ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With deep thanks to Sherwood Smith, Antoine, and KA, for making this book better.
This book is in Australian English. A character list and glossary are included at the back.
ONE
Sunlight picked out motes of dust, and burnished mellow wood to match Arianne Seaforth’s hair as she strolled through the Southern Nomarch’s library. Heavy bookcases jutted from the inner wall, stopping short of the many-paned windows, and Rian walked along a corridor formed by the gap, watching a drama of wind.
A rope had snapped. The First Minister’s airship canted to one side, and then the ballonet bounced, threatening to smash the gondola onto Sheerside House’s sweeping back lawn. The very problem First Minister Aquila had come to discuss was likely to strand her in Prytennia’s battered south.
Rian had travelled to Sheerside by train, not airship, and even heavy iron had shuddered beneath the morning windstorm. The journey had shown her a landscape scoured: trees and crops stripped by weeks of gusting onslaught, animals all either hiding or huddled in protective masses. Occasionally a roofless house displayed its innards.
It was unusual for the second windstorm of the day to be prolonged, and Rian would in other circumstances be uneasy, but today she felt little more than academic interest, for she had come to a vampire’s house to hunt a murderer.
Lyndsey. One overheard name, and a location discovered from a discarded envelope, with no guarantee that either of them were connected to sudden death. Scant basis for the ten year sacrifice coming to Sheerside entailed, but in the months since Aedric and Eiliff’s deaths, gaining a position to follow that name was the only real progress Rian had made.
Movement drew her attention away from the airship. She had reached an area clear of shelving—one of the library entrances—dominated by a long reading table, the near end of which sat in the direct fall of sunlight. The reflection off the polished wood dazzled, so she had failed to see a young man sprawled at the far end of the table until he’d lifted one hand, thumb canted to form a partial frame for the scene outside. Blinking to help her eyes adjust, Rian moved away from the window, and the youth’s hand dropped to rest flat. Otherwise he barely moved, head remaining pillowed on one arm as he studied her.
“And what are you?” A soft, dreaming voice, cut with a note of derision.
Having no idea where he stood in the hierarchy of the House, Rian replied neutrally: “Newly arrived.”
“A non-answer.” He still didn’t move, but swept his gaze up and down, taking in travel clothes that were well kept and nicely cut, but far from new. “Another governess for the brats? No, I have it.” His nose wrinkled. “You’re the new Wednesday.”
“Wed—” She realised what he meant, and held back instinctive rejection. She didn’t like what being here would entail, but there was no point pretending it was not going to happen. “That’s certainly one way to term it.”
“Come down in the world?” It wasn’t a sympathetic question. “Let me guess—someone died and left you without sufficient fortune. You wanted to be kept in style?”
“That’s a very Roman attitude,” Rian said, unbothered by such a wide shot. She considered him: a slight young man, not wearing a coat, and the laces missing from his shirtsleeves. His dark brown hair was several inches long, tousled and not quite curling. He didn’t match his surroundings any better than she did. “What are you, the resident starving artist?”
His eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?”
Rian lifted one hand, thumb canted at a right angle, and used it to partly frame the scene through the window. The gesture was something her father had often used. Out in the wind, a basket barrelled across the lawn, but the airship’s attendants were winning their battle with its tethers.
“I have some interest in photography,” the young man said, sounding less than amused. Annoyed she’d seen that. “Could you be one of the Pyrial? No, you don’t seem nearly lack witted enough to mistake which appetite’s involved.”
“You obviously feel strongly about blood service.”
He made a low, disgusted noise. “It’s the most pathetic of ideas. That kind of bond—it’s not meant to be a business transaction.” He’d finally found the energy to sit up, all the better to glower at her.
“Meant to be? What is it meant to be, then?”
He shifted one shoulder, a sketch of a shrug. “Raw. Revolting. Profound. Anything but watered-down, antiseptic domestication.”
Perhaps he was the resident poet. Rian would have left him to his opinions, but since the primary reason she had accepted the chance to become the ‘Wednesday’ at Sheerside was to investigate its occupants, she couldn’t pass up any opportunity. And for all she knew, this was the ‘Lyndsey’ she was searching for. After so long failing to make any progress, she wasn’t going to turn away on account of a little annoyance, and so refocused the calm centre that had taken her through far more difficult conversations.
A voice with a hint of a northern accent forestalled any attempt at subtle interrogation. “Dama Seaforth?”
Rian turned. A man had opened the library’s door. Tall and impeccably dressed in light tunic and a long pleated shendy in summery shades of blue and cream, he had his eyelids blackened in the Egyptian manner, the kohl only a few shades darker than his skin.
“I’m Evelyn Carstairs,” he went on. “Are you ready for your tour of the building?”
“Yes, indeed.”
As Rian headed for the door the poet-photographer switched his glower to the new arrival, who simply nodded and said: “I beg your pardon for interrupting, Dem,” and moved so Rian could precede him.
Rian heard the poet murmur as she left the room, and thought he said, “Dairy orientation,” but paid no further attention, looking with interest at her guide. What day would he be to her ‘Wednesday’?
“I knew Sheerside House was large,” she said, “but I underestimated the tangle. I thought I’d followed the directions on how to find you, but—”
“But if ever there was a mot juste for Sheerside’s design, it would be ‘labyrinthine’,” Carstairs said. “Start by thinking of it in three sections. The tower, which is the oldest, holds the offices. The centre block surrounds the tower and is where you’ll find the kitchens, most of the dining and function rooms, and the entrances to the Underhouse. The residences, the newest and largest section, brackets the centre block. There’s also the Underhouse, of course, but you won’t need to concern yourself with that yet. It’s not barred to you, but the lighting in most areas is kept low, and there are some dangers.”
Not least the vampire she had come to serve: Msrah, Nomarch of the Southern Dragonate. “I think I’ll concentrate on finding my way to my room, to start with,” Rian said, and he smiled and obligingly took her upstairs, then taught her how to reach the nearest bathroom, the breakfast room, the main and garage entrances, and finally a day room with an elegant arrangement of chairs and lounges, and even a piano. Glass-panelled patio doors rattled in the gale.
“This particular room is given over to us—Lord Msrah’s Bound,” Carstairs said. “It’s quiet most days, and more active in the evenings.”
“Will my nephew and nieces be permitted here?”
“Of course.” Carstairs paused at the doors, looking right, and Rian followed his gaze to see the region’s greater pyramid, much taller than the Nomal House’s tower. The main portion was slate grey, while the upper third was capped with a green-tinged stone.