House of Cards

by C. E. Murphy

  “Does it? Or do you just start reining yourself in so you don’t forget and make a mistake in front of the wrong person?”

  “I assure you, Miss Knight.” Daisani’s voice went soft with bitterness. “None of us ever forget.”

  Cold lifted goose bumps on Margrit’s arms and she stopped just inside the door, waiting for Alban and Daisani to follow her into the echoing stairwell. “I was thinking, earlier.”

  “Congratulations.” Daisani spoke lightly, as if wiping away the sour note he’d struck a moment before.

  Margrit brushed off his teasing, putting together slowly the words she wanted to say. “Your secrets would get you killed. But I remember pictures of my great-grandmother.” She looked up to find both Daisani and Alban studying her with uncomprehending curiosity. “We’re pretty sure her family had been working in big houses for a few generations. Great-Grandma probably could’ve passed, except if she’d gotten caught they would’ve hanged her. Things changed,” Margrit said softly, too aware that she spoke from hope rather than conviction. “Maybe a hundred years from now you won’t have to hide.”

  “The difference,” Daisani said after a moment, “is that no one has been championing our cause for two centuries.”

  Margrit let her breath out in a rush. “I’m working on it.” She leaned over the stair railing, looking down the spiral, and heard Alban move behind her, as if he’d keep her from a fall she had no intention of taking. “I don’t have a hundred years,” she said. “You’ll have to take my grandchildren out someday, and show them what pikers the four-minute-milers are.”

  “I would like that.” Daisani’s tone changed again, a host of regrets audible in it. Margrit pushed away from the railing to find both men studying her with much the same expression, as though she were a rare breed of animal neither had expected to come upon.

  Uncomfortable with their gazes, she glanced away. “You’re going to have to get me through Malik first, though. That’s why we came.”

  Daisani’s eyebrows lifted. “Malik’s got enough native cunning to realize targeting you would bring my wrath down on him. And if he doesn’t, Janx isn’t that stupid. Not twice. Not like this. I doubt you’re in any danger, Margrit.”

  “Ordinarily I would agree, but Malik made a direct threat against her, to me. ‘I’ll visit her and hers in the morning,’” Alban quoted. “In the morning, so I would know, but be unable to protect her.”

  “Her and hers,” Daisani echoed. “Were those his exact words?”

  “Yes.” The faintest note of insult laced Alban’s voice. Margrit ducked her head, hiding a sudden bright grin. She imagined gargoyles were unaccustomed to having their memories questioned in any fashion. If her people were meant to bear the burden of preserving racial histories, she suspected she’d also find a cross-examination perturbing.

  “If I were Janx,” Daisani murmured, “I would not dare threaten Margrit. Not after Vanessa. Not after…” He glanced at Alban, who lowered his eyes in a concession Margrit didn’t understand. Daisani nodded, then said, “Malik is a fool,” more abruptly. “He’s a fool, but he’s Janx’s fool, so for all his threats I think he would not victimize Margrit.”

  “Even with the selkies?” she asked with what struck her as unlikely calm. Malik frightened her, and she had no doubt he would move against her, given the chance. Discussing the possibility should give rise to terror, not to a courtroom composure that didn’t allow for so much as a tremor in hand or voice. “Alban said they’re the djinns’ ancient enemy. If they perceive the selkies’ arrival on the scene in so many numbers as my fault, is he really going to hold off because Janx will cluck his tongue and wag a finger in admonishment?”

  “Four-thirty in the morning and she can use words like admonishment. I must remember not to exchange barbs with you when you’re in top form, Miss Knight.” Daisani smiled, then put away quips to answer her question. “I believe he would. I believe there are better targets. Safer, equally effective choices. He said ‘you and yours.’ If I were in Malik’s position, in Janx’s, I wouldn’t hunt you, Margrit.

  “I would hunt your mother.”

  The fear Margrit hadn’t felt for herself rose up in an overwhelming wave of sickness. Daisani offered an elbow in support, but let it fall again as she felt Alban’s hands at her waist and his reassuring presence beside her. A tremor flowed through her and she closed her fingers over Alban’s, leeching warmth. “My mother?” Her voice scratched and broke. She let go of Alban to press a fist against her stomach, trying to make horror leave her. “Mom?”

