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

save him. If she’d been smarter, quicker, not gone up to the Point, not drunk the wine, not gone to the Charterhouse at all.

If she hadn’t been herself.

The Rook let go of her and she collapsed to the flagstones, huddling inward as if that would protect her. She felt like she was drowning. From a great distance she thought she heard the Rook talking—not the hard, angry voice of a moment before, but something softer, the same words over and over again. She couldn’t answer. She could only shake from head to foot, caught fast in the grip of memory and fear, until the flood receded and left her stranded on the shore.

Her face and body were soaked with sweat. Her damp clothes caught the chill in the room, and her hair was plastered to her brow. The Rook knelt on the far side of the kitchen, far enough that she had room to flee—if she was ever able to stand again.

But he hadn’t left. And he hadn’t hurt her. She’d been utterly vulnerable, but he just waited for her to recover.

Waited… and set a cup of water within easy distance of her knee.

She picked it up with both hands, trembling hard enough that she risked dropping it. Sipped, swallowing past the swollen tightness in her throat. Set it down again.

“Better?” he asked softly. “Better enough to tell me the truth? Maybe you weren’t the one who fed ash to everyone—but can you tell me honestly you had no part in it?”

“No.” She was too tired to lie anymore. “I— The szorsa I met, and the statues in the Charterhouse—they talked. Mettore Indestor wanted me for something… but not that disaster, I think.” He’d been dragged in along with everyone else. “I was conceived on the Great Dream. So when I drank the wine—the ash—I fell through. Into the dream. And I took everyone with me.”

She thought every tear in her had already escaped, but a few more slipped down her face all the same. “I meant no harm. But it’s my fault.”

“Your fault,” the Rook repeated. He stood abruptly and she flinched, almost knocking over the water, but he only began pacing the far end of the kitchen. His hands twitched in abbreviated gestures, as though he was arguing with himself, but he kept his distance, and he didn’t touch the sword at his side.

“Why?” he said at last. “Why are you doing this—Renata, Arenza, whoever you are? What do you want out of it?”

Money. But the answer she would have given a week ago seemed hollow now. And besides, it wasn’t the truth anymore.

Her laugh sounded more like a sob, even to her own ears. “I wanted to feel safe.”

Everything that had gone wrong in her life, from the fire that destroyed her childhood to the desperate flight from Ganllech, could have been better if she’d only had the money to fix it. That, more than anything, was what she longed for: the assurance that when trouble came, she’d be able to survive it.

Something obscured her vision, and for a moment she thought she’d gone half-blind. It was only a blanket, though—the one she’d dropped during the scuffle. She looked up, confused, and saw the Rook holding it out.

“You’re shivering. I’d build up the fire, but…”

But the kitchen was as close to sweltering as it could get. Tess was burning more fuel than they could afford, because no matter how many cloaks and blankets she piled on, Ren couldn’t stay warm. She accepted the blanket anyway and wrapped it around herself. “It wouldn’t do any good.”

“Why? Are you ill?”

“I have not slept. Not since that night.”

He took a step back, as though her sleeplessness was catching. “It’s been three days.”

Her mouth twisted. “Four, if you count the day before. And I have counted every bell. I am beyond exhausted; I have taken medicine…” A twitch of her hand beneath the blanket was meant to be a gesture at the labyrinth charm, hanging from its nail. “Nothing works. I cannot sleep.”

“Have you tried telling someone?” He glanced at the thread labyrinth. “Someone who might have a better cure than a tangle of string?”

It sounded so simple when he said it. She couldn’t explain the tangle within, the way it felt like admitting one thing would lead to admitting everything—the way terror stitched her mouth shut.

But the alternative was to go on as she was, until it killed her. And despite all her morbid thoughts, when the moment had come, she’d fought with everything she had to stay alive.

In a whisper, she said, “I’ll try.”

“Good.” He moved toward the kitchen door. “Once you’re feeling better, we’ll continue this discussion. Because we aren’t done.”

A chilly gust washed over Ren as he slipped out of the kitchen. Then another, what felt like only a breath later—Tess, coming in and beating the mist from her shawl.

“Oof! What a rude man. As though folk only take ill when it’s convenient to him. I had to screech half the street awake before he’d give me what I asked for.” She held up a clinking basket in victory.

Then she set it down in a hurry. “What is it? What’s amiss? Mother and Crone, what did you do to the kitchen?”

Ren blinked, looking around. Tess’s sewing basket was overturned, the breadbox gaping open and its contents scattered, the table shoved askew.

Tess knelt before Ren. Her hands, cold from her trip to wake the physician, still felt warm against Ren’s skin as she pressed them to her brow and brushed away the tears streaking Ren’s cheeks. “What happened? What do you need?”

“The Rook.” Ren coughed and tried to get out from under the blanket. “He was here. I… attacked him. We talked. He left.”

“He came here?” Tess glanced about as though one of the shadows might be a hooded outlaw in disguise. “How did he know to come here? What did he…” She went rigid, eyes fixing on the rucksacks that waited by the door. “Is it time