Blay just started at the paperwork. “I seriously can’t believe you did this.”

Qhuinn got to his feet and started strapping in the kids, Rhamp first. When he turned to Lyric, he tried to be quick. Tried not to look her in the face.

As an unsettling emotion percolated through him, he shook it off. “I have to let Layla take them at nightfall tomorrow. I’m supposed to be out in the field and so are you—I checked the schedule. So unless you want to change it, I’ll see you at the mansion tomorrow night before we all go out.”

He paused before he picked up the carriers. “Unless you want to come with me now.”

When Blay shook his head, he wasn’t surprised.

“Okay, I hope I’ll see you tomorrow. Come earlier if you want to hang with your kids before she takes them.”

He knew better than to suggest that Blay might like to see him.

With a quick lift of the twins, Qhuinn turned on his heel and headed for the front exit. As he went down the hall, he hoped that Blay might have a sudden epiphany and come racing to the front of the house.

When that didn’t happen, he opened the door and let himself out.

FIFTY-ONE

The delays were unacceptable. Unfathomable. Impermissible. As Throe extracted himself from his lover’s arms, he was ready to scream. First of all, he’d been unable to find all the ingredients for the spell or whatever he was doing, in the pantry the night before. This meant he’d had to go out—in the hellren of the house’s Bentley, no less—to town to try to find black licorice and saffron and black candles.

Attempting to locate those candles in Caldwell at two a.m. had driven him mad.

He’d hit three open-all-night supermarkets and none of the stories had had them. And he’d tried a CVS. Two of them, actually. Nothing. And then, by the time he’d gotten back, Little Miss Stamp Her Louboutins and Pout went on a full bender of hysterics.

He’d nearly walked out on her. But it had been getting close to dawn by that time, and besides, he’d still needed the damn candles and the motor oil.

After watching her turn a relationship talk into performance art for at least two hours, he’d had to fuck her three or four times. Then had come the crying jags and the godforsaken regrets and recriminations. Followed by declarations of love that he didn’t buy for a second.

By the time he’d been able to get free and go find a doggen to give a directive to, it had been four in the afternoon.

The doggen hadn’t come back until six, and First Meal had been interminably long—and now, finally, after another round of sex, he was free: She was out like a light and going to stay that way because he’d slipped her seven Valium from the prescription bottle she kept in her bathroom.

The pills had been quite undetectable in the espresso she’d had with what the humans would have called breakfast.

Getting to his feet and moving quickly in her dim bedroom, he found his silk robe, covered himself, and rushed to the door. Out in the corridor, his footsteps bounced with an anticipation that he more typically possessed only when approaching a new lover.

And indeed, when he was at long last back in his own suite, he raced to the bed, cast the pillows aside, and brought his book to his heart.

As it warmed to the contact, he smiled. “Aye, it was too long. Aye. But here we are. Let us work the now.”

It seemed appropriate to keep the lights off, as he felt as though he were doing something in secret, something sacred—or perhaps those were the wrong words.

He didn’t much care for the right ones: Dimly, in the back of his mind, he knew this was evil, this stuff. And verily, as he sat in the southernmost corner of the bedroom and placed The Book upon the carpet, it seemed that all was dark and full of shadow.

Yet he would not dwell on that. He would focus only on his goal.

“I have my faith and my faith has me,” he murmured as The Book flipped itself open and the pages began to fly. “I have my faith and my faith has me …”

When it found its proper place, the pages began to glow as if sensing his eyes needed assistance. “How kind of you,” he said with a caress of its wide-open spine.

Down on the parchment, the symbols in the Old Language appeared, and he performed a quick review of the task ahead. Right, the ingredients. He needed the—

A rattling sounded out from beneath the bed. And then also in the closet.

The things he had gathered from the pantry and the market, the kitchen and the garage, migrated of their own volition across the Oriental carpet, the jumble of spice packets, that glass bottle of red wine vinegar, the plastic Coke container he’d filled with motor oil from the vintage Jaguar, and all the other provisions, moving in jumpy, skippy fashion toward him. The black candles were the last of the lot, and halfway across, they broke free of their boxes and rolled forth unto him like logs, clearly preferring freedom over containment.

All of it formed a circle about him, rather as if they were schoolchildren eager to be called upon.

“Well, such a convenience is this—”

A clattering noise brought his head around. Something was making noise in the bureau drawer, the sharp, rat-a-tat-tat like a knocking.

With a frown, Throe got up and went across. When he opened the appropriate drawer, he saw that one of his daggers, from his old life, was begging to get out.

“And you, too.”

As he gripped its handle, and felt the hilt against his palm, he thought of his fellow fighters. He thought of Xcor.

The triggered sadness he felt was unexpected, but not unfamiliar. When he had first conceived of the plan to overthrow Wrath, he had stunned himself with his boldness and become half-convinced it was madness. But then he had reached out within the glymera, and found support, commitments, and resources to fight again the “improvements” that the Blind King had been making.

None of which served the aristocracy.

Riding that wave of alienation and dissatisfaction, and then manipulating it to further inflame the glymera unto his will, he had gotten addicted to the sense of power. Indeed, he’d enjoyed such a thing once prior, back before everything had fallen apart with the tragedy of his sister and him ending up with Xcor and the Band of Bastards. In the Old Country, before his destiny with that group of rogue fighters he had been a male of station and worth, not a servant of anyone—and he realized now that all of his animus against Wrath came from wanting to return from whence he had fallen.

A bit of an overcorrection to try to secure the throne for himself, he supposed. But one could not be faulted for reaching for the stars, no?

Refocusing on his book, Throe reread the directions. Twice. And then he took the copper pot and made a paste of the spices and the vinegar and that oil in it. The smell was unpleasant, but needs must and all that—and when that was done, he took one of the candles and coated it in the stuff, ensuring that all but the wick had been attended to. Then he palmed what was left, turned the pot over, and made a pile of it on the bottom. Standing the candle up in the little mound he’d created, he finished by rolling back the carpet, transferring his strange sculpture over to the bare floor, and making a little trail of the paste down the side and off about six inches from the pot.

With a quick scan, he double-checked that he’d done everything correctly thus far.

Blood was required next, and he provided it by streaking the blade of the steel dagger across his palm. The pain was sweet and the sanguine rush fragrant in his nose. Holding the wound over the candle, he allowed it to drip down the shaft, but was careful to leave the wick dry. More was required on the smudge over the floorboards.

With a lick of his palm to stop the bleeding, he took a gold cigarette lighter and flipped the top open, striking the flint with a flick of his thumb. Then he lit the candle.

The flame that caught hold was beautiful in its perfect simplicity, the translucent yellow light forming a teardrop shape at the head of the wick.

Mesmerizing, really.

Throe watched it for a while, and saw in its sinewy dance the movements of an erotic female.

A voice entered his head, from where he knew not: I am waiting for you, my love.

Shaking himself, he rubbed his eyes and felt his fear renew. But there was no going back—nor did he want to abandon this ritual or whatever it was. He was going to return to who and what he had been, and he was going to command the race with an army that followed him and him alone.