House of Shadows Read Online Free Page A

the way she does and embroider their robes to echo hers. A hundred men will admire her and give her gifts. I’m sure dozens of them will want to be her keisonne.” She gave Enelle a sideways look. “I know you were never interested in glamour, but you must know how many girls would like to be keiso, except they haven’t the accomplishments or the beauty. Just think how Liaska admires keiso and always wants to follow the fashions they set.”
    “But—” Enelle began, too upset to admit the obvious.
    “Karah might have preferred to stay with us, and of course we’ll miss her terribly, but she’ll be a wonderful keiso. She’ll find a keisonne from among the men of the court—half the men who frequent Cloisonné House must surely be from the Laodd, don’t you think? Some of them must be perfectly nice. She’ll choose the nicest of them, of course, someone who loves her. Her sons will grow up with the children of princes.”
    “I… you’re right. I suppose you’re right,” Enelle murmured doubtfully.
    “Of course I am.”
    The Niarre River, running out of the shadow of the great mountain to the sea, seemed to carry the sound of magic with it as it washed around the bridge pilings. Nemienne glanced down at the water, her attention momentarily caught. Then they were across the bridge, and she tucked their little carriage behind a muchbigger four-in-hand and turned down Herringbone Lane to the east, heading for the mountain’s shadow.
    “I… I never noticed anything about your eyes,” Enelle confessed quietly. She was not quite looking at Nemienne, but rather off along the streets. It seemed to have caught up with her at last that she was on her way to losing a second sister, and in a way that carried less esteem and more—well, if not peril, then at least uncertainty.
    Nemienne herself would have liked a chance to look at her eyes in a mirror. But there wasn’t even a clear puddle of water on the street. “Probably you have to meet lots of mages before you’d see—whatever Narienneh saw. Look, there’s the Lane of Shadows. Which house did she say?”
    “The third.” Enelle leaned forward to look for it. They had left the traffic behind them as they passed under the shadow of Kerre Maraddras, entering a district of quiet dimness that seemed only minimally connected to the city proper. “Is that it?” She sounded a little uncertain.
    Nemienne could understand Enelle’s doubt. The third house on the lane was a small, crooked structure, built of weathered gray stone. Set as it was into a fold of the mountain, the house looked less like a purpose-built structure than a natural outcropping. Light slanted obliquely across the glass windows—the house’s one extravagant touch—so that the windows seemed blind, nothing anyone could look into. Or out of.
    “It’s a bit… it’s rather… have you ever seen a less likable house?” Enelle asked. She looked appalled. “This was a bad idea. You needn’t… we mustn’t…”
    “Oh, no,” Nemienne said, her eyes on those blind windows. Light reflected from them, like light off water, so that anything might be hidden beyond sight in the depths. “No. We’re here, and I know we still need more money. Though you did wonderfully well with the Mother of Cloisonné, you know you did,” she added hastily. “But we’re here. We must certainly ask.” She drew the horsesto the side of the lane, set the brake, wrapped the reins around the driver’s bar, and jumped down to the cobbles, steadying herself with a hand on the near wheel’s high rim.
    “But—” Enelle began, her voice a little too high.
    “Anyway,” Nemienne said, as gently as she knew how because she knew her sister wouldn’t understand this, “I rather like the house.”
    Enelle gave her an astonished stare. “You don’t really.”
    “I think I do.” Nemienne came around to the other side of the carriage and held up a hand to help Enelle down. If she would come. Her sister was