house of sand and secrets excerpt

7/27/2019 House of Sand and Secrets Excerpt

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HOUSE OF SAND AND SECRETS

CAT HELLISEN



For the Brave and Strong.



CONTENTS

A PLAGUE OF HOUSES ........................................ 5

BONE-GRINDERS AND BUTCHERS ..................... 29

GLASSCLAW AND SPLINTERFIST ....................... 67

PAPER MARRIAGES ............................................ 91STUDIES IN OIL AND INK .................................. 117

PROPOSALS ..................................................... 151

TWO CROWS .................................................... 177

PRETTY COLLARS ............................................ 203

FIRE, ASH, SKIN ............................................... 229

SEVEN-FOLD FUTURES .................................... 246

A SMALL TRUTH .............................................. 292

THE HOUSE IMAGINARY ................................... 309

SILK ARMOUR, GLASS ARMOUR ....................... 334

PIECES IN PLAY ................................................ 360

THE LARK ........................................................ 380

PITY'S SWORD .................................................. 407

IN THE PALACE OF THE MATA ........................ 436OFFERINGS ...................................................... 456

THE MELANCHOLY RAVEN .............................. 496

DOGLEAF ........................................................ 526

THE GRINNINGTOMMY ..................................... 536

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................... 556



A PLAGUE OF HOUSES

The city stinks of death. High summer has MallenIve by the throat and my apartments in the

House Pelim holdings are stuffy and humid. We are miles from the Hob slums where a plague iscurrently raging, and still the air reeks of burned skin from the pyres.

Hardly an auspicious start to the season's round of parties.

I slump in my rooms at the very top of the house, waiting for respite. Fine rivulets of

sweat trickle down from my temples, and I pant while fluttering a small round paper hand-fan –

MallenIve's latest fashion – uselessly through the air. All it does is waft the heat around. At least

the Houses only bother with their entertainment in the evening, after the thunderstorms have

damped down the baked dust and washed away the stench of the day's unfortunate corpses.

It's not just the poor. Everything seems to be expiring. Just yesterday when I ventured

out, desperate for some kind of contact that didn't involve servants or the implacable mask of my

husband, I saw one of the shaggy, goat-like nillies drop dead in its traces. The creature just

crumpled in the middle of the street, between the shit and the pedestrians. Traffic in MallenIve is

so slow and congested it took minutes before anyone but me realized it was dead.

That moment as it died and the golden eyes went dry was the first time since I came to

this monstrosity of a city I felt a kinship with another living thing. It too had had enough of this

stinking place.

So melodramatic, I'm sure Jannik with his penchant for awful poetry would approve.

Somehow, I suspect I shall cling to life a little longer than the broken nilly. Our moment of

mutual feeling only extended so far. There is no way for me to go back home, and I think I am

long over the childish petulance of suicides. How grown up you are, Felicita. Even my inner



voice manages to sneer at me. Almost eighteen and so very adult.

“Oh, hush,” I tell myself as I wipe a palm across my sweating brow. “I am allowed to

wallow in my self-pity, at least until tea.”

My mother would have understood. She wouldn't have approved, but she would have

given me a little space to indulge in some of my teenage misery. Or perhaps I am remembering

her too fondly. After all, there is distance between us greater than miles. She has absented herself

as my mother and her letters to me are few and say little. All I really know is that my brother's

widow has moved into the family house. I wonder if Mother gave her my turret room so that the

poor girl could pretend she was at least a little bit free.

Enough of this. I refuse to entertain these maudlin thoughts. I take a deep breath and push

the image of my mother out of my mind.

A small, timid knock sounds at the door, and it's the signal that the worst of the day is

over. Tea is the precursor to the punctual afternoon storm. A slight Hob girl with her dark curly

hair pulled back in a neat bun comes in. The starched whites of her sleeves almost glow against

the yellow brown of her hands as she sets down a tray of tea, honey, and milk. The grassy smell

of redbush fills the room.

“Thank you, Riona.” I drop the fan on my dressing table with a clatter. I like this girl;

she's soft and sweet, but underneath that she's got spine. She knows her letters, a remarkable

enough thing in a Hob straight from the vast township that encircles MallenIve. I've worked at

her, winkling her slowly out of her shell like a little sea snail. When she first started working for

me she'd stand mutely staring as I tried to ask her questions about her life and her family.

Eventually she stopped giving me looks of blank astonishment, and these days she actually

manages to roll her eyes at me and hum in exasperation when I am at my most annoying. None

of the other staff have followed her lead. I suppose the MallenIve Hobs are as unused to a

Lammer speaking to them as if they were people as the Pelimburg Hobs are.

I confess, a year ago, I would have given no more thought to her and her life than I would

have given a pack animal. My time in the Whelk Street squat changed me more than I like to

think about.

“Your brother?” I say as she pours the tea, “Have you any word?”

“He's doing better, my lady. Thank you,” she whispers. Her older brother works the scriv

mines out past the city. When the black lung hits, the miners with their ragged lungs are the first



to fall. From what she’s told me, Riona has no other family besides him. We can do little enough.

I have sent a physician – who was rather disgruntled at the task – to see to him, and have paid for

medicines, but the black lung will take who she will. If he's doing better, then that's as the world

has decided.

“That's good news then,” I say brightly. Mentally I add another task to my daily list: have

the kitchen staff make up a package for the boy: food and blankets, and lemons and honey for his

throat. Mrs. Palmer will pull faces, I know, but for all her scowls and mutterings, she'll wrap

Riona's brother enough to feed a Hob-pack.

“Yes, my lady.” Despite my attempt at friendship, the girl refuses to call me by anything

else.

I sigh, and flick the handle of my fan so that it slides across my table. Small steps,

Felicita. You cannot change a city in a day. Or a year.

“Will you be painting today, my lady?” Riona says as she stirs honey and milk into my

tea.

“Please, Ree. I have asked so very many times.” I catch her free hand in mine and feel

her muscles twitch at this unwelcome display of amity. “Felicita will do just fine.” After all, I

threw away my pretence at ladyship when I ran away from home and dishonoured the Pelim

name. It's why I'm here in this stinking hole: to do my best to make up for all my flaws. I let her

hand go with a sigh. “Not today, I think.” Another glance out the window confirms that the

clouds are rolling in thick and heavy. And tonight's engagement weighs on me as much as the

clouds do. I'm in no mood to paint flowers.

