House of Shadows(71)

Rue crossed the kitchen with half a dozen long strides, jerked the bar up, and flung the door wide. Then she hissed with mingled satisfaction and outrage and offered a hand to the girl sitting at the top of the cellar stairs.

Karah accepted the hand and came out of the stairwell into the warm kitchens, where Leilis was lighting the lanterns and setting water on the coals for tea.

“Oh, yes, please,” Karah said gratefully. “Hot tea would be wonderful! It was so cold down there! Thank you so much for coming to find me.” She was barefoot and wearing only a light sleeping robe, but though she was shivering, her voice held only a normal relief. She held her new kitten in her arms, but it jumped down at once as Karah carried it into the kitchen. It shook each of its feet in turn as though it had stepped in a puddle, and purposefully hopped up onto a bench by the oven.

Leilis gave Karah a long look, and then exchanged a glance with Rue. Leilis tossed a few pieces of charcoal and a handful of kindling into the oven to encourage the fire and said, keeping her tone casual, “You worried Rue, when she woke and found you gone. How did you come to be down in the cellars?”

“Oh, well…” Karah looked embarrassed. “Sweetrose told me Moonglow had gone down there and she couldn’t coax her out from under the wine racks. There’s fish in the ice cupboard, and who knows what else Moonglow might have gotten into, so I knew I’d better get her.” She sat down gratefully on a cushion Rue put on the edge of the hearth for her and accepted a cup of tea from Leilis with a nod of thanks.

“You ought to have woken me,” Rue told her severely.

The girl looked even more embarrassed. “I knew that as soon as Sweetrose shut the door behind me and dropped the bar. I’m sorry, Rue. But it was just a silly prank. I knew Cook would open up the cellar door eventually, and really it was only a little cold on the stairs.”

“You didn’t feel… you weren’t… weren’t you frightened?” Rue asked at last.

“Frightened?” Karah looked puzzled. “Well, I was a little uncomfortable when my candle burned out,” she conceded. “But after all, I knew someone would come eventually. And Moonglow was there to keep me company, of course.”

Rue and Leilis exchanged another look. Purity of character as a shield against the unnatural cold of the cellars? Leilis, for one, could not believe this. Plenty of girls were sweet-natured. Leilis did not know of any who could have spent hours in the cellars, in the dark, without being more than a little uncomfortable. Or was it the kitten that had somehow protected Karah? Pinenne Clouds were supposed to be lucky, somehow, weren’t they? Just what did that reputed luck comprise?

“I could tell Mother about this,” Leilis said at last. “But you ought to, Rue. Karah is your little sister.”

“Yes,” agreed Rue, looking grim. She, too, knew how easily the girl might have been ruined by this prank. “But, Leilis—”

“I’ll come, too,” Leilis promised her.

“Wait, wait!” Karah stared from one of them to the other. “It was only a joke—I’m sure Sweetrose didn’t mean anything by it. Why can’t we all simply… simply go back to bed and forget all this silliness?”

Rue, who hated any sort of fuss and hated it worse if it touched her in any way, looked tempted. Leilis crossed her arms across her chest, gave the dancer a stern look, and said, “This particular prank went well beyond silliness. As Sweetrose knew as well as Rue, or I. You’re a keiso, no fit target for deisa mischief. Oh, I’m sure Sweetrose didn’t mean much by it. I doubt she had two thoughts in her head beyond placating Lily. But, unfortunately, she’s the only one you can honestly claim to have seen—is she?”

“Well… yes,” Karah admitted. “You think Lily made her take Moonglow and put her in the cellar and bar the door behind me?” She looked disturbed. “Sweetrose ought to have told me. Or you. She could have thought of something to tell Lily, if she’d tried. But even so—”

“No,” Rue said, suddenly decisive. She stood up, looking like the whole matter had settled at last in her mind. “Leilis is right. No, hush, child. She is. You’ve taken no harm from it…” Her voice trailed off in doubt, and she inspected the younger girl with a long stare. “No harm from it, seemingly,” she repeated, more firmly. “Even so, this was an assault. On a keiso.”

“Mother will be outraged,” Leilis predicted, with a kind of grim satisfaction. “You,” she added firmly to Karah, “had better go to your room and go to sleep! This isn’t for you to deal with. Keiso shouldn’t be up at dawn anyway. How will you stay lively through your late evenings? Rue, tell the child to go to bed.”