House of Shadows(94)

But it wasn’t just the glamour. Robes and beads aside, Karah just seemed to glow, somehow. A private smile curved her lips; her gaze was warm and happy and a little unfocused. If Prince Tepres was in love with Karah, the sentiment was obviously returned. Nemienne had no doubt about that, now. If the prince and Karah… well, that should have been exciting and wonderful, but in fact it added a new worry to the pile that seemed to be accumulating.

“What’s wrong?” Karah asked, a trace of worry entering her eyes. Even distracted, she couldn’t help but notice when somebody else was anxious or upset.

“Oh.” Nemienne hesitated, and then asked about the pipes instead of the prince.

“Oh, I don’t have them anymore,” Karah said, sounding a little surprised. “Leilis showed them to me—it’s so strange what happened to them, and really too bad, after Prince Tepres”—her voice softened a little on his name—“was so kind to give them to me!” She stroked her kitten possessively, smiling down at this other gift from the prince.

“I suppose Lily did something to them,” Karah added. Her tone here went a little doubtful. She added quickly, as though trying to justify such an unpleasant supposition, “Lily is jealous, Rue says. But Leilis said she’d find out for me if a similar set could be made, so the prince won’t be disappointed. Leilis is very kind, really, though she tries to hide it,” Karah added, happy again once she could think of Leilis’s kindnesses rather than Lily’s jealousy. “But why ever did you want them, Nemienne?”

“Mage Ankennes wants to look at them. He said he can learn things about them even though they’ve been ruined.”

“Yes,” Karah said artlessly, “that makes sense. I remember: Your Mage Ankennes was so impressed by the pipes when Lord Chontas first gave them to Prince Tepres and Lord Miennes. Of course, we all were.”

Nemienne was startled. At first she did not understand what Karah had said to startle her. Then she did, and she was at once dismayed as well as shocked. Mage Ankennes had been at that banquet? Yes, she remembered now he’d said he was going to a banquet at Cloisonné House. He’d seen the foreign lord give Prince Tepres those pipes. And he’d seen the other set given away, too.

Could he have failed to realize right then the instruments were enspelled?

But Nemienne knew, even as she wondered this, that Mage Ankennes hadn’t missed that ensorcellment at all. Horrible pieces fell into place with appalling smoothness.

“Sympathy between similar objects,” she whispered. Unfortunately the necessary sacrifice appears to have failed. That was what the mage had said. “The Dragon of Lonne—the Dragon of Lirionne,” she said aloud. “Sympathy between similar objects.”

“What?” asked Karah.

“It’s a principle. Iasodde explains it in his codex. Oh, sea and sky. I wrote an essay on this…”

“Did you?” Karah was plainly mystified.

Nemienne shook her head. “This can’t be right. I must be mistaken.” But she knew she wasn’t. For the first time, she really understood Iasodde’s principle. She felt cold right down to her toes… She whispered, knowing it was true, had to be true, “Mage Ankennes wants to kill Prince Tepres in order to, to destroy the dragon. The sympathy between similar objects. He can destroy the dragon if he murders the prince. He said it was unfortunate it wasn’t the prince who… who died. That was the sacrifice he meant.”

“Wait—what?” Karah stared at her, horrified and frightened. “What are you saying, Nemienne?”

Outside, the descending sun must have begun its plunge into the western sea: The light had shifted from the gold of late afternoon toward the shadowy violets and sapphires of dusk. Nemienne felt like similar shadows were stretching out in her heart. “I think,” she whispered. “I think—”

But before she could complete the thought, the whole of Cloisonné House, maybe the whole city, abruptly went thump, as though caught in an earthquake. It felt like the whole House jerked sharply to one side and then the other before returning to rest.

Nemienne cried out, a thin sound that seemed to vanish in suddenly thick air. Karah gasped. Other exclamations, the crash as somebody dropped a tray, and a burst of startled laughter came from elsewhere in the House and from outside on the streets. The kitten, its little tail lashing in alarm, leaped off Karah’s knee, crouched on the floor, glared around at the room, and hissed.

And yet, Nemienne realized, in fact neither Cloisonné House itself nor the city had actually been shaken by any physical tremor. None of the little bottles or mirrors or combs on Rue’s table or in the cabinets had even trembled. There had not been a real earthquake at all.