The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  Giuna leaned close, peering at her. “Are you still worried?”

  “No—well, yes, but I’m sure what you said would help. It’s only…” Saying it was like slowly committing her weight to a rope, unsure if it would hold. “Twice now I’ve told you, by the way, I lied. About my finances, and now about my father. Despite that…”

  “I haven’t turned on you?” Giuna rolled her eyes. “I know; I’m a disgrace to the Traementis name. Hardly a vengeful bone in my body. But, Renata—it doesn’t bother me that you weren’t rich, or that you don’t know who your father is. The only thing that bothers me is that you haven’t felt like you can trust me with the truth.”

  Because the truth is so much bigger than you know. Stepping over a small pebble was far easier than climbing a wall. And yet…

  For the first time, Ren found herself wondering if Giuna might climb that wall after all.

  It wasn’t a decision she could make tonight, nor even tomorrow. Maybe not until after the medallions were dealt with. But the thought was there, and she hadn’t laughed it out of her own skull.

  And it made one little truth burst out. “Does family dinner have to be so dreadfully stiff?”

  Giuna blinked in surprise, then ducked her chin in embarrassment. “I was trying to make it like it used to be, back before… but we’re not who we used to be before, are we? We’re a new House Traementis. And you’re right, it is pretty dreadful. Meppe and Idaglio excusing themselves as fast as they can so they can enjoy each other’s company, Nencoral hardly saying two words—no wonder Tanaquis doesn’t join us. Yes, we can change it.”

  Renata threw her arms round her cousin for her own hug. “Thank you. For that, and so many other things.”

  Froghole, Lower Bank: Canilun 9

  Sedge was pretty sure the moons were setting in the Erassean Sea these days. Ren—his closemouthed sister, who held her secrets tighter than a mussel with its pearl—had apparently spilled everything to Vargo, the man she’d been out to destroy only a few months before. If that was possible, anything could happen.

  But the atmosphere in Vargo’s Froghole headquarters reminded him life wasn’t that easy. When Sedge arrived as summoned, all the Fog Spiders were gathered there, but nobody would look him in the eye. Not even Nikory.

  So much for forgiveness. He’d been dumb to ever wish for it. Hope Tess will avenge me proper.

  His sisters or his knot: Sedge had made his choice. He wasn’t about to let anybody see how much it made him bleed inside.

  Vargo was alone in his office; even Varuni left, shutting the door behind her. Sedge’s spine knotted with tension. The spice and grease of the noodles he’d devoured too quickly roiled uneasily in his gut. Guess we’re talking about Ren. At least Vargo was keeping that truth to himself.

  “Yeah?” Sedge said after the door shut, crossing his arms like his time had a price Vargo hadn’t paid. It was even sort of true.

  “So.” Vargo’s enigmatic stare broke into a smirk. “Sister?”

  “Oh, fuck you.” If that was how it was going to be, Sedge wasn’t going to stand around like a brown-beaked hawk. He dropped into one of Vargo’s chairs with a belligerent thrust of his chin. “Don’t go sending summons to my flophouse if all you want is to gossip like a Seven Knots gammer. I en’t one of your fists no more.”

  “I’m just recalling all those times you made moon eyes at Tess. Also your sister, I understand.”

  “To hide the truth—and if you go making moon eyes at either of them, I’ll black at least one before Varuni adds mine to her marble collection.” In spite of everything, a smile tugged at Sedge’s lips. Vargo had always kept a bit of distance between himself and his fists, but you didn’t spend years bleeding with and for another person without some level of camaraderie building up. Sedge found himself slipping into it like his favorite boots.

  The quirk of Vargo’s scarred brow questioned whether he was even capable of anything resembling moon eyes. Sedge had to admit, he couldn’t imagine it. Lust, sure; romantic goop, not so much. Vargo said, “It explains a lot. Though I’ll admit, I didn’t think you had that kind of deception in you.”

  “Learned from the best,” Sedge said curtly, and let Vargo wonder if he meant Ren or Ondrakja.

  Vargo nodded. “You have to admit, though, it creates a problem. You’ve got secrets you can’t share with a knot.”

