House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(27)
His upper lip twitches. “Think nothing of it. Carien told me that you’d be worth the time, and I believe she was right.”
I smile in cold politeness, and wait.
He eyes me slowly before he smiles back. “I’m afraid I have never done this before – conducted business with, well, with a woman. If I make some awful social gaffe I will expect your forgiveness.” He’s trying to steer us into friendly waters, and I let myself be manoeuvred. There is still the prospect of doing what I can to raise my House, and to see what I can glean about the vampires.
I take my seat, and the glass of chilled wine he has brought for me, and I let my mask slip into blushing nervousness and idiot female trust. He laps up my gratefulness, my stammering admittance that I’m floundering in my new position.
Carien or one of her coterie would have seen through me in an instant. That is why Readers are always more dangerous than people realise. If Garret hadn’t underestimated me, he would have had a Reader here to watch me, to mark my weak spots.
He talks a lot, and I let him. The deals he’s offering are poor at best, but I nod and smile and exclaim my gratitude. Jannik will draw up counter-offers; I’m just the pretty face right now.
It takes vast reservoirs of self-control to not scoff openly at some of the things he suggests. Garret sees Pelim as a lame nilly – one they’re going to skin and quarter rather than help recover. Obviously, no one’s explained to House Eline exactly how dangerous we can be when pressed. Let him think what he wants. I’ll make sure my House comes out the better – that’s after all, what House Pelim does. We rise from our battles, scarred and stronger.
Garret and I draw the meeting to a close, with promises of deals and mutual goals. “I’m afraid that while I’d love to agree to everything that you’ve said,” I say as I stand, “I’ll have to get my husband’s signature for these.” I tap at the binder on his desk.
For the first time in this meeting, Garret’s face betrays a flicker of irritation. “I was led to believe you had autonomy.”
“Oh, oh I do, really. The bat merely has to make his mark.”
Garret frowns. Whatever his Vision showed him about this meeting, it has betrayed him.
True pleasure lets my smile show more warmth than I’d previously allowed. “It’s nothing,” I assure him. “He’ll sign where I point my finger.” If I know Jannik, he’ll be reading through these and countering just about every point, shaking his head, and ranting about how people must think we’re idiots.
“You’ve got him well trained, then.” Garret winks at me.
“Oh, definitely.”
“My wife finds them fascinating.”
“Really?”
“She’d love to meet it,” he says. “Perhaps you’d be willing to bring it out one day. A private dinner, nothing formal.”
“Oh.” I take the binder and clutch it my chest in a perfect mimicry of indecision. “I-I don’t know–”
“She did, after all, bully me into meeting with you. Think of it as reciprocation.”
“Well then,” I say. “I can hardly refuse.” There, we will be in the sphynx’s nest itself; at their own invitation. Surely if House Eline has anything to do with the deaths, they would not invite strangers into their home. Perhaps Carien and I may allow our awkward friendship to flourish. The smile I give him is the only sign of my victory.
*
Jannik is not happy. I almost expected him not to come tonight. We sit silently in the carriage as it clatters toward the Eline mansion. It’s close to the Mata palace, and like that quartz-and-glass monstrosity it is a layered fortress of glass turrets and spindle-thin walkways. The main trunk of the house is made from aventurine and it glitters grey and green. The glass towers are dark, almost black, although I can just make out the occasional smoky shape walking from place to place.
Serving Hobs take our coats and lead us to a room with cold, rough walls. The drabness makes an excellent foil for the many glass-work furnishings. Deep glittering colours twist and fold in on themselves; antiques by Defrin and Narlet are used here as casually as if they were the work of minor War-Singers. Narlet’s work has always left me uncomfortable, with its pointed spikes as wide a woman’s wrist. By all accounts he was a vicious man, and it shows in his work. They are like underwater forests of twisting blades.
They are also priceless.
Eline has money. I knew that, of course. Enough money to buy vampires and murder them for sport.
The servants bring us warmed wine flavoured with desert spices, then leave. Of Carien and Garret, our erstwhile hosts, there is no sign. The only other living thing in the room is a mountain mynah in a glass cage. The bird is as big as a rooster and watches us with its liquid black eyes. They are sometimes trained to talk, but this one says nothing.
“Why exactly did you drag me out to this?” Jannik sets down his wine glass on a blue-and-green table made to look like overlapping pieces of sky and sea. In the clear legs, tiny bubbled fossils are hidden; glass snails in cadmium coils, turquoise sanddragons, skeletal black leaves.
“I don’t know if you should put your wine on that,” I murmur, keeping my own glass clutched tight. I take a hesitant sip. It’s familiar, some Pelimburg vintage. It makes me think of my mother, and a sad clutching loss folds around my heart. I take a deeper drink to drown it.