Her steps faltered, almost causing Delora and Hespera to run into her. Her father stood in the great hall, his hands tucked in his trouser pockets. He didn’t smile in greeting. He didn’t step forward. He didn’t say a word. He just looked at her with a chill in his eyes that felt like he was slipping needles of ice under her skin.
“Father,” she said. “Some friends couldn’t make it, but other friends were available at the last minute to round out the house party.”
“Ladies Delora, Hespera, Amara, and Borsala weren’t on the guest list you provided, but they were expected,” he said with cold civility that was worse than a shout. “Lord Beale, please escort our guests to their rooms. Ladies, a buffet will be served in the dining room in one hour. Lady SaDiablo, your presence is required in my study now.”
He turned and walked away, expecting her to follow meekly.
“How rude,” Hespera said in a loud whisper. “My father would never treat guests that way.”
“I think the message is he is treating the guests as they deserve to be treated,” Zoey said. She looked at Jaenelle Saetien and added on a psychic thread, *Be careful. Don’t let Delora and Hespera push you into doing or saying something you’ll regret.*
Jaenelle Saetien lifted her chin and stomped into her father’s study, ready to do battle.
He stood in front of the desk, just as he’d stood in the great hall.
“Since you were so pissy about Delora and her friends not being invited to Titian’s Winsol party, I had to wonder why you didn’t invite them to a party where you controlled the guest list.” His voice had become silk over burning ice. “I didn’t like the conclusion I reached about your honesty, but we’ll table that for now. Right now I want you to know that if you ever again change travel plans that involve a Queen and don’t inform her host and her escorts, I will assume your intentions are to cause her harm, and I will summon every warrior at my disposal to go to her aid and to hunt you down.”
Jaenelle Saetien stared at him, shocked. “We just changed plans.”
“Someone changed plans. I’ll agree with that. Exactly why? Well, that’s what we’ll find out, won’t we? It’s clear that Delora has you wrapped around her little finger, and you will do whatever she wants you to do.” His lips curved in a cold, cruel smile. He took a step toward her. “But here is what I’m wondering, my darling. How much of your honor have you whored for her? How far will you go to please that bitch?”
His words crushed her ability to speak.
He walked up to her, his arm brushing hers as he walked past her. Then he stopped and whispered, “Make sure none of the other guests come to harm, and make sure Lady Delora obeys the rules of this house. If she doesn’t, she won’t see another sunrise. I will bury that bitch in a grave so deep, she will never be found. That, by the way, is something I learned how to do by watching Dorothea, but I am a much better gravedigger. Even she couldn’t find my graves. I wonder if Delora, whose psychic scent reminds me so much of Dorothea, has acquired that skill.”
Jaenelle Saetien gasped and focused on the threat, ignoring what he said about Delora’s skill. “You’d kill Delora just because someone has an accident while they’re here?”
“Kill?” He laughed softly, and there was something dark and terrible in the sound. “I’m not feeling that merciful.” He waited a moment, then added, “You’re dismissed.”
She stumbled out of the study.
“Shall I show you to your room?” Beale asked.
“I know where my room is,” she snapped, too frightened to remember anything, even courtesy.
“The family wing is closed and shielded. You’ve been assigned a room with the other guests.”
What in the name of Hell was going on? They’d arrived a little late. So what? Was her father being unreasonable just because Zoey was a Queen? She was in trouble because of Zoey?
As she followed Beale to the assigned guest rooms, she knew Zoey wasn’t the reason she was in trouble. She should have sent a message to let her father know the change in arrival time. She should have told him she wanted to invite Delora and that group of friends—and told him why—instead of bringing them to the Hall and hoping he wouldn’t make a fuss. But everyone else’s father would have shrugged it off, would have been just a little bit indulgent.
She could almost hear Daemonar saying, Who is everyone?
But to have her father say she was whoring her honor when he was married to that woman? That made her so angry, she could scream.
She’d deal with her feelings later. Right now she had to impress on Delora the need to follow the rules of the house, the need for everyone to follow the rules of the house. Delora would want to dismiss his words as a bluff, but Daemon Sadi never bluffed when he talked about killing someone.
“This is a lovely room, Aunt Surreal,” Titian said. She glanced at Zoey, who was leaning against the connecting doorway.
“We assumed you two wouldn’t mind sharing a bathroom,” Surreal said with a smile. “And no one will kick if the door between your rooms remains open. But Prince Sadi’s temper is cold and sharp tonight, so don’t test him. Sleep in your own rooms and in your own beds.”
“I should have informed him of the delay when I sent the note about Jhett and Arlene not coming with us,” Zoey said.
“It wasn’t your responsibility, and you had no reason to think that he hadn’t been informed. But it seems Jaenelle Saetien needs to learn the consequences of ignoring basic rules and courtesies in order to appreciate the reason for those rules and courtesies.”
Her aunt looked sad. Looked . . . wounded. And worried.
“Should we go back to the school, Aunt Surreal?” Titian asked. “Or go to the town house?” They’d have to take the friends who had come with her and Zoey, and she didn’t know where they would all stay at the town house.
“It’s better if we stay here,” Zoey said.
“Yes, it is,” Surreal agreed. “I’ll be staying in the staff room on the other side of the corridor. If you need anything, or if anyone starts any mischief, you call me.”
“We will.”
“I’ll make sure the other girls are settling in.” Surreal left Titian’s room.
Titian looked at Zoey. “I wish we’d never agreed to come to this party.”
“We’re safer here,” Zoey insisted. “Delora has been leading Jaenelle Saetien into believing things that go against the Old Ways of the Blood, and your cousin refuses to see it—or can’t see it.” She hesitated. “Are you wearing the good-luck piece Daemonar gave you?”
Titian had never explained exactly what that mark of safe passage was or what it was intended to do—or who had given it to Daemonar to give to her—but Zoey wasn’t a fool and had realized weeks ago it was a lot more than a good-luck charm.
She touched her chest and felt the coin hanging on its chain just below the pendant that held her Birthright Summer-sky Jewel. “I’m wearing it. I wish I could give it to you, but . . .” But the mark had been blooded and wouldn’t work for anyone else.
Zoey gave her an odd smile. “I have my own luck charm.” She called in a knife and slid the blade out of its finely tooled leather sheath.
Titian’s mouth dropped open. “That’s . . . That’s Lord Kohlvar’s work.” Her father said that Kohlvar was the finest weapons maker he’d ever met.
Zoey nodded. “Your father gave it to me as a Winsol gift. A private gift.” She gently slid the blade back into the sheath and vanished it.