Isla Traementis, the Pearls: Canilun 3
Light and music still drifted from the windows of Traementis Manor, though the crowd of carriages out front had thinned. The upheavals of the evening hadn’t prevented Nadežra’s elite from enjoying themselves late into the night.
Ren was cautious as she entered the side garden overlooked by her balcony, but there was no sign of any guests having migrated there in search of privacy. Her windows were dark, signaling to all the world that Alta Renata was asleep. The moons shed enough light for her to make her way silently through the flowerbeds and trees.
Not enough to keep her from almost tripping over the dark figure on the ground beneath her balcony.
The Rook roused at her choked-off cry of surprise. He shoved himself up with his elbows, then with his fists, but made it no further than sitting. “Good. You came down. I was about to climb up. How late is it?” Exhaustion threaded through his voice, and the hood dipped and swayed like a drunkard’s as he took in the dark garden around them, the moons headed for the horizon. “Too late. Fuck. It might be too late.”
Ren crouched at his side. If he’d been too dazed to notice her approaching along the ground, instead of from above—“Too late for what? And what happened to you?”
“Beldipassi. There’s no time. Help me stand.” But even as his gloved hand landed on her shoulder, shaking and too heavy, he slumped against the manor wall like a man who’d given up. “There’s… no time.”
“Rimbon Beldipassi? He’s in trouble?” Ren wasn’t sure how to measure the health of a man cloaked in shadow, but she didn’t need to be a physician to know the Rook was unwell. “Or he hurt you?”
His laugh creaked like a gallows rope. “Ambushed, on my way to meet him. They’re going after him next. Garden of his house. Pomcaro Canal, in Eastbridge. I need… You need to help him.”
That was clear enough. Whatever was wrong with him, the Rook was in no state to be doing anything. Ren had the Black Rose’s mask in her pocket—but when she drew it out, the Rook caught her wrist.
“No,” he said. “Beldipassi expects the Rook. Won’t talk to anyone else.”
Ren went still. Given time, she could assemble a Rook costume; people wore such things to parties, thinking it made them daring. But he’d said it himself: There was no time.
His hand rose—then hesitated, trembling. “No questions. I’ll explain later. Don’t waste time. The hood will help.”
She wanted to tell him to stop, that she’d given up on guessing, that she didn’t want to know. But before she could find the words, he dug his fingers into the wool.
It was like watching her own transformation from the outside. The black leather and silk and wool poured off his body, draining upward into the hood. In the shadows of the garden, the blue fabric of his coat was almost as dark.
She knew, even before it finished. Even before he lifted his head and extended one shaking hand, offering the hood to her.
Grey.
“Go,” he whispered.
His strength was fading. When she took the hood, his head fell back against the wall, eyes sliding shut in a grimace of pain.
Grey Serrado. And he looked like he was dying.
But he’d begged her to go.
She pulled the hood on, and went.
Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 3
Ren wasn’t alone.
The hood might work like her mask, but there was far more to it. Her steps were unnaturally silent as she ran; when she dropped from the top of the Traementis Manor wall, the impact was cat-soft. The shadowed streets and canals unfolded their secrets to her eyes.
And there was… something there. Not a thing she could converse with, the way Vargo did with Alsius, but a presence nonetheless. The Rook was more than just the men and women who’d played that role; it was the hood and the coat and all the components that made up the disguise, all coming together to form something greater than the assemblage of parts.
It was aware of Ren.
And it did not accept her.
I’m on your side, she thought fiercely as she slipped southward toward Beldipassi’s house. I’m trying to help.
No answer. She didn’t expect one. But nothing fought her, either, and so she went on. Trying not to think about Grey, about the fact that she’d been right and he’d somehow tricked her. Trying not to think about the fact that he was dying.
She could feel it, distantly, like the resonance of a harp string next to the one plucked. She might wear the hood, but he was the Rook’s bearer. And something connected them still—something weakening badly, now that the two had been separated.
Ren had to finish this, fast. Before it was too late for him.
