The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (different e readers txt) 📕

the front parlour where her mother laid out patterns for her clients. Upstairs was the bedroom, and outside was Lacewater, with its narrow lanes and smelly canals. Everything was warm and cozy and familiar, down to the deep scratch at one end of the table and the chipped flagstone by the back door.

I’m home. The realization wove through her bones, restoring a fabric she’d thought torn beyond repair.

“Dinner will burn,” Ivrina said with a laugh. “Stir the pot, Renyi, then come here. I want to show you something.”

Rich aromas rose from the pot as Ren stirred it. Nothing fancy; they couldn’t afford fancy. But good, solid rice porridge, with mushrooms and cabbage and peppercorns. There were buns, too, waiting to be toasted above the embers. Her stomach growled as if she hadn’t eaten in months.

She caught her shawl when it tried to slip off her shoulder. For an instant it was glittering silver fabric, delicate as a breath; then it was sturdy wool. Beneath it she wore a shoulder-buttoned blouse, wide belt, and full Vraszenian skirt. Clothes that fit this place, just as Ren herself fit. This place was hers, theirs, and they were happy.

Ivrina was shuffling her pattern deck, not the overhand shuffle used with cheap street decks, but the cards arching up beneath her hands and then falling flat in a rain. She shifted so Ren could nestle against her. “Remember you the prayers I taught you?” Ivrina asked.

Ren nodded and recited as her mother shuffled.

“Kiraly, bless my hands with grace to lay the pattern true.

“Anoškin, bless my mind with light to know the Faces and the Masks.

“Varadi, bless my eyes to see the pattern as it truly lies.

“Dvornik, bless my tongue with words to speak of what I know.

“Meszaros, bless my heart with warmth to guide all those who seek my aid.

“Stretsko, bless my soul with strength to bear the burden of this task.

“Ižranyi, favored daughter of Ažerais, bless me with your insight, that I may honor my ancestors and the wisdom of those who have gone before.”

Ivrina laid the cards out, three by three, from the bottom row to the top, right and left and center. “This is the past, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

Whose past? Ren wanted to ask, as her mother turned over The Mask of Hollows, Sword in Hand, and Four Petals Fall.

But Ivrina didn’t stop to interpret. Her hand moved up to the next row without pausing. “This is the present, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

The Face of Glass, The Mask of Chaos, Storm Against Stone.

“This is the future, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

The Face of Gold, Drowning Breath, Three Hands Join.

Ivrina’s arms curled around her, holding her close. “Can you read them, Renyi? Understand you what they mean?”

Ren tensed as she studied the cards. She knew their images like her own hands, but now they looked wrong. The cards in the right-hand column—they were supposed to represent the positive forces in a situation, the things the client could look to for happiness or aid. But they seemed twisted, as if even the good had gone bad.

“Build up the fire, Renyi,” Ivrina whispered. “I’m cold.”

But her mother wasn’t cold. She was hot, burning hot, her skin as dry as paper. Ren climbed to her feet, staring. “Mama—”

The fire beneath the stove roared up. Too high—the flames licked the wall above, the rug below. Smoke filled the air. Ren gagged on it.

“Renyi,” her mother whispered, choking.

And Ivrina burst into flame.

Ren screamed, hands outstretched. No, no—this wasn’t how it had gone! They weren’t at home when the house caught fire; Ivrina hadn’t died in the blaze. That came later, in the streets. But Ren was just as helpless now as she’d been when she was six, watching everything she loved be destroyed before her eyes.

The pain ripped her heart in two. Ivrina was shrieking as she burned, her screams piercing Ren like knives. “Read the cards, Renyi. Read them!”

But the cards had turned to ash. And though Ren tried to force her way toward her mother, to beat out the flames with her shawl, her traitor body refused. Instead, she turned her back and fled, out of the house and into the cold streets beyond.

Ren ran, breath sobbing in her lungs, while the smoke snarled behind her, clawing at her heels. Around a corner and into a shadow where she could hide. The smoke passed by, but it was still seeking, still hunting.

She would never be safe again.

The stink of the narrow lanes rose up in her throat. The shops around her were faceless, their signs taken from their hooks, but she knew where she was.

Seven Knots. The Vraszenian rookery.

Soft nickers and stamping came from one side. A stable; she could take shelter there. But when she dodged through the archway, a stallion reared up, hooves lashing out, and Ren fell backward into the filth of the lane. He struck sparks from the cobbles when he came down.

She scrabbled on her hands and knees, away from the stable, deeper into the shadows.

But others had already staked out the darkness. Rats swarmed her in a horde, sharp teeth gnawing a thousand cuts, claws scratching at her cheeks. She fled the shadows just as she’d fled the light.

A ghost-pale form, depthless black eyes in a heart-shaped mask of white, swooped down on silent wings. Ren ducked just in time, ran through Seven Knots under lines of low-hanging laundry, all paths leading her closer, closer…

To the center of the web.

The threads pulled tight around her. Not a welcome; a trap. The peacock spider descended on his line of silk, enormous fangs reaching and flexing, anticipating food. Ren tore at the web, desperate, gasping, writhing away just before the spider reached her, and fled once more through the wilds of the city.

A shriek stopped her cold. It sounded like a woman—no, like