House of Shadows(13)

Leilis slipped quietly away. Going again by the laundry, she gathered up another armload of sheets. Thus armored, she went up at last to the deisa gallery, where the new girl would have a narrow bed at the end of the row where all the deisa slept.

The girl was there, sitting perfectly still in one of the straight-backed chairs by the window, her hands gripped together in her lap. The clutter of deisa belongings was scattered about: plain practice harps with extra strings coiled on shelves nearby, a kinsana, sets of pipes. Scrolls for the poems the deisa were learning were pinned open on a low table by the window, the narrow pallets taking up the rest of that wall. There were half a dozen small chests, one at the foot of each pallet, for each deisa’s personal possessions; the room’s single large closet would hold all their daily robes and slippers, which they did not own themselves. Leilis wondered what, if anything, this new girl owned of her own. And whether she had the sense to guess she should guard her things, if she had any, from the other deisa.

None of the other deisa were present. Lily’s doing? Or merely that none of them were free at this hour? It was true the deisa had their lessons and their other duties, but it was strange that none of them had slipped away for a look at this newest addition to their number.

If the girl had wept earlier—either tears like pearls or the more ordinary sort—she was not weeping now. Her eyes came up, tearless, at Leilis’s entry, and she sprang nervously to her feet. Her gaze, after a barely noticeable hesitation, steadied on Leilis’s face.

Leilis, transfixed by a wide blue gaze as fathomless as the sea, stood motionless and looked back at the new girl across her pile of sheets.

No wonder Mother had purchased this girl. Leilis suddenly did not doubt that Mother had paid a great deal for her. Not for her beauty, though the girl was beautiful. For that priceless look in those eyes. That immeasurable trusting innocence was nothing you could get for any price in any House of the candlelight district. It was nothing you could expect to find, come to that, anywhere. Leilis tried to imagine what kind of family this girl had grown up in to have a look like that.

Or else she was simple. That seemed likely, on a more collected assessment.

The girl said, in a faltering sort of voice, “Please, are you—are you—is there something I ought to be—what should I do?”

Leilis tilted her head to the side, oddly touched by this appeal. The artless manner seemed perfectly unstudied. Stepping across the room to the closet, Leilis put the linens she held away on a shelf. Then she turned and looked again at the girl, who was silent now, her amazing eyes wide with nerves.

“How much did she give for you?” Leilis asked abruptly.

The girl stared at her, deep-sea eyes wide and blank. Simple, after all, Leilis decided. It did seem a pity.

But the girl said then, “Eighteen hundred. She gifted us eighteen hundred hard cash.” Her voice, though low and sweet, was not as shy as Leilis would have expected.

“Us?” said Leilis, tilting an eyebrow at the girl.

The girl blushed. It made her look more untutored and innocent than ever. “Them. My sisters. It was—we thought it was a good price…”

“It was. Very good.” It was a remarkable price, especially this season, with an uncertain spring approaching and the city tense. Not that anyone doubted who would win if the war between Lirionne and Kalches resumed. Fifteen years ago, the Dragon of Lirionne had forced Kalches to sign the Treaty of Brenedde, ceding to Lirionne all the lands west of Teleddes and east of Anharadde. If war came again, then Lirionne would win again. All those disputed lands would belong to Lirionne forever, and after Kalches had been forced to accept its final defeat, everything would be fine. But still, at the moment, everything was more expensive than usual and every House hard-pressed. And yet Mother had paid so much for one girl?

But when Leilis studied the House’s newest asset again, she could only shake her head. “You were worth every coin,” she decided. “Mother is wavering a little now, I think, and small surprise there. But she is wrong to doubt her bargain. What is your name?”

“Karah,” whispered the girl. Her fine slender hands closed slowly into fists at her sides.

“Don’t worry over Mother,” Leilis advised her, moved despite herself by the girl’s uncertainty. “Don’t fear the keiso. But be careful of the deisa. Especially Lily.” She paused, studying the blank look in those exquisite eyes. “Have you met Lily? Or the other deisa? Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” the girl said, dutiful as a child saying off a lesson she had learned by rote. “Or no. I have not met them. I will be careful of Lily. Thank you.”