Battle: The House War: Book Five

by Michelle West

  They walked for half an hour before Jewel once again stopped. The forest had not substantially changed, and it was hard—for someone born and bred to city trees—to easily differentiate between the trunks of large trees; they might have been walking in a circle, for all she knew. The sun did not noticeably change; the light across the forest floor still fell at a steep incline, not a gradual one.

  And Jewel was done with wandering, like lost children, in a fairy-tale landscape. These trees were part of her forest, and her forest was part of Terafin. It was to Terafin that she now walked. There was no sudden clearing, no obvious path, to follow, but it wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t lost, here. She could not afford to be lost.

  Ahead, in the same light, she could see the sudden glint of silver leaves. “You’ll like this,” she told Adam, “as long as the cats aren’t there.”

  “I like your cats.”

  “They’d kill you if they could.”

  “Yes, but they can’t and they accept it.” He smiled. “Ariel loves Shadow. Do you think he would kill her, if he could?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “She’s never, ever going to be dangerous to him. You might be.” The silvered leaves of impossible trees were now overhead; they caught light to the right and left for as far as the eye could see. “I don’t think the cats like to terrify people. The best they could hope for with Ariel is terror and death.”

  “Do you think that was always true?”

  “Always? I don’t know. I only met them once before they arrived here.” Silver gave way to gold, as it had in one other forest, the cooler color surrendering the heights to the warmer one. “They were made of stone, at the time. But they seemed the same.”

  “The same?”

  “They stepped on each other’s tails and paws and tried to nudge each other into tree branches. They tried to land in the same spot. They made a lot of noise.” She sighed as gold gave way to diamond; the warmer color to ice. She didn’t really care for diamonds, and never had. But the trees themselves were arresting. “They were utterly silent in the presence of the Winter King.”

  “They served him?”

  “Yes. I think he turned them into stone; he didn’t say why. Or how.”

  “They weren’t stone when they found you again.”

  “No.” She smiled as diamond gave way to a clearing. In its center, standing alone, was a tree of burning flame; it seemed taller than Jewel remembered it. Taller, grander, red leaves crackling in a blaze that would never consume them. “I remember my first home. Not my family’s home; not Rath’s, but mine. It was crowded. You couldn’t walk from one end to another without tripping over someone.” The fire’s light spanned her cheeks as she lifted her face.

  “We didn’t have a day of silence. We didn’t have a day where one of my den wasn’t stepping on someone’s foot or tripping them or stealing some of the food off someone else’s plate. Some days, we had Duster in a raging fury; that made almost everyone go quiet until she stormed out.

  “The cats remind me of us. They’re friendlier than Duster ever was, and they’re much easier to control. Don’t tell them I said that,” she added, with a wry smile. “They’ll only feel insulted.”

  “Or worse.”

  “Or worse.” Tendrils of flame reached out and wrapped themselves gently around her wrists; the ache in the palms of both hands lessened. She felt no desire to plant any of these leaves in her forest. She knew it was not here they belonged, although she couldn’t say why. As she watched, the leaves of iron began to melt. They didn’t become molten; they pooled instead beneath the weight of the single blue leaf. It floated, sinking as the leaves upon which it sat dissolved.

  In the end, only the blue leaf remained. It now looked metallic, and the white veins were a bright light that nonetheless did not hurt to look at.

  “The fire doesn’t burn you.”

  “Not this fire, no.”

  “Will it burn me?”

  She shook her head. “Not here. Not yet. I don’t understand why this tree is at the heart of my forest. The fire from which it sprouted was Kialli fire, not mine; it was meant to kill, to destroy. It took root here.”

  “You planted it,” was his quiet reply.

  She turned to look over her shoulder. “Adam.”

  His expression, lit and warmed by the colors of flame, was grave.

  “We’ll walk past this tree, and the footpath will join the Terafin grounds. The magi will know. Sigurne will know.”