A sudden thunder rolls through the house.

It's not from the coming storm and there was no warning flash of light. It sounds like

falling rocks and the walls and floor are shaking. Tea has spilled over my desk. My heart jumps

in my chest like a landed fish. Earthquake. MallenIve has the worst luck of any city and if I stay

here any longer I'm bound to be swallowed up and destroyed. “What was that?”

“It's a mine, my lady.” Riona looks almost as if she is about to laugh. “One of the old

scriv-tunnels must have collapsed.” She’s already wiping up the spilled tea and has set to pouring

me another, completely unflustered.

“And where exactly are these tunnels collapsing?” I ask faintly.

She shrugs. “Under the city, I suppose. You shouldn't worry, my lady, it doesn't happen



often. One time, a hole opened up right in the middle of a street, my brother says, but that was

years back. So you mustn't fuss yourself. Anyone born here is used to them.”

Plagues, collapsing streets, and high society parties.

I think I am ill-suited to this city.

A crack and flash herald another rumble, this one coming from the sky and quickly

followed by the first spatter of rain. At least the house isn't shaking any more. “I'll need Cornelia

to come up here, as soon as I'm done with tea.”

Riona nods and withdraws, and I am left alone with my porcelain and my fan. I pick it up

again, not in the mood for the cloying heavy-milked drink.

After the punctual storm, I will have to bathe away the day's sweat, be dressed up in

another revolting MallenIve gown, put on my prettiest, most wide-eyed and imbecilic face, and

go out to pour my share into the urn of social spite that oils the gears of MallenIve's most

powerful Houses. Usually I have to do it alone. My husband is not exactly welcome among the

wealthy elite. They cannot wrap their minds around the concept that in Pelimburg, the vampires

can be born into free Houses. In MallenIve, they are still nothing more than dogs, bought and

sold on a whim.

“At least tonight will be a little different,” I say to the fan. My hand stills, and I turn my

wrist so that the fan seems to be staring at me. It is white and blankly incredulous. It nods, and I

talk to myself in a low cruel voice, as close as I can get to my dead brother's. “You chose this,”

the fan says, bobbing with each word. “I have no patience for whining little girls. And that,

Felicita, is all you've ever been.” All you ever are, and ever will be, it doesn't have to say.

My stomach cramps, and a dry needling pain flickers in the corner of my eyes. “Shut up,

Owen,” I say quietly, and I drop the fan onto the polished vanity counter, among the scattered

bottles of perfumes and precious oils.

Another distant growl of thunder signals the change in the day. I press my fingers to my

temples, trying to push away the ache that will come soon, the closer the evening draws. I have

no idea what to expect from tonight's invitation. It is from Guyin Harun, who has committed the

singular sin of not marrying a suitable House woman and breeding suitable House heirs. His

situation is similar to my own, and so fate has seen fit to push us together. In a way I would

prefer to be on the safer ground of being shunned by the other High Houses of MallenIve. I have

learned to deal with their particular patronizing brand of false sympathy. Rather that than have to



face the mirror and see for myself what exactly Jannik and I are: a mismatched and untouchable

pair of nothings.

* * *

The invitation flutters in my gloved hand as the carriage draws to a halt outside the

white-faced house. I've managed to smooth away my earlier disquiet, pat it under layers of

powder and paint, and lace it up into stays and boning and silks. Naturally, I have said nothing to

Jannik. We have little enough to talk about at the best of times. The only things we have in

common are deep and ugly, and too newly scabbed over. My betrayal of my family led to the

deaths of so many, not least of them the lover Jannik and I shared.

That same lover used us and twisted us to his own ends and I should hate him. Only I

can't.

How much worse it must be for Jannik, who, I think, loved him. We never mention the name Dash, we do not talk about what led us

here to MallenIve.

Instead, we prattle of slight inconsequential things, like invitations to parties. “Rumour

has it that the Guyin hasn't been seen in years. Never leaves his home, never invites anyone in.” I

tuck the card back into my purse, and force myself to act cheerful. Even if it is just more political

machination, it's still the first time both my husband and I have been invited anywhere together.

All I can hope is that this particular evening doesn't ruin my social standing in MallenIve. I've

managed to claw a little bit of status back, and we need that if we are to survive here. “I sense a

long night ahead of us. Gris alone knows if the man has even a modicum of social graces. Last

time anyone saw him, he set his dogs on them.”

“Felicita, it's one evening. I think you'll live.” Jannik remains as expressionless as the

waiting building. The last few months have made him less awkward, he seems to have grown

into his beakish nose, and his dark hair hangs past his collar. While he will never be beautiful,

there is something in the paleness of his skin and the deep blue emptiness of his eyes that

constantly draws my attention back to him, though he never seems to notice my stares. Tonight

we are forced to spend our time together. His mother made the arrangement for us and even at

this great distance, my husband will not go against her wishes. Not again. Marrying me was a big

enough rebellion for him.



“This is House Guyin?” I had expected something more imposing and ancient to match

the legacy of the name; a dark glass tower and crows in lightning-blasted trees. Instead we are

presented with a façade like a plaster skull posed in an apprentice’s still life. It shows nothing, no

emotion or accusation or welcome. Even the ubiquitous dogleaf in their grey stone pots are limp,

the buds still closed and anaemic. The knocker is a dull hint of brass against the un-oiled wood.

Jannik shifts, puts one hand against the leather seat, and prepares to stand. “Apparently

so.”

My dress makes it near impossible to exit the carriage with any dignity, although I do a

passable imitation. Jannik takes my hand and helps me down from the little step and the emerald

taffety armour of the horrendous dress crunches. I have always been of the type that rather than

being improved by ornamentation, is left looking shorter and rounder. MallenIve style does me

no favours. “I feel like an enormous idiot.”

“Only you look rather like an enormous hand-bell.”

I glare at him. “It's hardly my fault MallenIve pays so much attention to the idiocies of

fashion.” It is a city founded on pretence and artifice. Unfortunately, as the public face of House

Pelim, I must play by all the little rules the city dictates. And if I'm the acceptable mask that

fronts House Pelim here, then Jannik is the mind behind it. I frown. Jannik, clever as he is, needs

to stay hidden.

