Daughter of the Blood (23 page)

Setting the small chip of Red Jewel that was hidden beneath the rubies in his cuff links to auditory retention, Daemon let his mind drift as Alexandra told him about the household and his "duties." The Jewel chip would retain the conversation until he was ready to retrieve it. Right now, he had something more important to think about.

Where was she?
Who
was she? A relation who only visited? A guest who had stayed a few days and recently left? He couldn't ask anyone. If they didn't suspect that Witch had been in their presence, his questions, no matter how innocuous, might endanger her. Dorothea already had her cancerous tentacles embedded in Chaillot. If she became aware that this Other had touched the island . . . No. He couldn't ask. Until she returned, he would do whatever was required to keep these women satisfied and unsuspecting. But after she returned . . .

Finally he was shown to his room. It was directly below Alexandra's apartment and next to a back stairway, since he was mostly here for her pleasure, Leland needing nothing more than an escort when Robert wasn't available, and Wilhelmina being too young. It was a simple room with a chair, lamp, and writing desk as well as a single bed, a dresser with a mirror hanging above it, a wardrobe—and, Daemon noted gratefully, an adjoining modern bathroom.

As he had anticipated, the conversation at dinner was strained. Alexandra talked about the cultural activities that could be explored in Beldon Mor, and Daemon asked the polite questions expected of him.

While Alexandra's conversation was painstakingly impersonal, Leland was fluttery, nervous, and far too prone to ask leading questions that made her blush no matter how delicately Daemon phrased his answers—if he answered at all. Robert, who had returned unexpectedly for dinner, looked too pleased with the arrangement, made sly comments throughout the meal, and took pains to touch Leland at every opportunity to stress his claim to her. Daemon ignored him, finding Philip's distress and growing rage at Robert far more interesting.

As dinner wore on, Daemon wished Wilhelmina were there, since she was the one he was most curious about, the one he could most easily tap for information. But she was considered too young to have late dinner and sit with the adults.

Finally free to retire but too restless to sleep, Daemon paced his room. Tomorrow he would begin searching the house. A room where she had slept would still be strong with her psychic scent, even if it had been cleaned. There wasn't time to waste, but he couldn't afford to be found prowling around in the early morning hours his first night there, not now, not when he might finally see, hear, touch what his soul had been aching for his whole life. Blood Law was nothing to him. The Blood were nothing to him.

She would be Blood and yet Other, something alien and yet kindred. She would be terrifyingly magnificent.

As he paced his room, undressing in a slow striptease for no one, Daemon tried to imagine her. Chaillot born? Quite probable. Living in Beldon Mor? That would explain the subtle
something
he'd felt. And if she never physically strayed from the island, that explained why he hadn't felt her presence anywhere else in the past few years. Wise, certainly cautious to have escaped notice for so long.

He slid into bed, turned off the light . . . and groaned as an image of a wise, skinny old crone filled his mind.

No,he begged the still night.
Sweet Darkness, heed the prayer of one of your sons. Now that she's so
close, let her be young enough to want me. Let her be young enough to need me.

The night gave him no answer, and the sky was a predawn gray before he finally slept.

3 / Terreille

For two days Daemon played the polite, considerate escort as the fluttery Leland made an endless round of calls showing off Lady SaDiablo's gift. For two nights he prowled the house, his control on his temper fraying from lack of sleep and frustration. He had toured every public room, probed every guest room, flattered and cajoled his way through the servants' quarters—and had found nothing.

Not quite nothing. He had found the library tucked away on the second floor of the nursery wing. It wasn't the library visitors saw, or the one the family used. This was the small room that contained volumes on the Craft and, like so many others he had seen in the past few decades, it had the feel of a room that was almost never used.

Almost never.

Silently closing the door, Daemon moved unerringly-through the dark, cluttered room to a table in the far corner that held a shaded candle-light. He touched it, stroking downward on the crystal to dim the glow, leaned against the built-in bookcases7 and tilted his head back to rest on a shelf.