  And there it was, as bare as the face Ren had shown Vargo. Sedge wondered if she’d considered that it weren’t just her secrets she was exposing when she confessed.

  But too late now, and the accusation cut deep. Maybe Sedge didn’t betray his knot oath when he protected Ren over Vargo on the night of Veiled Waters… but he’d broken it before that, hiding her identity when she got involved in Fog Spider business.

  He shrugged stiffly. “Don’t see how it’s a problem. I en’t sworn to a knot no more.”

  “You could be.”

  Sedge’s breath hitched as Vargo went on. “Nikory wants to tie you back in. Now that I know about Ren, you can consider your secrets duly shared.”

  It wasn’t uncommon. Knot oaths might say “no secrets between us,” but that didn’t mean everybody knew everything. The leader of a knot stood a bit higher than everybody else, and sometimes that person knew things others didn’t.

  Problem with that was, Vargo wasn’t Nikory’s knot leader. He wasn’t anybody’s—because he hadn’t tied himself to nobody.

  Forcing the word out felt like the time a bonesetter had to pull one of Sedge’s teeth, but he made himself do it. “No.”

  Vargo’s expression shuttered. No more genial comrade; Sedge was now facing the man who’d taken the Lower Bank because he didn’t take “no” from anyone. “Why not?”

  “’Cause you en’t tied into the Fog Spiders. You can’t say it’s okay to keep my secrets from a knot you en’t in. Being cut out reminded me that knot oaths mean something. Least to me, if not you.”

  Sedge almost regretted that last sentence—almost, but not quite. Because instead of getting hard or angry, that shuttered expression cracked a little. And instead of responding, Vargo sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on his desk. Sedge wondered if he was talking to the spider.

  “They mean something,” Vargo said… but nothing more.

  Long enough to make Sedge fidget and finally break the silence. “Guess that’s that.” The chair creaked as he started to rise.

  “What if I promised to keep Ren out of Fog Spider business?”

  Sedge sank back into his seat, not quite certain he’d heard right. “En’t you working with her?”

  “Not out of my business,” Vargo clarified. “But as you pointed out, I’m not a Fog Spider. Your problems come up when you have to stand in front of Nikory and your knot-mates pretending ‘Arenza Lenskaya’ is just some patterner you yanked off the street. If that stops happening—if Ren, in whatever guise, stays clear of that knot—then your sister isn’t Fog Spider business, and you’re not obliged to talk.”

  It was still a bit of a dodge. On the other hand, Vargo was sitting there offering to inconvenience himself just so Sedge could feel like he was doing right by his word.

  Vargo had secrets, too. Like that spider of his, and whatever made him want to become a cuff, and a lot of other things Sedge told Ren he didn’t want to know.

  Maybe the reason Vargo didn’t tie himself to nobody wasn’t that he didn’t respect knot oaths. Maybe it was because he did.

  In the end, it came down to what Sedge owed Nikory. He said, “I’m gonna tell Nikory there’s something I’m holding back. But that it’s your business, too. If he’s okay with that, then—yeah. I’m game.”

  “Don’t sound quite so enthusiastic,” Vargo drawled, opening a drawer and pulling out a small, shimmering vial.

  That was the moment it really hit. Because just like oaths, aža wasn’t something Sedge took lightly. His hand trembled when he reached for the vial, and he wasn’t even ashamed.

  “Go on out,” Vargo sai
d softly. “Your knot’s waiting.”

  Froghole, Lower Bank: Canilun 9

  Vargo would have preferred to wait out Sedge’s reinitiation from the shelter of his office, but most of the fists thought Nikory was tied to Vargo. It would look strange if he wasn’t present—like Vargo was ambivalent about bringing Sedge back.

  The ambivalence had nothing to do with Sedge. Watching an initiation felt like being a boy on the street again, looking through the windows of a shop or an ostretta, seeing all the things he couldn’t have.

  At least nobody would find it odd that he stationed himself at the edge of the room, lurking in the shadows. The enigmatic boss spider keeping an eye on them all.

