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

I’ll have to tell Tess to look for something else, or they’ll both come stampeding in. And it meant Vargo would be watching her closely throughout.

But the way she was feeling, she might need that assistance. “I would be grateful,” she said—and for once, it was the unvarnished truth.

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 19

Time was running short as Grey approached the Polojny family apartment. He’d spent the past two days tangled in Seven Knots, trying to persuade the Vraszenian clan leaders that dealing with him was preferable to dealing with anybody else the Cinquerat might send, and if he didn’t leave soon, he wouldn’t have time to clean up before Leato’s funeral.

But he didn’t dare leave this last stone unturned.

His knuckles struck the door of the Polojny family apartment with the weight of fatigue. The rooms above the chandler’s shop in Grednyek Close were empty; the local gammers and gaffers told him Idusza hadn’t been there in days. Grey hoped she was here, with her kin. The alternatives were all a good deal worse.

“Open the door for Vigil business,” he said in Vraszenian, knocking again. As much as his people resented him for being a hawk, they resented it even more if he tried to hide it. “I must speak with Idusza Polojny about the attack on the ziemetse at the Charterhouse.”

The door opened a crack, wide enough to reveal the apple-round face of Idusza’s mother and not much else.

“Take your business elsewhere, slip-knot. Our Idusza was home that night. She did nothing and she knows nothing.”

Grey resisted the urge to shove the door wider and force his way in. “I’m certain she was,” he said, though he was nothing of the sort. Nobody stayed in on the Night of Bells unless they were ill or infirm. “The one I seek isn’t her, but someone she might know. I just need to talk with her, and I’ll be on my way.”

He didn’t have to try hard to look weary and uninterested. He let his exhaustion do it for him. The woman’s expression didn’t flicker, but from behind her came a familiar voice. “If you seek your Liganti friend, I haven’t seen him.”

“My Liganti friend is dead,” Grey said harshly. “Same as the Kiralič and half a dozen more.”

The door swung wider. Idusza shouldered in front of her mother and said, “I know nothing about that.”

“No, but you…” Grey bit down on his antagonism before it could take control of his tongue. He’d passed all the other tests against his temper today. He could weather one more. “Please, is there somewhere not a doorstep that we can talk? I have only a few questions. And if I ask them not, someone else will.”

Idusza’s jaw tightened, and he saw her gaze flicker sideways, as if she could look through the back of her own head at her mother. “Follow me,” she said abruptly, and came outside.

She led him though the crowded plaza to one of the canals, and a broken-down landing fronted by the blank face of a building. As long as they were quiet, people on the nearby bridge wouldn’t hear their conversation. “Speak.”

“The ziemetse think you and your friends were behind the attack on the Charterhouse,” Grey said bluntly.

Idusza stiffened. “You think we did this? That we would give our own elders poison, and cause such suffering?”

“The Stadnem Anduske want Nadežra back in Vraszenian hands,” Grey pointed out. “Killing the entire Cinquerat might help with that.” What it would really do was start a new war—but radicals weren’t known for their moderate thinking.

“At the cost of betraying our own people,” Idusza snapped.

Grey forced himself to spread his hands in a mollifying gesture. “That you would not do this, I believe. But any large group has differences of opinion. And…”

She folded her arms tight against her ribs. “And?”

If she tried to shove him again, this time he would dodge; he didn’t want to wind up in the canal. “There is another possibility. Which is that you are not behind it… but someone else uses you as a convenient scapegoat.”

Idusza’s jaw sagged. “You think… no. No.”

“He wouldn’t be the first cuff wanting his inheritance sooner rather than later. Has he done anything—encouraged your lot to make plans or take steps that at least look—”

Grey got no further. Idusza’s arms swung free and he retreated a step, but she held back from striking him. “You know nothing about him. Mezzan despises his father, yes, but he supports our cause. Already he has done things—” She cut herself off, spitting a curse. “I owe you no explanations. But he is not simply my lover. He is our ally, and he has risked much for our sake. He would never betray us.”

Not for one second did Grey believe that Mezzan truly supported the Stadnem Anduske and their cause. Whatever he was doing with Idusza, it must serve some deeper plan. But pressing her further right now would get him nothing except a fight.

Which left him with one final lead. “Many people that night in the dream saw a young woman. Vraszenian, but not anyone they recognized. In several people’s nightmares she appeared, and even spoke to a few of them—including the szorsa Mevieny Straveši, and Dalisva Mladoskaya Korzetsu, the Kiralič’s granddaughter.”

Idusza spat before he could ask the question. “Even if I knew anything about that, think you that I would turn her over to you?”

Grey’s temper finally frayed out of his control. “Yes. Because I’m the only Mask-cursed hawk in this city who will make sure the clan elders talk to her first, instead of hauling her straight to the Aerie.”

It rocked her back on her heels. The clans had no official authority in Nadežra, not since the conquest; one of the persistent complaints among Vraszenians was that their people were always handed over to Liganti judges. But their Accords delegation had been hurt every bit as badly as the Cinquerat—worse, since one of their leaders had died—and Grey