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

time. The skiffers would have no rest tonight, ferrying passengers back and forth across the river’s two channels—but tomorrow they’d have their own celebration, spending the coin that had flooded into their pockets.

On a night like this, Renata could get away with forgoing the expense of a chair and simply heading north on foot. Tess followed close behind, guarding her hem as much as her back as they crossed the Sunset Bridge and slipped through the masses of people crowding the Old Island. Renata kept her hood up and her cloak held close, not wanting to risk damage to her costume before they reached the more exclusive precincts surrounding the Charterhouse.

Constables from the Vigil controlled the lanes leading to that area, keeping the riffraff at bay so the wealthy could enjoy the Night of Bells in greater safety and comfort. Renata passed them without difficulty and found herself in the marginally freer air of the plaza—where she stopped short, gazing in delight at the wonders all around her.

An enormous white curtain hung across the facade of the Theatre Agnasce, across which the dark silhouettes of shadow puppets danced, acting out a comedic scene. Just past them a troupe of acrobats built themselves into an impossibly tall tower, their throwers hurling a tiny woman through the air to balance atop the rest. Music echoed from the temporary shell facing the Charterhouse steps, and dancers whirled in dizzying glory across the pavement there, punctuated by a roar when a fire-breather spouted a great gout of flame into the air. The mix of scents was dizzying: roasting meats, spilled wine, perfumes of every variety masking the sweat of bodies underneath. Above it all, strings of colorful numinatrian lights bathed the entire area in a warm glow.

The river rat in Ren’s heart spat at the sight of so many cuffs pissing their wealth away behind a protective cordon of hawks. But now she was one of them—pretending to be, anyway—and river rat or not, she couldn’t stop her heart from lifting with delight at the beauty around her.

She paused to let a massive dreamweaver puppet by, with seven puppeteers for the trailing plumes of the bird’s tail. As it passed, she found herself facing a familiar figure in tan-and-sapphire dress vigils.

Captain Serrado’s eyes narrowed in recognition of her prismatium mask. Boots striking on the flagstones, he moved to her side. “Alta Renata. You arrived alone?”

“As you see.” She unfastened the neck of her cloak and let Tess take the heavy fabric, revealing her costume.

The azure surcoat she’d worn to the Autumn Gloria had given its life for this night, Tess shredding the fabric of the foreskirt and backskirt into strips that fluttered with her every movement, while the bodice flowed over her figure like water. More strips dangled from her sleeves, those on the right in a dozen shades of blue and green, those on the left fading into grey. The fabric would reappear in future garments, but Tess had glowed with smug pride when she realized she could use her scraps to suggest streams of water without spending another centira.

“The Dežera?” Serrado asked, even as Tess replaced the cloak with a drape of mist-silver organza that settled around Renata’s shoulders like fog. “I would have expected something more Seterin.”

“On the night when Nadežra celebrates its freedom from a foreign tyrant? It seemed more appropriate to honor the city—and House Traementis’s new charter.” Renata swept her arms outward, so the ribbons of fabric displayed to full effect. “But unless you’re so lacking in imagination that you couldn’t think of any costume other than ‘Vigil captain,’ I take it you’re on duty.”

“I wouldn’t claim to have the alta’s gift for creativity.” His tone was mild, but she couldn’t help wondering if there was a rebuke hidden in those words. “On festival days, all officers of the Vigil are expected to be a visible presence, whether we’re on duty or not.” He shifted as a passing crowd following a pair of stilt-walkers threatened to wash over them, protecting Renata from being swept along.

Sudden murmurs erupted from the crowd. Renata, hoping for some way to escape Serrado, glanced in that direction—and gasped involuntarily.

A real dreamweaver soared through the air above the plaza, swooping low to investigate his puppet cousin. In the colorful numinatrian light, his iridescence rippled through the full spectrum of the rainbow, the usual blues and greens and violets shading over to the warmer tones of fire.

“What is it?” Serrado turned in the direction of her gaze, right hand going instinctively for his sword. It dropped when he spotted the bird alighting on the puppet’s head. The dreamweaver pecked a few times at the colorful paper feathers before twisting a clump free and flying off again.

Ren turned with the crowd to follow her flight, and was astonished to see a slow, unguarded smile spread across Grey Serrado’s face.

It dimmed only a little when he caught her looking. “The first dreamweaver of the season,” he said. “You know what that means?”

Ren had to swallow down the answer her Vraszenian heart wanted to make. Of course I do.

Already musicians were striking up a tune as old as the Dežera, and the people around them were pairing off, forming a large circle of a sort never seen in Seterin or Liganti dances. Serrado took her silence for uncertainty, and held out one hand. “Tradition says we dance now, to welcome the season of the river’s flooding. Don’t worry—I’ll show you how.” One brow quirked in challenge, waiting to see if the Seterin alta would turn her nose up at Vraszenian customs.

That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that, having pretended to know dances she’d never performed before, now she had to pretend not to know one she’d loved since she was old enough to toddle alongside her mother.

One of the acrobats had already swept up Tess, leaving Ren and Serrado the only ones unpartnered. She laid her hand in his. “How could the river not join in at