by Jenn Bennett
I inhaled sharply, unable to keep my hand from shaking with exhilaration.
Puzzle ring! I was right. I was right. I was right. . . .
Trying to stay calm, I read the notation next to the engraving, which said that though witnesses in Louis XIV’s court claimed the ring once belonged to the devil, modern archivists have suggested this was a mistranslation and that they meant “dragon,” because a scaled creature graced the tops of the joined bands.
How about that? It was here, in Batterman’s, all along.
The giddy joy of discovery zipped through me. I felt light-headed.
When I looked up from the page, the twins were both smiling at me. Petar said, “I can see from your face that you were already aware your father’s quest was misinformed. He should have been looking for three rings, not one.”
I elbowed Huck discreetly, but he wasn’t feeling the same triumphant buzz I was enjoying. All of this was too much for him. Any second he’d be making the sign of the cross.
“I never thought to look for the ring in other entries,” I told the twins, gesturing toward the book. “I know my father didn’t either. He . . . doesn’t appreciate Batterman’s as I do.”
Petar nodded, sympathetic. “He is a skeptic. If he’d consulted us at the start of his quest, we would have told him no good could come of looking for Vlad’s war ring, because Mr. Rothwild uses people until he doesn’t need them any longer. They are disposable to him. And Mr. Fox will be disposable when Mr. Rothwild gets what he wants.”
Disposable? That was the last thing I wanted to hear. A fresh shot of panic pinged down my spine . . . and then something struck me.
“But Rothwild doesn’t have what he wants yet,” I said. “Not if you still own one band of the ring.”
“We’re only caretakers,” Petar insisted. “It’s not ours to own.”
“But you have it?” I pressed.
“We should be certain,” his brother whispered, and the two men exchanged a look and nod before Petar turned toward me.
“May I see your hand?” he asked, urging me to come closer. Looking at me much the same way as Lovena had.
“Do you want to listen to my blood?” I asked.
His smile was slow and broad. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Careful,” Huck whispered low under his breath.
He wasn’t wrong to be cautious, of course, but I was curious. And if these men were our enemies, I couldn’t see why they’d share all of this information with us so willingly. Just because they were . . . well, a little odd didn’t say anything about their moral character. At least, that’s what my gut was telling me.
I warily extended my arm over the counter toward Petar, who gingerly took hold of my hand with cool, dry fingers and inspected my palm over the tops of his tortoiseshell eyeglasses. He flipped my hand over and ran a slow finger down my veins.
The shop fell into silence . . . just for a moment. Then he released me and nodded firmly at his brother. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Mihai said.
Both of them were pleased.
Did they know? Could Petar hear whatever Lovena had detected in my veins? Old blood . . .
And was it the same thing Dr. Mitu had discovered when researching my mother’s bloodline?
“We told you Mr. Fox hadn’t been to our shop,” Mihai said, “but it may be of interest to you that we have heard his Hungarian employer arrived in town yesterday.”
“Mr. Rothwild is here?” Huck said, a distrustful look on his face.
“He was seen last night,” Mihai confirmed. “It’s not the first time. He comes here every now and then, a dragon, returning to his lair.”
“I thought his, uh, lair was in Hungary—in Budapest?” Huck said.
That was where Father first had a meeting with Rothwild, in his home in Hungary, across the northwestern border of Romania, past Cluj and the horrible Hoia Forest . . . at least a day’s ride from here by train.
“Budapest is his home, yes,” Mihai said. “But he has . . . a lair, of sorts—here, inside the mountain.”
Huck and I both stared at the old men.
“Perhaps it’s best to show them,” Petar murmured to his brother.
Huck shot me an anxious glance as Mihai tottered back to his overflowing bookshelves and ran his finger across the spines of several oversize books, making a happy noise when he found what he sought: an old atlas, bound in vellum. With no small amount of effort, he hauled the large tome to the counter in arms that were as thin as spring branches.
