"The waif's back and you didn't tell us?" Andulvar braced his fists on his hips and growled, "Why do you want to strangle her?"
Saetan carefully poured his third large brandy. Why had he given up drinking brandy? Such a delightful drink. Like pouring water on a blazing mental fire. Or was it like pouring oil? No matter. "Did you know she jumps the Webs?"
Andulvar shrugged, unimpressed. "At least half the Jeweled Blood can jump between the ranks of the Winds."
"She doesn't jump between the ranks, my darling Andulvar, she jumps between the Realms."
Andulvar gulped. "That isn't possible," he gasped, grateful that Saetan was pouring brandy into a second glass.
"That's what I always thought. And I'm not even going to think about the danger of doing it while I can still think. That's how she's been coming and going all these years, by the way. Until today, she didn't know there were Gates."
Andulvar eyed the bottle of brandy. "That's not enough to get us both drunk—assuming, of course, it's still possible to get drunk."
"There's more."
"Ah, well, then."
They settled in the chairs by the fire, intent upon their task.
5—Hell
"Guardians shouldn't drink, you know," Geoffrey said, too amused to be sympathetic.
Saetan gave the other Guardian a baleful look, then closed his eyes, hoping they would just fall out so at least some part of his head didn't hurt. He cringed when Geoffrey scraped his chair along the library floor and sat down.
"Names again?" Geoffrey asked, keeping his voice low.
"A surname, Angelline, probably from Chaillot, and Wilhelmina."
"A surname and a place to start. You're too kind, Saetan."
"I wish you dead." Saetan winced at the sound of his own voice.
"Wish granted," Geoffrey replied cheerfully as he left to get the appropriate register.
The library door opened. Draca, the Keep's Seneschal, glided to the table and placed a cup in front of Saetan. "Thiss will help," she said as she turned away. "Although you don't desserve it."
Saetan sipped the steaming brew, grimaced at the taste, but got down half of it. He leaned back in the chair, his hands loosely clasped around the cup, and listened to Geoffrey considerately turn the register's pages with the least possible amount of noise. By the time he finished the brew Draca had made, the pages had stopped turning.
Geoffrey's black eyebrows formed a V below his prominent widow's peak. He pressed his sensuous blood-red lips together. "Well," he said finally, "there's a Chaillot witch named Alexandra Angelline, who is the Queen of the Territory. She wears the Blood Opal. Her daughter, Leland, wears the Rose and is married to a Yellow-Jeweled Warlord named Robert Benedict. There's no witch named Wilhelmina Angelline, but there is a Wilhelmina Benedict who is fourteen years old, Chaillot-born, and wears the Purple Dusk."
Saetan sat very still. "Any other family connections?" he asked too quietly.
Geoffrey glanced up sharply. "Only one of interest. A Gray-Jeweled Prince named Philip Alexander shares a paternal bloodline with Robert Benedict and serves Alexandra Angelline. If the bloodline wasn't formally acknowledged, it's not unusual for a bastard to take a surname that reflects the Queen he serves."
"I'm aware of that. What about Jaenelle?"
Geoffrey shook his head. "Not listed."
Saetan steepled his fingers. "She said her name was Angelline, which would indicate that she, at least, is continuing the old tradition of the distaff gender following the matriarchal bloodline. She said she could come in the mornings when Wilhelmina had her lessons. Same family?"
Geoffrey closed the book. "Probably. Terreille has become lax about registering Blood family lines. But if they registered one child, why not the other?"
"Because one child wears Purple Dusk," Saetan replied with a cold smile. "They don't realize the other child wears the Jewels at all."
"Considering the fair-haired Lady, it would be hard to miss."
Saetan shook his head. "No, it wouldn't. She's never worn the Jewels she was gifted with, and she's lousy at basic Craft. If she never mentioned the more creative ways she uses Craft, they would have no way of knowing she could do anything at all." A cold fist settled between his shoulder blades. "Unless they didn't believe her," he finished softly, remembering what Jaenelle had said about the Shadow Realm. He filed that thought for later consideration and looked at the empty cup. "This stuff tastes vile, but it is helping my head. Any chance of another cup?"
"Always a chance," Geoffrey said with a hint of laughter in his voice as he pulled the bell cord. "Especially if it tastes vile."
