The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  He should let her go. Every moment he spent with her was another opportunity for her to untangle his web of deception. But sending her back to Renata’s life—tonight of all nights, when she’d refused a gesture of trust from her friends—it felt wrong. Grey reached out when she started to turn away, hand hovering just short of touch.

  “You could spend the evening with us. It’s Six Candles. Isn’t it less lonely, to remember what has been lost together?”

  She ducked her chin, but not before he saw the flicker of reaction, like he’d gut-punched her. He hadn’t expected the offer to hit so hard, and he was still trying to find a graceful way to apologize when she whispered, “Yes. Thank you. I—I will.”

  They went from the thickening gloom of the streets to the bright comfort of the house, from painful silence to the bustle and chaos of a kitchen with two small children underfoot. Alinka was predictably delighted to have a szorsa as their guest, and just as predictably refused the proffered help; instead Grey got assigned to vegetable-chopping duty and a report on how the transfer had gone, while Arenza told fables of the clan animals to Yvie and Jagyi. The latter chewed on a wooden block, listening raptly, while the former ricocheted around, one moment a fox, the next a noble horse.

  Eventually the chaos resolved into a meal and a table cleared for the dishes. Grey wound up with Arenza at his right hand, and Yvieny beyond her. “Wish you to lead the prayers?” Alinka asked her.

  Arenza shook her head. “No, this is your family and your home. Please.”

  Six precious beeswax candles went onto the table, carefully wedged between the bowls. “Ažerais, mother of us all, hear our prayers.”

  Grey closed his eyes as Alinka began the recitation. The substance of her version was the same as the one he’d grown up with, a recounting of how the Ižranyi had died: the eleven nights and days of horror that swept through Vraszan, as every person who bore that clan name fell into madness, tearing themselves and those around them apart. The city of Fiavla, their main stronghold, was a haunted wasteland to this day. No one knew how the terrifying power of a Primordial had come to be unleashed upon them; they only knew that one of those demonic forces, older and wilder than the gods themselves, had destroyed the seventh clan.

  But Alinka’s approach to that subject was different, and he preferred the way she told it. The version repeated around his childhood table, before Kolya returned from his carpentry apprenticeship to take Grey away, had dwelt heavily on the possible causes of the disaster: the wrongs some unknown person must have perpetrated, to bring such calamity down on their entire clan; the ill luck some people were simply born with, bringing death in their wake, striking everyone else while leaving them unscathed. Always told with meaningful looks that weighed on Grey despite his tightly clasped hands and determinedly bowed head, wishing, wishing, wishing the meal would end.

  A soft touch on his arm dragged him back to the present. Alinka, holding up a beeswax candle, new-bought and taller than the remnants from years past. Compassion furrowed her brow. She knew, without ever being told directly, why Grey and Kolya lived in Nadežra with no clan or kureč beyond each other.

  He fumbled with the flint, striking several times before the spark caught and the flame burned for the Ižranyi.

  Once it had flared and settled, Alinka touched the wick to each of the six stubs to light them. A prayer for the souls of the Ižranyi, lost even to Ažerais’s Dream; a hope that someday they would find peace. A promise that their lineage would be kept alive in the other clans, through those who bore their blood. No one had ever attempted to reconstitute the Ižranyi—not after that incomprehensible tragedy—but their memory would never be forgotten.

  When the prayer finished, she blew out the seventh candle.

  It made for a subdued meal under the flickering of the six remaining lights, and he almost regretted inviting Arenza to join them. But despite the somber mood, the tension gradually eased out of her shoulders. How often did she get to do things like this? Not often, he suspected. He’d seen her at the Seven Knots labyrinth when his clan gathered to mourn their dead ziemič—a loose thread that let him follow her back to the Westbridge townhouse, unraveling her deception at last—but he didn’t think she made a regular habit of visiting such places. Alta Renata was a busy woman. So was the Black Rose; he’d heard tales of her interfering with Branek’s attempts to consolidate the Anduske under his control. Neither left much time for her to be an ordinary Vraszenian.

