Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  Snow growled.

  “I believe he answered the same way when I asked,” Haval said, while he helped Teller into his long coat.

  Jewel hesitated again, and this time, Snow began to bat the side of her leg with the top of his head. “Knocking me over won’t get me dressed any faster,” she told him.

  “No, but it won’t make you any slower.”

  She unbuttoned the dress from the back and slid it, carefully, off the mannequin; she was afraid to touch it not because it was so very fine, but because she was afraid of damaging it somehow. Not even The Terafin would have dared a dress this ostentatious. She glanced uncertainly at Haval, who was now ignoring her in favor of his own work.

  Snow hissed an almost strangled command to hurry, and Jewel surrendered to the dress.

  To her lasting surprise, it was neither tight nor heavy; nor was it too warm. There was a knock at the door as Jewel examined herself in a slender oval mirror that seemed too slight to reflect the whole of the garment; Avandar entered the room. His attire was very fine, although it was mostly black with white trim and gold buttons; his shoes were also dark, and pointed in the fashion of the Court these past two years. Even his hair had been cut or combed in such a way that it revealed the lines of his face; he seemed very patrician, to her eye.

  But he was her domicis, and she was accustomed to him. Or so she thought.

  He was silent as she turned; silent as he stared. His face lost the look of arrogant disdain she’d grown to find so comfortable, and she wasn’t certain she could even name what replaced it. She stumbled, and Snow hissed in frenzy. Avandar caught her before she could fall—to her knees, as she usually did.

  “Avandar.”

  “ATerafin.”

  “Give me my hands back.”

  “Ah, of course. Apologies. Ellerson is waiting.”

  She nodded, and carefully gathered the train as she headed for the door and the ministrations of the elder domicis. Snow let her leave the room first, but inserted himself between Jewel and Avandar with another hiss.

  “If you step on it,” he growled, “I will rip out your throat.”

  “Snow!”

  “I will.”

  Ellerson was waiting for her in her own rooms, which had the advantage of being tidy. Haval’s workspace reminded Jewel very much of Rath’s; everything strewn over chairs and any surface more than an inch above ground. Here, however, the servants of the House—more precisely the servants assigned to the West Wing—reigned. They did so invisibly, of course, and if Jewel failed to emerge from her rooms, she could generate at least as much mess as Haval. But when she did finally leave, they arrived through their back doors and narrow halls, and they left the same way, having transformed chaos into a tidiness appropriate to the grandeur of the manse.

  Ellerson had a chair ready for her, and the mirror had been carefully placed in front of it. His eyes widened when she entered. “As you are no doubt aware,” he told her, indicating the chair, “the dress is astonishing.”

  “Will it hide the fact that I’m not?”

  “It just may. I’m afraid that my ability to do the same with your hair is in question.”

  Jewel grimaced. “That’s because Snow didn’t make my hair.”

  Snow snickered. “I could try.”

  “Don’t. I think the dress is difficult enough to carry off. If you change anything else, no one will recognize me at all, which kind of defeats the purpose.”

  “Does it?” Snow sidled over to her chair and deposited his head into her lap. She scratched behind his ears, not worrying about possible damage; if Snow felt it was safe to have his fur all over the oddly soft skirt, who was she to argue?

  “One day, ATerafin, it would not harm you to have your ears pierced.”

  “They can pierce them when I’m dead.”

  “Will you perhaps allow for jewelry?”

  “I don’t have any that’s worthy of this dress, and before you ask, yes, I noticed you staring at the ring on my thumb, and no, I’m not taking it off.” She exhaled, shoulders slumping and hair moving a couple of inches down; it was the hair that Ellerson minded.

  Snow’s head collided with her chin; he lifted it suddenly and without warning. “I’ll find something. You’ll wear it.” He raced toward the door, and Avandar opened it—which was good; Jewel had the feeling he would have broken it down otherwise. “You couldn’t have stopped him?” she asked her domicis.

  “Not in a way that would have left much of the room standing, no.”

  “Can you stop him from coming back?”

  “That, I might be able to do—but if I fail, he is unlikely to be amused. I doubt he will bring anything that will harm you.”

  “Not directly, no,” she said, staring down at her lap.

  “Not indirectly, in this case. The dress suits the situation, ATerafin.”

  “Yes—but it doesn’t suit me.”

  “If that is the biggest concern of the day,” Ellerson told her crisply, “consider yourself very fortunate.”

  She was suddenly certain she’d remember that later.

  Finch and Teller took longer to get ready, because Ellerson had done Jewel’s hair first. Jewel’s hair was, in the estimation of any servant who’d been forced to help out in Ellerson’s long absence, bloody difficult. Mind, they didn’t say this to Jewel; they said it to Carver, who saw no harm in repeating it where the Master of the Household Staff was unlikely to be eavesdropping.

