The Darkness swirled around him. Mother Night! He'd never felt anything like this!
Jaenelle studied his right hand for a long time before slowly placing her hand over it. He shuddered, unable to control it, seeing the truth for just a moment before she kindly shut him out.
"This is my housekeeper, Helene," Saetan said, never taking his eyes off Jaenelle. "Helene, this is Lady—" He hesitated, at a loss. To say "Lady Jaenelle" was too familiar.
Jaenelle turned her maelstrom eyes on Helene, who cringed but, with the instinct of a small hunted creature, didn't move. "Angelline." The word rolled out of her in a midnight whisper.
"Angelline." Saetan looked at Helene, willing her to remain calm. "My dear, would you see what Mrs. Beale might have for us today?"
Helene remembered her station and curtsied. "Of course, High Lord," she replied with dignity. Turning around, she left the great hall with a steady, measured step that Saetan silently applauded.
Jaenelle moved away from him, her head down, her shoulders slumped.
"Witch-child?" Saetan asked gently.
The eyes that met his were pained and haunted, full of a grieving that twisted his heart because he didn't know what caused it—or, perhaps, because he did.
He hadn't shuddered because, with her touch, he had found himself looking at power as far beneath him as he was to the White. He hadn't turned away from her. It was what he had seen there that horrified him—during those months when she'd been gone, she'd learned the one lesson he had never wanted her to learn.
She had learned to hate.
Now he had to find a way to convince her that he hadn't turned away from her because of what she was, had to bridge the distance between them, had to find a way to bring her back. He had to understand.
"Witch-child," he said in a carefully neutral voice, "why were you going to strike Helene?"
"She's a stranger."
Rocked by her cold response, Saetan's weak leg buckled. Her arms immediately wrapped around his waist, and he didn't feel the floor at all. Somewhat bemused, he looked down and tapped the floor with his shoe. He stood on air, a quarter inch above the floor. If he walked normally, it would take a keen eye to realize he wasn't walking on the floor itself. That and the lack of sound.
"It will help you," Jaenelle explained, her voice so full of apology and concern that the arm he'd been sliding around her shoulders pulled her to him in a fierce hug.
As they walked toward the dining room, Saetan used the excuse of his weak leg to move slowly, to give himself time to think. He had to understand what had brought out that ferocity in her.
Helene was a stranger, true. But he had a score of names on a sheet of paper locked in his desk drawer, and all of them had been strangers once. Because Helene was an adult? No. Cassandra was an adult. So was Titian, so was Prothvar, Andulvar, and Mephis. So was he. Because Helene was living? No, that wasn't the answer either.
In frustration, he replayed the last few minutes, forcing himself to view it from a distance. The sound of footsteps, the sudden change in Jaenelle, her predatory glide . . . in front of him.
He stopped suddenly, shocked, but got tugged along for a few more steps before Jaenelle realized he wasn't trying to walk.
He'd wondered what her reaction would be to being with him in Kaeleer, being with him outside the Realm he ruled, and now he knew. She cared for him. She was ready to protect him because, to her anyway, a weak leg might make him vulnerable against an adversary.
Saetan smiled, squeezed her shoulder, and began walking again.
Geoffrey had been right. He had a more potent leash than Protocol to keep her in check. Unfortunately, that leash worked two ways, so from now on, he was going to have to be very, very careful.
Saetan looked with growing dismay at the amount of food on the table. Along with a bowl of stew and sticks of cornbread, there were fruit, cheese, nut cakes, cold ham, cold beef, a whole roasted chicken, a platter of vegetables, fresh bread, honey butter, and a pitcher of milk. It ended there only because he'd refused to allow the footman to bring in the last heavily laden tray. The volume would have daunted a hungry full-grown male, let alone a young girl.
Jaenelle stared at the dishes arranged in a half-circle around her place at the table.
"Eat your stew while it's hot," Saetan suggested mildly, sipping a glass of yarbarah.
Jaenelle picked up her spoon and began to eat, but after one bite she put the spoon down, once more shy and uncertain.
Saetan began to talk in a leisurely manner. Since he talked as if he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and was going to sit at the table for quite some time, Jaenelle picked up the spoon again. He noticed that every time he stopped talking she put the spoon down, as if she didn't want her eating to detain him. So he gossiped, telling her about Mephis, Prothvar, Andulvar, Geoffrey, and Draca, but he ran out very quickly. The dead don't do much, he thought dryly as he launched into a long discourse about the book he'd been reading, completely unconcerned with whether or not it was over her head.
He started feeling a bit desperate about what to say next when she finally leaned back, her hands folded over a bulging tummy, and gave him the sweet, sleepy smile of a well-fed, content child. He put his glass up to his lips to hide his smile and briefly glanced at the carnage in front of him. Perhaps he'd been too hasty in sending that last tray back to the kitchen.
