“Because you were acting strange, and I wondered if you were trying to get out of your lessons for some reason. Because you said you wanted to talk, but you’re not talking. And most of all, because I’m old enough now to be held accountable if I’m essentially standing escort.”
“Well, you’re not standing escort. We’re just friends taking a ride.”
“And more than anything else,” Mikal continued, “the Prince gives me lessons in Craft and Protocol. He’s your father, so you don’t think anything about it, but it’s a privilege to be trained by him, and I don’t want to lose that privilege. So when he says the time is half gone, we’re turning back.”
“I don’t have to turn back if I don’t want to.”
“Then you’re walking home because the horses and I will turn back.”
She pouted. “You’re being mean, and this is important.”
*Then talk,* he said on a psychic thread.
This flavor of impatience with her was new, and she didn’t like it. And she’d counted on being able to ride away from the Hall and then dismount and talk because she didn’t want the horses to go back to the stables and blab to her father. And she didn’t want to talk on a psychic thread because it didn’t feel the same as saying words out loud. And they weren’t even riding. They were just sitting on horses that were walking around.
But Mikal had stated his intentions, and she knew he wouldn’t budge, so she took a deep breath and told him about going to the river with Daemonar and making a raft and riding it through the rapids and over the waterfall.
*Hell’s fire,* Mikal said when she finished. *You did that and Lucivar saw you? And you can still sit on a horse today?* He whistled. *You’re lucky he didn’t get mad enough to make the river steam.*
*He couldn’t get mad,* she replied with enough bitterness to have Mikal staring at her. *I heard Uncle Lucivar talking to Auntie Marian and Papa before Papa and I got in the Coach to come home. He couldn’t get mad at Daemonar and me because he’d done the same thing with the Queen. I thought this was my idea, that this was a new adventure that nobody had done before, but she did it first! She always does things first!*
*I doubt the Lady and Prince Yaslana were the first people to have gone over a waterfall. Maybe not quite that way, but—*
*Everything I do, she’s done first, but she was the Queen and important, so she did it better. Everyone thinks so.* Even Papa, she added silently, hoping it wasn’t true.
Mikal was quiet for a too-long time. *Lady Angelline did a lot of things better than anyone else—did some things even better than the High Lord, and he was very powerful. She did some things no one else had ever done before or will ever do again. But that was Lady Angelline.*
*I can’t be like her.*
*Nobody can.*
*Witch-child,* Papa said. His sudden presence on a psychic thread startled her so much, she almost fell out of the saddle. *You should be on your way back to the Hall if you want to get cleaned up and change clothes after your lessons and still reach the theater in time to meet your friends.*
Mikal gave her a sharp look. *Should we be turning back now?*
*There’s time.*
They rode for another minute before Mikal turned his horse toward the Hall.
*Mikal! We’re not finished talking!*
*Then talk fast.*
*I just . . . I’m not fanning around, okay?*
*Okay.*
*I want something that is mine, just mine. Something the Queen hadn’t done before I thought of it, something she’d never done. I want to do something and not have people say they remember when she had done that same thing.*
Mikal looked thoughtful. *The High Lord once said everything a child does is a new discovery for the child and a familiar story for the adults. That’s why children survive. There is a precedent for the young being courageous to the point of being stupid. Face it, Jaenelle Saetien. If Lucivar hadn’t gone over that waterfall with Lady Angelline, he would have killed you and Daemonar flatter than dead.*
She thought maybe she would have preferred a fierce scolding for doing something that was just her own than acceptance because the Queen had done it.
Maybe she would have preferred that. Maybe.
Daemon knew Jaenelle Saetien had returned to the Hall with a few minutes to spare, not only because he had sensed the presence of Twilight’s Dawn but because Mikal had poked his head into the study to confirm the time for his own lessons the following day and to ask permission to spend a day in Amdarh the following week in order to visit Beron, who had promised to take him around to a few places in the city.
Without asking what places the brothers would be visiting—Helton would be given an itinerary before the boys left the town house—Daemon confirmed the date. The family already had plans to be in Amdarh this week, so if he couldn’t make another trip to the city that soon, he’d send Holt as an escort for Mikal.
That much decided, Daemon reviewed the next report—and waited. The clock ticked, ticked, ticked.
Jaenelle Saetien finally showed up, washed and dressed in the clothes she’d chosen for attending an afternoon play at the theater—and forty minutes late for her first lesson.
Offering no comment or criticism, Daemon came around the desk and indicated she should join him on the side of the study that was furnished for informal meetings, with its long sofa, comfortable chairs, and tables. He called in an hourglass that measured an hour and turned it to start the sand running in the glass. Setting it on the table in front of the sofa, he said pleasantly, “Shall we begin?”
She eyed the hourglass. “Maybe we should do the lessons this evening. There isn’t time to do them now.”
“There is plenty of time. One hour of basic Craft and one hour of Protocol.”
“But . . .”
“I rearranged a meeting with a Province Queen to make this time available for your lessons. I’ll be heading out for that meeting as soon as your mother gets home, so it isn’t possible to do lessons this evening. Therefore, we will do them now, at the time you had requested.” He waited a beat. “Shall we begin?”
The Craft lesson was more of a disaster than he’d anticipated. She pouted; she sulked; she became weepy and claimed she couldn’t do what he wanted her to do. Since they were reviewing making a ball of witchlight—something he knew she could do—he persisted until the last grain of sand fell.
Before she could jump up and head for the door, he turned the hourglass and said pleasantly, “Now for the lesson in Protocol.”
Surreal dropped from the Green Wind to the landing web in front of the Hall, then hesitated when she saw Beale standing in the open doorway.
“Should I assume you’re just taking the air?” she asked as she crossed the gravel drive to stand with him.
“That assumption will do,” he replied.
A shriek came from the direction of Daemon’s study. Since it came from behind a closed door and she had the full length of the great hall between her and that closed door, the sound had to be uncomfortable for anyone inside the room.
“I thought Jaenelle Saetien was seeing a play with some of her friends in the village.”
“After ignoring some agreed-upon rescheduling that she herself requested, the young Lady still thought her father would shorten the Craft and Protocol lessons in order for her to reach the village in time to see the play. I believe she has just realized that she will not reach the theater in time to see anything.”