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

felt to them like proof of her insight. By now Leato had forgotten that the word “laundress” came from his mouth first; she’d said “Vraszenian woman” often enough that he would think that was the phrase he’d used.

“Yes.” Leato wrapped his hands over his bent knee, leaning in closer. “But for a laundress, she’s got interesting friends.”

“Her friends you know, yet you cannot find her?”

“That’s not—” He shook his head. “A friend of mine found her family, but they’ve been no help. It’s Idusza I need. And her… friends.”

From the sound of it, “friends” was a euphemism. Arenza’s interest sharpened even more. She laid one hand on The Mask of Hollows. “On the street you will your path find. And are you not on the street now?”

He settled fully on the ground opposite her. “So I am. How can the street help me?”

His gaze was direct. It seemed he was either desperate enough or convinced enough by her skills—or both—to at least consider trusting her guidance.

Arenza placed one hand over her heart. “Szorsas occupy a special place in Vraszenian society. To a Liganti man, her family may be closemouthed, but to one of their own…?”

He drew back, a shadow of caution dimming the openness of a moment before. “Who says it was a Liganti who spoke with them?”

Djek. She’d let herself fall into a wrong assumption. Serrado was probably the one helping him. “The offer stands, altan. But we have not yet finished the pattern; let us see what the final card holds.”

She turned it over as she spoke, and found herself looking at the shattered, disarranged shape of The Mask of Chaos.

Three Masks. One from each thread: spinning, cut, woven. Her mother, Ivrina, had spoken disparagingly of szorsas who conned their clients, not just because they were frauds, but because she said their lies blinded them to what the cards showed. What might Ren have read from these three if she’d been thinking like a patterner, instead of a Finger?

Too late now. The eyeless faces were mute, and all she had to work with was what she could pull out of Leato and her knowledge of the cards.

Crime and disorder. Or, if read as revealed, working outside a corrupt system.

The way the Rook did.

Leato’s breath hissed between his teeth. A quick glance at him showed that all his attention was on the card.

“It seems this has meaning already for you,” Arenza said softly.

The leather of Leato’s glove creaked as he absently clenched and unclenched his fist. “Yes. And no. It has too many meanings. Which one am I supposed to assume it’s referring to? Idusza’s friends? My enemy? Myself?”

“Perhaps all of them.” The answer was reflexive, a way to sound wise while her attention was elsewhere. Idusza’s friends. A Vraszenian woman, with criminal friends. Some Lower Bank knot, maybe—they would certainly keep their mouths shut. As for enemies…

It was a leap into the dark, but she had a candle. “Your enemy is free to act because he considers himself bound not by the law.”

Leato scowled. “That’s because he is the law.”

Mettore Indestor. Digging around in the muck of the city, paying off men like Stoček and chasing someone in a Vraszenian knot… Leato wasn’t hunting the Rook. He was seeking leverage over the man trying to swallow his family whole.

Standing, Leato brushed at his knees and the skirts of his coat, making a face when the dirt from the cobbles refused to yield. “Thank you for your wisdom, szorsa, but I think my problems are more than pattern can solve.” He dug into his pocket and tossed a few more centiras into her bowl, murmuring low enough that the only words she made out of the closing prayer were “Face” and “Mask.”

“Pattern solves no problems, altan,” she said before he could step away. “It leads you to solutions. As it led you to me.”

He gave her a curious look—as well he should. It was an odd thing, for a patterner to push after the closing donation had been made and the prayer spoken. “What can you do?”

“What I said I would: on your behalf speak to her family. Our people know the pattern holds wisdom. They listen when a patterner speaks.”

“For another donation, I presume?” he said wryly. “Wasn’t it your cards that warned me not to throw good money after bad?”

Ancestors knew she could use more of his coin. But it was in Ren’s interests to help him against Indestor—and a concession now would put her in a position to learn more, too. She held up The Mask of Hollows. “Your path is not one of buying success, altan. It would go against the will of the Mask if I took payment for this.”

After a moment’s hesitation and another searching look, he nodded. “Polojny. Uča Avreno in Seven Knots. If you find anything…” He looked down at his finery. “Leave a message for a man named Serrado at the Gawping Carp in Kingfisher.”

So it was Serrado who’d been helping him. “May you see the Face and not the Mask, altan.”

Leato disappeared into the crowd as the clock towers chimed ninth sun. Ren was supposed to have dinner with Mede Attravi at first earth. But if she hurried, two hours was enough time to visit Seven Knots before she had to change her face.

Dockwall, Lower Bank: Apilun 13

The warehouse was new, one of several behind a high enclosing wall, with a yard large enough for ten wagons at a time. A trade caravan was there now—one of the Vraszenian kretse responsible for carrying goods east and west along the Dawn and Dusk Roads—and an ant-line of people was busy unloading bolts of fabric from the wagons’ beds.

Their shouts fell like familiar music on Ren’s ears. She and her mother had never lived among Vraszenians, much less traveled with them, but she’d spoken the language growing up, and it still sounded like home.

Even if her tongue stumbled when she tried to use it. Visiting