Teresa walked in. She had been a natural Black Widow before a male had . . . done what he’d done. She was still a Black Widow, but her power was broken now, leaving her with nothing but basic Craft. And her mind had shattered under the attack, leaving her walking the paths of the Twisted Kingdom, her thoughts and memories fragmented.
So much like Tersa, Saetien’s paternal grandmother. But Tersa had chosen madness in order to regain some of the Hourglass’s Craft, and she was strange in ways that had always made Saetien uneasy. Most days Tersa seemed absentminded, dithery, unable to alter even the simplest routine without becoming flustered. On other days, when the clarity of madness filled her gold eyes, she was . . . terrifying.
Not something Saetien could say out loud about her father’s mother. Daemon Sadi loved Tersa and respected her skills as a Black Widow. So did Lucivar Yaslana. In fact, no one else in the family felt uncomfortable around Tersa, which was another way in which Saetien had felt like an outsider among her own kin.
Teresa sat next to Saetien and held out a sheet of paper. “This is you.”
The drawing looked like the top of a box with rounded corners. The design was made up of strong lines and curves, bold but not hard. Two-thirds of the design resonated with something inside her, appealed to her in ways she couldn’t put into words. But the right-hand side turned into a mash of chaotic lines—bloated dissonance that spilled over the edge of the box, filaments reaching and reaching as if to ensnare the unwary.
“This is how you see me?” Saetien asked, still feeling raw from the things Jillian had said.
“Yes.” No condemnation in Teresa’s voice. Nothing unusual in the voice as she pointed to the strong lines and curves. “This is who you were.” Her finger moved over the chaotic lines. “This is who you are. You don’t fit in the SaDiablo box anymore. You did once, but not anymore. You need to find a new box.”
A new box. A new family was what Teresa meant. “Where am I supposed to find it?”
Teresa pointed to the paper. “She can tell you. She tastes of sadness—and truth.”
Saetien looked at the name under the chaotic lines. “Who is she?”
Teresa blinked. “Who?”
“This girl. Is she here at the sanctuary?” Doubtful, unless the girl had just come in.
“What girl?” Teresa looked down. “The puppy!” She slid off the bed and sat on the floor. “Hello, puppy!”
Shelby gave the girl kisses and received pats and hugs before Teresa got up and wandered off, hopefully to her own room.
Saetien sat for a long time, staring at the drawing. Staring at a name.
“This is who you were. This is who you are. . . . She can tell you. She tastes of sadness—and truth.”
“That’s all well and good,” Saetien told Shelby. “But who is Wilhelmina Benedict?”
THREE
Restless and unable to sleep, Daemonar wandered some of the corridors in the uninhabited areas of the Hall. He would have gone outside to do sparring warm-ups or fly to the estate’s lake and back, but another storm had kicked up early in the evening—driving rain and winds strong enough to rattle the windows in their frames. Even if he was well-shielded, it wasn’t the kind of weather for flying unless there wasn’t a choice. So he walked while he wrestled with his conscience.
Posing the incident as a hypothetical question when he’d told Uncle Daemon about the spell going awry and breaking a wall scratched at him, even though he’d done it to protect the girls. If he’d made the mistake, he would have told Sadi straight out and offered to pay for the repairs. Daemon might vigorously voice his opinion about the careless use of Craft, but he wouldn’t boot his nephew out the door.
Everyone had known he wasn’t reporting anything hypothetical—you didn’t hire carpenters and stone masons to repair a hypothetical hole—so he hadn’t told a lie.
It still felt like a lie. It still felt like the kind of pissing around with words that would have had his father backing him up against a wall and insisting on straight truth.
But Zoey, Titian, Jhett, Arlene, and the other girls who had been trying . . . whatever . . . were still adjusting to life at SaDiablo Hall—and living under the hand of a man who was the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, as well as the High Lord of Hell. The lines for what Daemon would and wouldn’t tolerate were still being drawn—daily, it seemed. It wasn’t like those lines were hard to figure out most of the time, since each of the students had been given a printed list of the Hall’s basic rules—and what behaviors would earn immediate expulsion from the Hall. But the hurt of Saetien’s involvement in the coven of malice was still too fresh. That Witch, the living myth, had intervened to spare Daemon from having to execute his own daughter wasn’t forgotten either. That was one reason why there was sometimes a sharp chill in Daemon Sadi’s gold eyes when anyone’s behavior leaned a little toward being the bitch.
It wasn’t Daemonar’s job to ride herd on the other thirty-five youngsters. He was here to study too. And yet he stood apart from the rest of the boys. He was older, for one thing. He was an Eyrien Warlord Prince who wore Birthright Green, for another. He’d stood on his first killing field when Zoey and Titian had been under attack. Because of that, he wasn’t like the other boys anymore—even the other boys who were Warlord Princes.
He had friends here. There was Mikal, who was Daemon’s legal ward and was doing a revolving apprenticeship with Beale, Holt, and Lord Marcus, who was Daemon’s man of business. There was Prince Raine, who had been an instructor at the school in Amdarh and now was an instructor here at the Hall.
There was Beron, who was Mikal’s older brother. Beron had reached his majority and was no longer Daemon’s legal ward but was still under Sadi’s protection. Daemonar didn’t see the Opal-Jeweled Warlord often, because Beron was an actor living in Amdarh, Dhemlan’s capital city, but the man understood and fit in with the power and temper that were part of the SaDiablo and Yaslana families.
There were men like Holt and Lord Weston, who was Zoey’s sword and shield—adults who didn’t forget they were adults but weren’t that much older and took working at the Hall in their stride.
And there was Uncle Daemon. Patriarch of the family, yes. Merciless and lethal when his temper turned cold and he slipped into an aspect of himself that the rest of the Blood called the Sadist. Oh, yes. Only a fool didn’t fear the Sadist. But Daemon was also a loving uncle and a friend who would listen. Someone who would teach, who could be counted on to have your back when you needed help. Someone who would defend and protect.
A fierce gust of wind hit the Hall. Rain lashed the windows. No curtains or shutters over the windows here. Maybe all the students could help Uncle Daemon put shields over the windows in this part of the Hall to keep out the damp and chill? They were coming into warmer weather, sure, but they were still looking at plenty of cold nights and rainy days.
Daemonar reached a corner and was about to turn back when he heard . . . something. A muttering? He stood quietly, listening. Then he released some of his Green power in a careful probe of the corridor. Nothing. No one. But . . . there was that muttering again.
Putting a tight Green shield around himself and calling in his Eyrien club, Daemonar stepped around the corner.
No one there. If someone was hiding in shadows or trying to sight shield, he would feel them, pick up the psychic scent. Unless the person wore a darker Jewel, but neither Beale nor Uncle Daemon would be standing in a corridor in this part of the Hall at this time of night on the off chance that someone would come along.