But she also had to be careful. Ren’s steps slowed as she neared the Pomcaro Canal, with Beldipassi’s manor up ahead. The streets were deserted—
Not quite. Someone crouched on a balcony, with a good view of Beldipassi’s garden and the northern approaches.
At the sight, a tension built in the Rook. Ren could translate it well enough. I won’t kill, she promised.
And she didn’t have to. When the Rook had used his coat to conceal her and Vargo in Dockwall, she’d seen three darts tucked into a reinforced inner pocket. It wasn’t hard for Ren to climb the building and get above the watcher. He had a crossbow in his hands, but he wasn’t looking up; one quick flick sent the dart into his shoulder. A moment later he slumped.
Where there was one, there might be more. Despite the urgency, she circled south and found another watcher there. Only those two; any other traps must be inside Beldipassi’s garden.
Grey’s worries of too late, too late haunted her as she approached and heard voices. She recognized Beldipassi’s. The other sounded familiar—bombast toned down to a whisper—and too large for his garden stage. “I don’t mean to rush you, Mede Beldipassi, but you should know I’m not often one to give command performances.”
As Ren levered onto the garden wall and caught a glimpse of the speaker, the urgency driving her flickered with an impulse to laugh.
“Yes, yes, sorry.” Beldipassi’s ornate lounging robe of silver-shot brocade caught the light of both near-full moons, making him an easy beacon to see in the dark. He twisted the sash in his hands. “It’s just… I expected you to be… different.”
“If you’re hoping I’d flirt with you, I’m afraid I save that for lovely women.” The false Rook sauntered closer, tugging Beldipassi’s sash from his hands and using it to draw him closer. “Now, you’ve teased me enough. Shall we get to it?”
She knew her own entrance cue when she heard it. With a very satisfying flutter of the coat, Ren vaulted down into the garden.
“By all means,” she said. “Let’s get to it.”
She heard her words in a double layer: her own familiar voice, and the deeper tones of the Rook. Beldipassi yelped, tried to retreat, and stepped on the hem of his robe, tumbling unceremoniously onto his ass. The false Rook also backed away, but he managed to keep his feet.
“You—” he said, and for a moment his voice wasn’t nearly so deep and resonant. Then he regrouped. “An imposter!”
Ren laughed. “Really? That’s your line? Though I suppose you don’t have any better option, at this point.”
“Ah, but isn’t a point always an option?” the false Rook cried, drawing his sword and setting himself between Ren and Beldipassi. Sotto voce to the man behind him, he hissed, “You should hand it over to me before this thief tries to make off with it. Or with you. Or with your life.”
“But th-the Rook doesn’t kill,” Beldipassi said, scuttling backward and casting confused looks between the two hooded figures.
“Yes,” the false Rook explained patiently. “Which is why you’re safe with me and not with this charlatan.”
Ren rolled her eyes before remembering no one would be able to see it. The Rook’s sword had come along with the gloves and boots and coat; she drew it and took a stance, point dipped low. “I don’t have ti
me to waste on this.”
“Then let us end it!” the false Rook said triumphantly, and leapt forward.
She didn’t bother parrying. Based on the voice and the behavior, she suspected she knew whom she faced; sure enough, his flashy swings were too far away to really threaten her. She retreated one step, two—then caught his blade with her own, binding it against her quillon. A simple twist of her wrist sent his sword clattering to the gravel of the path, and she followed up with a hilt-punch to his face.
This time the false Rook did go down. And his hood, unlike the real one, slipped off his head.
She might not be able to win against Grey or Vargo… but against an actor from the Theatre Agnasce, her skill was more than sufficient.
“Give me that,” she said, yanking Beldipassi’s sash free of its loops, then roughly binding the actor’s hands and feet like a market hog. His nose dripped blood into the garden dirt. The sense of a thread ever unraveling robbed Ren of any delight in her victory: Every moment wasted here was another moment Grey wasted away.
