by Jenn Bennett
But I wasn’t the only one. This was genetic. My father courted disaster as if it were the belle of the ball. Hiring a tutor who deserted me and stole all our money was just one in a long list of things my bullheaded father had botched. To the public, Richard “Damn” Fox was a decorated war veteran, a medieval historian, a wealthy antiquities collector, and a brash adventurer who never met a risk he wouldn’t take. But what people didn’t know was that he was also unbelievably selfish, would rather die than apologize or admit mistakes, and often was an all-around terrible father.
Mentally cursing his name, I shook out my leg in a feeble attempt to rid my shoe of mud as a car stopped in front me. A taxicab—finally! Breathless, I climbed into the back seat and gave the driver the name of my hotel. My body wilted with relief when he nodded, and the car pulled away from the historic covered market. Away from the scene of my misfortunate afternoon.
I peeled off a black beret—one that I always wore when traveling—and shook fat droplets out of the soft wool. I was soaked from head to foot. This really wasn’t my day. As the old city rushed past my rain-spattered window, my thoughts turned over the incident in the market and everything Madame Leroux had said. On one hand, I wasn’t surprised she’d want to quit. I traveled with my father several times a year, and each time he had to hire a new tutor for me. And to be honest, Madame Leroux and I had started off on a sour note because it wasn’t until he’d hired her, until we’d traveled by train from Paris and arrived in Istanbul, that my father confessed the truth about the job that had brought him here. We’d had a terrible fight about it before he left. Screams. Threats. Tears. Begging.
I hadn’t exactly made a good impression on my new tutor.
But in my defense, my father had blindsided me. Though he almost never allowed me to accompany him on his expeditions, he did allow me to research them. I spent several days before our trip across the Atlantic collecting information on a Byzantine treasure hoard rumored to be hidden in the mountains outside Tokat; however, when we arrived here, he revealed the real reason for his travels.
A client had asked him to find a ring that had once belonged to Vlad Țepeș.
As in Vlad the Impaler. Prince of Romania. House of Drăculești. Fierce warrior and enemy of the Ottoman Empire. Notoriously cruel and bloody. Possible inspiration for the famous fictional vampire Count Dracula.
My mother had told me countless wild stories about both the man and his myth. He’d become an antihero in my mind, someone who dared to rise up against tyranny. Someone who had his own moral compass. A folk hero like Robin Hood, William Tell, or Paul Revere. Just with a lot more blood.
There’s a bit of lore that says when Vlad was killed in Wallachia, his enemies, the Ottomans, took his head back to Turkey, to prove he was dead. My father became convinced that Vlad’s ring may have been buried with his head. And that’s where my father was now. In northern Turkey—a place Vlad was imprisoned as a boy—searching for the Impaler’s grave.
Some might think that the skull of Vlad would be the more important historic find than a ring. But it wasn’t just a random piece of jewelry. Vlad’s ring imbued the wearer with some kind of dark, magical power, if one believed there was any grain of truth in the stories that surrounded it.
Most of what I knew about the ring came from a brief entry in Batterman’s Field Guide to Legendary Objects—my favorite book and an illustrated catalog of artifacts purported to be cursed, lucky, magical, mythical, and mysterious. Excalibur, the Book of Thoth, the Spear of Destiny, the philosopher’s stone. And Vlad the Impaler’s war ring was included there too, alongside a medieval woodcut of Prince Vlad. In it, he was depicted wearing the ring while sitting at a table dining in front of his impaled enemies. There wasn’t a detailed description or firsthand account, only a brief caption: stories circulating in the late 1400s after his death said the ring was rumored to help Vlad in battle, a sort of occult talisman that may have been cursed.
And I know a thing or two about cursed objects.
One killed my mother.
Now my father was hunting down another. . . . To hell with my mother, and to hell with me. Maybe he wouldn’t come back this time. Maybe our last conversation would be the nasty fight we’d had over Vlad’s ring when he’d left me here, and I’d be orphaned in Istanbul for the rest of my life. In a way, that felt decidedly apropos, but I wasn’t sure if it was better to feel sorry for myself or mad at my father. I supposed either was preferable to worry.
