The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  Someone pulled him upright. Set him back inside the numinat. Walked around and sat down to face him.

  Ghiscolo Acrenix.

  “Captain Serrado.” Ghiscolo sighed as if disappointed. “I wish it hadn’t come to this.”

  For the briefest instant, when he was on his side and out of position, Grey’s head had cleared a tiny bit. Enough to know that these thoughts were the work of the numinat—attacking not his body, but his mind, dragging him down into a pit of heart’s pain.

  Ghiscolo leaned forward and spoke quietly. “I know you arranged that meeting for Beldipassi. I know you’re in contact with the Rook. Tell me how to find him.”

  Grey wasn’t the first person to be tortured over that question. “No.”

  “I don’t like doing this, Captain Serrado. But I have a duty to this city. A duty to bring order to Nadežra, and to lead its people to the best of my ability. I believe the Rook has Mede Beldipassi—that he kidnapped the man from their meeting. A meeting you set up. I’m surprised you of all people would work with the Rook in secret.”

  Kolya, burned beyond recognition. Grey leaned into that memory, into the agony it brought, because that was a shield against Acrenix’s probing. “I want my brother avenged,” he snarled. “The Rook can help with that.”

  Sighing, Ghiscolo placed his hands over his heart. “You don’t have to suffer like this. It can end at any time, if you tell me what you know. Where Beldipassi might be. Where the Rook might have taken him. In return, I’ll help you get revenge on Derossi Vargo. You’ll finally be able to heal.”

  Vargo pinned against the side of a carriage, Grey’s arm across his throat. The way his own father had pinned him, so many times. I’m as bad as he is.

  Ghiscolo’s words tugged at him, sweet and tempting. The pain can end. You can heal.

  Two of Ghiscolo’s fingers had slipped between the buttons of his shirt. He wasn’t touching his heart.

  He was touching his medallion.

  Panic pierced the fog of Grey’s agony. After that business in the Charterhouse, Ren had passed along word of what Ghiscolo did to Vargo. He didn’t merely have a medallion; he knew how to use its full power, controlling the desires of others. This was Quinat, the numen of power… and also of healing.

  The Rook was immune to that influence—but Grey wasn’t the Rook. Not right now.

  He didn’t have time to think about Ryvček’s warnings. The medallion’s power was feeding his desire for an escape from the agony of the numinat, until it overwhelmed everything else. Already his mouth was opening.

  The hood was inside his uniform, just above his heart.

  Help me.

  And like before—like the night he was ambushed; the night Ghiscolo must have sent the stingers to ambush him, because Ghiscolo knew about the meeting, Ghiscolo knew—Grey gave himself over to the shadows.

  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

  Ghiscolo leaned even closer. “Don’t you want this to end?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t artifice; it was truth. The Rook wanted the suffering to end. For everyone, himself included. The despair of the ambush numinat had sunk its claws in only shallowly, because the Rook was a rejection of the idea that nothing could be done—but that rejection was born of pain. Grief and loss and horror were the foundations of this house, and all the shades who inhabited it had built its walls higher with their own suffering. But someday, the Rook prayed, that house would fall.

  “Then tell me—”

  “There’s nothing to tell. The Rook found me, not the other way around. I can’t give you what you want.”

  Ghiscolo’s jaw tightened. “Captain Serrado—”

  With a slam like thunder against stone, the door to the Rook’s left swung open, revealing a woman as tall and immovable as the Point. “What is going on here?” Cercel demanded.

  Her righteous fury doubled when she saw Ghiscolo. “Your Mercy,” she said. “Why has one of my captains been brought in for questioning? I was told it was Anduske related, but your men seem to think it has to do with the disappearance of a delta gentleman.” Through the blurring of his tears, the Rook saw Ranieri and Kaineto trading scowls.

  Standing, Ghiscolo withdrew his hand and smoothed the pucker from his shirt and waistcoat. “You’re questioning Caerulet?” If not for the leashed anger behind it, his smile would almost have looked genial.

