“Sir, I do not believe I have a choice,” she said, slowly, once again feeling that chill running down the back of her neck. “Mother Lovina said something to me on the first night that the Roma entertained us, that my fate and that of Markos and Dominik are intertwined. I think this is something I must do.”
“Oh . . . really?” The Graf, gave her a strange look. “What exactly did she say?”
“‘You will be leaving here together, and going into great danger. You, and he, and his cousin. The danger will be even greater than you suspect. I see a terrible darkness, and my sight cannot penetrate it . . .’” Rosa quoted. “Then she told me she could see nothing more.”
The Graf and Gunther exchanged a long look. Gunther shrugged, and turned to Rosa. “This is your choice, not mine, to make. Mother Lovina is unknown to me, but many of the Roma are gifted—or cursed—with clear sight into the future. Just remember that the future can always be altered.”
Rosa thought about that for a long moment, while the soft sounds of the gardeners at work drifted up to the terrace, and a bold little sparrow came looking for crumbs. “In a sense, no matter what I do, it has already been altered by the fact that she said ‘The danger will be even greater than you suspect.’ I have been warned, and now I will be a hundred times as vigilant.”
The Graf nodded. “You have a very good point.”
“The only difficulty I can think of will be finding a way to bring all the things I think I might need,” she said, with a wry smile. “Now that I have been warned—well, there are things that are common enough, like salt and holy water, that I can get them in Transylvania as easily as here. But there are others—not so common—”
“Ah!” the Graf said, with a faint note of triumph. “That, I think, you can leave up to me.”
Once again, Rosa found herself traveling by train in the height of luxury. But this time it was not alone.
Ostensibly, they were a sister and two brothers, and given the cut and luxury of their clothing, there was not so much as a hint that anyone doubted the story. Not that it much mattered. Thanks to the Graf’s largesse, for the first several days of the journey, by day they shared a private compartment that they left only to dine, and by night they slept in what amounted to tiny, exquisitely appointed bedrooms, so there really was no one to remark on the fact that they looked nothing at all like each other.
Privacy was paramount, because the discussions they had during the day were not the sort of thing they would have wanted anyone to overhear, obviously.
“I didn’t even know there was a rail line to Sibiu,” Rosa marveled, bent over the map on the table between them. This was not exactly a parlor car, but it was a very nicely appointed private compartment. Outside the handsomely curtained window, a landscape rolled by that she wished she could explore. Were there any Elementals, new to her, out there?
“Well it is still going to be a roundabout journey,” Dominik pointed out. His finger traced their journey. “First we get off at Bucharest and take the train up to Medias by way of Brasov here, and from there literally circle around the area we need to get to, like this, in order to reach Sibiu.” He traced the circle with his finger. “It’s partly the mountains, and partly that there isn’t a lot of demand for a railway on the direct route. They are not good trains, I am afraid. Not like the German and Austrian trains.”
“How, not good?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Small. Smaller than this train, smaller engine, not able to pull as much. The cars are smaller, not as wide.”
She nodded. “We have them too. The Kandertalbahn is one I know. I am no stranger to such things.”
“Well, you know how it is, then.” Dominik rested his finger on Sibiu. “These trains, they don’t run regularly, and you never see them from the road. And without this map and timetable you would not even know they existed unless you crossed the right of way, which doesn’t happen very often. The roads go one way, railway takes a different route.”
“Not that the timetable is of much use,” Markos sighed. “It is more of a suggestion.”
Dominik laughed. “Well, we are not efficient and methodical Prussians, cousin. We are grateful the train gets us there at all.”
Rosa rolled her eyes a little, but she understood.
“The best place to abandon our current status is at Bucharest, which was what I had planned, if that is all right with you,” Markos said diffidently, looking at Dominik and Rosa in turn. “The last thing we want to do is look out of place—although I had considered that if we looked wealthy, we might make ourselves an attractive target. The problem is, we might make ourselves an attractive target for everything except what we are hunting, if that makes sense to you.”
