He found blood splashed over the tops of plants, following a line where there was no trail. Stepping up on air to stand level with the tops of the plants, Daemon created a brighter ball of witchlight and followed the spray until he found a spot in the garden that looked crushed by a body—and he found pools of blood. Not as much as he’d expected, not if Sylvia had still been alive when she’d landed there, but enough to tell him where he needed to look for Halaway’s Queen.
Ladvarian trotted up to him, also balanced on air. *The dead flesh is gone, but its smells are strong in some parts of the garden.*
“Hunting here?” Daemon looked around. Sylvia had landed close to one of the garden paths. If she did make the transition ... He sighed. “She’s not here.”
*Tildee and Mikal are not here either,* Ladvarian said. *I have called Tildee. She doesn’t answer.*
“All right. Let’s take care of the living, and then we’ll see what we can do about the dead.”
They retraced their steps back to the house. As they passed the point of attack, Daemon wrapped a tight shield around the legs and vanished them.
Seeing Surreal standing near the front door, talking to the Master, Ladvarian trotted over to the Coach, then had to wait for Jaenelle to create an opening in the shields and let him in. Reassured when he saw the precautions his Lady had taken, Daemon joined Surreal and the Master.
“They didn’t find Mikal or Tildee—or Sylvia,” Surreal said.
“And no one seems to know where the younger son of the house has gone,” the Master said.
“Oh, sugar, I think they know,” Surreal replied.
Which meant there was at least one child whose disappearance had gone unreported. Either Sylvia stumbled onto something evil here or she’d been lured here to be sacrificed. Either way, none of the people he needed to talk to the most were here.
“Surreal, go get the boy,” Daemon said. “Pack up anything you can as fast as you can. We’re taking him with us.” No matter what part Haeze had played in setting this trap, Daemon wasn’t going to leave a child in this place.
“Give me ten minutes.” She opened the front door and went inside.
“Do you want us to stay?” the Master asked.
“No. You need to keep a tight watch on your own village. I’ll contact the Province Queen and have her send in some guards.”
“This village has guards,” the Master said. “Do you want me to talk to them before I go?”
“Do you think it will make any difference?” Daemon’s voice was dry, biting.
The Master stared at him, then swore. “They’re blind to what’s going on in their own village, and it may be deliberate. That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying. This village is under your Queen’s hand. As her Master, these guards are under your command same as the men in her home village. Would you vouch for them?”
“A couple of months ago, I would have. Now?” The Master shook his head. “They knew about the children that had gone missing across the border. If there was any hint of something being wrong here, my Queen should have been told.”
And the Queen of Halaway should have been informed so that she wouldn’t have come to such a place without an escort, Daemon thought. If she came at all.
Unless he was totally wrong about the man standing in front of him, that mistake wouldn’t be repeated. He suspected that, by tomorrow, the Master would contact every other Master of the Guard in Dhemlan, encouraging them to insist that their Queens have an escort for any kind of visit outside the home village.
But if the other Masters weren’t informed, that would tell him something about this man too.
The front door opened. Surreal came out, one hand loosely gripping Haeze’s arm. She said nothing to the men, just escorted the boy to the Coach.
“What do you want done with the Healer and this family?” the Master asked.
He wanted to rip them all apart to find out what they knew about Sylvia’s attacker. But the prudent thing to do—the right thing—was to let the District Queen deal with the people in her territory.
And if he wasn’t satisfied with how the District Queen dealt with these people, he would take care of them. Quietly.
“Take them to your Lady,” Daemon said. “I’m sure she’ll have some questions about what happened here tonight.”
“I’m sure she will,” the Master said.
Telling himself to be satisfied with that—for now—Daemon walked over to the Coach and went in. The driver was warming some milk and talking softly to Haeze, who huddled in one corner of a short bench. The man tipped his head toward the driver’s compartment and made a face Daemon took to mean, There’s trouble in there.
More than trouble, he decided when he opened the compartment door and Surreal swiveled her chair to face him.
“Jaenelle wants to leave as soon as you’re ready,” she said. “She has Beron in the bedroom at the back of the Coach.”
He stayed in the door, assessing her temper. “Tell me.” Bad place for a fight, he thought, especially with Jaenelle doing a healing.
“There is some damage to Beron’s vision and hearing.” Surreal’s voice was low and savage. “That Healer wasn’t just destroying his ability to speak. She was destroying his ability to see and hear.”
Because she was so close to snapping, he kept his voice quiet and calm—and kept his own temper viciously leashed. “Could the loss of vision and hearing be conditions that had developed prior to—”
She shot out of the chair and stood in front of him. “There was nothing wrong with him before that bitch put her filthy hands on him. And I’m telling you now, Sadi, one way or another, she is not going to be among the living much longer.”
“We have other things to deal with first.”
He waited to see if she had any control left and was relieved when she nodded and blew out a breath.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, we do.” She returned to her seat.
Daemon took off his winter coat and vanished it before closing the compartment door and taking the other seat.
They didn’t speak again until he lifted the Coach and used Craft to glide it through the air. Once they reached one of the village’s landing webs, he caught the Black Winds and headed for Halaway.
“Did you find any sign of Sylvia?” Surreal asked.
“Yes.”
She stared at him, then looked away. “Shit.”
“We take care of Beron, find out what Haeze knows about what happened and why, and figure out where Tildee took Mikal,” Daemon said.
“And Sylvia?”
He sighed. “I think the High Lord is more likely to find her before we do.”
TWO
Saetan lit the black candles on the Keep’s Dark Altar and opened the Gate between Hell and Kaeleer.
Sometimes it was damn hard not to interfere with the living, especially when children were involved.
Especially when some of them lately were arriving so mentally and emotionally damaged they couldn’t be allowed to stay on the cildru dyathe’s island, let alone be with the children now residing at the Hall in the Dark Realm. He’d given mercy to the ones who were too damaged, draining their remaining power to finish the kill, giving them what peace he could in the process.
It wasn’t his place to interfere or step in. He had held that line for thousands of years—at least most of the time. But that last mutilated child had come from Dhemlan, and he didn’t consider it interfering to inform the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan about that boy—not when the Prince was his own son.