"You can't make others feel things?"

"I have no tactile illusions. Not yet. Which is a shame because I could decimate an army with anows I imagined. But I can make others feel things, just the same."

"Like what?"

"I can make you see your worst nightmares or your most coveted dreams. And I can control them."

"Do you have other abilities?"

"Dozens," she lied. The only other one was Lanthe's birthday gift from so long ago-communicating with and mesmerizing animals. "I wield many."

He seemed to take that in. Finally he asked, "Have you thought about what you seek to do? What it would be like to bear and raise a demon child?"

In truth, she hadn't thought much about that what­soever. She didn't allow herself to imagine her preg­nancy, delivery, or the upbringing of a demon prince. If she ever began wondering what their halfling would look like, she forced herself to think of something else.

The agenda had been set, the plot hatched. The rest was just details.

But Omort's visit was throwing a kink in her plans.

She answered the demon's question with one of her own. "How do you know that I don't already have a lit­ter of demon children?"

"Do you?"

"No, I have no offspring."

"What if you bore a female? The kingdom of Rothka-lina is patrilineal."

"Don't remind me. You know, in the Sorceri sept, females can inherit the crown. Morgana is the current Empress of all Sorceri." Sabine turned on her side, and he did as well, his arms still chained behind his back.

"The people wouldn't accept a female here. I wonder if I'd be kept alive long enough for another go?" A lock of his thick black hair fell over his forehead, but he could do nothing to move it from his eyes.