House of Sand and Secrets

by Cat Hellisen

  Harun glances up at me through his sweat-soaked hair. “Right.” He coughs. “Don’t have to take more. Waiting for the last Vision.”

  “Oh good.” I step back, putting as much distance as I can between us.

  “Last one, always a true one.” He’s still coughing, choking the words out. He fumbles for a handkerchief and spits a wad of black mucous into it, looks at the mess and scowls. “I’ve fucked myself completely,” he says to himself.

  “The children?” I say. I ask him now, or I ask him never.

  He looks up from his wadded handkerchief and frowns. “What – oh.” He looks away from me with a shrug. “That’s just one path. It’s – there are others. You can choose anything.”

  “Whose were they?”

  “Yours, obviously.”

  I grit my teeth and speak slowly. “The father, I mean.”

  “Does it matter?” He stands and sways unsteadily. “I told you, it’s not a true Vis– Oh sweet fucking Gris.” His eyes roll back into his head, strange and white. Before I can move forward to catch him, he tips sideways, his head connecting with the wooden armrest. The sound is loud and meatily solid. “Ah fuck,” he mumbles. “Gris damn.”

  I manage to get him upright, but whatever bit of sanity he was hanging on to is gone now. There’s just the eerie rolled-back eyes, the growing swelling on his head, the odd wheezy breathing. This close, I can smell the black vomit on his breath; it’s rotten with clotted blood. He makes a sound I have only heard once before, when a dog was caught in a market wagon’s spoked wheel and dragged through the streets. It makes the flesh on my bones feel like it’s peeling back.

  This is it, then. My throat closes up like a sea snail sealing its shell.

  “Harun!” I kneel before him and slap at his face, praying that he comes back from whatever future he’s seeing, and that he comes back with most of his mind still in one piece. “You stupid, stupid, stupid idiot.” I’m punctuating the words with slaps and with sobs. My face is wet. I shouldn’t care. Harun has been no great friend to us. Isidro is as pretty and untrustworthy as any well-bred whore. But, as Jannik, has pointed out before, they are all we have.

  I give Harun a final slap, so hard that my own bones feel broken. He stops screaming to drag in a ragged breath, and just as suddenly as he began, he falls silent. “Is it done then?” I ask him softly as I try and squeeze the pain out of my bruised hand. The blisters have broken again, weeping over my skin.

  He stares around the familiar room, lost and vacant.

  “Is it done?” This time I yell, and he seems to finally notice me.

  “Where–” Harun shakes his head briskly like a wet dog, then stills and presses one hand to his bruised temple. “Ow. Where’s Isidro?”

  “Out – outside.” It’s a version of truth.

  “Why did you kill your brother when you could have killed yourself instead?”

  No scriv-fuelled beating could have hurt me as hard, or come as more of a surprise. “I didn’t,” I say, almost without thinking. I have told myself this so many times. “I didn’t.”

  He lurches to his feet and walks past me to open the door. “Isidro? You can come out of hiding now.” Harun yells it like he’s making a joke, but Isidro does not appear.

  I stay on my knees and watch his face, looking for some sign that he will betray me.

  Jannik is the one who comes to the door, and from the panic on his face I know what I had only feared before. Isidro has left.

  “He’s going to die,” Harun says, and looks from my face to Jannik’s and back again.

  “That’s a little dramatic,” Jannik begins but Harun cuts him short.

  “Is it? Is it really? When your people are turning up on Lam-heaps with their faces cut off?” Harun sneers. “Do you know how much I’ve been offered for him in the past?”

  He coughs another clump of rotted blood into his hand, and stares at it. “Anyway,” he says, dully, with no inflection to betray him. “I saw it.”

  I freeze. Of course we don’t know how much people offer Harun for his partner. It’s not like we try to dig up each other’s secrets like earthworms in a compost heap. Was that all Harun’s final vision brought him – the news that Isidro would die? A waste of scriv if ever there was. We all die.

  “He was frightened.” I say. I’m still on my knees. I shouldn’t be. “You frightened him.” I stand and shake out my skirts. “He probably went for a walk. On the grounds somewhere.”

