among our ranks. If our survival had depended upon the gift of foresight, the House would not have survived to become one of The Ten.”
“It seems a needless risk—”
“It is a necessary risk. It is always a necessary risk.”
She swallowed, met his gaze, and nodded, remembering Avandar’s words. The Chosen were not children; they were not orphans and runaways gathered in the holdings. They were shield, defense, and personal army; they were not, and could not be reduced to, retainers, attendants, and men who . . . waited.
Carver seemed to understand this already. He gestured in brief den-sign, and she nodded. Yes, hard.
“Was that anywhere near where the servants’ entrance was?”
Carver shook his head.
“Is the servants’ entrance in this room now?”
“No.” He moved away from the wall as Torvan opened the door, and froze in its frame for a few seconds too long. He didn’t enter the room; he didn’t order the Chosen forward. But he didn’t immediately draw sword, and he didn’t speak a word when Jewel walked toward his back. He did, however, enter then.
Jewel followed and stopped at the doorjamb, lifting one hand to the frame to steady herself.
“Jay?”
She laughed. It was an uneven laugh, an expression not of mirth, but surprise. Or shock, or outrage. “Carver, come here.”
“What is it?”
“You tell me. Tell me what you see.”
He came to join her, but didn’t laugh; he swore, instead. Jewel lowered her arm, and Carver moved past her, just as the Chosen had done, walking single file down the hall that led from the door because it wasn’t wide enough for two. It wasn’t wide enough for the swords the Chosen carried, either; it was wide enough for Carver’s daggers. Or Jewel’s, although she was not, at this moment, wearing them.
“Terafin?” Torvan asked, the word drifting back to where she stood.
“It’s the thirty-fifth holding,” she said, forcing strength into the words. “It’s an apartment in the thirty-fifth holding.”
Torvan didn’t argue. Carver, who’d ducked into the tiny kitchen to the right, reappeared and entered the room to the left. She thought she should stop him, because she knew that these rooms, this apartment, could not possibly be as they appeared. Instead, she drifted into the hall herself. The door did not slam shut behind them.
Carver came out after a brief moment, met her eyes, and once again moved down the hall. He went to the next door on the left. Jewel herself followed him, but diverged at the door on the right. Torvan and the Chosen had opened all of the doors, even this one, in some confusion. She could well understand why. If they had not expected the sudden, grandiose transformations of the library or the small, personal office, it was of a piece with the sudden appearance of the Common’s fabled trees in their backyard; it meshed with the existence of three voluble, giant, winged cats, a silent white stag, and the demons who had assassinated The Terafin, and had failed—by a hair—to assassinate Jewel.
This?
It was of inferior workmanship. The ceilings were low, the halls narrow; the planking on the floor was old enough that it creaked no matter who walked across it. The rugs, where they existed, were threadbare and patchy, the cupboards scarred and slightly warped. There were few windows, and little light, and the windows were at the height of the short walls. They were barred, of course, and the bars were excellent—and new.
In the room at the right end of the hall was a familiar desk, a familiar table, and a familiar set of shelves on the wall. The shelves should have been empty, but they weren’t. She hesitated, and then knelt by the bed-side.
“Jay?” Carver’s voice was slightly muffled by the bed. “This is—”
“Yes,” she said, knowing her voice would sound muffled in the same way. “It’s Rath’s. It’s Rath’s last home.” She pulled a small chest from under the bed, and dusted the skirts of her dress off as she rose. “There’s a chest at the end of the bed,” she said. “That probably contained most of his clothing, his makeup, and his wigs.”
“You speak of Ararath Handernesse?” Torvan asked softly.
Jewel assumed that the Chosen knew almost as much as their Lord. “Yes. This is where I lived, for a few short years. This is where—” She shook her head. As it was for Torvan, the unexplained majesty of the shifting architecture of manse and gardens had almost become the norm; if she could not predict what she would see—or find—she