The Queen's Price

SEVENTY-FIVE

Saetien followed Butler into his study and wondered why they were going to have the lesson in that room. For the past couple of weeks, they’d been in either the kitchen or the sitting room—or outside if she was trying a bit of Craft that had the potential to blow up.

“For tonight’s lesson, I thought—” she began.

“You would help me with this paperwork,” Butler finished. “I’ve already contacted Lady Eileen and told her we’d be working for several hours and she shouldn’t hold supper for you.”

Saetien blinked. “I’m not getting any supper?”

“There is a casserole in the cold box, along with fruits and cheeses. When you get hungry, you can heat up a piece of the casserole, either using a warming spell or putting it in the oven.”

“All right.” She hadn’t been invited into the study before, so she looked around, interested to discover what Butler might keep in a room seen by few visitors. The picture of a girl, set in an oval frame, caught—and held—her attention. Where had she seen . . . ?

She must have made some movement that drew Butler’s gaze, had him focusing on what had caught her attention.

The picture vanished. The look in Butler’s eyes warned her that whatever connection he had to the girl was painful and private—and she remembered him saying he and someone else had been unwanted children. Was the girl the someone else?

She wanted to ask, wanted to know. But her curiosity was smothered by his pain. Whatever had happened, it must have been long ago. And yet he still grieved for the girl.

She approached the table stacked with papers and said briskly, “What are those?”

Butler gave her a long look, as if trying to measure something. “When Lady Fiona’s health began to fail, she needed some help around the cottage. Specifically, she needed someone to handle the business side of her writing so that she could spend her time writing her stories. Since I was looking to settle down, I was offered the assignment. When Fiona’s body died and she made the transition to demon-dead, she still had a couple of Tracker and Shadow books she wanted to write. She remained in the cottage and wrote after sundown while I took care of the daylight tasks. When she’d completed the second book, she went to Hell and resided there for several more years before becoming a whisper in the Darkness. I was given use of the cottage as part of my wages for being her business manager. Fiona thought people would lose interest in the Tracker and Shadow stories, and the assignment wouldn’t last more than a few years.”

“Wherever Scelties live, people will keep reading the books,” Saetien said.

“Exactly,” he replied dryly. “Which means I’m still managing business generated by Fiona’s books. But it’s time to put my affairs in order, and I want to make it as easy as possible for my successor.”

She felt a rush of panic. “What do you mean, it’s time to put your affairs in order? Why?”

“I’m old, child.” Butler smiled. “I’ve walked among the living long enough. I informed the Queen and the High Lord of my decision months ago. I just need to find the right person to take over the cottage and the work.”

Don’t leave me. She wouldn’t say that. She wouldn’t be that selfish, not when he’d already given her so much of his time to find answers she needed instead of doing the work that would allow him to cut his last ties with the living.

“All right,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

After a couple of late nights, Saetien stopped going back to Kieran’s house to sleep. Butler opened up the large bedroom with attached bathroom that had been Fiona’s private space, and Saetien settled in, carrying her laundry back and forth every day until Eileen suggested that she bring a few days’ worth of clothes to the cottage.

In the mornings, she still went to puppy school with Shelby, who now had his own comfy bed in the cottage. After puppy school, she still met up with Caitie to play with the foals and receive Craft lessons from Eileen and Anya and anyone else who had Kieran’s approval to teach the girls the particular bit of Craft they wanted to learn.

In the afternoons she worked in the garden, more determined than ever to get it tidied up for whoever would take over the cottage. And at night, she and Butler worked on sorting through decades of contracts and other papers connected with Fiona’s books.

Her father’s publishing house had bought the rights to publish and sell illustrated editions of Fiona’s books in Dhemlan and Askavi. Of course the deal would be for both Territories. Daemon and Lucivar didn’t allow anyone or anything to draw a line between them. Not even a book.

“There is a village dance tomorrow evening,” Butler said. “You should go.”

“We have work,” Saetien protested.

“You also have a life.”

“I’ll go if you go. You have a life too.” For a while longer.

Butler hesitated. “I’ll think about it.”

Butler slipped inside the community hall. He’d been firm about Saetien going home and getting some rest so that she wouldn’t be too tired to enjoy the dance. He couldn’t be sure she’d followed his instructions—after all, he wasn’t awake during the daylight hours—but she hadn’t been at the cottage when he rose.

It had felt empty. He had felt empty.

