Daemon laughed hysterically as tears rolled down his face.

He had accepted that Witch was a child, but he hadn’t been prepared for his reaction when he finally saw her. He could take some comfort that he didn’t want the child’s body, but the hunger he felt for what lived inside that body scared him. The thought of being sent to another court where he couldn’t see her at all scared him even more.

But it had been decades since he’d served in a court for more than a year. How was he going to keep this dance going until she was old enough to accept his surrender?

And how was he going to survive if he didn’t stay?

2 / Terreille

Early the next morning Daemon staggered to the kitchen, his eyes hot and gritty from a sleepless night, his stomach aching from hunger. After leaving the library yesterday afternoon, he’d stayed in his room, unwilling to have dinner with the family and unwilling to meet anyone if he slipped down to the kitchen for something to eat.

As he reached the kitchen, the muffled giggles immediately stopped as two very different pairs of blue eyes watched him approach. Cook, looking happier than he’d ever seen her, gave him a warm greeting and told him the coffee was almost ready.

Moving cautiously, as though approaching something young and wild, Daemon sat down at one end of the kitchen table, on Jaenelle’s left. With a pang of regret, he looked at the remains of a formidable breakfast and the one nutcake left on a plate.

There was an awkward moment of silence before Jaenelle leaned over and whispered something to Wilhelmina, Wilhelmina whispered something back, and the giggling started again.

Daemon reached for the nutcake, but, without looking, Jaenelle took it. She was just about to bite into it when Cook put the mug of coffee on the table and gasped.

“Now what’s the Prince going to do for a breakfast, I ask you?” she demanded, but her eyes glowed with pride at the empty plates.

Jaenelle looked at the nutcake, reluctantly put it back on the plate, and edged the plate toward Daemon.

“It’s all right,” Daemon said mildly, looking directly at Cook. “I’m really not hungry.”

Cook opened her mouth in astonishment, closed it again with a click of her teeth, and went back to her worktable, shaking her head.

He felt a warmth in his cheeks for telling so benign a white lie while those sapphire eyes studied him, so he concentrated on his coffee, avoiding her gaze.

Jaenelle broke the nutcake in half, handing him one half in a gesture that was no less a command for being unspoken, and began to eat the other half.

“You don’t want to get yourself too stuffed during the day, you know,” Cook said pleasantly as she puttered at her worktable. “We’re having leg for dinner.”

Daemon looked up, startled, as the nutcake Jaenelle was holding dropped to the table. He had never seen anyone go so deathly pale. Her eyes, enormous unblinking pools, stared straight ahead. Her throat worked convulsively.