The Queen's Price

THIRTY-SEVEN

*Puppy school, Saeti? We go to puppy school?*

Saetien buttoned up the long thick sweater and eyed Shelby’s wagging tail. She’d planned to go to the stables and work with Ryder and Kildare for a bit, maybe see if they’d let her ride one of the regular horses so that she could understand the difference between them and the kindred.

“I don’t know if we’re allowed to go to puppy school.”

*Why not?*

“I—”

He started whining—that particular pitch of whining that made it sound like his little heart was breaking because she wouldn’t allow him to do something.

She wouldn’t give in to that whine. She wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be good for him if she buckled and gave in.

Hell’s fire, had her father felt like this when she’d whined about not getting something she wanted? Where did an adult draw the line between buckling in order to stop that sound and compromising in a way that was reasonable?

Maybe she owed her father an apology for all the times she’d whined at him in an effort to get her own way. And maybe it was a good thing that he’d endured the whining and held the lines he’d drawn about proper behavior and following his rules.

“I’ll go down right now and see if I can catch Kieran before he starts his work,” she said quickly. “He’ll know if it’s proper for us to visit the puppy school.”

Shelby stopped whining and wagged his tail.

The Scelties had their meals in the kitchen, so Shelby headed in that direction, leaving Saetien to rush to the breakfast room on her own. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Kieran still at the table, talking to Kildare, Ryder, and Eileen.

“If you’re in that much of a rush to get to breakfast, people will think we aren’t feeding you enough at supper,” Eileen said, her voice filled with mild amusement.

“I wanted to catch Kieran,” Saetien said.

Kieran sipped his coffee. “Oh?”

“Shelby wants to visit the puppy school, but I wasn’t sure if that was permitted.” She said it fast. She wasn’t sure why, since Kieran didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave the table.

“Have you ever been to puppy school?” Kieran asked.

The question sounded innocent, but she noticed Kildare wouldn’t look at her, and Ryder seemed fascinated by the crumbs that were left on his plate. “Nooo.”

“Well, then, it will do you both some good to go there.” Kieran smiled at her. “Since I have to be out and about this morning, I can drop you off at the school. We’ll leave in half an hour.” He stood, gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, and left the breakfast room, chuckling.

She was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign for what she was about to do.

“Best get some food in you while you can,” Eileen said briskly, whisking Saetien’s plate off the table and going to the sideboard to fill it. “You’ll have a busy morning.”

“I will?”

Ryder began coughing loudly, then excused himself from the room.

The coughing sounded suspiciously like laughter.

Kildare carefully buttered a sweet roll before cutting it in half.

Saetien looked at Eileen when the woman put the full plate in front of her. She looked at Kildare, who wouldn’t look at her. “Is there something I should know about puppy school?”

“Some things are best learned for yourself,” Kildare said. Leaving the sweet roll, he excused himself.

“Eat up,” Eileen said, “or all the neighbors will know you’re late when Kieran starts hollering for you to hurry up. He takes after his father that way. When Kildare puts his mind to it, his voice can carry across all the pastures and fields when he’s looking for a wandering child.”

“Sometimes I used to think it would be fun to have an older brother,” Saetien muttered. Having met Ryder, she figured Mikal pretty much filled that spot. And then . . .

“Well, you’ve got a male cousin, don’t you? And him being Eyrien and a Warlord Prince, he’s probably well suited to being annoying and bossy like an older brother.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

“I know I’m late, but it’s not my fault,” Saetien said as she rushed toward where Kieran waited beside the pony cart. “Anya grabbed me and wouldn’t let me leave until she’d braided my hair properly.”

“You’ll thank me for it,” Anya had said.

Squeals. Stomps. And the small thunder of a stampede that Ryder stopped by throwing a shield across the open stable doors. Blocked by the shield, the handful of foals she’d played with yesterday stared at her, then squealed their demands for attention.

“Saeti and Shelby have to go to puppy school now,” Ryder said, raising his voice enough to be heard. “Saeti can play with you when they get back.”

Before she could give an opinion about that, Kieran boosted her into the pony cart and picked up Shelby. The moment he was seated, he told the Warlord pulling the cart to go.

“They won’t settle down for Ryder while you’re in sight,” he said, holding Shelby in his lap.

“I’m not sure . . .”

“Did you play with the foals yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Did you think they would forget?”

“I . . .” She hadn’t considered that an hour of play might get her into trouble.

“As a human adult, or close enough when compared to their age, you have to help Ryder maintain the rules. Otherwise, we’ll have an unruly bunch of youngsters who will be bigger and stronger than a lot of humans can handle by the time they’re old enough to receive their Birthright Jewels.”