It made her words to Beldipassi curt. “Someone found out about this meeting. Enough to ambush me and try to get to you. Just what do you have, Mede Beldipassi, that so many dangerous people are interested in it?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, hand dipping into the deep pocket of his robe. “I hoped you could tell me. Because you’re so old. I mean, the Rook is. And you’re the Rook, right?”
With another confused glance at the bound man bleeding on a cluster of marigolds, Beldipassi pulled out a wad of white silk and began unwrapping it. “I collect things, you know. Like my exhibition. I found this old numinatrian piece. It’s special. I mean, all the things I collect are special, but this…”
The last corner of silk fell away, revealing an antiquated-looking gold medallion, many-sided and etched with a sigil in archaic Enthaxn script at the center.
A medallion very much like one Ren had seen before.
As had the Rook.
She couldn’t have reached for it if she wanted to. Her muscles were locked tight by that wordless presence—by the simultaneous awareness that this was the poison the Rook existed to fight… and that Ren herself had held such poison, not long ago.
“Illi. For beginnings. I thought it would bring my endeavors luck, but…” Beldipassi’s whisper grew hoarse with fear. “I think it does more than that.”
The medallion she’d stolen along with the rest of Letilia’s jewelry when she fled Ganllech had been cast in bronze and etched with Tricat instead of Illi, but otherwise it was identical: the many-edged sides, the flat silhouette, the minute signs of wear that spoke of great antiquity.
Gammer Lindworm had torn it from Ren’s neck in the nightmare. Ren had returned the favor at the amphitheatre when she pulled the knot charm loose. So far as she knew, it was still there.
The pressure in her head eased slightly. Because I don’t have it anymore, Ren realized. But—the Rook was right to suspect me.
Now wasn’t the time to ask the thousand questions swarming in her throat. She wasn’t the real Rook; that man was dying in the gardens of Traementis Manor. Ren folded the white silk back over the medallion, careful not to touch it, and closed Beldipassi’s hand around it. “You’re right to be afraid. People have tried to kill me tonight because of this. They may well try to kill you, too.”
She thought fast while Beldipassi whimpered. The actor must have been sent to lure him into handing over the medallion. If he failed, there would be a backup plan. But how could she protect Beldipassi and Grey alike?
Ren pivoted and crouched over the actor. Fontimi, that was his name—the one she’d kissed at the theatre. She let her shadow fall across him, and knew the intimidation was working when he cringed against the gravel. “Fontimi. Whoever hired you for tonight won’t be pleased with your failure. You have two choices: find out whether their displeasure is lethal, or go with Beldipassi to safety.”
“What safety?” Beldipassi yelped as Fontimi nodded vigorously.
Not Traementis Manor. If the Rook had hiding places, she didn’t know where. She could only trust her instincts, and the picture that logic was swiftly assembling in the back of her mind.
“Isla Stresla, in Kingfisher,” she said. “Oksana Ryvček’s house. Tell her the Rook sent you.”
The Pearls and Eastbridge: Canilun 3
She ran back north.
Stealth be hanged; it would hardly be the first time the Rook had been spotted on the Upper Bank. Only when Ren neared Traementis Manor did caution reassert itself. She eased over the garden wall, praying to Čel Kariš Tmekra that she wasn’t too late.
Grey was where she’d left him, slumped against the wall. His chest barely moved, but he still lived.
With the Rook enhancing her sight, she saw now what she’d missed before: lines arcing up from his collar and across his face. Ren dragged his coat and shirt open and saw they continued downward onto his chest; when she pushed his sleeve up, she found them on his arm.
Lines like numinatria—except these shifted as she watched, sliding beneath his skin like worms.
Ren dragged the hood off, a gasp shuddering out of her as the Rook went away. There was magic of every kind worked into the components of his disguise. Not just imbuing and numinatria—a combination she’d have to think about later—but something like pattern, too, like the threads she’d seen that night in the amphitheatre. Outside the dream, she couldn’t see or manipulate them, but she hoped that restoring the hood to Grey would do some good.
He didn’t stir, though. Not even after the Rook lay before her again, shadowed and unreadable.
