by Jenn Bennett
House of Drăculești.
Radus and Mirceas. Ioanas and Cristinas. Michael the Brave.
Vlad Dracul, the first Dragon. And Vlad Dracula, with his big mustache and dark circles below his eyes. The Impaler himself. Monster. Hero.
Family.
But from behind him, a tall woman shifted into view. Black hair, kind eyes, regal shoulders. She drifted to the front of the hazy figures, a dark angel without wings, fierce as a Valkyrie on the battlefield. Impossibly beautiful and ethereal.
“Mother!” I cried.
“Darling girl,” she said in rich Romanian.
I wanted to run into her arms, but I couldn’t move. My body was rooted to the cavern floor.
“My little empress,” she said. “You’re stronger than any dragon. And you know what you need to do. Your spine is steel, your chin is high, and your heart is open. Make me proud.”
“Mother,” I pleaded, but she only shook her head and turned away from me. One by one, the hazy figures behind her faded. She wavered in the smoke, smiling over her shoulder at me, and then disappeared.
“No!” I sobbed. My feet became unstuck, and I stumbled forward toward where she’d been, but there was nothing but smoke and fire. Nothing but my bear of a father limping toward me in the middle of the bridge.
You know what you need to do.
I did.
The Zissu brothers had told me. The ring showed no mercy. Once all three bands were fit together and worn, it became part of the wearer. I tested it now: it couldn’t be pulled off. It couldn’t be destroyed. The dragon would not let go so easily.
It wanted blood. So I gave it.
Kneeling on the bridge, I set my hand on the rocky floor. I raised the sickle sword with a trembling hand, exhaled, and lopped off my pinkie.
And the bone ring.
I felt no pain. Not right away. There was only the blood spilling from my maimed hand. The surreal sight of my finger lying on the rocky floor. And the terrible loss of what had been inside me.
The dragon was gone.
My red vision faded away. I stood on shaky legs and kicked my finger into the flaming lake
I dropped the sword as the pain came—terrible and fierce and unrelenting. Like an injured animal, I drew my hand to my breast and pressed it against my coat to stanch the bleeding. I was suddenly, shockingly aware of my surroundings and no longer brave but terrified. No longer in a daze, either, because now I saw my bedraggled father across the bridge. A horror-stricken look had contorted his face.
“Theodora!”
I started to race toward him, but an explosion rocked the cavern. I swung around to see the head of the dragon statue falling to floor and the entire cavern suddenly illuminated in a blinding flash.
Flames from the lake spread to the dripping cavern ceiling and flickered down cracks in the wall.
The entire cavern was on fire.
“Father!” I cried, backing up. Nowhere to go. Flames everywhere. The bridge was covered in smoke. I couldn’t see him anymore. I couldn’t even see the bridge.
“Theodora!” His shout echoed around the cavern. So far away. Where?
“I’m stuck!” I called back in despair. “There’s no way out.”
Out of the plumes of black smoke, a white shape emerged. Two pointy ears, shaggy fur, one eye. More wolf than dog.
Lupu!
She looked at me, turned, and disappeared back into the smoke.
Showing me the way out.
Walls of flame rose on either side of the bridge. Fire rained from the dripping ceiling. But the stone surface of the bridge itself was clear. Making myself small, injured hand clutched to my chest, I ducked and raced across the stone, jumping over lines of fire that seeped into cracks.
I coughed and stumbled. Between the smoke stinging my eyes and the blinding flames, I realized with terror that I’d lost my bearings again. I couldn’t see. Not Lupu. Not the edge of the bridge or the other side of the lake. I was surrounded by smoke and fire.
In a disoriented, panicked moment, I stopped running, teetering on the stone, bleeding everywhere—unsure if I was about to run over the edge into the water.
Suddenly, a long arm shot out from the black smoke. Father grabbed the front of my coat and jerked me forward, into the toxic smoke . . . and then through it. He pulled me along until I stumbled off the bridge.