“Let’s see,” he mumbled to himself, turning thick parchment pages that made crinkling noises. “Ah, here we are. Brașov, 1712. There are many castles in Romania, and several are concentrated in this region. This is the thirteenth-century citadel of Rasnov,” he said, holding a large magnifying glass over a drawing of a fortress on the old map. He then moved it to a blank spot on the map. “A little farther away on the other side of the mountains is the future site of Peleș, the fairy-tale castle that would later be built for King Carol. And, of course, there is the famous Castle Bran . . . here.”
“Said to have been captured briefly by Vlad Țepeș,” Petar remarked.
“Yes,” Huck said. “We read that on the information sign at the railway station.”
“Three castles,” Mihai said, tapping his finger on each location again. “But there is also a fourth castle—Barlog.”
His magnifying glass moved to a mountain in the middle of the city . . . and a drawing of a black dragon.
“What is that?” I asked, bending over the atlas.
“The mountain standing here in the heart of our town is called Tâmpa,” Petar said. “Heavily wooded. Beautiful views of Brașov. After ascending to the summit on a secret path, it is said you walk through the woods until you come to Castle Barlog, Lair of the Dragon.”
“Rothwild owns a castle on a mountain in the middle of Brașov?” I said.
“He inherited it from his grandfather, a Hungarian nobleman who owned several pieces of property in the Southern Carpathians.”
“You mean we can walk right into it like tourists?” Huck asked.
Mihai shook his head. “No. It is private property. And no one can just walk into it. The path up the mountain is hidden. The castle is hidden. This was the last public map printed with its location, more than two hundred years ago. And you can see, it wasn’t even marked clearly on a map at that time.”
“The town has forgotten it was even there,” Petar said.
We all stared in silence at the map until Huck cleared his throat. “Do you think Fox, I mean . . . Mr. Fox. Do you think there’s a chance he knew about this castle?”
“Anything’s possible,” Mihai said. “But I would hope not.”
“Most who journey inside Castle Barlog don’t come out,” Petar warned. “And Mr. Fox doesn’t have what Mr. Rothwild wants, so he is not useful to the Hungarian. Mr. Fox has nothing to bargain with.”
“If Mr. Fox is even here,” Mihai added. “We haven’t heard anything.”
And by that I wasn’t entirely sure if they meant “heard” as in gossip, or “heard” as in let me listen to your blood. But it didn’t matter, because Father had to be here in Brașov! I believed that more than ever now. He knew this shop existed: the business card was in the journal, and the twins were on his list. Maybe he was stuck somewhere. A broken-down car or train. Waiting for money to be wired. But—
But. If he had come to Brașov, and Rothwild was here . . . Would he go meet with the man? I thought about Jean-Bernard. And the widow’s gory murder scene in Bucharest. And Lovena’s sister jumping from the clock tower.
What would Rothwild do to my father?
My pulse went erratic, speeding up until I could feel it swishing inside my temples. How could I find Father before it was too late? Was Rothwild our only clue to his whereabouts? And what were we supposed to do, demand a meeting with a mad occultist and politely ask him where Father was? Pray that the man hadn’t already po
isoned, bewitched, or “disposed of” him? That seemed like a terrible idea. Like walking into an angry lion’s den without a weapon.
Weapon. Huh.
Several puzzle pieces slotted together at once inside my head and formed into an idea.
Nineteen across, “negotiator’s grease.” L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E.
“My father doesn’t have a bargaining chip,” I said. “But you do. May I see it?”
The twins gave each other a questioning look. Petar nodded. Mihai then took out a cluster of keys and opened a display case next to the counter. The glass was old and dirty, the contents of the display case hard to see until I caught a glimpse—small boxes. Cigarette cases, perhaps, or miniature music boxes. Yet none of them were very pretty or ornamental. They all were made from the same dark metal.
He reached inside the bottom of the case and pulled out one of them, about the size and shape of a ring box. And now that it was out of the case, I could see the rust covering it.
An iron box.
Huck drew in a sharp breath.
