She blamed Zoey the Insipid and the fat bat for boo-hooing to the grown-ups about a little bit of fun. Now there were guards patrolling the school, maintaining enough distance around those two girls to give the illusion they were on their own but never letting them out of their sight. Hell’s fire, that Lord Weston even stood guard outside the facilities in the girls’ dorm. When she and several other girls complained to Lady Fharra about it, they’d been told the order came from the Queen of Amdarh herself, so the girls should make sure their robes were sufficiently modest when they left their rooms to take a shower.
The first time they spotted Weston on guard, Leena and Tacita had worn attire that was less than modest to test the possibility of providing a distraction. They had returned to their rooms thoroughly withered by a disinterest that bordered on contempt.
It wasn’t Weston or the guards they needed to distract. It wasn’t those men she needed to punish for the sudden cracks in her careful plans that could spoil all her lovely dreams of power—the kind of power that had once controlled the Territory of Hayll and then had brought the whole Realm of Terreille to its knees. She wanted that. She could do that.
But she needed to start weakening a particular adversary or two.
Delora summoned Hespera, Borsala, and Krellis. They stood in plain sight on the green, where other students and the instructors could see them.
“Krellis found out something delicious, and now it’s time to put it to use,” Delora said. “This is what I want you to do.”
This would teach Prince Sadi to keep his nose out of her business.
Jaenelle Saetien didn’t understand the odd looks she’d received throughout the morning or the way so many of the students scattered when she went in for the midday meal. Delora and her other friends weren’t in the dining room, and when she sat down at a table, Delora’s and Hespera’s wannabe friends picked up their plates and found somewhere else to sit.
Her table filled up with what Hespera called the school dregs—the girls who were barely qualified to be with girls from real aristo families. The last two places at the table were taken by Zoey and Titian.
“Did something happen?” Jaenelle Saetien asked. She glanced toward the door. Sure enough, one of the guards had taken up a position where he could keep Zoey in sight.
No sign of Daemonar. She wondered if that was good or bad. He’d been a little testy lately, and it was annoying.
“The coven of malice has been whispering about something all morning, but I don’t know what it’s about,” Zoey replied.
“I think some of the instructors know,” Titian said. “One of them told me I shouldn’t believe everything I hear.” She hesitated. “I think the instructors do believe it, but they’re afraid.”
“Of what?” She suddenly wondered if they were afraid of a what or a who.
Jaenelle Saetien ate because she was hungry, but the food filled her stomach with a sour, churning burn, so she abandoned the meal, said good-bye to Zoey and Titian, and went looking for Delora.
Tacita, Leena, Borsala, and Hespera gave her pitying looks but slipped away before she got too close. Only Delora waited for her on the edge of the green.
“You’re being so brave,” Delora said. “I’m sure I couldn’t be so brave and go to classes with everyone talking about how your mother . . .” She pressed her lips together. “No. We’re friends, so I’m not going to say.”
“Say what? Delora, what is it everyone else knows?”
“I only found out this morning, or I would have told you so that it wouldn’t be so much of a shock.” Delora sighed. “Someone heard the adults talking at a party a couple of days ago and told a friend who told a friend—and now everyone knows. I’m surprised Titian didn’t tell you, her being family and all. Then again, maybe she’s ashamed and didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Talk about what?” Jaenelle Saetien made a huge effort to rein in her impatience. “What do you know about my mother?”
Jaenelle Saetien dropped from the Purple Dusk Wind to the landing web in front of SaDiablo Hall. Maybe she would have taken a moment to gather her thoughts and leash her feelings so that she could discuss this with her father like an adult and let him know she would stand by him if he chose to divorce that woman, but that woman stood in the open doorway of her home, wearing one of those long coat-and-trouser outfits that she often wore when she went to the village or was “working” as her father’s second-in-command.
At least, that was the kind of “work” her father believed was being done.
But seeing that woman snapped her control.
“YOU!” she screamed.
Surreal gave her a long look, then turned and walked into the Hall. Into her father’s home.
Jaenelle Saetien rushed after Surreal, almost knocking over the footman at the door. Ignoring the footman and Beale, who was talking to that woman, she screamed, “You vile, disgusting creature! You filthy whore! You tricked my father into marrying you. He never would have touched something like you if he’d known what you are!”
She heard a door open, felt the cold dark power, but she stayed focused on her quarry.
Surreal hooked her long black hair behind one delicately pointed ear. “First off, sugar, I bathe regularly, so I’m not filthy. And I’ve never tricked your father into anything.”
“That’s enough,” Daemon said too softly as he approached from the direction of his study.
Wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. “She’s a whore and she tricked you into marrying her.”
“Was a whore,” Surreal said. “I retired before I came to Kaeleer.”
Mother Night, Jaenelle Saetien thought. She just admitted it in front of him. “Well, everyone knows your secret now.”
“It was hardly a secret. There were plenty of people from Terreille who came to Kaeleer around the same time I did, plenty who knew part of what I did for a living.”
“You’re disgusting!”
“And you can take a piss in the wind.”
“I wish you were dead! You are not my mother. I could never come from something like you!”
“Enough,” Daemon snarled.
Grabbing Jaenelle Saetien’s arm, he hauled her into his study and locked the door.
Deprived of her desired target, ashamed that her father had been duped so badly and had now lost all credibility with the aristos and Queens in Dhemlan—maybe even the whole Realm—she turned on him.
“How can you stand letting her touch you, letting her live here? She’s a whore, Father. Everyone is laughing at you because of her!”
He slipped his hands in his trouser pockets. The smile he gave her was cold and oddly cruel—and made her shiver.
“I know far better than you ever will who and what Surreal is,” he said with a savage pleasantness.
“You couldn’t have known she did that.”
“Since I paid for her education in the best Red Moon houses, I was well aware of what she did—and could do.”
Stunned, Jaenelle Saetien stared at him. “You knew?”
He took a step toward her. She took a step back. He had a look in his eyes that he usually had when he was about to take one of his funny turns and needed “quiet time,” but that look had never been focused on her. Until now.