“Perfect sense.” She nodded. “We should blend in as exactly as we can. We want the local folk to be willing to talk to us, as well, the way they spoke to you and Dominik.”
“We would have to overnight at Bucharest anyway,” Dominik pointed out. “Possibly, depending on how the trains are running, spend more than one night.” He cast a reassuring glance at Rosa. “Bucharest is a very green city. You will have no difficulty there. We can stay in a hotel in Little Paris.”
“Should we store our aristocratic belongings in Bucharest somewhere, or send them back to the Count?” Rosa asked.
“Store them,” Dominik said immediately. “You, at least, are going back to the Schwarzwald, and you can take our borrowed finery back with you. We can leave the trunk indefinitely at the hotel, and make our transition there.”
What? What on earth are the people at the hotel going to think, when aristocrats arrive and peasants leave? Won’t we run into difficulty? Might someone even call the police? Rosa blinked in confusion. “But—are we not going to—”
“My dear Hunt Master,” Dominik drawled, “We are wealthy, aristocratic and eccentric. We merely tell the concierge that we are going on an adventure in the mountains, and have no wish to make ourselves the targets of bandits. He will not blink an eye when we leave a trunk with him—and leave wearing . . . more plebian garments than we arrived in. The concierge will be happy to help us, and think that we are being quite sensible. We are going on an adventure, after all, not being stupid. No one with any sense would dress like this in the Carpathians.”
“We are also two very able, and well-armed, young men with their sister, who will also be well-armed.” Markos shrugged. “We will be seen as eccentric, not idiots. People will approve. In fact, I would not be the least surprised if the concierge arranges for us to leave the hotel by a back entrance to avoid even the chance of unpleasantness.”
“You are eccentric when you have enough money to not be considered crazy,” Dominik laughed. Rosa laughed with him.
“So that is the difference! I always wondered.” She pondered the map again, as the train rocked gently. “Then we become our normal selves, so to speak, in Bucharest, and get the train to Brasov. I am going to miss first class . . .”
“So will I.” Dominik pulled a long face. “But at least we can travel the best class available and not have to sit on hard benches next to chickens. Even our common clothing will be good enough that no one will look askance at us in the car. The wagon will be waiting for us in Sibiu, thanks to the Count’s money and our family. Now, this is what I had in mind when we arrive in Sibiu. We can get the wagon right away. Markos or I will go fetch it when the train arrives; whoever is left at the railway station can get the luggage to the curb.”
“You go. Strange horses don’t like me,” Markos said, instantly.
Dominik raised an eyebrow. “So you want to have time all alone with Rosa, cousin?” he said, with a slow smile. “But what if I don’t want you to?”
Rosa flushed and kept her face down. Were they actually competing over her? It gave her a strange feeling. “How fast are these trains?” she asked, trying to keep all their minds on business.
&n
bsp; “Not very. Maybe ten miles an hour. We’ll have to overnight in Brasov, and probably do the same in Sibiu, since I expect we will arrive after dark.” Dominik tapped the map. “Once we have the wagon, we can go where we like in Sibiu. I know good hotels in both towns.”
“You would,” muttered Markos.
“Just because some of us haven’t the ability to curl up in any available stable and be comfortable . . .” Dominik tsk’d. “It is no crime to like comfort. We’ll be camping soon enough, or staying in dark old village inns, with boxes full of straw for beds. I’ll take a nice featherbed every time I can get one.”
“If we are going to arrive after dark and wind up making an overnight stay at Sibiu, why don’t we just go to the hotel first?” Markos continued, reasonably. “We can have all our luggage brought there instead of having to sit there waiting in the cold and dark on a mound of luggage at the curb. Then, you can get the wagon in the morning, and we can load it all from the hotel in the daylight, instead of getting it all stowed badly in the dark at the station. And we will have the help of porters instead of having to load it by ourselves.”