When I glanced at him, he swallowed hard and said to me in a low voice, “The box we dug up in the cave in Tokat . . . It looked just like that.”
Something between fear and excitement burgeoned inside my chest as I scrutinized symbols inscribed on the rusted metal box—symbols I couldn’t identify. Where were these from? They weren’t Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sumerian cuneiform? My mother would know. She loved ancient writing systems.
“Iron is a good insulator against magic,” Mihai said as he used a fingernail to open a tiny latch on the box. Then, without ceremony, he cracked open the lid. And though I should have been, I was not prepared for what would happen when he did.
The room swam in my vision.
All the noise felt as if it were sucked out of the air, and in its place was a familiar drumming cadence.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump . . .
I covered my ears on instinct, but of course it didn’t help. I was going to be sick. I teetered on my feet, dizzy and unsteady, feeling as if the floor were swirling below me.
Huck’s mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear him. This was so much worse than the museum in Sighișoara—oh God! My head was going to crack open. Pain lashed around my black eye. I was going to faint. Or be sick. I was going . . . I was going to—
Mihai slammed the iron box shut. With a whooshing sound, the thumping stopped, and the shop rocked back into place. My balance returned. Or maybe it was Huck’s hands gripping my shoulders.
“Theo!”
I nodded . . . and nodded. Swallowed hard. Licked dry lips. And then I put a hand on Huck’s arm. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?” Huck said.
“I’m okay,” I repeated, and then whispered, “It was just like before.”
“She hears,” one of the twins was saying across the counter.
“She hears,” the other confirmed.
When I looked their way, Mihai slid the iron box toward me. “House of Basarab. House of Drăculești. Daughter of Transylvania and Wallachia. Scion of the Dragon.”
A dark thrill fluttered through me.
“Go on, child,” Petar murmured. “Take it. The bone band is yours.”
Mine. Mine? It felt like a mistake . . . and a temptation. Surreal.
“It never belonged to us,” Petar said. “We were merely stewards. Perhaps it will help your father. Perhaps it will not. Please make wise choices. It is a heavy burden.”
Hesitant, I started to reach for it, but Huck held up a hand to block me.
“Hold on, now,” he said. “Is this the only way to find Fox? This cursed thing? Banshee, think about this for a moment, yeah? You’ve always told me that you believed in your heart it was a cursed object that killed your poor mother. Are you so quick to follow in her footsteps? If the legends are all true, then this thing causes nothing but death and destruction—it’s evil. It should be destroyed.”
“You may try,” Mihai said. “Others have. No one has been successful.”
Petar nodded. “Indestructible. Much like the person who wears it. They say that lawmen had to cut off Elizabeth Báthory’s finger to remove it. Once all three pieces of the ring are joined together, it becomes a part of the person wearing it. You can’t remove it by force. I’m sure you know Vlad Dracula’s fate. The only way to stop him was”—he made a slicing gesture across his throat—“beheading.”
A gruesome way to authenticate the ring . . .
Was that what my father had meant in his journal?
“Besides,” Mihai said, “you don’t want to destroy the bone band. It could be your bargaining chip, if you needed one. A very dangerous bargaining chip.”
Huck was probably right. But my father was out there somewhere, and the longer it took to find him . . . I couldn’t just walk away from this. Not now. Now after everything I’d learned.
I put a hand on Huck’s arm and pleaded with my eyes. Trust me.
Deep lines crossed his brow. He shook his head, unhappy, but he moved out of my way.
Hesitant, I reached out and touched the iron ring box. The metal felt . . . warm. But it was blessedly quiet. Subdued by the strange box with its stranger markings. Like a sheath for a sharp blade.
“Tell me how to get into the castle,” I said to the brothers in a low voice.
“It’s rumored that Castle Barlog can only be accessed after nightfall,” Mihai said. “And that there’s one way inside through a single, hidden entrance, but it’s locked during the day and known only to members of their order.”
“Any clue as to where?”
