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

them burned. “Fascinating,” Tanaquis murmured when they all—even Tess—had taken a turn.

“What. Is. Fascinating?” Donaia asked through gritted teeth.

Looking up from her papers, Tanaquis gestured at the servants. “I don’t think they need to be here. Just you, and Altas Giuna and Renata.”

“Me?” Renata said, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. “But—I’m not a member of House Traementis. Not by law.” Or by blood. She might be associated with them… but so were the servants.

Tanaquis waited until Colbrin, Tess, and the others had left the room before she shut her book of notes. “Power flows along channels. Sometimes the channel can be a legal connection, sometimes blood, sometimes something else. The numinat I created siphons the power of the curse into the part of the figure that held the hair. If the subject suffers from the curse, the hair burns. If they don’t, there’s no power to siphon and the lock comes to no harm. I tested it on myself, and nothing happened.”

Donaia gripped Renata and Giuna both, hard enough to bruise. “And that means—”

“That Alta Renata’s cards were correct. You are cursed—and a powerful curse at that. The power is strongest with you, and about equal between the two altas.”

Donaia had to be helped to one of the ballroom chairs before she collapsed. She released Renata to clutch her daughter close, and it was all Ren could do not to visibly reel. Tanaquis’s explanation explained nothing; there were no actual connections between her and the Traementis. Not of any sort that could justify her hair burning.

How in the name of all the gods am I cursed?

Maybe because she’d betrayed Ondrakja and her knot. Except that did nothing to explain the Traementis, who certainly had never belonged to a street gang, much less broken their oaths to one. And Ondrakja isn’t even dead, Ren thought wildly. Not that it erased her betrayal.

Then another thought came to her. Ivrina had never said who Ren’s father was. There would be a hideous irony in Ren trying to infiltrate a house she had actual blood connections to.

She didn’t believe it for a moment; the coincidence would be far too great. And that wasn’t the most pressing question anyway. “Meda Fienola. What do we do?”

“That’s the interesting part.” Tanaquis smiled confidently. “Now we figure out how to block the power and send it back to its source.”

“And then?” The question came from Donaia, her arms still wrapped protectively around her daughter. “Will we be safe?”

Tanaquis nodded, smile softening. “I promise, Donaia. I will put an end to this.”

Dockwall and Eastbridge: Cyprilun 31

The smell of burning hair lingered in Ren’s nostrils with every step she took up the river stairs into Dockwall. I wanted what they had. I got their curse.

One of the guards at the perimeter of Vargo’s warehouse bowed even before Renata could introduce herself, showing her to a small outbuilding tacked to the side of the warehouse. The door was open to a small office, and through it she spotted the rangy Vraszenian lihosz she’d seen the last time she was here. He was giving Vargo a stern look.

“We’ll want to leave as soon as Veiled Waters is over,” he said in Vraszenian. “No delays, or behind some Liganti slug train we will be stuck.”

Vargo’s hand was just visible on his desk, and his fingers drummed an agitated rhythm as he answered in the same language. “My guards will be ready.”

The caravan leader saw Renata then. “You have another visitor,” he said.

“Renata?” Vargo appeared in the doorway, his surprised smile briefly driving off the air of crime lord and cutthroat merchant. A sniff from the caravan leader summoned it back. “I mean, alta.”

“My apologies for interrupting,” Renata said, wishing she could have eavesdropped for longer.

“It matters not,” the caravan leader said in Liganti. “Our business is concluded. Master Vargo.”

“Ča Obrašir Dostroske.” Vargo watched as the caravan leader left, then gestured Renata into his office.

She kept her expression bland as she sat across from him. “Guards” were not something he could legally provide—but she supposedly didn’t speak Vraszenian. “What was that about?” she asked.

“Something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.” Vargo tucked a sheaf of papers into a leather folder. “I’ve been granted administration rights to a mercenary charter, from House Coscanum. And I suspect my association with you had something to do with it.”

Despite the flattery, the information jolted her. “You’re administering another charter?”

“Don’t be jealous,” Vargo said, amused. “I didn’t go through another advocate; there’s only you. Eret Coscanum came to me.”

Then his playful manner faded. “Are you all right? You look… tense.”

Apparently, she wasn’t hiding it as well as she’d hoped. “Some bad news,” Renata said. “A personal matter, concerning House Traementis. Nothing for you to worry about.” Unless the curse takes us all out.

“If I can help…” He left the offer hanging, but frowned as though dissatisfied with it. Toying with the end of the leather cord holding the folder closed, he said, “Would a distraction be useful? Whatever brought you here can be discussed just as easily over a glass of wine. Unless you have engagements this evening.”

None except sitting at home and brooding. She’d come here with business in mind; it had occurred to her this morning that she could spend the same coin three times by asking Vargo to find Quientis’s “missing” saltpeter. Get it released for Quientis, help the Stadnem Anduske steal it, then win Quientis’s favor again by getting it back.

But she was so tired of the various burdens she was carrying. The thought of laying them down for a bit of frivolity was enormously tempting. “What did you have in mind?”

He rose and offered her a mock-formal bow. “Care to try your hand against me at cards?”

“That depends,” Renata said as he led her out and sent a runner for a sedan chair. “Can your fabric warehouses afford for you to lose?”

The card parlour Vargo took her to was nothing like the one she’d