingertips to her mouth, as if hiding a smile—a reaction that wasn’t entirely feigned. She was used to thinking of all nobles as arrogant leeches; she hadn’t expected, when she began her masquerade, that she would wind up liking any of them.

It was dangerous. She couldn’t let herself forget that all of this was a lie.

Leato’s glance at Grey reminded her of the danger. The hawk hadn’t yet extracted himself from Parma, but he jerked his chin toward the door, reminding Leato that he hadn’t come to dance. One wrong step, and he’ll have me pinned.

Leato released her hand and stepped back. “I’d better rescue Grey before the ballroom becomes a dueling circle. Or a brawl.”

“If it does, at least now I have some notion of how to defend myself.” He’d taken her to an open practice at the Palaestra, a chance for athletic nobles and delta gentry to hone their skills alongside duelists like Ryvček, and had given her a handful of private lessons besides. She was still miserably bad at fencing, but she at least had learned to move like Renata, instead of Ren the river rat.

Leato bowed gallantly. “I have faith in your blade—but let’s not put it to the test just yet.”

I hope not. Caught between hawks and spiders, Indestor and Acrenix and Traementis… she might need her river rat instincts to get herself out of this mess.

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Apilun 3

“—so I says to him, ‘If those scratches came from a chicken, then you’d best be bringing eggs for me,’ and sure if he didn’t pull five lovely brown cackleberries from his pockets.”

Laughter echoed through the kitchen cellar. Tess had missed this since leaving Ganllech a second time: tatting around a warm hearth, listening to the nans and mams trading gossip and bawdy tales. Half the reason she’d suggested this scheme to Ren was fear of going mad, talking to herself all the time.

“But did you ever find out if he was cheating on you?” she asked Old Mag.

“What did I care for that, if it kept me in eggs on the daily?” Mag said. Parchment skin crinkled along the well-worn folds of a grin. “Finest man I ever had, that one. Lasses, I’ll tell you. Marry a man what brings you good food, and you’ll never starve for love.”

The answering laughter was cut short by a rap at the door. Setting her bobbins aside, Tess hurried to open it.

It was the boy Tess had hired to keep watch. “Alta’s coming back. Chair’s stuck in traffic on Sunset Bridge.”

“Good, my lad.” Tatting with the oldsters sank Tess deeper into her native accents. “Here’s a mill to keep watch again tomorrow.”

A grin split the boy’s grubby