Rosa nodded eagerly in agreement. After her travels with Hans, the prospect of sitting curbside on a mound of trunks in the dark, waiting for a wagon to arrive long after all the porters had vanished was not a pleasant one. And knowing she would have to help with the stowing, or risk not knowing where her things were for days. . . .
“You are infuriatingly logical, cousin.” Dominik laughed, and winked at Rosa. “Very well then. That will be our plan.”
“I would rather not load a wagon in the dark either. I am not certain what our reception would be if we came driving up to a good hotel in what is obviously a trader’s van. And I will readily admit that an easy night in a good hotel is much to my liking. That will give me a chance to coax up a haus-alvar to teach me the local dialects overnight,” Rosa said with relief. “We will do best if we can all speak like natives, not just you two.”
“You are as clever as you are pretty.” Dominik replied admiringly, setting his chin on his palm and gazing at her warmly across the table, making certain to catch her eye and hold it. Did he flirt with every young woman like this?
No, he didn’t flirt with the other young ladies at the Graf’s party. Just me.
She flushed. Markos scowled, and looked as if he was going to say something cutting. The luncheon gong rang just in time to prevent anything more than a moment of irritation on Markos’ part, and discomfort on hers.
After luncheon, they decided that they had done all the planning they could for now. Dominik elected to go to the parlor car where he could smoke and doze in a comfortable wing chair. Markos and Rosa went to their private compartment. The upholstered couches were not as comfortable as the chairs in the parlor car, but Markos didn’t smoke, and Rosa preferred the view and the privacy.
“You never did tell me,” she said, once the door was closed and the curtains on the corridor side drawn, so that the steward would not disturb them unless they rang. She was of a mind to stretch out in an unladylike sprawl. “I asked you, and you never did tell me about it. When I asked you a few days ago about shifting.”
“Tell you what?” Markos asked, looking at her oddly.
“What happens to your clothing when you change?” she persisted. He flushed, clearly embarrassed.
“I . . . ah . . . I don’t wear any,” he stammered. She giggled, and hid it behind her hand. “That is, I find somewhere that I won’t be disturbed. Quiet barns are usually good for that. Stables are chancier, horses that don’t know me tend to be uneasy about me, but cattle seem to take me as a dog, not a wolf. I bundle the clothing up and strap it to a harness that fits me as a human or a wolf. I put on the harness with the bundle on my back. Then I change, and when I get where I am going, I find another barn, or a good thick lot of bushes, I change back and put on my clothing.”
“That’s clever, and practical. Do all shifters do that?” She was slowly getting over the unease caused by merely being in the presence of a shifter, and allowed her curiosity about shifters to awaken.
“Well, they do in the Nagy family. I can’t speak for all of them.” Markos had commandeered feather pillows out of one of the car stewards; he put his in one end of the upholstered bench and sprawled out over the length of it with his back wedged against the pillow. She put hers in the opposite corner, and half-curled up against it with her legs up on the bench. “We don’t have a half-and-half state. We go straight from human to wolf, and back again. I’ve heard of some that do, though. Have you ever k—seen a shifter that does the half-and-half?”
Rosa nodded. “The very first one I ever saw, did. The one that murdered my teacher and tried to kill me,” she replied. The memories flashed behind her eyes. “I eliminated two more like that, over the years. I think they do it because it gives them the mind of a human but the weapons of a wolf and entirely supernatural strength.”
For a long while she had been sure she would never, ever get past the terror those memories induced in her. But she had. They even began to fade—and now, from the perspective of the Hunt Master she was, she wished in a way that they hadn’t. Every encounter meant she had a little more information about the shifters, another thing she might be able to use against them. But she would never be able to mine that first one thoroughly, for it was too long ago.
She remembered the terrible strength, though. How the creature’s claws had ripped through the door; how it had nearly destroyed a fully grown elk. That was not natural strength.
