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

Like protecting the knot’s secrets from outsiders… and sharing your own secrets inside it.

Ren’s mouth shaped a silent oath. It was a good five years since Vargo had started taking over the Lower Bank—but if he was the Rook back then, or knew he was in line for it, there was no way he could share that with others.

Well, he could. Just because people swore vows didn’t mean they always lived by them. The Fingers had kept secrets from each other plenty. But little things, mostly, not big stuff like I’m the fucking Rook.

A splash sounded down the bank. Two of the scavenger kids were fighting, and one had just gotten knocked into the water. The tide was still low, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. “’Less you want to drown, we should get in there,” Sedge said.

Ren kilted her skirts up, then fished in her pocket and unwrapped a small, glowing stone. “‘Borrowed’ from Traementis Manor,” she said as Sedge’s eyebrows went up. “I’ll put it back.”

It would be a lot better than a torch or a lamp. But since when had Ren cared about putting back the things she stole?

He didn’t ask. He just squared his shoulders, faced the tunnel, and led her into the Depths.

The Depths, Old Island: Cyprilun 29

Ren hated the Depths.

That was the name given to the tunnels that honeycombed Nadežra, the Old Island in particular. Originally dug as part of the drainage system for the wetlands, they’d been roofed over and turned into sewers for the buildings above, until—in the poorer districts, at least—they’d fallen too much into disrepair to serve that purpose any longer. Then they just became catacombs: hiding places for the desperate, and underground roads for those whose business shouldn’t be seen.

That was during the fall and winter. Every year come spring, people drowned down here as the river rose, staying too long and getting trapped in pockets they couldn’t escape. If Ren and Sedge weren’t careful, the tide might do the same to them.

But she’d been down here in the dream, when she broke out of the lodging house and started walking through other people’s nightmares.

If Ondrakja was alive, maybe she was in the Depths.

The numinatrian lightstone she’d taken from Traementis Manor cast a steady glow over crumbling walls slick with slime. The water was up to their ankles, hiding just enough that Ren and Sedge had to hold on to the walls for balance whether they wanted to or not. She cringed at the soft wetness against her fingers, then mocked herself silently. Too much the fine alta for this now, are you?

“Which way?” Sedge asked softly, not turning to face her. He was in front to look menacing or hit anybody who didn’t take the hint, and he didn’t want the brightness of the stone to dim his vision.

“I know not,” she admitted. “I couldn’t exactly draw a map.”

He grumbled a half-audible curse and resumed his slog.

Time, distance, reality—all grew muddled in the splashing darkness. Sedge waved a hand in front of him to break any spiderwebs, and Ren used a piece of chalk to mark their passage, so they could know where they’d been and how to get back.

“Do you remember anything about what it looked like?” Sedge asked. Ren could mostly stand upright, but he was hunched over, one hand raised to prevent knocking his head on an archway keystone.

“Niches. The ones they say Nadežrans used to put ashes in, so the floods would carry them away. And the rats… they really did not like being near there.”

“Niches are mostly in the natural sections, en’t they?” They came to a crossing. Sedge hesitated, then shrugged and took the tunnel that would lead to the oldest parts of the Depths, chipped into the stone of the Point itself. “Maybe people keep clear of it same as rats. Gotta be some reason I en’t heard no talk about it.”

The farther they went, the more the blackness pressed in on Ren, until it felt like the feeble light of the stone shrank to a mere flicker. No amount of telling herself that the Dežera wouldn’t flood so soon erased the memory of being swept through these tunnels. How long had they been down here? Even the normal rise of the tide would be enough to trap them for hours. The corridors twisted the echoes of their breathing and footsteps, until Ren couldn’t be certain they were alone. Every bend they came around, she half expected to come face-to-face with a knife… or something worse.

They reached the first of the niches, and Sedge stopped. “I en’t seen nothing,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Dead end, I think. We should go back. Tide’s gotta be rising.”

Agreement was on the tip of Ren’s tongue when she stopped.

“Nothing,” she agreed in a whisper. “No rats. No spiders.”

She lifted the lightstone to the wall, studying it. A faint hint of putrid violet shimmered back at her, and she touched it with one hesitant fingertip.

An instant later she doubled over, retching, flailing her hand in the shallow, filthy water as if that would cleanse it and her mind both. “Fucking hell,” she gasped. “On the walls—don’t touch them!”

Sedge crouched next to her. “What is it?”

“Zlyzen blood,” she said. “Making us afraid. Keeping people away—rats and spiders, too.” She forced her head upward, looking deeper into the blackness. “We’re headed in the right direction.”

“Zlyzen? I thought those were just part of the hallucination.” Sedge scrubbed his hands on his thighs, even though he hadn’t come into contact with the blood. When he spoke, his voice was as high as it’d been when he was still a boy. “Fuck. I bet it was zlyzen. Vargo’s gonna lose his shit.”

His words didn’t help dilute her fear. “What was zlyzen?”

“Huh?” Sedge’s darting gaze settled on her. “Fuck. Forget you heard any of this. We… we lost somebody to ash.