Then the link was gone, and he was standing on air, alone, with Jaenelle watching him, her eyes shining with pride and pleasure. When he lowered himself to the ground with a graceful flourish, she clapped her hands in delight.
Daemon opened his arms. Jaenelle skated to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her tightly, his face buried in her hair. "Thank you," he said hoarsely. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Daemon." Her voice was a lovely, sensuous caress.
Holding her so close, with his lips so near her neck, he didn't want to let her go, but caution finally won over desire.
He didn't push her away. Rather, he gently held her shoulders and stepped back. "We'd better get back before someone comes looking."
Jaenelle's happy glow dimmed. She carelessly dropped to the ground. "Yes." She looked at the bed of witchblood. "Yes." She walked out of the alcove, not waiting for him.
Daemon stayed for another minute. Better not to come in together. Better not to make it obvious. To keep her safe, he had to be careful.
He glanced at the witchblood and bolted from the alcove. As he glided along the garden paths, his face settled into its familiar cold mask, the happiness he'd felt a few minutes before honing the blade of his temper so sharp he could have made the air bleed.
If you sing to them correctly, they'll tell you the names of the ones who are gone.
Everything has a price.
Whatever the price, whatever he had to do, he would make sure one of those plants wasn't for her.
Daemon pulled the bright, deep-red sweater over his head and adjusted the collar of the gold-and-white-checked shirt. Satisfied, he studied his reflection. His eyes were butter melted by humor and good spirits, his face subtly altered by the relaxed, boyish grin. The change in his appearance startled him, but after a moment he just shook his head and brushed his hair.
The difference was Jaenelle and the incalculable ways she worried, intrigued, fascinated, incensed, and delighted him. More than that, now, when he was so long past it, she was giving him—the bored, jaded Sadist—a childhood. She colored the days with magic and wonder, and all the things he'd ceased to pay attention to he saw again new.
He grinned at his reflection. He felt like a twelve-year-old. No, not twelve. He was at least a sophisticated fourteen. Still young enough to play with a girl as a friend, yet old enough to contemplate the day he might sneak his first kiss.
Daemon shrugged into his coat, went into the kitchen, pinched a couple of apples from the basket, sent Cook a broad wink, and gave himself up to a morning with Jaenelle.
The garden was buried under several inches of dry snow that puffed around his legs like flour. He followed the smaller footprints that walked, hopped, skipped, and leaped along the path. When he reached the small bend that mostly took him out of sight of anyone looking out the upper windows of the house, the footprints disappeared.
Daemon immediately checked all the surrounding trees and let out a gusty sigh of relief when she wasn't in any of them. Had she backed up in her own tracks waiting for him to pass her?
Grinning, he gathered some snow in his gloved hands, but it was too fluffy and wouldn't pack. As he straightened up, something soft hit his neck. He yowled when the clump of snow went down his back.
Daemon pivoted, his eyes narrowing even as his lips twitched. Jaenelle stood a few feet from him, her face glowing with mischief and good fun, her arm cocked to throw the second snowball. He put his fists on his hips. She lowered her arm and looked at him from beneath her lashes, trying to look solemn as she waited for the tongue-lashing.
He gave her one. "It is totally unfair," he said in his most severe voice, "to engage in a snowball fight when only one combatant can make snowballs." He waited, loving the way her eyes sparkled. "Well?"
Even without reading the thoughts beneath it, he could tell her touch was filled with laughter. Daemon bent down, gathered some snow, and learned how to make a snowball from snow too fluffy to pack. This, too, was similar to a basic lesson in Craft—creating a ball of witchlight—yet it required a subtler, more intrinsic knowledge of Craft than he'd ever known anyone to have.
"Did the Priest teach you how to do this?" he asked as he straightened up, delighted with the perfect snowball in his hand.
Jaenelle stared at him, aghast. Then she laughed. "Noooo." She quickly cocked her arm and hit him in the chest with her snowball.
The next few minutes were all-out war, each of them pelting the other as fast as they could make snowballs.
When it was over, Daemon was peppered with clumps of white. He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees. "I leave the field to you, Lady," he panted.
"As well you should," she replied tartly.
Daemon looked up, one eyebrow rising.
Jaenelle wrinkled her nose at him and ran for the alcove.
Daemon leaped forward to follow her, ran a few steps, stopped, and looked behind him. His were the only footprints. He squatted, examining the snow. Well, not quite. There were the merest indentations in the snow leading toward the alcove path. Daemon laughed and stood up. "Clever little witch." He raised one foot, placed it on top of the snow, and concentrated until he had the sensation of standing on solid ground. He positioned his other foot. Step, step, step. He looked back and grinned at the lack of footprints. Then he ran to the alcove.
Jaenelle was struggling to push the bottom of a snowman into the center of the alcove. Still grinning, Daemon helped her push. Then he started on the middle ball while she made the one for the head. They worked in companionable silence, he filling in the spaces while she stood on air and fashioned the head.
Jaenelle stepped back, looked at what they had fashioned, and began to laugh. Daemon stepped back, looked at it, and started to cough and groan and laugh. Even though it was crudely shaped, there was no mistaking the face above the grossly rotund body.
"You know," he choked, "if any of the groundskeepers see that and word gets back to Graff . . . we're going to be in deep trouble."
Jaenelle gave him a slant-eyed look sparking with mischief, and he didn't care how much trouble they got into.
He took the apples from his pocket and handed her one. Jaenelle took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and sighed. "It won't last, you know," she said regretfully.
Daemon looked at her quizzically. "They never do." He looked at the sun beginning to peek out from behind the clouds. "I don't think this snow's going to last. Feels like it's warming up."
Jaenelle shook her head and took another bite. "No," she said, swallowing. "It'll go before it melts. I can't hold it very long." She frowned and fluffed her hair as she studied the snow-Graff. "Something's missing. Something I don't know about yet that would be able to hold it longer—"
That you can do it at all is beyond what most achieve, Lady.
"—would be able to weave it—"
Daemon shivered. He tossed the apple core toward the bushes for the birds to find. "Don't think of it," he said, not caring that his voice sounded harsh.
She looked at him, surprised.
"Don't think about experimenting with dream weaving without being instructed by someone who can do it well." He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently. "Weaving a dream web can be very dangerous. Black Widows don't learn how to do it until the second stage of their training because it's so easy to become ensnared in the web." He held her at arm's length, searching her face. "Promise me, please, that you won't try to do this by yourself. That you'll get the very best there is to train you." Because I couldn't bear it if there was only a blank-eyed, empty shell to love and I knew you were lost somewhere beyond reach, beyond return.