The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  “Gulša,” Yvieny breathed in admiration. For an instant she sounded like Ren as a child, marveling over some street magician’s tricks. Keeping her hand well away from the teeth that had caught her eye, she gave his rump a tentative pat. “I bet he could chomp through a whole cone of honey stones.”

  “Like that,” Tess agreed with a click of her fingers.

  Now that the tension had broken, Yvieny was happy to take over explaining to her mother and brother that, see, Meatball was sweet. Meatball was harmless. Meatball could viciously maul people and chomp their legs off, but only if they were enemies. This last was accompanied by much snapping of her jaws.

  Tess stood, dusting off her skirts, and stepped back to stand by Donaia. Who studied her and said, “You seem familiar with Alwyddian wolfhounds. Did you have them back home?”

  “Me?” Tess’s incredulous laugh earned her an arched brow. She swallowed the rest and kept her eyes downcast. “No, Era Traementis. Wolfhounds and red-points were bred for princes. But we did have a few hearth mutts with a smidge of the blood.” The memory of those rawboned old hounds had kept Tess from fearing dogs the way most of Ondrakja’s Fingers did. She never could convince Ren or Sedge they weren’t all bad.

  “There’s a merchant out of Ganllech who’s gotten his hands on a pair of braches,” Donaia said. “He wants Meatball to act as stud for them. He’s offered a pup from the first litter, in addition to a fee.”

  “That’s a royal gift.” Old Ganllechyn law had required a prince’s edict for anyone else to own one.

  Donaia made a pleased sound. “I’d need to leave Meatball here for the breeding. And I’d prefer to have the braches stay at the manor until the puppies are weaned. But it’s clear Suilis doesn’t have the temperament for it. Could I trust you?”

  “It would be a genuine pleasure,” Tess said. “And I’ll help with the new puppies.”

  That thought put a bounce in her step as she left Yvieny trying to ride the endlessly patient Meatball and went to lay out clothing for Renata’s appointment with Meda Capenni that afternoon.

  But the bounce went dead as she went into Renata’s bedroom and found Suilis inside.

  “There you are!” Suilis said brightly. “And good, you’ve gotten rid of that beast. I wanted to ask what you have planned for your next day off. I was thinking…”

  Tess kept a sunny smile up as the other maid nattered on about Nadežra’s summer diversions, but underneath it was winter’s ice.

  Suilis ought to have been helping with the decorations for the upcoming Traementis adoption ball, not looking for Tess. Not using me as an excuse to snoop in Alta Renata’s rooms.

  She was spying. Tess had been right to suspect her.

  The next time they walked the dog, she might just let Meatball terrorize Suilis. But more importantly, she would find out who that snoop was working for, and why.

  Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

  The boards of the staircase creaked in protest under Grey’s heavy tread. Masks have mercy, but he was tired. Dockwall had been a success, on all fronts; the Anduske were stowed in a safe house of Vargo’s, with no one the wiser. And seeing Grey and the Rook in separate places at the same time should put any suspicions Ren might harbor to permanent rest.

  But Dockwall was also the latest in a string of very late nights. He didn’t remember the last time he’d gotten so much as four hours of unbroken sleep. Even when he snatched a brief rest during the day, it was too easy for some idiot or another to bang on his office door and wake him up.

  So he came home. Alinka wouldn’t begrudge him an afternoon nap in her bed, and with any luck, nobody from the Aerie would look for him here.

  Yvie was sitting quietly for once, working on a simple button knot charm with tongue-biting intensity. Jagyi was under the table, playing some game known only to him. After an exchange of growls with Jagyi and a kiss dropped onto Yvie’s hair, Grey headed up the stairs.

  The door at the top was closed. Grey elbowed it open, saying, “Alinka, if you mind not—”

  “Shhhh!” Alinka shot into view, simultaneously gesturing for him to keep his voice down and at the bed behind her.

  Where Arenza lay asleep, half-curled on her side, one hand flat beneath her cheek.

  The sight threw him almost as badly as the day he had come into the house and found her at the kitchen table. Now she was asleep in the bed?

