“Until?” Daemon prompted when she didn’t continue.
“Until a couple of months ago. A witch, a natural Black Widow. Someone who could have worn a dark Jewel when she reached maturity. ‘Gifted’ is how her mother described her. She’d been gifted with her understanding of the Hourglass’s Craft.” Surreal prowled the room. “The mother came to this Warlord. Her daughter was a bit young to have her Virgin Night, but there were concerns she didn’t want to discuss that made it imperative to protect her daughter’s power and potential.”
“Shit,” Lucivar said softly. He took the glass of wine Daemon offered and drank half of it.
“Yeah,” Surreal agreed. “I couldn’t find the Warlord. No one has seen him since that night. Speculation, based on his reputation, is that he prepared the girl for her Virgin Night, giving her what he believed was the proper dose of the aphrodisiac brew called Night of Fire. Then he told the girl he would be right back and he left the room, which he’d never done before, so it could be that something—or someone—gave him a reason to step out. The next thing the girl knew, the room was moving in strange ways and a creature with a misshapen face and reeking of evil tied her to the bed . . .”
“And broke her,” Daemon finished.
“What she saw could have been an illusion spell designed to terrify her, or it could have been her reaction to whatever had been added to that Night of Fire. But it didn’t disguise the voice of her father’s cousin—the man whose salacious interest in the girl was the reason for the mother’s concern. Yes, he broke her. Viciously. Then he slipped away, leaving the missing Warlord to take the blame.”
“Did the girl tell anyone about recognizing the man’s voice?” Lucivar asked.
“The girl was half mad by the time she was taken from that bed, and the Healer explained that the girl had latched on to a recognized voice because the cousin was in the house, consoling her father.” Surreal stared at Daemon. “But her mother believed her—and her mother told me.”
Daemon studied his second-in-command. “Where is the father’s cousin now?” He knew by the look in her eyes, but the formality between them when she went hunting in Dhemlan required that he ask.
Surreal bared her teeth in a smile. “Did you know the Hall in the Dark Realm has a dungeon of sorts?”
“I did, yes.” He didn’t use those chambers often, but some executions required extreme privacy.
“Well, he’s there. I expect he’ll have made the transition to demon-dead by the time you get around to having a chat with him.”
He’d have to make inquiries into Dhemlan Warlords who had arrived in Hell a couple of months ago to see if he could locate the missing Warlord. And the first person he would ask about that missing Warlord was the fool waiting for him in Hell’s dungeon.
“The cousin who broke the girl,” Lucivar said. “Does he have any bloodlines in common with anyone connected to the coven of malice? Was this girl targeted by a man’s lust or because some bitch wanted to eliminate a rival?”
Surreal shrugged, as if uninterested in the question.
That seeming lack of interest was telling—and suspect. Either she was still looking for an answer or she was sharpening her knives for a particular person and didn’t want to tell him.
Lucivar gave her a lazy, arrogant smile. “Did you manage to slip the knife in clean, or did you nick bone and damage the blade?”
She rounded on him, clearly insulted that he challenged her professional skills. “You arrogant prick.”
He raised his glass in a salute. “Now she’s feeling better.” He glanced at Daemon. “Although I could knock her on her ass a couple of times if you think that will help.”
The only way Daemon could describe the sound she made was a squeal with fangs.
He really hoped she wanted to sleep alone tonight.
“Let’s sit down.” He refilled wineglasses, then led them to a round table at one end of the sitting room where adults sometimes played cards or children put together puzzles. The clean wood surface and straight wooden chairs seemed more suitable for a grim discussion.
When they were seated, Daemon didn’t waste time. “We don’t have enough evidence to prove that Delora and her coven of malice are behind the breakings that have happened over the past few years. Either this is just beginning, or these girls—and the boys who are consenting to be their instruments—already know they have to be careful and selective, and they know how to hide their true intentions. They have time. Eliminate a handful of rivals every year, and decades from now, when that coven reaches maturity . . .”
“There won’t be many left to oppose their vision of the Blood,” Lucivar finished.
“And that fits in with the current infatuation with Hayllian memorabilia that might have some connection with Dorothea and her followers, and the whispers that a few aristo families want to bring Hayllian traditions to Dhemlan,” Surreal said.
“Every instinct I have, every minute of pain I experienced, tells me that Delora will be the next Dorothea if she isn’t stopped,” Daemon said. “If she was an adult, I wouldn’t hesitate to bury her in a deep grave, but there’s not enough proof to connect her to girls her age being broken.”
“As the ruler of Dhemlan, you can’t execute a child without that proof,” Lucivar said, sighing. “I’ve informed the Province Queens in Askavi that I’m holding them accountable for the safety of every young Queen, Black Widow, and Healer in their territories, as well as any witch who has the potential to wear a dark Jewel.”
Daemon nodded. “We’ve done the same. What Surreal and I have found is that witches who don’t have the potential to be rivals aren’t being targeted.”
“Are we pissing in the wind because we don’t like a group of snotty bitches, or should we believe what our instincts tell us, despite the lack of proof?” Lucivar asked.
“No way to know—yet.”
Surreal stared at her wineglass. “We know someone who might be able to confirm that the coven of malice is a real threat because she saw Dorothea’s rise to power.”
Daemon looked at Lucivar. “Tersa.”
Lucivar’s wings fanned out and resettled. “We’re tangled up in so much of what Dorothea did, do you think Tersa could tell us anything without confusing that rise to power with what came after?”
“Can’t be either of you,” Surreal said. “Can’t be me either for the same reason. We have too much history with Tersa.” She looked at Lucivar. “But Daemonar could tell her he’s worried about the attention some girls at school are giving his sister, and he needs to know the warning signs that Titian might be in danger. He won’t be asking about what happened to Tersa, not directly, so she might tell him something that will help us decide.”
“It might work,” Lucivar said. “But he’ll need another reason to go to the cottage in order to ease into talking to Tersa.”
Daemon smiled. “I know the perfect excuse.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Daemonar knocked on the front door of Tersa’s cottage and considered, again, how he should ask her about warning signs in order to get the information Lucivar and Daemon needed. Tersa rarely answered a question with an answer that seemed related to the question. You usually got a direct answer to “Do you want butter or jam on your toast?” but asking her about this? If she’d seen the warning signs, wouldn’t she have done something to protect herself from being broken?