“Come on,” Ren whispered, gripping his shoulders. “You have to tell me what happened to you. How do I fix this?”
An ambush, he’d said. Some kind of numinatria.
Tanaquis. But she’d left for that Praeteri ritual—would she be back in Whitesail by now? Or Ren could try the temple—
No. It would take too long, with no certainty of finding Tanaquis in either place, and too much risk of the Praeteri. Grey couldn’t survive that kind of mistake.
That left only one inscriptor.
Despite the horror of Grey dying beneath her hands, Ren bit down on a hysterical laugh. It was all well and good to believe that Vargo regretted hurting her… but that didn’t answer all her other questions about him. Let alone what would happen if she showed up on his doorstep with Grey Serrado.
None of that matters. She would kiss the ground Vargo walked on if that was what it took to make him help.
But Ren couldn’t run all the way to his townhouse carrying an unconscious man. She pulled the hood off Grey; then, on further consideration, she wrestled with his Vigil coat until it came free. No sense making him any more identifiable than he had to be.
She stuffed the coat under a bush and went out into the plaza. By now the ball had ended, but the lights at the front of the manor hadn’t been extinguished yet; to her relief, two chair bearers still waited in the hope of one last passenger. Ren dug in her pocket, finding the money she’d taken to Whitesail in case she needed to bribe anyone, and shoved it at the larger of the pair.
“I have a sick man who needs transportation to Eastbridge,” she said, remembering at the last instant to use her Seterin accent. “This is for the journey—and your discretion.”
For almost a forro in assorted coins, they were delighted to comply. They loaded Grey’s unconscious body into the chair, and Ren jogged alongside as they threaded a path across the bridges and canals of the Upper Bank to the Isla Čaprila.
At her direction, they left the chair at the base of the steps and retreated to a respectful distance while Ren pounded on the door. She dragged herself back into persona just in time for Varuni to open the door.
The set of the bodyguard’s shoulders wasn’t promising. “It’s late, Alta Renata. Eret Vargo is in bed.” And not interested in seeing you, her tone implied.
“Wake him,” Renata said. “Please. I would
n’t trouble him if it weren’t urgent. I know he has no reason to help me—I know I’ve given him every reason not to—and I’ll owe him whatever he likes afterward, but—”
Varuni stepped aside, and Vargo appeared in her place. It was clear he’d been listening from just out of sight; his gaze was level and unreadable. “It must be something urgent indeed, to bring you to my door.”
Even apologies might be a luxury she couldn’t afford right now. Renata simply descended the steps and flung open the door of the sedan chair. The light from Vargo’s front hall spilled in, showing Grey’s slumped form.
“He’s dying,” she said. “And it’s some kind of numinatria. Please.”
She expected questions, and had a lie waiting on the tip of her tongue.
Vargo only said, “Let’s get him inside.”
Eastbridge, Upper Bank: Canilun 3
“There’s a lounging couch in my bedroom. Drag it into my study,” Vargo called to Renata as he backed up the stairs, hugging Serrado’s torso while Varuni carried his feet.
Peabody hopped onto the man’s chest, trying to nudge his shirt open wider. ::We’ll need to strip him to see the full shape of the curse. Strange that it hasn’t settled.::
Strange, and lucky, Vargo thought. A curse that had fully dug in wouldn’t have left such obvious traceries.
Together he and Varuni hauled Serrado’s limp weight onto the couch. Vargo said, “Get the restoratives—anything we can pour down his throat. Renata, how long ago did this happen? What happened? Anything you can tell me might help.”
::Anything she keeps back could hurt,:: Alsius added as Vargo checked Serrado’s pulse. It was too faint to feel, but a weak, rattling breath confirmed that the man wasn’t dead yet.
I don’t know why she came to me for help, he told Alsius, but I’m not going to scare her off with something that sounds like a threat.
“I… I’m not certain,” Renata said. The lack of conviction sounded odd, from a woman whose usual tone was cool silk over steel. “I brought him immediately after finding him in the garden, but he might have been there for a while. Perhaps an hour?”
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