She looked pale, and that confirmed his own suspicion. And the worry that went hand in hand with that suspicion.

“I’ll get packed,” she said.

He went back to his study and reviewed the information with the Warlord again but didn’t learn more than he had gleaned the first time. Leaving the man in Beale’s care, he returned to his suite and took a quick shower before getting dressed.

The sun—that lazy bastard—was just beginning to think about dawdling its way to the eastern horizon when he tucked the lightly sedated Warlord into the back of the Coach with Holt and took a seat in the driver’s compartment.

Jaenelle hovered in the doorway between the two compartments, frowning at the large urn of coffee Beale had put in the Coach, along with a variety of foods to provide them with a cold but substantial breakfast.

Daemon lifted the Coach off the landing web, then caught the Black Wind and headed for the house of the aristo Warlord and his wife.

“An urn of coffee?” Jaenelle said. “Riding on the Black, it won’t take that long to reach Rhea’s Province and that Warlord’s house. Why would Beale give us that much coffee?”

He knew better. He really did. But he tucked his tongue firmly in one cheek and said as casually as possible, “I guess he wanted to make sure I would get a cup with my breakfast.”

He felt her sapphire eyes fix on a spot between his shoulder blades, and he really wanted to twitch.

Finally she growled, “Drive the damn Coach.”

He waited until he was sure she was occupied with fixing a plate of food before he allowed himself to grin.

And he did, eventually, get a cup of coffee with his breakfast.

Standing in the hallway beside Jaenelle, Daemon looked at the bedroom and the body—and swallowed hard.

It wasn’t the blood. There had been times when he had drowned rooms in blood, so the sight of a sodden carpet and smears on the walls and furniture didn’t bother him.

And it wasn’t the body, which, from the shoulders down, looked relaxed, as if she’d fallen asleep on the floor.

It was the rage—the cold, dark, glittering rage—that made him shiver. It filled the room and yet felt elusive, wispy. As if it could be brushed aside. And there was something more in that rage, some quality to it that he knew he should recognize.

“Mother Night,” Jaenelle said softly.

“And may the Darkness be merciful,” Daemon added.

“She came upstairs early, said she was tired,” Lord Collyn, the aristo who owned the house, said. There was a bitterness in his voice, in his eyes. “She often got tired at house parties and went to bed earlier than the other guests.”

“This wasn’t her room?” Jaenelle asked.