By the time the taxi finally reached my stop, I’d managed to drag myself out of those swampy emotions and instead focused my thoughts on catching up with Madame Leroux. She had to be here, and I had to convince her to stay in Istanbul for a little while longer. That’s all there was to it. Clutching my handbag and the tattered remnants of my pride, I sprinted from the curb to the hotel’s entrance under the doorman’s offered umbrella. Then I stepped into my current home-away-from-home.
The Pera Palace Hotel.
Lauded as the grandest hotel in Turkey, its arabesque mosaics and Murano chandeliers were an impressive mix of Orient and Occident. The marble floors were Carrara; the service was white glove. A five-star experience, truly. Earlier today I couldn’t bear to spend another moment inside these walls, but now it felt like what I needed most: a safe and familiar haven.
As I hurried past an enormous arrangement of hothouse flowers that smelled deceptively of springtime, the hotel’s bearded concierge glanced up, spotted me, and waved me toward his desk. Embarrassed about my muddy dress, I attempted to ignore him, but he caught up with me halfway through the lobby, in front of the main salon.
“Miss Fox!” he shouted.
No ignoring him now. I slid my eyes in his direction and pasted on a weak smile. Behind me, scents of roasted pistachios and rose water drifted from the hotel’s salon along with lively notes from a grand piano. After my lousy afternoon, I could use a cup of tea and something sweet. Might as well go out in a blaze of baklava.
“Good news! Everything is arranged,” the concierge told me. “When your luggage is ready, please telephone me at the desk. Your departure tickets are being exchanged and will be held at the railway station. You’ll be boarding a night train that leaves at ten o’clock tonight.”
“Mr. Osman,” I said, confused. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying, because my eyes went to the bald notch that had been clipped out of the top of his hair; he told me yesterday that his wife was angry at him when she trimmed his hair. Emotions and hair clippers make terrible bedfellows. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your tickets.”
“What tickets?”
“The train tickets to Europe?”
I was trying to make sense of what he was saying and was sure he had me confused with another guest. Yes, we’d booked train tickets to go home, but that was for next week, after my father returned. “What do you mean, you’ve exchanged them?”
“For tonight’s train, as requested.”
“Requested? By whom? Was it Madame Leroux?” Maybe she’d changed her mind. “Is she here?”
Mr. Osman’s nose twitched. His gaze dropped to the muddy stain on my dress. “Miss,” he said, scratching his beard. “Are you . . . ? Has there been . . . ?”
“Yes, there has,” I said without explanation. “Can you please send someone up to my room to fetch my clothes for cleaning?”
“Right away.”
“Is that where Madame Leroux is?” I asked.
“Madame Leroux left a half hour ago.”
“With the lounge singer?”
“And her luggage.”
I quickly surveyed the lobby, still unable to fully process that she was actually gone. I didn’t see her blond head anywhere, but I did, however, notice a dark one: Behind me, a middle-aged man in a long black coat bent to pick something off the marble floor. When he stood back up, dark eyes stared at me from a pale, bearded face that was thin and angular, handsome in a dark-and-brooding Heathcl
iff of Wuthering Heights sort of way. “Pardon me, miss,” he said in an Eastern European accent. “You dropped this.”
He held out a folded Turkish banknote between his index and middle fingers. I accepted it automatically before I looked closer and realized it was an old bill. Very old. Not the same size as modern paper currency in circulation.
“Oh, this isn’t mine, sir.” I tried to hand it back, but he only shook his hand.
“I saw you drop it,” he insisted, and made a motion that indicated it fell from my coat pocket. Something about the man was strange and off-putting. When I was trying to decide why exactly, the concierge interrupted.
“Regarding your brother,” the concierge said.
“One moment please,” I mumbled, holding up a finger to Mr. Osman, but when I turned back around, the man in the black coat was already exiting the hotel. I frowned at this for a moment, dazedly pocketing the old banknote, as Mr. Osman’s words quite suddenly sank into my thick brain, making me forget all about the Eastern European man.