  “I would not presume.” Cercel’s bow was a sop to that anger. “But I do question the overreach of the Ordo Apis. I’ve read their charter, and it clearly restricts the scope of their powers to issues pertaining to the Stadnem Anduske’s activities in Nadežra. If this is regarding a gentleman’s disappearance…” Her smile was pure steel. “That’s a matter for the Vigil.”

  Ghiscolo nodded. “Which also falls under my purview—”

  “Your purview, but not your direct authority. If you want to detain a Vigil officer, then speak with High Commander Dimiterro. Which you have not done.”

  The Rook let out a stifled moan. Cercel’s attention shot to the floorboards, and her face went white. “Are you torturing him?”

  Before Ghiscolo could answer, she snatched out her dagger and raked it through the numinat, breaking the encircling line. Light flashed, and the miasma of suffering vanished.

  “Constable, help the captain,” Cercel said, handing her knife to Ranieri, who quickly cut the Rook loose and helped him stand.

  That hand on his arm was salvation. The Rook was on the verge of pulling out the hood, armoring himself in those layered defenses. It would destroy Grey Serrado’s life, but that didn’t matter. Ghiscolo was right there. And the shock of the Rook appearing in their midst would buy him the opening he needed.

  But Ranieri’s hand was on his arm, slowing his reach for the hidden pocket. Just long enough for Grey to drag himself back under control.

  I am Grey Serrado. Not the Rook. Not here, not now.

  His conviction held. For the moment.

  Cercel faced Ghiscolo with the rigid correctness of an officer. “I will, of course, be reporting my actions to High Commander Dimiterro and submitting myself to any censure he feels necessary.” As she stepped back to allow Grey and Ranieri to pass, she gave the whole room, Caerulet and stingers alike, a scathing look. “In accordance with the law, of course. Good day, Your Mercy.”

  18

  Aža’s Call

  Eastbridge and the Pearls: Canilun 9

  In the years that had passed since she was part of the Fingers, Ren had forgotten: Some kinds of cons were easier to pull off when you had more people helping.

  She legitimately had gone to talk to Vargo about demonstrating a model of the river numinat for Donaia and Scaperto. And anyone asking would learn that their meeting had gone on for quite some time, due to arguments over his approach. But the actual conversation lasted barely a bell, and after that, a Ganllechyn woman slipped out Vargo’s back door to meet up with Tess and Sedge.

  Tess groaned when she saw Ren in the striped woolens of her country. “Just don’t try to do the accent,” she begged. “I’ve heard you be Vraszenian and Seterin and Liganti and even Isarnah, but your Ganllechyn is a pity.” She tched. “And you living there five years…”

  “Does she still sound like one of them puppet show characters?” Sedge asked.

  “Worse! She sounds like me!”

  “Ooch, that’s enough from the both of you.” Grinning at their paired groans, Ren linked her arms through theirs. Her makeup gave her fuller, rosier cheeks than nature ever had, but Tess was right about the accent; she couldn’t hear it in her head or feel it on her tongue except as her sister’s voice. “Fine. I won’t try the accent. The point is, this way I don’t have to worry about being seen by anybody who knows me. Let’s go!”

  For all her lighthearted tone, Ren felt faintly guilty as they headed off. Spending this time with Tess and Sedge meant missing “family dinner” at Traementis Manor—a ritual Giuna had insisted on after the adoptions, and one Renata couldn’
t admit to loathing.

  It would have been easier if Donaia had stayed. In her absence, Renata had to take her place at the head of the table, with Giuna and Nencoral and Meppe and Idaglio, and Tanaquis on the one occasion so far that she’d joined them. Keeping her posture perfect while course upon course was served dragged up memories of Ondrakja’s training exercises, where she taught her favored Fingers to pass themselves off as cuffs or infiltrate houses as staff. The lack of mildew in the carpet and the fine cooking of the various dishes didn’t stop it from feeling like one of Ondrakja’s tests—with all the implied consequences for failure.

  Meals had been more comfortable before the adoptions, when it was only her and Donaia and Giuna, dining less formally. But even that just made her yearn for the happy memories of her childhood, sitting at the table where Ivrina laid patterns for clients during the day, with Ren herself small enough that her feet didn’t touch the floor. Or those few precious evenings in the Serrado house, with Grey singing nonsense at Jagyi while Alinka panfried lotus root and crispy bluegill and Ren kept Yvie distracted.

