House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(14)
Oh, Felicita, my dead brother’s voice sneers in my head. When do you ever think?
You don’t know me, I silence him. It’s true. Owen never took the time to find out the kind of person I was, what I wanted. So why am I allowing his memory to mock and mould me? Grow a Gris-damned spine, Felicita. Stop caring about the Houses, about the game, and the rules.
People have died. That’s what’s important here.
There is no point in hiding my intentions with this woman. She has the stony menace of someone who brooks no argument and who does not react kindly to insubordination. By MallenIve law, I stand far higher than this woman in her watchtower can ever hope to reach, and I use that as a crutch.
“You have the advantage,” I say. “I confess I do not exactly how to address you. My apologies in advance for any offence I may cause you in my ignorance.”
The slightest approximation of a smile twitches her mouth then is gone. “Well, you certainly know how to speak prettily, I’ll give you that. What is it you want?” She means to keep me off-balance and subtly refuses to give me her name. Too late now to ask the wray who led me here.
I plunge in, tired of fighting political battles. I get enough of that in the dinner chambers of MallenIve. “It’s about the body.”
She raises one eyebrow, and the perfect graceful sweep of it reminds me of someone – although who, I cannot quite place.
We wait out the silence, neither giving ground. Finally, I let her win. “The body the Hoblings found in the heaps. I’m quite certain that the news will have reached you by now.” I pause and smile thinly. “And if it hasn’t, then I am distressed to have to be the one to bring you such ill-tidings.”
“No ill-tidings,” she says. “It wasn’t one of mine.”
“You’re certain?”
She turns her back on me and makes her way behind her impeccable desk to flip open a leather-bound ledger. “I can assure you–.” Her words are punctuated by the flick of heavy river-paper. “–that all of my people are present and accounted for. I always know where my own are.”
“So you have no idea who it might have been?” There’s one more rookery I could go to, but the Fallingmirror section is on the farthest outskirts of the city, and from what little I’ve understood of the trade, not worth the effort. They have only a handful of working wray.
She closes the book with a thud and stares at me. A faint frown puckers at her forehead, a neat little bird’s wing of uncertainty. “I didn’t say that.”
“Well, what exactly–”
She silences me by pushing a piece of paper across the table. Four names are written in a cramped, neat hand. The names of Lammer Houses of MallenIve, although the only one of any particular rank is Eline.
“What’s this?” I touch my index finger to one corner of the page, pinning the curling edge down.
“These are the names of Houses who have recently done business with me,” she replies. The implication is that they have not been her usual customers.
I think of the predatory way Carien talked about the bats, their skin and their magic. Cold prickles up my spine. “May I take this?”
She nods.
“Thank you. I believe that concludes our business.”
Her thin lips are pressed even tighter together and she does nothing more than clip her head ever so slightly downward. I fold the paper over and over until it is in a neat small square. With this in hand, I turn my back on her raking stare, and make my way alone down to the now-empty foyer.
As I close the glass doors behind me and make my way to my waiting carriage, I am quite certain that the head of the Splinterfist rookery is watching me from her turret. Even though I have walked out of her domain with something, I do not think this has been any kind of victory.
Near my own coach stands a little pleasure carriage drawn by a small yellow grey nilly. The insignia on the coach door is a black silhouette of a bird on a daisy yellow background. The heavy beak is unmistakable. Rutherook, then. I tighten my hand about the piece of paper the head of Splinterfist gave me, and turn slowly to my own coach. The laughing silver dolphins barely stand out against the white wood, but if someone took the time to study my little coach it would be obvious which House it belongs to. I have no head for subterfuge, it seems. I shall have to train myself to be better at this game.
“Back home, my lady?” the coachman asks, and I start to nod.
“Oh – no wait!”
He pauses, about to close the door for me.
“Take me to the Pelim offices, rather,” I instruct.
The coachman is well trained and if he feels any confusion at my order, it does not show on his sallow face. He inclines his head. “Certainly.”
I settle into my seat, rather unsure myself as to what prompted me to change my mind, and why I would choose to go to Jannik’s domain. A part of me wants Jannik to know and to have some pride in me, I suppose. How ridiculous. It’s not as if our marriage is like that.
My face heats, and to make me think of something other than his expression when I bring him this news, I unfold the wad of paper. Four names. Eline, Rutherook, Karin, and Yew. I repeat them under my breath, until it feels to me that they are branded into my eyes.
*
The Pelim offices are in a set of sprawling warehouses near the Casabi. The docks are bustling with wherrymen and dock-workers and supervisors and carts and nillies and stray dogs and pickpockets and beggars; a riot of colour and stink. Tea-bells and shouts and the crack of sails and the thump of cargo. Some distance from the worst of the mob the roads branch out and narrow, leading to the storage district. The warehouses are jumbled together like a child’s abandoned collection of wooden blocks. Some tower high, others spread out, others seem to do both at the same time, with levels precariously balanced at odd angles. The Pelim warehouse is one of those, with small useless balconies jutting out on the highest floors. A worker leads me through the bizarre labyrinth until I find Jannik in a small study filled with ledgers and musty paperwork. He is dishevelled and sitting cross-legged on the floor before two vast piles of rotting yellowed papers.