  Behind Harun, Jannik shakes his head. “I’ve looked.”

  “Why would he leave?” And I want to ask if Harun’s hit him before, if this is not the first time that Isidro has had the marks of scriv-poisoning on him, but the words sit there, clinging to the tip of my tongue. Perhaps this is why Isidro fell so easily into an entanglement with someone he professes to dislike. I thought he wanted to make Harun jealous, but perhaps it wasn’t that at all. Then again, who am I to judge? I edge closer to Harun. “Where would he go?” I try instead. There’s a safer question with safer answers.

  “Perhaps,” Jannik says softly, “he didn’t want to die because of you.”

  “There was never any danger of that,” Harun says.

  “The bond-” I begin. So it’s not strong enough to tie them both to death.

  “And you are so certain of this that you took the risk, and didn’t ask him whether he wanted to share in your suffering?” Jannik moves closer, his eyes only on Harun, waiting for him to admit his failings.

  Harun shrugs. “I had more important things to try and see.”

  I shake my head at Jannik, willing him to drop the subject. Now is hardly the time. Isidro will have gone somewhere he feels safe, at least. That’s what people do. “Does he have friends, family?”

  At the last word Harun pales. For a moment I think I’ve worried him then he doubles over and retches again. It’s a thin stream of black bile and swallowed blood. “Gris,” he says, and spits before wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He straightens, and clutches the door-frame to stay upright. “Yes, yes. Family.” He lurches out of the room and we follow him to the entrance hall. “Damn,” Harun says. “He’s left his outdoor coat.”

  I shrug. “It’s summer–”

  “It has nothing to do with the weather.” Harun takes a long dark coat from the stand and throws it at my feet. “If he’s walking around without this he’s – he’s–”

  Jannik kneels and fingers the collar of the coat. On one lapel there is the House symbol of Guyin. On the other is a small embroidered badge of an eagle in a ring of flames. “He’s breaking the law.” Jannik runs his thumb over the eagle. “Why didn’t you sign papers and make his freedom official?”

  “Because this isn’t bloody Pelimburg. There are no free Houses here. You’re the only one who gets to walk about without your slavery written all over you. You should thank you lady for that much at least.”

  “What is that?” I ask, pointing at the eagle badge. “It looks like Mallen’s old crest.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Jannik stands and holds the coat over for Harun. “It’s the symbol for vampires.”

  “So?”

  “So, it shows that he is owned by someone, gives him license to walk outside the rookeries,” Jannik says through gritted teeth. “Without it, Isidro runs the risk of being picked up as a runaway slave.”

  I look at Jannik’s pale angry face, then across at Harun, ill and guilty. “You – he’s still a slave?” No one moves. It’s all the answer I need. “Maybe nothing will happen,” I say dully. “After all, Jannik doesn’t wear one and no-one has ever stopped him-”

  “I travel in a coach with the Pelim arms,” Jannik says. “They don’t need to.”

  So this is his freedom then. Tied to my name and my protection, and I wasn’t even aware of it. Sometimes I can be so wilfully blind. I stare again at the coat, at its damning crest. “Why would Isidro leave without this?”

  Harun shrugs, but doesn’t look at me. “An oversight, I suppose
, It’s not like he often has reason to leave the house. And he’s not at his best when he’s distraught.”

  “Is he often distraught?”

  Harun looks up. Bloodied black spittle is wiped about his mouth. “Don’t try to condemn me without knowing anything, Pelim.”

  “Point,” I say.

  Harun is shivering, and though he tries to hide it, I can see he needs the wall as support. It’s the only reason he’s still standing.

  “Do you want us to go look for him?” Harun is in no condition to go anywhere. “Do you know where he is?”

  Harun frowns, and shakes his head. “Confusing. I can’t – can’t think straight. He’s not thinking straight.”

  “Try. Harder,” I say.

  “Splinterfist,” Harun says after the silence has stretched out long and thin. “Go there, and ask for him.”