My lungs seized and spasmed in turns as I struggled to draw in a clean breath. And then I was floating. Lifted. Carried like a child in one tree-trunk-sized arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
He repeated it over and over, limping through the cavern’s tunnel, carrying me away from the fire and smoke. Away from death. Away from the terrible power of Vlad Dracula’s ring. Away from it all, toward safety.
Richard Damn Fox.
Decorated American war veteran.
Brash explorer and adventurer. Wealthy antiquities collector.
Never met a risk he wouldn’t take or a challenge he couldn’t resist.
Forgiven.
27
GARA DE NORD WAS A proper railway station. Not only was Bucharest’s terminus an interesting piece of nineteenth-century Romanian architecture on the outside—with massive columns and a winged golden eagle stretching over its facade—but inside, its main concourse stretched beneath skylights and an arched roof that kept out undesirable weather. Which was good, because it was snowing ferociously, and we had tickets for the Orient Express.
Night train to Paris. Departing at nine o’clock.
Me, Father, and Huck.
Our severed little family back together. At least for the moment.
After Father and I came down the mountain, things were . . . chaotic. There was my hand. Father’s arm. And Huck, who’d been revived after Rothwild’s poison but not fully recovered. How we got to the hospital was a blur; Lovena helped, and she and Father yelled at each other a lot. Did you know a finger could be reattached if you saved it? I wish I had. Now my left hand had three fingers, a thumb, and twenty-three stitches. I also had Father’s blood inside me, because I’d lost a bit too much. If you’re going to hack a cursed ring off your own hand, I’d advise doing it closer to a medical facility.
But hey, maybe that was just the morphine talking. I’d get another syrette injection once we boarded our train, then another tomorrow—pain-free until Paris, at which point Father said I’d get to tough things out. Lucky me.
Though Lovena sat with us in the hospital after that horrible night, the elusive Zissu brothers had vanished. Gone. Sayonara. Adios. When we returned to the shop to collect our things, we found our luggage but nothing else. Shelves were cleared. Antiques gone. No sign of them or their curiosities. Just a business card on the counter with no address and a scrawled note on the back that said: “Noroc bun.” Good luck.
“Their shop moves from place to place. I’ll find them again one day,” Lovena said with a shrug, as if it was perfectly normal for the brothers to disappear overnight.
To be fair, this was probably the least mysterious thing that had happened on our trip, so I didn’t question it.
Lovena offered to drive us to Bucharest, but her car was small. Besides, she was still looking for Lupu. The wolf dog hadn’t returned to her, which made me wonder if I’d seen a mirage in the cavern. Or maybe the creature was descended from the old Dacian wolves who looked after the people here.
A lot of unexplainable things happened that night. It was probably for the best that the cavern didn’t show up on any maps. Maybe one day the Black Church would close off their underground tunnel and Castle Barlog would fall to ruins completely and never be seen again. Just a local fairy tale.
Wouldn’t be the worst thing.
We said our farewells to Lovena and promised to keep in touch. She slipped something into my pocket when she hugged me.
“What is this?” I asked, peeking inside to find a tiny black feather pressed between a folded sheet of waxed paper.
Sh
e shook her head discreetly, eyes flicking to my father. “Just a little something from my crows to help guide you. Safe travels, little empress. Don’t forget your homeland. Wherever you go, you can always return.”
Now that Rothwild was gone, this prospect was more appealing. When I told her this, she just shrugged and said, “Anything can happen here. That’s what makes it interesting.”
With that, I couldn’t argue.
After leaving Lovena, we spent one day traveling from Brașov, and most of the next having our clothes laundered while we waited for money to be wired from the States. I had to break it to Father about my tutor stealing our traveler’s checks back in Istanbul. He was . . . less than happy. But less mad than he should’ve been. Nearly dying in a fiery cavern changes your perspective.