  Thinking about Grey was a mistake. He’d left a terse note on her balcony, giving her some of the story; gossip had provided other fragments. Between the two, she could imagine far too well what Ghiscolo had done to him. Part of her wanted nothing more than to rush across the river and confirm with her own eyes and hands that Grey wasn’t permanently hurt.

  But he’d told her to stay away for now. The odds were too high that Ghiscolo had people watching him, looking for anything that might lead to Beldipassi or the Rook.

  Those thoughts weighed her down as she and her siblings purchased street noodles from a stall near the Rotunda, then found an empty river stair to perch on while they wolfed them down. “I know we can afford a proper table now,” Tess said between slurps, “but they taste better this way.”

  “That they do,” Sedge said, eating a pepper as red as sunset that he’d requested special from the cart.

  “Like you can taste anything but fire.” Laughing, Tess knocked gently into him.

  Ren bent her head to her own bowl. She hadn’t considered, when she started being honest with the people around her, that it wouldn’t actually solve all her problems—not when some of those people had secrets of their own. Would Grey let her tell Tess and Sedge the truth about him? Or more to the point, would the Rook?

  Lacking an answer to that, she chose instead to fill Sedge in on what had happened with Vargo in Whitesail, and the conversation where she unpeeled all her layers for him. Sedge was so busy chewing on those revelations that when the clock towers chimed the tenth and final sun hour, he had to hurry up and shovel his cold noodles down at speed.

  Handing his bowl off to Tess to return to the vendor, he said, “Guess that explains why I’ve been summoned to Froghole tonight. Don’t know how I’m supposed to look the man in the eye, knowing he knows I know. You sure he en’t holding a grudge?”

  “He’d better not, or he’ll answer to me,” Tess said, making them both grin. “Go on with you, then. I’ve got to get this one changed and back home.”

  Home. That word stuck in Ren’s mind as they returned to Vargo’s townhouse, made the switch back to Renata, and headed north to the Isla Traementis. Was the manor home? Had the Westbridge townhouse been home, or the lodging house in Lacewater before that? Or had “home” vanished in flames when she was six—and if so, what would it take to build it anew?

  Those thoughts dogged her as she came inside and hurried to the staircase. Partway up, Giuna’s voice caught her. “Renata!”

  She turned and found Giuna hovering at the newel post. Seeing that Renata had stopped, Giuna came to join her. “I swear, you’ve been dodging me since—Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  “With what?”

  “Whitesail! That letter from your father! I heard about what happened in the Charterhouse, with Her Elegance accusing you, and Vargo saying there was nothing in the letter. I know there must be more to the story. And you just spent all of dinnertime at his house. What’s going on?”

  The hall was empty, with no one else to hear. “It’s taken care of, at least for now. You don’t need to worry.”

  Giuna caught her arm as she turned away. Not her usual birdlike plucking; this was a solid grip. “No,” Giuna said, her voice low but intense. “We’re working together, remember? Soon I’ll be eighteen, and I’ll be Mother’s heir. I need to understand our family’s affairs, not to be protected from them. And whatever’s going to happen, we’ll stand by you.”

  Would you stand by a half-Vraszenian criminal from Lacewater?

  Of course not. They never would have let Ren in their front door.

  It wasn’t bad enough that she’d gotten Leato killed. Her masquerade was putting House Traementis in danger. The only way out of that was to survive until Giuna came of age, and then—

  Then what? Leave the Traementis? Leato’s face rose up in her memory, his reaction when he learned she’d been an imposter all along. Do you even know how much it meant to us, gaining family for once instead of losing it?

  They had other family now. Meppe, Idaglio, Nencoral, Tanaquis. With the exception of Tanaquis, though, how much personal warmth was in those bonds? Building a true relationship there might happen, but it would take time. Renata had been through fire with Donaia and Giuna. She wasn’t a good enough liar to convince herself that walking away wouldn’t hurt them.