This is not a city that has any great love for the vampires. The only reason this invitation

includes him is because House Guyin are the only other family who have allowed a marriage

between a Lammer and a – bat. I shake the word from my head. I'm becoming too used to the

casualness with which the people in MallenIve dismiss the vampires.

Jannik crooks his arm, waiting for me to join him. I welcome the flutter of his magic as I

allow myself this little moment. We have never spoken of it, but it's this that draws us together:

his latent, unusable magic, and my fascination with it. Together we walk up to the bland door. A

flicker of apprehension tumbles about in my stomach like a moth trapped in a closed room. I

breathe deeply and ready myself. I can deal with one more condescending House heir, I really

can. I have a life-time of experience.

A Hob-girl opens the door as we approach, curtseys hurriedly then leads us in to a formal

sitting room. The furnishings are at odds with the more modern house; they are old, fine pieces,

although much in need of some oil and attention. The furniture, at least, speaks of time and



tradition and a hint of eccentricity.

Two men wait for us.

I'm overdressed. Jannik wears a Pelimburg suit – understated, black. He has not bothered

with the parrot-brights the men in MallenIve have taken to. And neither, it seems, have our hosts.

The Lord Guyin Apparent is coat-less, gloveless. His partner, standing behind him in the

shadows, is also wearing black.

In my emerald flounces and frills, with my ridiculous layers of petticoats and my beading

and gloves and hairpins, I am totally out of place. This is not my usual battlefield, and my

armour is foreign.

“Welcome.” Lord Guyin steps forward. He's of average height, with a lean jaw, and dark

golden-brown hair that falls to his shoulders. There is something about him that demands

recognition and obedience. Here is a man used to getting his own way, and for one awful

moment I see in him the shade of my brother Owen. There are no ghosts here, I tell myself.

There are no fingers to point at you. I swallow, and breathe deeply, trying to slow the sudden

tempo of my heartbeat.

“I'm Harun,” he says. “The dandy over there is Isidro-”

“Watch it,” says the bat. The vampire.

“-and you must be the Lady Pelim Felicita,” Harun continues smoothly.

“A pleasure to finally meet you,” I say, picking my way through the social traps he's laid.

He will try and make me remember my fall from grace, without actually saying anything

outright. It's the way of Houses, after all, and I have been trained in it. But running to MallenIve

has also given me a kind of freedom and sometimes I find it a better hand to play if I

acknowledge my fall, rub it in their faces and see what they do then. I eye the room. No sign of

any slavering hounds, at least. “Just Felicita will do.”

“Of course it will,” says Isidro. He stalks out from the shadows.

Next to me, I can feel Jannik straighten. I can hardly blame him. Isidro is one of those

rare creatures born to physical perfection. While he has the same ink hair and milk skin and

indigo eyes of all of the vampires, he has none of Jannik's hard lines and clumsy edges. He looks

like a portrait in a book of romance poems; impossible, regal, and smugly aware of his unlikely

beauty, his hair parted modishly to the side. If Isidro were a Lammer there would be paintings of

him in the galleries and people would whisper his name in the dark. He would command a kind



of minor celebrity for the simple accident of having been born. But he is not. MallenIve will

never know this bauble.

Isidro smiles at me, and I clench my fingers. Here is someone not to trust. I have no faith

in pretty things. That foolishness has long since been knocked out of me.

“And you,” he says, staring not at me, but at Jannik. “I suppose we should be honoured.”

His smile is very cold, very practised. “Do you want me on one knee or both?”

“Leave it, Isidro.” Harun looks bored by our presence. “I believe there are drinks in the

next room.”

The vampire goes silent, although he doesn't stop staring at Jannik with a barely-

concealed dislike. I'd go so far as to say that his glare borders on outright hatred. It is the only

thing that mars his otherwise porcelain fragility and makes him seem real.

I tug Jannik closer to me. “My,” I skirt the word husband, “partner, Pelim Jannik.”

“Sandwalker,” says Isidro.

“Not any more.” Jannik spits the words out, flashing temper that is very unlike him. I

have no explanation for his anger, except the cold thought that perhaps it isn't anger, not really. It

crosses my mind that this is some brittle flirtation begun right before Harun and myself, until I

remember how the various vampire Houses interact. Perhaps there has been some squabble

between Isidro's House – whatever it may be – and House Sandwalker. Jannik's magic is

crawling up and down the walls and making my skin itch. Seems I'm hardly going to escape the

tangled web of the vampire hierarchy here, even if I thought I would. We might be far from his

mother's presence but that doesn't mean she can't affect us

Drinks are waiting for us in the next room and a serving Hob pours out glasses of white

wine. The taste is crisp as biting into little sour apples. We all eye each other, hiding our

awkwardness with hesitant sips.

“So, Felicita,” Harun says, “I must admit that when House Sandwalker requested that we

entertain the two of you, I had no idea of what to expect.” He turns the stem of the glass carefully

between his fingers. “I have very little interest in House affairs. I had to look you up.” This is a

lie. He would have to be deaf, blind, and a fool to boot, to not know who I am. Of all the Houses

of our people, my family is the oldest. And I have brought the name back a certain notoriety. The

girl who ran away, tongues wag. The girl who killed her brother , they whisper when they think I

cannot hear them.



I will not allow this man to get under my skin. Every movement he makes is a slap, and I

can see my brother's face with its look of shock and confusion and the little scratch under his eye

– the boggert-mark I left on him that condemned him to death. The memory of Owen makes me

want to vomit. Instead, I stare at Harun, forcing myself to see him as he is. I take his features

apart one by one and build up a face that will override my memories.

“Read anything interesting?” I say.

He laughs. “Perhaps. A girl who rose from the dead hours after her only brother was

taken by a sea-witch. You must agree it's a tale that reeks of the fancies of crakes.”

Gris only knows what the poet caste have stirred up with their pretty little lies. Crakes –

deluded madmen, all of them, and I refuse to read their verses and epics. Not least because

they're invariably dreadful. “I had nothing to do with my brother's misfortune,” I say in clipped

tones.

“No one said you did.”

I take a quick swallow of my wine and taste almonds and hay, the faintest sour sweetness

of gooseberries. There are days when losing myself to an alcoholic stupor seems most appealing.

