House of Sand and Secrets (12 page)

I swallow, waiting for her to face me. “Is he likely to do either of those to a guest?” I am trying desperately to keep my voice light, to treat her comments like a joke. “Parties here must be extremely interesting.”

Her one hand tightens on the smoky amber glass of the railing. “I need a smoke.” She releases the balcony rail and turns to me. In her other hand is a loosely-rolled ‘grit. Carien fumbles in a small beaded purse for matches and cups her hand carefully around her prize. The flame dances up, making her face glow. Then it’s snuffed.

She inhales. “Gris.” Her voice is thick.

The smell of poisonink, musty and so clearly remembered, drifts toward me. “You’re not well,” I say softly. It’s not a question. Her careful powder has been washed away by tears and her eyes are red-rimmed.

She laughs once, a quick bark of despair. “Something like that.” She takes a long drag of her ‘grit then lets the smoke curl around her face, hiding her. “I’ve had some rather bad news.”

I wait for her to talk. It’s a method that I learned from my brother; letting people fill the silences with their secrets.

“I’m pregnant,” she says, after the paper twist has burned down to her fingers and all that is left of her poisonink is ash blown on the wind.

What am I supposed to say to that? Why tell me, of all people, when she has her cabal of House friends to share this with? “Garret must be pleased.”

She sniffs. “I haven’t told him.” Carien turns to look at me, and there it is again, that blazing fierceness in her eyes, like the amber is lit by suns inside her mind. That intensity. That anger. “I don’t want it. I’m not like
them
.”

Like the House ladies who do their duty and breed more children to build their lines stronger. At the end, she has discovered the things that bind her to her companions are not the ties she wants. I suppose she thinks we have more in common, because I did not do what was expected of me. But I am not her and the roads we walk are too different.

What can I say to her that others will not? The Hobs have herbs they take, but they are dangerous. Sometimes they kill the baby, to be sure. Other times the dam. And then there are those unlucky women who take them and carry a monster to term. Still, perhaps she will find the prospect of an open gate a comfort. I edge closer to her. “There are infusions.”

“Hah!” Her fingers clench closed and open again like the wings of butterflies. “Tried them. They only work sometimes.” She must have been desperate.

A sudden want shivers through me. Her belly is still flat; the little life inside it nothing more than the smallest scrap of flesh. It could die now, tomorrow. It is already unwanted. And I wish there were a way for me to magic it some place safer. I stare at the flat panels of my dress, at my own stomach.

Ridiculous.

“So what will you do now?” I ask her softly.

She looks down over the edge of the balcony, to the gravel drive and the herbal borders. “I don’t know.” Her voice is so small and lost. I want her to be fierce again.

“Come.” I touch her shoulder and coax her closer to me. Nothing I can say now will take this away from her, and it would be callous to lie to her about how wonderful her life will be, how much she will love her unwanted child. “Let me speak to Jannik about sitting for you. I’m certain they are done talking now.”

Carien nods, her face subdued. “What would you do, if it was you?”

“I–” Any answer I give her will hurt. “You know,” I say. “When last I didn’t want something I ran from it.” I do not smile. “In the end, I ran a small tight circle.” There, it is as much truth as I have ever given someone.

“Would you do it again?” She frowns at the little twist of paper between her fingers. The coal has burned out, dead.

I think of what would have happened if I’d stayed, if I’d done what I was told. My brother would be alive; I would be married into House Canroth and playing the dutiful wife. I would still live in my beautiful Pelimburg, by the endless sea. I would not have met Jannik, and tied myself to an empty marriage so I could save a little face. “Yes,” I say. “And again, and again.”

Saying it makes me realize how true it is. A guilty heat flares up in my chest. It makes me feel strangely angry. And relieved. At least I did the right thing, even if it seems horribly wrong. I did the right thing and I hurt so many people, but at least it was not for nothing. I might not be where I wanted to be, but at least I found a different future to the one I ran from. At least, at least, at least. These are the little things I will cling to.

I try picture myself in Pelimburg again, meek wife to Canroth Piers, doing my duty.
No, thank you
.