  Finch had hair that was far less unwieldy; she didn’t require Ellerson, but he went anyway, because he knew they were all going to be on edge for the next three days. He even made tea. She had no idea who—if anyone—was fussing over Teller. Teller, on the other hand, appeared to be able to survive without the fuss. The idea had a certain appeal to Jewel.

  But then again, so did the reverse: leaving it all in the hands of people more capable. Which, at this very moment, described everyone. She adjusted the ring on her thumb. Avandar suggested that she attempt to fidget less.

  And then the door opened. A haggard Haval and a very, very well turned out Finch were waiting in its frame. Haval was still girded by apron and stray bits of thread from the various cloths he’d cut. “If I ever accept a commission like this one again, you have my permission to poison me,” he said sourly. “I am simply not young enough anymore.”

  “Any particular poison?”

  “No. At this point, the pain can’t possibly be worse. I do request that it be fatal, however.” He stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose, and let his hand slide back to his side. “You have, no doubt, seen yourself in a mirror.”

  “Yes.”

  “Try to look less frightened when you leave the wing. At the moment, your expression suits a very nervous and underprepared debutante, and at your age, that is no longer appropriate.” When she failed to answer, he added, “You are a power, Jewel. You are afraid of what that means, and I accept that; fear of a certain type leads to longevity because it is the foundation of caution. But fear is personal; like love it is meant to be carried close to the heart, and hidden from one’s enemies.” He reached out and adjusted a strand of escaped hair. In a different tone of voice, he said, “You are ready, ATerafin.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “No. That is the sad truth of power: when facing the unknown, you will never feel ready. But you are.” He glanced at the ring on her thumb, but said nothing. “I will see you before the ceremony starts; I must wake and see to my angry wife.” He stepped back and then bowed. It was a brief bow, but it was perfect in a way that Jewel never managed in her own gestures of respect.

  He smiled, as if reading her thoughts. “Your lack of ability to perform obeisance will be much less of an issue in future.”

  Absent any reasonable excuse to remain in their apartments, the den filed out the doors. Ellerson joined them. Like Avandar, he wore black; it was edged in gold, and the shirt beneath the jacket was white. The cut of the clothing was, however, very much his
usual; he carried a walking stick in his left hand, and he wore a hat.

  Angel wore a suit in a similar style, at his own insistence. Carver and Jester had been fitted with suits that were slightly more appropriate to Court than work, and Carver’s hair had been pulled back. They knew it was a bad day when they could see both of Carver’s eyes; Jester claimed to be shocked that he still had two.

  Snow sauntered along at Jay’s right. Shadow followed to the door. The gray cat kept all but his claws on the interior of the frame; he was put out, and took no pains to hide it. Ariel didn’t come to see them off. Adam, however, did. He froze in the hall, staring at Jewel, his jaw slack; Angel and Carver exchanged a glance and burst out laughing.

  “Matriarch,” Adam whispered.

  Jay cringed. Avandar frowned—at Jay, not at Adam; Adam reddened, and looked at his feet.

  Jay snorted and walked back to where Adam was standing. She hugged him while he was saying something in Torra—Angel assumed it was an apology from the tone. His smile was tentative, his face was still red. Angel couldn’t remember ever being that young. Jay said something else, in a more somber tone, and the red slowly faded from view as she let Adam go. “Shadow,” she said, speaking Weston. “Nothing bad had better happen to either of the two while I’m not here. And keep an eye on Hannerle as well.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like?” he said, hissing heavily on the sibilants.

  Looking more like herself than she had all morning, she chuckled. “I’d like for this day to be over. And there’s only one way that’s going to happen.” Turning, she exited the wing again, but this time her shoulders were straighter and she looked taller. It was probably just the shoes.

  The Terafin halls had never looked so ostentatious in the galleries meant to impress. They had never looked so metallic in the martial halls and walks, either. Mages had clearly been at work here; the magelights were bright and multihued. The den walked slowly because Jay did. Angel took the opportunity to position himself between Jay and the Captains of the Chosen, and Avandar allowed it with his usual cool grace.

  He offered Jay his arm, as Ellerson had taught him; she looked at it for a long moment in surprise—but she did take it, although she muttered something about “these damn shoes” under her breath. Carver made an unfortunate joke—unfortunate because he was well behind Angel and therefore safe from reprisals. Angel wasn’t concerned about the mockery. He was worried about Jay. He’d said nothing at all about her dress, but he wasn’t immune to its effects: it looked like something not even a painter could get right. It certainly didn’t look like clothing.

  The white cloth was the color of snow in a bitter Averalaan winter. The black was the color not of night, but darkness—the darkness of the god no one in the city named in Henden; it was deep and absolute and the magelights in their glory did nothing to change it at all. The gold that was threaded throughout was bankers’ gold, not harvest; there was nothing remotely friendly or approachable about this dress.