I think this is going to be one of them. Already the wine seems warmer and less like acid eating

into my throat.

“And now here you are.” Harun tilts his glass slightly to indicate Jannik at my side. “Both

of you. Frankly, I'm surprised that you're accepted in polite society.”

“He isn't.” I have no time for House games, this fencing with words, so sharp and slender.

“I am. I go where I choose. MallenIve princes are not my masters. Why should I fear them?”

After all, I did not have to buy my partner, not like Harun. Jannik was born free. It did not take

three pieces of silver to make him a person.

Harun glances across at Isidro, and smiles thinly. “That's what you said I should have

done – carried on as if you didn't exist.”

“And I still think you're a fool not to.” The vampire crosses his arms. The movement is

graceful and controlled. “Better than both of us being holed up here.”

The two stare at each other, and I have the impression that this is an old war, fought now

only in silences and remembered attacks. Harun jerks his hand, indicating an end to the private

battle, just as a servant enters the room to announce dinner.

Thank Gris the meal is intended only for Harun and me. I confess I had worried rather



that there would be a nilly at the table for blood-letting. I know what Jannik is, but that doesn't

mean I like to be reminded of it.

There's nothing of the sort. The meal is bloodless. While we eat, the two Black

Lungvampires sip politely at their wine, and occasionally snipe at each other.

“You've heard that the Hob-plague has reached the outskirts of the city,” Harun says, as

he slices into a fatty duck served in orange and fig. Either he really has no social graces

whatsoever, or he thinks to show me up for a simpering milksop while he discusses death at the

dinner table.

“The black lung,” I say. “I admit I did not realize it was such a problem here.” I smile at

him. “My father died of it. Caught it off some Hob kitty-girl, I believe.” There. I can be crass too,

you little bastard. I spear a morsel of duck and chew it, watching him.

“Fascinating,” Harun says.

Finally the servants clear the last of the dessert dishes. I will the evening to draw to an

end; will the hands on the clocks to spin faster. My stomach is in knots and my fingers are

beginning to tremble. Throughout the many courses, we have made small, meaningless talk

about what I think of MallenIve, or about the weather, or what crops are doing well, or the new

shade of silk this season. We have made pointed and vicious observations, but nothing that can

be considered a real and honest conversation.

This dinner is not about wit or social niceties. It's about the inescapable fact that in the

whole of this vast ugly city there are exactly two marriages between vampires and Lammers. So,

for this reason alone, we are meant to pretend friendship. Or approximate something like it. I

think it's what we expect of each other, but I do not see how it will work. Isidro is bitter, and he

is cold and exact to Jannik, speaking to him only if he absolutely must. Harun is a typical House

male, with all the thick-headed stubbornness that implies.

Jannik and I exchange many a wary and exasperated glance over the course of the meal.

Finally, we make our escape, and flee into the sharpness of the winter night.

“What exactly,” I say to Jannik when we're safely in the carriage on the route back to the

Pelim apartments, “was that horrifying evening all about? And how do you know the – Isidro?”

He leans back. “I don't.” The magic around him is thick, making the air almost

unbreathable.

“Well, he certainly seemed to know you.”



“My family,” Jannik corrects. “He knows my family.”

“You told me something about your family once – about your grandmother?”

“Great-grandmother.”

I look up at him, I've been idly flicking at my hideous skirt, willing it to disappear, or

become less . . . flouncy. “You're awfully snippy this evening. Have I done something to you?”

“No.” Jannik has his third eyelids down, and he looks through me, past me. “You've done

nothing.”

His mood is souring my already grim outlook on this forced friendship his mother wants

us to cultivate. I don't like games. I don't like people who lie to me, who keep things hidden and

expect me to accept manipulation as my due. With a snort, I pull my shawl close about my

shoulders and stare out at the window instead.

Stupid Jannik. I don't know what he wants of me.



BONE-GRINDERS AND BUTCHERS

The season of summer is one for frivolity. The seriousness of the spring weddings is

over, Longest Night celebrations are on their way and, for the moment, no one is thinking of the

winter to come. It is the time when all the powerful families in the city gather, and under the

pretence of having fun begin an earnest and vicious round of social destruction. The dance of the

Houses is the adult equivalent of the children's game of musical chairs. Last one left standing

gets to go home the winner.

Business in MallenIve is done in ballrooms, at small parties, in panelled rooms over

snifters of the scriv-rich vai. The magic taints our blood-streams, we drink it like watered-wine.

The men gather and talk, propositions are casually thrown into the fray, and men nod, men

ponder, men make decisions. In other rooms, the women gather and discuss children, or they

gossip.

It's surprising how much you can actually learn from the latter if you keep your mouth

closed and your ears open. I know every man's foible, every fall and moment of stupidity.

Unfortunately, I can't use it. When I try to engage the House Lords in conversation about

business, they talk through me. They do not see me in my layers of silk and beads. Apparently

the mere act of holding a paper hand-fan is enough to render one invisible.

But I can't give up yet. I'm still new enough in MallenIve, still a curiosity, that I am

invited to these House parties. As long as I have the invitations I need to make the most of them

before the last of their interest dries up and I am, like Harun, left to gather dust with my bat .

Tonight's hosts are House Ives. It is a fairly intimate gathering, as these things go, but

despite that, I have seen many of the most powerful people in MallenIve. The flame-red hair of

the ruling House Mata lineage is probably the most conspicuous.

We women have gathered at the foot of a large staircase where the lady of House Ives has



brought down her two daughters to greet the guests before being sent back to the nursery rooms.

The older is perhaps ten, with a cool, bored look, and hair as fine and blonde as her mother's. The

smaller child is a dour little thing, furtive and sulky. I greet them as expected, annoyed already

by the pretence as a gaggle of young married women coo over the girls.

They are just two more spoiled little doves, bargaining pieces. I was once the same. Even

so, I can't help the momentary pain that crosses my chest. Lady Ives has something I will never

have in these two girls. I press one hand lightly against my skirt and pretend that I have never

wanted children and that I do not care. After all, there's no point in bringing more people into a

world like ours, where their futures are laid out for them so neatly that one wrong step will damn

them to misery.

“Makes you feel almost sorry for them,” a woman mutters behind me as the girls are led

away.

