His throat worked. He tried to say the words that duty demanded, but instead he cried, “I can’t do it. She’s my little girl, my baby. I can’t be her executioner.”
Daemon turned away from the window and looked at the woman, the Queen, who meant more to him than anyone else ever could or would. Even his daughter. If Witch gave the command . . .
“Jaenelle,” he whispered. “Help me. Please.”
Those sapphire eyes stared right through him, and he felt the feather touch of a psychic thread rising out of the abyss beneath the level of the Black. He stood still, willing to give her anything she wanted from him.
“There is a way,” she finally said. “But it is brutal, and I can’t promise that she will survive. That will depend on how much of a debt she owes.”
“It gives her a chance.”
“A chance,” Witch agreed. “But there will be a price, Daemon. Even if she lives, you will most likely lose her.”
“I’ll pay whatever price needs to be paid.” His gold eyes met her sapphire ones. “What do you need from me?”
“The males who were part of this coven of malice. Where are they?”
“I executed them and made sure each of them paid what he owed.”
“Then you have their memories. You know what they said and what they did. I will need all of it.”
“It’s . . . ugly. And familiar.” Did she, in this form that was not flesh, still have nightmares about the things that had been done to her and other girls when she was young?
“I am the Queen, Prince. I am Witch. My justice will be brutal, but it also must be exact. Each must endure the harm he caused. For that, I need those memories.”
“Then I offer them, Lady.” He opened his inner barriers and sank to his knees, offering everything.
He felt her mind touch his, taking all the information he had extracted from Krellis, Dhuran, and the other boys. Intent on her task, she wasn’t as careful as she would have been with anyone else, and he saw a truth she’d kept hidden from him for all the centuries since she returned to the Keep in this form in order to help him heal his shattering mind.
So simple—and so obvious. And something they would deal with very soon.
“Now,” Witch said briskly as she retreated from his mind, “you will collect a thimbleful of blood from each member of the coven of malice, including any of the witches who died and made the transition to demon-dead, as well as all the girls who were listed as accomplices and are still confined at the school. Then you and some of Lady Zhara’s guards will escort each girl to the District Queen who rules the village where her family lives and, with the Queen and her First Circle standing witness, you will deliver the girl to her parents.”
Daemon rose and said dryly, “Delora and her closest friends have been in the cells beneath the Hall for the past week. Not the severest ones. The girls who are still living were moved to the cells that have a toilet and sink, as well as a narrow bed. They won’t look pristine.”
“But they will be alive. You’ve already informed the Queens of the girls who died at the house party when they attacked other guests?”
“I did.” He waited, but she said nothing more. “Once I deliver all the girls?”
“You will remain in Amdarh at the town house, conspicuously in sight, until you receive word that the debts have been paid.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
She gave him a look that made him feel like an idiot. Holt would welcome the chance to bury him in reports and correspondence and all the other things he’d neglected since the house party.
Then the look in Witch’s eyes turned feral, and she said in her midnight voice, “Why don’t you find something to do with all that rage?”
“Do you want help?” Karla asked Witch once Daemon left the Keep to fulfill his tasks and the Queen had returned to her own bedroom.
“No.” Witch looked away. “This is going to be . . .” She trailed off.
“Does Daemon know what you’re going to do?”
Witch shook her head. “He wouldn’t agree to it if he knew.”
He wouldn’t agree because of what this will cost you? “Then I’ll ask again. Do you need help?”
A hesitation. “Afterward, yes.”
“Before you slip into the abyss to wherever you’re going to go to call in these debts, there is something you should see.” Karla called in a shielded tangled web and set the frame on a round wooden table. “Take a look.”
Witch bent over to be eye level with the web. She studied it, then looked at Karla in surprise.
“He really is his father’s son,” Karla said. She pointed at the web of dreams and visions. “Maybe Jaenelle Saetien can’t thrive within the core of the SaDiablo family and needs to follow another road. But this one . . .”
“Not a daughter of his loins, but a daughter of his heart,” Witch said softly. “We should send Daemon an appropriate gift.”
“After I saw this, I placed an order for two extra-stout locks for his study door.”
Witch laughed. Then she sighed. “He’s not the only one who will need a gift. So there is something you can do while I’m gone. Two things, actually.”
“Easily done,” Karla said when Witch explained what she wanted.
A bitter smile, Witch’s only acknowledgment of what sparing Daemon from these executions would cost. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
Karla watched her friend fade away and whispered, “May the Darkness have mercy on all of us.”
Then she vanished the tangled web and left the Queen’s part of the Keep. She had work to do, and . . .
Temper and Ebon-gray power rolled through the Keep.
. . . the first thing she had to do was tell Lucivar that he wasn’t going to be able to talk to his Queen for the next few days. But she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him why. He’d figure that out on his own soon enough.
FORTY-THREE
As soon as he delivered the last girl to a District Queen’s court, Daemon returned to the town house in Amdarh. Holt was waiting for him, already looking frazzled.
“Which do you want to look at first?” Holt asked. “The sternly worded letters from the Dhemlan Queens condemning your refusal to do your duty for the people in this Territory, or the irate letters from the parents of the girls who were at the house party because you released the coven of malice after a punishment that was no more than making them stay in a less-than-comfy room? Or maybe the report from Lady Zhara, who has been inundated with complaints from the parents who weren’t allowed to remove their darling offspring until you’d taken some blood from said offspring without explaining why?”
“What makes you think I want to look at any of them?” Daemon asked.
“Well, then, how about this one?” Holt thrust a folded piece of paper at him.
Recognizing the seal, Daemon took the paper, broke the wax seal, and read.
What in the name of Hell are you doing?
—Lucivar
Waiting, Daemon thought. So was everyone else, but they didn’t know it yet.
Helton entered the study with a pot of hot water and a plain white mug. He cast a worried look at Holt but said nothing.
Once the butler returned to his other duties, Daemon filled a tea ball with a mix of herbs, set it in the mug, and poured hot water over it—and watched all the blood drain out of Holt’s face.
“You have a headache?” Holt asked.
“Yes.” No point denying it. He hadn’t had one this bad in decades—and having one now could mean his control, or his mind, was starting to crack again.