  ::Well, now we’re certain we can trust Sedge,:: Alsius said from his own shadowy hideout in Vargo’s collar. ::How long before Nikory can make him his second, do you think?::

  That had been part of the debate over tying Sedge back in. Nikory wanted to install him right away, but Vargo pointed out that Sedge’s life would be simpler if he eased in before getting dragged to the center again. Knot memories weren’t long, but they could get tangled around issues of seniority.

  And there were a few who would always have such issues—mostly the older guard from Ertzan Scrub’s days who raised a fuss when Nikory took over and allied them with Vargo. Those people hung back now, while the younger men and women clasped hands with a grinning, aža-spun Sedge and reaffirmed their ties and oaths with a lot of teasing and good-natured insults.

  A year, maybe, Vargo replied after consideration. Depends on how things play out with the Stretsko. Assuming Andrejek recovers and can talk them down—get them out of our turf—people will remember Sedge brought us that thread. The beating Andrejek had taken in Dockwall had set those plans back, but frankly, Vargo was just as glad to have some breathing room to clean his own house first. Until he found out who in his knots was playing both sides of the river, he was just asking to be sold out again.

  ::We should ask Renata. I mean, Arenza. I mean… bother. What should I call her?::

  Vargo’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter. A few of the fists caught his smile and returned it tentatively. Let them think he was pleased at Sedge’s reinstatement, rather replying to someone they couldn’t hear. Ren for her face. Otherwise, whatever name matches the mask she’s wearing. What do you want to ask her?

  ::I’m fascinated by her claims about pattern. Perhaps she can advise us on the timing.::

  I don’t think it works like astrology, Vargo thought, straightening as Varuni approached. Getting a read on her was always tough, but the set of her shoulders said her intent was business, not a chewing out for whatever asshole thing Vargo had annoyed her with this time.

  She kept her voice low. “Arkady Bones is outside. Says she has news for your ears alone.”

  Arkady didn’t enter with her usual swagger. She stuck like a burr to Varuni, keeping the Isarnah woman between herself and the celebrating Fog Spiders, and followed Vargo into his office with none of the expected boasting or commentary on his headquarters. She barely even shrugged when he told her he’d found a possible home for Pitjin and he had some leads for a few of her other kids that needed shelter.

  “Any of your people know I was looking into your business?” she asked once they were alone and the door closed. Even then, she spoke softly.

  “It defeats the purpose of having someone outside my organization look into it if I admit that’s what they’re doing.”

  “Right. Smart,” she breathed, fiddling with the patchwork coat sleeve that hid her knot charms. “Yeah, so it’s like this. You’re gonna wanna leave here real quiet and quick. Tell ’em I came crying to you like a little baby, whatever. We just gotta get out without anyone coming with. Maybe that Isarnah. Not sure what her deal is.”

  “I trust her.”

  “Trusted your knot leaders, too, and look where that got you, porridge-brain.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nikory’s the one who marked you for the hawks.”

  Any amusement at Arkady’s skittishness chilled at those words. She was serious, and she was scared. But she’d still come into enemy territory to warn him.

  Even then, he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. “Impossible. He hates the Vigil.”

  “Fine. You stay and see if those fists out there are loyal to you or to him. But I wouldn’t take a soft bun for you, much less a knife. I’m scarpering.”

  “Not before you tell me how you found out.”

  Arkady glanced over her shoulder as if she expected Nikory to come through the door. “Visits szorsas, don’t he? People spill all kinds of things to them. He went to one all in a lather after you got nabbed, saying he din’t know what to do now.”

  Not Ren; she would have warned him. Vargo could ask for the szorsa’s name, track her down, question her… but that would mean leaving Nikory where he was. And Vargo couldn’t let that knife stay at his back any longer than he already had.

  “Scarper,” he said. “I’ll deal with this.”

  By the time Varuni brought Nikory in, Vargo was ready. He had knives to hand and ice in his heart. He didn’t enjoy killing—and he’d enjoy even less explaining the necessity to Sedge and the Fog Spiders—but you didn’t keep Lower Bank knots in line by being soft.

  Nikory came in readily, no suspicion at all. His pupils were aža-spun, a doped grin lingering in the wake of the laughter still ringing through the main room.

  Until the door closed and Varuni put her back to it, and Vargo said with no humor at all, “Have a seat.”

