House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(40)

Jannik reaches out, and his fingers brush my throat as he sets the necklace straight. His magic flutters against my skin, trailing kisses.

“Thank you,” I say, when he pulls away from me.

He looks uncertain. “You’re welcome.”

The carriage swings around a hair-pin turn, and we are thrown a little in our seats.

Off-balance again.

This time the thought leaves me almost happy.





FIRE, ASH, SKIN




The carriage scrapes to a sudden halt, and a few moments later the coachman’s boots are rapping against the cobbles. The unis bleat nervously. The carriage shifts from side to side as the animals dance in their traces. “What’s going on?” An autumnal smell of bonfires drifts from up ahead, though the season has not turned.

Jannik shakes his head. “I’ve no more idea than you.”

“Ma’am.” The door is opened and Master Sallow stares in, his dark brown face glistening with sweat. The night is unusually hot.

And bright.

“What–” I clamber down, my chest tight with fear.

Ash drifts down onto my shoulders, warm and powdery. The air is perfumed with wood fire. From what’s left of the Pelim apartments comes a resounding crack as a roof beam gives in and sends a shower of fairy sparks whirling into the night.

Some parts are still burning, and the Hobs and servants loyal to us are trying their best to douse the fires, while the streets fill with bystanders, their faces bathed in firelight, the heat beating them back. The water-filled buckets are making no difference to the blaze, apart from sending up plumes of black smoke.

“No,” says Jannik behind me.

I can say nothing. Instead I grip my skirts tight, tighter, until it feels like my sinews are going to snap through my skin. A rattling whistle sounds around me, and I can’t place where it’s coming from or what it is. I strain, trying to concentrate, as if the knowledge will somehow open up my reason, and I will be able to make sense of the ruin.

“Felicita.” Jannik drops a hand on my shoulder. His skin is so hot I’m certain he will blister me. I’m shaking.

No. I’m shivering. The sound of my teeth chattering against each other competes with the ragged whistle.

“Felicita, stop. Stop it.” He pulls me around, turns my head away from my burning home, and holds me tightly.

I’m so cold. The whistle changes to sobs. Jannik forces my stiff and uncooperative body back into the coach. Once I’m seated I shake my head, over and over. I try rise. I choke out the thing that I do not want to face. “The staff.”

Jannik does not answer me.

They will be fine, they must be fine. Think of something else. Anything else. “My stuff.” I don’t even know what – papers? Painted Botanicals? Old and unwanted furniture? Dresses? I hate all those dresses.

“You hated your dresses.” Jannik sounds like he’s talking at me from the far end of a tunnel.

How can I give a damn about some lost trifles when there are people that may have died? “Find out if everyone is safe,” I tell him. My legs do not want to walk, and I am certain that if I had to go and ask these questions myself, my voice would crumble like black charcoal in my mouth and all I would taste would be ash and bitterness.

I can’t go near the servants, I’m too scared. But as soon as Jannik has left me I get up from the carriage and fight my way to the mass of people, until I am surrounded by strangers, and I take my place in the bucket brigade. Men and women in uniform are distributing more buckets to speed the pace, and another group have unrolled the large sewn leather intestine that connects to the hand pumps and is used to spray down fires.

My head stays down and I work mechanically until my gloves are torn through and my hands are welted and blistered. I only raise my head once, when a team of fire-fighters brings down part of the building to stop the fire spreading to neighbouring grounds.

The blackened ribs of the house collapse in a shower of ash and sparks and choking smoke. The bucket brigade begins to disperse, now that the danger of their own homes catching fire has been averted. They’ve saved as much as they could, and it’s too late to do more.

The sun is rising; the air stinks of wet ash.

Half-asleep on my feet, I stack a bucket on the fire-fighter’s cart and stumble back toward the carriage. My dress is ruined, my hair stinks of smoke, and my hands ache. I must look like a mad woman wandering lost with my braids unpinned and standing about my stained face like serpents. There’s no-one by the carriage and I crawl inside.

I sit with my burning hands clenched together in my lap, staring at my thumbs while I wait. You will pay the families of the dead, Owen says. A silver or two will cover it. “Stop talking,” I whisper to the flame-bright morning. “Stop talking.” I cover my mouth with my hand, and rock ever so slightly, just the tiniest movement, in time with my breathing. It is all I can allow myself.

I force my head up when Jannik enters the carriage and frowns. “Felicita,” he says, so very softly and so very loudly. “I’ve been looking for you. Where have you-” He stops as he takes in my state. “You didn’t have to.”

He is in no better condition than I.

“The servants,” I say, my voice cracking, my lungs full of ash. “Tell me.”

“There is one girl unaccounted for,” he admits. “A maid called Riona.”