I glance back. The woman is smiling. Her brunette hair is curled and pinned up so that

her neck is left bare; her hazel eyes are almost amber in the fatcandle light. She has skin like fine

parchment, and I can almost read the poetry waiting to be written there. My heart leaps. Nerves.

“The girls,” she says, and nods elegantly.

“I should feel sorry for them?” Careful now – this is the first time someone has spoken to

me without sneering, without at least attempting to hide their desire to latch on to a new scandal.

The woman raises her small liqueur glass so the light catches it, sparking in the dark

depths. “They're never innocent. We're never innocent,” she corrects. “Already they're playing

off each other, and trying to catch the eyes of those Mata brats.” Here she tips the glass just

slightly in the direction of a group of slender, red-haired boys. “I'm Carien,” she says, “and

you're the girl who married a bat.”

I bristle at the double insult. She's only a handful of years older than me, and Jannik is

more than just an expletive. “Pelim Felicita,” I snap. I'm trawling my memory for the woman's

House. I've made the foolish error of memorizing the names of all the men, and not their wives'.

My own fault then if I come out the worse from this encounter.

“Oh, I know your name.” She laughs and takes a sip of her drink, and shudders lightly.

“Everyone does.” Carien must catch the anger that flashes through me. “Don't take it that way.”

She smiles behind her liqueur glass. “You're the centre of all the talk, you know.”

Wonderful. I'm thrilled. And I'm an idiot.



Carien shakes her head, still laughing. “I do wish you could see the look on your face.”

“I'd rather not.”

“Come.” She holds out a gloved hand, unexpectedly. I stare at it. “Come on.” She wiggles

her fingers in a strange melding of impatience and playfulness. “You should meet the others.”

Others? Now I'm intrigued. Perhaps my opening has finally come. This is the first time I

have had a civil conversation with someone that lasted longer than five flicks of a nilly tail.

I don't take her proffered hand, but I do follow her. She leads me to a small room, really

more of a comforting little nook lined with leather books and warmly lit by fatcandles in

coloured glass. Several small intricate glass sculptures, of the kind made by War-Singers with the

talent for art and glass, are scattered about the room on low tables and shelves. They cast

fantastical shapes of orange and green and blue across the spines of the books. Several women,

most of them Carien's age or a bit older, sit chattering softly. They look up when we enter. The

rainbow lights dance across their faces.

“Oh, so you've caught her then?” says one, smiling with something that is not so much

amusement as pleasure.

So I've walked right into the sphynx's den, have I? Watch out, I am not unarmed. I still

have my wit and my pride and my family name.

“Rescued her, actually.” Carien flops down inelegantly on one of the lush sofas that

clutter the small room. “Mirian was busy showing off those spawn of hers.”

“Oh, Gris.” A woman with long fine features and long fine hair taps long fine fingers

against her glass. “You know she only dragged them out because the Matas finally decided to

accept an invitation. She'll tie those girls to House Mata if it kills her.”

“Making up for her own failure,” says another. “Couldn't catch herself a prince, so she

baits the hook with her daughters.”

The women laugh together like all the bells in MallenIve striking midnight.

“And you.” The woman stops tapping her glass and turns her attention to me, her dark

brown hair swinging across her face. “You should be grateful to us, you know.”

“Should I?” I say it coolly, gathering up my insecurities and snarling them tight and

small.

“Oh yes.” She stands – a languid motion that fits her look. “I'm Destia, and you've met

Carien. We've seen you trying to talk to our husbands.”



My cheeks heat, my breath sticks in my throat. This is mortifying. Here I thought I was

going to begin making alliances, and instead they are putting me up on trial so they can mock

me. “I believe I have spoken to some of them,” I say with a cool archness I do not feel.

“They won't listen to you.” Destia smiles neatly. She has very small teeth.

“They will listen to us,” adds Carien. “We've been waiting for you to realize it.”

“Only you didn't,” says another, honey blonde and dressed in scarlet.

“Carien took pity on you.”

“You should thank her.”

The air stinks of scriv. The drug is their key to their magic. They are wealthy, or they

would not be so casual in its use. And they want me to know it. Perhaps there have been other

rumours about me – ones that talk about how I have given up scriv, given up magic.

No one quite believes it, of course. What Lammer in their right mind would give up the

only thing that truly sets them apart? It's our very reason for being. And, if I am honest with

myself, I feel its lack in my own life. Were I to start taking scriv again, I would once more be a

War-singer and the highest of the magical castes, with complete control over the air. I could

choke the breath right out of Carien's lungs. She would see then I am not a little toy to be played

with like a terrier does a rag-doll.

But those days are past. Power corrupts, it's said, and I have felt that corruption chew its

way through me. More than that, I have been on the receiving end of a War-singer's magic, have

been choked and belittled and discarded.

Carien's amber eyes are on me, watching with a predatory intensity.

I hold my head very still, not wanting to seem cowed, but not wanting her to pounce

either. “I'm disinclined to throw out my gratitude like grains in a hen coop.”

Instead of sputtering or demanding an apology, Carien shows me her long throat and

crows. The noise is raucous and loudly out of place – a farmyard screech.

All I can do is stare. There is something very wild and unpolished beneath Carien's

House fashions and society strictures. Whatever I expected of her – this isn't it. What kind of

well-bred lady trained for House subservience and the shuffle of domesticity calls attention to

herself like this? One who intrigues, who mirrors something in me that I have tried to cover like

the mirror-silver in a death-house. I almost find myself stepping closer to her, as if she has

wound a silk thread around us and has begun to spin us together.



After her outburst, Carien indicates that I sit down and, though I'm still crawling with

misgivings, I do so. Next to me Destia smirks then sips at her drink.

When the rustling of silk, taffety, and lace has quieted, Carien crosses her hands over her

knees and leans forward. “Tell us about the bat.” All the heads around me come closer, and I am

reminded of jackals gathering about a wounded goat.

The bat. I keep my face still, and imagine the things that I could do to these little jackals

if I were still a War-singer. I want to lash out, to tell them his name, and explain to them that he

is not an animal. But I know from their looks and from their gleeful maliciousness that this

would be sport. And, frankly, I need their husbands' business partnerships – and for that I need

them. What Jannik doesn't know. . . . I shudder in revulsion at what I am about to do. “It's a

political marriage–”

Carien waves me silent. “Oh we don't want to hear the Pelim House line. We can get that

from the Courant.” She leans nearer still, close enough that I can see the lamplight shine

yellowly off her teeth. “Do you touch it?”

