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

But Giuna had convinced her mother to drink a sedative, and Donaia was asleep upstairs. Renata wouldn’t see her until the funeral the next day.

“You have to come,” Giuna said fiercely, swiping at her tears. “I don’t care about the register. We need you there.” And Renata had no choice but to agree.

She didn’t escape until nightfall, by which point her steps were weaving with exhaustion. Tess welcomed her home with another hug and bundled her in a blanket on top of the cranberry wool coat, because Ren was shivering again.

“Master Vargo called while you were out. He left some pastries and makings for spiced chocolate, and the address of his physician.” Tess’s hands twisted in her apron. “I… I asked if he could send some imbued medicines and creams against scarring. The way I see it, we might as well let him help.”

Ren touched the bandage over her elbow. She wasn’t the only one to come out of the nightmare with injuries, so she’d been able to explain away the cut the broken window had left on her arm. “Yes, that is… good.” She went to scrub one hand over her face and stopped when she felt the scabs there. “I will have to talk to him tomorrow.” Him, and Donaia, and the rest of the world.

The evening was still early, but neither of them had gotten any rest the night before. They devoured the pastries, washing them down with a weak tea of thrice-boiled leaves, then laid their pallet out in front of the hearth. Tess put Ren closest to the fire and curled against her back, enveloping her in warmth. Within moments, Tess was snoring gently.

But sleep wouldn’t come for Ren.

She felt as if someone had cored her like a pear. She wanted nothing more than to sink down into oblivion; she was so tired, she doubted she would even dream. But she closed her eyes, and time passed, and she was still awake.

After a while she got up, easing out carefully so she wouldn’t disturb Tess, and wrapped herself up again to pace and think. Then she lay down once more.

Still nothing.

She knew the truth long before dawn came. But she let Tess go on sleeping, even as fear wound itself around her spine like a snake, unease slowly growing into terror.

When Tess finally woke, she sat up and faced Ren, a worried question forming on her lips. Ren answered it before she could ask, in a bloodless, horrified whisper.

“I can’t sleep.”

14

The Mask of Bones

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 19

Ren was staring blankly into the mirror when the doorbell rang.

This time she didn’t flinch. She was too tired for the instinctive fear that had possessed her after the Night of Bells—what Tess said people were calling the Night of Hells, now. She just listened while Tess let the visitor in, and pressed her lips together when she realized it was Vargo.

A moment later Tess’s voice came from the doorway. “Do you want him to go away?”

He’d sent her into the Charterhouse.

He thought he was doing me a favor.

“I’ll have to face him sooner or later,” Ren said dully. “Just… tell him I’ll be down as soon as I can.” Once she was done putting her mask on.

It took longer than it should have, and Ren doubted she could have given herself a plausible semblance of Renata’s face if she hadn’t done it so many times before. But finally the mirror told her she passed muster, and so she strapped a knife to her thigh, gathered her robe about her, and went downstairs.

Anticipating a rush of callers in the wake of the Night of Hells, Tess had taken extra care to set the stage of their one usable room. Even with the river-green drapes open to the street, the parlour was warm, thanks to a cheerful fire burning in the hearth. The fresh-polished wood mantel and wall paneling caught the light from the beeswax candles, the scents of almond oil and honey lying thick in the air.

Vargo stood with his back to the door, watching the late-morning street traffic go by. The peacock blue of his coat complemented the green-and-gold striped couches and amber gleam of the wood, but for a moment all Ren saw was the king peacock spider, the Varadi clan animal, that had tried to snare her in its web.

He turned when she entered, the sunlight cutting shadows across his face that obscured his reaction. She must not have done as well as she thought in hiding her exhaustion; Vargo hurried to her side and ushered her to a chair as round and inviting as a mushroom cap.

Then he took the seat across from her. “You look like you’ve been dragged through the river. I should have let you rest longer, but with Tess unbending enough to ask for something other than fabric, I was worried.” His glance passed over the scrapes not even good makeup could entirely hide. “I brought an entire apothecary’s worth of remedies. Also more chocolate. She’s making it now. Am I being too heavy-handed?”

It wasn’t his fault that tension wound her shoulders tight. But her own behavior was so often a performance, she couldn’t help looking at him and wondering how much of what she saw was a mask. Would he really kill Sedge if Ren asked her brother to pry too far into Vargo’s secrets? Or had he left those ways behind?

She hadn’t answered him, and the silence had stretched too long. “My apologies. I—haven’t slept well,” she said, shaking herself to alertness and casting about for what else to say. Normally she could do this in her sleep; now she had to do it without.

Her gaze settled on the trim of his collar. “Master Peabody isn’t with you today?”

Vargo glanced at his shoulder. “No. I know better than to bring a spider when visiting people troubled with nightmares.”

“Oh. Yes. That