The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  Idusza stared at her. Ren called on years of con artist experience to exude confidence. “It will work,” she promised.

  But Andrejek spoke up, his voice slurred with the pain-numbing drugs Ljunan had fed him. “M’hand’s broken. Can’t grip.”

  Djek. She’d made plans for what to do if he couldn’t walk—but not if he couldn’t hold on to things.

  Ljunan responded by pulling off his shirt and shredding it into strips. Idusza began helping him tie them together, but Ren stopped her. “Go. I’ll help here. We don’t have much time before the guards regroup.”

  Idusza’s jaw tightened. She clearly didn’t like leaving Andrejek behind. “He’ll need you to catch him on the far side,” Ren said. “Go!”

  She didn’t watch as Idusza hooked her handle over the rope and slid into the darkness. Together she and Ljunan rigged a makeshift harness for Andrejek and tied him to the handle, then pushed him away. In the distance, Ren saw two guards running toward where Idusza waited atop the wall—

  —only to topple into the moat when a swirl of black fabric rose up. Ren mouthed a prayer of thanks as Ljunan leapt to safety, then followed him as soon as he was off the line.

  By the time her boot struck the wall to stop her momentum, Idusza was sliding down a second rope to the street below, and Ljunan and the Rook were modifying Andrejek’s harness to lower him. The Rook’s arm flashed out to keep Ren from overshooting and toppling completely over.

  “Good work,” he said. “Can you get them down while I cut the line?”

  It hadn’t been shot from the wall, but from a window in a building outside the prison, high enough for the rope to clear the wall’s top. Isn’t that the Dockwall warden’s house? Ren thought, before dragging her thoughts back to more immediate issues. She nodded, and the Rook began sawing at the line while she helped Ljunan lower Andrejek.

  When the Rook finished, he leapt to the ground, rolling in a swift tuck across the cobbles before rising and slinging Andrejek’s good arm across his shoulders. By then the prison’s alarm bell was sounding, its tolling picked up by Vigil outposts across the Lower Bank.

  “Follow me,” the Rook said quietly. “Lady Rose, watch our flanks.”

  It wasn’t a pell-mell run, as much as Ren wanted it to be. Andrejek’s leg wouldn’t support that, and they also didn’t want to draw attention. Fortunately, the Rook seemed to know every deserted alley and shadowed alcove as they crossed south into Kingfisher, slipping from one to the next when no one was looking.

  “I thought the Rook cared nothing for Vraszenian matters. Why would you help us?” Idusza asked as they waited for him to signal that it was safe to cross a street of ostrettas and night-market stalls.

  “You have her to thank for that.” The Rook’s hood dipped toward Ren in what she had come to recognize was his version of a wink. “I can’t court a Rose with lesser blooms, so I’ve plucked a few of her Lady’s children instead.”

  Andrejek’s response was harsh with pain and exhaustion. “Poetry can wait. What has Vargo to do with this? He betrayed us.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” Ren said. “But if it is, we’ll see that he suffers for it. Along with the rest of his crimes.” She glanced at the Rook, but he was watching a tangle of drunken men lurching down the lane up ahead.

  Idusza laid a hand on Andrejek’s shoulder. “Peace, Koszar. We have on our side the Rook and the Black Rose. If that’s not a blessing from Ažerais, nothing is.”

  “I have a skiff waiting in the Little Alwydd canal,” the Rook said. “We just need to get that far. Lady Rose, can you—”

  Before he could finish that sentence, Ren heard the distinctive sound of people moving in lockstep. She slid to the corner and peered around it, just as a small flight of hawks drew to a halt in the street.

  The light of an ostretta lantern caught the all too familiar face of Grey Serrado.

  “Levinci, take four people west and sweep north,” he said. “Ecchino, you and four more head east. I’ll move up the center. If the alarm’s coming from the Dockwall, it’s probably an escape, so keep a sharp eye out for anyone acting suspiciously. Ranieri, Dverli, Tarknias, you’re with me.”

  Ren squeezed her eyes shut. I’m a Mask-blinded idiot. Again.

