Daemon quickly slipped out of the robe and slipped into the massive bed. No wonder she had offered to let him stay there. The bed was so big she would never notice another occupant.

A minute later, she got into bed, keeping well to her side of it. As she turned off the candle-light, she murmured, “Good night, Daemon.”

He lay in the dark a long time listening to her breathe, certain that, like him, she wasn’t asleep.

Eventually, the warm bed, the murmur of the fountain in the garden below, and the scent of whatever soap or perfume she used lulled him into a deep sleep.

The quiet, almost furtive sounds roused him.

Daemon opened his eyes.

Darkness. Swirling mist.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he looked around and saw her standing next to the altar. The golden mane that wasn’t quite hair and wasn’t quite fur. The delicately pointed ears. The thin stripe of fur that ran down her spine to the fawn tail that flicked over her buttocks. The human legs that ended in hooves. The hands that had sheathed claws.

Witch. The living myth. Dreams made flesh.

He was back in the misty place, deep in the abyss. The place where…

He rose slowly. Moving carefully so that he wouldn’t startle her, he walked around the altar until he was standing across from her.

On the altar was a crystal chalice laced with hairline cracks. As he silently watched, she picked up a sliver of crystal and slipped it into place.

Something shifted inside him. Looking more intently at the chalice, he realized it was his own shattered mind.

He noticed three other tiny fragments. As he reached for one, she slapped his hand.

“Do you have any idea how much searching I had to do to find these?” she snarled at him.

She turned the chalice, slipped another tiny sliver into place.

The mist swirled, danced, spun.

Falling, falling, falling into the abyss. His mind shattering. Waking up in the misty place. Seeing Jaenelle as Witch for the first time as she pieced his crystal chalice back together.

Another sliver slipped into place.

A narrow bed with straps to bind hands and feet—the bed from Briarwood. A sumptuous bed with silk sheets. A seductive trap made of love and lies and truth—a trap to save a child. The Sadist whispering that she would take the bait because he, in all his male sexual glory, was the bait.

The last sliver was slipped into place.

Re-forming the psychic link with Saetan after he had persuaded Jaenelle to ascend to the level of the Red Jewels. The two of them forcing her to heal her own torn, bleeding body. Jaenelle’s panic when the males from Briarwood started fighting the defenses Surreal had created in the corridors leading to the Altar. Cassandra opening the Gate between the Realms and taking Jaenelle away.