by Anne Bishop
“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.
“Why don’t you find something to do with all that rage?”
He’d walked into the Hall, collected the thimble of blood from Jaenelle Saetien, collected the blood from Delora and the other “guests” before delivering all the girls as his Queen had commanded. He hadn’t discussed anything with Surreal, hadn’t talked to anyone. What was he supposed to say? That he’d allowed the Queen who was his life to take this burden because he didn’t have the balls to do what needed to be done?
The headache seemed a fitting punishment, but if he damaged himself and was no longer fit to serve his Queen . . .
“Why don’t you find something to do with all that rage?”
What was he supposed to do? What compensation could he offer the Queens until they saw proof that the debts had been paid?
When the healing brew had steeped for the proper amount of time, he set the tray aside and settled in the chair behind the desk. Then he looked at Holt. “Let’s start with the letters from the Queens.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Surreal looked at the tray and wondered when Mrs. Beale would relinquish her anger. Not that the food wasn’t good, but there weren’t any of the extras that had been included with her own meal.
The Queens were enraged—and they had a right to be. But until she could get Sadi to sit down and explain things to his second-in-command, she couldn’t do anything that might interfere with whatever he had set in motion. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he had set something in motion.
She released the Gray lock on Jaenelle Saetien’s bedroom door and walked in. “Listen, sugar, you can piss and moan all you want about the meal but . . .”
She dropped the tray and rushed across the room to where Jaenelle Saetien lay on the floor. The girl was breathing and her heart beat, but there was a chilling blankness in those gold eyes.
Surreal reached for the girl’s mind—and found that same terrible blankness.
*Beale!* she called. *Beale! We need the Healer and the Black Widow here right now.*
“Hang on,” she whispered as she picked up the girl and laid her on the bed. She heard someone running moments before Beale appeared at the door.
“They’re on their way,” he said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Surreal pulled off Jaenelle Saetien’s shoes and covered the girl with a quilt. “But we may need the Black Widow more than we need the Healer.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Jaenelle Saetien opened her eyes and studied the plain ceiling. She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around.
A room with a narrow bed that had leather straps at the top and bottom of the frame. The door was strange, with its knob set up high, as if only adults could reach it.
She remembered feeling intensely cold for a moment, and then . . . Nothing. Where was she?
Then a midnight, cavernous, ancient, raging voice that held a whisper of madness seemed to rise out of the floor and the walls, out of the air that suddenly burned her lungs, out of her very blood and bones. And that sepulchral voice whispered, *Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood.*
FORTY-FOUR
Have to get out of here. Have to get out.
Jaenelle Saetien reached for the knob set high on the door. Her fingers closed over it, turned it.
When she tried to use Craft to
open the door, nothing happened. Locked? No. Stuck. As if no one had been here for a long time and the knob had rusted.
She tried again, felt some give. She pulled on the door. Pulled and pulled, desperate to get out of that room and find her father or . . . someone. The door’s swollen wood resisted, then gave way just a little, then a little more. She pulled and pulled until she could squeeze through the opening.
Free of that horrid room, she found herself in a short, empty corridor. Nowhere to go behind her, so she moved toward the other end of the corridor, step by cautious step. A left-hand turn . . . and another door.
*To each is given what she gave,* the midnight voice said.
“Who are you?” Jaenelle Saetien shouted. “What do you want?”
Was there something familiar about that voice?
*Each of you must pay the debt you owe to those who were harmed by the coven of malice. Their pain will become your pain. What they experienced, you will experience. Everything that came from you will come back to you. You have seventy-two hours to find the way out and pay your debt. The sand is running in the glass. If you don’t leave before the last grain falls, the link between your body and your Self will be gone. Your body will die, and your Self will stay here for as long as it takes for your power to fade.*
Find the way out. Yes!
She shaped a Green shield around herself, protection against whatever was behind that door. At least the knob was properly positioned. For a moment, it felt insubstantial. Then she felt the smooth metal. She turned the knob and walked into the room, prepared for anything.
Except a girl swinging from a noose tied to a tree’s perfect branch. Blood stained the girl’s cheeks from the empty eye sockets down to her chin. Blood stained the dress.
Jaenelle Saetien whirled around to run away, to escape.
The door was gone.
“You don’t get out until you stand witness or a tally is made of the debt you owe to whoever is in the room,” a voice said.
She spun around. Another girl—a girl who hadn’t been in the room a moment ago—stood almost within reach. She wore a blood-soaked dress, and her throat was slit.
Jaenelle Saetien put her hands over her eyes. She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t.
“Are you only brave when you’re hurting someone else? Don’t have enough spine to look at what was done, to look at what you and your friends wanted to do?”
She dropped her hands and bared her teeth. “This isn’t what my friends wanted to do!”
The girl laughed. “The sand is running in the glass. There are a lot of rooms between you and the way out. Or you can stay here with Marjane and become another of Briarwood’s ghosts. Or memories, if you prefer. We’ve been gone a long time, but she remembers us. She can tell you the names of all the ones who died in this place.”
“Who is she?”
The girl just smiled.
Feeling sick, Jaenelle Saetien looked at the girl hanging from the tree. Marjane. “Why did she end up that way?”
“She told an uncle she couldn’t stand the sight of him, so they smeared honey on her eyes and hung her there for the crows.” The girl tipped her head, considering. “Do you know what an uncle is?”
“My father’s brother. A close relation.”