“Pardon?” I said to the concierge. “Did you just say . . . my brother?”
He nodded emphatically. “Indeed. Your brother said he’d prefer to wait in your room. He insisted.”
I was an only child. I had no brother.
Suspicious and mildly alarmed, I stared at Mr. Osman. He stared at me. An awkward smile slowly lifted his cheeks. Was it possible my father had returned from Tokat while I was busy getting strip-searched in the market?
“Do you mean Richard Fox?” I asked. “My father? Is he the one who asked you to exchange the tickets?” He was the one who had them, after all. It had to be him.
Before hope could lift its head, Mr. Osman crushed it back down.
“No, miss,” he said almost pityingly. Then he looked at me strangely, mouth twitching, as if something was not being said. But before I could question him further, his manager beckoned, and he jogged back across the lobby, harried and apologetic. Just like that I was completely forgotten.
What in God’s name was happening?
The only logical explanation was that Mr. Osman had confused me with another guest. It had happened once before—he’d brought me a message intended for the unmarried daughter of some British noble who was staying on the floor above mine. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced: this was a mix-up, plain and simple. I’d just go upstairs and check to be sure.
Equal parts apprehensive and curious, I stepped into the hotel’s ornate black birdcage lift, and the operator took me to the fourth floor, where I made my way down a long hallway. Hand-woven Oushak carpeting muffled the heels of my muddy Mary Janes until I came to my room.
I paused outside with my ear to the door. Silence.
The handle wouldn’t budge. Locked, as it should be.
Cautious, I unlocked the door and peered inside to find . . . nothing. Empty. Just to be sure, I entered the room with my head, craning my neck, and when I spotted no initial danger, my feet followed.
Housekeeping had been here while I was out: the bed was made up. All my imported newspapers were stacked in two tidy piles, one with all the single crossword pages I’d removed. Across the room, the door leading to the balcony was standing wide open to the ancient city, the dark blue water of the Bosporus Strait snaking past stone buildings with clay roofs. A cool breeze carried drizzle into my room.
Hold on. That wasn’t right. The maids never left the balcony door open.
Pulse picking up speed, I peered outside, scanning for an intruder, but stopped short when a muffled noise floated from the room’s en suite bathroom.
Uh-oh.
My thoughts flipped back to the strange man in the lobby. But he hadn’t had time to get up here, had he? I supposed it was possible. Whoever it was, they were in my bathroom, and that couldn’t be good. Dipping into my handbag, I retrieved the only weapon in reach: a small, clothbound travel guide—Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Gateway to the Orient. I wielded it in front of me, arm extended stiffly, then threw open the bathroom door.
I wished I hadn’t.
A few feet away, near a claw-foot bathtub, stood a boy about my age, his handsome face marred by an old white scar that stretched over one cheekbone. Dark hair, a shade lighter than my own raven-black, was clipped short at the sides and neck; the top was a mass of overlong mazy curls.
Every inch of his rangy build was covered in lean muscle, quite a bit of which was brazenly on display: he wore nothing but a towel, slung low around his hips. Water puddled beneath his feet on the tiled floor.
Eighteen-year-old Huxley Gallagher, better known simply as Huck.
My former best friend.
My former more-than-a-friend.
My former more-than-a-friend, who left last year without a single goodbye.
Something tremored deep inside my chest. It quickly grew into an earthquake that shook my entire body. I just stared at him, tongue-tied and dumb as a box of rocks, forgetting everything that had happened that afternoon—the Grand Bazaar, Madame Leroux, the dark-and-brooding man who’d given me the old banknote in the lobby. All of it vanished from my thoughts.
“Hello, banshee,” Huck said, using the pet name he’d called me since we were kids. His deep Northern Irish lilt bounced around the tiled bathroom like a rubber ball. “Miss me much?”
3
I STOOD IN THE BATHROOM DOORWAY, staring at Huck, utterly astonished. Neither of us said a word for several heartbeats.