“I don’t have to play with them if it will cause trouble.” More trouble.

Kieran just looked at her.

Saetien sighed. There had been foals born at the Hall. Hadn’t there? Maybe she hadn’t paid much attention since she couldn’t ride them? Or maybe she’d just admired them and petted them but somehow hadn’t become a playmate?

“Is there anything I should know about puppy school?” she asked.

“It’s an experience,” Kieran replied.

After an hour of puppy school, Saetien decided that Kieran could have been a little more forthcoming about the “experience” of having that many kindred Scelties in one place. There were human teachers, and adult Scelties who were also teachers. And then there were the other helping hands who were supposed to corral and occupy the fuzz balls who were waiting their turn at a lesson or had finished a lesson.

If she stayed on her feet, the puppies, who had not yet absorbed the necessity of basic manners, scratched at her legs, clamoring to be petted or held or brushed or some combination of those things. If she sat on the floor to accommodate a pile of puppies in her lap, the ones standing behind her grabbed her braid and began an invigorating game of tug. When she’d finally rescued her hair, she stuffed it under her sweater—which, of course, was the hiding game, and the puppies who had learned to air walk clung to her shoulders while they grabbed the part of the braid they could see in order to pull the prize out of its hiding place.

Shelby was delighted with the lessons, delighted with the games, delighted to be around other puppies.

The teachers were delighted to have another human to help with the teaching games—although the female teachers suggested that she put her hair up tomorrow so that it wouldn’t be mistaken for a toy.

Was she really coming back tomorrow?

The pony cart, minus Kieran, waited for her when she walked out of the school.

“Home,” she told the Warlord. “Please.”

Since there were no reins on a vehicle pulled by one of the kindred, she let the Warlord take care of getting them home and closed her eyes. Just for a minute. Surely only a minute. Except the next thing she knew, Kildare was giving her a little shake.

Saetien opened her eyes.

Squeal. Stomp. Small thunder up to the paddock fence.

A handful of foals stared at her.

Kildare helped her down and smiled. “You’ll build up stamina. But if you’re seeing Butler this evening, you might want to have a little sleep after the midday meal.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Remembering that Ryder had promised the foals that she would play with them on her return, Saetien removed her sweater and vanished it as she walked to the paddock, where she would be the only two-legged contestant in the races.

“You said Surreal helped my father escape the guards who were hunting for him,” Saetien said. “What happened to him after that?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Butler replied.

“Why? I’m asking you.”

They were standing on either side of the gate in the picket fence. She wondered why he didn’t invite her inside. She wondered if, unlike the outside, which looked well maintained—if you didn’t look too closely at the flower beds—the inside of the cottage was a decaying mess. After all, he’d been living there for a long time.

Then again, her family had been living at SaDiablo Hall for a very long time, and no one could say any room in that huge place was untidy, let alone a mess.

No one would dare—at least not in Helene’s hearing.

“I don’t know your father’s story,” Butler said. “I don’t know what happened to him between the last night that he saw Jaenelle and when he arrived in Kaeleer thirteen years later. Besides, we’re not here to talk about your father.”

How much of her father’s past—and Uncle Lucivar’s—would she know if she’d listened to the stories they’d shared during family gatherings?

“Why did Wilhelmina come to Kaeleer?” Maybe it wasn’t the right question to ask next, since, like Daemon Sadi, Wilhelmina didn’t arrive in Kaeleer until thirteen years after the night her sister was taken away for the last time.

“Whenever she was afraid, whenever she felt threatened, she would hold on to that Sapphire Jewel and hear Jaenelle’s voice telling her to come to Kaeleer, telling her she would be safe in Kaeleer. There weren’t many in Terreille who knew how to open the Gates between the Realms, so she might not have known how to reach the Shadow Realm. She could have gone to Ebon Askavi and asked for sanctuary. The ones who look after the Keep in Terreille would have opened the Gate there and escorted her to the Keep in Kaeleer. For whatever reason, she didn’t attempt to reach the Shadow Realm until the last service fair.”

“Did she feel threatened living with her family?”

“Yes.” Butler stared at something in the distance. A physical distance, or the distance of time and memory? “One of Jaenelle’s friends in Briarwood urged her to create a trap for the uncles—the men who used that place for sex and other gratifications they couldn’t afford to indulge in elsewhere—a trap that would be sprung if Jaenelle’s blood was spilled.”

A room and a bed. And blood. So much blood.

“And that’s what Jaenelle did. She wove a tangled web that took in Briarwood, was Briarwood. She included her friends—both the ghosts and the demon-dead—and she created the pretty poison. To each was given what he gave. That became the price of Briarwood.

