Time Without End (The Black Rose Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF

a tumbled hurry of words: “I know magicians never tell their secrets, but that carriage trick was—well, it was impossible. You couldn’t have used wires or platforms. So it had to be some sort of mass hypnosis—”
    “Or,” I interrupted gently, “it might have happened exactly as you saw it. By magic.” I smiled and spread my hands.
    She frowned, and I wanted to kiss the place between her brows where the skin creased prettily. “Something weird is going on here,” she finally blurted out. “Who are you?”
    I wanted to tell her; it would have been the most delicious relief to explain it all, but I couldn’t. For one thing, the story would have taken hours to relate, and for another, I didn’t want to frighten Daisy off forever. “You’ll understand it all in good time,” I replied with resignation. I was beginning to feel restless, agitated; I needed to hunt and feed, and perhaps prowl a bit, before retiring to my lair.
    “I’m coming back,” Daisy announced, still frowning.
    I took a printed pass from the top drawer of my dressing room bureau and handed it to her. “Be my guest,” I said.
    Daisy accepted the special ticket, nodded her thanks, and left, looking as befuddled as ever. I suspect it wasn’t me or my magic that made her thoughtful, but her own unexpected captivation with both. She was clearly not a person given to obsessions and strange fancies.
    After she’d gone I mourned her, for even when we parted briefly, I was invariably bereaved. I stood with my forehead touching the door and my hands gripping the woodwork on either side, remembering. Suffering. Loving.
    The Lady Brenna
    Dunnett’s Head, Cornwall, 1348
    They were facing each other in the courtyard, Brenna Afton-St. Claire’s father, the baron, and Valerian. The autumn sun, though fiercely bright, felt cold, and Brenna shivered.
    Her father had been practicing his swordsmanship, though it was unlikely the king would ever again call upon him to serve as a soldier, given his age. For all his four and forty years, however, the baron was strong.
    “The bootmaker’s son,” the baron said, assessing Valerian and at the same time using the hem of his tunic to polish the steel blade of his sword. It caught fire with daylight and flashed like a mirror.
    Brenna held her breath, watching Valerian’s face. Jesu, she prayed silently, make him hold his tongue. If he doesn’t, my father will surely kill him, and with pleasure.
    Valerian only inclined his head, and Brenna nearly swooned with gratitude. The baron’s anger was violent, burning hot as the fires of perdition, but it died quickly when it was not fueled.
    Sweating profusely from his exercise, the baron held the sword up, between himself and the bootmaker’s son, and then pressed the point to the pulse at the base of Valerian’s throat.
    Brenna gasped and started to bolt toward them, intending to intercede, but Challes, her tutor, gripped her hard by the arm.
    “Stand fast,” he warned in a whispered hiss, his grasp tightening when she struggled.
    Valerian stood still, surely aware that the baron could kill him easily, with no penance forthcoming, looking almost insolently calm. Even from several feet away, Brenna could see that the expression in his eyes was fearless.
    With a silent wail of despair Brenna realized that Valerian was courting death—he wanted to perish! She tried to cry out, but the only sound that came from her throat was a hoarse, senseless whisper.
    The baron broke the awful silence, his words as cold and hard as the blade of the sword he held. “Why did you lay your hands to my daughter, peasant? How dare you touch a noblewoman?”
    Brenna squeezed her eyes shut, terrified.
    “I forgot myself,” Valerian replied. There was no trace of subservience in his tone or manner, but no mockery, either. He was simply stating a fact.
    Brenna put one hand over her mouth and swayed slightly in Challes’s now-gentled grasp. Her eyes burned with tears as the full