  “The rookery?” Jannik glances sidelong at Harun as if he can barely bring himself to actually look at the man without hitting him. “You’re certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll help him to his room. You’ll be more welcome at the rookery than I was,” I say to Jannik. Then I think of Carien, and her serpent friends, and the vampires on the heaps. Our burnt-out home. “Wait. Don’t leave yet. Give me a moment.”

  Jannik does so, calm and patient and curious. We’ve strengthened what little friendship there was left between us. After all, it was not so long ago that we were pressed together on his office bed, even if it was a chaste affair.

  I help Harun up the stairs and set him in his bed, then come rushing down, half expecting Jannik to be long gone.

  He’s not. “And?” Jannik is leaning against the wall, looking more like a blackguard than the head of a House. He’s till in his smoke-ruined clothes, as am I.

  “We can’t go out looking like this,” I tell him.

  “Now is hardly the time to start worrying about fashion,” he says. “My – friend-”

  I stop him, holding up one hand. “Clothes. Harun will be bound to have something for us.”

  “We?” Jannik manages a tired sneer.

  I take his arm. “I didn’t want you to go alone.” As long as I can see him, I know he’s alive.

  * * *

  We’re dressed in clean, if somewhat dated, clothes, in the coach and on our way to the Splinterfist rookeries when I realize I never told Harun about the Pelim apartments. “The fire,” I say. “We need to warn Harun.”

  Jannik shakes his head. He’s peering out the glass, watching the streets. “The thing they want from House Guyin is out wandering the streets. I don’t think we need to worry about anyone burning his home down now.” He glances at me. “But you know your friends better than I do.”

  “We don’t know Eline did this,” I say.

  “We don’t know they didn’t. And if it’s Isidro they want … .” Jannik still refuses to look at me.

  “Why him?” I say, even though the answer is obvious. House Eline likes pretty things to call their own. Things no one else can afford. Priceless glass atrocities by Narlet, rare meats and wines from the eastern cities, a beautiful whore owned by a Great House.

  Jannik’s mouth twists, but he does not answer.

  #

  The Splinterfist rookery is on the Ives’ side of the river, and it takes us more time to reach it than I would have liked. The streets are too crowded, and word of my destroyed home has spread. The Courant Hoblings are standing on the street corners selling evening papers that have flashes of my ruined house on the front page. There is a certain vicious joy to the news. They like it when we fall.

  “We’ll need to invest in new property,” I say, as if this was any other day and I had not lost my home, and Harun his heart.

  Jannik merely nods. “Or we could go back.”

  Back. Back to Pelimburg and the sea and a world I understand at least a little. It’s tempting. I am tired of this vast city driven by factories and silk and fashion. This stupid cruel city with her shining bright teeth. Mother has taken Lenora and her daughter Allegria to her bosom in the manor; perhaps Jannik and I could re-occupy my brother’s old apartments. And every day could be a reminder of how I failed my family and brought shame to the Pelim name. Every new building rising from the rubble of the old would serve as an accusation of everything I destroyed because of Dash.

  How could I go home and look out on Lambs’ Island and not think of boggerts and sea-witches and nightmares. “No,” I say. “We can’t.”

  “Never?”

  “Not -not yet.” I am not ready to face my ghosts. Gris knows if I ever will be.

  Jannik sighs and shifts on his seat. “A new house then,” he says, and we focus on inane practicalities rather than think about where Isidro has gone and why. Even so, we both keep looking out the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of that impossibly beautiful vampire.

  “The servants will need to be compensated for any losses.”

  Jannik nods in agreement. “I’ll have Master Twissel draw together a list.” With our head house servant in charge, rebuilding our life in new premises will not be a vast hardship. Until we are burned out of our nest again. Until others die for us.

  “We’re here,” I say as we turn down Whitur Street. “Have you – have you been here before?”

  “No,” he says, and snorts. “Why would I want to do that? Would you go to the animal gardens if they kept Lammers in cages?”

  I clench my hands on my lap. “Would you rather wait in the carriage?”

  “Yes,” he says, and stands to get out.

