15. 14 #2
One piece though, of average size and framed in simple treated wood, as opposed to some of the gilded frames, concerned a man.
A man on a raft, unconscious, his marble torso taut as his legs were dragged into the current.
He was nude, except for the silvered crown that sat upon his brown curls.
In the distance, a lantern of a ship in the darkness.
Coming towards him in rescue? Or leaving him: in mutiny?
I stood before it, studying the man’s expression and finding it peaceful, or at the least, ignorant of his peril. “Does this have a name?”
Davian’s voice came from right behind me, his breath moving my hair. “It does.”
I didn’t turn, too nervous that in doing so, I would be only inches from him. From his mouth. So I pretended I was still studying the piece, until he moved a step away.
Then, I turned.
Davian’s nostrils flared as he studied my face. Then, he too, looked at the paintings. “My wife painted the walls.”
The atmosphere between us shifted. I took in the wall over his shoulder, and his grief hit me in the chest.
There was no wall left to see.
“She wasn’t—”
“—I’m so sorry,” I said, as our voices overlapped with twisted pitches.
We both paused.
I cleared my throat, overwhelmed by the moment. “What were you going to say?”
His brow pulled together. “What we had was—It’s hard to describe.”
“You really don’t have to,” I said quickly, lifting my hand to my stomach.
Somehow, it felt like my fault. I didn’t want him to have to go down this path for me; his relationship with his wife shouldn’t involve me. It didn’t, I told myself.
Davian watched me, scanning my expression. I forced myself to relax my own brow, and to try to stop looking at him with pity and this weird guilt I didn’t want to feel.
He sighed. “I want you to come to a party with me.”
That, I didn’t expect. “A party.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“This is why you need me? For a party?” I asked.
Davian’s eyes roamed from my eyes to my mouth, down in a languid pass over my neck and the arm exposed by my chiton. By the time his eyes returned to mine, I was as red as I had ever been.
The implication was not lost on me. His needs might mirror mine closer than we both knew.
Murder. Murder.
“Accompany me,” he demanded.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I won’t be allowed in without a date.”
I narrowed my eyes, feeling like there was some subterfuge in his tone, something he wasn’t telling me. “Then find someone else.”
“I don’t want anyone else.”
No hint of a lie there.
The words dragged through me like they had been delivered by Ekris himself.
I tried to unthink that, to feel the humanity, the mortality, the godlessness of its bearer, but the thought had planted like a seed in my head.
His silver eyes looked impossibly darker, and I struggled to maintain my composure.
The words weren’t even dirty, they weren’t bidding some sultry act nor praising my skill.
The words themselves were nothing without the mouth that spoke them, and how they hung in the air like a welcome threat.
I blinked. “Where’s the party?”
His gaze dropped. “The House of Wisdom.”
Wisdom. The same House my ring had been from, originally. “Why?”
“Two devotees from the House of the Sea will be at that party,” he explained. “It is the first public appearance they have made since Saskia’s disappearance.”
“Right,” I said. Part of me was relieved to finally understand the connection between this bidding of his and our mutual investigation. I ignored the other part. “So, your plan is to talk to them? Why do we need this event to do that?”
“Several reasons. First, our chances of entry for this event are higher than knocking on the front door of the Sea. Second, there will be other nobles there to talk to.” Davian smirked. “People who might know something, and would be more willing to divulge their secrets to my beautiful accomplice.”
“That accomplice being me?”
His smirk grew. “You’re very quick.”
“Don’t mock me.” I folded my arms, and he forced his face into a more serious expression, if only to humour me. “You said several reasons, that was two.”
“As I said, you’re very quick.” I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help but enjoy the teasing compliment. Davian stared at my left cheek. “Your constant blushing is very distracting, you know.”
I only blushed harder. “It’s not by choice.”
“Mm,” he said, his lips pressing together as he shifted his footing. “I think that’s what makes it so delightful.”
I swallowed hard, staring at his mask instead of his eyes, anything to push the temptation down. “Answer my question.”
“Ah, yes.” Davian turned to drift his hand over Whip’s back. “They are attending the party as a cover, for a meeting with the Leader of the House of Wisdom.”
“Theolis?” I asked, naming the Leader.
He froze. Barely, but it was there.
