*Are we ready?* Daemon asked Holt.
*We’re ready.*
Holding Jaenelle’s notebook in one hand and the summoning web in the other, Daemon engaged the spell, staying tightly focused on summoning the notebooks that had belonged to Jaenelle, the coven, and the boyos who had lived at the Hall.
Books on several shelves started to move, as if something was trying to push them out of the way while the spell in the summoning web rolled through the Hall.
The summoning went on for a minute, maybe two, because he’d guessed that it would take a while to reach the farthest ends of the Hall. During that time, he kept watch on the books being pushed closer to the ends of the shelves.
Then . . .
“Prince!” Holt shouted. “Stop! Stop!”
Daemon disengaged the summoning web and heard the flutter of paper before everything quieted.
Holt burst into the room.
“What’s wrong?” Daemon demanded.
“Beale said the overhead shelves in the storage room connected to your study must contain a lot of those notebooks. He heard some banging and crashing behind the door, as if something was trying to escape. And there must have been some loose papers in with the rest, because those managed to slip under the door and tried to get out of the study. Beale put a shield on the study door before any of the papers bolted.”
Daemon tried to clear the tickle out of his throat. Damn tickle. “Anyone else find any notebooks?”
“The men residing in the protectors’ square of rooms captured a few,” Holt said. “Stands to reason, since that square of rooms was used by the boyos when they lived at the Hall. I gather the Scelties wrestled a few notebooks into submission, so those might be a bit chewed.”
“Lovely,” Daemon murmured.
Holt hesitated. “One of the girls tried to vanish one of the notebooks, but Helene was also watching that room and put a shield on the notebook and prevented that.”
He could guess which girl had tried to take what wasn’t hers.
“That one is going to be trouble, Sadi,” Karla had said. “Watch her—and be glad she’s not a Queen.”
Alvita wasn’t a natural Black Widow, or a natural Healer either. He hadn’t decided yet if she truly wasn’t skilled in Craft—Hell’s fire, Breen was still a puppy and was better at air walking and creating witchlight than this girl—or if it was a ruse so that he would spend more time working with her than with the other girls.
She already had two marks against her for inappropriate displays of her body. Since she wasn’t close to being old enough to have her Virgin Night, he wondered if she simply couldn’t handle being around males—especially him and Daemonar.
“I’ll gather the notebooks in this room,” Daemon said. “You, Helene, and some of the senior staff should confiscate the rest and bring them to my study.”
“Yes, sir.”
When he returned to his study, he found Beale listening for whatever was behind the storage room door.
“Haven’t heard anything since the summoning stopped,” Beale said.
Daemon released a slow breath. “Then open the door.”
Beale had to lean against the door to shove the notebooks out of the way in order to look into the room. “Mother Night.”
“And may the Darkness be merciful,” Daemon said, looking over Beale’s shoulder. He stepped back and Beale closed the door before Holt and other members of the Hall’s staff brought in what the summoning spell had revealed.
Considering the number of notebooks Saetan had found over the years and had already stored out of reach, the number that had still been stuffed in various bookshelves was impressive, in an unnerving sort of way.
“Is that it?” Daemon asked Holt and Beale after they’d made an effort to sort the notebooks by the handwriting on the first pages. At least the boyos had written their names on the first pages—most of the time—but the coven had used just an initial when they identified a notebook at all, and he couldn’t tell if a notebook had belonged to Karla or Kalush, Grizande or Gabrielle. Since Karla and Gabrielle were Black Widows and Healers as well as Queens, knowing who had worked on those spells was important.
“Yes, Prince, I believe . . . ,” Beale began.
Daemonar walked into the study, holding one of the young Scelties, who had a notebook between his teeth.
“It was the only way to bring it to you intact,” Daemonar said.
Daemon smiled at the Sceltie, who gave Daemonar’s hip an enthusiastic thumping with his tail. “Thank you for bringing this to me.”
For a moment Daemon wondered if the young Warlord was going to relinquish his prize, but the dog was happy to be praised and, with only a little reluctance, released the notebook when Daemon took hold of the other end.
“Mikal says the Scelties should have some playtime and a treat for doing a good job of helping round up the notebooks,” Daemonar said.
More enthusiastic tail thumping.
“Excellent suggestion,” Daemon agreed. “Why don’t you, Mikal, and any other youngsters who are interested take care of that?”
“Yes, sir.” Daemonar gave him an assessing look before leaving the room.
“Are you thinking that more than one youngster tried to hold on to a notebook?” Holt asked.
“I’m thinking that someone who hasn’t been around them for very long doesn’t appreciate how keen a Sceltie’s hearing is or how much a dog understands when humans are revealing secrets.”
“Well,” Holt said after a moment. “The kindred always were a good way of sorting who belonged at the Hall and who didn’t.”
Once Beale and Holt left to resume their normal duties, Daemon put Black shields around each stack of notebooks and took them into the storage room. Mindful of Karla’s comment that the notes the boyos had made might be useful to the boys currently in residence, he would look at those first. For now, he had the business of holding the leash on the Hall’s residents as well as ruling a Territory and reviewing reports about some of the family’s other estates.
But he wondered if the Scelties had already decided that someone didn’t belong.
ELEVEN
Since she had to talk to him anyway, Surreal contacted Lucivar on a Gray psychic thread and arranged to meet him at his eyrie the following day.
She had ridden the Winds without the encumbrance of a Coach, so she didn’t bother with the landing web that was on flat ground below the eyrie. Instead, she dropped from the Winds and landed on the flagstone courtyard right outside Lucivar and Marian’s home.
“Surreal!”
She turned and saw Marian walking toward her, carrying a few flowers that bloomed in early spring. She felt a stab of guilt that she hadn’t replied to the last couple of letters Marian had sent. She just wasn’t sure what to say. That the relief of having renegotiated her marriage with Daemon was almost painful some days? That she had no desire to herd the group of adolescents now occupying the Hall and she used her position as Sadi’s second-in-command as an excuse to stay away from the family seat? That every time she had to deal with Saetien it felt like someone scraping a dull knife along the edges of a still-bleeding wound?
She didn’t want to say any of those things. Sometimes you just had to fill the days with duty until you were ready to give sorrow a place to exist for a while.
Marian opened the wooden gate that separated her garden from the flagstone courtyard and hurried toward Surreal.
“Lucivar said you were coming to visit today. He’s gone down to The Tavern to pick up a couple of steak and ale pies for the midday meal and should be back soon. Come in. You’re looking well.” Marian hooked her arm through Surreal’s and led her into the eyrie. “Hang up your coat while I put these in water. I usually leave the flowers where they grow, but today I wanted a few blooms for the table.”