House of Shadows(52)

Nemienne nodded, relieved that she had resisted the impulse to step into the wood. “If that door leads to Enescedd, does that mean there are other doors in the hall that lead to Miskiannes? Or even…” She hesitated and then completed the sentence: “Even Kalches?” She wasn’t sure she even wanted a door to Kalches sharing this house with her, fascinating as the idea might be. Maybe that was why Mage Ankennes had a music room and had ordered the harp made—because he needed to be ready for Kalchesene magic? As soon as this occurred to her, it seemed not only plausible but likely.

Mage Ankennes paused, lifting an inscrutable eyebrow at her. “Perhaps,” he said maddeningly.

“Is Enkea here?” Nemienne asked, changing the subject.

“No,” said the mage, sounding doubtful. “I think not. She is sometimes a difficult creature to keep in one’s eye. I am, in truth, a touch surprised at her. But she is an unpredictable creature.”

“Do you… know why she wanted me to go through that other door? Last night?”

Mage Ankennes regarded Nemienne dispassionately. Instead of answering her question, he said, “I will be going out again, not tonight, but tomorrow evening. There will be a gathering at Cloisonné House.”

“Oh?” Nemienne couldn’t quite decide whether she would like to see Karah in her new role as a keiso, or whether that would be too strange.

“Your presence at a keiso banquet would not be quite suitable, apprentice.” The mage sounded mildly regretful. “Besides, you haven’t been invited. However, it’s not likely your sister will be attending the banquet either. Deisa sometimes do, but she’s very new to the flower life. However—”

“Oh,” Nemienne said, a little startled he didn’t know about Karah, though there was no reason he should. “Karah’s already a keiso—she was made keiso early. So maybe she will be there, do you think?”

Mage Ankennes paused. One eyebrow lifted, giving his heavy features a look both quizzical and sardonic. “Was she? Well—she might, then, I suppose. However—” and here he lifted a hand sternly, preventing a second interruption “—I am afraid your presence at the banquet would still not be suitable. You will have to visit your sister later, and not, hmm, during the candlelight hours, eh?”

Nemienne, disappointed but not surprised, nodded.

“So I’ll leave you here. Do please remain in the, hmm, I was going to say more ordinary, but let me say, instead, more traveled parts of the house. However swift your sister’s rise in her new world, you are still a very new apprentice. There are much more uncomfortable places to end up than my front porch. Understood?”

Nemienne was sure there were. Lost in an enchanted forest in some far distant country probably didn’t begin to cover the possibilities. She was surprised at the pang of regret she felt at the injunction not to explore, stronger even than the regret at the missed banquet, but she suppressed it firmly and nodded.

“Now,” Mage Ankennes said, picking a candle out of the clutter on the table without looking and reaching across the expanse of the table to set it in front of Nemienne. “Melt it, if you please,” he told her. “Without lighting it.”





CHAPTER 8




Taudde liked Cloisonné House immediately. It was a large, formal building of pale gold brick and weathered white limestone. Ivy crept up the brick to meet vines that dangled from long balconies, dotted with delicate pink flowers. Surely the flowers would not last through the coming winter, but they had not yet been withered by the chill in the air.

Girls came out to hold the carriage horse while Taudde stepped down onto a clean walkway of crushed limestone. He turned to face Cloisonné House, and paused. He still liked its graceful proportions. But even so, somehow the long shadow the house cast in the late sun seemed darker than it should. Or fell, perhaps, at an odd slant. Or into a place that wasn’t quite the same evening in which he stood… He shook his head slightly, not sure what he was perceiving.

One of the girls, not more than seven or eight years of age, ran ahead of Taudde to open the door for him. The other girl, a little older, jumped lightly up onto the driver’s bench beside Benne to show him where to take the carriage.

Taudde laid a hand momentarily on the door as he passed through it. The wood was smooth and unexceptional, yet he felt a faint echo behind that ordinary surface, as though his hand might have passed through the door by some measureless fraction to touch something else entirely. Something old beyond age. He lifted his hand, disturbed, and glanced at the girl, who seemed perfectly ordinary. She bowed him into the House. Taudde wondered what the building might have been before it had become a keiso establishment.