The look on their faces. His daughter used to call that puffed-up, huffy attitude “going all hissy cat.” In fact, the Scelties still used that phrase when human females got overly exercised about something.
“If the spell is in a window, can’t you remove the window?” Witch asked.
“That was our intention, once we’d confirmed that it was only sound and not something more malevolent—like someone trapped in that window—but the damn spell moved!” Daemon shook the cuff link again, then stopped when it began to mutter.
“Moved where?” Karla asked.
“That is the question,” he replied. “But I’m telling you both now, if that spell shows up in a bedroom window and I end up with twenty-two adolescent girls piling on top of me in the middle of the night, scared out of their wits, I am going to be pissed.”
“You think the boys will hold out?” Witch asked.
Didn’t even take a moment’s thought. “Considering that Daemonar found this and it spooked him enough to have him pounding on my bedroom door, the other pups will be piling in with the girls.” He gave them a sharp smile. “And if that spell shows up in the Beales’ apartment, I am bringing Mrs. Beale and her meat cleaver here so that you can explain this to her.”
They stared at him.
“That’s a threat,” Karla finally said.
“Uh-huh,” Witch agreed.
She tried to look contrite. They both did. Contrition coming from the two of them made him nervous, but he held his ground.
“Can you leave the cuff link here so that we can study the sound?” Witch asked.
Daemon held out the cuff link.
A small crystal bowl appeared in front of him, floating on air. He dropped the cuff link into the bowl. The bowl vanished.
“Something must have activated the spell, if it’s been dormant all these years,” Witch said. “Did something unusual happen at the Hall?”
“Apparently nothing that would be considered unusual when you have a pack of adolescent girls,” Daemon replied. “A bit of Craft went a wee bit wrong, and they punched a hole in a wall.”
“A hole the size of a decorative window or the size of a door?”
He stared at his Queen, the love of his life and his reason for living—because she had asked him to stay among the living for as long as he could. “Does it matter?” he asked too calmly.
“It could,” Karla said.
“Decorative window,” he replied. “Or so I was told.”
“Well,” Karla said. “The sun is up, so it’s past time for me to retire for the day.”
The silence in the room held a hum of anticipation as the three of them acknowledged that a witch who was demon-dead needed to be careful around the High Lord of Hell, even if she was a Gray-Jeweled Black Widow Queen and a friend.
Daemon stepped aside and used Craft to open the door.
Karla walked past him without another word.
“You’re looking a little peaky, Prince,” Witch said. That was as close as he allowed her to come to acknowledging the damage he’d done to his heart and lungs when he had tried to suppress his sexual heat.
“Lack of sleep; that’s all.” That was as close as he came to admitting what they both knew—that the sand that marked his time among the living was falling in the glass day by day.
“Then you should take a couple of hours to sleep and have a quiet meal before you throw yourself into the chaos at the Hall.”
He hesitated, then asked for what he really needed. “Stay with me?”
Witch smiled. “I’ll stay.”
She gave him time to go to the Consort’s suite, strip out of his clothes, and get into bed before she walked in from her adjoining bedroom.
A shadow he couldn’t touch—not while he still walked among the living—but a shape that could touch him. When her hand rested on his chest, his body relaxed in ways it never did when he wasn’t with her.
“How are you, Daemon?” Jaenelle asked softly.
“I’m all right.” He chuckled. “Most days, dealing with the girls is like being run over by a pack of happy puppies. The novelty of living at the Hall hasn’t worn off yet.”
“And the boys?”
“Let’s just say I haven’t had to prove—yet—that I have the biggest cock.”
Jaenelle’s silvery, velvet-coated laugh filled the room. “You left a kiss on Mrs. Beale’s meat cleaver. I think it will be a while before any of the boyos start a pissing contest with you.” Her laughter and amusement faded. “Your daughter?”
Daemon sighed. “She’s . . . adjusting . . . to life at the sanctuary. She’s sent me a couple of letters. She hasn’t said much, but she has written. And I’ve written back. Not much else I can do for her right now.”
“No,” Jaenelle said gently. “Not right now. But the core of who she is, the core you and Surreal helped shape, is still there. She just has to find it again in her own way.”
“Have you seen something in a tangled web?”
“No. I just know you.” She leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “Sleep, Daemon.”
“Yeah. I will.” He closed his eyes. “I left Lucivar at the Hall. He’ll be giving the Craft lessons today.”
“Mother Night,” she breathed.
“And may the Darkness be merciful.”
He drifted to sleep thinking about how thirty-four of those youngsters at the Hall would get their first full experience of dealing with Lucivar Yaslana.
After Sadi headed back to SaDiablo Hall, Karla sat on the sofa in the sitting room across from the Queen’s suite and listened to the roaring voices coming from the audio chip in Sadi’s cuff link. “Do you remember what we did that pissed them off so much?”
Jaenelle Angelline, the Queen who was Witch, stared at the cuff link and shook her head. “No, but it had to be more than the window we’d made—although that window did cause a fair amount of excitement.”
“Are you sure this is Andulvar and Prothvar?”
“The voices are . . . bloated . . . or multiplied, but definitely Andulvar and Prothvar.”
“Which means that spell was made . . .”
“Before the purge.”
“That was centuries ago. Even a spell created by Uncle Saetan should have run out of power.”
“Depends on the conditions that were woven into the spell. It could have been dormant until it was found—or until someone else blew a hole in a wall.” Jaenelle jammed her fingers into her short golden hair—hair that looked more like fur—until it was standing on end.
“Besides,” Jaenelle continued, “there’s been another Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince living at the Hall all of these years, feeding his power into the defensive shields. It’s possible Daemon fed this spell, too, without realizing it.”
“And also fed it some of his rage when his control had been slipping?” Karla suggested. “That could account for the way the voices sound.”
“Possible.” Jaenelle looked at Karla. “If Saetan created this spell and set it in a window, he meant for us to find it—and fix it. A lesson in undoing something that had been done.”
“Except we didn’t find it,” Karla pointed out. “So either Uncle Saetan forgot about it . . .”
Jaenelle huffed. “Not likely, since he left notes.”
“. . . or it had originally been in a place where we should have found it. Except something else twined with his work and the spell scampered off to windows unknown.”
“Which means Daemon is right. That spell was originally designed to respond to us and should have been dealt with a long time ago.”
Jaenelle looked at Karla. Karla looked at Jaenelle.
“Well,” Karla finally said. “This will be exciting.”