The Queen's Price

TEN

The next morning Daemon made his way to the Hall’s private library—the library his father had created to preserve books and journals about the history of Kaeleer’s Territories as well as books about Craft that required intense skill. Unlike borrowing a book from the fiction libraries available to guests and staff, or the library that held nonfiction about a variety of subjects, borrowing a book from this room required his permission—or Beale’s if he wasn’t in residence.

It was a good bet that some of the notebooks Jaenelle and the coven filled with their various work would be tucked in here for safekeeping.

Except for Mrs. Beale and her staff, every single person at the Hall—including the Scelties—was assigned to watch a room or assist in this hunt in some way. Beale was watching his study. Holt was acting as a runner and collector of notebooks and was currently positioned within shouting distance of the private library.

He’d read through some of Jaenelle’s notebook last night. She’d been an adolescent when she’d worked on the Craft written in that book. Some things were staggering in their simple brilliance—simple for a person who could draw from an unfathomable well of power. Other bits of Craft were simply staggering, and he had no idea, none at all, how she had combined the various items she had used in order to do what she had done.

He did know that so much of what Jaenelle had created was beyond his skill, let alone what Zoey and the other youngsters currently living at the Hall could safely and successfully achieve. Which made him appreciate the need for getting those notebooks away from everyone who didn’t have the strength or training to deal with what could come out of those spells.

*Are we ready?* Daemon asked Holt.

*We’re ready.*

Holding Jaenelle’s notebook in one hand and the summoning web in the other, Daemon engaged the spell, staying tightly focused on summoning the notebooks that had belonged to Jaenelle, the coven, and the boyos who had lived at the Hall.

Books on several shelves started to move, as if something was trying to push them out of the way while the spell in the summoning web rolled through the Hall.

The summoning went on for a minute, maybe two, because he’d guessed that it would take a while to reach the farthest ends of the Hall. During that time, he kept watch on the books being pushed closer to the ends of the shelves.

Then . . .

“Prince!” Holt shouted. “Stop! Stop!”

Daemon disengaged the summoning web and heard the flutter of paper before everything quieted.

Holt burst into the room.

“What’s wrong?” Daemon demanded.

“Beale said the overhead shelves in the storage room connected to your study must contain a lot of those notebooks. He heard some banging and crashing behind the door, as if something was trying to escape. And there must have been some loose papers in with the rest, because those managed to slip under the door and tried to get out of the study. Beale put a shield on the study door before any of the papers bolted.”

Daemon tried to clear the tickle out of his throat. Damn tickle. “Anyone else find any notebooks?”

“The men residing in the protectors’ square of rooms captured a few,” Holt said. “Stands to reason, since that square of rooms was used by the boyos when they lived at the Hall. I gather the Scelties wrestled a few notebooks into submission, so those might be a bit chewed.”

“Lovely,” Daemon murmured.

Holt hesitated. “One of the girls tried to vanish one of the notebooks, but Helene was also watching that room and put a shield on the notebook and prevented that.”

He could guess which girl had tried to take what wasn’t hers.

“That one is going to be trouble, Sadi,” Karla had said. “Watch her—and be glad she’s not a Queen.”

Alvita wasn’t a natural Black Widow, or a natural Healer either. He hadn’t decided yet if she truly wasn’t skilled in Craft—Hell’s fire, Breen was still a puppy and was better at air walking and creating witchlight than this girl—or if it was a ruse so that he would spend more time working with her than with the other girls.

She already had two marks against her for inappropriate displays of her body. Since she wasn’t close to being old enough to have her Virgin Night, he wondered if she simply couldn’t handle being around males—especially him and Daemonar.

“I’ll gather the notebooks in this room,” Daemon said. “You, Helene, and some of the senior staff should confiscate the rest and bring them to my study.”

“Yes, sir.”

When he returned to his study, he found Beale listening for whatever was behind the storage room door.

“Haven’t heard anything since the summoning stopped,” Beale said.

Daemon released a slow breath. “Then open the door.”

Beale had to lean against the door to shove the notebooks out of the way in order to look into the room. “Mother Night.”

“And may the Darkness be merciful,” Daemon said, looking over Beale’s shoulder. He stepped back and Beale closed the door before Holt and other members of the Hall’s staff brought in what the summoning spell had revealed.

Considering the number of notebooks Saetan had found over the years and had already stored out of reach, the number that had still been stuffed in various bookshelves was impressive, in an unnerving sort of way.

“Is that it?” Daemon asked Holt and Beale after they’d made an effort to sort the notebooks by the handwriting on the first pages. At least the boyos had written their names on the first pages—most of the time—but the coven had used just an initial when they identified a notebook at all, and he couldn’t tell if a notebook had belonged to Karla or Kalush, Grizande or Gabrielle. Since Karla and Gabrielle were Black Widows and Healers as well as Queens, knowing who had worked on those spells was important.

“Yes, Prince, I believe . . . ,” Beale began.

Daemonar walked into the study, holding one of the young Scelties, who had a notebook between his teeth.

“It was the only way to bring it to you intact,” Daemonar said.

Daemon smiled at the Sceltie, who gave Daemonar’s hip an enthusiastic thumping with his tail. “Thank you for bringing this to me.”

For a moment Daemon wondered if the young Warlord was going to relinquish his prize, but the dog was happy to be praised and, with only a little reluctance, released the notebook when Daemon took hold of the other end.

“Mikal says the Scelties should have some playtime and a treat for doing a good job of helping round up the notebooks,” Daemonar said.

More enthusiastic tail thumping.

“Excellent suggestion,” Daemon agreed. “Why don’t you, Mikal, and any other youngsters who are interested take care of that?”

“Yes, sir.” Daemonar gave him an assessing look before leaving the room.

“Are you thinking that more than one youngster tried to hold on to a notebook?” Holt asked.

“I’m thinking that someone who hasn’t been around them for very long doesn’t appreciate how keen a Sceltie’s hearing is or how much a dog understands when humans are revealing secrets.”

“Well,” Holt said after a moment. “The kindred always were a good way of sorting who belonged at the Hall and who didn’t.”

Once Beale and Holt left to resume their normal duties, Daemon put Black shields around each stack of notebooks and took them into the storage room. Mindful of Karla’s comment that the notes the boyos had made might be useful to the boys currently in residence, he would look at those first. For now, he had the business of holding the leash on the Hall’s residents as well as ruling a Territory and reviewing reports about some of the family’s other estates.

But he wondered if the Scelties had already decided that someone didn’t belong.