  Daisani spoke with such cool candor it took her long moments to realize it disguised a wealth of fury. “It would be a well-executed blow. Russell first, though he’s a far more obvious mark, if you’re privy to my relationship with Janx. Rebecca, though. Rebecca would make a subtle and splendid choice. It’s been so long since I’ve spoken to her, and there are so many people who work for me, that I might not have even considered it myself. But look at the depth of symmetry. She’s one of the scant handful of humans I’ve revealed myself to, so my trust is there. She’s your mother, so your love is there. She is an admirable target. I’m tempted to applaud him.”

  To her own dismay, Margrit could see his argument so clearly her revulsion to it seemed overblown. Her mother was a nearly perfect piece in the game Janx and Daisani played, worth capturing for the damage it would do. She swallowed, trying to loosen her throat. “You won’t let him hurt her.”

  “He will not,” Alban said in a deep, certain voice.

  Daisani looked sharply at the gargoyle. Margrit felt Alban shift beside her, and glanced up to see an unfamiliar challenge in his expression.

  “No,” Daisani said after a long moment. “I will not. Dramatics are unnecessary, Alban. Had I anticipated Russell’s death, I would have moved to protect him, and I assure you.” He flashed a smile, teeth unnervingly flat and terribly white. “I assure you, I will not permit Margrit’s mother to be sacrificed to this game. I have lost my queen already this year. I will not lose a knight.”

  “A knight.” Margrit laughed unhappily. “I wouldn’t think she’d be that important. I thought we were all pawns.”

  “You do yourself an injustice, Margrit. If you knew how few people I have shown myself to in the past five centuries…” Daisani shot a quelling glare at Alban, who shifted at Margrit’s side, but subsided without speaking. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep your parents from harm.”

  “How? Malik’s intangible. How do you stop somebody who can just materialize inside your house?” Fear was fading into its more exhausted brother, fatalism. Margrit put the heel of one hand against her eye as if she could push away despair. “I’m losing my ability to cope,” she mumbled. “I just hit a wall. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “If I may be presumptuous, you might consider sleeping. A gift of health doesn’t negate the human requirement for rest.”

  Margrit shifted her head enough to look at Daisani from the corner of her eye. “An immortal lunatic’s probably going to try to kill my mother, and you think I should sleep? You think I could sleep?”

  “I think that in sixteen hours’ time, you’ll be attending a masquerade ball peopled with not only New York’s elite, but every member of the Old Races in this city. I think you’ll want to be at your best for that.”

  “Oh, God.” Margrit slumped and Alban tightened his arm around her, shoring her up, shoring up the blessed feeling of not being alone. “I forgot about that. Masquerade? You didn’t say anything about a masquerade. I don’t have anything to wear.”

  Daisani smiled. “If you’d permit me, I’d be glad to lend you my tailor. You could even invite your mother along. That would put her under my eye for the afternoon, at the very least, and I think I can manage a few hours’ surveillance in the morning without anyone noticing me. Take her home, Alban.” He glanced down the stairs. “And I’ll make my way to Flushing, to play the part of a gargoyle for the day.”

  Margrit ba
lked, shaking her head as Alban tried to draw her toward the door. “Mom won’t want to come. She doesn’t like you.” No sooner were the words spoken than Margrit frowned, uncertain of their truth. Rebecca was extremely cautious with regards to Eliseo Daisani, but that didn’t necessarily constitute dislike.

  A flash of something unreadable crossed Daisani’s face. “Perhaps, but if her daughter, who has suffered an emotional blow in the last few days, invites her, I doubt she’ll turn you down. And she may want to give me that steely glare of hers, when she hears you’re coming to work for me. Or have you told her already?”

  Margrit stared at him a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t remember. I honestly can’t remember. I must not have. I’d remember her flipping out.”

  “Then I look forward to the battle meeting.” Daisani moved toward the stairs. “Really, next time you should come in through the front door, Alban. We might have had this conversation in the comfort of my living room instead of a concrete-and-steel stairwell.”