The scent was strong in this room.

Daemon closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and frowned. Even though it was clean, the room had the dusty, musty smell of old books, but a physical scent wouldn't obscure a psychic one. That dark scent . .

. Like the body that housed it, a witch's psychic scent had a muskiness that a Blood male could find as arousing as the body—if not more so. This dark, sweet scent was chillingly clean of that muskiness, and as he continued to breathe deeply, to open himself to that which was stronger than the body, he felt distressed to find it so.

Pushing away from the bookshelves, Daemon extinguished the candlelight and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before leaving the room. So, she'd spent much of her time in that room, but she must have
stayed
somewhere. His eyes flicked toward the ceiling as he slipped among the shadows and silently climbed the stairs. The only place left to look was the nursery, the third floor rooms where Wilhelmina and her governess, Lady Graff, spent most of their days. It was also the only place Philip had vehemently told him to stay away from, since his services weren't required there.

Daemon glided down the corridor, his probing mind identifying the rooms as he passed: classroom, music room, playroom, Lady Graff's sitting room and adjoining bedroom (which Daemon immediately turned away from, his lips curling in a snarl, as he caught the wispy scent of erotic dreaming), bathrooms, a couple of guest rooms, Wilhelmina's bedroom. And the corner room that overlooked the back gardens.

Daemon hesitated, suddenly unwilling to further invade the privacy of children. As was his custom, he had gleaned basic facts about the family before entering service. The Hayllian ambassador, annoyed at being questioned, became quite garrulous once he noticed the cold look in Daemon's eyes, saying nothing of much interest except that there were two daughters. Daemon had met Wilhelmina.

There was only one room left.

His hand shook as he turned the doorknob and slipped into the room.

The sweet darkness washed over him, but even here it was faint, as though someone had been trying to scrub it away. Daemon pressed his back against the door and silently asked forgiveness for what he was about to do. He was male, he was intruding, and, like her, it would only take a few minutes for his own dark psychic scent to be impressed on the room for anyone to read.

Cautiously lifting one hand, he engaged a candlelight by the bed, keeping it bright enough to see by but dim enough that, he hoped, the light wouldn't be noticed beneath the bedroom door if someone walked past. Then he looked around, his brow wrinkling in puzzlement.

It was a young girl's room: white dresser and wardrobe, white canopy and counterpane decorated with little pink flowers covering the four-poster bed, gleaming wood floors with cute throw rugs scattered around.

It was totally wrong.

He opened every drawer of the dresser and found clothing suitable for a young girl, but when he touched it it was like touching a tiny spark of lightning. The bed, too, when he ran his hand lightly over the counterpane, sent a spark along his nerves. But the dolls and stuffed animals—the scent was on them only because they were in this room. If any of them had been rich with her puzzling darkness, he would have taken it back to his room to hold throughout the night. Finally he turned to the wardrobe and opened the doors.

The clothes were a child's clothes, the shoes were meant for small feet. It had been a while since they'd been worn, and the scent was faint in them, too. The wardrobe itself, however . . .

Daemon went through it piece by piece, touching everything, growing more hopeful and more frantic with each discarded item. When there was nothing left to check, his trembling fingers slid along the inside walls, his tactile sense becoming a conductor for the inner senses.

Kneeling on the floor, exhausted by disappointment, he leaned forward until his hand touched the far back corner of the wardrobe.

Lightning pulsed through him until he thought his blood would boil.

Puzzled, he cupped his hands and created a small ball of witch light. He studied the corner, vanished the witch light, and leaned back on his heels, even more puzzled.

There was nothing there . . . and yet there was. Nothing his physical senses could engage, but his inner senses insisted something was there.

Daemon reached forward again and shivered.

The room was suddenly, intensely cold.

His thinking was slowed by fatigue, and it took him a full minute to understand what the cold meant.

"Forgive me," he whispered as he carefully withdrew his hand. "I didn't mean to invade your private place. I swear by the Jewels it won't happen again."