“Not here. In Briarwood, an uncle is a man who likes to play with little girls. Sometimes boys, but mostly girls. Rape is more fun when a girl is too young to fight back. Or when they’re given ‘medicine’ that makes them unable to think clearly enough to get away. You helped make a girl sick with that kind of medicine.”
“I didn’t!”
The girl shrugged. “Then you’ll have nothing to fear when you reach that room.”
She felt queasy. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Rose. I wouldn’t lick an uncle’s lollipop so . . .” She drew a finger across her throat.
Jaenelle Saetien wasn’t sure what the girl meant about the lollipop, but she wasn’t going to ask.
“There’s the door,” Rose said. “Stay or go?”
“What’s in that room?”
“Don’t know. This is your debt to pay.”
A last look at Marjane, then Jaenelle Saetien opened the next door.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the Healer said.
“It’s like your daughter is caught in a tangled web of dreams and visions,” the Black Widow said, standing at the foot of the bed. “But this is more. Lady Surreal, you wear Gray. Your daughter’s Jewel has some measure of Green. You should be able to feel her in the abyss.”
“There’s nothing,” Surreal whispered. She stepped away from the bed where Jaenelle Saetien lay. Think, damn you, think!
An extraordinary healing, centuries ago. Marian falling into a kind of healing sleep that Nurian couldn’t recognize. But Tersa . . .
“I warned the girl,” Tersa said, walking into the room. “I told the girl that if he asked, she would answer. He asked—and this is her answer.”
The Healer frowned. “Who asked? Who answered?”
Surreal stared at Tersa. Mad, broken Black Widow whose mind, like her power, did not follow paths the rest of them could see, let alone reach. “Do you know where Jaenelle Saetien is?”
“A dark place,” Tersa replied. “A place where she will pay her debt. Then what is left of her can return.”
“That doesn’t answer the question of who asked and who answered,” the Black Widow said, but her voice was careful and respectful.
“My boy asked. His Queen answered.”
Fear and fury burned through Surreal. *Sadi!* she called on a Gray thread. *SADI!*
*Surreal.* He sounded cold in a way that told Surreal she wasn’t talking to Daemon Sadi.
*You asked Witch to punish our daughter?*
*It was Jaenelle Saetien’s only chance to stay alive.* Before she could protest, he snarled, *Would you rather have me come to the Hall and perform the execution? That’s what the Dhemlan Queens want.*
She knew that. She had seen the letter demanding the executions. It had made her sick to see Zhara’s signature among the rest. She’d expected him to find a way around the executions, but she hadn’t expected this.
*You need to come home. Now.*
*I can’t.*
*Can’t or won’t?*
*Until I have the Queen’s permission to return to the Hall, I am required to stay away.*
Surreal blinked away tears before they could fall. *You’ll always choose her over the rest of us, won’t you?*
A beat of silence before he said gently, *You’ve always known I would.*
He broke the link between them.
She turned to the other women. “There’s nothing you can do now. There’s nothing any of us can do now except wait.”
The Healer looked puzzled. The Black Widow stared at her, all the color drained from her face.
“He asked,” the Black Widow said. “And his Queen answered? Prince Sadi’s Queen?”
“Yes,” Tersa said. “My boy is one of her weapons.”
“I thought . . .” The Black Widow swallowed hard. “We all thought . . .”
“It is best not to ask too much of someone who stands so deep in the abyss.” Tersa’s voice held a quiet warning. “The Queen no longer sees the living Realms in the same way.” She looked at Surreal. “There is no cure for the pretty poison.”
Surreal’s legs went out from under her. She knew that place, had seen that place. But it didn’t exist anymore. Hadn’t existed for centuries.
Except in the memory of someone who had been haunted by that place all her life.
Briarwood. Somehow, Witch had sent Jaenelle Saetien to Briarwood—and the Darkness only knew what the girl would be like when she returned.
* * *
>
◆ ◆ ◆
The next room held two redheaded girls who sat side by side in a patch of turned earth, wearing blood-soaked dresses.
“Myrol and Rebecca,” Rose said. “This is the carrot patch where the uncles buried the redheads.”
“You ate the carrots after . . .”
Rose pointed to another girl at the end of the garden. “That’s Dannie. They served her leg for dinner one night.”
Jaenelle Saetien retched.
“This is what happened after a witch like Delora gained power,” Rose said, viciously cheerful. “Sand is running in the glass. Ready to see the rest?”
She had to get out of this place. And that meant seeing what was in each room until she found the way out.
“Let’s go,” she said. “It can’t get any worse.”
Rose laughed.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Why don’t you find something to do with all that rage?”
Daemon reviewed the notes Lord Marcus, his man of business, had given him. “You’re sure about this?”
Marcus nodded. “Lady Fharra and a handful of the senior instructors own the school. They receive salaries for their work there, but they also receive the profits from the hefty fees. It is a private school, so there is nothing unethical about how they’ve structured the return on their investment.”
“But they looked away from trouble that might take a bite out of those profits,” Daemon said. “They ignored the bullying and abuse—and worse—that a group of aristo children inflicted on so many other children at that school.”
“I couldn’t find any indication that Lady Fharra or those instructors had any affinity for Hayll or for the way Dorothea SaDiablo’s cruelty had eventually twisted the Blood in the whole Realm of Terreille.”
“They still provided the fertile ground for a girl like Delora to prosper and gather a following while eliminating anyone she considered to be a rival.”