He hadn’t been to a dance in . . . Well, the last time he’d attended a village dance he’d obliged Kieran’s great-grandmother by being her partner for a couple of country dances, and that was before the woman had married. Little by little he’d pulled away from the living, like he was watching a world full of colors fade to gray.

It was full of colors again, and that hurt in some ways. And yet, watching Saetien and her partner take their places for the next dance, he wouldn’t have made another choice. Bright, shining child with so much intelligence and fire. She just needed a chance, needed to pour her heart and energy into something more than formal teaching and aristo customs.

Saetien made her way over to him, her eyes sparking with mischief. “May I have this dance, Prince Butler? It’s a slow one.”

“Not this time.” He saw disappointment replace good humor, but he didn’t change his intentions. He walked over to Caitie and bowed. “Lady? May I have this dance?”

Caitie’s brain might be improving, but her leg never would. She was enjoying the gathering of people, but she couldn’t participate in the energetic dances. This one? He kept her on the edge of the dance area, adjusting the steps to accommodate her bad leg.

As they made a turn, he looked at Saetien. No need to say anything. She absorbed this lesson too. And seeing the pleasure and understanding in her eyes when she looked at Caitie helped him make a decision.

It took another week of afternoons to finish weeding the rest of the cottage’s gardens and put in the new plants. Looking at what she’d accomplished, Saetien felt a bittersweet pride. She hoped whoever took over the cottage loved the gardens enough to tend them. They were hers for a little while, and having them had shown her that she needed to take care of places and people—furry and otherwise—in order to fill an empty space in her heart and in her life.

Butler’s personal possessions were packed—at least the ones he hadn’t given away. For a man who had lived so long, he wasn’t leaving much behind.

Except her. He was leaving her behind, and it surprised her how much that hurt.

Saetien stared at the paper in her hands, then stared at Butler. “You don’t mean this.”

“I do,” he replied.

“But I can’t do this!”

“You can. Yes, you are young and still have some growing up to do. But you can do this, Saetien.”

“You appointed me your successor for managing Fiona’s books.”

“Yes. And having the cottage is part of the deal.” Butler smiled. “I’ve talked to the staff at Angelline House. Since they would prefer to earn their keep, the cook said she’ll come up a few times a week and fix some meals that you can heat up and eat when you please, and the housekeeper said she would send a couple of maids twice a week to clean and take care of laundry. I’m assuming you wouldn’t want to do those things on your own all the time.”

“But . . . From Angelline House?” What would her father say about her settling in Maghre? “Does my father know?”

“I can’t tell him anything until I have your answer.”

Saetien read the paper again. A challenge. A responsibility. Something of her own. She wanted this, but . . . “If I do this, there’s still so much I need to learn.”

“Your father owns a publishing house. He can help you.”

No, he can’t. Not because he wouldn’t but because she couldn’t let him. Not yet.

Panic. And an odd feeling of setting her heels down and preparing to fight. “In order to do this, I’m going to need your help awhile longer. Your help, no one else’s.”

Butler gave her an odd look. “Why? Your father—”

“Whenever he tells me things, they feel so big, I can’t hear him. But I can hear you. When you tell me things, they make sense.”

Butler let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, he’ll be thrilled to hear that.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, uncertain what to say or do. She wanted Butler to stay, but she didn’t want her father to think he was inadequate in some way. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Do you have to tell him?”

“He is the High Lord, child. I am demon-dead. Yes, I have to tell him.”

“Oh.”

“But I think I can phrase it in such a way that he can accept it.” Butler sighed. “The decision to stay is no longer mine alone, but if that’s what you want, I will ask the Queen and the High Lord for their permission to stay in Maghre awhile longer. However . . .” He hesitated. Looked uneasy. “Before I go to Ebon Askavi and make that request, there is one thing you need to know about me.”

“What is that?”

“The connection between Jaenelle Angelline and me. The reason she helped me when I first came to Kaeleer—and continued to help me. The reason she shared some things about what happened to her during and after the purge that she never shared with anyone else, not even the man she loved—and still loves. It’s the reason Jaenelle and I have been friends for all these years.”

Saetien wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. “What reason?”

Butler called in an oval frame and held it out to her.

The picture of the girl, the beginning of a smile lifting her lips as if someone she loved had just walked into the room.

She hadn’t seen this girl smile when they had walked through Briarwood. She’d seen the anger and the slit throat—and the blood.

Saetien looked at Butler.

He said quietly, “Rose was my sister.”