“The last time Jaenelle was taken to that place, she was raped by a man named Greer, who was Dorothea SaDiablo’s favorite assassin—until Surreal found him in Briarwood and slit his throat.”

The first time she had walked through Briarwood, she’d seen the moment when Surreal killed that man.

“I bet Rose was the one who talked Jaenelle into making that trap,” she muttered. Rose had been her sharp-tongued, unsympathetic guide when she’d seen Briarwood.

“Yes,” Butler snapped, “she was.”

She didn’t know how, but she’d just stepped onto dangerous ground.

After a moment, Butler said, “There was some justice to Surreal being Greer’s executioner, since Greer had killed her mother when Surreal was twelve. Slit Titian’s throat.” Butler’s eyes held a strange glitter. “Titian made the transition to demon-dead and became the Queen of the Harpies. She had no use for men except as prey, but she did respect Daemon because he was Tersa’s son and he had helped her and Surreal, and she allied herself with Saetan to protect Jaenelle. If you were a man, even someone who served in the Dark Court, you needed to be very careful if you crossed paths with Titian.”

Was her cousin Titian named in honor of Surreal’s mother, just as she’d been named for . . .

“What does all that have to do with Wilhelmina feeling threatened?”

“That night the trap was sprung, and Briarwood caught every man who used that place. It took a while for the uncles to understand that the relentless pain and nightmares of being tortured and raped, of feeling hands or legs being cut off, of feeling the terror and slow death caused by suffocation after someone walled them into an alcove specially made for such a punishment . . . It took a while for them to realize that they were feeling everything the children had felt—because there were a few boys there too. They wouldn’t admit the truth, so all of those men from the important aristo houses sought out Healers. But the Healers couldn’t find anything wrong with the men, had no explanation for the pain that was slowly consuming those men.” Butler’s smile had a nasty edge. “There is no cure for Briarwood. Some of those men tried to seek relief from the pain by choosing the physical death, but they couldn’t succeed until they had paid the debt they owed. Then their bodies could die. But they hadn’t known that the High Lord of Hell would be very interested in them once they made the transition to demon-dead. Saetan found out a great deal about Briarwood. More than Jaenelle would ever want him to know. But she had nightmares about that place all her life, and she sometimes talked in her sleep, so Saetan wasn’t the only one who learned the truth about Briarwood.”

Marjane. Myrol and Rebecca. Dannie. Rose. When she’d walked through the memory of Briarwood, had she seen any of the girls who had been walled in? Or had Witch spared her that much?

“Some of the uncles believed that having sex with a virgin would cure them,” Butler continued after a minute. “Being one of the afflicted, Robert Benedict—or Uncle Bobby, as Jaenelle had called him—targeted Wilhelmina to be his cure. Philip Alexander intervened when he was home, but he was often absent while escorting Leland or Alexandra, which left Wilhelmina vulnerable. When she gathered the courage to tell Alexandra that Robert was trying to force himself on her, the Queen of Chaillot refused to believe her. She was making things up, trying to cause trouble by telling tales. Like her sister had done before she disappeared.

“Wilhelmina ran away, went into hiding with the help of a stable lad named Andrew who, at some point, lost an eye while trying to protect her. There was some speculation that Philip had found her, but he denied it, finally trying to do the right thing for one of his girls. No one had any news about Wilhelmina until she showed up in Kaeleer. And the person who made that discovery and broke that news to Alexandra was Dorothea SaDiablo.”

“Why would Dorothea care about Wilhelmina?” Saetien asked.

“She didn’t. But shortly before that last service fair, Daemon Sadi showed the most powerful and uncorrupted witches in Chaillot the truth about Briarwood, and Alexandra was about to be unseated as the Territory Queen because many of those powerful witches had lost young relatives in that place. When Alexandra learned that Wilhelmina was in Kaeleer and being controlled by a Warlord Prince who also controlled an eccentric girl who was strangely powerful, she had to go to the Shadow Realm to find her granddaughters, didn’t she? She thought, being a Queen, she was Dorothea’s ally, but in truth, she was the High Priestess of Hayll’s pawn—and she played her part well.”

Butler took a step back. “That’s enough for tonight.”

Nowhere near enough, but her head was swimming with the images from this recounting of Wilhelmina’s life. And while she didn’t think telling her this story was easy for Butler, she had a feeling that they were coming to parts that would be . . . difficult.

“See you tomorrow night,” she said.

“Yes.”

It felt rude just to leave. “What do you do at night?”

He gave her an odd look. “I’m sorting out my affairs. My time here is almost done.”

As she walked down the lane to where Kieran waited with the pony cart, she imagined a giant hourglass slowly turning and the sand whispering Almost done as it fell.

Why almost done? And where would Butler go?