She glanced at her bed and wondered if he had come expecting her to oblige, even if she hadn’t had her Virgin Night yet.
“I need your help,” Daemonar said, heading to a small table with two matching chairs. “Where is Jaalan?”
“Outside with Bossy Stern Teeth and a female bossy named Allis.”
He grinned. “They’re called Scelties.” His grin faded. “Calling them bossies instead of the proper name is . . .”
“Unkind,” she finished. “Scelties. I will remember.”
“I know you will.”
He called in a tray that held a greater variety of foods than she’d ever seen at one time. Fruits in a bowl. Cheeses on a cold-spelled dish. Sandwiches full of thinly sliced meats. A pot of coffee and a pitcher of water. Different kinds of bready sweets?
“You haven’t met Mrs. Beale yet,” Daemonar said. “She’s an excellent cook, but she’s a bit scary. Okay, sometimes a lot scary, even if she only wears a Yellow Jewel. Anyway, if I don’t eat enough of this food, she’ll be insulted—and all of this is to keep me from starving while I’m resting before the evening meal.”
Grizande stared at him. This much food before a meal?
He nodded as if she’d said something. “Help me eat enough of this so I won’t get into trouble.”
Once they were seated at the small table, she wasn’t sure what to choose. Daemonar picked up half of a meat sandwich and took a big bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Sighed with pleasure.
Feeling brave, she took the other half of the sandwich. “Good,” she said after the first bite.
“There are some apprentice cooks and a few assistant cooks.” Daemonar cut a couple of slices off one of the cheeses, then took a slice, leaving the other for her. “There is an auxiliary kitchen across from the High Lord’s suite. There’s usually someone on duty there to give you a bowl of soup or stew or make you a sandwich. Apprentices are cooks in training, so the food they make is edible but not always up to Mrs. Beale’s standards.”
“Feed lower ranks?” Orphans were often allowed to eat what no one else wanted.
“If you mean the students, yes.” Daemonar selected another sandwich. “When they’re hungry, boys will eat just about anything. And anyone who works at the Hall is welcome to get some food when they’re taking a break from their tasks.”
She wondered if he would let her keep some of the fruits and sweets to eat later. Right now, she had another priority.
Could she trust him with this secret? The Sisters of the Hourglass had been as vehement about her making use of this as they had been about her keeping this a secret—and yet there had been a false note in their concern for her, as if this protection against Warlord Princes came at a cost the Black Widows wouldn’t share with her.
Because the cost might be too high? Or because the Warlord Princes who knew the Queen who was more than a Queen would understand too much about this secret?
One way to find out.
Taking the mug, she filled it partway with water, then used Craft to heat the water until it began to steam.
“Something you need?” Daemonar asked.
Grizande called in a jar full of coarsely ground leaves. After filling a tea ball with leaves, she set the ball in the steaming water—and looked at him. “Special tea. Quiets heat.”
“Quiets . . . I don’t understand.”
She didn’t have words for this, not in the language he knew. “Warlord Princes. Strong.” She made a hand gesture to convey something about the nature of his caste. He must have understood enough, because his eyes widened.
“Virile?” he suggested.
She wasn’t sure that was the word she’d intended, but it would do. “Dark Jewels much sex heat. Sometimes too much. Males need virile, need heat to find mate, make children. After, females drink tea, not feel heat so much.”
He stared at the mug, stared at the jar. Finally he stared at her. “The Tigre have found a way for women to quiet their reaction to a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat?”
She nodded. “Some Tigre know. Hourglass secret.”
He pushed back from the table. “Come on. We need to talk to my father.”
He reached for the jar of leaves for her special tea. She vanished it before his hand touched it—before he thought to vanish it and keep it from her.
“Grizande,” Daemonar said quietly. “You know something we don’t. This could help my mother. Please.”
Help Marian mother? Maybe. And yet the false note in the Sisters’ concern for her troubled her—more for Marian mother’s sake than for her own.
Daemonar sat in the chair, waiting for her to decide.
If she was going to be in a room with Ebon-gray . . . Although being in a Coach with Ebon-gray and Black hadn’t bothered her. She’d noticed their heat, but it hadn’t bothered her. Still, she’d learned to be cautious in order to survive. “Drink tea first. Not waste.”
He nodded.
She drank the tea and felt . . . veiled, as if all her senses had been dimmed somehow. The Sisters of the Hourglass had told her that was how she should feel after drinking the tea. Their words had sounded true, but now she wondered about something else.
Marian mother wore Purple Dusk. If she didn’t know about the special tea, how had she survived living with Ebon-gray?
Surreal hadn’t wanted to talk to Lucivar about whatever had set her off to the point where she’d drained the reservoirs of power of the Birthright Jewels of the resident Queens and their female followers. Lucivar didn’t care if she talked to him or not, but it was better for everyone at the Hall if he escorted her to her suite in the family wing, where she planned to enjoy a solitary dinner.
He, on the other hand, would be eating in the large dining room tonight, with the instructors and anyone else who was capable of coming to the table.
He and Surreal had almost reached the square he still thought of as the Queen’s square when Daemonar turned a corner and spotted him. Grizande trailed behind his boy, looking uncertain.
Fortunately for his first-born, Daemonar looked relieved to see him instead of apprehensive.
“Father, we need to talk to you,” Daemonar said. “You should hear this too, Auntie Surreal.”
“That might not be a good idea today,” Surreal replied.
“You should hear this. We can talk in my room.”
Daemonar backtracked a few steps to his room. He opened the door, then waited for the others to enter before he walked in—and locked the door.
“Grizande needs to tell you about a special tea the Tigre make,” Daemonar said.
Grizande didn’t look eager to tell him anything. “All right. I’m listening.”
It wasn’t just the struggle of explaining something with her limited vocabulary in the common tongue. Fear came close to choking her as she tried to explain something secret. Something . . . forbidden? But every time the girl stumbled, Daemonar filled in the words until she could continue.
A tea that could quiet the impact of sexual heat, dull it enough for a woman to live with a man like him? Make it possible for him to be home more days without overwhelming Marian?
Grizande called in her jar of special leaves. Surreal reached for the jar. Lucivar stopped her from touching it. Her life—and Daemon’s—might have been different if she’d had a tea that could quiet even some of Daemon’s mature sexual heat, but people had been taking things from this girl for a long time, and he wasn’t going to let that happen here.
“Do you know what’s in the tea?” Lucivar asked.
“Hourglass made list. Say only show to Black Widows to make more tea.”
He wasn’t a Black Widow, so he waited. Grizande needed to decide for herself if she would trust him.