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

the most obvious. And he’s already shown he has no interest in negotiating with your people, or Era Traementis would have found a way to get her guards. So what’s to keep him from shipping you back to Seteris? Or wherever you’ll fetch the highest price?”

“I’m guilty of no crime,” Renata said, as if her heart hadn’t staggered in its pace. Slavery was illegal within Nadežra itself… but it was legal to sell certain types of convicts overseas as slaves. Impersonating a noble was on the list of offenses punishable in such a manner. “Are you suggesting Eret Indestor would falsely accuse me?”

“I’m suggesting that if you were to disappear off the street one day and find yourself on a penal ship, there’s not much anyone here could do.” Vargo’s gaze was flinty. “If you were in the Traementis register it would be one thing; the outrage of the noble houses and delta gentry might protect you. But as things stand, you’re not much safer than a common Nadežran. You wouldn’t be the first person framed and sent into slavery without ever going before one of Fulvet’s judges.”

Perhaps I wasn’t weaving whole cloth when I told Donaia that Vargo would work with us. “A new Caerulet might prove more cooperative. If that seat were to become vacant.”

The space was close enough that when Vargo tilted his head in acknowledgment of her point, his breath stirred the wisps of hair at her brow. “Until then, your time and charms are better spent convincing those who don’t have an immediate reason to stop you.”

Before Renata could do more than draw breath to answer, a voice interrupted. “Found him— Oh!” The runner stepped back when he saw the two of them. “Er… sorry, Master Vargo, I din’t mean to interrupt. Varuni was worried—”

“Tell her the alta has left me in one piece, and she can call back the corpse-seekers.” Vargo stepped out of the alcove, watching the runner dash off. “Don’t worry for your reputation, alta. My people won’t talk.”

It sounded like courtesy, but Sedge had told enough stories that she couldn’t help reading a hint of leverage into it—which made her glad she’d brought her own. “Speaking of talk…”

Renata reached into her purse and brought out a small envelope of fine paper bearing the water lily seal of House Coscanum. “This is why I came.”

Vargo opened the envelope with all the trepidation of a man asked to reach into an adder’s nest. The scar running through his brow puckered, and his eyes flicked up to meet Renata’s. “This is real? How the f— How did you manage it?”

She laughed. “Trade secrets. Would you tell me how you manage to obtain such splendid fabric, and at such prices?”

“No, but for this?” He raised the invitation. “I might let you have your pick of them.”

I think that high-pitched sound I hear is Tess squeaking with joy. “The invitation is real. It’s become apparent that people think I’m out to conceal my dealings with you. What better way to show we have nothing to hide than for you to attend the betrothal celebration of Mezzan and Marvisal?” She lowered her voice. “There might even be an opportunity to learn something useful.”

He lowered his to match. “I’ll be certain not to squander it.” With a wave at the fabric forest around them, he set off to deal with business. “Tell your maid to at least try not to beggar me?”

The Shambles and the Aerie: Apilun 22

“Oi, hawk. You’d best get gone. En’t doing Fiča any good nodding off like that.”

Grey started awake at Arkady’s words, catching her wrist before she could smack his head like he was one of her nippers. The girl he’d been sitting with, Fiča, paid neither of them any mind. She was tracking the progress of a spider up the wall, eyes rolling out of focus, head lolling to the tuneless accompaniment of her humming. Despite the ratty blankets piled on her, she was shivering. The bruise-purple skin around her eyes spoke to days of sleeplessness.

He didn’t think he’d nodded off for long, but Arkady was right—it seemed beyond cruel to sleep in front of a child who couldn’t. Fiča had stopped making any sense long before he arrived. He’d gotten a few things about what had happened to her—Gammer Lindworm, the darkness, monsters eating her dreams—but it sounded like something from a fire tale. Given her state, he couldn’t be certain it wasn’t all a product of sleepless hallucinations.

Using the wall to push himself up, Grey did his best to scrub exhaustion from his face. The rasp of stubble reminded him that sleep wasn’t the only thing he’d gone too long without.

He’d already brought herbal tisanes, even one laced with aža, to see if those might coax Fiča into slumber. They hadn’t. “I’ll see if there’s anything else I can do. Maybe imbued medicine—”

“Hawking pays better’n thieving if you can afford that.”

It didn’t, and most of Grey’s money went to supporting the family Kolya had left behind—but the alternative was to sit by while another child died. “I know someone who will help.”

Arkady had cleared her other kids out of the squat, but Grey felt eyes on him until he passed from the Shambles to Westbridge. Then different eyes as he made his way through the Aerie common hall wearing Vraszenian clothing. At least nobody stopped him on the pretense of not recognizing him, like when he first was promoted.

He shot a longing glance at the bedroll he kept in the corner for those nights he didn’t manage to leave the Aerie, but shook off the urge to curl up and let the world pass for a few hours. He had duties to attend to.

Snagging his patrol slops from where they hung on the back of the door, Grey shrugged out of his panel coat. He’d just buttoned the flap of his breeches and was shaking the wrinkles from his shirt when the door to