“No.” At least that is not a lie. I have. I don't. I want to. I will not. “No, I haven't.” Then

why have I never taken scriv again? It's not like I have consummated my marriage. It's not as if I

could poison him with the touch of my scriv-infected skin.

My answer leaves her looking disappointed and she withdraws. “Really?” She eyes an

area above my head, apparently bored with me now that I have failed to give her what she wants.

“How dull. Don't you ever get curious?”

“About what?” I ask without thinking.

I have Carien's interest again. Her smile is infuriating, a smile that says I know something

you don't . “I've heard they're magical.”

And here I thought everyone in MallenIve had relegated the bats to nothing more than

people-shaped animals or sometimes, if they were lucky, to the status of kept-whores. “Have you

now?” I try to take a deep breath, but the stench of scriv is so heavy I feel like all I'm breathing

in is spoiled fruit instead of air. It's been so long since I had any that I've realized how awful it

actually smells. The women here are rotten with it.

Carien narrows her eyes. “There's talk.” But it seems something in my tone has warned

her off, because she sits back with a sudden easy grace and looks around. “Where's that damn

servant? Ives lets the Hobs get away with murder here.”



The honey-blonde laughs. “Hardly surprising, given his predilections.”

The women all smirk together.

I take their lapse of interest in me as an opportunity to gather myself. Scriv. So much of it

in this room, and there is only one type of magic that calls for such quantities in these social

situations. Readers. Damn it. All of them? I eye the group warily.

Carien's moments of looking not-quite at me are explained. Now that I'm aware of it, I

can see how their interactions with each other are careful, with a slick layer of surface agreement

that indicates heavy emotional shielding.

There is no way to be truly hidden around them. If I'd been able to go on to University, I

would have learned some shielding techniques – enough that I could at least misdirect – but even

that is a trick that only a few really get the knack of.

This is why we War-Singers and Saints loathe the Readers so. There is no perfect way to

hide the lies, the insecurities, and the complexities of engagement. The best I can do is focus on

some very strong emotion, something so powerful it will blank out all others. Very few people

have something big enough to work. Love certainly isn't enough. However, I am lucky.

Lucky. If that's what one wants to call it. My fingers twitch, and I force myself to

remember the things I did.

Dash's face as I cut him off in a nightmare world, willing him to die. The scratch on

Owen's cheek, sentencing him to death. I ran away from my family and my future, only to

destroy it. Only to end up with a future that is hardly better than the one I tried to escape. And

people died for my rebellion. Dash and Owen were merely the ones whose names I knew.

These things are me. This is my guilt. And, beyond that, I have the time I wasted in not

killing my brother straight away, and the innocents who died because of that.

The guilt hits me solidly and the blackness fills my throat.

Across from me Destia shifts, turning a little to stare at me in confusion.

Carien narrows her eyes, smiles grimly, and taps her fingers along the wooden arm rest of

her chair. We watch each other, waiting to see who will make the next move, and what it will be.

She is like a little snake, ready to strike.

They're interested in the bats, and that interests me. MallenIve society detests them as

vermin. It's not the done thing to show any fascination. I need to draw these women out a little

and find out what they know. If it's true that Carien and her cronies know that the ba– the



vampires are magical, then how long before they have them condemned to death, or worse, used

to replace scriv dust – their teeth and bones ground to powder and snorted from little glass

spoons?

It must not happen. I pull my guilt around me, let it seethe. “How do you mean magical?”

I affect my best tone of bumbling confusion. “I must confess that the idea strikes me as

somewhat ludicrous, certainly I–” I pause, mouth still open then shut it with a decisive snap. I

flush, intensify the guilt. There. Let them make of that what they want.

“Yes?” Carien waits.

Oh yes. Hook and line. I look down at my hands. My fingers are curled up around each

other, clinging to secrets. “I, it's . . . .” I look up and catch her amber gaze, “complicated.”

The women have drawn closer, hemming me in. Carien hisses a pleased little laugh. “Oh

now,” she says. “We're friends. Nothing you say here will spread to other ears. We keep so many

secrets. We victims of marriages must, after all, stick together.”

The women smile and nod, heads wavering like rinkhalses. “Come on,” they say in

soothing hisses.

“It's like this,” I begin, and take a deep fluttering breath. In truth, this is harder to do than

I expected, perhaps because in my lies there is an element of truth that I must face. “I have –

have touched it,” I whisper.

“So?” Carien leans back and observes me amusement.

Irritation sparks. She's not letting me reel her in. “Well,” I say, and raise my hands in a

helpless gesture. “You know.”

She's tapping again, her eyes hooded as she waits. “Know what?”

Damn. Damn it all. “Perhaps, there is something,” I say, and hope that I can come back

from this without condemning Jannik.

The women are all silent, exchanging glances. I tamp down my frustration and think

again about Dash and Owen and death. Guilt, guilt, guilt . It's awful, and I hold on to it fast. The

guilt works in my favour – let them believe I am so disgusted with myself for touching Jannik.

And that thought leads on to others, to the night I spent sleeping next to him, and how I could

feel the magic rippling between us, feather soft. It seems so long ago. Funny how a matter of

months can stretch out to fill enough longing for a lifetime.

It's the honey-blonde who breaks the silence. “It's addictive.”



I raise my head. “Is it? I haven't let myself. . . . ” The news they know this is unexpected.

And opens up all kinds of horrendous possibilities. A House can buy a bat for three pieces of

silver. A fair amount – not enough to cripple their finances, but certainly enough that it's an

investment that would require some thought. And the only possible use I could see the Houses

having for the bats is to take their bones and teeth as some kind of scriv replacement, the same

way we de-horn the unicorns. Except that these women are the wealthiest of the wealthy, and

their veins are grey with scriv. They don't need substitutes.

“Addictive how?”

“Surely you should know better than us,” Carien says, her voice sweetened with sugar-

cane. “There's something in the skin, the oils of the body. Sudors.” She frowns. “It's better –

stronger – under emotional stress.”