"I have a surprise for you," he said, biting his cheek as she wrestled herself into a sitting position.
He led her to the second floor of his wing. The doors along the right side led into his suite of rooms. He opened a door on the left.
He had put a lot of thought into these rooms. The bedroom had the feel of a seascape with its soft, shell-colored walls, plush sandy carpets, deep sea-blue counterpane on the huge bed, warm brown furniture, and throw pillows the color of dune grass. The adjoining sitting room belonged to the earth. The rooms still required personal touches that he'd deliberately kept absent to make them feminine.
Jaenelle admired, examined, exclaimed, and shouted back to him when she saw the bathroom, "You could swim in this bathtub!"
When she finally returned to him, he asked, "Do you like them?"
She smiled at him and nodded.
"I'm glad, because they're your rooms." He ignored her delighted gasp and continued. "Of course, they'll need your personal touches and lady's paraphernalia to give them character, and I didn't put any paintings on the walls. Those are for you to choose."
"My rooms?"
"Whenever you want to use them, whether I'm here or not. A quiet place, all your own."
He watched with pleasure as she explored the rooms again, a territorial gleam in her eyes. His smile didn't fade until she tried the door on the opposite side of the bedroom. Finding it locked, she turned away, not interested enough to question it.
When Jaenelle returned to the bathroom to ponder the possibilities of the bathtub, Saetan studied the locked door.
He loved her dearly, but he was no fool. On the other side of that locked door was another suite of rooms, somewhat smaller but no less carefully decorated. Someday a consort would reside in those rooms whenever she came to visit. For now, or at least until she asked, there was no reason to tell her what was on the other side of that door or what its occupant would be for.
"Saetan?"
He came out of his dark reverie to find her beside him again, her happiness putting a little color back into her cheeks. "Do you think we could begin my lessons again?"
"Of course." He thought for a moment. "Do you know how to create witch light?"
Jaenelle shook her head.
"Then that's a good place to begin." He paused and added casually, "How about having your lessons here?"
"Here?"
"Yes, here. That way—"
"But then I wouldn't see Andulvar and Prothvar and Mephis," Jaenelle protested.
For the briefest moment, he was honest enough to acknowledge the jealousy he felt at her wanting to see them, at her not being exclusively his. "Of course you can see them," he said mildly, trying not to grind his teeth. "There's no reason they can't come here."
"I thought demons didn't leave Hell."
"Most of the time it's more comfortable for the dead to remain among the dead, just as it's more comfortable for the living for the dead to remain among the dead. But we all lived so long ago . . ." He shrugged. "Besides, even if it's been a long time, Mephis has been here and still handles a number of my business arrangements in this Realm. I think he would enjoy an excuse to get out of the Dark Realm—as would Andulvar and Prothvar." He hoped he wasn't going to botch this by being too sly. "And when your lessons are over, you could stop in and see your friends in Kaeleer more easily."
"That's true," Jaenelle said slowly, considering. "That way, most of the time I'd only have to jump the Webs once instead of twice." Her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Or I can even use the Gates if you show me how to open them."
His mind didn't stumble. It went head over mental heels and landed in a heap. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was desert dry. "Quite so," he finally choked out. He definitely had to strangle her. Otherwise, he'd do himself an injury with the mental acrobatics required to translate the impossible into something reasonably probable. "Your lessons," he croaked, hoping, a bit hysterically, that this would be a safe subject.
Jaenelle beamed at him, and he sighed, defeated.
"When would you like to begin?"
Jaenelle thought about this. "It's getting late today. I'll be missed if I don't come to lunch." She wrinkled her nose. "I should see Lorn tomorrow. I haven't seen him in a while and he'll be worried."
He'll be worried! Saetan bit back a growl.
"The day after tomorrow? Wilhelmina has her lessons in the morning, so no one would really miss me before lunchtime."
"Done." He kissed the top of her head, led her to the front door of the Hall, and watched her vanish as she waved good-bye. He stayed long enough to make sure Helene was over any shock she might have had, left explicit instructions about conduct when Jaenelle arrived—particularly if she arrived without him—and made his way back to his private study in the Dark Realm.
Andulvar found him there a little later, pouring a very large brandy. The Eyrien's eyes narrowed when he noticed Saetan's shaking hands. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to get very drunk," Saetan replied calmly, taking a large swallow of brandy. "Care to join me?"
"Demons don't drink straight alcohol, and for that matter, neither should Guardians. Besides," Andulvar persisted as Saetan knocked back a second glass, "why do you want to get drunk?"
"Because I'll strangle her if I don't get drunk."