Anne Bishop - Tangled Webs

Jaenelle hissed. “Power.”

“How…?” Daemon glanced at her. Her Jewel, which usually looked like Purple Dusk with streaks of the other colors of Jewels, now glowed Rose. She was at the lightest end of her range of power.

“There’s a hint of Blood in him,” she said. “He’s not pure landen.”

Damn it! “Does he have enough power to trap him in those spells?”

“Don’t know.” She paused, her attention focused on the boy.

“No. He’s not strong enough to do Craft, so he’s not strong enough to trigger the spells.”

Daemon held his breath anyway until the boy raced back through the gate, holding out a bundle tied with ribbons. Murmuring thanks, he took the bundle, then used Craft to put a knife-edge on his right index fingernail. As he cut the ribbons, Jaenelle created a globe of witchlight.

«That’s not the most practical light,» Daemon said, glancing at the globe that was a swirling rainbow of colors.

«It serves the purpose,» Jaenelle replied with a touch of tart sweetness.

A glance at the boy, whose eyes were wide with delight. Daemon offered no other comments as he unwrapped the handkerchief and vanished it. When he held a piece of paper in one hand and a paperweight in the other, the globe changed to a soft white light.

The three of them stared at the paperweight—and then watched the illusion spell change a dead, slightly squashed baby mouse trapped in solid glass into a creature pounding on a glass globe while squeaking for help.

Daemon stared at the globe. There was something grotesquely fascinating about the spell, something that appealed to a part of him he was sure was not appropriately adult.

Daemonar probably would love watching the mousie. So would the wolf pups who lived at the eyrie. Marian, on the other hand, would most likely grab a mop and try to beat him to a pulp with it if he gave this little grotesquerie to her boy.

“The illusion must be triggered by the warmth of a person’s hand,” Jaenelle said. “It stays dormant until someone picks it up.”

“The confused Lady must have made that,” Yuli said. “The others weren’t nice, but she was.”

The boy’s words were a verbal knife in the gut.

“She talked to you?” Jaenelle asked.

Yuli nodded. “She said the spooky house was an entertainment, like Jaenelle was making. Something fun for children. A surprise for the boy.”

“A surprise for the boy,” Daemon murmured. He handed the paperweight to Yuli, then held the paper up so he and Jaenelle could read it.

Then he swore softly, savagely.

“Mother Night,” Jaenelle said, looking at the house. “It sounds like this entertainment has a few teeth and claws.”

“My apologies, Yuli,” Daemon said. “I neglected to finish the introductions. I’m Daemon Sadi, Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. This is my Lady, Jaenelle Angelline.”

Yuli’s jaw dropped. “The Lady ?”

Well, that told him where he stood in the pecking order. “Yes, the Lady.” He paused. “I have a favor to ask of you. I have some urgent business and must leave immediately. Will you keep the Lady company until I return?”

“Yes, sir!”

«You’re leaving a boy here to protect me?» Jaenelle asked.

«I’m giving him an excuse to stay with you—and the hamper of food Beale placed in the Coach. I figure by the time I get back, you’ll know everything this village knows about that house.» And everything the villagers might not want you to know about that orphans’ home and this boy in particular. «Besides, if I can’t warn him off in time, someone has to be here to stop Lucivar from going into that house.» And if you use that Witch tone of voice on him like you did on me, you’ll stop him in his tracks.

“All right, I’ll stay,” Jaenelle said. “And I welcome Yuli’s company.” «You’re going to talk to her?»

He gave her a light but lingering kiss, needing the feel of her. «Yes, I’m going to talk to her.»

The only thing they found of interest in the parlor across the hall was another poker that Rainier now carried as a weapon. No tricks or traps. At least, none that they triggered. No exits either.

Using the poker to hook back the lace curtain hanging over the window, Rainier studied the bricks that replaced the window’s view. As he let the curtain fall back into place, he said, “Seems odd to waste a room.”

“Too close to the starting point of the game?” Surreal replied. She’d been standing behind him, ready to help if the woman with the dagger-point nails appeared in the window like she’d done in the sitting room.

“We’re bored,” Trist said.

“We want to go home,” Dayle said.

“We don’t like this place,” Henn said.

She turned and walked over to the flock of idiot sheep, ignoring Rainier’s quiet warning. She stared at each of them. They stared back. Even Sage and Trout just stared.

Did they think they were immune to harm because they were children? They weren’t immune to anything. Especially harm.

“We’re trapped in here,” she said. “Someone played a nasty trick on all of us, and we’re trapped in here until we find one of the secret ways out. Until we get out, you do as you’re told. If we tell you to stay away from something, you stay away from it.”

“Why can’t you do your witch stuff to get us out?” Kester asked belligerently.

“We can’t. That’s part of the trap.”

“I guess the Blood aren’t so special after all,” Ginger said, glancing at Kester.

“If that’s what you think, why were you so eager to see this place?”

No answer. She didn’t expect one.

She looked at Rainier. “Let’s try the back rooms before going upstairs.” Which would also give her a little more time to recover from the backlash. If Rainier heard her puffing after she’d climbed one set of stairs, he’d know she still wasn’t breathing properly.

He joined her. “It would be easier to get everyone out if we’re still on the first floor—providing the exits are actually doors and windows that are meant to let us out of the house.”

“What else would they be?” Surreal asked.

“Exits from the game. What if ‘exit’ simply means the game ends and the spells go dormant so that doors and windows do work?”

“Then any kind of opening that a person could walk through—”

“Or crawl through,” Rainier said.

Oh, she didn’t want to think about that, not when the odds were good that any space that required crawling would also have something nasty waiting for them. “—or crawl through might be an exit.”

“Yeah.”

She considered the possibilities in the parlor again and shook her head. Nothing there. At least, nothing she could sense. Too bad she wasn’t interested in training to be a Black Widow, despite her interest in poisons. Maybe she could have…

“Hey,” she said. “Do you think a Black Widow would be able to feel more than we can? Would someone else from the Hourglass be able to see these spells or sense them? Or eliminate them?”

The arrested look on Rainier’s face told her he hadn’t considered that. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “A Black Widow might have been able to recognize where the spells were to avoid triggering them.”

“Then why—” She stopped and switched to a psychic thread. «If that’s the case, why would anyone invite Sadi?»

«We don’t know he was invited.» He shrugged when she just looked at him. «I don’t think there is anyone beyond Jaenelle’s friends and the Dhemlan Queens who know he’s a Black Widow. But I don’t see your point.»

«I’m wondering if whoever created this game counted on one of us being a Black Widow—or if he’d counted on none of his guests being part of the Hourglass. Are we missing things we should be seeing?»