House of Shadows(8)

Nemienne could understand Enelle’s doubt. The third house on the lane was a small, crooked structure, built of weathered gray stone. Set as it was into a fold of the mountain, the house looked less like a purpose-built structure than a natural outcropping. Light slanted obliquely across the glass windows—the house’s one extravagant touch—so that the windows seemed blind, nothing anyone could look into. Or out of.

“It’s a bit… it’s rather… have you ever seen a less likable house?” Enelle asked. She looked appalled. “This was a bad idea. You needn’t… we mustn’t…”

“Oh, no,” Nemienne said, her eyes on those blind windows. Light reflected from them, like light off water, so that anything might be hidden beyond sight in the depths. “No. We’re here, and I know we still need more money. Though you did wonderfully well with the Mother of Cloisonné, you know you did,” she added hastily. “But we’re here. We must certainly ask.” She drew the horses to the side of the lane, set the brake, wrapped the reins around the driver’s bar, and jumped down to the cobbles, steadying herself with a hand on the near wheel’s high rim.

“But—” Enelle began, her voice a little too high.

“Anyway,” Nemienne said, as gently as she knew how because she knew her sister wouldn’t understand this, “I rather like the house.”

Enelle gave her an astonished stare. “You don’t really.”

“I think I do.” Nemienne came around to the other side of the carriage and held up a hand to help Enelle down. If she would come. Her sister was actually shivering, Nemienne saw. Was it the house? Or had leaving Karah behind taught her to fear partings? Nemienne continued to hold her hand up, waiting for her sister to reach down and complete that grip. At last Enelle reached down her hand to meet Nemienne’s.

The steps of the house were like the house itself: rough and oddly angled, with unexpected slants underfoot. The polished statue of a cat sat beside the door, gray soapstone with eyes of agate. Nemienne touched the cat’s head curiously. The stone was silken smooth under her fingertips.

“There’s no bellpull,” Enelle said, stating the obvious because she was nervous.

“I think the cat is the bell,” Nemienne said with an odd certainty, running her hand across the statue’s head a second time.

Before them, the door unlatched itself with a muffled click. Enelle flinched slightly, but Nemienne put her hand out and touched the door. It swung back smoothly, showing them a dimly lit entry and a long hallway running back farther than seemed plausible. A gray cat sat bolt upright in the middle of the foyer. It was the image of the statue on the porch, except for one white foot and a narrow white streak that ran up its nose. The cat blinked eyes green as agates at them, then rose and walked away down the shadowed hallway, tail swaying upright, white foot flashing.

Enelle hesitated. “Do you think we should—”

“Of course,” said Nemienne. She caught her sister’s hand and stepped into the gray stone house after the cat. Stepping through the door was like stepping into the mountain itself: There was a sense of looming weight overhead. Unable to decide whether she found the unexpected presence of the mage’s house oppressive or simply interesting, Nemienne almost hesitated herself. But if she retreated now, she suspected that she’d never get Enelle back inside this house. And if they paused for long here on the threshold, the cat would get too far ahead for them to see even its white foot.

The hallway did indeed run back a disconcerting distance before opening onto a landing. A stair came up from the left, turned on the landing, and went on up to the right. They passed no doors or windows along the length of the hall, only the occasional lantern hanging on a chain. The cat was just vanishing up the right-hand stair as they reached its foot.

“I hate this house!” Enelle whispered vehemently, staring into the bottomless shadows down the stair to the left. She glanced up the other way, after the cat, and shuddered. The tremor was too slight to see, but Nemienne felt it through their joined hands.

“It could be more cheerful,” Nemienne conceded.

“We could go back,” Enelle suggested, but not as though she expected her sister to agree. However reluctantly, she let Nemienne draw her forward and up the stairs.

There was a door ajar at the top of the stairs, friendly yellow light pouring through it to pool on the higher landing. Enelle let her breath out and went forward eagerly, so that this time it was Nemienne who followed her sister. The door was heavy but well-balanced. It swung wide easily at the touch of Enelle’s hand.