Right now Father had disappeared somewhere inside the Bucharest railway station. He was on an errand to send one last telegram while I dealt with the baggage porter. As I finished, I spotted Huck strolling toward me on the platform, flat cap pulled down over the scabbed-up occult symbol that had been carved into his forehead the night of his poisoning. We hadn’t spent any time alone together since . . . well, since he was kidnapped from the tavern in Brașov. What with everything going on and all of us being injured and sick and traumatized. Surviving. A lot of somber faces between the lot of us over the past couple of days, so it was good to see him smiling now.
Really good.
“Jackpot, banshee,” he said as he approached, holding up a small stack of newsprint pages. “A very friendly railway worker let me rip up two weeks’ worth of old newspapers that were headed for the trash bin. Here.”
Romanian crosswords, each neatly torn and folded into rectangles, just how I liked them. “Thank you,” I said, smiling back at him. “These will last me till Paris.”
“Or at least until we hit Vienna. That’s when we’ll get the French newspapers. Speaking of, is that our train, there?” Huck asked, nodding toward a line of blue Pullman cars. When I confirmed it was, he said, “I hope the restaurant car is stocked, because I smell bread somewhere, and it’s making me hungry.”
“Feeling less queasy?”
“My nose thinks so, but to be perfectly honest, I’m still a touch weak and rickety,” he said, one hand pressed to his stomach. “Who knew poison was such a powerful appetite suppressant?”
“Minor annoyance versus the alternative. You could be dead.”
“Takes more than a couple of brutes in robes and a psychopathic occultist to bring this lad down.”
“Never doubted it,” I said.
“That makes one of us, because I was sure I’d be meeting my Maker, banshee. I never want to see another wicked sorcerer as long as I live,” he said, scratching the marks on his forehead briefly before tugging the brim of his cap down.
A couple of harried travelers strode by us, talking to a conductor in a blue uniform with a clipboard. When they’d passed, Huck asked me in a softer voice, “I’ve not had the chance to ask you . . . What was it like to put on the ring? Did you . . . ? I mean, was it like when we saw the bone band in Sighișoara? Or worse? It was worse, wasn’t it? Fox said you were not yourself.”
I could still hear the sound of the ring’s magic. The altered vision. The feel of the dragon inside me and the rush of power. The dark pleasure of it. It was like a bad dream, one that haunted the corners of your mind for days and days. . . .
But mostly I thought of my mother’s face. And as I stood next to Huck, stuffing his folded crossword puzzle pages into my coat pocket, I felt Lovena’s crow feather, and the hope it gave me pushed away the nightmarish memories.
“It was probably a bit like what you went through when you were poisoned,” I told him. “Being manipulated by dark forces is not the best way to spend a trip overseas. Let’s never do that again.”
“Aye, I’ll raise a glass to that. We’ve learned a lot on this trip, the two of us,” he said, squinting one eye at me. “Firstly, don’t get kidnapped by occultists trying to take over the world through mayhem and murder.”
“It’s just good common sense,” I agreed.
“Second, not all witches are bad.”
“Probably most aren’t. Women are always demonized.”
“Very true,” he agreed. “And then, of course, there’s the third thing we learned.”
“What’s that?”
“When you care about someone, you should tell them while you are alone and have plenty of opportunities to put your hands all over each other. Not after the two of you have rescued her father and especially when that father has already kicked you out of the house for putting your hands on his daughter, so now he’s watching you like a hawk, and you don’t know if you’ll ever get the chance to even so much as enjoy a chaste kiss.”
“Is that so?”
“Brutal lesson to learn.”
“Not too late, you know. For that last part.”
“Is it not?” he said, sounding hopeful.
“Unless you’re too . . . rickety.”
“For that? I’d have to be dead, banshee.” He warily glanced behind us, and when he turned back around, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him.
Just a chaste one. At least, it started that way. Then he curled a warm hand around the back of my neck and pulled me closer. And that kiss was achingly, dizzyingly thorough. Much too long for a public train platform. We both realized that at the same time when the train whistle blew.
“Probably should”—he cleared his throat and glanced around—“finish that later.”
