“Another time, then.”
Lucivar nodded. “Another time.”
FORTY
Daemon glided past the row of arrogant young Warlords who were tethered with phantom Black chains to the stone wall. He had said nothing since he’d taken them, both the living and the dead, from the Hall in Dhemlan.
“My parents are going to hear about this,” Krellis said, trying to sound sneeringly brave.
“They will,” Daemon agreed as he glided past. “Eventually. But according to the gatekeeper’s logs and as far as anyone else knows, you never left the school. Your instructors will, no doubt, think you’re ignoring your classes since you often do in favor of something more exciting and malevolent. No one is going to look for you, Lord Krellis. Certainly not here.”
The males who had experienced the physical death hadn’t made the transition to demon-dead yet, and it hadn’t taken more than a tiny flick of power to knock out the living long enough to open the Gate that was next to the Hall and bring them to this place, to this room.
How many executions had been performed here? How much blood had been collected as sustenance for the demon-dead? How many bodies had been left out on the land to be consumed by the Dark Realm’s flora and fauna?
He imagined Saetan would have felt a measure of sickness along with the cold rage when he’d been required to perform an execution. Unfortunately for these fools, the humanity that would have felt that measure of sickness had been burned out of Daemon Sadi by torture and drugs like safframate long before he had reached the same age as these boys.
“Where are we?” Dhuran asked.
“SaDiablo Hall,” Daemon replied. “In Hell.”
“You can’t keep us here,” Krellis said, no longer sounding sneering or brave.
“I don’t intend to keep you here. I don’t want you with me any longer than I’m required to endure your presence.” Daemon stopped in front of Krellis. “A slow execution takes three days. During that time, I am going to take you apart, body and mind. I will extract every moment of pain you’ve inflicted on someone else. I will know the name of every girl you raped or broke for your own pleasure or at Delora’s request. I will know everything you have said and done—and once I have everything, I will collect the debt you owe for the lives you’ve damaged. When it’s done, I will give you the mercy of the final death, and you will become a whisper in the Darkness.”
He smiled a viciously gentle smile as his sexual heat flowed through the room, both a torture and a snare. He leaned closer to the Warlord, pleased by the mix of lust and fear that filled the enemy’s eyes and psychic scent.
The Sadist whispered, “It’s time to dance, Krellis.”
Lucivar figured he and Zoey had walked every corridor in the entire Hall over the past two days—and judging by the color of her socks, some of those corridors hadn’t seen a dust mop in years. That would change once Helene saw those socks. Then again, the Hall was a massive structure, and it wasn’t surprising that some parts of it weren’t being used or kept up to Helene’s standard of clean. Those sections of the Hall and the connecting corridors hadn’t been used when Saetan lived here either—at least, not used in any expected way. Jaenelle Angelline and the coven had found all kinds of things to do with corridors that weren’t used.
As he walked with Zoey, he looked around for any sign that some part of the structure needed repair, but he didn’t see anything. Amazing, really, since Jaenelle’s coven had, with fair regularity, miscalculated the ingredients in a new spell, and that had ended with the damn thing blowing up. Or maybe not so amazing since they had also learned how to create some of the best shields he’d ever seen in order to avoid Saetan’s ten-minute stare.
The agreement had been that Saetan would turn a ten-minute hourglass, and while the sand ran down in the glass, he could voice his opinion about whatever transgression had been made. At the end of that ten minutes, the subject was closed.
Sometimes, when he was truly angry about something, he would turn the hourglass and just stare at the witch or witches who had committed the offense. It was an impressive way to express anger and disappointment because no one could argue with that stare—and no one, not even Witch, had dared to break the silence.
Maybe he should mention that to Daemon when his brother returned to the Hall. In the meantime, there was Zoey.
She was so exhausted, she couldn’t hold up a stick well enough to spar, so he and Zoey and Allis walked and walked and walked. When Zoey went down, sometimes he created a mattress of air large enough for dog and girl. There was always a footman nearby with blankets and a pillow, so he’d cover them up and leave them to sleep while he checked on Daemonar, who, bored and restless, spent most of his time with Holt, sorting through the correspondence that was flooding into the Hall. Titian didn’t want to go home until she knew Zoey would be all right, but she wanted to help her friend and kept getting her heart bruised by Zoey screaming at her to stay away. Every time he checked on her, he told his girl Zoey didn’t want to connect her feelings for Titian with what the drug was still doing to her and that was why she wanted Titian to stay away.
While Zoey slept, he checked on Surreal, who had been sending the other guests home with a firm message to the parents that those girls were not to go back to the school until Prince Sadi gave his consent. He read the reports from Chaosti, who still had several students and Prince Raine staying at the town house under guard for their protection, and from Lady Zhara’s Master of the Guard, whose men were keeping the instructors and other students contained at the school while Zhara’s First Circle ferreted out the other youngsters who had assisted in the coven of malice’s vicious games.
We war against children, he thought bitterly as he, Zoey, and Allis returned to familiar corridors in the Hall. But what choice is there? To stand back and let Delora become another Dorothea? To let her followers destroy the strongest and best young women and men of that generation . . . and beyond? Can’t do that. Can’t. We know too much, have seen too much. If Daemon and I don’t shoulder the burden now, don’t pay the price now, then who will?
Zoey stopped walking. She sniffed, then wrinkled her nose. “I smell bad.”
*You are stinky,* Allis agreed. *But you do not smell sick anymore.*
Huh. Instead of wondering about the level of Zoey’s recovery, he should have asked the damn Sceltie.
“Shower?” Zoey asked hopefully.
“Sure,” he said. “We’re close to your room. You can go there and get cleaned up. You want some food?”
She wobbled when she started walking again, so he wrapped a hand around her arm to keep her steady. “Not broth. I think . . . Did I eat broth?”
He nodded. “Broth, water, a slice of fruit or a bite of a sandwich when I could get it down you.”
“I yelled at Titian.” Her voice spiked. “Why did I yell at Titian? She saved me.”
“You didn’t want your feelings muddled by the lust caused by the drug. You needed her to stay away.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She’ll be better once she knows you’re feeling better.”
She looked up at him, her eyes older and shadowed now. “You know how this feels.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“This . . . changed me.”
“It did. But you survived it. Many don’t.”
They had reached her bedroom. “Do you think, if she doesn’t touch me—I don’t think it would be good to have someone touch me—that Titian could sit with me and have something to eat?”