  Alinka hustled him back out onto the landing and eased the door shut. “What’s she doing here?” Grey demanded.

  “Sleeping,” Alinka said tartly. “She claimed she wasn’t tired—pfah! As if she could fool a healer. With her head on the kitchen table I caught her, ‘just resting her eyes.’ If she spent half as much time sleeping as pretending she’s fine, she’d be much better off.”

  Grey was used to ignoring Alinka’s pointed looks; he shrugged this one off with ease. “I myself hoped to rest,” he said. It came out sounding more plaintive than he intended.

  “That is wise,” Alinka said, softening. “You can sleep in the children’s truckle bed.”

  He swallowed a protest before it could burst free. The truckle bed? He’d have to fold himself in half to fit into that thing. Arenza was several inches shorter than he was; why couldn’t she have taken the smaller bed?

  An absurd question, and Alinka would smack him if he voiced it. “I’ll sleep in the chair,” Grey said sourly. He couldn’t afford to forgo the rest.

  “As you please.” Alinka edged past him on the narrow stairs. “I’ll make sure the children stay quiet.”

  When she was gone, Grey rested his forehead against the door, cursing silently. Then he went inside.

  Arenza hadn’t shifted a muscle. Either she was feigning sleep so she could observe what he did, or she really was out cold. Grey’s money was on the latter. She knew how to use cosmetics to hide the weary lines, the circles under her eyes… but with her face slack in repose, the exhaustion was plain. He couldn’t have turfed her out of the bed even with Alinka’s blessing.

  Grey knew all too well the strain of maintaining a double life, but he’d also come to know her. Whatever troubled her sleep was more than just her ongoing deception. It was only by comparison that she looked better rested than she had during her nine nights of sleeplessness after the Night of Hells. He wished he could prod her into seeking help, as he had then.

  Prod. A kind word for frightening her into a complete breakdown. The memory of her shivering helplessness that night dragged at his conscience and made him wish all the more that he could help her now, by kinder means. Captain Serrado’s relationship with Alta Renata didn’t permit such familiarity, though.

  Would she accept it from the Rook?

  That wasn’t a question he could answer today. Sighing, Grey contemplated the chair. If he put his feet up, it wouldn’t be too bad. And she’d been considerate enough to curl up so the lower half of the bed was empty.

  He moved the chair into position, setting it down as silently as possible. Then he pulled off his boots and stockings and shrugged out of his uniform coat, rolling up his sleeves in the room’s heavy warmth. Serve her right if I broke into her house and went to sleep in her bed.

  Thoughts like that were hardly conducive to rest. Sighing again, he settled in, propping his feet on the empty corner of the straw-stuffed mattress and laying his head on the back of the chair. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but he’d slept in worse. His eyes drifted closed.

  He jolted out of a half doze with the sensation of falling, splaying his hands to catch himself. But he was safe in the chair. The sunlight had drifted less than an hour’s span across the floor. As for the noise that had awoken him…

  Ren was having a nightmare. Half-choked sounds slipped between her lips, and her limbs twitched, reacting to something in her dream. The tendons in her neck drew tight as her jaw clenched and released.

  His first instinct was to wake her. His second was to consider how dangerous that might be. He doubted she was the
type to wake gently under the best of circumstances, and if she escaped a nightmare’s grip only to find him looming over her, that might frighten her worse.

  “Arenza,” he said. Quietly at first; then a bit louder, without result. However good she was at masquerades, he wasn’t sure even she would respond to an assumed name in her sleep.

  So: either shake her awake, or let her keep dreaming. She’d folded the knife-laden shawl he’d given her between herself and the wall, probably to keep Yvie from finding the blades. No other weapons within immediate reach, not that he could see. Which didn’t really mean anything… but oh well. He was a Vigil captain, not to mention the city’s most notorious outlaw. If he couldn’t defend himself against a half-asleep woman armed with nothing worse than a knife, he should return the hood to Ryvček permanently instead of merely loaning it for a few bells.

  Kneeling so he presented as minimal a threat as possible, Grey reached out and shook her knee.

  She came awake swinging, as expected. But she punched like she fenced, more instinct than training. Only when her nails came near his face did he catch her wrists. “Arenza! It’s all right. Only a dream.”

