Finally, he sighed. It could have been worse. There could have been witnesses. No matter what else was said about him, he did not want to be known as the man who had reduced the High Lord of Hell to giggles.
“I’m sorry,” Saetan gasped. Calling in a handkerchief, he wiped his eyes. “I can imagine the response to that.”
“I’m sure you can,” Daemon said dryly.
With effort, Saetan regained his composure. “So, what were you trying to say?”
Daemon took a deep breath, let it out slowly—and told him.
Great. Wonderful. He’d not only made the High Lord giggle, he’d made the man blush.
“I see.” Saetan cleared his throat. “I’m . . . not sure that can be said in the Old Tongue. Let me think about it and see if I can come up with something that would let Jaenelle know she—”
“Is everything,” Daemon finished quietly. “She is everything.”
Saetan smiled. “Yes. She is everything.”
FOURTEEN
1
Shivering, Lektra called in a shawl and wrapped it around herself. So cold. So terribly cold. But no one else seemed to notice except Roxie, who had retreated to her room.
Tavey was dead. Viciously murdered. Lady Zhara’s Master of the Guard had come earlier that morning to tell her the body had been found—and to ask questions. Even through her shock and dismay, she’d realized the Master didn’t care who had killed Tavey. After all, there was no law against murder among the Blood. No, he’d come to the town house as a courtesy—and to find out if Tavey’s death foreshadowed a danger to his Queen.
She couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, and she wasn’t about to tell him anything else. What could she say? She didn’t actually know Tavey had talked to Daemon. And why would her beautiful love kill a man who was offering him a way out of an unwanted marriage? Besides, Daemon had been trained to be a lover, not a warrior.
So it had to have been someone else, someone who didn’t want Daemon free of his ties to Jaenelle Angelline.
A warrior. Like Lucivar Yaslana. Maybe Daemon had already left the parlor by the time Tavey got there. Maybe Tavey had found Lucivar in the parlor and had blurted out his little speech, thinking that telling Daemon’s brother was easier than telling Daemon himself. But Lucivar was an Eyrien warrior. Brutal. Savage. Roxie had told her over and over how mean Lucivar had been to her, threatening to kill her once he got tired of bedding her, forcing her to flee her home and family in Ebon Rih so that he could marry some hearth witch nobody.
Yes, Lucivar Yaslana wouldn’t have thought twice about killing Tavey. After all, killing was what he did. Why not force Daemon into continuing to play nursemaid so that he wouldn’t have to take care of Jaenelle?
She walked over to the window, intending to look out, but something shuddered through her, making her back away.
There was something outside, waiting for her. Something dangerous. Something deadly. Something cold.
Shivering violently, Lektra hurried to the other side of the room, away from the windows, away from whatever was out there.
As long as she stayed inside, she was safe. Whatever it was couldn’t get in, couldn’t harm her. As long as she stayed inside.
Wrapped in Black shields that prevented the rest of the Blood from detecting his presence, Daemon watched the town house across the street. Lady Lektra’s town house. Easy enough to find the root of all the rumors once he’d known where to look—and if it hadn’t been for the Warlord at the party last night, he never would have looked in her direction. He’d probably seen her at a party or some other public gathering, maybe had even danced with her, a transient partner in one of those country dances. But he didn’t remember her. The face he’d pulled from the Warlord’s mind meant nothing to him.
Lektra’s friend, however, did have a connection to him. Or, at least, to his brother. How unfortunate for her.
Smiling, Daemon walked away. His prey wouldn’t go anywhere. The spells he’d wrapped around the town house would make sure of that. Whenever Lektra or Roxie got near a window or door leading outside, they would feel certain something deadly waited for them beyond those doors and windows . . .
Which was true.
... and they were safe as long as they remained inside.
Which was not true.
But he would let them have the illusion of safety for a few more hours. Because some games were best played in the dark.
2
Saetan knocked on the workroom door, then opened it enough to poke his head into the room. “I’m looking for a witchling. Seen any about?”
Turning away from the worktable, Jaenelle gave him a dazzling smile. “Papa! What brings you to the Hall?”
“Nothing in particular,” he replied, walking toward the worktable. “I just wanted to see . . . how . . . you were . . . doing.” He stared at the rosebush rising up from a bowl on the table. “Mother Night, witch-child. It’s beautiful.”
Jaenelle looked at the rosebush and grinned. “I’m pleased with it.”
Saetan circled the table to get a better look at the illusion she’d created. But he tried to touch one of the roses just to be sure it was an illusion. She’d always been able to create illusion spells that could fool the eye, and it seemed she hadn’t lost that ability. But something felt different about this spell.
“Can you show me how you did this?”
She looked at the various jars and small bowls on the table and nodded. “I have enough ingredients to make several more.”
So she showed him how to build a rosebush out of powders made from pastel chalks, dried rose petals, thorns, and a few other things. He mentally noted what she did and how much of each ingredient she used, but most of his attention was on Twilight’s Dawn.
Whenever he’d seen it before, the Jewel she now wore looked like a Purple Dusk accented by other colors. Now, as she worked through the illusion spell, he watched it change. When she began working on the leaves, the center of the Jewel became dominantly Green, then shifted to Rose with a strong touch of Red while she created the flowers.
He didn’t know why it was changing like that, didn’t know how it could change like that.
It played havoc with his ability to measure her strength against his own because hers kept sliding. One moment he would have sworn the woman beside him was a Rose-Jeweled witch. The next moment, her power resonated with his Birthright Red. It was as if she were dancing on webs of power, and the threads she plucked shone the brightest.
Webs of power. Lorn had created webs of power to help prevent Witch, the living myth, from plunging back into the Darkness after Jaenelle unleashed her Ebony power to save Kaeleer. And Lorn had given Ladvarian the Jewel that was called Twilight’s Dawn.
Fingers snapping in front of his face startled a snarl out of him.
“Hell’s fire, witch-child.”
“Well, you haven’t heard anything I’ve said for the past minute or so,” Jaenelle said. “I didn’t want you to come back from wherever your mind had wandered and find me gone.”
“Gone?” His heart leaped as memories of webs of power shattering in the abyss filled his mind. “Where are you going?”
We can’t lose her now. We can’t. She is everything. She is still everything.
Jaenelle studied him for a long moment, her sapphire eyes seeing too much. But she gave him a daughter’s tolerant smile. “First I’m going to wash up. Then I’m going to join the others for the midday meal. Which I already told you.”
“My apologies, witch-child. You’re right. My mind was elsewhere.”
“I noticed. Are you going to join us? Khary and Morghann are here, as well as Lucivar and Marian.”
“No, I’d like to stay here and play around with your powders if you don’t mind.”
Jaenelle kissed his cheek. “Please yourself.”
“What about you, witch-child?” He looked into her eyes. Still beautiful, still ancient. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had disappointed her in some way. “Are you pleased?” She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t asking about the illusion spell.
“I lost nothing I regret losing,” Witch said softly. “I am what I want to be.”
He watched her walk out of the room. There was a message under her words, something she wanted him to understand but didn’t want to tell him outright.
Turning back to the worktable, he set her rosebushes to one side. Maybe figuring out one puzzle would help him figure out the other.
“Am I interrupting? I could come back later.”
An hour of frustration hadn’t made him cheerful, but he forced himself to smile at Marian, who hesitated in the workroom’s doorway. “Yes, you’re interrupting, and I’m grateful.”