House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(19)

I don’t know what possessed me to think I could turn to Harun for help when the man can’t even bring himself to give me a straight answer to a simple question. “Fine,” I say with a sigh. “I’ll look.” My skirts and petticoats rustle, and it is the sound of silk and my own faint breathing that fills the passage as I stalk from the room. The house is that quiet.

The intense stillness and the darkness and Harun’s distracted behaviour have all combined to fill me with trepidation. My breath is constricted, and I put it down to the gloom of the strange house. I am flitting at shadows. “Jannik?”

The house echoes his name back to me, dusting it with cobwebs.

Wherever they’ve gone, they can’t hear me. I tread upstairs, the stairs creaking underfoot. The house is so empty with the servants gone, and the wood groans in a way that reminds me of the old Whelk Street squat that I stayed in when I first ran from my House and my name. I fell in with Dash and his tea-shop revolutionaries and the sound of the rising wind. There are no sea storms here to tear Harun’s house from its foundations, but the eerie feeling of transience is the same. Dash and the others hide in the shadows, laughing at me.

“Felicita,” I say to myself. “Control yourself.” My voice is too loud, and the ghosts and the memories fade. No, the silence is just emptiness and the echoes of an empty house.

On the first landing, I set out to methodically tick off each room. I walk down the left passage first to check all rooms on one side then return, checking all rooms on the right, circling back to the staircase. Most of the doors don’t even budge. They are locked and the brass has gone black with neglect.

Finally, I find a door I can shove open. The room is dark and cramped, and the furniture is covered in dust cloths. There’s no one here, but I’m curious now. My eyes adjust to the shuttered darkness and the shrouded furniture takes on familiar shapes. A few low couches, and something draped in a sheet. Carefully, I lift the dust-grey sheet. An armonica. Loathsome instrument. The armonica is a mess, most of the bowls smashed. Now that I’m looking for them, I see shards, small and large on the floor. Obviously someone else shared my taste in music. I run one finger against the edge of one of the intact bowls. It trembles, and stays quiet. I flap the sheet back and exit the music room.

Of the few other unlocked doors, I find nothing of interest and no sign of Jannik and Isidro. The third landing is more rewarding: a master bedroom, a small room filled with clockwork, a second library. All the rooms are devoid of life. The fourth floor is completely locked. I can’t even get into the hallway. Just as I’m about to storm downstairs and berate Harun for playing games, the whispers start.

They are soft, fading in and out, just brushing the edges of my hearing. Two men speaking, I’m quite certain of it. The low sound of their voices comes from behind the locked door. I press my cheek against the heavy wood. It’s cold, leaving an ache in my teeth. The voices rise enough for me to hear the tone, although not the words. Someone laughs, but it is a sound quickly smothered. It’s not Jannik’s laughter. Though I suppose I’ve heard that little enough to judge. There is a certain brittleness, a shallow quality to the laughter that makes me think I’m hearing Isidro. “Hello?”

The voices still. Then, quite clearly: “Did you hear that?” Jannik.

I breathe deep, let it go. Of course it’s the two of them. Isidro laughing at something Jannik said, while the pretty, vapid thing led my husband about the recesses of the Guyin house. For what reason?

“It’s me. Felicita,” I add, feeling stupid the moment the clarification leaves my mouth. Jannik was making Isidro laugh, and I wonder what it was he said.

“The baggage,” says Isidro. I can hear them clearly now – they’re close to the door. Before this they must have been talking in whispers.

“Don’t call her that.”

“The fierce and faithless huntress, the witchbringer, the killer of brothers-”

“You don’t understand her,” Jannik says, but his is a weak defence. Does he also think these things of me? Are these his words Isidro is repeating? A desperate crying anger surges up. I feel betrayed, irrationally hurt that Jannik didn’t say more to defend me.

I step back as a key grates in the lock. It rattles as Isidro laughs again, this time a malicious, bitter little sound. He swings the door open and flashes his fangs at me. “Hello, we were just discussing all of your outstanding qualities.”

I don’t bother to answer him. There is someone else I hate right now.

Jannik actually has the decency to flush and drop the third eyelids. His collar is unbuttoned, his neck tie gone.

“You bastard,” I say to him.

“Technically,” Isidro interjects, “that would be me.”

Don’t look at him, don’t give him the pleasure. I continue glaring at Jannik.

“I told him nothing,” he says, with a half-hearted shrug. “He already knew.”

“Ah – already guessed.” Isidro squeezes past him, and touches my collarbone lightly with his fingertips, like he’s contemplating shoving me down the stairs. “Now I know.”

“Get away from me.” My voice is a low hiss.

Isidro mock bows, flourishing an emerald neck-tie, before he pushes past me and hops nimbly down the stairs.

I look back up at Jannik.