  Her eyes focused on his face. “Grey.”

  She breathed it like a prayer. His grip eased on her wrists, cradling them like two fragile birds. She’d never used his name before. As Arenza or Renata, she always called him “Captain Serrado.” But the shift wasn’t a calculated decision, some part of her masquerade. For one suspended moment, she saw him, and he saw her.

  Not Arenza or Renata or the Black Rose, but Ren. Her true face.

  “I’m here,” he said. The words were rougher than they should have been, snagging on the tangle of feelings welling up inside. I just moved the moons to deceive her. I don’t deserve to see this.

  He released her as she slumped, letting her sink back onto the mattress. She lay there for several heartbeats, damp with sweat, gaze skittering back and forth as if she were trying to gather up the frayed threads of her composure. He wanted to stroke the hair from her face, but he reined the impulse in. The kindest thing he could do was to wait in silence, giving no hint that he’d seen her come apart.

  “I’m sorry.” Ren’s apology came out a rasp. Her throat worked as she swallowed, a brief hitch in the rapid pulse of her breath. “I—I hope I hit you not.”

  She spoke in Vraszenian. When Alta Renata Viraudax Traementatis woke in the night, did she remember to speak with the clipped accent of a Seterin noblewoman? “I train with Oksana Ryvček,” he said, striving to sound unaffected. “I managed.”

  His weak attempt at banter called forth no response. Asking felt like presumption, but seeing her like this made his heart ache. “Would it help to talk about it?”

  She managed a small shrug. “A nightmare. At least for once it was not zlyzen.”

  Masks knew she had enough terrors to haunt her dreams. The Night of Hells. Gammer Lindworm. The Rook himself, ambushing her when she was half-insane with lack of sleep.

  She hauled herself upright with the kind of slow, weary movement he recognized all too well. If she’d been alone, she probably would have groaned. “Alinka browbeat me into lying down—I meant to take a few minutes only, to satisfy her. What time is it?”

  When he told her, she shot to her feet with a good deal more energy and snatched up the shawl, flinging it around her shoulders, stuffing her feet into her boots. What engagement of Alta Renata’s had she just slept through? He simply nodded at the mumbled excuse she gave, and then she was gone, down the stairs in a clatter. Alinka’s startled voice rose up through the floorboards. A few moments later the door banged shut below, and Grey sank onto the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands.

  Soon after, he heard Alinka’s tread on the stairs. “I roused her not,” he said, the words muffled by his palms. “She woke on her own. And woke me.”

  “So she said.” Alinka laid one hand on his shoulder. “You too are tired. You have no peace sleeping in your office. Truly, you could stay here.”

  It was a conversation they’d repeated all too often since Kolya died. But now, thanks to Ren, there might be a solution. “How went the meeting with Era Traementis?”

  “Well,” Alinka said. “With the dog Jagyi is a little shy, but Yvie—”

  “Has a new pony,” Grey guessed, and smiled at Alinka’s fond but long-suffering nod. “Let’s just hope she teaches him no bad habits around biting.” Then a yawn overtook him. “Wake me at sunset?”

  “I will.” Alinka eased the door shut behind her, and the room was quiet.

  He lay down with a weary groan. The bed was warm where Arenza had lain, and the pillow held traces of her scent. His palms tingled with the memory of her wrists, that moment when they lay loose and trusting in his hands.

  Hoping he might see her again soon—and knowing the wish was foolish—Grey went back to sleep.

  Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

  Ren’s steps slowed as she left the Serrado house. There was no point in rushing; she couldn’t possibly make it to the Charterhouse on time for her appointment in Fulvet’s office, which meant his secretary wouldn’t let her in.

  But it had been so good to sleep peacefully for a little while. While the nightmares still found her eventually, they’d been blessedly zlyzen-free. Alinka had laid a red thread around the bed for her children, and whether it was magic or just the comfort of a familiar charm, it had helped. Even waking to find Grey there hadn’t been the source of fear it would have been, not that long ago. The sight of him had brought a sense of calm—of safety. He might not be the Rook, but she’d come to enjoy his company.

