Tersa was sitting on the long table in front of the couch, next to a pile of wooden building blocks. Surreal crouched down beside her. “What were the memories for?” she asked quietly.

Tersa brushed her tangled hair away from her face. “To feed the web of dreams. It was no longer complete. It had lived, it had grown.”

“But she’s gone!” Morghann wailed.

“The Queen is gone,” Tersa said with some heat. “Is that all she was to you?”

“No,” Karla said. “She was Jaenelle. That was enough.”

“Exactly,” Tersa said. “It is still enough.”

Surreal jolted, hardly daring to hope. She touched Tersa’s hand, waited until she was sure she had the woman’s attention. “The Queen is gone, but Jaenelle isn’t?”

Tersa hesitated. “It’s too soon to know. But the triangle kept the dream from returning to the Darkness, and now the kindred are fighting to hold the dream to the flesh.”

That brought protests from Gabrielle and Karla.

“Wait a minute,” Gabrielle said, glancing at Karla, who nodded. “If Jaenelle is hurt and needs a Healer, she should have us.”

“No,” Tersa said, her anger breaking free. “She should not have you. You could not look at what was done to that flesh and believe it could still live. But the kindred do not doubt. The kindred will not believe anything else. That is why, if it can be done, they are the ones who can do it.” She jumped up and ran out of the room.

Surreal waited a moment, then followed. She didn’t find Tersa, but she found Graysfang hovering nearby, whining anxiously.

She studied the wolf. Kindred do not doubt. They would sink in and fight for that dream with fangs and claws and never give it up. Well, she would never have a snout that could smell tracks, but she could damn well learn how to be as stubborn as a wolf. She would sink her teeth into the belief that Jaenelle was simply recovering somewhere private after performing an extremely difficult spell. She would sink in and hold on to that.

For Jaenelle’s sake.

For Daemon’s sake.

And for her own sake, because she wanted her friend to come back.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

1 / Kaeleer

Daemon walked down the steps that led to the garden in the Hall, the garden that had two statues.

When he woke up from the sedative Surreal and Saetan had given him, he had asked to leave the Keep. They had gone with him. So had Tersa.

Lucivar hadn’t.

That had been a week ago.

He wasn’t sure what he’d done during the days since. They had simply passed. And at night…