  “Could you walk this path back to the Houses of Healing?”

  She shook her head.

  “Will you be able to, one day?”

  “I think so.” It was a quiet, difficult admission.

  “Levec’s not going to like it.”

  She snorted. “If Levec isn’t beating my doors down by the time we’ve arrived in the manse, it’ll be a miracle. He won’t particularly care if I’ve disappeared—he can’t stand patricians in his house. He’ll be beyond livid that you did.” Inhaling, she drew her hands closer to her chest. “Let’s go home.”

  It was only as they approached the manse that Jewel realized that she should have recognized at least one of the dreamers, and hadn’t. Hannerle had not been among them. And it was only as they left the edge of the deep forest that she realized night had fallen.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  12th of Fabril, 428 A.A.

  Merchant Authority, Averalaan

  THE MERCHANT AUTHORITY functioned as a bastion of patrician power and authority that was impervious to all but extreme physical damage. Its public halls and barely defensible wickets were occupied from the moment the front doors rolled open to the moment they closed; indeed, the hours of operation were often contested by merchants who had not quite finished conducting business which any idiot could see was of vast—and superior—import.

  Nothing short of cracked bearing wall could bring the Authority fully to its knees.

  Sadly, the men and women who toiled within its many offices were frailer; they were subject to the usual necessities of life: food, drink, and sleep. Finch had had very little of the latter the previous night. The same was true of every member of the West Wing, with the possible exception of Ariel. Jewel and Adam had traveled by fully crested carriage to the Houses of Healing.

  While a carriage did arrive, ostensibly from the Houses of Healing, it bore the insignia of the Order of Knowledge, and among its occupants neither The Terafin nor Adam could be found. The Chosen who had accompanied The Terafin—Torvan among them—had arrived almost immediately afterward.

  Finch, unsuspecting, had been cleaning teacups and discussing minor matters of import with Jarven, who had become increasingly testy and bored over the passage of a week. She arrived a full hour after either the magi or the Chosen. The West Wing was not empty; but she wasn’t given time to so much as set foot within the familiar confines of her home within the manse; a page waited at the doors, pale as chalk, with an urgent message: she was summoned to the right-kin’s office immediately.

  There, she found Torvan, Arrendas, and Teller; Barston barely glanced at her ring before he waved her past. It wasn’t necessary, of course—he knew her on sight—but he was a stickler for form, and he was especially pointed in demanding correct form from those who had suffered a deficiency in their native upbringing.

  “Finch,” Teller said, as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. “The Terafin has not yet returned from the Houses of Healing.”

  She glanced at Torvan, Captain of the Chosen. There was, about his expression, some shadow she had not seen for well over a decade. He did not speak.

  “Both The Terafin and Adam were seated beside one of Levec’s patients who happened to be awake. They apparently disappeared as soon as the patient suffered a relapse.”

  “Apparently?”

  “They disappeared,” Torvan said.

  “You saw them vanish?”

  “No, ATerafin—”

  �
��Finch. Call me Finch while the door is closed. If I hear ATerafin one more time today I’ll scream.”

  Torvan nodded. He did not, however, use her name. “They were present by the bedside, and then they were not. There was no blood, no injury, and no obvious use of magic; believe that the magi would have noticed the latter.”

  “The magi waiting in the outer office,” Finch said softly. “Are they the mages who were present in the healerie?”

  “Two of them. The third was sent from the Order. We are, fortunately, blessed with the presence of the House Mage.” Teller’s grimace made clear how mixed he thought that blessing was. The presence of the House Mage—a pipe-smoking and insouciant Meralonne at his finest—had done little to calm the magi who did arrive in Teller’s office. Meralonne made clear that he thought their presence in the Terafin manse superfluous and entirely unnecessary.

  Since they were mages, and since they wore medallions that indicated relative seniority within the Order, voices were raised, and hundreds of words spoken. Most of these went unheard by any but the person speaking them, and they clashed the way slightly worried men with more pride than common sense frequently did.

