Sianim 01 - Masques

fantasy . . . There are enough twists and turns in the plot to keep most readers’ interest.”— VOYA
    “Patricia Briggs proves herself a rare talent as she devises a clever mystery with appealing characters in a fantasy setting . . . top-notch reading fare.”— Romantic Times

Titles by Patricia Briggs
    The Mercy Thompson Novels
    MOON CALLED
BLOOD BOUND
IRON KISSED
BONE CROSSED
SILVER BORNE
     
    The Alpha and Omega Novels
    ON THE PROWL
(with Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny)
CRY WOLF
HUNTING GROUND
    MASQUES
STEAL THE DRAGON
WHEN DEMONS WALK
     
    THE HOB’S BARGAIN
    DRAGON BONES
DRAGON BLOOD
     
    RAVEN’S SHADOW
RAVEN’S STRIKE



THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
     
    Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
     
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
     
    MASQUES
     
    An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Hurog, Inc.
     
    PRINTING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / December 1993
Ace mass-market revised edition / October 2010
     
Copyright © 1993 by Patricia Briggs. Copyright © 2010 by Hurog, Inc.
     
    All rights reserved.
    No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
    For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
     
    eISBN : 978-1-101-44359-0
     
    ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
     

     

     
    http://us.penguingroup.com

With love to my parents:
     
    Harvey C. Rowland
1917-1989
     
    Betty J. Rowland
1920 -1992

INTRODUCTION
    One day, in the middle of my senior year of college, I decided to write a book. I’d written a few things before. Nothing so complex as an actual short story (aside from a few five-hundred-word shorts for various high-school assignments and one memorably bad story I’d written in German in lieu of a report), but scenes and scraps of dialogue. I’d never met an author, never gone to an SF convention, when I set out to write this book. And for the next few years I wrote, and rewrote, the first ten pages of my novel. Those ten pages, I might add, are the first thing I cut for this edition. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself muttering those lines: The great hall of the castle was his favorite room . . .
    With our newly minted degrees, my husband and I set out for the wilds of Chicago, where Mike had taken a job as an aquarist with the John G. Shedd Aquarium (we do seem to have had a lot of interesting if not lucrative careers, my husband and I) and I began working at an insurance office. The Greater Chicago area had seven and a half million people. My home state of Montana (in the 1990s) had eight hundred thousand people—in the whole state. Suddenly my manuscript represented more than a challenge—it was an escape. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Chicago—I just didn’t love living with seven and a half freaking