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“It’s gone,” Rozurial said, stepping out of whatever twilight zone he’d been in and offering me his hand.
For once, I accepted, wearily struggling to my feet. The light had left me feeling weak. I didn’t even want to think about what it might have done if I’d been standing out in the open. Delilah moaned, and we helped her up, but she was having trouble standing.
“It was the same one . . . the demon that attacked me in the club,” she said when she was able to speak. “I could feel it trying to get inside my head. I think it has some sort of homing tail on me. There was a weird sense of connection there.” She rubbed her temples. “Damn, I have a massive headache.”
“How the hell did it find you?” I asked. “And if the demon was the threat that broke our wards, then that man—”
“Was sent here from Y’Elestrial, all right, but from Queen Tanaquar,” Camille said, stalking over to glare at me. “We managed to hogtie the assistant to the chief advisor of the Court and Crown. And boy, is he pissed.”
CHAPTER 12
The chief advisor of the Court and Crown was our father, and so the man tied up in the shed was . . . our father’s assistant.
“Oh shit!” Since I’d been the one to coldcock him, I raced on ahead to explain. Father was going to be so pissed at us, and me especially. He’d always been on my back to think things through, to find all the facts I could before acting. Even as a child, I’d been impulsive, if introverted.
I skidded into the studio to find the man sitting on the sofa, arms folded across his chest. He stared at me, anger dripping off him like icicles off the eaves on a cold winter morning.
Camille had untied him, but I had the feeling that wouldn’t exactly make up for the lump on his head or the rope burns that were showing on his wrists. I’d made sure he couldn’t get out of the knots.
Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit. Sometimes we made mistakes; sometimes someone got roughed up who shouldn’t have, but we were fighting demons, and I’d rather be safe than sorry. But we were talking Court and Crown here. Tanaquar was paying us again. We couldn’t afford to lose her money or her goodwill. Too much depended on gathering as many allies as possible.
Camille had dropped into a curtsy. The same with Delilah, though it looked a little silly when she did so in jeans. I settled for a simple bow at the waist. Honor and protocol were expected. Back in Otherworld, Lethesanar had expected her subjects to grovel on the ground. At least Tanaquar wasn’t that power mad, and she’d done away with a number of the stringent Court regulations when she ripped the crown from the Opium Eater’s head.
I kept my mouth shut while we waited. Again: protocol.
“I see you haven’t forgotten all your manners,” he said, his voice a low growl. As he stood, shaking out the wrinkles from where I’d roughed up his outfit, he motioned for us to stand. “Get up. Do you mind telling me why you attacked me?”
I glanced wildly at Camille, but she pressed her lips together. I was the one in the hot seat this time, and she quietly eased back a few steps, leaving me to face him. Hell, I didn’t even know his name. Father must have mentioned it at some point, but for the life of me, nothing came to mind.
“Honorable . . . Assistant . . .”
“Forgotten already? My name is Yssak ob Shishana.” He stood, waiting, hands folded across his chest.
I cleared my throat. “Honorable Assistant Yssak, I am so sorry. I never would have knocked you out if I’d known you were our father’s assistant. I thought you might be on Lethesanar’s side, come to finish us off. You know, of course, we had a death threat on our heads.” I blinked and gazed up at him.
Yssak arched his eyebrows, and he visibly relaxed. Maybe I could pull this off without getting us all in the doghouse, after all.
He was a striking man, really. Not gorgeous, not even terribly handsome, but he had an interesting face: craggy and full of lines worn from battle, not age. His hair was blond and caught back in a braid like our father always wore, plaited with ribbons the color of his uniform. He was tall but not overly so. In fact, he was almost ordinary, yet if I’d passed him on the street, I’d have looked twice, because beneath the simple exterior, the man exuded power. I could smell it—like pheromones from sex or fear.
He sucked in a long breath, then let it out in a slow stream. “I suppose I can see how you might jump to conclusions, given the demonic threat you’re facing and the mood of the prior queen toward your family.”
“There’s more,” Camille said softly, moving to stand beside me. “The wards on our property were breached a short while ago. We were out hunting for the cause. Menolly came upon you before we found the real intruder—a demon we haven’t been able to identify, who we can’t seem to fight.”
I gave her a grateful smile. Just because Yssak worked for our father didn’t mean we were home free when it came to slipups like this. Father was tougher on us than any of our bosses.
Delilah had slumped onto the sofa. She looked pale.
“Excuse me, Honorable Assistant, but our sister was attacked by the creature. May I tend to her?” I hated standing on formality, but again—protocol. Father had drilled it into us from birth. Breaking free of his patterns when we were in the actual presence of the Court and Crown would be like having teeth pulled. Not so much fun to contemplate.
Yssak blinked. “Why didn’t you say so before? Good heavens, girl, I’m irritated, yes, but I wouldn’t have made you wait if you’d asked. Your father would have my head if I put one of his daughters in danger.”
He stood back as Camille and I knelt by her side.
“Are you okay, honey?” Camille took her hand, then felt for her pulse. She turned a worried look on me. “It’s rapid, way too fast. Shit, did that thing get its tentacles linked into her silver cord? I can’t read her signature, I’m too close to her.”
Roz pushed her aside. He tipped Delilah’s chin up, gazing into her eyes. Delilah murmured something soft. Roz whipped around. “Damn the gods—that thing is still attached to her. Her energy is being slowly siphoned off.”
“Can you take us onto the astral where we can fight it?” Camille asked. “Smoky can carry me over.”
