I couldn't look at Thaddeus. Could do nothing but let the silence thicken in that sterile room.
"Wow," Thaddeus said. "Will I be able to do that someday?"
I looked up into his excited eyes. There was no fear, no horror. My smile of relief was dazzling. "Maybe."
Twenty minutes later the five of us piled into the limo, Thaddeus sitting in the front passenger seat so his cast-encased arm wouldn't be jostled, Chami and Amber in the second row, and Gryphon and I taking the back seats.
"Cool ride," Thaddeus said.
"We're borrowing it for the moment," I said.
"You grow stronger," Gryphon murmured in an undertone too low for Thaddeus to hear.
"What do you mean?" I breathed back.
"You are not fatigued."
And I realized with sudden shock that he was right. There was none of that drained feeling, none of the tired shakiness that usually plagued me afterward. The expenditure of energy had cost me nothing. And I wondered just what that meant. I was growing stronger. But why? What had caused it. For that matter, I wasn't sure exactly if I liked it. Some people might crave power, but I'd never been one of them.
That dark force inside me stirred and stretched and blinked at me with bright gleaming eyes. Soon, it promised before it went back to its patient slumber.
No, I thought with a dry mouth. I didn't crave power. I feared it.
Thaddeus returned to morose somberness when we entered the house he had grown up in. It was even more beautiful inside than out, with large windows, raised ceilings, and thin oriental rugs thrown over a parquet floor. The burnished mahogany wood of the staircase was echoed by matching mahogany molding trimming the upper walls. There was a cozy lived-in clutter to the house—a bowl of change by the side table alongside unopened mail, a blue quilted jacket hanging over the end of the banister.
"I thought I'd feel better at home," Thaddeus said. "But home is people, not just a place. Christ, I can't believe they're gone." He surreptitiously wiped his face with his fingers.
"Come on," Thaddeus said, his voice rough as he climbed the stairs. "I'll show you the guest rooms."
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway drew us back downstairs.
"Go ahead and help carry our luggage in," I said to Amber and Gryphon, shooing them out the door.
"Aren't you scared of him?" Thaddeus asked me quietly, once we were alone. I knew to whom he referred. Upon first meeting the towering Amber, Thaddeus had flickered briefly with power. He had quickly doused it but the taste of it had been enough to widen Amber's eyes with surprise.
Amber?" I replied. 'He's a gentle teddy bear."
A dark brow arched up in a gesture so like mine that it stole my breath.
"With you, maybe," Thaddeus said dryly. "Not with others, I bet."
Jamie, Tersa, and Rosemary trudged in loaded down with bags, Tomas and Aquila entered behind them, carrying trunks of luggage followed by Amber and Gryphon who hauled in even more stuff so that it filled the entry hall.
I made the introductions and watched Thaddeus juggle the sleeping arrangements around in his head before suggesting, "Tersa and Rosemary can sleep with me in the guest room. The other men can bed down in the library, if that's okay with you, Thaddeus." The library called up images of nineteenth-century elegance, with large, commodious wing chairs and dark-toned wood paneling. Chairs and side tables invited one to linger and read. But more importantly, the library had a closing door and thick curtains. Left unspoken was the tacit agreement to leave his parents' bedroom untouched.
Thaddeus nodded jerkily in assent and moved to help the others settle in.
Stopping me with a light touch, Tomas said in his soft drawl, "Milady, I thought I should tell you, I felt another Monère's presence for a brief moment when we left the hotel. I kept my senses open coming here but didn't feel it again."
A cold prickle of unease raised the tiny hairs of my forearm. I glanced at Gryphon and Aquila and saw that they had heard. They drew near.
"Could it have been one of Mona Sera's men?" I asked Gryphon.
"Perhaps," Gryphon said slowly. "We are in her territory."
I looked at Aquila. "Could it be Sandoor?"
Aquila stroked his neat Van Dyke beard thoughtfully. "He has never moved far from the Minnesota forests of Koochiching territory. But he's never had reason to before."
"It's a long way from Minnesota to New York," I observed.
"True," Aquila said. "But it is an easy enough matter to take money from humans and acquire a car. We took his Queen from him. So now he must find another, preferably a young Queen more easily controlled. You are not only the youngest but also the newest Queen."
"But not so easily controlled," I said darkly. "Would he be foolish enough to try for me?"
"He is desperate," Aquila replied. "But as you say, New York is a far distance from Minnesota. He may have chosen to go north into Canada and Tomas may indeed have just sensed one of Mona Sera's men. Still, I would suggest that everyone, you especially, milady, take adequate precautions and be on close guard."
I nodded in agreement and smiled wryly at Amber and Gryphon's carefully blank looks. "Warn the others. We'll follow whatever security measures you, Lord Amber, and Lord Gryphon deem necessary," I told Aquila. "It would be foolish of me to be careless when I have only just found my brother."
"Thank the dear Mother for that," Amber muttered.
I pretended to not to hear that and left the men to their planning.
Catching a familiar delicious aroma, I let my nose lead the way to the bright kitchen. It was decorated in the casual ambience of country, with pale frame-and-panel cabinetry, wainscoting, and plank flooring. Thaddeus and Jamie were just biting into gooey slices of pizza. I snagged a plate, slipped a hot slice onto it, and took a bite.
"Umm. It's good," I mumbled.
"Not bad for something organic and frozen. Mom made me eat this stuff instead or the fresh kind," Thaddeus said quietly.
"She loved you very much," I said.
"Yeah."
We chewed in quiet reflection for a bit.
"I'm going to have to make arrangements for them tomorrow," Thaddeus said. "The funeral and burial."
"I'll help you," I offered.
His lips spasmed. "Thank you," he said roughly.
Thaddeus turned to Jamie. "Have you lived among the Monère all your life?" He listened with interest as Jamie detailed his life-growing up at High Court.
"You never went to school?" Thaddeus asked with disbelief.
The information shocked me as well.
"No. Tersa and I were tutored by a Learned One in the basics until we were sixteen. Reading, writing, math," Jamie said. "The rest I gleamed from books and television. We were the only ones who had one. A television, that is. Had to get a satellite dish installed to get any reception up there."
"So you've never been to a city before?" I said.
"Never been anywhere," Jamie said with a grimace. "Manhattan was amazing. Those huge buildings that scraped the sky. And all those people, everywhere you turned. I never really knew how many of them there were," he exclaimed with bug-eyed amazement, making Thaddeus and I smile.
"Would you like to go to school, Jamie," I asked.
"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "Tersa would, I know. But I'm not sure about myself."
"I'll talk to her about it then. What grade are you in, Thaddeus?"
"I'll graduate from high school this year," my brother answered.
"Skipped a couple of grades, did you?" I said, lifting a brow.