  * * *

  We are led upstairs to the eight-sided turret room belonging to the Splinterfist head. The room feels smaller this time, and that coolness is gone from her face. When first we met, I came here alone, looking for names. She gave them to me but they have brought nothing good.

  Rutherook, Yew, Karin. Eline.

  I think she never expected me to return, and certainly not with my husband. The look she gives Jannik is undisguised loathing. “And to what do I owe the honour this time, Pelim?” She spits the name at my feet.

  “We’ve come looking for Isidro,” I say to her. “There’s been a misunderstanding and we’re led to believe that he–”

  “Isidro?” She narrows her eyes thoughtfully. “He’s not here.” The Splinterfist head closes a vast ledger on the desk closed, and the whump of the pages makes dust sprinkle from the ceiling. “I’ve not spoken to him for years. You’ve come sniffing around the wrong sewer.” The gold vines on the wall paper glow around her, outlining her like one of the stylized paintings of the old Saints – Tille or Amata, not blonde Oreyn or fiery Helena.

  “I–” I glance at Jannik, who is staring coolly at the head, his eyes uncovered. “Are you quite certain?”

  Harun seemed convinced he’d come running back here. Family, he said. And he knew. He knew, even if he didn’t want to know.

  The woman places her hands on her ledger, leans forward across the desk and there is a sudden awkward skittering of power in the air; armies of ants march up my arms. “My son is not welcome here, and he knows it. If you want to find him, I suggest your time would be better served in the bedrooms of Great Houses.” She draws back. “He seems to like to pretend their power will rub off onto his skin.”

  Her son. I can see it now, the artful sweep of the eyebrows, the aquiline features. In her, Isidro’s prettiness is tempered by her sex, and she is merely attractive. “I see,” I say and let out a small confused breath that could almost be a nervous laugh were it louder. “I am sorry to have wasted your time.” We leave as hurriedly as we can.

  “Did you know?” I say when we are safely back in our carriage.

  Jannik shakes his head. “About that – how could I have?”

  “And Harun, he must.” Of course he does. It’s why he sent us here in the first place. Why he couldn’t go himself. Sometimes the secrets we know make action impossible. I take in a deep breath and try focus on the task at hand. “So where to now –
do you think she meant what she said–”

  I am interrupted by a shout outside. We have not yet left, our driver was still clambering into place, and now we have been prevented from moving. Someone is clinging to the side of our carriage.

  “What now?” I look outside the window at a bone-white face. It’s a wray, hardly old enough to have reached his teens.

  Jannik is the one who opens the door to him, for it seems I’m frozen. “What is it?” asks Jannik, as the boy slips inside, furtive and cat-like. He brings the dark in with him, moonlight on his heels.

  “You’re looking for Isidro?” He speaks quickly, but his voice is clear, and there is nothing nervous about him.

  Jannik and I glance at each other then back to the wray, and we both nod.

  “So what story did she tell you, then?”

  “That he’s not there.” Jannik leans back a little, and spreads his arms along the back of the seat. It is a falsely comfortable gesture; I can feel his magic sparking along my arms, setting the fine hairs tingling. I wonder what it would be like to just give in and touch him, to let his magic flow right into me like a drug.

  I stiffen. He’s a person and I will not use him.

  The wray sneers at our idiocy. “She’d never tell you nothing if it didn’t suit her. He’s not there now, obviously. Not anymore. But he was.”

  “Was,” says Jannik flatly. He narrows his eyes, but I know he’s taking everything about this little wray in, from the neat creases in his trousers to the unusual grey of his eyes. “You’re very informative.”

  The wray shrugs. “Could be more informative, if you like.”

  “Ah,” says Jannik. He looks a mixture of amused and disgusted. “Name your price then, wray.”

  “Jannik, really–” I say.

  “Fifteen brass. And it’s Mal. My name, I mean.”

  “Ten,” Jannik counters. “And no more than that.”

  “Gris, is this really the time to be trying to haggle him down? Give him the damn money,” I yell.

  Mal lifts an eyebrow. “Bossy lady you got there,” he says to Jannik, even as he’s taking the coins.