“Don’t you mean are we going to let her go to that school?” Daemon countered.
“What I think doesn’t matter.”
He lowered the soupspoon. “Surreal.” A warning.
“It matters to you,” she amended. “It doesn’t matter to Jaenelle Saetien. So this negotiation is between the two of you. Frankly, Sadi? Physically, she’s ready for this independence she wants to claim, but I’m not sure she’s emotionally mature enough to live away from home. However, I understand the storms in her right now, at least to some degree, and lately I’ve wondered if I would have quarreled with Titian in the same way if my mother had still been alive when I reached that age. Because of the Dea al Mon part of her heritage, Jaenelle Saetien is growing up a little faster than the children in Halaway who are her friends. Her body has matured a little quicker, and the need to assert her independence. . . .”
Surreal took a roll from the basket and tore it into unappetizing pieces before she realized what she was doing. She pushed the bread plate aside. It vanished, and a clean plate appeared.
“I didn’t appreciate how young I was,” she said softly. “I was already a whore working in Red Moon houses that were almost the best, and I was a well-paid assassin. I was good at both kinds of work, but I was also still a girl trying on attitudes to figure out who I was beyond those two things. I made mistakes during those years. I made a big mistake with you during those years.”
“That’s the past,” he replied just as softly.
The past, yes, but that night had changed things between them for a lot of years. Even now it was one of the dark notes in their complicated relationship. “Jaenelle Saetien will make her own mistakes. She’ll acquire her own regrets. She . . .” Surreal swallowed hard. Did the girl in that village regret killing the boy who had drugged her? Or was she just relieved that she had survived?
“Tell me what happened, Surreal.”
She couldn’t look at him, but she told him about the boy, the girl, the safframate the father had given to his son. When she was done, he told her about Tersa’s warning.
“Terreillean soil.” She spat the words. “Will we ever be free of that corruption, that taint?”
“Power without price will always be a seductive idea,” Daemon replied. “Those who rule the Shadow Realm now have to make sure there is always a price—and that the price is high.”
“The bastard wasn’t expecting to have his son die,” Surreal said. “That’s a fairly high price.”
“Do you think that will be the only price?” Daemon asked too softly.
Her breath hitched as the room turned icy for just a moment before he regained control of that formidable temper. What other price would that father pay for giving his son that drug?
She didn’t have to wonder long because Daemon added, “The son is beyond any benefit of a lesson, but do you think that man has ever experienced the effect of a dose of safframate that was equal to what the girl received?”
She had been an assassin. Was still an assassin. And right now, looking at his glazed gold eyes, she didn’t dare speak.
“I think it’s best if I go to the Keep this evening and stay for a day or two.”
She nodded. If he was descending into a cold rage, it was better for all of them if he was in the one place where there was someone who could hold the leash on the Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell—and the Sadist.
They both gave up on the now-cold soup. Daemon requested the next course, and Beale came in and removed the soup dishes.
“So,” Daemon said when they were alone again and he felt like Sadi and not some other aspect of his temper. “Do we keep Jaenelle Saetien with us at the Hall and put up with all this high drama, or do we allow her to board at this school in Amdarh, which she seems set on attending?”
“And pay her a weekly visit that will leave her snarling and embarrassed because her parents are watching her so closely?”
“You wear Gray. I wear Black. If we’re sight-shielded, I doubt anyone will know we took a prowl around the school.”
She nodded. “With Titian there, we’ll have another reason to check up on the children. Three reasons, if you want to include Zoey.”
“Zoey will be there too?” His eyes glazed again. “She’s just the kind of young Queen who was at risk in Terreille.”
High Lord or Sadist? Surreal wasn’t sure who sat across from her now, but for Jaenelle Saetien’s sake, she needed to coax Daemon back into thinking like a father—and the current employer at the Hall. Picking up her knife and fork, she cut into her steak. “Who do you think will be more sulky this evening? Jaenelle Saetien because she’s eating whatever Mrs. Beale dumped on her plate, or Mrs. Beale because we aren’t doing justice to the meal she carefully prepared for us?”
Daemon choked out a laugh. “Mother Night, what a choice.” Then he began to eat.
Jaenelle Saetien tried not to fidget while her father read her report a second time. When he turned back to the first page for a third time, she jumped up and paced around the sitting area in her room.
“Everyone who is anyone is going to that school.” She heard the whine in her voice and tried to modulate her tone to something that sounded more mature and less . . . provincial. She couldn’t tell him that the girls she desperately wanted as friends thought she wasn’t sophisticated enough to belong to their exclusive aristo circle, that they’d been polite when she had seen them at social gatherings in Amdarh or when she’d participated in a country outing near one of the family estates, but their surprise that she was the daughter of the elegant and sophisticated Warlord Prince of Dhemlan had stung.
“Who is the country mouse?” one of the boys had asked Delora, not even checking to see if Jaenelle Saetien was close enough to overhear them.
“Oh, that’s Jaenelle Saetien, Prince Sadi’s daughter,” Delora had replied.
“She can’t be!”
“Poor thing,” Hespera had added. “You’d think her father would want her to dress with a little style and have some social polish, even if her mother is so gauche.”
She didn’t want to be pitied by the girls who came from Dhemlan’s aristo families. She didn’t want the boys laughing at her clothes. Zoey wasn’t any help in that way. The exclusive circle of girls laughed at her, too, because of her dress and manners, and she was a Queen!
Delora wasn’t a Queen, but all the girls wanted to copy the way she dressed, and all the boys wanted a bit of her attention. And more than that—the best thing of all—Delora didn’t think Jaenelle Angelline was anything special.
“Not everyone who is anyone goes to that school,” Daemon said mildly. “Let’s just say that the individuals you feel are important social contacts attend that school.”
“Yes, let’s say that.” Did she sound snarky? She wasn’t trying to sound snarky. “Father, this is so important.”
He set aside her report and studied her. What did he see? What was he looking for? How could she be whatever he was looking for long enough for him to agree to let her go to the school?
“Sit down, witch-child,” he said quietly.
She sat at the other end of the sofa, barely able to breathe.
“Your mother and I will allow you to attend this school, and we will allow you to board at the school instead of living at the town house.”
She squealed with happiness. Couldn’t help it.
He gave her a sharp, amused look. “I’ll go to Amdarh in a couple of days and make the arrangements.”