  But the hand on the crook of his elbow was warm and solid; it was also callused. The nails had been both smoothed and shaped, and someone had thought to apply powder—but it didn’t matter; the hand was sun-dark. Jay stumbled once and cursed her boots; he understood very little Torra, but through long familiarity had picked up all of the inappropriate words. “The ring was hers?” he asked.

  “It was.”

  He didn’t ask how she’d come by it, because it didn’t matter. Later, maybe.

  They walked without speaking through the halls. Jay set the pace. She called it stately. Angel understood why she was in no hurry to reach the gardens, but even walking excruciatingly correctly, they finally did. The doors were open to the early morning chill; the skies were gray and overcast.

  Angel winced when Snow stepped on his foot; for winged creatures, the cats were heavy, and all of the den had learned that ignoring them wasn’t an option; they craved acknowledgment and ramped up activity in order to achieve it.

  Jay stopped a moment, because the cat was trying to speak around something it held—in its mouth. She bent—kneeling in the dress was out of the question unless she was greeting the Kings or the Exalted—and Snow spit something out into her cupped palms. She winced as he began to chatter. He’d brought a necklace—one with a thick-linked silver chain. No, Angel thought, not silver; platinum.

  “Put it on. Put it on.”

  Avandar stepped in. “May I?” he asked; Jay was still staring at her hands, or at what was in them. Snow snorted and bumped her thigh with his head.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

  Snow stopped bouncing and glanced over his left shoulder. “Why do you care? It’s perfect for my dress.”

  As answers went, it was bad.

  “Snow—I mean it. I do care. Where did you get this? Did you make it the same way you made the dress?”

  He hissed. “Stupid girl.”

  Avandar lifted the necklace that was pooled in Jay’s palms; the chain seemed to go on forever, made thicker and finer and heavier by her growing anxiety. “Avandar, what is it?”

  “It is a pendant, ATerafin.”

  “It looks like it’s diamond.”

  “Ah. I do not think a diamond this large now exists in the Empire, although I have been mistaken in the past.”

  “If it does exist,” she said, rising and backing into Angel in an attempt to evade the necklace, “it’s going to be owned by one of the men—or women—we’re getting ready to greet today. I can’t wear it—”

  “It is not part of any collection that belongs to the patriciate of this City.” He smiled. It was cold and sharp. “Look at it.”

  She was. She was looking at it with both dread and fascination, because she could see, in the brilliance of light shed by cut faucets, the glimmering strands of luminescence that spoke of magic. She had come, with time, to understand what the colors, on a rudimentary level, might mean—but this pendant was surrounded by all of the colors. All, even the black that only the demons used. She swallowed. “It’s not a diamond,” she said, voice flat. “Avandar, tell me what it does.”

  “ATerafin, I do not know.”

  “Can you see it?”

  “See?”

  “The magic, Avandar.” Her right hand had curled into a fist, and she kept it by her side with effort. Oddly enough, the dress didn’t help; it spoke of power first, and dignity second—and at the moment, it was a distant second, and falling behind as the seconds passed.

  He nodded slowly. “I can, ATerafin. I can see enough to tell you that it is neither small nor insignificant, and if the magi are watchful, it will be noticed.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What would you have me say? That it is ancient? It is. That it is an artifact of a long forgotten people? It is. I will not tell you that it will grant you power, because I cannot say that with any certainty.”

  “What will it cost, to wear it?”

  His smile was slight, but it was warmer. “You are not and will never be a fool, Jewel. There is always a price to pay when dealing with things ancient or unknown; I cannot say what that price will be with any certainty, however.”

  “And you can’t hazard a guess where it came from?”

  “I can hazard one. I will not, however.”

  “The owner—”

  “Think of him not as owner but as custodian.”

  She latched onto the pronoun. “Him?”

  “It’s yours, it’s yours,” Snow hissed.

  “While I would desperately like to disagree with the cat on principle if nothing else, I feel in this single instance that he is correct. In the games of the old powers, very little that happens is entirely coincidental, although the shape of the whole cannot always be glimpsed by those who are caught in the threads of its tapestry.” The chain dangled loosely from his hands. “I will not force you to wear it,” he told her.

  “Because you can’t.”

  He raised a brow, but
didn’t demur.

  Angel cleared his throat, and she turned to him for support.

  He knew, of course. Her reluctance was so strong it was visible, tangible: she was afraid. Her fear had guided the den through the streets of the twenty-fifth holding, and it had guided them through the halls of the Terafin manse. Both of these were known quantities, now—but they always been knowable, even when the den had been nothing but a small gang of thieves taking the refuge granted them by the woman whose funeral now waited.

  But he knew when the fear that shadowed her was fear not of the unknown, but of herself. It wasn’t the pendant—or the dress—she doubted here; it was her own ability to carry them well. Angel didn’t have the doubt that she could never discard except in rage.