I nodded quickly. Later sounded good. Yet it was hard to make plans when you didn’t know where you’d be in a week. Because we were going to Paris now, to stay with Jean-Bernard and recuperate. After that it was anyone’s guess. Back to New York? Drop Huck off in Ireland? Father hadn’t decided, and I hadn’t reminded him of the threat I’d made when we were locked up in that horrible cavern. No need. He hadn’t forgotten. I could tell by the way he avoided my eyes.
Speak of the devil . . .
Behind Huck, I caught sight of my father limping down the platform. His broken arm had been set in a cast in the hospital. It hung against his chest now inside a black sling, and the pain of it along with his sore, hobbled knee made him grumpy. He’d be fun on the train, I could already tell.
And unfortunately for everyone unlucky enough to be assigned to our sleeper car, Father had acquired a Turkish meerschaum pipe when he and Huck were in Tokat—a carved, curving monstrosity that he now cupped in one hand, trailing sweet smoke over the platform when he gestured.
“There you both are. Everyone ready?” he asked in his big, booming voice. “Tickets. Money. Luggage. Anything else?”
“Think that’s it,” I said.
He glanced down at me and made a face. “Good Lord, Theodora. That black eye is awful-looking in this light. You look like a strung-out panda bear who stuck its hand into a wood chipper.”
“Better than looking like a bear who fell out of a tree and broke its arm trying to get to a beehive,” I said.
Father snorted to himself, looking down at me with merry eyes, and then leaned his cast toward me. “Under my arm. Take it.”
I tugged out a slim book. Not a book. A blank journal. Black leather stamped with Romania’s coat of arms. I juggled it on my bandaged hand so that I could poke inside to be sure. “What’s this for?”
“Got it in the gift shop. Every traveler needs a journal. If you don’t write down what you’ve seen, you’ll never remember it.” He gestured loosely with his pipe. “Or you’ll need a rescue and no one will come, because they haven’t cracked your secret code.”
I smiled up at him, a little wary. Heart racing a little too fast. Maybe that was just the painkilling drug. “Travel journal,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. He glanced at Huck. “Don’t look at me like a wounded puppy. I didn’t get you one because you hate writing. Like pulling teeth to get you to leave a goddamn note on the refrigerator.”
> Huck shrugged. “I’m better at talking than writing. Then people can get the full breadth of my charm and dazzling good looks,” he said, gesturing around his face. “All this is wasted on paper.”
Father rolled his eyes, but not unkindly. It was nice to see them joking together. Maybe too nice. I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them crushed again.
“Father?” I asked.
“Yes, empress.”
“You said this was a travel journal. Where are we going?”
He shrugged and rotated his shoulder under the sling. “Well, I figured we’d stay a few weeks in Paris with Jean-Bernard. Sleep. Eat. Wean you off the morphine.”
Huck chuckled.
“For the love of Pete,” I mumbled.
“And while we’re doing that,” Father said, “I can figure out how I’m going to replace a crashed mail plane.”
Huck held up a finger. “Did I steal a plane? Yes. But did I crash it? No. I landed it. That was a bloody beautiful piece of piloting I did there with that hunk of junk. And think of this—I probably did those people a favor, I did. The postal worker who normally flies that plane might’ve died.”
“You’re a hero,” Father said, one dark brow raised. “That’s what you’re saying.”
Huck shrugged his shoulders high. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“Never mind the fact that you stole the plane to begin with.”
“We-e-ell,” Huck drawled. “You know what they say. Petty thieves steal small things. I stole a plane.” He waggled his brows and then added, “For the record, it was her idea.”
“Heathens, both of you,” Father said affectionately.
I tapped my father’s shoulder with the spine of the black journal. “What about afterward?”
His eyes scrunched as he looked down at me. “After what?”
“After Paris,” I said. “What happens after Paris?”
He puffed on his pipe and looked at the railway attendants loading luggage into the baggage car. “Been thinking on that . . . I’ve heard some rumors about the Summer Isles, off the coast of Scotland. One of them has a strange little village that’s been occupied since the Middle Ages, and some interesting pagan legends about a burial site.”