Markos pondered that. “It must be the magic that gives them that strength. I don’t get that sort of strength as a wolf, just the supernatural healing. And only when I am a wolf.” He frowned.
She rested her elbow on the table and her head on her hand and regarded him thoughtfully. “But you don’t shift magically. The really bad ones practically stank of blood magic.”
He nodded. “At least, not as far as my family knows. If we are born with the ability to shift, it comes on us as soon as we are weaned. We stay the same weight as a wolf that we are as a human, too—shifting doesn’t make us any larger. We stay cubs a lot longer than wolf cubs do; we mature at the human rate.”
But the ones that shift using blood magic—I know they can be bigger as wolves and half-wolves than they are as humans. There must be something special about the power that comes from killing that gives them extra strength and extra size.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, after a moment of silence.
He thought about that for a moment. “Well, that is . . . complicated. Have you ever seen a contortionist? One of those performers that can twist his body into impossible positions.”
She nodded. “Once.”
“Well, they are born with incredibly flexibility, but they have to train and keep training to keep that flexible, and to keep it from hurting when they take those positions. As long as they do that, it is difficult, and takes effort, but it doesn’t hurt, or at least, not enough to keep them from wanting to perform. Shifting is like that. If you do it often enough, it doesn’t hurt. If you don’t shift for years, then suddenly need to, it does. Quite a lot.” He leaned back, and closed his eyes. “Truth to tell, I like being a wolf. Sometimes I like it better than being a man. Things are simpler as a wolf.”
“In what way?” she asked, even more curious now.
“In every possible way.” He chuckled. “As my dear cousin pointed out, as a wolf, I don’t need a house or even a bed to be comfortable. A nice den dug into the ground suits me fine. I obviously don’t need clothing. I don’t care who the Emperor is, I don’t care about politics. You can’t collect taxes from a wolf.”
She had to laugh at that one.
“It’s easy hunting, with a wolf’s instincts and a man’s brain, and obviously, once I catch my dinner, I eat it right there with no fuss. But it goes deeper than that.” He licked his lips,
and glanced at her, as if wondering how she was going to take his next words. “Wolves don’t have any—moral questions. Everything is simple, and even if I have a man’s mind, I tend to look at everything through the eyes of the wolf. If someone attacks you, you run from him, or you have to kill him, and if you have to kill him, well, that is that. You don’t wonder if he has a family waiting for him somewhere . . . if he could be a good man if you just gave him a second chance.”
But she did understand, actually, because she had spent years and years studying and coming to understand how her Earth allies thought and acted, so that she could predict what they would do, and steer their behavior.
“Elementals are like that. Exactly like that. Well, you saw what happened when the revenant of Durendal was taken by the nix. All they cared about was that he had attacked and murdered one of theirs, and the moment they could take revenge, they did.” She’d had her share of regrets in the night over that one. Wondering if Durendal’s sister had been coerced after all, or if she had known what she was getting in for when she “invited” him. Wondering if she’d had second thoughts after he took over. Wondering if she could have been freed, ever. I don’t know how to banish a revenant. The only way I know to be rid of one is to kill the vessel. “Sometimes I’m relieved when they take things into their own hands like that.” But she could hear it in her own voice, when she said it—the doubt. Wondering if she should have interfered. Wondering if she could have interfered. Water Elementals didn’t answer to her.
But maybe I could have gotten an Earth Elemental to save her. . . .
He opened his eyes and looked at her for a moment. “You are having second thoughts about how Durendal died. Don’t.”
“Why not?” she asked. “It wasn’t Durendal whose body died. I have no second thoughts about ending his life, but what about the girl whose body he claimed?”
“To begin with, nix are often murderous, and what he did to the other Water Elementals probably drove them right out of his control. In the end, they were merely the judges and executioners for someone who had murdered one of their own kind. Durendal was evil and I think he got what he deserved.”
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