Excerpt

It had been years since Gil Irichels had poled a boat through the canals of Bejanth, but some skills were worn so deep into the bone that they could not be forgotten. His bodyguard Arak min'Aroi crouched in the center of the boat with the piled baggage, her hunched shoulders the only sign of her unease. By contrast, Envar Cassi knelt barefoot in the bows, already holding the mooring rope. He, too, had been born in Bejanth, and had not forgotten how to navigate its waters.

The house loomed ahead, three stories with an alley to one side and a narrow cut-through canal on the other, shutters closed and the black wreaths still on the upper windows. The canal channeled the wind, and the dyed feathers were looking bedraggled: time and past to have them down, Irichels thought, adjusting his stroke to bring the boat alongside the narrow platform.

Envar leaped the narrowing gap, mooring rope in hand, and Irichels shifted his pole to stop the boat from colliding with the crumbling stone. Envar walked backward along the dock, pulling them forward until he could loop the rope over the bollard and draw it tight. Irichels racked the pole against the outside gunwale and stepped ashore to fasten the stern tie. Arak looked up at him, one hand still clutching the nearest cleat. "This is your house?"

For my sins. That was a dangerous comment, here where the house could hear him, and Irichels merely nodded.

"Most impressive," Envar said. He came back down the dock, and Irichels saw the moment he thought of offering Arak his hand. Arak's glare dissuaded him, and he came on down the dock, looking up at the house. "You'll need to take the wreaths down, of course. Unless they're for your arrival?"

That was closer to the bone than Envar could have known. "The advocate said no one has been living here since my aunt died."

"Not even staff? How unfriendly of them." Envar continued staring up at the house, pale eyes noting every crack in the plaster, the peeling paint, the time-blurred carvings on the shutters and the downspouts. Even the once-brilliant peacock blue door had faded. Behind him, Arak wobbled to her feet and stepped awkwardly onto the dock, straightening with a scowl that dared anyone to comment.

"Now what?"

Irichels took a deep breath. "Let's get the baggage up, and then we'll go in."

Envar stepped back into the boat to toss their bags to Arak. Not nearly enough of them, Irichels thought, not for his new status—master of Samar with the family vote in the Lower Assembly—though they had seemed more than sufficient for a traveling cursebreaker. Three sets of saddlebags, a larger, shapeless bag still stained by the straps that had held it to the mule, the cases that held their weapons, and an incongruous woven basket that Envar had acquired that morning: it was lucky the house should still contain some furniture. Irichels could feel the weight of the key in his purse; and because he wouldn't give the house that satisfaction, he drew it out and stepped briskly to the door.

The lock resisted for a moment, or perhaps that was only his imagination. He pressed harder, and the tumblers caught, drawing back the heavy bolt. He pushed the door open all the way, and saw for an instant the inner courtyard ablaze with light and color. The vision vanished, replaced by reality: the dark hall, the filtered sunlight in the inner court, the utter silence where there had once been the music of birds and water. He hoped someone had released the birds when his aunt Maritsa died, if they were not going to maintain the house.

He crossed the threshold and felt the subtle shift that meant the house was aware of him. There was the familiar smell of cold ashes, sour and oddly comforting, and the sense of weight receded, vanishing into the shadows. Behind him he heard Envar's quick intake of breath, glanced back to see the chirurgeon's considering expression. "You didn't mention that," he said.

Arak dropped the first load of saddlebags on the tiled floor, set her cased crossbow more gently beside them. "There is something here."

"It's a very old house," Irichels said, and heard his voice defensive.

"And your family's lived here for centuries," Envar agreed. "But that doesn't always happen."

"No." Irichels' mouth tightened in spite of himself.

"A spirit," Arak said. "Yes? A daemon of the house?"

Irichels knew the highland term that Arak really meant, and hoped the house didn't. "In a sense."

"It's more that the house has been a center of the family's attention for long enough to become a daemon," Envar said. "Every one of you, family and household, must have acknowledged it for generations, and that's fed it." He gave Irichels a sidelong glance. "You don't much like it, my heart."

That didn't need to be said out loud. Irichels swallowed the words, said instead, "It never much liked me."