“Loiosh.”
“Boss?”
“Big fancy doors at one end.”
“Yeah?”
“Big, fancy doors at the other.”
“Your powers of observation, Boss, are—”
“So where does the food come from? Where is the entrance from the kitchen? Where do the servants go? You know they can’t use the doors the important people use.”
“Hmmm.”
“I thought this room was too normal.”
The walls were blank—some decorative lamps and candle holders, and strips of a darker wood here and there, but nothing else. Secret passages? Maybe. But I looked for them, and it’s pretty hard to conceal an opening in a blank wall from someone looking for it; that’s why most secret passages are behind bookcases or in slatted floors or something. And if they were servants’ entrances, why conceal them? In a way, the lack of servants’ doors was the most bizarre and inexplicable thing I’d yet come across, and that’s saying a great deal.
Verra take it, then.
The doors at the opposite end were the twins of the ones I’d first come through. I went up and flung them open. It was dark on the other side.
“Boss—”
I stepped forward into the darkness.
Unlike any other transition, this was accompanied by a sense of dizziness, a moment of fuzzy vision, and even a low roaring my ears. Then everything cleared, and I was—
Sitting.
Well, that was interesting.
The chair was hard and wooden, and there were more chairs, empty, in front of me, and to both sides. Many of them. Directly in front of me, past all of the chairs, was—
I was in a theater. A big one, given that it was inside another building: a quick bit of compound addition from my years of schooling told me that there were more than three hundred seats. The stage was the traditional six-sided figure, raised about four feet, and well lit from all sides. Now, you understand, there was no way a theater of this size could have fit beyond those doors I’d opened—for one thing, it would have extended down to the floor below. By now, I shouldn’t have been upset about the place not making sense, only I was. I looked for the inevitable mirrors, and found them, above each door.
You had to be some kind of theater lover to build your own three-hundred-seat theater in your house. Did Zhayin have guests often? I returned my attention to the stage. It was now occupied, which it hadn’t been an instant before. Well. That was interesting.
In the center of the stage was a woman I didn’t recognize. She stood there, motionless. I didn’t move either, or say anything, for what felt like most of a minute. Then the music started. I didn’t see anywhere for music to come from, and I certainly didn’t see anyone playing it, but it started—big, orchestral. She began to dance.
I don’t know much about music, and even less about dance, but I can tell you how it felt: it was like the grasslands to the north, when a strong wind comes up and the grass lies down flat, like it’s bowing. And it was like the forests to the west, when the snow is first melting and the streams run black against the white blanket. Her movement never stopped—her hands drawing patterns in the air, her legs bending, straightening, leaping, collapsing; her torso moving like a snake’s, her head erect and balanced and it seemed like even the twitches of muscle above her eyes were planned, and precise, and perfect.
I became aware that I was holding my breath, and let it out.
Look, I’m sorry to get all poetic on you. We both know that isn’t what I’m about. My point is, it’s the only way to tell you what happened, and that by itself should tell you something, all right?
So I sat there in that empty theater, and I watched her dance until, after I don’t know how long, she stopped, her body twisted up into a position that was impossible in its beauty, the lights went down, and the music ended. Then I sat there for a little longer. I was just coming back to myself enough to wonder what it all meant when she jumped down from the stage and approached me, working her way through the aisle, then over to my row. Her movements were like water, or, you know, something that flows. She was short for a Dragaeran—maybe half a head taller than Aliera, and the term “willowy” might have been invented to describe her.
I sat and waited. She took the chair to my left. She didn’t look at me; her eyes were focused ahead, on the stage she’d just left. She said, “My name is Hevlika.”
“Vlad. You’re an amazing dancer.”
“Thank you.”
“I can’t imagine the hours of training to learn to do that.”
She nodded, still staring straight ahead. “I’ve been studying the art for four centuries. I started when I was barely forty.”
“Dancing before you could crawl.”
“That’s the saying, yes.”
“I also liked your entrance.”
“My—?”
“When I entered, the stage was empty. I looked away, looked back, and there you were. Nice trick.”
“Oh. That was not my effect, it was yours.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Don’t you know? In any performance, the audience provides most of the magic for their own enchantment?”
“I’ve heard that, but I never took it quite so literally. It’s never been my area of study. How did I manage it?”
“How could I know?”
I didn’t have a good answer to that. “This place,” I said.
“Hmmm?”
“This is an odd place. Things happen that I can’t figure out.”
“And outside of this place, you understand everything so well?”
“Don’t be cryptic.”
She chuckled a little.
“I can’t even tell what House you are.”
“Does it matter?”
“Always.”
“You wonder if I’m real.”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder if you are.”
“I could tell at once we had a lot in common. Can you tell me anything useful about what’s going on in this place?”
She looked around for a moment, then faced the stage again.
“What do you mean?”
“The kitchen was empty, unused, but there was fresh bread.”
“What brought you here?”
“A friend asked me for help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I don’t know.”
She turned and looked at me. Her face was triangular, and she reminded me a little of Sara. Okay, Issola, then. After giving me a quick glance, she faced the stage again. I started wondering what was so fascinating there.
I said, “So, what can you tell me about this place?”
“Precipice Manor?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I can’t say that with a straight face. Which is odd, because I know someone who calls his home Castle Black.”
She spared me a quick look. “Apparently you can’t say that with a straight face, either.”
“True enough. So, what can you tell me?”
“I don’t know a great deal. I dance. That’s all.”
“You dance?”
“For Lord Zhayin. Every couple of months he has me dance.”