House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(53)

I make sure he can see my face, see the truth of it. “It never occurred to me to find out. I wanted nothing more to do with scriv. It hurts too many people.”

“Oh,” he says, and picks at his thumbnail. “You’ll never get any now.” The moonlight drenches him in deepest amethyst shadows, and ivory glints.

“In the morning then.” I want to cry. Gris knows what tortures Garret and his cohorts are devising for Isidro – Carien said they tasted better when their emotions were heightened by fear or pain. My brain clicks over lust, because somehow, I don’t think that’s Garret’s style. It might be Isidro’s. After all, he grew up a boy-whore in the Splinterfist rookeries, I’m sure he could fake his way through a performance.

It’ll be pain. They do not care who they kill. They are rich, and they are men. I push my fist against my mouth and stifle a sob, grinding the knuckles against my teeth until I can taste blood in my mouth. What if it had been Jannik who was still a slave, who could be bought and sold on no more justification than the lack of a symbol of ownership – it could be him in Eline’s grasp. They could be tearing him apart with kicks and caresses, just to feel the magic gather on his skin. I picture Jannik wide-eyed, bloody. There were iron-burns around the neck of the corpse.

Right this moment, Jannik could be collared, screaming in pain.

Isidro probably is. My stomach lurches, and fierce needles stitch tears into the corners of my eyes.

“Felicita.” Jannik grabs my gnawed hand, pulls it away from my mouth. “What are you doing?”

“I’m scared.”

He says nothing.

“I don’t know what to do – how to do it.” And, though I’ll never admit it – there’s a part of me that wants Isidro to suffer, because he took what was mine. The thought makes me suck in a sharp breath. Mine. And why does it take this to make me realize it? We’re so close, him on his knees as the carriage jerks us through the city. My hand in his, held so tight that the blood has dried.

I do not want to think about Isidro and the things I cannot do. And what it says about me.

Jannik’s face goes from light to shadow as the carriage rattles down the streets between the high buildings. Moonlight, then darkness. Then moonlight. I like it best when he’s in the light, so pale and other, so beautiful. Not Isidro’s perfection, but his own. Something must show in my expression, because Jannik rocks back.

“Why him?” I say. “I wouldn’t have minded others, but you had to go and feel something for someone else–”

“You’re an idiot, Felicita.” He lets go of my hand. “I do feel something for someone else. I’m just never allowed to say it.”

“Why not?”

“Because somehow it always gets thrown back in my face.” He bows his head. “Perhaps it’s easier to just say things without saying them.”

Like with the flower-language of the Hobs. “Perhaps.” I reach out again and brush my fingers very lightly against the top of his head, stroking the silk-smooth hair. “Perhaps it would be best to act, rather than speak.”

He smiles thinly. “Actions. Never my strong point. It seems that I need a whip before I can be goaded into anything real.”

I say nothing. I want to tell him, act, act now, but I’m too scared. Perhaps after all this I have read everything wrong, and how humiliating would that be? For hardly the first time in my life, I find myself wishing Jannik was a man who spoke his mind instead of believing we know what it is he’s thinking.

And yet, here I am expecting him to know my hidden thoughts. “Who did you buy the book for?”

“Book?”

“Traget. The Melancholy Raven.”

“Did you think I bought it to give to him?” Jannik sounds curious, tinged with the smallest amount of amusement. “You–” He shakes his head. “Sometimes I wonder if you are actually blind, or if it’s a very good act you think you should keep up for your own safety.”

“Who did you buy it for?” I say again, though I know. I know.

Instead of answering, Jannik slides carefully onto his knees and then, with one quick questioning glance to see if this is acceptable, he pushes my layers of skirts and petticoats up past my buttoned boots, until his fingers are on the ribbons at my knee band. His fingers are very cold.

It seems like it happens in a haze. Nightmarish and confused and yet it draws me in with all the promises of the things I have wanted. I don’t stop him or encourage him. Instead I lean back with my skirts bunched up around my thighs, and watch with a dreamer’s detachment. He takes this silence as consent, and presses his cheek against the inside of my knee. I want to move forward – not to stop him – to – I don’t know what. So I sit in my confusion, and do nothing. My breath is rasping, and I can feel how my whole skin is tingling and I don’t know if it’s me, or Jannik’s magic.

He nips the tender flesh of my knee through the silk of my drawers, not breaking the skin.

I yelp.

“Good,” he says. “I was starting to wonder if you were still awake.”

I swallow. “I’m awake. You can – carry – on.” The last is said with a gasp because now that he has my word, Jannik is nipping his way up my thigh. His fingers brush against the front of my underclothes, and obviously discovers what he would know if he’d ever bothered with women instead of Isidro.