  Maybe she needed that.

  When Alinka carried the sleeping Jagyi upstairs, Arenza helped Grey clear the table of dishes. “We’ll wash them later,” he said quietly, nodding toward Yvieny dozing next to her empty bowl.

  “Thank you,” Arenza said. “You were right. This was a good way to spend this evening.”

  Her gaze flickered toward the door as Alinka came downstairs to collect the sleepily protesting Yvieny. She ought to leave; he ought to let her go.

  “The evening isn’t over yet.”

  He ought not to have said that.

  Her eyebrow ticked upward. “Are you suggesting something, Captain Serrado?”

  That tone… The hint of playfulness in it sounded like something she would have said to the Rook. His sense of humor had slipped free during the preparations for dinner, jesting comments at odds with the stoic facade of Captain Grey Serrado. Had they sounded too much like what the Rook might say? Did she know—or at least suspect?

  Either way, she’d handed him a perfect opening. A false hole in his defense that he could use to lure his opponent in for the disarm. And as much as Grey hated to end this gentle night with a trick, he couldn’t pass up the chance to deflect any suspicions she might have.

  He sent up a silent prayer that the deities would forgive him for interfering with a szorsa’s cards. The Masks might curse him for it anyway… but they’d already cursed him, long ago.

  “What better night than Six Candles to seek a szorsa’s insight?” He dug into his pocket and laid a centira on the table. The standard prayer was bitter with irony on his tongue. “May I see the Face and not the Mask.”

  Westbridge, Lower Bank: Colbrilun 33

  Ren stared at the coin, then at Serrado. Her visits to this house had made it all too clear that he didn’t like szorsas. So why was he now asking her to pattern him?

  Not asking—challenging. His bland expression seemed to question whether she had the confidence to accept. And that made her straighten up, take out her deck, and shuffle with all the flair of which she was capable.

  But she didn’t want to seem too much like a streetside performer, either. They often skipped the prayers to the ancestors, so she made a point of including them—only to get a sardonic look in response, as if he could tell she was trying to be more authentic. By the time she passed the deck to him for the last shuffle and cut, she had to glance away to escape the weight of those blue eyes. She muttered the final prayer to Ižranyi with her gaze fixed on the extinguished candle, and didn’t look up until he handed the cards back.

  “This is your past, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.”

  The Ember Adamant, Wings in Silk, and Sword in Hand. The first and third from the woven thread; the second from the spinning. She touched the first card. “Like your sister, you are not from Nadežra. But people helped you when you came here. A debt you have repaid many times over, I think.”

  “The story of every Vraszenian who comes to this city.” His voice was deeper when he spoke their language, with a pleasant burr at odds with his unimpressed tone.

  “Not all of them Vraszenian,” she added, even though she shouldn’t. She knew that as Renata, from things Donaia and Giuna had said, not from the cards. She pointed to Sword in Hand. “This debt you have repaid partly through your duties in the Vigil. Unusual, one of our people rising so far… but I think you see it as a challenge.”

  “Most ‘true’ Vraszenians call me a slip-knot for that.”

  She’d called him that be
fore, in her own thoughts. Not anymore, though; not since she’d seen him with his family, and with the Anduske. He was more Vraszenian than she was. “Wings in Silk. Transformation. To be in this city, you have changed—a necessary change, but one that comes with a price. And with regret.” She frowned at the card, then at him. “But this is no simple matter of cutting your hair. You have in other ways changed, I think. Just as the Vigil is not the only cause you have taken up. The Anduske, for one.” Also vengeance for his murdered brother. Perhaps other things as well. There were more layers to Grey Serrado than she used to believe.

  He crossed his arms, a defensive gesture. “I have a lot of causes to pick from. And a lot of regrets.”

  His brother’s death lay like an open wound between them. She’d never told him that Vargo was responsible. She couldn’t; if Serrado knew, nothing would stop him from going after Kolya’s killer. And there was only one way that could end.