Mihai shook his head, apologetic, and said, “I know the old road was blockaded years ago, but that is all.”
“We can ask around, but it is a delicate task,” Petar said. “Maybe you can stop by tomorrow and we’ll know more.”
For all I knew, my father could be dead by tomorrow.
I tried to press them for more information. The conversation went around in circles before ending in the same place. Eventually, they politely informed us that it was time to close the shop and encouraged me to take the iron ring box.
And that was it. Business concluded. The cursed bone band is yours. Good luck with your missing father. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Only, now I had more questions than I did before we stepped inside the curiosity shop. About my father’s precise whereabouts and his safety. About Rothwild and his own ancestral connection to Vlad. Did he have the other two bone bands or did Sarkany also possess one? Were they rivals, or were they working together? How was I going to find an entrance to this hidden castle?
And my God! Was I really, truly a descendant of Vlad Dracula? And did that gift me with some kind of arcane claim to the bone ring’s cursed power, or was it just a blip on a dusty family tree—an exotic piece of party conversation?
I juggled these questions around in my head like flaming torches; drop one, and the world would catch fire and burn down everything I loved.
“Remember one thing,” Mihai warned in parting. “Do not take the ring out of the box. Not only is that box a good insulator, but it keeps the ring hidden. Once out? It’s only a matter of time before someone with occult knowledge can find it. If Rothwild obtains all three bands of the bone ring, he will not hesitate to wear it. And once he wears it, he will be transformed, no longer himself.”
He’d be the Dragon.
God help us all.
21
I COULD FEEL HUCK’S ANGER BREWING the minute the shop door closed behind us. It was dark now; twilight had fallen while we were inside. He hurried me down the deserted street, past storefronts that had shuttered for the night, and when we were a safe distance away from the antiques shop, his eyes went straight to my satchel, where I’d stashed the iron box.
“What the hell are you thinking?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” he said, gesturing flippantly. “Accepting that bloody thing was
a mistake.”
“Why? You heard them. The box keeps the band hidden.”
“You trust that? You trust them? My skin was crawling the entire time we were in that bedeviled shop!”
“That was probably just the magic wards,” I assured him. “Did you see the inside of the window? It’s one thing to read about spellwork like that in books, but to see it in action was—”
“Downright frightening? Made you want to piss your pants and run in the other direction?”
“Impressive?” I said, flashing him a toothy, sheepish smile.
“It’s not funny.”
“I didn’t say it was. Why are you being an ass?”
“Because I’m scared out of my mind, banshee,” he said as a cold wind whipped a wayward lock of curly hair across his creased brow. “I’m bloody terrified of that ring and the people who want it.”
“You think I’m not?”
“We don’t even know if Fox is here. What if he left the country? What if he went back to the hotel in Bucharest and is tearing his hair out, looking for us?”
“Then he should have showed up days ago, when he said he was going to! Or he never should’ve left you in Tokat in the first place! I’m not happy about any of this, Huck.”
“Aren’t you? Earlier today you were as scared as I was when the professor’s assistant told you all that about your ancestry, but now it seems to have settled in your mind. Because I saw the way your eyes lit up when those brothers were shoving the ring box toward you, all Daughter of Dracula this and Transylvanian Princess that . . . You looked like someone just told you that you’re the son of God!”
I frowned at him. “Did not!”
“You did,” he said, nodding his head rapidly. “That ring is cursed, and it’s got its claws in you. We shouldn’t have accepted it. No good will come of it.”
“What about Father, huh? The entire reason we’ve raced all over Eastern Europe for the last week?”
“And we’re going to do what now, exactly? Hike miles across a mountain in the dark until a magical castle that’s not on any map appears in the fog? Maybe we’ll run into another wolf pack while we’re at it? That is, if this Rothwild doesn’t catch us first. Or Sarkany. Or the rest of these evil cultists. Hey! Maybe we’ll freeze to death in the snow this time and the ghost of that trapper will hunt us down and carve X ’s into our foreheads.”
