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

chattering.” Ren devoured the bread like it would vanish if she waited. Old habit for both of them, left over from when Fingers like Simlin would pinch anything not already in your mouth. She’d come home sick after a small banquet at Extaquium Manor, groaning that she’d taken too much of every dish they offered because she didn’t realize how many more were coming.

Conversation died while they both sopped up their broth with the soft bread—and then a thumping came at the door, less a knock than someone banging it with their foot.

Cramming the last of the bread into her mouth, Ren bolted for what would have been the wine room, if they could afford any wine other than Eret Extaquium’s swill. Alta Renata couldn’t be caught in the kitchen. Tess moved for the door, calling out, “Spare your knuckles! More pounding won’t make me move faster.”

Hefting the cudgel she kept on hand and standing well back in case there was a knife on the other side, Tess cracked the door.

The cudgel clattered to the floor a heartbeat later so she could catch an armful of Sedge. Somehow she managed to prop him upright while she kicked the door shut.

“Ren!” She lowered Sedge onto a chair, fingers already weaving through his hair to look for bumps or bleeding. Ren was at her side an instant later, knife in hand, facing the door as if more trouble might come through it.

“I’m all right. Nobody’s following, neither.” He hissed when Tess hit a tangle tacky with blood. “’S my shoulder. Can’t do it myself.”

“Shoulder. Right. On the floor with you.” Tess waited for Sedge to slump flat on his back and Ren to hold him in place. Bracing a foot against his ribs, she straightened his arm and began to pull—Slowly, firmly. Mother and Crone, does it have to make that sound?—until she felt the joint pop back into place.

Sedge sighed, tension draining from his muscles. Tess blotted her brow with her sleeve, then did the same for him.

“The fuck happened to you?” Ren might still be wearing Alta Renata’s dress, but everything from her posture to her voice was pure river rat.

Sedge’s laugh grated as he eased himself to sitting. “Just like old times, eh? Got caught between some of them cuffs and their brawling.”

He said it like it was an accident, but Ren didn’t seem to believe him any more than Tess did. “And you failed to skin out of there because…”

“Weren’t there on my own business.” Sedge’s glance skittered sideways like it always did when Vargo came up. This time it returned on the back of a rueful grin. “Though I guess Vargo’s business is your business now, Advocate Viraudax.”

She sniffed primly. “So it seems, Master Sedge. What can you tell me?”

Tess had witnessed the transformation from Ren to Renata often enough: chin and nose coming up, posture straightening like she’d been strapped to a board, accent smoothing like each word was a pearl. It was new to Sedge, though.

“Now that’s bloody unsettling,” he muttered. “Nobody’s been told the whole of it, but Vargo’s been digging around in Indestor’s business for a while now. I told you what he did with the other knots, getting them to fight each other so he could sweep up what was left—maybe it’s the same here, stoking this feud with Novrus.” Sedge snorted. “Not that he’ll end up running them. But he’ll get something out of the wreckage, sure.”

Ren frowned, dropping the act. “The fight was Indestor and Novrus?”

“Naw. Delta house business, between Essunta and Fiangiolli. But everybody knows they’re puppets for Indestor and Novrus; them fighting lets His Mercy and Her Elegance smile at each other in the Charterhouse like they en’t covered in the same shit.”

Tess shook her head in disgust. At least on the streets knot bosses had usually been honest about hating each other.

“Been a lot of shit along the waterfront these last few months,” Sedge added. “Aža stolen, warehouses burned, and the like—some of it’s hit Vargo in passing. So he sent me to take a look, because en’t like we can ask the Vigil.”

“Because Indestor controls the Vigil,” Tess murmured. With Ren’s help, she levered Sedge to his feet. The kitchen bench wasn’t much more comfortable than the floor, but leastwise he wasn’t rump-down on the cold flagstones.

“Didn’t mean to get caught in it,” Sedge grunted as he settled onto the bench. “But—well, I got stupid. Essunta toughs ran into some Fiangiolli, got challenged, claimed they were chasing the Rook.”

Ren smacked his good arm. “You got hurt trying to see him?”

“Can’t let my own sister outdo me, can I?” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Din’t see so much as a black glove, though. Kinless bastards probably made it up to cover why they were on Fiangiolli ground. I got bashed into a wall, and these days all it takes is somebody looking at it wrong for this thing to pop.” He touched his shoulder gingerly and hissed.

“Don’t be poking at it.” Tess batted his hand away and started rooting around for what she’d need. Water, cloths, enough fabric to make a sling; a needle and some of her precious silk thread in case he needed stitching. “Fool boy doesn’t have the sense the gods gave a goose,” she muttered as she laid out her tools and got to work patching him up.

Ren ran the tip of her tongue across her lip, that look she got when the wheels were turning, handing items to Tess by reflex when she called for them. Tess filled the silence, scolding Sedge for all the scars he’d picked up while they were apart, but he shrugged them off like they were no matter.

By the time Tess had Sedge stitched and washed, Ren had reached a conclusion. “I told Donaia that Vargo would help us against Indestor. I said whatever came into my head, anything to keep her from throwing me out on my ear—but if Vargo truly digs into Indestor’s business,