The Mask of Mirrors M. Carrick; (classic novels to read txt) 📖

on the canopy overhead, amethyst silk imported from Arthaburi. “Are you going to ask me? Or are you going to keep playing this out?”

The question roused Vargo from his own languor. “Ask you?”

“Whatever it was you wanted on the Night of Bells. When you sent Fadrin to tell me how talented—and interested—you were.” Rolling his head to the side, Iascat fixed clear blue eyes on Vargo. “I’m not my aunt, but I am her heir, and I wasn’t scribed into the register yesterday.”

“Ah.” It had seemed like a remarkably easy seduction. Vargo should have realized that wasn’t entirely due to his charms and Iascat’s hunger.

“It’s fine.” Iascat waved away an apology Vargo hadn’t intended to give. “It was nice to pretend for a while.”

He was too flip, too studied in his casualness. Iascat might know the game, but the flush in his cheeks and flutter beneath the love-bites down his throat suggested that he was holding out for a denial.

The only kindness Vargo could offer now was honesty. He might gain more by pretending ignorance and reeling Iascat along, but… “Caerulet.”

Iascat failed to hide his flinch. Vargo sat up and pulled the sheets over his lap, annoyed more at himself for being soft than at Iascat for inciting that moment of sentimentality. “I know House Novrus has no love for Mettore Indestor. I hoped to convince you that it would be mutually beneficial to share some of the secrets you keep.”

Iascat pushed himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed. Tiny moles speckled the ivory skin of his back, like Vargo had spattered him with Froghole mud. “If you think my aunt isn’t already using all the information she has to fight him, you’re not as cunning as gossip suggests.” He rose, collecting the clothing strewn across the floor.

“I think there are avenues available to me that your aunt can’t use.”

“Like fucking someone’s heir?” Iascat yanked his breeches up. “Good luck with that. You’re not Mezzan’s type.”

There was a hint of something useful there, underneath the acrimony. “Oh? And what is Mezzan’s type?”

When Iascat’s fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his waistcoat, Vargo rose up to his knees and touched the man’s hip. After a moment of hesitation, Iascat turned back to face him and let Vargo handle the buttons. “Until recently, I would have said bitchy society girls.”

He could be referring to Marvisal, but Vargo didn’t think so. “Sibiliat Acrenix,” he said, grateful Alsius was pointedly absent from his thoughts. House Coscanum might rule Nadežran society, but Acrenix was everyone’s friend. A solid alliance between that house and Indestor would be devastating. “What changed?”

“He met a girl. A Vraszenian girl. A seditionist. With friends in the Stadnem Anduske.”

Vargo had enjoyed himself a bit too much; it softened his self-control, and he scoffed in disbelief. Iascat reacted with sudden anger, tangling his fingers in Vargo’s hair and gripping hard. “I’m not making that up. He’s been sneaking off to meet her since before the new year. Leato Traementis found out. Convenient, don’t you think, that he can’t share that information with anyone now?”

Vargo studied Iascat’s face, but his skin was too fair, his eyes too clear, to easily hide deception. “And your aunt hasn’t used this because…”

“Because it’s not terribly useful as leverage if Mezzan’s doing it on his father’s orders.” Iascat released him and sat in a nearby armchair to tug on his boots. “Which I think he is. Mezzan likes a good armful, but he isn’t enough of a rebel to go against his father by playing house with a Vraszenian radical. It only makes sense if he’s deliberately stirring them up. But until we know to what end, it’s just idle gossip.”

Vargo ran through the other strands of knowledge he’d gathered, trying to connect them. Ash production in the Froghole lace mill. The Night of Hells. The lengths Caerulet had gone to so that Renata would be at the Charterhouse, and the chaos that had followed there. The warning from that morning—that Indestor was planning to unleash some sort of magic. Something catastrophic.

“Does your aunt have a patterner named Lenskaya working for her?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

Vargo shook his head. No surprise that Iascat didn’t know all the secrets his aunt kept, but it bothered him all the same. Why would Lenskaya point him at Novrus if she wasn’t working for them?

He should have sent more than a single fist to follow the szorsa. But hopefully Dneče would have some useful information for him, once Vargo finished up here.

Iascat swept up his coat and shoved his arms into it. “I trust that information is adequate payment for services,” he said, struggling to pull on his gloves.

Vargo hid a smile. Iascat was too hurt and angry for the insult to hold any sting. He slid from the bed, trailing one hand down his chest so those wide, earnest eyes couldn’t help but follow. “Didn’t you listen before? ‘Mutually beneficial’ means ongoing.”

Iascat offered no resistance when Vargo took his hand and helped him work his fingers into his gloves. “The longer this goes on, the more likely it is my aunt will decide to put an end to… it.”

You. Vargo knew what Iascat’s warning meant. It had always been a calculated risk, going this route. His protection lay in the fact that everyone already expected the worst of him. There was a certain freedom in being scum.

He placed a chaste kiss on Iascat Novrus’s gloved palm. “Then we should make the most of the time we have.”

Isla Prišta, Westbridge: Cyprilun 20

Tess carefully hung up the labyrinth Ren had forgotten to drop as she fled Seven Knots—for all the good it would do.

“That’s it,” she said briskly, clapping her hands as though Ren’s sleeplessness was a particularly dusty shelf that only wanted some effort to fix. “I’m for Vargo’s physician, and don’t you dare complain that it’s the middle of the night. The whole point is that you should be abed,