  Alban huffed as Margrit glanced down the spiral of stairs again. “I seem to be having a lot of conversations in stairwells these days. Must be the company I’m keeping.” She looked up again with a brief smile. “Can I invite my housemates to the ball? Cam’ll never forgive me if I get all dolled up without her.”

  “You can even bring her to the fitting party,” Daisani said. “I’m sure Henri would thoroughly enjoy having such a model to work with.”

  “Henri?”

  “My tailor.”

  “Your tailor is named Henri? Is he really French? That,” Margrit said, at Daisani’s nod, “is the most surreal thing I’ve encountered all day. Normal people don’t have French tailors named Henri. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, here I come.”

  “I think you’d better take her home,” Daisani said to Alban. “Sleep well, and don’t worry. I’ll watch out for your mother. I’ll watch out for them all.”

  “You’ve been very quiet. Are you going to tell me this was another bad idea?” Margrit nestled against Alban’s chest, his heartbeat a slow counterpoint to Daisani’s quick footsteps on the stairs.

  Alban curled his arm around her shoulders, lowering his mouth against her hair. A rush of warmth swept her, the safety of his arms offering more comfort than she wanted to admit to. “If it was, it was my bad idea. No, in this case, I…trust Eliseo to do as he says he will.”

  Margrit tipped her head up, eyes half-closed as she studied the line of Alban’s jaw. “Why? There was all this subtext going on there that I couldn’t read. Not after Vanessa, not after what?”

  A throb of memory caught her off guard, as startling for its familiarity as its presence. For an instant she saw a woman with long brown hair, wearing a gown so functional and plain it could have come from almost any era in the last five centuries. Her gaze was solemn and straightforward, almost challenging, and a pang of regret cut through Margrit’s breast. Alban’s regret, not her own, though there was little telling them apart when she rode his memory as she did now.

  The woman stood with two men, both smaller than Margrit and Alban in height and breadth. One wore his red hair loose, falling over a gaudy crimson-and-green cloak. The other, more dapper, wore a dark ponytail and a half-coat in somber colors. Margrit felt herself—felt Alban—committing them to memory, as though they were old friends he wouldn’t see again, and then he turned away, leaving them alone in the moonlight.

  She caught her breath as she shook the memories off, then frowned at Alban. “Who is she?”

  Unfiltered surprise darkened his eyes. “Who?”

  “The woman. That’s the second time I’ve seen her. The first time was when you went into the memories to see if Hajnal was still alive. I saw this woman, and I saw Janx and Daisani and you, all in completely different clothes. I just saw it all again. Who is she?”

  Alban went quiet, surprise still evident in his features, but shaded by more complex emotions. “Her name was Sarah Hopkins,” he finally replied. “That’s all I can tell you, Margrit. Hers isn’t my story to tell.”

  “Is it Janx and Eliseo’s?”

  “It is, but I would be cautious in asking them. Neither would like to hear that you catch fragments of my memories. I have been outside my people for centuries to avoid just that.”

  A memory of the woman came to her again, this time from Margrit’s own mind—a recollection of the gesture she’d seen Sarah use the first time she’d caught a glimpse of her inside Alban’s memories. “Oh. Oh. Oh, shit, Alban. You—”

  He put a fingertip against her lips, then replaced it with the pad of his thumb, brushing so lightly it tickled and made her smile. “Don’t say anything else,” he asked. “Don’t tell me what you’ve guessed, and don’t ask me to confirm. Will you do that for me, Margrit?”

  Margrit pressed her lips together beneath his touch, then nodded. When he took his hand away, she said, “You know this is going to kill me, right? Not asking.”

  A quick smile that had little to do with humor creased Alban’s mouth. “It may eat at you, but it won’t kill you. The answers you’re looking for, though, might.”

  Nerves churned in Margrit’s belly. “Right. Yeah, okay. Dammit, I wish it was just melodrama when you say things like that.” She made fists, then released them. “I think Eliseo’s right. It might be good for me to get some sleep. Could you take me home?”

  “I will,” Alban murmured. “And I’ll watch over you until dawn breaks. Come.” He offered his hand and led her outside. Margrit held on tight as they sprang into the air, willing herself not to look back.

