He got to his feet with much of his fluid, feline grace, but when she led him into the bathroom, he stared at the fixtures as if he'd never seen them before. She lifted the toilet seat, hoping he remembered how to use that at least. When he still didn't move, she tugged him out of the jacket and shirt. It had never bothered her when Tersa displayed this childlike passivity. His lack of response frayed her temper. But when she reached for his belt, he snarled at her, his hand squeezing her wrist until she was sure the bones would break.
She snarled back. "Do it yourself then."
She saw the inward crumbling, the despair.
Loosening his hold on her wrist, he raised her hand and pressed his lips against it. "I'm sorry. I'm—" Releasing her, he looked beaten as he unbuckled the belt and began fumbling with his trousers.
Surreal fled.
A few minutes later the water pipes rattled and wheezed as he turned on the shower.
As she set the table, she wondered if he'd actually removed all his clothes. How long had he been like this? If this was what was left of a once-brilliant mind, how had he been able to heal that man?
Surreal paused, a plate half-resting on the table. Tersa had always had her islands of lucidity, usually around Craft. Once when the mad Black Widow had healed a deep gash in Surreal's leg, she'd responded to Titian's worry by saying, "One doesn't forget the basics." When the healing was done, however, Tersa couldn't even remember her own name.
A few minutes later, she was hovering in the hallway when she heard the muffled yelp that indicated the hot water had run out. The pipes rattled and wheezed as he shut off the water.
No other sound.
Swearing under her breath, Surreal pushed the bathroom door open. Daemon just stood in the tub, his head down.
"Dry yourself," Surreal said.
Flinching, he reached for a towel.
Struggling to keep her voice firm but quiet, she added, "I put out some clean clothes for you. When you've dried off, go put them on."
She retreated to the kitchen and busied herself with cooking the steaks while listening to the movements in the bedroom. She was putting the meat on their plates when Daemon appeared, properly dressed.
Surreal smiled her approval. "Now you look more like yourself."
"Jaenelle is dead," he said, his voice hard and flat.
She braced her hands on the table and absorbed the words that were worse than a physical blow. "How do you know?"
"Lucivar told me."
How could Lucivar, who was in Pruul, be sure of something she and Daemon couldn't be sure of? And who was there to ask? Cassandra had never returned to the Altar after that night, and Surreal didn't know who the Priest was, let alone where to start looking for him.
She cut the potatoes and fluffed them open. "I don't believe him." She looked up in time to see a lucid, arrested look in his eyes. Then it faded. He shook his head.
"She's dead."
"Maybe he was wrong." She took two servings of salad from the bowl and dressed them before sitting down and cutting into her steak. "Eat."
He took his place at the table. "He wouldn't lie to me."
Surreal plopped soured cream onto Daemon's baked potato and gritted her teeth. "I didn't say he lied. I said maybe he was wrong."
Daemon closed his eyes. After a couple of minutes, he opened them and stared at the meal before him. "You fixed dinner."
Gone. Turned down another path in that shattered inner landscape.
"Yes, Daemon," Surreal said quietly, willing herself not to cry. "I fixed dinner. So let's eat it while it's hot."
He helped her with the dishes.
As they worked, Surreal realized Daemon's madness was confined to emotions, to people, to that single tragedy he couldn't face. It was as if Titian had never died, as if Surreal hadn't spent three years whoring in back alleys before Daemon found her again and arranged for a proper education in a Red Moon house. He thought she was still a child, and he continued to fret about Titian's absence. But when she mentioned a book she was reading, he made a dry observation about her eclectic taste and proceeded to tell her about other books that might be of interest. It was the same with music, with art. They posed no threat to him, had no time frame, weren't part of the nightmare of Jaenelle bleeding on that Dark Altar.
Still, it was a strain to pretend to be a young girl, to pretend she didn't see the uncertainty and torment in his golden eyes. It was still early in the evening when she suggested they get some sleep.
She settled into bed with a sigh. Maybe Daemon was as relieved to be away from her as she was from him. On some level he knew she wasn't a child. Just as he knew she'd been with him at Cassandra's Altar.
Mist. Blood. So much blood. Shattered crystal chalices.
You are my instrument.
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
She walks among the cildru dyathe.
Maybe he was wrong.
He turned round and round.
Maybe he was wrong.
The mist opened, revealing a narrow path heading upward. He stared at it and shuddered. The path was lined with jagged rock that pointed sideways and down like great stone teeth. Anyone going down the path would brush against the smooth downward sides. Anyone going up . . .
He started to climb, leaving a little more of himself on each hungry point. A quarter of the way up, he finally noticed the sound, the roar of fast water. He looked up to see it burst over the high cliff above the path, come rushing toward him.
Not water. Blood. So much blood.
No room to turn. He scrambled backward, but the red flood caught him, smashed him against the stone words that had battered his mind for so long. Tumbling and lost, he caught a glimpse of calm land rising above the flood. He fought his way to that one small island of safety, grabbed at the long, sharp grass, and hauled himself up onto the crumbling ground. Shuddering, he held on to the island of maybe.
When the rush and roar finally stopped, he found himself lying on a tiny, phallic-shaped island in the middle of a vast sea of blood.
Even before she was fully awake, Surreal called in her stiletto.
A soft, stealthy sound.
She slipped out of bed and opened her door a crack, listening.
Nothing.
Maybe it was only Daemon groping in the bathroom.
Gray, predawn light filled the short hallway. Keeping close to the wall, Surreal inspected the other rooms.
The bathroom was empty. So was Daemon's bedroom.
Swearing softly, Surreal examined his room. The bed looked like it had been through a storm, but the rest of the room was untouched. The only clothes missing were the ones she'd given him last night.
Nothing missing from the living area. Nothing missing— damn it!—from the kitchen.
Surreal vanished the stiletto before putting the kettle on for tea.
Tersa used to vanish for days, months, sometimes years before showing up at one of these hideaways. Surreal had intended to move on soon, but what if Daemon returned in a few days and found her gone? Would he remember her as a child and worry? Would he try to find her?
She made the tea and some toast. Taking them into the front room, she curled up on the couch with one of the thick novels she'd bought.
She would wait a few weeks before deciding. There was no hurry. There were plenty of men like the ones who had used Briarwood that she could hunt in this part of Terreille.
Stubbornly ignoring the steady stream of servants flowing past his study door toward the front rooms, Saetan reached for the next report. They were only halfway up the drive. It would be another quarter hour before the carriage pulled up to the steps. What had Mephis been thinking of when he'd decided to use the landing web at Halaway instead of the one a few yards from the Hall's front door?