And now I'm utterly lost. Here is something I truly did not know, though I concede it

makes an awful kind of sense. “Perhaps I misunderstand,” I say slowly. “You think they . . .

perspire magic?”

“So it seems. From what we've heard.”

This is ridiculous. How do the MallenIve Houses know more about the vampires than I

do? “I am afraid I don't really see how it's possible.”

“Oh very possible,” says Carien. “And who's to say there isn't more to it, that the magic

doesn't run deeper?” She keeps her eyes on me as she says it, and I find myself drawn into the

amber, caught like an insect.

“I – that seems-” Unlikely dies on my tongue. I force a laugh instead. “No, most

definitely not. Is a sandwyrm magic? A riverdrake? Sometimes the things that sprang from magic

are merely monsters and animals. The bats are just more human-shaped than others.” My

stomach churns as I say this, but I know my mask is perfect. This is just another skill I learned

from a childhood in House Pelim.

Carien glances about at the others. Destia raises one eyebrow, then seems to shrug in

consent. The other three women bite their lips, look down, or nod immediately. Eventually they

come to a private agreement.

“It's been most rewarding talking to you.” Carien stands in dismissal. “I'll speak to my

husband on your behalf.”

My interview is at an end, and I have achieved something. Only, Gris be damned if I



know what. Carien gives me a final, secret smile that just barely twitches the corners of her

mouth, and a shudder runs through me, a thrill of something that could be desire or fear. Pretty

things, I must remind myself as a I press one cold hand to my heated cheek. They are dangerous.

* * *

At our next dinner with Harun and Isidro we arrive to find a cadre of thin-lipped dour

servants scraping the front walls clean with soap and rags. The smell of faeces is ripe, and

despite the industry of the servants I can still read the word BATFUCKER written in grey milk-

paint across the white wash.

“Lovely,” says Jannik, his voice dull. He makes no move to get out of the carriage, and

I'm inclined to follow his lead and just have the coachman take us back home.

A servant is scraping away the B, and we watch it erode under his hands.

“This could be us one day,” Jannik says. “You do realize.”

“No.” I lift my chin, and gather my skirts. “It will not.”

“Oh really. You think there's some way you can stop all their hatred, bleed it out of them

with leeches?”

I can't answer him. I stand on the wide stone paving, listening to the gentle snorting of the

nillies in their traces, of the cluck and mutter of the servants as they wring out sudsy water and

wash away the filth that MallenIve has thrown at the Guyin's door. “I won't allow it,” I say

finally, and Jannik just laughs sadly at me.

“You're not Mallen Gris,” he says. “People won't follow your lead merely because you

say so.”

“No.” We're almost at the front doors, and the servants step out of our way. Their stares

are angry, grudging. They hate us. They hate Isidro, and they will hate Jannik. “I'm not a mad

man, and people won't be using my name as a curse.”Jannik glances at the servants, shrugs. “You might just be surprised one day,” he says as a

serving girl leads us gracelessly inside.

But now the thought is in my head. How long before people attack us in the street, daub

obscenities across our house, ostracise us from MallenIve society? I don't want to become like

the Guyins, but nor do I want to be caught up in the web of Readers and Saints and War-Singers



who run the Houses. People like Carien who would gleefully skin my husband just to see if she

could strip the magic right out of him. Magic she shouldn't know about or be interested in.

Not everyone feels it, Jannik told me. And those who do, don't mention it. Most people

have to touch the vampires before they feel anything, and no one wants to admit that they have.

It's like taking out an advertisement in the Courant telling the world you enjoy molesting goats.

There is a kind of safety for the vampires in the city's hatred of them. But I think that

safety is growing thin and small and well-used. If the woman of the Houses are talking freely

among themselves, then the word will spread soon enough, perhaps even to the ears of those with

real power and a lust for magic. To the palace itself.

And perhaps it's too early to begin worrying. I am grasping at nightmares and finding

only mist.

Through dinner I find I cannot stop staring at Isidro's skin, as if somehow, should I glare

at him for long enough, all his mysteries will come seeping out. It's easier to watch him than to

do the same to my husband. Every time I look at Jannik, my eyes slide away, as if there is

something there my brain refuses to acknowledge.

Perhaps it is simply that Isidro has an easier face upon which to look. He is startling, that

is certain. I do not think I have ever seen someone as beautiful, and I, who only paint flowers and

sticks, wish I had the talent to set him down in inks, and the courage to ask.

“Something terribly exciting about my face, Pelim?” he snaps.

“Not at all,” I say quietly. “Should there be?”

I have no idea why he hates us so much. Something about Jannik's family, and the gulf

between the two of them. Every time he looks at Jannik, his whole face twists, making it the

closest it can get to ugly.

Rumour says the Lord Guyin bought Isidro from one of the three MallenIve rookeries. In

Pelimburg there are no rookeries. All the vampires are members or servants of one of the free

Houses. Here, things are more than a little different. The vampires are not free. They are born

into the rookeries where they serve out their time as whores, or as night-soil collectors.

A rookery vampire does make a little coin off each transaction, and there's the elusive

goal of buying their own way free. But the truth of it is that they make so little their only true

escape is to be bought as a servant and freed. If one is lucky enough to be bought out, Gris alone

knows what their new owners want with them. I think of Carien's face, in lamp-light. Her



eagerness.

If I am correct, Jannik's family, House Sandwalker, did buy some of MallenIve's

vampires for a while, sinking their fortune into buying the freedom of rookery whores. They

would have brought their people down to Pelimburg, far from the memories of this awful city. It

may be this is why Isidro hates Jannik so: because he had to buy his own mockery of freedom

with his looks.

I glance at Harun, who is supping more on wine than on the roast trout and milk-and-

lemon soup his kitchens have prepared for us. Again. The skin under his eyes is pouched and his

hand tremors a little, sometimes. I wonder what he is trying to drown inside himself.

What is it that made Harun buy Isidro and keep him as a lover? For myself I saw no other

way to escape my family while minimizing their disgrace than by entering this farcical marriage,

and Jannik is at least from a powerful House. But what kind of man throws away his inheritance,

his future, for some spoiled pretty thing?

For the shit on the walls and the hatred of everyone around him?

He is either a madman or an idiot. Certainly, he is a drunk.