Carien stares at me, the cigarette dying in her fingers. “You should know,” she says in a dull, flat tone, “that Garret is taking a proposal before the Mata council this week.”

“A proposal?”

“To have the bats’ status revoked to that of lesser magical creatures.”

I freeze. “You’re quite certain?” If that happens, and the Mata and the Council of Lords agree, Jannik will have no more rights than a sphynx or a unicorn. He will officially be an animal. I try swallow but my mouth has gone dry. The Houses organize great hunting parties to go into the desert after the sphynxes, they make coats from their fur and buttons from their teeth and they mount their heads on walls.

What then would they do to the vampires - use their skin to bind books, bead dresses with their sharp teeth? MallenIve is a barbarous city, the people here would find it amusing to make lyres from the vampire’s bones and string them with their dark hair.

My eyes start to burn, I always cry when I am frightened. “They can’t do that,” I say. “The freed Houses will fight it, surely.”

Carien answers me with empty eyes, as if she has no idea what I’m talking about. “It’s time we joined the men for drinks.” She walks past me, her crimson dress a dull gleam against the dark glass.

* * *

We leave the
Eline house quiet. Jannik is deep in thought.

“Did he make the changes you wanted?” I point to the leather case at his feet.

“Hmm? Oh.” He looks blankly at the case. “Some of them.”

“Did he– did he say anything to you about a meeting with House Mata this week?”

Jannik frowns. “No. Why would he discuss his personal affairs with me?”

Why indeed. “Perhaps because they concern you.”

“And just how would a meeting between Mata and Eline have anything to do with me?”

“Carien told me that House Eline are going to push for the vampires to have the same status as sphynxes.” I cannot bring myself to look at him as I say the words. He doesn’t respond, and finally I raise my head. “Jannik, did you hear me?”

He stares out the window in silence.

“They are going to take away what little you have left. And it won’t just be House Eline – House Mata will be sure to agree, and there will be others supporting the move. Jannik – they’re going to make you into an animal.”

And like that, with just those words, I see Jannik defeated. He slumps back and covers his face with his hands. “Shit.” The word is muffled. He drags his hands down his face and stares at me. “You’re quite sure she wasn’t lying?”

Of course I can’t be sure, but I think she was paying me for my little moment of honesty. I think it was a gesture of her friendship. “I trust her word on this.”

“Shit.” He raps for the driver to stop.

The nillies clatter their hooves against the stones, and the carriage jerks and stills. A moment later, the door opens and the driver peers in. “Sir?”

“Make a stop at House Guyin before seeing the lady home.”

When the door has closed again and we are wrapped in our privacy I manage to unclench my fingers and my jaw. “Why?”

“House Guyin?” He doesn’t look at me. “I need to speak to Isidro.”

The damnable Isidro, with his perfect face and otherworldly beauty. “And what good will he do?” I manage. “Will he gather all the whores of MallenIve to march on the Mata palace?”

Jannik finally looks properly at me. “Do you think this law will matter only to me? That I will be the only one affected by it – that
you,
” and he spits the word at me, “will be the only who hurts?”

“I don’t–”

“Or rather, not hurts – what was I thinking – that your status will be ruined.”

“Shut up.”

He stills, but his mouth is curled in a snarl.

“You do not know me at all,” I tell him. The carriage follows the curves of a sweeping road, takes another turn, and finally draws to a halt. Outside the thick glass I can make out the drab pale face of the Guyin buildings. “You know nothing of what I think or feel.”

The night air is sweltering, and it’s hard to breathe. I feel like I’m drowning.

Jannik steps down from the carriage. “Because you do not let me. It’s not the hound’s place to know its master’s mind, only his laws.” He turns and walks away before I can think of a single thing to say back to him.

Inside I am breaking apart. If it’s true that Jannik does not know me, then the far greater truth is that I barely know the smallest thing about myself. I have been too long denying my wants.

We had a conversation once, both of us in his room, when we were just beginning our friendship. We were talking of children, and he laughed at me when I said I wanted a whole brood of them. “Like a litter of dogs,” he’d said. But he hadn’t been mocking me, I’d amused him.

