House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(42)

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

“So did I.”



*



It’s late afternoon when I wake, dizzy and lost and out-of-place. It takes me a few minutes to work out where I am. We’re curled together on a long low couch in a small room filled floor to ceiling with glittering silks. Jannik is wearing shirt and trousers, and I am in my long shift and drawers. Despite our relative state of dress, we are tangled close as lovers. Moving slowly and carefully, I ease my arm out from under him, and try shake feeling back into my blistered fingers. We’re both of us tacky with dried perspiration, and the summer sun has heated even this dank and airless room. A single small high window lets in a shaft of dull orange light, and this is our sole illumination.

Jannik mumbles as I sit, and he throws one arm over his face, frowning in his sleep.

On the floor sits a small basin filled with dirty water and rags, and two plain and serviceable tea bowls, their leaves tracing futures.

Fire. There was a fire, and Riona is gone. My home is gone.

The memory feels unreal, and for a moment I am not sure if it’s a dream, if I’m still dreaming, in fact. But the smell of burned flesh and charred wood wars with the must of silk. I raise my blistered hands and clench them, cracking the new scabs. The pain is all too real.

A rapping sounds from the door, and I lurch forward, pulling the goat wool blanket higher. Then I drop it annoyance. “Jannik,” I whisper, and jab his shoulder. “You have guests.”

He grunts, turns around and pulls the little fringed couch pillow over his head.

“If you don’t get up and answer that door now,” I say, “I’ll do something terrible.”

“Like what,” he mumbles from under the pillow. “Talk me to death?”

The person outside knocks again, harder this time.

“Go away,” Jannik says, although not very forcefully and he could just as well be talking to me as to the mysterious visitor. He makes no move to rise. The damn vampire is always sluggish during the day.

With a loud sigh, I throw the cover off, march over to the door and jerk it open. “What?”

The Hob looks startled, possibly at my state of undress, and the fact that I appear to have spent the night in the Pelim offices after rolling about in a cooking pit. As if I care what he thinks.

He raises an eyebrow and holds out a white envelope. “Message for the boss,” he says then squeezes his eyes briefly shut. “Er, your ladyship?” he says hopefully, feeling his way around the social niceties he thinks are expected of him. “Only I mean, not for you, for the other boss – the vamp.”

“Oh give it here.” I snap the letter away.

“It’s important, like,” adds the Hob. “Messenger said.”

“And I’ll see he gets it.”

“It’s not like she has far to walk,” says Jannik from the couch.

“Oh, Gris.” I slam the door in the Hob’s grinning face. “You couldn’t have kept your mouth shut?”

He’s sitting up now, feeling for his stockings and shoes under the couch. “What for?” he says. “Ah, you beasts, wandering off in the night.” Jannik glances up at me. “Do you think you’ve offended his delicate sensibilities by spending a night with your husband?”

“In the office! On a couch!” I wave the letter at him. “And we’re not exactly–”

“What does the letter say?”

I pause in my rant, and take a deep breath. Jannik’s name is on the front, written in a hand I don’t recognize. On the other side is a far more familiar seal. House Guyin. “It’s for you.” I throw the letter at him. “From your friend. Obviously he didn’t get the same message from Harun that I did.”

Jannik catches the letter, flips it over, and frowns at the handwriting. “Isidro.”

My dress is hung over a stack of silks, and I rip it down and give it a quick, hard shake as if that will somehow restore it. “Would you like some privacy while you read your poetry?” I say acidly. I am so angry, but it’s not for this. This is just an easier target to fire my useless rage against.

He’s already torn the top of the envelope and withdrawn a single piece of paper. Jannik reads it, frowning, then holds it out to me.

“I was never one for verse,” I say.

“And I know that, Felicita. Read the damn thing.”

Isidro’s handwriting is a barely legible scrawl, the ink blotted and thick. The salutation includes my name. I glance up, and catch Jannik’s eyes. He nods at me to continue.

“Why is Isidro begging us to come urgently to House Guyin?” Something must have happened to Harun last night. A tremor flutters under my breastbone. Perhaps ours was not the only house targeted. And perhaps Guyin was not as lucky as we. That black future he saw looming in his dreams. “You don’t think?”

“Get dressed,” Jannik says. “I’ll have a carriage prepared.”





SEVEN-FOLD FUTURES


The house on Ivy is still standing.

“Well that’s a good sign.” I look up at the wide, darkened windows. “I suppose.”

Jannik gives me a dubious glance before climbing the wide stairs and rapping the brass knocker several times. The thuds have barely died away when Isidro opens for us.