The car slowed as Jamys recalled how his mother had changed after the trip to Italy. The separation from his sygkenis had driven Thierry to the brink of madness; being reunited with her had brought him back to sanity. Angelica had seemed equally relieved, and in the celebrations that followed, no one questioned what they might have under more ordinary circumstances.
Before the journey to Italy, Angelica had been cool and reserved; after returning, she had lavished her attentions on Thierry, often embarrassing the entire household with her wanton behavior. She began to berate the mortal servants she had always treated well, and took to punishing them for even the slightest mistakes—but never in front of Thierry.
Jamys had been alarmed by the changes in his mother’s character, but when he spoke to his father about them, Thierry had dismissed them as temporary, the lingering effects of the separation.
Jamys remembered several chambermaids who had vanished; Angelica claimed they’d run off with their lovers, or had left to take better positions in other households. Yet none of them had ever been seen again, and now he suspected that his mother had killed them in one of her rages.
The Brethren hadn’t simply turned Angelica into a traitor, he realized. They had broken her bond with Thierry, and had driven her mad in the process.
Everyone had assumed that, like Thierry, Angelica had recovered from being separated from her life companion as soon as they had been reunited. She had been clever enough to act the part of a sygkenis and prevent anyone from suspecting her insanity.
I knew I had gone mad long before I found Jema, his father had once said. Had I been rational, I might have put an end to myself. But madness is its own purpose, and has its own beauties and desires.
Years of guilt sifted away, their impossible weight turning to dust. The monster of Angelica’s insanity had betrayed them to the Brethren. The mother Jamys had always loved, the beloved wife who had devoted herself to him and his father, had in fact never returned to them. She had died in Italy.
A memory of Angelica’s face, now serene, drifted into his mind. As if she knew his thoughts, she nodded and smiled, and then she was gone.
Peace and determination entwined inside Jamys, eradicating his anger and fear as he drove the last miles to Fort Lauderdale. When he came to the barricades and detour signs directing traffic away from the stronghold, and saw the warriors who had taken discreet defensive positions, he turned off the road and parked in front of a crowded restaurant.
Inside the maître d’ met him at the door. “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t offer valet parking.”
Jamys touched his shoulder, issued his instructions, and then entered the restaurant. There were more than a hundred mortals dining, but the windows were closed and the ventilation minimal. Curious eyes turned drowsy, and voices fell silent as the scent of sandalwood spread through the dining room.
When the last mortal had stopped speaking, Jamys said, “My lady is in danger, and I need your help.”
Once he had commanded them, he went back to the kitchens, and did the same with the waiters and all the staff except one teenage boy who had been washing dishes, from whom he borrowed his high-top sneakers.
“You will guard the premises until the others return,” he instructed the boy as he finished tying the laces.
A final stop at the executive chef’s station provided him with the last of his needs, and Jamys was ready. He walked through the now-empty dining room, plucking a napkin and a lighter from one of the tables as he passed.
Outside on the street the barricades lay on their sides, knocked over by a hundred bespelled mortals, who now filled the street in front of the stronghold. Lucan’s warriors had left their positions to surround them and attempt to herd them away, only to find themselves being drawn into the mob of dancers.
Jamys chose an empty spot on the far side of the building as he stuffed the linen napkin in the neck of the bottle of brandy he had taken from the chef’s station. He flicked the lighter, setting the brandy-soaked napkin aflame, and lobbed the bottle high over the heads of the mob. It smashed into the empty sidewalk, the spray immediately bursting into a large fireball and a plume of black smoke.
The secondary distraction of the fire drew away all but two of the warriors still standing guard at the entrance to the stronghold, and Jamys attacked them from their left flank, dropping beneath the thrust of their blades and coming up between them to bury his daggers in their sides. He struck to disable, not to kill, and one toppled to the ground while the other clutched his side and turned on him.
“Durand.”
“Glenveagh.” He countered his movements. “As you are, you cannot fight me. Stand down.”