Had I surprised him? It was part of my teaching to know their names, and the names of their family.
For Theolis, there wasn’t much that I recalled.
An Aralaji widower with two adult children.
Kali and Ravi? Any gossip I heard about her from my patrons was dull: complaining that she was refusing permissions, or that her proposed library expansion was too expensive.
That she was stubborn and particular, but competent and proud, too.
She, on the whole, was much like most other Leaders of any great House: above any serious reproach, unless you had a desire to be cursed.
“Yes,” Davian confirmed.
“Why are they meeting with her?”
He kept stroking the cat. Again, I felt like there was something he wasn’t telling me, and yet, none of his words were a lie. “To ask for money.”
I watched his hand as it passed down the purring cat’s back.
His fingers were long and graceful, a vein flexing on the back of his hand.
Somehow, even looking at his hand was too much for me at that moment.
I focused on his mask, restraining myself with the unchanging coldness of it. “How do you know this?”
He stiffened, and did not reply. Interesting. I waited, but he said nothing, only stroking the cat as his purrs filled the silence.
A different question, then. “How does it help us that the House of Wisdom is giving the House of the Sea money?”
“Good. You’re asking the right question.
” He turned back to me, and his smile was as deadly as the noon summer sun.
I hated how well his praise curled inside me, and I was glad then that I could not purr.
“When a House asks for money from the House of Wisdom, and they accept, there is no expectation for that sum to be returned. It is not a loan, it is a price. A price paid in knowledge. Secrets.”
“I see,” I replied.
He studied me. “The House of Wisdom will ask the questions we want the answers to.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because when you trade in knowledge, the coffers can sometimes run dry,” he said. “Sometimes even the noble secret hoarders need gold.”
This surprised me. “You give the House of Wisdom money?”
Davian spread his hands out, the picture of a magnanimous broker. “Darling, the House of Pain is one of the biggest money lenders in Dytho. Perhaps the very biggest. The House of Love makes a tenth of what we take from our clientele.”
“You’ve bribed the House of Wisdom to ask questions about what happened to Saskia?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Again, there was that flair of subterfuge I didn’t understand.
There was something about his operation with the House of Wisdom he didn’t want me to know.
Whether it connected to the ring, or something else entirely, I didn’t know.
Maybe Seera had some connection to the House, or there were some House politics between Pain and Wisdom.
But there was at least one part that didn’t make sense. “I still don’t understand why I need to come. You’ll get your answers.”
“Let’s just say the House has their own conditions.”
I pulled my lower lip into my mouth, biting down. “Should I be worried?”
He stared at my mouth with a hunger I had only known religiously, and now understood carnally. “Oh, very.”
I dropped my grip on the lip, but his eyes didn’t move. “Great.” My breath hitched. “When is it?”
He took a step towards me, and the lights fell behind him, casting him with the shadow I had first seen him in. “Three days.”
“Oh.”
“Problem?” he asked, the silver flashing.
I furrowed my brow, trying to focus on our conversation, and not everything beneath it. “I thought it would be today. Your message sounded urgent.”
His voice dropped into that husky tone that clenched my insides like a constricting snake. “It was.”
I stared up at him, and he stared down at me.
Still, he did not touch me. Still, he did not close the gap, even as my breath quickened in my breast and I was certain he knew how he affected me.
Was this a form of Samiscan torment? I was on the edge of painful desire, and he did not brush a hand to my skin, he did not say anything that could not be unsaid.
Then, with a wink, he turned from me. He strode over to a standing wardrobe in the corner behind his bed, its top covered with silks and rolled up fabrics. More rugs, maybe. He pulled it open as I recovered my breath for the seventh time since entering his House.
Whip had clearly decided the act of opening the wardrobe was too much disruption for him, as he quickly stretched and then hopped down from the bed.
I opened the door to let him out, and he swayed his hips as his tail curled in the air.
I stared at the stairwell, watching him leave and noting how easy it would be for me to follow. Then I closed the door again.
Davian spoke from behind the wooden door. “I’ve bought a dress. I’ll have to give the tailor a few days to make alterations to your measurements.”
I blinked, deciding whether or not to be annoyed. “You bought this before I agreed?”
He poked his head out from around the door. “Have you?”
“What?”
“Agreed?” he asked.