The glass was cracking. Giuna helped Sibiliat back to the street, where all the household staff had fled and a crowd was gathering, and sacrificed her own gloves to tend to Sibiliat’s delayed reaction.
Now Meda Scurezza’s words sank in. Giuna whispered, “She wanted them to stay a family. Coevis talking about joining us…” Tears burned in her eyes. “Is this our fault?”
Sibiliat gripped her hand, strong enough to ache. “No, little bird. This—this wasn’t normal. Quaniet went mad. Anyone who blames you for that will face me in a duel.”
It didn’t make the sickness go away. But Giuna held on to Sibiliat’s bare fingers until the hawks came.
Froghole, Lower Bank: Summer Solstice
With Tess’s warnings driving his pace, Sedge skiff-hopped up the river to the Fog Spiders’ den in Froghole. He chafed the bare spot on his wrist where his knot bracelet used to sit, still paler than the rest of his skin after years of being hidden from the sun. Vulnerable, just like him.
Now Ren’s got me walking into the center of the web. But he couldn’t blame her. He was the one who’d chosen blood bonds over knot oaths. And Vargo hadn’t had him killed for it, which not many bosses would grant.
That gave Sedge hope that Vargo might listen to the warning, rather than having him beaten away from the door.
Of course, first he had to get past the door. Which got off to a good start when it opened to reveal Lurets. “Hey,” Sedge said, keeping his voice low. Lurets was as friendly a face as he could hope for, but others in the building wouldn’t be as soft. “Nikory in? Got news Vargo’ll want to hear.”
He didn’t keep his voice low enough. Or maybe there were some street kids keeping watch, and they’d warned the Spiders he was coming. Sedge’s hope shriveled—along with his balls—when Lurets unceremoniously vanished from the doorway to be replaced by Varuni.
She’d been even more pissed than Nikory when Sedge brought Vargo back shredded and near dead during Veiled Waters—blaming herself for not being at Vargo’s back; blaming Sedge for not guarding it like she would’ve. Her face now was polished teak, smoothed of all expression. She eyed him like she was planning how to make one of her chain whips out of his spine.
But Sedge was in it and couldn’t back out, so he rolled his shoulders, prepared for a fight. “Hey, Varuni. Brought some news for Vargo’s ears.”
“I don’t think there’s anything he wants to hear from you.”
“Why don’t you let him be the judge of that,” Sedge said, knowing it for another mistake as soon as the words were out. You didn’t get past Varuni by slamming yourself against her.
He couldn’t do this his way. Faces help him, he had to do this Ren’s way.
Sedge let his shoulders slump, let the belligerence drain off. Let a little of his loneliness show. He might be here for complicated reasons, but at the core of it was a truth. “Look, I en’t stupid. I know it’s asking for a beating or worse to show my face. You think I’d be here if it wasn’t important?”
Varuni knew Sedge. Some people would be stupid enough to come back and beg, but he wasn’t one of them. She studied him for a long moment, then hauled him inside and slammed the door. It wasn’t a welcome; it was her not wanting Vargo’s business shouted out on the street. “Give your news to me. I’ll decide whether he needs to hear it.” Or whether you need a swim in the nearest canal, the set of her jaw said.
It wasn’t good enough, but with time running short, it would have to be. “Remember that patterner I brought for Vargo? Turns out she’s with the Stadnem Anduske—the ones who tried to call off the bombing. That Andrejek fellow. And she gave me a warning to pass on.”
Varuni shifted. Interested, but not entirely hooked. “Why you?”
“Because she thinks I’m still with Vargo. Andrejek says he din’t cut his knot, and he wants an alliance against the oath-breaking bastards who claim he did—bastards who’re in with the Stretsko gangs. The szorsa sent me to tell Vargo that they’re planning an attack on him. Tonight.”
Ren was running a hell of a risk, having him name Arenza as his source. Sedge still felt like he’d eaten bad dumplings when he remembered taking Ren to see Vargo—Ren, half-insane with lack of sleep, and trying to lie to Vargo’s face. She’d survived… but she’d also made Vargo interested in her, and now Sedge was reminding him she existed. If the payoff was getting Sedge back into Vargo’s good graces, though—well, he hoped it would be worth it.