With trembling hands, Daemon replaced the clothes and shoes exactly the way he'd found them, extinguished the candle-light, and silently glided back to his room. Once there, he dug out the bottle of brandy hidden in his own wardrobe and took a long swallow.

It didn't make sense. He could understand finding her psychic scent in the library. But in the child's room? Not on the toys, but on the clothes, on the bed-things an adult might handle daily if she took care of the child. When he had made an innocuous comment about there being another daughter, he'd been told, snappishly, that she wasn't at home, that she was ill.

Was his Lady assuming a Healer's duties? Had she slept in a cot in the girl's room in order to be nearby?

Where was she now?

Daemon put the brandy away, undressed, and slid into bed. Tersa's warning about the chalice cracking frayed his nerves, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn't hunt for her as he had in other courts.

She was nearby, and he couldn't risk being sent away.

Daemon punched his pillow and sighed. When the child returned, his Lady would return.

And he would be waiting.

4 / Terreille

Surreal tilted her head back, smiling at the sun's warmth on her face and the smell of clean sea air. Her moon time had passed; tonight she would begin working for her keep to pay Deje back for her kindness.

But the day was hers, and as she meandered up the path that led to Cassandra's Altar, she enjoyed the rough landscape, the sun on her back, the crisp autumn wind teasing her long black hair.

When she rounded a bend and saw the Sanctuary, Surreal wrinkled her nose and sighed. She'd trekked all this way to see a ruin. Even though she was just beginning what might be a long, long life, she had already lived enough years to see that places where she had stayed sometimes had become crumbled piles of stone by the time she next returned. What was ancient history for so many was actual memory for her. She found the thought depressing.

Pushing her hair off her face, she stepped through an open doorway and looked around, noting the gaps in the stonewalls and the holes in the roof. Sitting in the autumn sun was more appealing than wandering through chilly, barren rooms, so she turned to leave, but when she reached the doorway, she heard footsteps behind her.

The woman who stepped out from the inner chambers wore a tunic and trousers made of a shimmery, dusty black material. Her red hair, which flowed over her shoulders, was held in place by a silver circlet that fit snugly around her head. A Red Jewel hung just above her breasts. Her smile of greeting was warm but not effusive.

"How may I serve you, Sister?" she asked quietly.

The hair, faded of its vibrant color by time, and the lines on the woman's face spoke of long years, but the emerald eyes and the proud carriage said this was not a witch to trifle with.

"My apologies, Lady." Surreal met the other's steady gaze. "I came to see the Altar. I didn't know someone lived here."

"To see or to ask?"

Surreal shook her head, puzzled.

"When one seeks a Dark Altar, it's usually for help that can't be given elsewhere, or for answers to questions of the heart."

Surreal shrugged. She hadn't felt this awkward since her first client at her first Red Moon house, when she realized how little she had learned in all those dirty little back rooms. "I came to . . ." The woman's words finally penetrated. Questions of the heart. "I'd like to know who my mother's people were."

Surreal suddenly felt a whisper of something that had been there all along, a darkness, a strength she hadn't been attuned to. As she looked at the Sanctuary again, she realized that the things built around this place were insignificant. The place itself held the power.

The woman's gaze never wavered. "Everything has a price," she said quietly. "Are you willing to pay for what you ask?"

Surreal dug into her pocket and extended a handful of gold coins.

The woman shook her head. "Those who are what I am are not paid in that kind of coin." She turned back toward the doorway she'd come through. "Come. I'll make some tea and we'll talk. Perhaps we can help each other." She went down the passage, letting Surreal leave or follow, as she chose.

Surreal hesitated for a moment before dropping the coins into her pocket and following the woman. It was partly the sudden feeling of awe she had for the place, partly curiosity about what sort of price this witch would require for information, partly hope that she might finally have an answer to a question that had haunted her ever since she'd fully understood how different Titian was from everyone else. Besides, she was good with a knife and she wore the Gray. The place might hold her in awe, but the witch didn't.