  Grey Serrado wasn’t the Rook. Even Nadežra’s legendary outlaw couldn’t be in two places at once. She should just stop trying to unmask him; all it brought her was the humiliation of being wrong.

  Right now, though, humiliation was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Ren darted back to where the Rook waited, and conveyed the new danger in a tight-voiced summary.

  “Serrado?” Andrejek and Idusza exchanged a look. “In the past he has been a friend. Perhaps we could—”

  “I’d rather not risk this entire endeavor on a perhaps,” the Rook said. “Especially not for a man with a phenomenal grudge against me. Ill-founded or not, let’s not test his patience. Lady Rose, would you mind playing distraction while I get them to the skiff? Give the hawks someplace to look other than the streets?”

  Her gaze followed the tilt of his hood to the rooftops. Kingfisher was a district made for the Rook: buildings huddled close and low, with laundry lines and sheds and makeshift patios providing cover and obstacles as needed.

  Much like Lacewater—without so many narrow canals to leap.

  The Rook caught her before she could reach for a handhold. He tugged her close and murmured, “I’ll leave a message in the usual spot once they’re safe. In the meantime, don’t take too many risks… but have fun.”

  Ren flashed him a grin and climbed.

  Serrado’s hawks had split up. Why was his whole damned patrol here at once? Fortunately, the other two wings had moved away from the Rook and the Anduske; it was only Serrado’s own group she had to divert. Ren found a loose tile on the roof and, with a silent apology to the building’s owner, nudged it until it slid down and shattered in the street below.

  His sharp gaze went not to the sound, but to where it must have originated. Ren had ducked low enough that all he would see was a suspicious shadow; now she waited until she heard him snap, “Up there!”

  Then she ran.

  After lying cooped up in the hidden compartment of that scow, it was a pleasure to stretch her legs. From the streets below came shouts, the hawks relaying directions to each other as they fanned out. But Serrado, it seemed, wasn’t content to pursue from below. A glance over Ren’s shoulder revealed him on the roofs, vaulting the building’s ridgeline with a confidence and agility that said he’d done this kind of thing before. Ren balance-walked across a board set between two roofs, the sign hanging from it marking a cobbler’s alley, thinking that it was barely sturdy enough to support her own weight, let alone his—but he leapt the gap and remained on her heels.

  Djek. If she could get out of his sight for long enough, she could pull the mask off. Underneath, she was dressed and painted as Arenza—a precaution in case she got unmasked in front of Vargo, in preference to him finding Renata underneath. Serrado might wonder what she was doing wandering around Kingfisher at this hour, but she could find some excuse. That would only work, though, if she could get away from him and down to the ground… and he wasn’t making that easy.

  Fine. She gritted her teeth. If she couldn’t escape him, then she could at least separate him from his people. They were falling behind anyway, defeated by the odd turns of Kingfisher’s streets.

  Ren put on a burst of speed, veering left and leaping across to a balcony, then climbing again to a higher roof. She heard the thud as Serrado made the same jump, and she fought to slow her breathing as she waited for him to clear the eaves.

  Which he did with practiced skill a street acrobat would envy. “If you keep going higher, it’s only going to hurt more when you fall,” he called as he sprang to his feet.

  But he faltered when he spotted her leaning against a chimney, waiting. “You’re not who I… You’re the Black Rose.”

  She acknowledged it with a cheeky bo
w. “And you’re Captain Grey Serrado. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being obliging and following me. It’s given the Anduske time to get away.” Ren couldn’t very well tear off her mask and reveal any of the other masks beneath it, but he’d helped Andrejek before—sheltered him, even. If he knew they were the escapees, would he close his eyes and allow them to escape?

  “You—” His hand darted to his hilt and she tensed, ready to run. She’d seen enough at Ryvček’s to know she’d never beat him in a straight fight, foul or fair. But then he brought that hand to his face instead, rubbing his brow like a man sorely tried by the Masks. “You helped them escape. The one night I thought I’d sleep in my own bed. Couldn’t you at least have waited until morning?”

  “It would have the element of being unexpected,” she acknowledged dryly. “Along with impossible.”

