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

rat had conned him. The tension winding her shoulders tight eased a notch, and she managed something resembling a lighthearted smile. “I’m certain that as much as I appreciate my pillow, I’d prefer to resume my life.”

“Then I shouldn’t make you stand around.” Tilting his head in invitation, he led her to a small salon at the back of the house. The south-facing bay window caught the morning light and channeled it through a warming numinat etched into the glass, and a teapot sat on a low table between two plum velvet couches. “Please, sit. Would you care for tea? It should be warm.”

Of course it should, because the tile underneath the pot was also inscribed. She hadn’t seen such widespread use of numinatria anywhere but the finest of the great houses.

The plush cushions cradled her as she sat. Renata accepted a cup of tea and curled her fingers around it, searching for words. She could count her life-debts on one hand: Tess, Sedge, Leato, and the Rook. And now, Vargo.

Her attempt to put that degree of gratitude into words came out awkwardly formal. “I understand that I have you to thank for my life.”

“You don’t need to thank me.” Vargo cleared his throat. “It’s the least I owe you, after…”

He kept his head bent, stirring honey into his tea, but the stiffness of his shoulders spoke for him. She blamed herself for Leato’s death. Did Vargo blame himself for what happened to her?

Hesitantly, she said, “You didn’t know there would be any danger.”

When he straightened up, his expression was unreadable. “Do you remember anything? I mean about the past week, not… that night.”

The Night of Hells. “Very little,” she admitted. “Or rather, I’m not certain how much of what I remember is real, and how much is hallucination. After Leato’s funeral, things get increasingly muddled.”

“What about the realm of mind?”

There was a thread of tension in his words. She almost fumbled her own cup, setting it down. She’d been so worried about what he might have seen that she’d never considered—but he’d been nearly as exposed as she’d been. Was he worried about what she’d seen? “If you’re asking whether I remember what you did, I’m afraid not. I only know that you took a risk for my sake.”

The morning sun caught his profile as he glanced away. He hadn’t shaved yet, and the light picked unexpected hints of red out of the stubble. “Don’t mistake me for a hero. I’m just loath to lose the best advocate in Nadežra.”

If she had to ask outright, there was no point in attempting subtlety. “I’m glad you still think of me as such. I shudder to think what you saw of me while I was ill—or in the realm of mind.”

That brought his gaze back to her, with a faint quirk of his mouth. “You needn’t worry, Alta Renata. I know the value of a secret kept.” The half smile faded. “I went after you because I didn’t trust the others to keep yours.”

Before she could decide what to make of that, he stood. “Have you eaten yet? Would you care to?” He cocked his head toward a small table in the bay window and held out his hand in invitation.

She hadn’t lied when she said she didn’t remember Ažerais’s Dream. But in that instant, a flash of memory overwhelmed her: Vargo, standing in a sea of mist, holding out his hand as a silver thread unspooled from his palm.

And another man, holding the rope that drew her from the pit.

Reflex laid her gloved hand in his bare one, even as her mind reeled. Vargo escorted her to the table, then departed to fetch the food, leaving her alone in the salon, hand hovering in midair. A secret kept. Her whisper was the barest ghost in the silent air of the salon. “The Rook…”

The idea was absurd. Vargo was a Lower Bank crime lord. Sedge himself had warned her about his ruthlessness.

But Sedge also said Vargo had changed recently.

Legitimate business. Replacing the river numinat. And hunting evidence against Indestor—that was the kind of thing the Rook might do. She’d seen for herself the disdain he had for cuffs and their fine society, while simultaneously playing their game. He could have broken into Mettore’s office after the Traementis left the engagement party. He could have been in Lacewater the night Mezzan lost his duel. He could even have been in the mirror maze; if the Rook’s hood was imbued, it stood to reason that the rest of the disguise was likewise more than ordinary, facilitating the kind of swift changes the outlaw must engage in.

He could have been in her kitchen the night after she was idiot enough to present herself in front of him as Arenza.

His voice from behind made her jump. “I wasn’t expecting a guest, so it’s only tolatsy—rice porridge with mushrooms, onions, and smoked pork. More or less a staple of every Vraszenian breakfast. But it’s good. And filling.”

The dish in his hands smelled of warmth and home. Did he mean the food as some kind of taunt—a nod to Ren’s true ancestry? No; whoever the Rook was, he must be diligent about hiding his identity. He wouldn’t give it away in a moment of pettiness.

Vargo set the dish on the breakfast table in the bay window, then scooped Peabody off the back of one of the couches and placed the spider on his shoulder. “I have something else for you. Meda Fienola wanted to confiscate it—she was fascinated that I’d managed to bring it out of the realm of mind—but I told her no lady should be without her mask.”

The lump in the side pocket of Vargo’s dressing gown caught in the fabric as he tugged it free, but the moment she saw its edge, she knew what it must be.

The prismatium mask.

Her breath caught, and her hands trembled again as she accepted it. “I thought I’d never see this again.”

“It led me to you,” Vargo said.