  Some part of that must have shown through, because Giuna touched her arm again, this time a gentle lead. Together they went into Donaia’s study, and Giuna closed the door before sinking into one of the new chairs, upholstered in sueded brown leather. “Tell me,” she said. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

  That was it, Renata realized—or at least part of it. Her own childhood had ended the day she became a Finger, if not when the fire sent her and Ivrina onto the street. Some part of her envied Giuna’s sheltered life and wanted her to keep it for as long as she could.

  But that was foolish and unfair. Giuna had been through hardships of her own, even if they didn’t involve starvation and abuse. She wasn’t a little bird in a cage.

  Renata scrubbed one hand across her eyes, trying to think what she could safely say. Not everything; never that. But enough to arm Giuna and House Traementis against the risks.

  “Vargo did destroy the letter,” she said. “For my sake. We’ve reconciled, though we’re keeping that concealed so Novrus can’t prove we’re colluding. As for its contents…”

  There was a simple way through that one, like the trick knots that came apart when you pulled in the right place. “I imagine it said that Eret Viraudax has no daughter named Renata. Your mother already knows—he isn’t my father. That’s what Tanaquis was talking about at the Theatre Agnasce. Letilia was pregnant before she left Nadežra, courtesy of a total stranger during Veiled Waters. But I told your mother Eret Viraudax adopted me, and that part is a lie. He took my mother as his mistress, nothing more. Not even a contract wife.”

  “But you’re ours now. None of that should—” Giuna struck the arm of her chair in frustration. “Stupid. They’ll make it matter, won’t they? And you and Meppe are already struggling enough, trying to get all the new charters in order. Mother won’t care—I know she won’t, beyond admiring Eret Viraudax’s good sense—but others will.”

  The weight of it dragged Renata down. “I don’t see a way out of this, Giuna. Short of falsifying a letter from him that somehow persuades everyone there’s nothing interesting about my past… the fact is that I’ve lied, and eventually those lies will out. When they do, they’ll hurt the rest of you—which is the last thing I want. It’s death by a thousand pricking needles.” Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have cared.

  But once upon a time, her intent had been to siphon money off what she thought was a house so wealthy they wouldn’t miss it, then vanish without a trace.

  Giuna was already shaking her head. “Not if we change their needles into… noo
dles?” She giggled, then schooled her expression into seriousness. “We could. You’ve already stumbled on how. There are still whispers about what Tanaquis let slip at the theatre, and not all of them are about Alsius Acrenix. If you take control of the whispers, everyone will be so busy wondering if your blood father is in Nadežra that they won’t care when it comes out that Eret Viraudax isn’t. When people are starved for gossip, feed them what you want them to eat.”

  It was the last response Renata had expected. And it was something she should have thought of herself.

  No matter how often Giuna told her they were family, her thoughts still didn’t go to the Traementis in her moments of need. Not after so many years with Tess and Sedge as the only ones she could trust.

  But now there was Grey, and Vargo. And Giuna, at least in part, even if she didn’t know who Ren really was. Donaia, and Tanaquis as well. Even Dalisva, after a fashion. When Ren stopped and made herself count… she actually had a startling number of allies.

  It eased some of the tightness inside. “That’s an excellent thought, Giuna. But before you ask, no: I haven’t the faintest clue who my father is. Nor do I particularly care. Neither history nor register binds me to him, after all.”

  Catching her in a crushing hug, Giuna said, “You’re bound to us now. And we won’t give you up that easily.”

  A moment later, Renata was free, and Giuna was flushed and sparkling with ideas. “I’m meant to play bocce with Bondiro and Marvisal tomorrow. I can let something slip for Alta Faella to chew on. Once you’ve hooked her, all the other fish will follow. Oh, and Tess is making a dress for Avaquis Fintenus, isn’t she? I’m certain she’d be happy to gossip.”

  For the briefest heartbeat, Renata felt a chill. They were in Donaia’s study, where in the nightmare she’d ruled over the Traementis like Ondrakja over the Fingers.

  But it didn’t have to be like that. Giuna was an ally, not a minion. No one would be punished for disappointing Ren. She wouldn’t use people and then throw them away.