Queen of the Darkness

she groped for an explanation that would fit.
    When she found it, she wanted to weep.
    Jaenelle was insane. Totally, completely insane. And that monster who ruled here indulged that insanity for his own reasons. He let Jaenelle think she was Healer and a Black Widow and a Queen. He would probably let her give that tonic to a sick little boy, regardless of what the stuff would actually do to a child.
    "Why are you here, Alexandra?"
    Alexandra shivered at the sound of that midnight voice, then gave herself a mental shake. The child had always indulged in theatrics. "I came to take you and Wilhelmina home."
    "Why? For the past thirteen years, you thought I was dead. Since that was far more convenient for you than having me alive, why didn't you just continue to pretend I was dead?"
    "We weren't pretending," Alexandra said hotly. Jaenelle's words hurt, mostly because they were true. It had been easier mourning a dead child than dealing with the difficult girl. But she would never admit that. "We thought you were dead, that Sadi had killed you."
    "Daemon would never have hurt me."
    But you would — and did. That was the message underneath the cold, flat reply.
    "Leland is your mother. I'm your grandmother. We're your family, Jaenelle."
    Jaenelle shook her head slowly. "This body can trace its bloodline to you. That makes us related. It doesn't make us family." She moved toward the door. When she was just about to pass Alexandra, she stopped. "You apprenticed with an Hourglass coven for a little while, didn't you? Before you had to make the choice between becoming a Black Widow and becoming Chaillot's Queen."
    Alexandra nodded, wondering where this was leading.
    "You learned enough to make the simplest tangled webs, the kind that would absorb a focused intent and draw that object to you. Isn't that true?" When she nodded again, Jaenelle's eyes filled with sadness and understanding. "How many times did you sit before one of those webs dreaming that something would help you keep Chaillot safe from Hayll's encroachment?"
    Alexandra couldn't speak, could barely breathe.
    "Has it ever occurred to you that that may be the answer to the riddle? Saetan was also an intense dreamer. The difference is that when the dream appeared, he recognized it." Jaenelle opened the door. "Go home, Alexandra. There's nothing—and no one—for you here."
    "Wilhelmina," Alexandra whispered.
    "She'll fulfill the eighteen months of her contract. After that, she can do as she pleases." There was something awful and ironic about Jaenelle's smile. "The Queen commands it."
    Alexandra took a deep breath. "I want to see this Queen."
    "No, you don't," Jaenelle replied too softly. "You don't want to stand before the Dark Throne." She paused. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish this tonic. It's simmered long enough."
    Dismissed. As casually as that, she was being dismissed.
    Alexandra left the workroom, relieved to be away from Jaenelle. She found one of the inner gardens and settled on a bench. Maybe the sun would take away the chill that had seeped into her bones. Maybe then she could believe she was shaking from cold and not because Jaenelle had mentioned something she had never told anyone.
    Her paternal grandmother had been a natural Black Widow. That's what had drawn Alexandra to the Hourglass in the first place. But by then, the aristo Blood in Chaillot were already starting to whisper about Black Widows being "unnatural" women, and the other Queens and the Warlord Princes would never have chosen a Queen who was also a witch of the Hourglass covens.
    So she left her apprenticeship and, a few years later when her maternal grandmother stepped down, became the Queen of Chaillot. But during her first few years as Queen, she had secretly woven those simple tangled webs. She had dreamed that something or someone would appear in her life that would help her fight against Hayll's undermining of Chaillot society. At the time, she had thought it would be a Consort—a strong male who would support and help her. But no man like that had ever appeared in her life.
    Then, when her Black Widow grandmother had been dying, Alexandra had been given what she came to think of as the riddle. What you dream for will come, but if you're not careful, you'll be blind until it's too late.
    So she had waited. She had watched. The dream hadn't come. And she would not, could not, believe that a disturbed, eccentric child had been the answer to the riddle.
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