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

Were you able to get to the place with the cages?” It was the most likely place for that hag to have taken her.

But Sedge just shook his head, and Vargo cursed. If Gammer Lindworm could move in and out of the realm of mind, could she take passengers with her?

He buried one hand in his hair, thinking. Alsius?

::You might as well cover the basics.::

True. It would be stupid to focus on the impossible and miss the obvious. Vargo nodded at Sedge. “Start waking people up. They complain, tell them I en’t sleeping, neither—”

Another knock sounded at the door. “What. Now,” Vargo growled, shoving past Sedge to yank it open again.

Tanaquis Fienola stood on his front step, swaying. She grabbed for Vargo’s lapel, and caught her balance against the door jamb instead when he evaded her hand. “Master Vargo. You have to help me. I can’t do it myself—not now.”

One look at her blown pupils was enough to tell Vargo what was wrong. This time when she swayed, he caught her. “Why are there aža-spun inscriptors knocking on my door?” he snapped at nobody in particular.

Fienola sagged in his grip, and he helped her slide to a seat on his front step. “Meda Fienola, now really isn’t the time. Alta Renata’s missing. I need to concentrate on finding her.”

“Renata?” She squirmed around, as if tracking the movement of something through the empty air. “Yes. Breccone said—though he wasn’t very clear. For an inscriptor, he had a sadly disorganized mind. Very disappointing.”

Tired as he was, Vargo didn’t miss her choice of verb. Breccone had a disorganized mind.

I should have gone after Breccone myself. Now his chance to question the man was gone.

Before Vargo could vent his fury, Sedge shouldered him out of the way and grabbed Fienola. “What did he say about Alta Renata?”

Her wandering eyes managed to fix on his filth-streaked face. “Not much. He died before he could finish. But that’s all right; I put the pieces together myself. Maybe there’s something to what Vraszenians say, about aža and dreams and pattern—I’d never really considered it before, but I think I—”

Vargo could put pieces together, too. “Meda Fienola, where is Renata Viraudax?”

“I don’t know.”

Then she put up both hands, forestalling any reply. “But there’s a numinat at the Great Amphitheatre. Enormous thing, astonishingly complex—truly an impressive piece of work. Covers the whole stage floor. It will be a very great pity to destroy it, but I suppose it must be done, before it…” One hand described a vague arc through the air. “Does whatever it’s supposed to do. Which I assume will involve Renata.”

If Gammer Lindworm took her, then Indestor was probably involved. And if Breccone had created such a numinat, then Indestor was definitely involved. Except— “How the fuck didn’t Argentet’s people notice a numinat in the middle of the Great Amphitheatre?”

Tanaquis blinked owlishly at him. “Because it isn’t in this world, of course. It’s in the realm of mind.”

I can’t do it myself. Not now. That was what she’d said. Because she was on aža… which only let you see the realm of mind.

To touch it, you needed ash. And taking ash when you were already spun was asking for death or madness.

Sedge’s mind was on the goal, not the road there. “If she’s at the amphitheatre, then why en’t we heading out already?”

“Shut up,” Vargo said softly. The realm of mind was beyond any person’s control, but at least when he’d walked it through Fienola’s numinat, he’d had control of himself. Ash… would change that.

::I don’t like this one bit. Who knows what taking ash will do to us—::

“I said, shut up!”

He caught the glance between Sedge and Fienola, but he couldn’t reel the words back in now.

Indestris had inscribed numinata all around Seven Knots to inflame the riot. If that was meant only as a distraction, then Vargo was certain he didn’t want to let the main event at the Great Amphitheatre play out unhindered. “I’ll need ash,” he muttered. Standing, he dried sweating palms on his thighs and extended a hand to help Fienola to her feet. “Can you find your way home?”

Instead of answering or taking his hand, she fumbled in her pockets, of which she had an astonishing number. “Where did I put it? Not there. Not there, either. Damnation—how can anyone think aža is pleasant? Ah, here we go.” She drew out a vial of oily purple dust. “That should save you time.”

It was Vargo’s turn to blink in surprise. “Where did you—”

“Breccone’s house. Did you know he was the one supplying ash to the streets? Very profitable trade, apparently.” Tanaquis cocked her head at Sedge. “I’m sorry; I only have one. The rest were confiscated. But you don’t look like an inscriptor.”

“The fuck I’m letting you go alone,” Sedge said violently to Vargo. “Varuni will drink coffee out of my skull.”

::You did promise to stay here.::

“She knows I’m a shifty bastard,” Vargo said to the voices inside and outside his head. “Her mistake if she trusted me.”

Leaving them on the front step, he ran upstairs to his study for his kit and a dose of ash left over from his experiments, then threw a waistcoat and coat over his shirt and shoved his feet into boots. By the time he got downstairs again, Sedge had Fienola standing.

Tossing one of the doses to Sedge, he politely shoved Fienola out onto the street. “Go home. We’ll take care of it.” Vargo popped the cork out of the vial with his thumb and, before he could reconsider, tossed the contents back. Sedge copied him a heartbeat later.

As he headed for the Old Island and the looming shadow of the Point, he heard Sedge mutter behind him, almost too soft to hear. “I hope she’s right about you.”

The Point, Old Island: Cyprilun 35

Ren couldn’t tell how much time had passed.

Mettore’s underling had shoved her into a padded box that stank of sweat and fear—proof, if Ren had needed