House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(17)

Harun lifts a carafe of mintwhite and removes the faceted stopper, cutting the air with the sharp smell. “Glass?” he says, holding the cut-bottle up so it catches the firelight in streamers of gold and yellow.

My wine is finished, and Harun looks well the worse for a bottle or two already, but I’ll take my courage where I get it. Handing me drinks is not going to make me change my mind. Someone needs to do something for that dead vamp, and since no-one else seems to care, it will be me. I’ll make Harun agree. How, I don’t know, but there must be some way. “I suppose.”

He snorts. “Don’t do me any favours.” He pours out two snifters, and walks over to me with one held out as a peace offering.

I take my glass rather ungraciously.

“It’s more complicated than you realize,” Harun says.

This is the sort of line I have heard all my life, when men have tried to tell me what I can or can’t do. “So explain. I’m sure if I apply all my meagre womanly brain to the task and you use very small words I can at least get the gist of it.”

“Dear Gris.” Harun swallows all his drink and splashes another into his glass, just about filling it. “I feel sorrier for Jannik with every passing moment.”

I narrow my eyes and tap the paper, drawing his attention back to my suggestion before he reaches the very limits of his sobriety. “These Houses know something. There must be a way to find out more about their comings and goings. It’s the party season, and invitations are winging about the city like swallows, we could–”

“You think we would be welcome in any of these Houses? That I would be?”

I look at the names again. He has a point, it’s hardly as if I have had an invitation to visit any of these, and Harun is barely spoken of. When people do mention his name, it is with derisive laughter, scorn, disgust. “I don’t know much about the minor ones – House Eline–”

“House Eline would just as soon piss on you and yours before they send an invitation,” Harun says. “And that wife of Garret’s is as evil a little cat as they come. If Carien wants you destroyed than you might as well burn your property, slit your throat and save her the trouble–”

“I beg your pardon – Carien?”

He pauses in his rant and glares at me.

“Tall brunette – Reader?”

“Yes. She’s known for her crowd of little sycophants who hang on her every word and action. She sets them on people like a hunting pack.”

“I’ve met her,” I say sharply. A woman who was far too interested in vampires. She knew more than she should, for a House lady. Her interest is not passing or curious. She is a woman with plans. I knew she’d married into Eline, but with that House being what it is, it could have meant anything. I had no idea she was from the major branch. The day will come when every damn House left in the whole of Oreyn will be tied to them by blood.

I chew at my upper lip, catching the soft meat and biting hard. “We need an Invitation to House Eline.”

“Oh, indeed,” says Harun. “I’ll just send a servant off and set something up, shall I?” He has the carafe in hand again, and he waves it about.

“You,” I turn on him, “are still a spoiled little boy. House Guyin!” I close my eyes and take a deep, dismissive breath. “I should have known you would be.” He’s right though. No-one will invite him, nor respond to any invitations he sends. There’s the chance that Eline might respond to the name of Pelim – but that chance is too slight. One of the many reasons I haven’t hosted any season parties myself is because of just how great a risk I would be taking. Were I to be snubbed, whatever face I have left would be completely obliterated.

I think back to my conversation with Carien at the Ives’ party. She wanted something from me, that much was obvious. Information? I don’t think so. If anything, she seemed to know more than I did. I look behind me for some comfort, forgetting that Jannik has left with Isidro.

The couch where I was sitting is empty, and the only sign that Jannik was there is a single strand of coal-dark hair that clings to the seat back and catches the firelight.

I do, indeed, have something Eline Carien wants.

No.

Even I’m not that callous. But I can use her interest in him. “There’s a way to get to them,” I say slowly.

Harun frowns, waiting for me to continue.

“We don’t need to go to House Eline,” I say. “All we need is to get her to come to us.”

“Us?”

“Me.” I catch his gaze, hold it. “She’s agreed to speak to her husband on my behalf. For business,” I say to his confused expression. “There’s something she wants from me, and I think it would be understandable were I to finally open the Pelim House to an intimate gathering. Nothing formal.” Nothing that can break me. If I can set the seeds of some kind of friendship, feed her the idea that she could have Jannik for a price, and then see grows from that … . “If we can get her to come without her little battalion, and meet her on familiar ground, I think she would be the key to House Eline.”

“And you want me there?” Harun keeps looking to the door, waiting perhaps for the vampires to return. They have been gone overly long. He flicks his gaze back at me. “I’ll do you no good at some gathering of House fools.”