Tangled Webs

“Now that you’re the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, don’t you have enough details to keep you occupied without keeping track of my moontimes?” Which reminded her of the problem that was going to be filling up the sitting room if he was still there in an hour.
    He set aside his papers and looked at her, his gold eyes full of warmth and amusement.
    “You’re married,” she said, as if he needed the reminder of an event that had taken place a few weeks ago. “You should be keeping track of your wife, not me.”
    No answer. Just that annoying amusement.
    “Why don’t you keep track of Marian too while you’re at it?” she muttered.
    The warmth and amusement in his eyes deepened.
    Shit shit shit. He did keep track of his brother’s wife.
    Her stomach gave a funny little twirl as she considered that. Daemon Sadi. Lucivar Yaslana. Half brothers linked through their Hayllian father, who was the Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell. Men who were ice and fire, working in tandem to look after the women in the family—especially during the few days of each moon cycle when those women couldn’t use Craft and might be vulnerable.
    Which made her wonder about the Warlord she had met at a party shortly after Daemon became the Warlord Prince who ruled the Territory of Dhemlan in the Realm of Kaeleer. The man had managed to maintain the mask of an interesting companion until she agreed to go to the theater with him. Then his true personality began to seep through. She would have gone with him anyway to find out what he really wanted, but he’d canceled, sending a note to offer his regrets and apologies for being called away unexpectedly. She hadn’t thought anything of it; just figured he’d found out a little more about her and decided not to risk being gutted during the play’s intermission. After all, men who were willing to escort a former whore who was connected to the most powerful family in Kaeleer tended to get nervous when they discovered the former whore was also a former assassin.
    Now she wondered whether the little prick-ass had canceled to avoid having a few bones broken (Lucivar’s method of dissuading fools) or whether he had run from a much scarier threat (if the prick-ass had ended up having a chat with Daemon).
    “What body in which closet?” Daemon asked.
    It took her a moment to remember.
    “This one.” She finger-snapped the offending page of the book. “What’s wrong with these people? Why are they leaving bodies around for other people to find instead of disposing of them in some sensible way? And what’s wrong with the person who found the body? With help, I should add, from a cat. What does he need help for? Even a human nose can smell that much rotting meat.”
    “What are you reading?”
    There was a hint of wariness mixed in with Daemon’s amusement. Which was fair, she supposed, since she’d made a good living as an assassin before she moved to Kaeleer and acquired too many powerful male relatives. Not that he’d be concerned about that. After all, he’d taught her most of the nastier tricks of that particular trade.
    She held up the book so he could read the title.
    “Ah. That book.”
    Definite wariness now, as if he had measured the distance between her chair and his place on the sofa and was determined to maintain it.
    “Is there something I should know about this book? And what kind of name is Jarvis Jenkell? Do you think that’s his real name?”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Daemon replied dryly. “I do know that since he came out with this new series of books, Jaenelle isn’t allowed to read his stories in bed anymore. She starts laughing so hard, she ends up flailing.”
    “What…? Oh. Caught you, did she?”
    Stony expression.
    Oh, yeah. Back to the first subject. “So why don’t these people have brains enough to bury a body where it won’t be found? Nooo, they’ll put a body in a closet…or in an old trunk in a spare bedroom—not even up in the attic, where it might be harder to find—or in the shed out back, where it attracts critters that want to take home some carrion for dinner.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks, widened her eyes, and wagged her head. “Oh! Look! It’s the gardener. Who is dead. And look! There’s blood on the hedge clippers. Do you think it’s a clue?”
    Daemon snorted out a laugh, tried to regain control, then just slumped back and let the laughter roar.
    She laughed with him, then shook her head. She was too