Saetan brushed his fingers against his chin. "Geoffrey, you've been the Keep's librarian for a long, long time and probably know more about the Blood than the rest of us put together. Have you ever heard of anyone spiraling down to reach the depth of her Jewels?"
"Spiraling?" Geoffrey thought for a moment and shook his head. "No, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. Ask Draca. Compared to her, you're still in the nursery and I'm just a stripling." He pursed his lips and frowned. "There's something I read once, a long time ago, part of a poem, I think, about the great dragons of legend. How did it go? They spiral down into ebony—'"
"'—catching the sstars with their tailss.'" The cup in front of Saetan vanished as Draca placed the fresh one before him.
"That's it," Geoffrey said. "Saetan was asking if it was possible for the Blood to spiral down to the core."
Draca turned her head, her slow, careful movement a testimony more to great age than to grace, and fixed her reptilian eyes on Saetan. "You wish to undersstand thiss?"
Saetan looked into those ancient eyes and reluctantly nodded.
"Remove the book," Draca said to Geoffrey. She waited until she had their complete attention. "Not the Blood."
A square tank filled with water appeared on the table, each side as long as Saetan's arm and just as high. Slowly withdrawing her hands from the long sleeves of her robe, Draca opened one loosely clenched fist over the tank. Little bangles, the kind that women sew on clothing to shimmer in the light, fell into the water and floated on the surface. The bangles were the same colors as the Jewels.
In her other hand, Draca held a smooth egg-shaped stone attached to a thin silk cord. "I will demonsstrate the wayss the Blood reach the inner web, the Sself'ss core." Slowly and smoothly she lowered the stone into the water until it was suspended an inch above the bottom of the tank. She had broken the water with such ease that there was no disturbance. The bangles floated on the still surface.
"When desscent into the abysss or asscent out of the abysss iss made sslowly," she said, pulling the stone toward the surface, "it iss a private matter, a communion with onesself. It doess not dissturb thosse around. When anger, fear, or great need requiress a fasst desscent to the core to gather the power and asscend . . ." She dropped the stone into the tank. It plunged to the full length of the cord, stopping an inch above the bottom.
Saetan and Geoffrey silently watched the ripples on the surface spread out toward the edge of the tank, watched the bangles dance on the ever-widening rings.
Draca quickly jerked her hand. The stone shot straight up out of the tank, a little jet of water coming with it. Tossed back and forth in the waves, some of the light-colored bangles sank.
Draca waited for them to absorb this. "A sspiral."
The stone moved in a circular motion above the tank. As it touched the surface, the water moved with it, circling, circling, circling as the stone leisurely made its descent. The bangles, caught in the motion, followed the stone. The spiraling descent continued until the stone was an inch from the bottom. By then all the water was in motion, all the bangles caught.
"A whirlpool," Geoffrey whispered. He glanced uneasily at Saetan, who was watching the tank, his lips pressed tight, his long nails digging into the table.
"No." Draca pulled the stone straight up. The water rose with the stone, well above the tank, and splashed down on the table. The bangles, pulled out of the tank with the water, lay on the table like tiny dead fish. "A maelsstrom."
Saetan turned away. "You said the Blood don't spiral."
Draca put her hand on his arm, forcing him to turn and look at her. "Sshe iss more than Blood. Sshe iss Witch."
"It doesn't matter if she's Witch. She's still Blood."
"Sshe iss Blood and sshe iss Other."
"No." Saetan backed away from Draca. "She's still Blood. She's still one of us. She has to be." And she was still his gentle, inquisitive Jaenelle, the daughter of his soul. Nothing anyone could say would change that.
But someone had taught her to hate.
"Sshe iss Witch," Draca said with more gentleness than he'd ever heard from her. "Sshe will almosst alwayss sspiral, High Lord. You cannot alter her nature. You cannot prevent the ssmall sspiralss, the flashess of anger. You cannot prevent her from sspiraling down to her core. All the Blood needss to desscend from time to time. But the maelsstrom . . ." Draca slipped her hands into the sleeves of her robe. "Sshield her, Ssaetan. Sshield her with your sstrength and your love and perhapss it will never happen."
"And if it does?" Saetan asked hoarsely.
"It will be the end of the Blood."