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sank into it with a sigh, stretching out his legs. A minute later he left the study, making his way through the corridors to the upper rooms in the Hall, hoping Mephis or Andulvar would be around.
    He wanted company. Male company.
    Having Titian for a friend didn't make a man feel comfortable.

3 / Terreille
     
    In the moonlight, the lawn was a ghostly silver rippled by the wind. Throughout the hot midsummer's day, storm clouds had been piling up on the horizon, and thunder had rumbled in the distance.
    Surreal buttoned her jacket and hugged herself for warmth. The air had turned cold. An hour from now the storm would break over Beldon Mor. But she would be back at Deje's Red Moon house by then, the guest of honor at her quiet retirement dinner.
    After that night at Cassandra's Altar, she had discovered that she no longer had the stomach for playing the bed, not even when it would have made a kill easier. She wouldn't starve if she gave up whoring. Lord Marcus, Sadi's man of business, also handled her investments and handled them well. Besides, she'd always preferred being an assassin to being a whore.
    Surreal shook her head. She could think about that later.
    Moving silently through the small shrub garden that backed the lawn, she reached the large tree with the branch that was perfect for a swing. Something hung from that branch, but it wasn't a child's toy.
    Surreal looked up, trying to feel the ghostly presence, trying to see the transparent shape.
    "You won't find her," a girl's voice said. "Marjane is gone."
    Surreal spun around and stared at the girl with the slit throat and bloody dress. She'd met Rose seven months ago when Jaenelle had shown her Briarwood's awful secret. The next night, she and Rose had gotten Jaenelle out of Briarwood, but too late to stop the vicious rape.
    "What happened to her?" Surreal said, glancing toward the tree. A silly thing to ask about a girl long dead.
    Rose shrugged. "She faded. All the old ghosts have finally returned to the Darkness." She studied Surreal. "Why are you here?"
    Surreal took a deep breath. "I came to say good-bye. I'm leaving Chaillot in the morning—and I'm not coming back."
    Rose thought about this. "If you hold my hand, maybe you'll be able to see Dannie. I don't know how Jaenelle always saw the ghosts. Even after I became a demon, I couldn't see the oldest ones unless she was here. She said that was because this was one of the living Realms."
    Surreal took Rose's hand. They walked toward the vegetable garden.
    "Is Jaenelle all right?" Rose asked hesitantly.
    Surreal pushed her windblown hair from her face. "I don't know. She was hurt very badly. A witch at Cassandra's Altar took her away to a safe place. She might have reached a Healer in time."
    They stopped at the carrot patch where two redheaded sisters had been buried in secret, as all these children had been buried. But there were no shapes, no whispery voices. Surreal didn't feel the numb horror she had the first time she'd seen this garden. Now there was grief mingled with the hope that those young girls were finally beyond the memory of what had been done to them.
    Dannie was the only one there. Surreal tried hard not to look at the ghostly stump where a leg should have been. Her stomach tightened as she tried even harder not to remember what had been done with that leg.
    Burying her pity, Surreal sent out a psychic thread of warmth and friendship toward the ghost-girl.
    Dannie smiled.
    Even in death the Blood were cruel, Surreal thought as she squeezed Rose's cold hand. How empty, how lonely the years must have been for those who weren't strong enough to become demon-dead but were too strong to return to the Darkness. They remained, chained to their graves, unseen, unheard, uncared for—except by Jaenelle.
    What had happened to her?
    Surreal and Rose finally walked back to the shrub garden. "They should all be gutted," Surreal growled, releasing Rose's hand. She leaned against the tree and stared at the