After being orphaned, Huck moved in with Father and me—just after my mother died, when I was ten and he was eleven. He became an unofficial member of the broken and grieving Fox household . . . until an unfortunate incident on my sixteenth birthday, summer before last. The best night of my life. Before it turned into the worst.
I hadn’t seen Huck since.
Yet here he stood, still and wary, his body a collection of sharp lines and tensed muscle. A tentative smile revealed a tiny, strangely attractive gap between his front teeth. But that smile was a lie; he was nervous. I knew him too well.
At least, I used to.
The fog around my brain cleared, and I blinked lashes damp with unshed tears. The little earthquake inside my chest had leveled small villages and toppled trees, and I now stood in the clearing dust, waiting to assess the damage.
“Been a while,” he said, sounding perfectly breezy. Lie.
“More than a year.” Since you left us. Since you broke my heart.
“One year, four months, nine days.”
A small noise escaped my mouth. He’d been keeping count?
His shrug was barely perceptible. “It was your birthday. Easy enough day to remember, isn’t it?”
“Right. Yes. Easy to remember,” I said dumbly, unable to look at him directly in the eyes. “How . . . ? What are you even doing here?”
As if a switch had been flicked, all the tightness suddenly left his limbs, and he was casual and loose. Transformed. His old devil-may-care self. Maybe he wasn’t as anxious as I’d thought; maybe that was only me.
Nonchalant as could be, he tilted his head to the side and shook his earlobe to clear out water, one eye squeezed shut. “Well, I thought I knew, but the way you’re scowling and threatening physical violence upon me with that book of yours makes me think I’ve committed a crime.”
I floundered, lost for words. It was as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to show up in my hotel room halfway across the globe. Maybe I’d somehow hit my head, and all of this was some kind of brain-injury fantasy. If I blinked enough, maybe he’d disappear.
But he didn’t.
“Huck?” I finally managed.
“Yes, banshee?”
I wanted to tell him not to call me that anymore. It felt too intimate, too painful, like my heart was being pierced with tiny needles. Breathe, I told myself. Steel spine, chin high. Steel spine, chin high . . .
“You’re in Northern Ireland,” I said.
“Am I?” He pretended to look around t
he room. “Funny. Thought this was Istanbul. Or Stamboul? What are they calling it these days? Used to be Constantinople, didn’t it? I was never good at history, if your memory serves,” he said, mouth quirking upward. “Cut your hair, I see.”
I huffed out a soft laugh, frustrated by the absurdity of such a trivial thing while simultaneously being drawn into his overconfident charm. My Achilles’ heel.
“You let yours go wild,” I said.
“Should’ve seen me an hour ago. Reckon I looked like a cave troll. Took half an hour to shave my face,” he said with good humor, stroking his jaw.
He looked impossibly older. The same . . . but different. A boy’s smile. A man’s body. The little earthquake in my chest rumbled again; it was a wonder I was still standing.
“More than your hair has changed,” he said, eyes roaming over my hips. “Quite a lot.”
“Watch it . . . ,” I warned, feeling self-conscious but trying to sound irritated.
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Not a straight and narrow lane anymore, are you?”
“I’ll gladly punch that freshly shaven jaw of yours if you say another word about my hips, Huxley Gallagher!”
“Steady now . . . It was a compliment. They’re very nice hips—hey, whoa!” he said, backing away with one hand up. “Guess that hot blood of yours is the one thing that hasn’t changed. Let’s start over again. What about a simple ‘Hello, Huck; good to see you’?”
“Why am I seeing you at all?” I said, exasperated. “What are you doing in Istanbul, much less my room? How did you get here?”
“Well, let’s see. I drove all day from Tokat.”
Tokat? “You were . . . with Father?” A dozen emotions sprang up inside me like unwanted weeds in the middle of a perfect lawn. Anger. Hurt. Jealousy . . . If he’d been with Father, that meant Huck had been helping him with the Turkey expedition. Behind my back. Both of them lying to me.