Everything about him reminded me of what I had left behind, and I think I hated him a little for that. Hated that I had run and he hadn’t. I slept next to him that night and woke before he did, and I’d watched him. He was clever and he was a contradiction; well-bred and yet lower than dirt, but in sleep none of that mattered. I could look at him and see not a collection of my own prejudices but a boy with hair like spilled ink, a poet and a game piece.

I think I came to a realization that morning, but I didn’t want to face it then. How strange now to find myself in love with my husband. After everything we have been to each other, I did not think there was space in our hearts for this.

Perhaps I am ready to face it. And perhaps my courage has come too late.

TWO CROWS

“My lady?” The
coachman wants to close the door and take me back to my house and to a set of rooms where my loneliness will be thrown back in my face a thousand times over. Master Sallow’s face, so paternal in its worry, is set in lines. The darkness only makes them look deeper.

“No,” I put my hand to the door to stop him from closing it. “Wait.” Jannik has disappeared into the Guyin house and right now he is making plans without me. What will he and Isidro do? Will he turn back to his family and beg for their involvement? He will have to. If this law finds footing in MallenIve, it will surely filter downriver to Pelimburg.

I leap down from the carriage step. The night is still warm and scented with green leaves and damp earth. Morning cannot be far off. Above us the stars are growing dimmer and sliding down to meet the edge of the world. I should be heading to my empty bed, the covers turned down in readiness for me. The dawn could creep up on me while I lie on my back, watching the ceiling and wishing I knew what to do.

I make up my mind, and follow Jannik. My boot heels ring lightly against the steps, like small stone bell clappers. The sound is pitiful. With one hand on the knocker, I hesitate, then slide down to try the handle first.

The door is thankfully unlocked, for servants are still unwilling to work in the Guyin house. Isidro must have opened the door for Jannik and forgotten to latch it. I peer in. “Isidro? Harun?”

There is no answer, and no sign of either Jannik or Isidro. They must be here, though. I slip inside, and call for Harun again, but softly, as if I do not really want him to know I’m here. If he’s awake, he’ll be with them, and if he’s not, well, perhaps it’s better that way. Gris knows, by this time of the night he’s probably long since passed the borders of sobriety.

With care, I pick my way through the unlit rooms, until the dark settles and I can see better. The lack of servants has begun to tell. Dust clings to the furniture and the banisters, cobwebs already dulling the curls and points of the gilded mirror frames, and the air has a neglected, musty, male smell. The rooms pulse with silence. My reflection peers hazily back at me from the large mirrors, and I am insubstantial as a boggert. Wherever Jannik is, it’s not on this floor.

There’s been no sign of Harun except for the collection of empty bottles and the half-finished glass on a small table in the smoking room. He’s most likely passed-out, and even I am not so crass as to go drag Harun from his bed. I’ll find Jannik quickly, and we’ll leave. I make my way to a large drawing room that leads out to the gardens. The potted plants are withering, dropping leaves at the feet of the emerald glass statues that guard the corners of the room.

The windows here reach up to the ceiling, and once they looked out on immaculate hedges and flowerbeds. Now the hundreds of small panes are murky and the golden curtains seem tarnished. A breeze flaps one of the dull curtains. This way, then. I stand hidden in the drapes and gently push the glass doors wider. The faint sound of voices comes to me; Jannik and Isidro. They’re not far away.

I skim the rambling garden. The place is overgrown and the bushes and flowers are ragged and gone to seed, the grass meadow-long and knotted with blackjacks and milkweeds.

Though I can hear them, I don’t see the two vampires anywhere. The garden is a maze of nooks and crannies, with one section leading haphazardly to another. I follow the voices, down the steps. Dew-wet grass drenches my boots, stockings and hem.

Creatures rustle in the hedges, warned of my approach by the swishing of my dress through the damp vegetation. Across from me a pergola of stone pillars and wooden beams stands neglected in one hidden corner; ivy runs wild over it, and the small pathway is treacherous with moss.

I pause and let the shadows envelop me. Jannik and Isidro are not far away, talking in furious whispers. They have not noticed that anyone has invaded their secret garden. They’re so intent on each other. If either one had to turn, they would look straight at me, but they do not, and once again I feel like I am not really a part of the world. Nothing but a dusty reflection.