House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(25)

The sleepseed takes shape beneath my brush and a quiet calm envelops me. Master Bermond has told me all he knows and left me to paint. Even this early in the day the air is drowsy and fat with the drone of locusts and grasshoppers. The smell of mown grass and fresh-dug compost is faintly dusted with the scent of sage. There is no reek of plague; perhaps the fires are finally out.

The sun falls warm on my cheek despite my wide-brimmed hat, and the now-familiar bird song dances through the gardens. When I first arrived here it was the sound of the birds that made me realize how far I was from home. They didn’t sound right. Nothing made me more homesick than waking to their strange songs.

Here now in this summer garden, with only my brush and inks and the hovering bees for company, I am the closest to content I can allow myself. I will not think of Carien and the way she reminds me of something wild trapped in a small cage. Or of how pathetically eager I am to see in her someone like myself and to hope we could grow some friendship between us. To be the one who frees her, earns her gratitude, and perhaps her love. I shake my head. It seems I am eager to be a champion so people will love me. Am I really so lonely?

Or perhaps this is the way I think to salve all my guilt.

“My lady?”

I look over my shoulder to Riona standing nervously behind me. She walks with a curious cat-like stealth as if she is scared to disturb anyone around her. She’s one of the few Hobs who came to us already able to read, and lately she’s been helping me give tutelage to those servants who want lessons. I like her. When she does speak, her humour is dry and pointed as a stick.

“Riona.” I stand, shaking out my skirts. “What is it?”

“A messenger came,” she says. “From House Eline.”

“And?” My palms are moist as I pack away my inks and brushes.

Riona takes my easel without being asked, careful not to mar the painting. “They left an invitation,” she says. “I thought you’d want to know straight away.”

“Indeed,” I say. “Indeed.” But instead of eagerness, a dull panic throbs in my chest. Something ill is going to come of this connection I am forging with House Eline.



*



I turn the little cream card over in my fingers, trying to think of some response to give. The messenger who left it is long gone, and still I have thought of nothing. The invitation is from Eline Garret; he would like to meet me. Here is my chance to make deals, to carve a foothold into MallenIve. And if there are secrets to be uncovered, how better to dig them out than by wearing the mask of friendship?

My brother would approve. I’ve become exactly the kind of society bitch the Houses love to breed.

Whatever my motives might be, Carien kept her word, so I suppose I’ll have to keep mine. I can imagine Jannik’s face when I put the idea to him that one of the House ladies wants to paint his portrait.

A glass bell rings for breakfast, breaking my contemplation, and I drop the card back onto the silver letter tray. I’ll deal with it once I’ve eaten. It’s too much for me to face on an empty stomach.

Jannik isn’t in the breakfast room when I enter. A servant pours tea, another brings in toast and preserves and salted herring. The smells of egg and mushrooms and tomato make the room feel oily. It’s not like Jannik to be absent. Normally he arrives before me and is already halfway through the Courant by the time I start eating.

I sit alone at the table, my heart tight. He’s not coming, and I make myself chew on toast and tomato. The texture of the egg turns my stomach, and I push it to one side with the rest of my uneaten food.

The Courant lies rolled neatly at Jannik’s place. Today’s paper is slim, uninteresting, and I flick through the goods trading section with dull interest. The silk crops are looking good. House Mata predicts bad flooding with the next summer rains, and the Casabi will break her embankments. Here’s a review of a new opera, a new play, a new gallery opening. An announcement of some House spawn, an engagement between two minor Houses. The dull minutiae of a dull city.

I care about none of this. My fingers still when I reach the final page, and my breath comes a little faster. On the back page there is a brief article – little more than a few lines. A vampire. Another one dead. The corpse was old, too rotted to identify.

Three dead now. Three of which we know. All in a matter of days.

Heart thrumming, I roll the paper tightly, and toss it back at Jannik’s place. He must be in the house somewhere.

The glass doors are cold against my palm as I push my way out of the clammy breakfast room. The fire was stoked too high, the reek of food too heavy. My stomach roils and churns, and as I leave, I find myself trying to gasp down the clean air as if it will somehow purify me.

Jannik’s side of the house is uncharted territory. When we came here we divided the apartments between us, marking out communal ground and private wings. Opening the door to his part of the house feels like trespassing even though the property is in my name.

He’s changed the décor. The silver and deep blues of my House colours are nowhere in evidence. Even though all the curtains are drawn, this side of the house feels lighter than mine. The drapes are pale, almost gossamer, and the old floorboards have been bleached. Something about the coldness, the lightness of it, reminds me of his mother’s home in Pelimburg. The white rooms have a certain stripped efficiency.

I find him in a study, reading, curled into an armchair that looks like it came from his old rooms, worn and shaped to him. One fist is knuckled against his temple, and his hair falls over his eyes. He is intensely engrossed in the slim blue volume. A cup of tea sits at his elbow.