Varuni’s skeptical gaze swept toward the inner door that led to the rest of the building. It was closed, but there would be people listening on the far side. “Here? Let them try.”
“Not here. His townhouse.”
That just made her raise the other brow. “And how do they plan on getting enough people there to do any damage? Caerulet’s got hawks on the Sunrise Bridge, keeping the riffraff out.”
“The skiffers. Half of them are rats, after all. And en’t Vargo’s place just off the main canal? Easy enough to pole in and away without stirring up the hawks.” Sedge leaned forward, daring to catch her wrist. Surprisingly, she let him. “At least tell Vargo. I don’t think the Stretsko plan on killing him, but they won’t hold back if they get a chance, neither.”
The tension in her arm told him to let go before he regretted it. But the anger wasn’t directed at him.
“Lurets!”
Varuni’s bellow knocked Sedge back a step, just in case she was calling Lurets to drive him off, rather than dirtying her own boot. When the inner door swung open, though, Varuni began giving a clipped series of commands—the kinds of orders Sedge used to take, not that long ago. Muster fists to watch the house on the Isla Čaprila, get various crews watching the river landings near Stretsko home turf. Fetch a couple of pigeons that had been trained to fly to a coop on Vargo’s roof, so the people there would have warning when the Stretsko moved.
Sedge heard what she didn’t say. At no point did she tell anybody to take word to Vargo. Which meant Vargo was busy somewhere else—alone.
No wonder Varuni was pissed.
Sedge stayed where he was, keeping clear of the people hopping to follow Varuni’s orders, but the den wasn’t a place for someone with nothing to do. And it was hard, knowing that he used to have a role in this well-ordered bustle. Harder still when some of his fellow Fog Spiders cast him unreadable looks, making him feel even more the outsider.
He reached for the door before the tightness in his chest made him do something stupid. Like offer to help. Or cry.
Varuni’s harsh voice nailed him in place. “The fuck you think you’re going?”
His skin pricked, and he couldn’t say if it was fear or relief. Sedge thumbed at the door. “Just figured I’d keep out of your way.”
“Drop this on us and then scurry off? Not likely. If you did this to distract us, I want you where I can find you.”
Fuck. Now his fate hung on the quality of Ren’s information. And while Sedge trusted his sister, that didn’t extend to the Stadnem Anduske or the Stretsko.
Let’s hope all these preparations don’t send them into their holes, he thought, and followed Varuni to meet his fate.
Isla Čaprila, Eastbridge: Summer Solstice
Night in Eastbridge was a bright affair, especially during the festive intercalary days when the plazas thronged with those who had wealth enough to be bored, but not enough to own one of the villas out in the bay. The crowds were restless; the patrolling hawks were kept busy putting down minor arguments before they could become brawls.
But the brighter the night, the darker the shadows. The Rook hid in one of those, under a domed cupola where a pair of dreamweavers had made their nest. Quiet enough to leave them undisturbed… and to avoid notice from Vargo’s fists, gathering along the canal backing his townhouse. The birds only roused when several skiffs bumped up to the wall and dislodged a score of people proudly displaying the red-knotted wristbands of the Stretsko.
The ensuing scuffle was brutal, but too far from the noisy pl
azas to attract official notice. Vargo’s second-in-command led the defense, lashing about with that chained menace of hers with a fury that made the Rook’s ankle and wrist twinge in sympathy.
The fight along the canal made an excellent distraction, just as Ren had suggested. It would have been nice if she’d given him more advance warning… but to be fair, he didn’t check her balcony for notes on a nightly basis, either. If they were going to work together, he might need to change that.
And give her more opportunities to catch you?
That was both the Rook and Grey’s own natural wariness talking. Setting that debate aside for later, he jumped across the small gap between houses, then jimmied an upper window open while dangling over the edge of the roof. A bit of oil helped it open quietly.
