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

And perhaps the Faces were smiling at last, because the next knock on the door brought word from Tanaquis that she might have a solution.

Tuatium, the Pearls: Cyprilun 25

Sedge and Vargo arrived at the Tuatium just as Ren’s sedan chair did, with Tess at a panting jog behind it. Sedge forced himself to wait for Vargo’s nod before he hurried to help.

“Vargo thinks I’m sweet on you, so if I’m giving you odd looks, that’s why,” he whispered to Tess while Ren cowered in the shadows and Tess reassured her that it was safe, that she’d be sleeping fine soon. “Was it bad, getting her here?”

“Three escape attempts on the way, and now she’s afeared of daylight.” Tess caught one wrist and Sedge the other, and together they managed to coax Ren out of the chair.

Convincing Vargo to bring him instead of Varuni had taken some doing, but the hours Sedge had spent at Alta Renata’s manor gave him reason enough to argue for it. Vargo’s assumption that Tess had caught Sedge’s eye just helped the lie along. It was a rare bit of fortune, because Sedge was fucked if he was going to let Ren and Tess go through this without him.

So he tolerated the bath and the shave and the haircut and the nail-trimming that were the price of entry, and he did his best not to squirm too much in the layers of restrictive clothing a servant was expected to wear—clothes that would rip in the first hard scuffle. He tried not to cringe as he helped carry Ren through the sanctuary. He’d never much liked Liganti temples. There was nothing to steal and no fighting allowed, and the precise lines and carefully wrought mosaics left him feeling grubby and unkempt. Even now, cleaned up as he was, he felt like a man bound in a very fancy sack.

They led Ren to a library already full of elegantly dressed cuffs: Meda Fienola, Era Traementis, and Alta Giuna. Poised behind them was that hawk who kept showing up in and out of Ren’s nightmares—Captain Serrado. Who sent a brief glance his way, and Sedge felt the miasma of distrust that stewed between the Vigil’s hawks and Vargo’s Spiders sour into mutual dislike.

Fienola didn’t even wait for everyone to be seated before bringing the meeting to order. “What Alta Renata is suffering from seems to be an affliction of the spirit rather than the body. My tests and calculations indicate that when she came out of the realm of mind—what Vraszenians call Ažerais’s Dream—she didn’t emerge whole. Some part of her spirit was left behind.”

She addressed her next words to Ren, even though whether Ren heard them was debatable. “It isn’t quite true that you aren’t sleeping, Alta Renata. Right now, there is no difference between sleeping and waking for you.”

Sounded like dogshit to Sedge, who’d spent the better part of eight days watching Ren not sleep. But a glance at the cuffs showed that they believed.

Serrado cleared his throat. “Meda Fienola and I disagree on terms, but it’s in keeping with how my people understand such things. Our souls have three parts, and one of those parts—Renata’s szekani—has become lost in Ažerais’s Dream.”

“Therefore, the most obvious solution,” Fienola cut in, “would be to sever her dreaming mind from the rest of her. She wouldn’t ever dream again, but she’d be capable of restorative rest—”

“No!” Ren shrieked, jumping to her feet. Her hand swiped under her surcoat where she usually kept a knife. Sedge whispered a prayer of thanks that Tess had taken his advice and locked away everything sharp; then he moved forward and got Ren’s arms behind her, and only Tess was in a position to see him touch the inside of her wrist. We’re here. We’ll keep you safe. Ren went limp, sobbing.

“Don’t you worry, Alta Renata,” Tess murmured into her ear, trying to sound soothing. “I’ll send for your mother in Seteris if they dare try. Alta Letilia will put a stop to any such nonsense, see if she doesn’t.” Sedge guessed what she was about. Remember Letilia. Remember the con. Remember who you’re supposed to be.

Once Ren had subsided, Alta Giuna raised a timid hand. “Could she go back to this realm of mind and recover the missing piece? Perhaps if she were given another dose of ash—”

“No!” The refusal burst from every throat in the room save Ren’s. Vargo’s chuckle broke the startled silence that followed. “Who would have guessed this crowd would agree on anything?”

“Ash is unknown,” Fienola explained. “That makes it unpredictable and dangerous. It seems to allow people to interact physically across the boundary between here and the realm of mind, but even when they aren’t drawn in bodily, the experience is often negative. I suggest experimental numinatria. It’s dangerous in its own way… but it may be our only answer.”

“I was under the impression numinatria was for channeling energy, not traveling between cosmic realms,” Vargo drawled—like he wasn’t a better inscriptor than half the priests working for Iridet.

“The art is far more versatile than most believe, Master Vargo. ‘I have my compass, my edge, my chalk, myself. I need nothing more to know the cosmos.’ Those words aren’t mere ritual to start a numinat. At the point where Illi becomes Illi, the purpose of numinatria is to seek enlightenment through the Lumen.” Fienola’s smile was condescending, making Sedge tense on instinct. If this were Froghole, he’d have punched that smile off her face at a lift of Vargo’s finger.

But there was a reason Vargo was boss. He didn’t take insult unless there was something to be gained from it. “Really,” he murmured. “Interesting.”

Sedge stifled his laugh with a cough. How did Varuni keep a straight face when she had to back Vargo playing cuffs at their own game?

Oblivious, Fienola nodded. “And in this case, possibly useful. There are meditative numinata that allow an inscriptor