Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,17
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.