  Vraszenians said aža gave true visions. Vargo didn’t know if he believed that, but he didn’t doubt that it helped people make intuitive leaps over gaps too big to cross sober.

  “Fuck. You know,” Nikory whispered.

  A heartbeat later, he sank to the floor and began sobbing.

  Vargo stared at Varuni, who stared back at him, as though one of them had an explanation. Meanwhile Nikory was babbling, or trying to, between heaving sobs so harsh they shook his whole body.

  ::Vargo, this… is not normal.::

  No fucking shit. Rounding his desk, Vargo crouched next to Nikory. If this was a ruse to bring him close enough for knifing, Nikory was wasted in Froghole. He should be headlining at the Theatre Agnasce.

  “I—I—” Nikory could barely form words through the retching gasps. “I don’t even know why—it bothered me, yeah, but—I just—I couldn’t—”

  “Try breathing, then talking,” Vargo said, passing Nikory the clove-scented cloth he used on warm days when their headquarters’ old life as a fishery rose up like a ghost from the floorboards.

  After cleaning his face and catching his sobs, Nikory stared down at the soiled kerchief like a man looking at his own shroud. But when he raised his chin, his expression was unexpectedly fierce.

  “You en’t tied to us,” he said. “You pretend you are, but it’s all lies. You let folks like Sedge think you’ve got loyalty and bonds, that you’ll have our backs the way we’ve got yours—but you en’t never taken an oath. I knew that when I took over the Fog Spiders, and I was willing to live with it then, but lately—” His hand clenched hard on the handkerchief. “They deserve better than you.”

  Vargo’s voice sounded cold even to his own ears. “So you’d take my place.”

  “No! Or—I don’t know. It en’t about taking over. It’s about what we owe each other. I want them to have a real knot. If that’s the Fog Spiders on their own and your organization gone…” Nikory trailed off. In a dull, hopeless voice, he said, “I kept your secrets. Even when they wanted to know what went down with the Stretsko in Seven Knots. You know why they let me go? As a favor to you. And I walked out of there thinking, why the fuck am I being so loyal to a cuff?”

  They—not the Fog Spiders. The Ordo Apis.

  Caerulet’s stingers.

  “Nikory.” Vargo waited until the man’s eyes were on him. “This is important. Did you talk to Ghiscolo Acrenix?�
�

  Nikory nodded miserably. “Back in Colbrilun, when I went to spring Lurets from the Aerie. Acrenix told the stingers we wasn’t to be touched ’cause we’re yours.” His mouth twisted around the last word like he’d tasted something foul.

  ::You don’t think—::

  I very much do.

  ::But whatever he used on you seemed more Quinat’s domain. This feels like Sessat.::

  Sessat, the strength of the many, the numen of friendship and organizations. What Vargo had felt was Quinat: the hand that holds the world, the numen of individual power and personal achievement. Something tells me Ghiscolo’s gone farther into his research than we suspected.

  But Praeteri numinata didn’t make something out of nothing. Willing to live with it, Nikory had said. That wasn’t the same as being happy about it. And hadn’t that been the crux of Vargo’s conversation with Sedge?

  He’d called Nikory in here expecting to ask someone to carry the body out. But Nikory’s accusation was a fair one—and as for the decision to act on it…

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Vargo’s words fell like lead into the silence, calling Ninat to the last of Nikory’s hitched sobs.

  Nikory stared like Vargo had just turned into a fish. “You take aža with the rest of us when I wasn’t looking? I tipped the Vigil to the Lacewater meet. I can’t explain why—”

  “I can. Acrenix did something to you. It’s probably still there. I know.” Sinking back against his desk, Vargo scrubbed at his face. “He did something similar to me. That’s why I told you and the others to question any orders I gave about taking Sostira Novrus down.” He tensed to resist the impulse—

  —but it didn’t hit like he expected.

  Still there, sure; the thought of himself in Argentet’s seat still looked like a good one. But it wasn’t clutching at his throat the way it had before.

  A whispered curse broke that distraction. It came from Varuni, and when Vargo glanced up, even her stony mask couldn’t hide her alarm. Possibly I should have told her about that.