“Yes, it did provide warmth.” Daemon sipped his coffee, wondering if the boy was fishing for something or just making an observation. “Arceria is so cold and has so much snow in the winter, the Arcerian cats build dens under the snowpack, and there is still enough snow above the dens that a grown man could walk over them and not fall through. Despite that, the damn cat used to whine about Jaenelle’s feet being cold.”
Daemonar grinned. “Did you whine about Auntie J.’s cold feet?”
“Husbands do not whine about cold feet.”
“If they’re smart, they put a warming spell around their legs before their darlings scramble into bed and put those feet on them,” Lucivar added, walking into the kitchen.
“How do you learn things like that?” Daemonar asked.
Daemon looked at Lucivar. They looked at the boy and said, “Experience.”
Daemonar pushed away his plate, the food uneaten. “I want to help watch over Mother.”
“No,” Lucivar said.
“Of course,” Daemon said at the same time. “All the Warlord Princes in the family should take a turn. If you’re finished with breakfast, why don’t you take the first watch?”
As he expected, Lucivar turned on him as soon as the boy left the kitchen.
“He’s too young to see his mother like that,” Lucivar snarled.
“He knows something, Prick,” Daemon said softly. “He found out something yesterday and he’s been searching. When he volunteered to dry the dishes last night, he tried to be subtle—”
Lucivar snorted.
“—but he was looking through the cupboards for something. He didn’t find it. I think he wants to look around Marian’s workroom without us asking questions.”
“What could he be looking for?” Lucivar asked.
Daemon filled a mug with black coffee and handed it to his brother. “We’ll know that when he finds it.”
Daemonar opened the doors and drawers of the cabinet that held all of his mother’s sewing and weaving supplies. A Jewel the size of the one Auntie J. had shown him could be hidden anywhere, tucked into a skein of yarn or hidden in folds of cloth. It could even be in a jar of buttons. He couldn’t sense any power, so he’d have to take everything out, and if he couldn’t put it back as she’d had it, his mother would kill him flatter than dead.
If she ever woke up.
“Looking for secrets?” Tersa asked.
Daemonar suppressed a yelp. He hadn’t thought she’d noticed him when he entered the room. She’d been staring at Marian and hadn’t responded when he’d greeted her, leaving him free to poke around.
He approached the chair next to the daybed and considered what he could say. You never lied to Tersa. That was one of his father’s and uncle’s strictest rules, because Tersa’s hold on the world as the rest of them saw it was tenuous. But she was a Black Widow, and Witch had said there was one or two people who could explain things to his father once Daemonar found the clear Jewel. Could Tersa be one of them?
“Yes,” he said. “There is something I need to find. A gift Mother might have used before . . .” He looked at Marian.
“Nothing on, nothing over. What is left?” Tersa looked at him expectantly.
Was she seeing this room or some other place? Was this a riddle or an actual question?
Nothing on. Nothing over. He scanned the furniture around the daybed. Someone would have checked the covers already and there was nothing above the bed. So what was left?
“Under.” Daemonar dropped to his hands and knees and looked under the bed. “Found something.”
As his hand closed around the mug, it occurred to him that his mother might have needed to use something as a chamber pot if she’d been too ill to move or call for help.
The mug was empty, a dried stain at the bottom that looked like some kind of tea or witch’s brew. The bowl had one of the kitchen towels. Since it was dry and didn’t smell, he sat back on his heels and had started to unwrap the towel when the door opened and his father and uncle walked in.
“What did you find, boyo?” Daemon asked.
He glanced at his father, who stood behind his uncle, as if not daring to come closer. Better to talk to Uncle Daemon, who knew lots of things about the Hourglass’s Craft. “I’m not sure. It depends.”
Daemon went down on one knee beside him. “Open it.”
He unwrapped the towel and breathed a sigh of relief.
“A clear Jewel.” Daemon sounded puzzled. “Why have a clear Jewel here? They’re only used as beacons on landing webs.”
“They can have other uses,” Tersa said. “Can hold a different kind of beacon.”
“A trap or a spell of some kind?” Lucivar asked, sounding like there were shards of glass in his throat.
“Not a trap.” Tersa stared at the clear Jewel. “A beacon holds special kinds of healing spells. This one . . . Dark water washes away what doesn’t belong. Dark water—and a song in the Darkness.”
Lucivar sucked in a breath. Daemon tensed, and the room suddenly filled with a yearning that made Daemonar want to cry—or reveal a different secret.
“Tersa?” Daemon said softly. “You’ve seen something like this before?”
“She gave me some beacons before she left the Realm of the living. Like but not the same. A special brew that helps Tersa find the path back to the boy and the winged boy and the Mikal boy when Tersa wanders too far. She saw. She knew.” Tersa laid a hand over Marian’s. “Once the black water washes away what doesn’t belong, the hearth witch will be shown the path home.”
“So we wait,” Lucivar said.
“We wait,” Daemon agreed.
Tersa pointed at the clear Jewel. “The beacon must be returned to the Keep. That is part of the bargain.”
Daemon rewrapped the Jewel in the towel, vanished it, then tapped Daemonar’s shoulder. “Come with me.” He looked at Lucivar.
Daemonar wasn’t sure what was said on a psychic thread, but as he walked out of the room with his uncle, he looked back to see his father kneel beside the daybed.
Daemon kept a hand on Daemonar’s shoulder as they walked through the eyrie toward the front room, where Lucivar would join him in a few minutes. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, needed to ask. But he couldn’t ask any of them.
Did you talk to her? Can you see her?
Witch had told him after Jaenelle Saetien’s Birthright Ceremony that she wouldn’t come to him again, because he needed to stay connected to the living. But when he stood in the Black at his full strength, she was a song in the Darkness, a reminder that he wasn’t alone. He had to accept that was all she could—would—give him.
He wouldn’t jeopardize whatever gift Witch had granted the boy, but there might be a way to find specific answers to this particular puzzle.
“You probably saw one of those clear Jewels when you were younger,” he said, keeping his tone conversational. “You would have seen them used in village landing webs and could have wondered what other use might be made of these smaller pieces. Your aunt Jaenelle might have explained that pieces of clear Jewels could be used to hold spells for a long time.”
Daemonar said nothing, but he felt the boy tensing under his hand.
“Things you’d been told, memories of seeing Jewels like that, might have woven themselves into a dream, which is how you thought about looking for the thing that had contained an unconventional healing spell. Does that sound possible?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s what I thought.” Daemon felt the boy relax a bit. “Why not tell your father and me? We would have helped you look for it.”