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

maybe I can make it true. I need only to figure out a way for Alta Renata to have heard about this. And find out how Novrus is involved.”

“And meet with Mede Attravi, and get Fulvet to give you that charter, and Donaia to scribe you into the register before we’re out on the street,” Tess said briskly. If she didn’t take charge, these two would be at it all night and never get a wink of sleep between them. “Not one of those problems is being solved this evening. Better to face them fresh come morning.”

Sedge’s nails rasped through his stubble. “You en’t far wrong,” he said, the words opening into a jaw-cracking yawn.

Tess fixed him with her sternest eye. “You’re staying here. We’ve broth and bread enough, you’re warmer than any blanket, and I want to check that arm come morning.”

“After twisting it so hard tonight?” Sedge traded an amused look with Ren.

“Aye,” Tess said, pushing food on him and a second serving on Ren. “And if you don’t annoy me past buzzing, I might even make you a harness to keep it from popping off the next time someone glares at it.”

8

Pouncing Cat

Duskgate, Old Island: Apilun 6

“What about this one?” Leato held up a Luyaman-style torc with its wires bent into the shape of two Quarats interlocked as Noctat. “Quarat for wealth, Noctat for—”

“We all know what Noctat is for, Leato.” Giuna giggled and made a face to match the one Leato directed at her.

Sibiliat poked through the display. “That’s such a boring design, though. Now these…” Mouth compressed to mute a cheeky grin, she lifted a chain with octagon-engraved clamps at either end, each link etched with a variation on Tuat.

Giuna touched one of the clamps, frowning in puzzlement. “What’s it used for?”

“Cloak clasps,” Leato said, snatching them away and giving Sibiliat a quelling glare.

Pretending to ignore their antics, Renata let her attention drift across a tray of rings displaying the basic numinata. One fingertip brushed a heavy Sessat sized for a man’s hand. This outing was pointless; she was too low on funds to purchase anything that couldn’t be pawned, and most of the brokers she used didn’t deal in numinatrian pieces. There were legitimate sellers for that.

But Sibiliat kept insisting, and Giuna wheedled, and by the time Leato added his voice, Renata realized it would be more obvious if she kept refusing.

Sibiliat sidled up to her, too warm. Too close. “This must all seem so provincial to you. Perhaps we should try Eastbridge? You still haven’t bought anything, and there’s a jeweler near Nightpeace Gardens I recommend.”

Renata edged away under the guise of examining a set of bronze seals, the sort inscriptors used to stamp foci into wax plugs, wrought with the names of gods in the Enthaxn script. “If I need something, I can always commission it.”

“But the one in Eastbridge sells antiques,” Sibiliat said. “Wouldn’t you like to see those? I believe your mother owned a few like them.”

She’d been pressing the point all day: Letilia’s jewelry, her numinatrian pieces, whether Renata knew them or had them or cared about them. The same song she’d been singing since the day of the dance lessons. And Renata, it seemed, wasn’t the only one who’d noticed—nor the only one irritated by it. “Why do you care so much about my cousin’s jewelry?” Giuna snapped.

There was a dead silence. Leato was taken aback. And Renata…

“If you have a question for me, Alta Sibiliat,” she said, with sharp-edged courtesy, “then ask it.”

Sibiliat’s rigid posture held a moment longer. Then she rubbed one weary hand across her face. “I’m sorry. I should have been honest from the beginning. But yes… there is something.”

She squared her shoulders and faced Renata. “I don’t suppose you ever saw among your mother’s jewels a bronze medallion inscribed with three Tricats? A simple thing, not very elaborate. It’s an Acrenix family heirloom, a gift to her from my father, Ghiscolo. A… promise between them, if you will. When I heard you’d returned a ring to Era Traementis, I found myself hoping you might have our medallion as well. Or at least be able to reassure me that Letilia still has it—that she didn’t fling it into the river as she left.”

So that’s what you’re after. Renata knew the piece; she’d swept it into her sack along with everything else in Letilia’s jewelry box the day she and Tess fled Ganllech.

For an instant, she considered it. Return the heirloom, get Sibiliat’s gratitude… but no. Why squander that leverage now? Better to keep her main rival hoping, and only satisfy her desire later.

“My apologies, Sibiliat, but I’ve seen nothing of the sort.” She softened her denial with a sigh. “Though it’s entirely like Mother to keep such a thing. I’ll send a letter to inquire. Not to her, of course, but to our housekeeper. I’ll let you know when I hear back.”

Frustration flickered in Sibiliat’s eyes, quickly suppressed. Giuna moved to her side, one hand touching Sibiliat’s elbow; Renata gave them privacy, striding out of the store and across the embankment lane where the West Channel flowed. Winter’s grip smothered the usual stink from the water; the breaths she took were cool and clean.

Along the quay below the boardwalk, a flotilla of skiffs—the sort that usually ferried passengers across the channels—had been roped together to form a temporary market. A variety of dories, dinghies, and scows painted in clan colors abutted the skiff walkways, their hulls filled with baskets of fruits and rice and river mollusks, or draped with coarse-woven silks and linens. Smoke rose from low-set grills piled with skewered crabs and delta fowl. The air rang with hawkers’ cries in an amalgam of dialects too knotted to untangle.

Leato appeared at her side, leaning on the embankment wall without thought for his gloves or sleeves. “That was kind of you, cousin. Thank you.”

“The kindness was for your sake. And Giuna’s. Are they still inside?” Renata peered