  She took refuge in the next line of cards, and a soft breath huffed from her at the sight. “All from the spinning thread; that is a strong sign.” For the good, Aža’s Call—straightforward enough. “Slip-knot others may call you, but there is a difference between the mask you wear and the face beneath it. You keep up appearances because it is necessary… but beneath that, you pursue your dream.”

  What dream, though? Neither logic nor the other two cards told her. Lark Aloft and The Mask of Nothing… three from the same thread ought to be significant, but she couldn’t tease out their meaning. “You seem not the sort of man for rash action or blind assumptions, neither for good nor for ill. But perhaps this has to do with Lark Aloft—have you had a recent message? Bad news from some quarter that into foolishness might provoke you?”

  His shoulders relaxed, arms resting on the table as he leaned over the spread to give her a teasing look. “Besides right now? I think we need to finish the reading before we can determine that. Is it foolish to purchase protection charms?”

  She fought the urge to make a rude gesture. His own sister by marriage crafted such things, at this very table; she doubted he scorned the charms themselves. But hawking them was too often the hallmark of a charlatan, who would first scare the client and then offer to avert their doom, promising more protection than a mere piece of knotwork could provide. Ren’s mother, Ivrina, had despised that practice.

  Hopefully the future line would give her something solid enough to prove her skills once and for all. “This is your future, the good and the ill of it, and—”

  The words died in her throat, strangling tighter with each card she turned over. Labyrinth’s Heart. The Mask of Bones. Sleeping Waters. All from the cut thread, and this time there was no mistaking their meaning. It writhed through her like the touch of ash, warping the world into nightmare.

  She tried to speak, but nothing would come. Her breath rasped in her ears, too shallow, too fast, and her pulse beat like a dying moth in her throat. She couldn’t even reach out to turn the cards back over, to hide their meaning from her view. Pain spiked up her fingers as her nails scraped the table’s edge, seeking something, anything to steady her.

  She found it in Grey’s hands, lifting her own before she gouged splinters under her nails. The teasing smile had vanished into wide-eyed concern. “Szorsa? Arenza. Breathe. It’s all right. Whatever you see, they’re only cards.”

  “They are—wrong,” she whispered, forcing the words out. “I have nothing to sell you, I’m not playing a trick—this is bad. Not simply bad meaning, but something worse.” As if someone had cursed him.

  Grey’s voice remained steady. “But they hold the solutions to the problems they show, yes? We won’t know until we read them.” He released her hands and tapped the cards in succession. She couldn’t hold back a flinch as his fingers touched each one. “Labyrinth’s Heart. Calm, patience, stillness. That’s nothing to fear. The Mask of Bones in the ill position is… well, it’s death. But other kinds of endings, too. Unhappy ones, in this case. Sleeping Waters simply means that some sort of place is important.”

  He knew the cards well for someone who scorned them… but there was a difference between knowing and interpreting. “No. Yes, but no. The Mask of Bones—this is not the alternative to Labyrinth’s Heart, choose stillness or choose death. It will come either way. Different deaths; you cannot avoid them all.”

  “My death?”

  His voice was neutral, controlled. Ren shook her head. “I—I don’t think so. Not the death of your body, at least. And the stillness…” It was like the pattern Ivrina had laid in the nightmare, where even the good cards were warped to malevolence. “You must choose which action not to take. ‘Both’ is not possible. Whatever you do not do…”

  Someone would die for it. She couldn’t make herself say it, but his nod acknowledged the meaning in her silence. “And Sleeping Waters? Is it a place I should go, or somewhere I should avoid?”

  The card depicted the Old Island, the Point rising up from the river. At its top, the Wellspring of Ažerais, which he’d helped protect from the bombing. But it didn’t mean that place specifically, not again—and yet, not not there. “There is a place you must go, a place you will be. But—” Her vision blurred, doubling. “You will not be there. You will and you will not. It all depends on what you choose.”

  Tears burned at the edges of her eyes. “This is all wrong,” she whispered again, more to herself than to him.

  But he heard. Grey exhaled noisily, his bare fingers sliding along the edge of Labyrinth’s Heart. “You’re not the first patterner to tell me that.”

