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When Jaenelle raised her head, there was nothing cold about the gleam in her eyes "What book?"

"You mentionedwhat!"

Daemon rubbed the back of his neck as he warily studied his father He had felt so--and now sincerely wished he hadn’t

Saetan stared at him "Whatever possessed you to tell her about it in the first place?"

Oh, no He was not going to repeat anything that had led up to that comment "Jaenelle’s in a much better mood now"

"I’m sure she is" Saetan rubbed his hands over his face "What’s she doing now?"

"Resting," Dae a tray brought to her sitting room We’ll have dinner there and then play cards for a while"

The way Saetan’s eyes suddenly glitteredto play cards with Jaenelle?" Saetan asked

"Yes," Daemon replied cautiously

"In that case, Prince, I’d say you’vethat book"

9 / Kaeleer

Osvald lingered in the corridor

At first, he’d thought Vania’s greedy lust was going to spoil all their plans But after the pale bitch-Queen had ripped into the one off to lick their emotional wounds and hadn’t been seen for the rest of the day

Jaenelle’s fury would have been a gift that had fallen into his hands if Wilhelmina Benedict had been in her room But she wasn’t, and he had no idea where to look for her If she ith the other bitches, he couldn’t approach her He didn’t want any of the special notice of hiht as he returned to his own room Soon

10 / Kaeleer

And they callame board and cards--and did his best not to snarl in frustration

"You al not to look too gleeful as she tallied up the scores

Daemon bared his teeth in a poor i, Jaenelle busily turned the paper over, drew a line down the middle, and wrote their naan shuffling the deck

Hell’s fire, he shouldn’t be havingthis aaht, it enty-six variations of "cradle" He still shouldn’t be having thisa littleoff about this ga

A game board with colored stones and bone discs with symbols etched on one side A hand of cards And the convoluted interaction between the around on a storether piece by piece, building one variation off another, adding bits froames distinct to their own cultures, until they had created so that was pure torture for the ame because the player in control of the board when the wild card turned up could call for a different variation--which could turn a good hand and gae

There had to be a way to turn that to his advantage Had to

Continuing to shuffle the cards, Daeame board carefully, studied the stones and the bone discs Thought about how each piececould interact with the other pieces--and the cards

Yes, that would work That would work quite well

"Which variation do you want to play?" Jaenelle asked as she placed the stones and discs in their starting positions

Daeave her the smile that used to terrify the Queens in Terreille "Variation twenty-seven"

Jaenelle just frowned at him "Daemon, there is no variation twenty-seven"

He dealt the cards and purred, "There is now"

11 / Kaeleer

She was so young,Surreal thought as she studied herBut she’s s when she died

Titian tucked her feet up on theseat and wrapped her arood you’ve coht-darkened glass didn’t show her anything but her own reflection-- and that one unanswered for too long "Why didn’t we coo hoot away from Kartane?" She hesitated "Was it because of me?"