“Felicita,” Jannik says, his voice very soft, “perhaps you could tell them of what you

heard at House Ives.” I spoke of it only a little to Jannik, just told him that Carien has strange

ideas about vampires. Uncomfortable ones. He seemed to brush my disquiet away by telling me

that only certain people were sensitive to the vampire magic and could be affected by it.

Does that make me special, then? I've never seen myself as particularly sensitive,

although my control over scriv-based magic is very fine.

I think Jannik is wrong. It has to do with physical and emotional connection and not on

any inherent ability.

But that sounds too much like the fancies of women, pinning all the world on fate, and so

I have said nothing. Because truly – should I say to him I think I can feel his magic because

we're meant to be together? What a stupid thing.

A stupid childish thing.

“The Houses,” I say, then find myself wondering how to put it.

Harun raises one eyebrow, drains his glass, and beckons for another bottle.

“Fascinating,” says Isidro.

I swallow, glance at him then continue. “Some of the women from the Houses seem to



have this ridiculous notion that the vampires are magical. That their magic can be accessed, with

the right . . . tools.”

“House women are idiots,” Harun says, and it takes all my self-control to not throw one

of his own plates at his head.

Isidro stays quiet.

The rest of the mealtime conversation is stilted and uncertain, but after the desserts, Isidro

walks outside to take fresh air and Jannik follows him. Through the long blue glass of the garden

doors, I see them standing shoulder to shoulder, and they are talking.

I'm uncertain if I should join them. Something about their stance seems so oddly intimate,

as if the rest of the world does not exist. I suppose I should be happy they are being brought

together, even if it is by something as grotesque as Carien's notions. Jannik could use a friend in

this city.

Harun comes up quietly, and stops just behind me. I don't turn back to look at him, just

listen to him pouring himself another glass, the soft liquid slap as he drinks. He's watching them,

like I am.

“Looks like they're finally getting on,” I say, and keep my voice light. “That's good”

“Is it,” Harun says flatly.

I flush. He has merely echoed what I think, that I was happier when Jannik and Isidro had

nothing in common, no little black ribbons to tie them to each other. “We all need friends,” I say.

I still cannot bring myself to look back at Harun. I keep watching the two of them, though they

have made no move and seem to be merely staring out over the garden, still talking. There is a

space between them. “Someone who understands us.”

Jannik and Isidro, despite whatever differences they have, will always have more in

common with each other than with either of us, I realize. We will never truly understand what it

is to be them, to feel the needs they feel, the iron laws under which they live. The people will

write on our walls – mine and Harun's – but they will spit in Jannik's and Isidro's faces and pull

the teeth from their skulls, strip their bones and leave their meat to rot on a rubbish heap.

That is the future that is waiting if people like Carien become too interested in them.

Perhaps it would be easier just to run again, find some other place where we can go. And nothing

will change. “Perhaps it is better for the two of them to have each other.”

“Do you always give up your partners so easily?” Harun says. “Or only when you realize



how much effort they will cost you to keep?”

I swallow, stare, count the seconds out before Jannik turns away from Isidro, their

conversation now over, and walks back up to the wide glass doors. And to me. “Effort?” I say.

“Or silver?” Finally, I glance over my shoulder and meet Harun's eyes. “I don't need to keep

mine on a leash, Guyin.”

My stomach hurts as I say it.

* * *

It is morning, and the dry, sage smell of dogleaf blows through the open windows,

perfuming the Pelim apartments. Magic shifts through the breakfast room. It is calm, quiet as

sunshine. I let the feel of it roll over my skin, and close my eyes, relax. This is Jannik's

attraction.

No. This is exactly the kind of thing Carien and her cronies meant. I may have shrugged

off the yoke of scriv, but here I am replacing it with something else. And I don't even mean to. I

tighten my fingers around my cutlery and take a deep breath, open my eyes, and make myself

watch him. He is a person; not a drug, not a collection of bones and skin to be ground to dust.

Jannik is sitting with his head bowed, the morning Courant spread out before him. No

breakfast dishes clutter his side of the table. A lock of black hair slips forward, and he tucks it

back behind an ear with an unconscious gesture. He's frowning. Every morning we meet at

breakfast. I eat. He reads. We pass the opening of the day in a companionable routine that to

others, would look for all the world as natural and normal as any other marriage. It is also often

the only time we see each other.

He starts talking. The words wash over me, his voice soft, with a hesitancy that means

he's reading something out to me. He always sounds nervous when he reads out loud, as if he

fears he is saying everything wrong while a critical audience watches, mocking.I try concentrate on what he's saying instead of just letting the cadence of it flow around

me like his magic.

There is a body. Hoblings found it while working the middens that surround MallenIve.

The hands and feet were cut off, face neatly removed.

“Despite this, it was not hard to identify as a bat,” Jannik reads.



We are at the breakfast table, where I am now most decidedly not eating my toast and

preserves. He rustles the Courant, and clears his throat.

Carien. Or one of her cronies. My throat closes up. They've done it already. Then logic takes over and I give myself all the reasons

why this has nothing to do with the things Carien said to me. She's not a butcher, just a girl who has the natural inclination of the weak to find

power fascinating. She wanted to touch the skin, not peel it from their flesh.

I make myself hold my head still and pretend that today is normal, that nothing has changed. “A bat?” The question

comes out in a cough, as if it has been years since I last used my voice. I find it hard to believe

Jannik used the word.

“I was reading it as written, Felicita.”

“Did they say who?”

Jannik sets the paper down and glares at me. “What.”

“Pardon?”

“Not who – what. Or did you forget where you live?” Before I can answer, he carries on.

“No, the reporters did not give a name. Frankly, the chances that the sharif will investigate this

further are slim to none. It would make about as much sense to them as hunting down a Hobling

who drowned a litter of unwanted kittens.” He's so very angry. His fingers are trembling.

“What does it say?” I gesture for him to hand the paper over and he complies. Our fingers

brush, and the feeling between us jolts me like a spark of static. I frown.

Jannik looks at his empty setting, sighs, then gets up. He paces the room while I read.

There's not much more here than what he told me. The article is a piece of filler, cropped down

to fit between an advertisement for a new soap, and a listing of wherry arrival and departure

times. It's just a bat, mutilated so it could not be identified. No one has stepped forward to report

a missing slave, and the rookeries have remained conspicuously silent.

house of sand and secrets excerpt

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