  “Barston didn’t enjoy it,” Teller admitted, “but Meralonne distracted the magi by offending them all the moment he opened his mouth.”

  “Meralonne wasn’t in the outer office when I arrived.”

  “No. When the man with the salt-and-pepper beard started to crackle—and I mean that literally—his two companions suggested that this was a matter for the guildmaster; Meralonne agreed and left. Instantly.”

  “. . . Which none of our other visitors have the power to do.”

  “Yes. They’re waiting for her here.”

  For the next four hours, Finch and Teller had dealt with Jay’s utter absence, her inexplicable disappearance, from the Houses of Healing. The fact that every person stricken by the sleeping sickness had, one by one, woken, signified little. They remembered nothing of their dreams—if indeed they dreamed at all—but that, Adam had said, was not unusual.

  Word of her disappearance had, of course, traveled, although they’d done what they could to minimize its spread. At the top of hour two, Marrick joined the magi in the outer office, and within half an hour, Elonne and Rymark joined him. At the top of the third hour, Sigurne Mellifas arrived, looking grim and haggard. She was allowed into the office, Meralonne by her side. Haerrad could not be far behind.

  But Jay beat him—thank all the gods—by about ten minutes. She appeared in the open door of the right-kin’s office.

  Finch was halfway across the room before she remembered that Jay was now The Terafin, and no one hugged The Terafin or cried on her shoulder with relief. Not when the door was open and the magi were stewing and the senior members of the House Council bore witness.

  The Terafin, in this case, offered a curt apology for her delayed return—to her House Council. To Sigurne and Meralonne she offered a formal nod.

  “Terafin,” Sigurne said, tendering her a bow. She glanced at Meralonne, who failed to notice. “Apologies for our unnecessary presence; there was some concern, but it was clearly misplaced.”

  “House Terafin appreciates your presence, but as you note, it is unnecessary.”

  The mages were more easily dismissed than the House Council; Haerrad arrived a few minutes after a page had been sent to escort them to their waiting carriage. The House Council did not receive a more detailed explanation of Jay’s absence, but the lack of detail and its resultant questions had taken another three quarters of an hour, after which, Finch was starving.

  If Ellerson was not present, the Terafin Household Staff was, and food was arranged. Jay hadn’t eaten either. She accompanied Finch and Teller to the West Wing, and joined them. Over the meal, with the Chosen who had lost her in attendance, she had explained more fully both her sudden absence and her return. The return, Finch understood. The absence made her uneasy, because Jay didn’t understand it herself.

  In the end, it was not far off morning when Finch had at last crawled off to bed, and it was not far off the same morning—from the other side—when she crawled, with far less enthusiasm, out of the same bed, put her entire appearance into the hands of the maid, and made her way to the Merchant Authority.

  Lucille had taken one look at her face, narrowed her eyes, lowered her voice, and sent her into the relative safety of her own small office with a pile of papers, most of which were not urgent, and all of which Finch could deal with in her sleep. The woman who was this particular office’s Barston had not said a word.

  But she wouldn’t. Three of the four new employees installed upon the death of The Terafin had yet to resign their posts. Lucille didn’t trust them, and not for the usual reasons—questionable competence, which could in most cases be forgiven, although never silently. She was certain to whom two of them reported, but had not chosen to share—or burden—Finch with that information.

  Finch was certain who all three reported to, but likewise felt no need to share.

  She was grateful, however, for Lucille, because curiosity about The Terafin’s late night excursion extended well beyond the irritable magi, and were it not for Lucille, it would have been difficult to avoid. If Lucille, however, had an iron grip over the environs of the office itself, she did not pick and choose its visitors.

  Finch, behind an intimidating amount of work, albeit otherwise uncomplicated, looked up at the knock on her door. It was a heavy knock; definitely Lucille’s. She rose, setting quill aside but pausing to cap the inkwell, and approached the door as it opened; Lucille’s knocks were never about permission to enter; they merely served as early warnings.

