Dreams Made Flesh

of those puppies when it came to choosing furniture that was suitable for an eyrie, let alone the home of a Warlord Prince. How was she supposed to tell the Queen…or even Lucivar's sister, for that matter…that the lamp Jaenelle was admiring with the lumpy base and the froofy, fringed shade made her shudder just to look at it? Or that the small table, which would probably look lovely in the drawing room of an aristo house, would look pathetic in rooms that had the weight of stone and were extensions of the mountain on which they were built?
    She tried to be tactful, reminding herself that she was just the housekeeper, but when she saw Jaenelle eyeing a hutch with elaborate curlicues…
    "No," she said firmly.
    Eyebrows rising in surprise,Jaenelle turned to look at her. "Why not?"
    Because I don't want to spend half a day dusting the thing. Which wasn't an appropriate thing to say, especially when the man assisting them was listening so attentively. "It's just not… appropriate," Marian said weakly.
    Jaenelle narrowed her sapphire eyes. "So far, nothing we've looked at has been 'appropriate.' "
    That was true.
    "But I haven't heard you make any suggestions," Jaenelle continued.
    "Oh, but I'm just…"Those sapphire eyes stopped her…and made her think. She wasn't "just" a housekeeper at the moment. She was Eyrien. She didn't know anything about aristo houses, but she knew Eyrien dwellings. Of the three of them, she probably did know best what was appropriate for Luci… Prince Yaslana's home.
    Turning away, she began studying the other hutches available. Clean lines. Strong pieces. Lucivar's eyrie had more windows than most, which gave the rooms more light, but the wood always had to complement stone.
    Seeing two possible hutches, Marian went over to examine them more closely.
    Saetan watched the two women wander among the furniture, amused at the way Jaenelle now meekly followed Marian instead of the other way around.
    *Witch-child?* he called on a Black psychic thread.
    *Papa?*
    *You weren't really interested in that lamp, were you?*
    Jaenelle snorted. *Of course not. It's hideous. I didn't think I'd have to find so many things that wouldn't suit before Marian jumped in.*
    Saetan pressed a fist to his mouth and coughed to hide the chuckle. The man attending him wouldn't understand his amusement. *I found a dining table.*
    *A real one?*
    *Yes, a real one.* He watched Marian as she opened the doors of a cabinet. Even from a distance, he could see her excitement, almost sense the longing as her fingers stroked the wood…and saw her shoulders slump as she turned away from it. *What is that, witch-child?*
    *A sewing cabinet,* Jaenelle replied, still examining it. *There are shelves for cloth, little pegs for thread, bigger pegs for skeins of wool, all kinds of drawers to hold supplies.*
    *And the asking price is something she can't afford, even with the wages Lucivar is paying her.*
    Jaenelle nodded, keeping one eye on Marian while she gently closed the cabinet doors.
    *Are we adding it to our purchases, witch-child?*
    She turned and smiled at him from across the large room. *Yes, we are.*
    Prince SaDiablo had excellent taste, Marian decided as she looked at the table and chairs he'd chosen for the dining room. High Lord, she reminded herself. The men helping them with their purchases kept calling him High Lord, so she should address him that way, too.
    "This is wonderful," Marian said, stroking her hand over the gleaming, dark wood. Big enough to seat eight Eyriens, it would still fit easily into the dining room without feeling crowded if a storage hutch and narrow serving table were also added. Looking past the chosen table, she spotted a small pine table. "Oh, yes, that's perfect."
    "Why is this perfect?" Jaenelle said, following her. "It's not even finished."
    "That's why it's perfect," Marian replied, giving the table a push to test its sturdiness. "Eyrien males need a worktable for cleaning and honing weapons, doing repairs, things like that. And there's a small room in the eyrie that seems like it was designed to be a weapons room…a storage place for an extra bow, quivers of arrows. There's even pegs already in one wall that would hold bladed sticks, so…" She shrugged.
    "So you want a table that's sturdy but is going to get rough treatment," Jaenelle said.
    "Exactly." Marian smiled.
    Jaenelle smiled back. "I'm sure it was a weapons room originally and had a similar table in it. Cousin Prothvar and Uncle