The Mask of Mirrors (Rook & Rose, #1)

by M.A. Carrick

After a moment’s hesitation, she approached him. Halfway there, the light caught something else: a flash of color on his lapel that quickly scuttled into the shadows of his high, folded collar. It startled her enough that she said exactly what she was thinking. “Did your lapel pin just run for cover?” Tearing his gaze from Fadrin wheeling Carinci away, Vargo glanced at his collar, then at Renata. His stony expression relaxed into laughter. “No. That’s Peabody.” She raised an eyebrow. Still chuckling, Vargo dipped his fingers into the shadows. When he drew his hand back, a large spider with symmetrical splashes of sapphire, indigo, emerald, and crimson across his abdomen was riding the back of Vargo’s glove. “Alta Renata Viraudax, Master Peabody. Say hello, Peabody.” Vargo raised two fingers, and the spider, to Renata’s utter astonishment, raised its third set of legs and presented its colorful abdomen in response. Vargo stroked a finger over its fuzzy midsection. “Good boy.”