Then the link was gone, and he was standing on air, alone, with Jaenelle watching him, her eyes shining with pride and pleasure. When he lowered himself to the ground with a graceful flourish, she clapped her hands in delight.

Daemon opened his arms. Jaenelle skated to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her tightly, his face buried in her hair. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Daemon.” Her voice was a lovely, sensuous caress.

Holding her so close, with his lips so near her neck, he didn’t want to let her go, but caution finally won over desire.

He didn’t push her away. Rather, he gently held her shoulders and stepped back. “We’d better get back before someone comes looking.”

Jaenelle’s happy glow dimmed. She carelessly dropped to the ground. “Yes.” She looked at the bed of witchblood. “Yes.” She walked out of the alcove, not waiting for him.

Daemon stayed for another minute. Better not to come in together. Better not to make it obvious. To keep her safe, he had to be careful.

He glanced at the witchblood and bolted from the alcove. As he glided along the garden paths, his face settled into its familiar cold mask, the happiness he’d felt a few minutes before honing the blade of his temper so sharp he could have made the air bleed.

If you sing to them correctly, they’ll tell you the names of the ones who are gone.

Everything has a price.

Whatever the price, whatever he had to do, he would make sure one of those plants wasn’t for her.

3 / Terreille

Daemon pulled the bright, deep-red sweater over his head and adjusted the collar of the gold-and-white-checked shirt. Satisfied, he studied his reflection. His eyes were butter melted by humor and good spirits, his face subtly altered by the relaxed, boyish grin. The change in his appearance startled him, but after a moment he just shook his head and brushed his hair.

The difference was Jaenelle and the incalculable ways she worried, intrigued, fascinated, incensed, and delighted him. More than that, now, when he was so long past it, she was giving him—the bored, jaded Sadist—a childhood. She colored the days with magic and wonder, and all the things he’d ceased to pay attention to he saw again new.

He grinned at his reflection. He felt like a twelve-year-old. No, not twelve. He was at least a sophisticated fourteen. Still young enough to play with a girl as a friend, yet old enough to contemplate the day he might sneak his first kiss.

Daemon shrugged into his coat, went into the kitchen, pinched a couple of apples from the basket, sent Cook a broad wink, and gave himself up to a morning with Jaenelle.

The garden was buried under several inches of dry snow that puffed around his legs like flour. He followed the smaller footprints that walked, hopped, skipped, and leaped along the path. When he reached the small bend that mostly took him out of sight of anyone looking out the upper windows of the house, the footprints disappeared.