  “All the better for the stories afterward.” He edged to one side, toward the easiest jump to the next building. It was the most obvious route for her to bolt, but the easing of his manner said his heart wasn’t in the chase anymore. This was for show, so she wouldn’t suspect him of unwise sympathies. It made her want to laugh.

  “So what now?” he asked. “Do you expect me to let you walk away? Or run, or leap, or… I don’t know. Can you fly?”

  “I like walking,” she said lightly. “Out of your life, letting you get back to bed. Unless you insist on arresting me—which I hope you won’t. I know you work hard to protect Vraszenians. I doubt you want to see three of them executed de Ninate.”

  That rumor was spreading, and the tightening of his jaw said he’d heard it. Voices were rising up again, Serrado’s people looking for him; sooner or later they would spot him on this roof. Ren took the risk of drifting a step closer, so she could lower her voice. “I know you helped them after the Night of Hells. That was the right thing to do then. This is the right thing to do now.”

  “Captain, is that you up there?”

  Ranieri’s shout made Serrado flinch. Then he breathed deeply and gave Ren a tired smile. In Vraszenian he said, “For that, I joined the Vigil. Because I hoped to do the right thing.”

  Stepping back, he cleared the path for her escape. “Go. My people would hate me even more if I caged our Rose.”

  His words sent a shiver through her. Spoken in Vraszenian, his voice rich with the accents of her childhood… and accepting her among them.

  I belong to them more in this mask than I do as myself.

  She drove that thought away with a running leap. Behind her, Ranieri shouted again. “Captain? Did you find something? We’re coming up through the house.”

  “No need. It was nothing,” Serrado called down. “Just a cat.”

  11

  Labyrinth’s Heart

  Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Lepilun 27

  The Pearls were as different from Dockwall as a place could be, but gossip cared little for such separations. Only four hours since Tess had woken from her vigil to find Ren climbing back through her balcony doors, hardly even pausing to scrub off Arenza’s face before collapsing into bed, and the parks and plazas around Traementis Manor were flooded with speculation.

  Ren hadn’t been conscious enough to relate the details of her nighttime prison break, only that it was a success, and something bitter about how she was an idiot who should just stop guessing. By the time she roused in the morning, the risk of other servants overhearing meant she couldn’t talk at all.

  But between kitchen conversations over mushroom porridge and snippets caught on the street, Tess winkled out the details. Someone had escaped the inescapable Dockwall Prison, or had tried and failed. The Stadnem Anduske prisoners had blown a hole in the wall. Or the rooftop. Or themselves. They’d had help from the inside. Or the outside. From the Stretsko. The Rook.

  The Black Rose of Ažerais.

  Tess wished for a third ear as Meatball tugged her along the walk that bordered the East Channel: one for the gossips, one for Meatball’s snuffles when he spotted something interesting, and one for Suilis’s ramblings as the other maid walked beside her.

  “—must have been the Rook,” Suilis declared with a decisive nod. “Who else would have the nerve to break into the Dockwall? And I heard about what he did to Mede Essunta with that firework. Poor man—do you think his hands will heal?”

  Tess made a noncommittal sound and wished she could walk the dog alone. But after a week of Suilis’s whinging terror whenever she had to take out Donaia’s Alwyddian wolfhound, Tess had made the mistake of saying it didn’t seem like such a chore. Now that chore was unofficially shared. “After all,” Suilis had blithely declared, “you’re practically countrymen.”

  Their usual walk took them around the perimeter of Isla Traementis while Meatball examined and marked every lamppost, bush, and building stoop. If the canal walk was empty, Tess would let him off the leash to harass the gulls, but today she wasn’t in a mood to listen to Suilis’s yelps of fear.

  Their whole friendship was like that. Tess was closer to Suilis than to anyone else on the Traementis staff, them both being new, but too many of the things the other maid did chafed her patience… and her suspicions.

  Like now, when Suilis squeezed her arm and leaned in, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s not the only thing I heard about the Essunta party, though. One of their maids says she saw Alta Renata coming back from meeting her secret lover.”

  This was a needle Tess had to thread carefully. She hated encouraging false gossip, but rumors of Renata’s lover kept suitors at bay and provided the cover necessary for Ren’s increasing absences.