  He tried to keep the words light, but she could hear the weight of old resentment dragging it down. “Pattern is not fixed,” she said fiercely, seizing his hand. “Whatever has gone wrong can be mended.”

  For a silent instant he sat, his hand in her grip, his gaze meeting hers. What she saw there wasn’t doubt; he didn’t disbelieve in pattern. The wound he carried was of a different sort.

  Then the window closed and his hand pulled away. “Perhaps. But the only mending I’ll be doing tonight is my socks.” He dug out another two centiras and set them on either side of the cards. “For the Face and the Mask… and an apology to you. I should not have asked you to do this.”

  Money for her, when she was Alta Renata and he was struggling to keep his brother’s family fed. “I—would like to help. If I may.”

  The stairs creaked under the soft shuffle of Alinka’s slippers. “I’m sorry I took so long. Help with what?”

  She stopped at the base of the stairs, blinking in astonishment at the cards laid on the table, the coins set on either side. Ren swept them up, cards and coins alike, before Alinka could study them.

  It didn’t hide what had happened, though, and Alinka’s jaw sagged. “You let her pattern for you?”

  “I asked,” Grey said mildly.

  She turned her astonished look on Arenza, now tinged with concern. “Tell me he insulted you not.”

  “Alinka! I have better manners than that.” His aggrieved look showed no hint of what had gone before, that bitter resignation to a twisted fate. Idusza was right: The Kiraly were never without their masks.

  And Ren needed to protect her own. “I’ve stayed far too long,” Arenza said. The people in her other life would be wondering where she’d vanished to.

  Alinka frowned at the darkness showing through the window. “You will be safe going home? Perhaps Grey should—”

  “I would not trouble the captain,” Arenza said, heading off Alinka’s suggestion. “He has mending to do.”

  “And here I thought you were offering to help with that,” he murmured, amused, as he held the door open for her.

  It was a friendlier comment than she was used to hearing from him. The warmth of it stayed with her as she headed for the clothing she’d stashed under the eaves of a nearby house—until she remembered it was Arenza Lenskaya he was being friendly to.

  If he ever found out the truth, that would change faster than she could blink.
/>   7

  Sleeping Waters

  Froghole, Lower Bank: Colbrilun 35

  This time Sedge went to see Vargo by invitation. Not a fancy invitation like the ones Ren was buried under these days; just Lurets scuffing cobbles outside Sedge’s Shambles boarding house until his landlady came up and told him to make the visitor shoo before she called the hawks.

  They didn’t say nothing on the walk toward the river. Not even complaints about the stinking summer miasma rising thick from the West Channel debris caught and rotting on Froghole’s bend. Just pulled their collars up over their noses until they passed the threshold and into a building kept cool and sweet-smelling by Vargo’s numinata.

  Not that Vargo came by Froghole much these days, but the Fog Spiders still reaped some benefits from being the first knot he took over. Magic air freshening was one. Being the unofficial Charterhouse for Vargo’s business was another.

  Several of the Spiders were lounging around, cleaning weapons or fingernails or each other’s pockets in games of sixes. But there were also others: Blackrabbit Drifters, Roundabout Boys, and Moon Harpies; the new boss of the Odd Alley Gang after Premyk was fool enough to turn knot-traitor; even what was left of the Cut Ears from Lacewater, who took refuge with Vargo after their knot-traitor boss sold them out to Caerulet. Sedge spotted the colors of every knot that ever tangled with Vargo and lost.

  He met them all, stare for stare, as Nikory took over and led Sedge across the room. No chance of fighting them off if Vargo decided he wanted Sedge bloody, but leastwise he could make them think he wasn’t britch-pissing scared of it. Only once they’d entered the back office did Sedge release a shaky breath and let his fists unclench.

  Too soon, maybe. The smaller room felt even more crowded than the outer floor, the leaders of all those knots circled around like a damned Vigil inquisition. Vargo sat at the center behind his desk, Varuni at one shoulder, that spider of his perched on the other. He was the only one smiling in a sea of scowls.