Tangled Webs

out of his muscles. This was the question he’d come to ask. This was the answer he’d hoped to hear.
    “Now,” Saetan said, giving him a dry smile, “why don’t you go tend the family business and let me—”
    The door opened. Lucivar walked in. Daemon felt his body freeze, felt Saetan stiffen beside him. Not because of Lucivar, because of—
    “Unka Daemon! Granpapa!”
    Daemonar held out his arms, little feet braced and pushing on his father’s hip, little wings flapping. A happy bundle of Eyrien boy…in a room full of priceless books.
    The thought terrified Daemon.
    “Hey,” Lucivar said, trying to control the squirming boy without setting off a full-scale tantrum. “Have you two heard about this spooky house Jaenelle and Marian are planning?”
    Suddenly Saetan had Daemon by the arm and was hauling him toward the door with enough speed to have Lucivar backing up into the corridor.
    “Yes, Daemon was just telling me about that. I think this is something the two of you should discuss, since this is something that should be dealt with by husbands rather than a father. But if I think of anything that might help, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
    And somehow he was standing in the corridor, staring at a closed door, listening to the distinctive snick of a lock.
    “Well,” Lucivar said, “I guess that puts us in our place.”
    Lucivar’s mouth was curved in that lazy, arrogant smile that usually meant trouble, but the tone of voice was wrong.
    Daemon studied his brother. Half brother, but they had never made that distinction. What made the difference obvious was that Lucivar had the dark, membranous wings that distinguished Eyriens from Hayllians and Dhemlans, the other two long-lived races. And he had all the arrogance and attitude that came naturally to an Eyrien male—especially one who was a Warlord Prince and wore Ebon-gray Jewels.
    “Do you want to—?” Daemon began.
    “No.” Too sharp, almost cutting, even though the smile didn’t change. “Have things to do.”
    Daemon felt a sudden distance between them. Why it was there, he couldn’t begin to guess. “Could we get together for a drink this evening? I could come—”
    “I’ll come to the Hall. See you then, Bastard.”
    “Take care, Prick.”
    “Bye-bye, Unka Daemon! Bye-bye.”
    He waved bye-bye until Lucivar and Daemonar disappeared around a curve in the corridor. Then he looked back at the locked door and sighed.
    He might not need to dance on the knife’s edge the way he did when he lived in Terreille, but it didn’t look like his life was going to get complacent after all.

    Saetan leaned against the locked door and stared at the ceiling.
    Why did I want children?
    He’d been rattled by the conversation with Daemon, had reacted instead of thinking. And the look in Lucivar’s eyes just before he’d closed the door had shown him the depth of his error. He’d fix it. He would stop by the eyrie this evening, and he would fix it.
    He wasn’t sure how to fix the other problem. Spooky house. The words had become a sharp bone stuck in his throat, an insult to everything he believed in. An insult inflicted by his Queen.
    He had two choices. He could swallow the bone or he could cough it out. Either way, it was going to hurt. He just had to decide which choice he could live with.
    Pushing away from the door, he returned to the blackwood table just as Geoffrey stepped through one of the archways that led to the stored books. The other Guardian looked sympathetic and amused as he watched Saetan shuffle a few books.
    Geoffrey approached the table, picked up a book, then opened it to read the title page. “How long do you think you’ll be able to keep this up?” he asked. “Sooner or later one of them is going to figure out these are new books with an illusion spell on the covers to make them look old, and you’re just using them for a prop.”
    “None of them have figured it out so far,” Saetan replied, tugging the book out of Geoffrey’s hand. “If I’m occupied, they can take their time working their way around to whatever they’ve come to talk about. None of them look closely enough to notice that the condition of the paper doesn’t match the supposed age of the books.”
    “And you used some of the real books to create the templates for the spell. Quite ingenious, Saetan. But from what I overheard before I retreated, you do have a problem.”
    “I do.” The bone in his throat scraped a little more. “Yes,