  Be honest with yourself, if with no one else. You more than enjoy it.

  Not just the chance to be Vraszenian. Alinka and the children gave her that, or Koszar and Idusza, even if Ren could never shed the awareness that she was pretending to a legitimacy she didn’t have.

  But Grey… there was more to him than just the dutiful hawk. He had a wry sense of humor that rarely showed when he was in uniform, and it called the same out of her. She laughed more around him, and more sincerely, than anywhere else.

  If she were smarter, she would stop visiting their house at all. But she couldn’t deny herself that chance to live a more comfortable lie.

  Ren was so lost in thought that she had to swallow a yelp when a man stepped up to block her way. A second yelp tried to follow when she recognized him: Nikory, the leader of Vargo’s Fog Spiders. And when she reflexively glanced over her shoulder for an escape, she found two others behind her.

  Nikory said, “Lenskaya. Vargo wants another word with you.”

  Froghole, Lower Bank: Lepilun 27

  The worst five words for a fist to hear were boss wants to see you. Yet Sedge welcomed them when Lurets showed up at the door of his boarding house. Wouldn’t drop a word about what Vargo wanted, but after the cock-up in Lacewater—a cock-up Sedge had deliberately missed, which was cause enough for Vargo to suspect him—a friendly face delivering the message said that Vargo only had questions.

  His confidence took a hit, though, when Lurets brought him through the Froghole headquarters and into a back room that held Vargo, Varuni, Nikory…

  And Ren.

  He couldn’t hide his surprise and didn’t bother trying. Instead, he let it dribble into confusion. “You brought me here to get patterned?”

  At least Ren didn’t look hurt beyond a bit of mussing. Tense, yes, and no wonder; it was sheer fucking stupidity for her to be in front of Vargo as Arenza again. Which meant this meeting was Vargo’s idea, not hers. How had he nabbed her? Sedge remembered what Tess had told him, how often Ren was sneaking off to Kingfisher to spend time with Serrado’s family. Might be Vargo had caught wind of it, too.

  Vargo snorted at his question. “Does this look like a patterner’s shop to you? No, this is just a meeting between old friends. You said you didn’t know where to find the szorsa, so I found her for you.” He leaned his elbows on his desk, lips restin
g against steepled fingers. “Unfortunately, she’s being… less than forthcoming. Almost like she has something to hide.”

  Ren had plenty and then some to hide. “What’re you trying to ask her?” And why am I here for it?

  “Lacewater,” Vargo said. “Someone betrayed that meeting. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t the Anduske. That leaves the go-betweens. You… and Szorsa Arenza here. She claims she didn’t know about the meeting. Convenient, don’t you think? I’d love to hear more.”

  Something dropped in the pit of Sedge’s stomach as Vargo lounged back in his chair, tugging his cuffs straight. “You’re going to loosen her tongue.”

  He knew immediately what Vargo was saying. But he asked anyway, because horror made him disbelieve. “You don’t mean—”

  “Work her over, Sedge. I know you know how.”

  Out in the street, someone was having a shouting match. It sounded like it was a thousand leagues away. There was only this room, and Ren in a chair, and Vargo waiting for him to beat her bloody.

  Stall. He had to stall. Give Ren time to get them out of this without giving them away. “Why me? There’s a half dozen others still tied in who could do it as good.” No. Wait. Don’t give Vargo ideas about having some other fist hurt her. “But you brought me in. What’s your game?”

  “My game,” Vargo said softly, “is that I want information, and I want you to get it. You don’t need to know more.”

  Sedge could guess without being told. Tests of loyalty were meant to be hard. Ondrakja had taught him that, using Ren and Tess. She’d taught his sisters the same lesson using him.

  He cracked his knuckles. Not threat; habit. He looked to Nikory, Varuni, even Lurets, but there was no help from them. And Ren…

  Ren was braced in the chair, but not afraid. Because she knew Sedge wouldn’t do it? Because she was ready to take it? Could be either, and he couldn’t ask her. They were too out of practice from their days of working together against Ondrakja—only they’d never had to do this, because Ondrakja was careful not to push them that far.