Or so he’d hoped—but a high whistle rose up when the pane slid along its track. A flick of his knife broke the lines of the numinat painted on the inside of the sill and left the Rook with a stinging hand from the shock of power improperly disrupted. A glance down at the brawl confirmed that they were too busy pummeling each other to have heard it. The Rook slipped through the window and closed it softly behind him.
He remained where he was, surveying the room before taking another step. It was a remarkably well-stocked library, but not one designed for comfort; the close-packed shelves left no room for a chair. A quick scan showed him countless works on numinatria, astrology, mathematics, trade, but no obvious traps lying in wait.
If I were Derossi Vargo, where would I keep the source of my power?
Through an adjoining door he found Vargo’s study and made quick work of the desk and shelves. He glanced into the room beyond—a bedroom decked out in luxuriant decadence—and checked the thickness of the separating wall to confirm that there wasn’t a secret compartment hidden between. A spot of clashing color among the pillows drew his attention, but it was only Vargo’s pet spider running loose.
Jerking back, he shut the door. The venom of a king peacock was supposed to be remarkably painful. And while the Rook could deal with pain, a bite from a spider that oversized would be a pure distillation of agony.
He committed to a more thorough search of the study, not bothering to hide his visit—why waste the time when he’d already broken the window numinat? Let Vargo think the Stretsko got in. The desk locks eventually yielded to his picks, but a quick perusal of the papers produced nothing incriminating, and a knock on the backs and bases of the drawers proved them solid.
Most of the study was given over to an open space inlaid with a blank spira aurea of rainbow prismatium. The slate flooring was dusty with chalk residue, and showed no sign of hidden spaces beneath. Inscription tools filled the cabinets along the wall: a silver basin and ewer for ritual cleansing, a bucket of broken colored chalks, compasses and calipers as small as the Rook’s finger and as long as his leg, waxy chops and blank plugs for foci. Organized clutter that spoke of frequent use.
The dwindling sounds of fighting reminded him that his time was finite. Only centuries of enduring failure kept him from kicking over one of the cabinets in frustration. Coming here had been a slim hope built on an even slimmer one: that Vargo’s rise was due to supernatural influence, and that he kept the source of that influence somewhere obvious enough to find in a mere bell of searching.
There were ten medallions in Nadežra—ten sources of power, of the poison that tainted everyone who touched them. In two hundred years, the Rook had been lucky to stumble across one every few decades. Never for long, and never with any success at destroying them. He’d hoped that with Vargo, he’d finally found the key.
If so, the man knew better than to keep that key here.
The Rook was backing toward the open window, sweeping his gaze over the room one last time, when something odd caught his eye.
Everything in Vargo’s study was beautiful, to be sure, but it all had a use. From the thick curtains to the numinatrian tools to the books on the shelves, there was nothing that didn’t have function as well as form. No art on the walls, no quirky Dusk Road oddities gathering memories and dust.
So why would a man so obviously impatient with useless things keep a plinth in the corner with a plaster bust of some Seterin philosopher?
One shattered head later, the Rook found the storebox hidden in the top of the plinth.
Anything this carefully concealed would be protected. He spied the numinat buried amid the carvings before he opened the box. The memories that lingered in the hood weren’t enough to make him a master inscriptor, but it was easy enough to guess at this figure’s purpose; it would torch the contents of the box if not properly disabled.
But the first Rook had known enough inscription to embed it into every piece of the costume. Most simple numinata could be disabled simply by removing the focus. And Grey knew enough woodworking from Kolya to make a chisel of his knife.
Preparing for another sparking backlash, he wedged the point of his blade in place and hammered at the pommel, chipping off the top layer of wood at the middle of the numinat. Something sizzled along his arms, leaving behind the odor of scorched hair—but the magical protection was gone.
The lock was more complex than the ones on the desk. It was also more delicate, though; easy enough to wiggle the point of his knife into the seam between lid and box and force-pry the thing open.
Heat flashed, followed by the smell of burning paper. He threw the contents to the floor, racing to stomp out the flames before everything useful was destroyed.