  Suilis didn’t seem to need confirmation. She sighed happily, tilting her face up to the sun as if it weren’t trying to broil them all alive. “Who do you think he is? Or she, though your alta seems to prefer men. I wonder where they meet up? If I had a secret lover, I’d want a nice little nest where we could be alone.”

  Tess might not be the con artist Ren was, able to talk people into spilling all their secrets, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize the signs of someone else doing the same. Despite the sweltering heat, a trickle of ice went down her back.

  Thankfully, Meatball could be depended on to provide a distraction. Tess loosened her hold on the lead, and he took it as permission to charge toward an unsuspecting gull. With an “oof!” of false surprise, Tess let him drag her free of Suilis’s grip, then caught his collar and pulled him back with a soft command before he made a second breakfast of the gull.

  “Time we head back,” she told Suilis. Then, to Meatball: “Come, my lad. Let’s get you back to your mistress.”

  When Suilis turned to lead the way, Tess pulled a chunk of dried mutton from her pocket and fed it to the hound. “Good boy,” she whispered. “If I ever form my own knot, you’ll be my top fist.”

  Colbrin was waiting for them when they reached Traementis Manor. “Keep him collared. The era wants you to bring Lex Talionis to her study.” He was the only one stickler enough to use Meatball’s official name.

  Knowing Colbrin would want Suilis to handle the task, Tess blurted, “My alta’s at an appointment, and I’ve nothing else to occupy myself. I can take him up.” Without waiting for approval, she unhitched Meatball’s lead, buried her fingers in his ruff, and led him upstairs.

  She expected to find Donaia alone, or perhaps with Giuna. She didn’t expect to find them both sitting across from a dark-skinned Vraszenian woman with a toddler in her lap and a wide-eyed little girl clinging to her knee.

  Mother and Crone, they found us out! Tess had never met Alinka Serrado, but she’d heard enough from Ren to leave little doubt of the woman’s identity.

  She had to run. Get the bags. Get Ren. Find Sedge. First ship out of Nadežra, and Ren could just swallow down her seasickness.

  Donaia waved for Tess to enter, then blinked in confusion. “Where is Suilis?”

  The question knocked Tess’s frantic thoughts off their course. “B
elow. She’s that frightened of Meatball, so I’m the one who walks him.” Only after she’d spoken did Tess realize she’d spilled on the other maid. But better Suilis for a small offense than Ren for a high crime.

  Donaia frowned, but it wasn’t aimed at Tess. To Alinka, she said, “This is Meatball. He’s part of the family and will be joining me later at Eret Quientis’s villa. I assure you, he’s not as dangerous as he looks.”

  If this was how Donaia introduced her dog to Suilis, no wonder the maid was terrified of him. The toddler buried his whimpers in his mother’s chest, and the girl silenced hers by chewing on the head of her doll.

  Giving Meatball the signal to stay where he was, Tess released his ruff and ventured closer to the family. “What’s your name?” she asked the girl. If Ren had shared it, Tess couldn’t remember. Probably she hadn’t. They had so little time for talking these days.

  “Yvieny,” the girl mumbled around the head of her doll. Her gaze was no longer on Meatball. Instead, she seemed transfixed by Tess’s hair. “Are you Elsivin?”

  Ignoring Alinka’s cough, Tess asked, “Who?”

  The doll was shoved in her face, all spit-sogged hair and ratty clothes. “Elsivin the Red. She’s a hero.”

  “Is she.” Donaia’s cool words warned there were currents here Tess couldn’t see.

  To avoid them, she said, “I’m Tess, and this is Meatball. We’re both from Ganllech.”

  “Does he bite?” Yvieny’s expression walked the tightrope between fascination and fear.

  Donaia’s “no” tipped it toward disappointment. Tess, recalling the delight over destruction that came with Yvieny’s age, winked and said, “Unless you tell him to. The princes of Ganllech use Alwyddian wolfhounds to snap a boar’s legs so it can’t charge during a hunt.”

  Paying no mind to the horrified gasps of the adults, Tess sank to her knees. “But they’re well-trained to tell the difference between boars and little girls.” She gestured to Meatball and he trotted up, tongue lolling in a doggy smile.