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

Tanaquis studied her hands, interlacing her fingers with mathematical precision. “I apologize. It’s probably a mistake in my charting, and nothing to do with a false date. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“A mistake in your charting? Next you’ll tell me the Dežera is flowing backward.” Donaia passed a weary hand over her face. “No, I’m grateful. Your suggestion makes a great deal of sense—it would explain why Letilia fled, and why Renata gave the date she did. Perhaps she didn’t lie,” Donaia said to Leato before he could take offense, then softened her words with a hand on his knee. “It’s possible she doesn’t know—that Letilia lied to her.”

Possible, but Donaia had her doubts.

But who might the unknown father be? Scaperto Quientis? That might explain how Renata got the charter, if he realized… but no. Letilia had been engaged to the man. If she’d gotten pregnant by him, there would have been no reason to run away.

But it would be just like Letilia to somehow lose her contraceptive numinat. Though the father would need to have done the same thing—unless he was too poor to afford one. Donaia groaned silently.

Tanaquis said, “Whatever the case, I can’t possibly accept this. Not that I felt right taking it in the first place.” She drew another package from her satchel, this one a pouch shifting with the dull clink of forri. Donaia pulled her hands away, but Tanaquis caught her wrist and set the heavy bag in her palm. “I insist. We’re friends, Donaia. You don’t charge me when I eat dinner here, and I don’t charge you for my advice.”

Donaia knew she should insist right back. The comparison wasn’t valid; Traementis Manor wasn’t an ostretta, while Tanaquis was a professional astrologer. But Traementis luck had been bad for so long that pragmatism snarled at her to swallow her pride. Those forri could be put to a dozen other uses, and Tanaquis wouldn’t miss them.

Tanaquis leaned into her view, catching her gaze. “Please. Let me do this for you.”

Reluctantly, Donaia curled her fingers around the purse. “Thank you.”

She set it on the table at her side, and Tanaquis relaxed. “If you’d like me to look into this, I wouldn’t mind at all. Perhaps you could arrange an informal meeting? I have some experience with clients lying about dates in hopes of a better chart. And you know I can’t leave a mystery unexamined.”

That was true enough. If the cosmos was a clock, Tanaquis wanted to take it apart and study all the gears under a magnifying lens. “Very well.”

“But discreetly,” Leato said. “I don’t want Renata’s reputation dragged into the mud.”

Hers or ours, Donaia thought. Surely Letilia wouldn’t have stooped to bedding some nameless commoner. Surely?

With the compassionate smile of someone much older and wiser than her years, Tanaquis said, “Of course. I won’t mention these suspicions to Alta Renata, either. It doesn’t take astrology to know she’s had enough family troubles in her life. She doesn’t need to know we suspect anything until we’re certain there’s something to it.”

Regardless of what that something might be. If Renata’s father was some muck-grubbing commoner, no need to burden the girl with that knowledge. And if he was a noble scion… Donaia thought back to her earlier musings and sighed. As much as the girl might be an asset to the Traementis, Renata should have a chance to see her name in her father’s register, rather than shackling her life to the cursed fortunes of a failing house.

Kingfisher and Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Pavnilun 18

“Serrado! You been keeping secrets,” Dvaran said the moment Grey ducked under the lintel of the Gawping Carp. Since his meeting with Leato, he’d found himself dropping by the establishment more frequently. He’d even managed to enjoy a drink and a hand of nytsa with the elders now and then—as he’d done when Kolya was alive.

Grey’s step faltered. “Secrets?”

“That you got a sweetheart. She came by looking for you.” Dvaran leaned his truncated arm on the bar, giving Grey a friendly leer. “Pretty thing, too. I think you found a keeper. Time to burn the love charm and braid one of them bridal tokens into her hair.”

“I’m not looking for a wife, and I don’t have time for a sweetheart.” Especially one he hadn’t even known existed. “What the hell are you on about?”

Dvaran sighed at Grey’s refusal to rise to his bait. “Vraszenian girl named Idusza came by. Said you was looking for her. Ha!” He crowed and pointed a finger at Grey’s dumbfounded look. “Seems you do know her.”

“I do.” And was more likely to arrest her than marry her. How had she known to find him here? When he’d spoken with the Polojny family, they’d been predictably tight-lipped. He’d tried more than once, but finally quit before the gammer glaring at him from her fireside stool used him as a pincushion for her embroidery needles.

“Did she say anything else?” Grey asked.

“Said to come find her in Grednyek Close in Seven Knots, above the chandler’s. You want my advice, stop by Sweet Mlačin’s and buy some fried honey cakes. Nobody likes a suitor who shows up empty-handed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Grey slapped a mill on the counter for the message and stepped out to find a runner.

By the time Leato arrived, it was almost ninth sun, and Grey had nursed his beer to the dregs. Leato came in breathless, like he’d hurried there as fast as he could. “You found her?”

“Read this.” He’d been folding and unfolding a note, and now he passed it to Leato. “It showed up at the Aerie the day before yesterday. Nobody can tell me who brought it.”

Leato’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline as he read. “Who—no, it isn’t signed. But…”

He fell silent, mouth pressing into a hard line. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. “So Indestor was trying to frame the Fiangiolli. Who placed the