House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(38)
I stare at him, this spoiled House man who orders me around, who thinks to order my family around through me. “Jannik is not mine to command,” I tell him. “Perhaps you have forgotten that.” He is like the rest of them, always thinking that they own all women, and that we should run at their commands like well-trained pups. It’s time for us to leave. House Guyin may be our only friends in this stinking mess of a city, but they are not worth it. Right now I’m feeling less-than charitable to Jannik, but that doesn’t mean that it will be his fault if Guyin’s pathetic little outcast world comes crumbling down about his ears. “Perhaps it would be best if when next we have the misfortune to meet, you keep your vague accusations to yourself.”
“You’re an idiot,” he snarls. “I’m warning you too, unless you want your husband dead. Not, I suppose, that it matters much to you. It’s not just the council. Something is coming for us, for all of MallenIve, and we’re involved.”
“We?” The idea is preposterous. Perhaps the taint of insanity in all the Saints has finally claimed Harun.
“You and I, and the vampires.” The brooding scowl of his switches to a flicker of worry. “I don’t know; it’s to do with magic, and with us.” He’s barely making sense.
I back away from him, just the slightest, and rest one hand on the cold brass of the handle. “We have no magic, Guyin. Lest you forget. We traded it for–” Not for love, maybe for something else. I no longer know. “Keep your dreams to yourself.” I glance through the long crack of the open door, ready to run from whatever nightmares he thinks to frighten me with. But we do have magic, I can’t help but think. We do. We are married to magic, like it or not.
“All I’m telling you is that there is a black future coming for us, and I cannot see the shape of it.”
“So take scriv,” I tell him before I close the door on his sweating face.
*
“We need to leave,” I say to Jannik. We still need to talk to Harun and Isidro about House Eline, but I am rattled by Harun’s mood, by the thing between Jannik and Isidro that I do not want to face whatever I tell myself. Let me get my thoughts back in order and I will approach them again. Despite Harun’s warning, I must come back and convince him to discuss this with me, and we will have to make plans. Either to leave, or to bring down House Eline before they can make their move. Before they can convince the other Houses to pass their new laws. Even if Harun hates us, he will have to work with us to keep his partner safe.
Jannik and Isidro are sitting next to each other, talking in stalled silences. Jannik manages to look a tired combination of guilty and resigned. He’s given up on whatever it is he wanted. “If you say so,” he says dully. “What about–”
“Harun’s delusional.” I spare Isidro a withering glance, but the bastard just grins back at me, as if he is completely devoid of any emotion. Something makes me pause though – a flicker of uncertainty in those indigo eyes, the faintest shiver as he keeps himself from sliding his third eyelids across. Perhaps he is not as unfeeling as I suspected, but, like me, has merely learned to always keep his mask in place, and to never show anyone what he’s truly thinking.
The idea that Isidro and I are alike in some way is disconcerting. I run from the idea, but when I speak, my voice is softer, gentler even - if one knew me well enough to pick up the change. “Isidro, we’ll see ourselves out. I believe Harun needs you.”
Isidro doesn’t answer, not at first, then he takes a sharp breath. “Don’t tell me what I already know,” he says, and before I can say anything back, he storms from the room, leaving Jannik and I alone together.
What if a sliver of truth lies under Harun’s madness? We already know this city is a canker that infects and destroys. Vampires are dead for no other reason than that they were vampires. I don’t need a drunken Saint to tell me Jannik isn’t safe in this city. But what if there’s more to it, a very personal danger? One that we could avoid, were we to know its form.
Eline Garret is just one man. One powerful man in a city maggoty with them. I can keep Jannik from him. There is still scriv, and unicorn horn is a poor substitute. Perhaps I am simply inventing problems and dangers where there are none.
There were other names on that list, not just Eline’s. My eyes begin to smart. What am I to do – set a servant to dog Jannik’s heels and report on his every step so that I can rush in like a crow to gather him up if he’s ever caught? Jannik’s right about me sometimes. I don’t know what I want. I treat him like a wild thing on a leash.
I’m only doing it for his own good.
Your justification has always been amusing, Owen says. But now you’ve finally reached a level so pathetic even I can’t enjoy it any more.
I hate it when my dead brother is right about me.
Jannik and I go back to the carriage in silence, each of us knitted up in our own thick and gloomy thoughts. Inside the small compartment, the air is choked with thoughts of drowning. The space is too small between us, too small to hold all the things we refuse to say to each other.
Keep quiet, I say in my head, over and over. Keep quiet. I don’t even know if I’m talking to myself or my brother’s memory or just some implacable future I can’t escape – a black monster waiting for me. All I know is I am sick of being trapped. I’ve spent most of my life lying to myself, wishing for something other than what I had. Why I could never just be happy with what I was given, I don’t understand. Perhaps I was spoiled so badly I will never come right again; all my fruits will be rotten, every word that drops from my tongue a poisoned leaf.