House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(79)

“And do you know what it is he’s thinking, or is he like Jannik – all his secrets locked up inside the – that house-thing in his head?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harun says.

“We’re going to need what weapons we have against Eline. We cannot rely on House Ives’ mercenary quarrels with them forever. And if using the vampire’s magic means doubling the bond, then I am afraid you are going to have to strengthen it.”

“First Jannik, and now you.” Harun sighs. “I – there may have been something in our future,” he says, just as we draw up on Ivy. “We will need to master that magic.”

“So you will feed on him?

“Yes, Felicita, not that it is any of your business, but I will do as Jannik has suggested.”

“It is my damn business.” I step from the carriage. “It became my business when I moved to this city and found myself thrown in with you for no other reason than who I married.” I glare at him. “I may not like you overly much, Harun, but I will fight for you and yours, and I expect an equal measure shown to me.”

“Is that not what I’m doing?” He says it with a peculiar false mildness. “You have asked me to put my faith in you, when all I have seen is that you are a woman prone to running from what she can’t face and letting herself be tangled into things she can’t understand, allowing the dictates of others to raise her hand against her family. I have seen all this, and yet you are the one who doesn’t like me?”

I grit my teeth. “It’s so easy to judge me on the snippets you have picked from a Vision, when I am the one who carries that whole tapestry?” We are almost at his door and I have dropped my voice to a fierce whisper. “So neither of us is perfect–”

“Exactly.” Harun pushes open the door and we walk together down the passage to the guest parlour where Carien is perched on the edge of one floral sofa. “Ah, I see you’ve deigned to wait.”

Jannik is standing by the door, and he gives me an inquisitive look as I enter. I nod, letting him know that they are safe for now.

“I had no choice. Your bats threatened me,” Carien snaps.

Isidro is sitting in a red sphynx-leather chair, tapping his fingernails against the brass studs. He leans his head back as Carien talks, and half-smiles. He has probably enjoyed frightening her.

Harun raises one eyebrow and strips off his gloves and hands them to Master Gillcrook before going to stand behind Isidro’s seat. He touches the spreading bruise under Isidro’s eye briefly, then rests his hands on the vampire’s shoulders. “It’s an excellent vintage, that one, don’t you think?” He indicates the bottle that Master Gillcrook has decanted into a carafe and set down on the table next to Carien. Her wine glass has a faint youngberry black smear at the bottom

“You can’t ply me with wine and think that will erase the fact that you have kept me as a prisoner–”

“I see no iron chains, no darkened cellars. No pretty iron collars.” He turns to Master Gillcrook. “If you would bring me our other guest.” He keeps his hands on Isidro, and it’s only now I realise that he is making a very pointed admission to everyone in the room. Harun is finally declaring exactly where he stands.

Carien goes pale, the light olive of her skin taking on a sickly sallow tinge. “Your bats have been making wild accusations. Things they said – about my husband, and implicating me in these same ridiculous–”

“Be quiet,” I tell her.

I can feel Jannik’s slow-kindling rage, crackling dry in the room. His magic brushes against my skin, sparking along nerves. Without asking, I gently pull on it, a woman unwinding silk from a windle cocoon. I draw on those threads, imagining them as lines of fine fire, and ravel them up into me. I do this with a touch so light, so breathless, Jannik does not notice.

When I am armed again, I stopper Carien’s mouth with magic.

She chokes, her hands flying to her throat, fingers scrabbling and raking at her skin. I watch her in horrified detachment, feeling like I am seeing myself begging for air, a lifetime ago. I don’t even feel as if I am here, just disconnected and unreal and exhausted and scared.

“What are you doing?” Jannik asks softly, his voice kind, while at my feet Carien is clawing the ground, and her face turning whiter, lips blue-grey as the sea I miss so much.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I wanted her to stop talking.”

“Let her go.”

I release her, letting Jannik’s magic pull away from me. A solid ache hits me in my chest from the loss of power.

Carien is gasping, staring at me in wide-eyed terror from the floor, still on her hands and knees. “What–” She is hoarse, choking on her words. She kneels back and massages her throat. “What are you?” she says in a low cat’s hiss.

“A War-Singer,” I tell her. “I believe the records show as much.”

“You had no scriv.”

“And you are mistaken.”

The door opens and Master Gillcrook drags in our rescued vampire by the scruff of his shirt. Merril sees me and pulls back, half-snarling, trying to hide his fear.

“Felicita,” Jannik says. “A word in private, if you’d be so kind.”