Lifting the blackened remains of the box, he found the faint inlay of a second numinat on the inside. One that would have been deactivated if he’d used a pick or a key to turn the lock, rather than brute force.
Points for persistence, the Rook thought sourly. He should have known Vargo wouldn’t trust anything important to just two layers of protection.
But Ir Entrelke hadn’t entirely abandoned him. The shell of the box had smothered the flames better than his boots, leaving a few browned remnants of the papers inside. He lifted them carefully. The outside pages were too blackened to read, but the inside ones had only browned at the edges.
The writing was in neat lines and columns, like it had come from a ledger. A ledger of what, the Rook hadn’t the first clue. But there were family names. Locations. A few shorthand notes.
Nespisci & Lucovic, Suncross, Apilun 206, bar fight to bread riots
Isla Ejče, Fellun 207—Cyprilun 210, Omorre Richerso (moneylender, backed by Attravi)
Skiffer strikes—Colbrilun 207, Canilun 208, Similun 208, Equilun 209
Siren’s Folly, Suilun 209, mutiny
Silvain Fiangiolli & Elessni Essunta, Similun 210—fucking (blackmail?)
Yariček (Cut Ears), Apilun 210, broke knot oath, turned evidence to Caerulet (remnants gathered in)
Scurezza, Fellun 211, breaking betrothal contracts
There were other notes—names and dates and places too fragmented to make any sense out of—but the implication was clear enough. Vargo’s interests went well beyond any feud between Indestor and Novrus, and his reach went far beyond the Lower Bank gangs. Hundreds had died in the bread riots. And people still spoke in whispers about the atrocities committed by the crew of the Siren’s Folly.
What other chaos had Vargo been causing—and reaping the benefits of? What other plans of his were now in ashes on his study floor?
And what was his ultimate aim?
Carefully, the Rook tucked the burned pages away in the hopes he could fill the spaces between the fragments later. Giving the room a final glance, he saw the spider had squeezed in somehow; it was on the desk, hiding ineffectively behind the inkstand.
The Rook briefly considered crushing it, but refrained. The spider was innocent.
Its master was not.
Bay of Vraszan: Summer Solstice
Focusing on what clues she could gather helped keep Ren’s panic at bay. From the Pearls the splinter-boat had moved into broader waters—the East Channel—then downriver
, because they didn’t pass through the cleansing numinat. The sounds of the festival faded behind them. When the boat stopped, she thought they’d arrived. But hands, more than one pair, transferred her instead to another boat, this one larger. Canvas flapped in the wind, marking this vessel as a sailboat.
The panic clutched tight again. They can’t be selling me into slavery. I’m the Traementis heir now. Even if they know I’m an imposter, they can’t simply make me disappear.
The pitch and roll of the boat increased, giving Ren something new to distract her: nausea. It had wrung her out like a rag the whole way from Nadežra to Ganllech, when she and Tess fled; it had been no kinder on the journey back. The breath-damp air inside her mask threatened to choke her. Ren wrapped her hands around her elbows, gripping hard enough to bruise, and prayed that Tanaquis was right, that this was worth it, that it would be over soon. Masks have mercy, let it be over soon.
A flurry of activity was presumably the boat coming to shore. They hadn’t gone that far—one of the islands in the bay? A noble villa, maybe. Ren almost didn’t care; she was just grateful for solid ground under her feet again, and a hand guiding her up a path and into a building.
The air inside was cool and dry—unusual in summer, but Renata had visited enough nobles’ houses at this point to recognize the feel of a numinat at work. Fresh incense cut through the stagnant air inside her mask, helping to settle her stomach. She tried to gauge from the murmur of voices and the shuffle of feet how big the room was, how many people were in it, but the blind mask and the unknown surroundings were too disorienting, like she was both too close and too far away to know anything.
A touch at the center of her back almost made her reach for the knives hidden in a shawl she wasn’t wearing.
“You’re doing well.” Tanaquis’s voice, low but encouraging. “I know this is unnerving, but it’s a necessary first rite. It will be over soon.”
The Liar's Knot Page 13