  “What is it?” Finch asked, seeing Lucille’s expression. “What’s happened?”

  “Someone has requested an appointment be made to speak with you.”

  “Patris Larkasir?”

  “No.” Whoever it was, Lucille did not approve. Finch was intrigued. Lucille was not in the habit of informing Finch of nuisance requests; she denied them herself. If she disapproved, Finch rarely heard about it until after the fact—usually from a far too amused Jarven.

  This meant, of course, that immediate and offhand dismissal was not considered an option. “Who?” she asked; she was not careless enough to peer around the wall of Lucille to sneak a glimpse of the offender.

  “Patris Araven.”

  * * *

  The office was not exactly in an uproar when Finch left the privacy—and safety—of her small room. It was not a room into which a man of Hectore of Araven’s stature in the Merchant Authority would ever be invited; it had room for Finch and one visitor, and Hectore was never without a servant. The other occupants of the vast space in which The Terafin’s concerns were administered were silent. Silent and watchful.

  That type of idle voyeurism was never encouraged by Lucille, but she apparently disliked Patris Araven enough that she didn’t lay into the idlers in his presence.

  Finch knew of Hectore of Araven. It was impossible to work anywhere in the Merchant Authority and remain unaware of who he was. She had seen him a handful of times at a distance, and she had, on two occasions, served him tea while he and Jarven conversed—if verbal fencing with little obvious content could be considered conversation. He had been a man very much at ease in Jarven’s office, and Jarven had treated him like an equal. Like a ferocious, cunning equal. She knew that Araven and Terafin were negotiating the fees for a particular passage into the mines in the Menorans, but those negotiations were firmly in Jarven’s domain, not hers.

  Patris Araven was seated, not standing; his servant stood unobtrusively against the wall. Seated, he did not seem terrifying or intimidating; he was a man of middling years, and his hair was that shade of gray that looked silver. He sported a beard, and he wore a cut of clothing that deemphasized his size; he was not a small man.

  But he was not a man who immediately appeared to be autocratic or arrogant; nor did he gaze about the office in well-bred disdain. Hi
s dark eyes were bright and lively as they came to rest upon Finch’s face. He rose at once.

  It was hard to offer his hand while Lucille was standing between them; his slightly wry smile acknowledged this.

  “Finch ATerafin?”

  She smiled and inclined her head. “Patris Araven.”

  “I am indeed that if you have annoyed me. I prefer Hectore, in other circumstances.” He glanced at Lucille’s expression—which Finch couldn’t easily see—and the lines that bracketed his eyes and the corners of his lips deepened. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything urgent.”

  “All of the work we do here is considered urgent,” Finch replied, a hint of amusement lurking in the gravity of her tone.

  He chuckled. “And so it is. Might I have a few minutes of your time? If the office is not conducive to collegial discussion,” he added, daring another glance at Lucille, “might I suggest an early lunch?”

  Finch could almost feel the glacial chill in the air, and hesitated. She was saved from the necessity of making a reply by the opening of another door—the door to the only room which was grand enough, and large enough, to accommodate persons of note.

  Jarven entered the outer office. “Hectore,” he said, smiling broadly. “What an unexpected surprise. You find me in search of my tea, I’m afraid.”

  “And I have no intention of interrupting such important business,” was the equally jovial reply. “I am not here to trouble your day with my minor complaints.”

  “I have been poring over the last missive you sent, and I quibble with the use of the word minor. Lucille?”

  Lucille turned to Finch. “Tea,” she said quietly.

  * * *

  Lunch, which would have been a welcome escape, was set aside in favor of tea in the confines of Jarven’s very secure office. Finch was not surprised; she was longer than usual at assembling Jarven’s tea because Lucille had a few pointed words to say about Hectore, none of them particularly flattering.