usurper, and so wasn’t a permanent threat.
Savedra tried to let the hiss and splash of rain and wet streets drown her thoughts as the carriage bore her to the Octagon Court, but it was no use. Murder and sleeplessness left her maudlin, and the weather didn’t help. The grey veil, autumn was called, for the storms that swept down from the mountains; the same name was given to the listlessness and depression that took some people when the light and warmth vanished.
She had the use of Nikos’ coach, but it was simpler and quieter to pass the gate and hire one of the dozen that always waited to carry visitors and courtiers to and fro. The ride was short-less than half an hour before the horses stopped under the covered walk of Phoenix House and the driver scrambled to help her out. His quick appreciative glance might well have been as much for her cloak as for her face, but he didn’t hesitate over the polite
Eight houses brooded at one another from eight sides of the court, and at the tall bronze statue of Embria Selaphais that stood in the center. Severos, Alexios, Konstantin, Aravind, Jsutien, Hadrian, Petreus, and Ctesiphon. Eight houses, eight families, constantly squabbling and backstabbing over land and position and trade, a web of enmities and alliances that shifted every year with deaths and births and marriages. The rain turned all the houses into glowering grey hulks, but windows in only six glowed against the gloom. The Petreoi had retired to their estates in Nemea last month to elect a new archon, and the Ctesiphon house had stood empty since the family’s head had plotted against King Nikolaos twenty-eight years ago-the attempt had cost him his life, and his house their archonate and all holdings in the city for thirty years.
The carriage rattled away and Savedra turned back to Phoenix House, her heels tapping on wet flagstones as she climbed the steps. Two guards in black and silver livery bowed and held the door for her, and a maid appeared in the foyer to take her damp cloak.
“Is my mother in?” she asked as she shrugged off heavy velvet folds. Blue silk lining flashed in the lamplight.
“The archa is in the library, milady, with Lord Varis.”
“A private conversation?”
The woman shrugged one soft shoulder. “No more than usual.”
Meaning that no one had spelled the room to silence, then, and Nadesda wouldn’t mind an interruption. “Will you have tea sent up, please, and something to eat?”
“Of course, milady.”
The smell of Phoenix House settled over her, the unique blend of stone and polish, wax and oil, the inhabitants’ favorite meals and pets and perfumes that time had ingrained into the walls. The scents of the palace were familiar now, and she still remembered those of Evharis, the estate in Arachne where she was born, but they had never been so comforting. Phoenix House had awed her as a child, with its shadows and stillness and secrets, treasure troves in gabled attics; now it was simply home.
The library drapes were pulled against the chill, and firelight and low lamps lit the room, gilding dark wood and silver sconces and warming the deep colors of the carpets and wall hangings. Nadesda and Varis sat near the hearth, a tea tray on a table between them. Nadesda glowed darkly in bronze brocade, regal as a queen in her high-backed chair. Her beauty was undimmed at fifty-three; another reassuring constant in Savedra’s life.
“Savedra, darling.” Varis stood when she entered and held out a hand.
“Uncle Varis.” She hadn’t realized until she smiled just how unhappy her morning had been.
He was actually her mother’s cousin, but he’d been a familiar and cheering presence as she’d grown up. He’d soothed her adolescent awkwardness with shopping expeditions and visits from his tailors, and taught her to bury the gangly teenaged boy she despised under careful cosmetics and deportment. And, on rare occasions when she’d thought she would go mad, with subtle illusion charms. He had taken her away from the palace on Nikos’ wedding night and gotten her thoroughly drunk.
He took her hand, jeweled rings pressing against her skin. His cheeks creased with a smile that always looked like a smirk, no matter how sincere. He resembled none of her closer relatives, being slight and bird-boned, with startling pale eyes and translucent skin. He’d begun losing his hair before she was born, and made up for it by shaving his head; it set off the delicacy of his features. Malachite powder glittered on his eyelids, and he smelled of lime and lilac and white musk when she kissed his cheek.
He wore black, which meant he must have come from the Arcanost-sober colors were his only concession to Archlight’s dour ideas on fashion. Nothing else about the sculpture of layered velvet and leather that was his coat was reserved. Not that combining chartreuse and fuchsia was the worst of his scandals by far.
“You look tired, my dear,” he said as Savedra bent to kiss her mother. “Is that Alexios pet of yours keeping you up?”
“I keep him up, Uncle. I wouldn’t be much of a mistress if I didn’t.”
“Did you ever try that Iskari massage oil I recommended? I’ve had-”
“Varis.” Nadesda’s quiet reproving tone had worked on children and archons for thirty years. “Pretend for a moment that you have the decency not to corrupt my children. Or at least the tact not to do it while I’m in the room.”
“You know I was never any good at acting, Desda. A pity too-imagine Uncle Tselios’s reaction if I’d run off and joined the Orpheum Rhodon.”
“Hah!” Nadesda’s bright laugh was one of the rare unschooled expressions that no one outside of House Severos had ever seen. Garnets and marcasites glittered as she shook her head. “Too bad you never did. We didn’t outrage the old bastard nearly enough before he died.”
“Maybe it’s not too late. I could find a necromancer to summon him back.”
Nadesda reached for her teacup and stopped when she realized it was empty. “Sit down, Vedra. What’s the matter?”
Savedra drew up a chair and sat, envying as always her mother’s perfect posture. She ought to wear more corsets. “Can’t you guess?”
One eyebrow rose. “Something to do with the note I sent you?”
With perfect timing, a diffident knock fell on the door and a maid slipped in with a new tea tray. While she laid out the dishes, Savedra wondered if she ought to talk to her mother in private. Varis disdained politics, being more concerned with debauchery and thaumaturgy, but she didn’t precisely trust any member of her family with secrets. But, she decided, this was safe enough as far as intrigues went. He already knew about her arrangement with Nadesda.
When the maid had left and everyone had fresh tea-and Savedra had devoured a scone with undignified haste-Varis snapped his fingers. The orange padparadscha sapphire on his right hand sparkled with the motion and a hush filled the room like water, drowning the hiss of rain and crackle of the fire. Theatrics, for all he pretended not to be an actor. Any Severos could invoke the silence-the spell was bound into a marble ornament on the hearth-but there was no point in wasting a mage if you had one at hand.
After the silence deepened and scone and tea settled warm in her stomach, Savedra set her cup down. “Who sent the assassin, Mother?”
Varis’s eyebrows climbed. Nadesda cocked her head, tendrils of steam drifting around her face. “Who has the most to gain from the princess’s death?”
Savedra snorted. “We do, of course.”
One manicured nail clicked against her teacup. “Ah, but that’s not true, is it?”
“Can’t we skip the lessons?” But Nadesda only waited expectantly. “Fine. Even if Ashlin died and Nikos married me, I would never be queen or produce an heir. The best we could hope for would be another Severos adopted, and the other houses would fight that with all their breath.” Her forehead creased as she contemplated it more. “But other houses have marriageable daughters.”
“Your first example was the best,” Nadesda said. “Ginevra Jsutien was the favorite of at least four houses, and her aunt knew it. Of course, I’m sure Thea is much too clever to involve herself with assassins, or to leave any links behind if she did.”
“Thea.” Savedra shook her head. “That silver-tongued bitch.” She couldn’t stop the thread of admiration that