  Willing herself to hold her tongue, and not ask whose child Sarah Hopkins had borne: Janx’s, or Daisani’s.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ONCE OR TWICE, from a great distance, the William Tell Overture had played. It had sent images of footraces and concert halls through Margrit’s dreams, incomprehensible but enjoyable. Only when her bed shifted with someone’s weight and a woman’s voice said, “Margrit. Margrit? I called, but you didn’t answer,” did a hint of consciousness seep through to tell her the music had been her phone’s ring tone.

  “Whutimesit?”

  “Nearly one o’clock.”

  Head still buried in the pillows, Margrit struggled to turn that information into something meaningful, finally deducing that she’d had almost eight hours of sleep. Alban had left her on the rooftop minutes before five, and she’d staggered downstairs to collapse into bed. Eight hours was enough sleep. She tried to convince herself of that, then tried to count the number of hours she’d slept in the last week. It took only a few seconds to give up and bury herself farther into the covers.

  “Margrit, would you like to tell me why Eliseo Daisani called our house at daybreak and invited your father and me to a ball?”

  A giggle erupted into Margrit’s pillow, so unexpected that at first she didn’t realize it was her own laughter. It awakened her enough to ask, “Daybreak? Really?” much more clearly.

  “At seven thirty-four,” her mother said with asperity. “On a Saturday, Margrit.”

  Margrit giggled again, knowing it would draw lines of irritation around Rebecca’s mouth, but unable to stop herself. “I’m sorry. Have you been calling since then?”

  “I waited until nine. When you refused to answer—”

  “I was sleeping!” Margrit rose from the blankets and shook her hair out of her face, giving her mother a wounded look.

  “As some of us might have liked to have been. I took the train in to see if you were all right. Why didn’t your housemates answer the phone?”

  “’Cause they were at work?” No, it was Saturday. Cole, at least, didn’t have to work. Margrit flopped back down and pulled the pillow over her head, knowing it wouldn’t block out Rebecca’s voice. She ought not to have given her mother a key to the apartment. She would still be sleeping blissfully if she hadn’t made that mistake. “Maybe they went to breakfast.” Or maybe, like Margrit herself, they’d simply slept through the ringing phone
. She’d gone to bed later than them, but not by much. “Is Daddy here?”

  “In the kitchen. You really should replace that refrigerator, Margrit, even if this isn’t your apartment. It’s contributing to global warming all on its own.”

  “I like our fridge.” Margrit sat up and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Okay, go steal some of Cole’s leftovers for lunch while I shower, and then I’ll talk to you about the ball.”

  “So it does have something to do with you.”

  “Mom! Go! Go!” Margrit flapped her hands at Rebecca, who pursed her lips, then got up and left the room. Margrit groaned and fell back over, fumbling for her phone.

  Eliseo Daisani picked up on the first ring, sounding amused. “Yes?”

  “Did you have to call her before eight o’clock? What’d you say?” Margrit lifted a finger, as if he could see her. “And are you lurking outside my apartment playing superhero?”

  “I did, and I am. I think Alban is better suited to it. I find myself hoping something dreadful will happen so I have something interesting to do. Do you suppose that’s how the Avengers feel?”

  “I can’t even believe you know who the Avengers are. And no. Superheroes aren’t supposed to go looking for trouble. They should be happier out of a job. What’d you tell her?”

  She could all but hear Daisani shrug. “I told her you and your friends had agreed to come to my little party tonight, and that given the events of the last few days I thought you might be happier if you had family around, as well.”

  “You obviously don’t know much about my relationship with my parents,” Margrit muttered. “I mean, I love them dearly, but Mother is a busybody and I try not to give her too many details to involve herself in. But you didn’t tell her about the job.”

  “I did not.” Daisani sounded pleased with himself. “I’ll keep them safe until sunset, but I’ll leave running that particular gauntlet to you.”

  “Who’s going to keep me safe?” Margrit demanded, but he had already hung up. She called Cameron’s cell phone and put an only half-mocking note of alarm in her voice as she left a message. “Come home as fast as you can. My parents are here and I have to survive telling them I’m going to work for Daisani. And we all have to go get fitted for dresses for his party tonight.” Trusting that would bring Cam home the instant she heard it, Margrit dropped the phone on the bed and went to take a fortifying shower before facing her parents.