by Jenn Bennett
“You’re being hysterical.”
“Yes! I damn well am! Taking that ring was a stupid idea! How are we supposed to even bargain with it if we don’t know where to go?”
“If you have another idea, please do share it. And be sure to shout it out on a public street, while you’re at it. I love it when the entire world knows our business!”
A retort was on his tongue until he glanced over his shoulder at a lone elderly couple who clung to each other and stared at us with curious faces as they passed.
The fire in his eyes sputtered and went out.
He dropped his shoulders and made a frustrated whimpering noise. “I have no ideas, banshee. Zero. I’m just scared, is all. This is all so impossible.”
“That’s not true!”
“Is it not? Feels a little like it is. I can’t help but think that we should have never left Bucharest.”
“Oh, is that so?” I said, embittered. “After all this, you still think we should’ve just found a way to get to a port and caught an ocean liner back to the States? And maybe in a few weeks, Father would find his own way home. Or maybe we’d get a cable from the European police letting us know that they found his body somewhere in the Carpathians. Is that it?”
“You know it’s not. It’s just . . . Christ, Theo. I feel like we’ve failed, and I’m going to lose you all over again, and maybe lose Fox, too. And I just . . . don’t know what to do.”
The thing about fighting with someone you care about is that it’s no fun when they don’t fight back.
“I don’t know what to do, either,” I said. “But we’ve got to try something.”
“Yeah, I know.” He flipped up the wide collar of his peacoat and held it tight around his neck while a streetlamp flickered to life above us.
“Maybe before we decide anything, we should find someplace warm that has food, because I’m cold and starving, and I can’t think straight.”
“Now, that’s an idea I can get behind,” he said from behind his collar, bouncing on his heels to stay warm. “Think I saw a place on our way here to Creepy Brother Shopkeeper Lane.”
I snorted a soft laugh. “All right. Food truce?”
“Food truce,” he agreed with a soft smile. “C’mon, before we turn into ice sculptures.”
We hurried down the lonely street and cut through an alley until we were back in the town square. It wasn’t busy here exactly, but it wasn’t deserted either. Looked to be a couple of restaurants open, but Huck pointed to a golden-windowed tavern on a corner.
Ducking beneath a painted wood sign—a raven with a snake in its claw—that jutted over the tavern’s entrance, we opened a heavy timbered door and headed inside to blessed warmth.
The sharp scents of ale and garlic floated on a haze of cigarette smoke. The tavern looked as if it were built in the 1500s and apart from electricity and running water, nothing much had been changed. Under a low ceiling, wooden tables were packed with tourists and more than a few burly local men. Several of them looked up at us with dark, suspicious eyes that followed us to the bar. The barkeep, busy pouring ale into pint glasses, informed me when I inquired that there were empty tables upstairs in a loft that overlooked the main floor and to sit where we pleased. So we hiked up old wooden stairs that creaked and groaned with age, and after surveying the loft—only two other customers—we claimed a small corner table that sat between a roaring fireplace and a window with a view of the moonlit town square.
Within minutes a curvy girl with plaited brown hair greeted us. No older than me and wearing a traditional dress and apron, she chatted affably about the snow and my black eye and where were we from? Then she brought us water, chewy bread, and an intoxicatingly spiced paprika chicken stew with dumplings that tasted as good as it looked.
The fire warmed my back as we ate, and I gazed through the paned window at silhouettes of snow-covered chimneys and sharp gables that lined Brașov’s historic rooftops. It was an idyllic view, even at night. I couldn’t help but think of my mother and wondered if she’d ever eaten dinner here or at any of the charming restaurants below, with their terraces draped in white lights.
I wondered what she’d do if she were in my shoes right now.
She’d figure out a way to find Father. I knew that much. Elena Vaduva was not afraid of anything. Maybe because she was descended from the notorious warlord who once wore the band in the box by my feet? Who might have supped in this very tavern and dipped his bread in the blood of his enemies? The red of the paprikash chicken’s oil-slicked broth pooled at the bottom of my bowl, and I lost my appetite for the last bite.
“I’m going to find the restroom,” I told Huck, who reached under the table and squeezed my fingers like he used to do before our long separation. Any aggravation I’d been nursing since his outburst outside the Zissu brothers’ shop vanished.
“When you come back, we’ll make a plan,” he told me, eyes shining in the firelight. “It’s not the end of the world. I was wrong. Happens on occasion.”
“What’s the proverb for that? Never point out the mistakes of others with a dirty finger?”
“Just for the record, you can put your dirty fingers on me any ol’ day, banshee.”
I laughed softly. And as I stood up, I leaned over the table and stole a quick kiss while the other patrons weren’t looking. His lips were warm and tasted of the dusky, red spice in our dinner. “I’ll take that under consideration,” I told him with a smile, and then I grabbed my satchel and trotted downstairs.
The tavern’s public restroom was near the bar, and after waiting for a large man with beer-dazed eyes to emerge, I locked myself inside, took care of business, and then removed the iron ring box from my satchel. The metal was still warm, which gave me pause and quickly quashed any stupid ideas I may have entertained about opening it. Best to follow the brothers’ advice and leave it be. I did, however, inspect the etched symbols on the outside of the box. They were unfamiliar and strange, worn by time—not easy to see in the bathroom’s dim light over a dirty sink. If only I hadn’t pawned my beloved Leica camera, I could snap photographs.
Ah well. I repacked the box safely into my satchel alongside my father’s journal, splashed water on my face, and headed back up the tavern staircase, determined to figure out what to do about this mysterious Barlog Castle and Rothwild and finding Father.
But as I crested the creaking wooden stairs, I had a moment of panic. Our table was empty. No Huck. Yet his rucksack still sat behind a pulled-out chair.
I glanced around the loft. A lone elderly man was still drinking.
Had he gone downstairs to the restroom? Wouldn’t I have seen him? I raced back down and surveyed the main floor. No tall Irish boy. No flat cap. No Huck.
When I was turning to jog back upstairs, our friendly waitress strode toward me with a pint of beer. “Hello, miss? Are you looking for your friend?”
“Yes!” I said, breathless, trying not to sound as panicked as I felt.
“He just left with two priests.”
I stared at her, unable to make my voice work for a moment. “Two . . . priests?”
“They looked like the ones from the cathedral?” She gestured down her body. “Long black vestments. Your friend seemed to be quarreling with them. I do not interfere with bar fights. I’m sorry.”
This was no bar fight! “Where did they take him? When? Which way did they go?”
She only shook her head at me. “It just happened. They just left a few minutes ago . . . out the back door,” she said, gesturing across the crowded room.
Head reeling, I raced up the stairs, snatched up Huck’s rucksack, and sailed back down, bumping into the waitress while I took the stairs two at a time.
“I hope everything is okay,” she called out to my back.
No. No, it was not okay at all.
Sarkany’s goons had taken Huck.
22
THE TAVERN OWNER OFFERED TO fetch the police when I asked him if he’d seen the men taking Hu
ck. He hadn’t. And I declined his offer. My father would say not to get them involved, and really, what could they do? In the time it would take to summon someone, I could be at the twins’ shop. Because that was exactly where I was going.
They knew magic. They could help. They had to. Or I would burn down this entire town to find Huck.
Racing out of the tavern’s back door, I found nothing but garbage cans and slush. No sign of any people whatsoever. I pulled my beret down, shivering as I hurried around to the front of the building, past wrought iron streetlamps haloed in fog and into the town square. No sign of them here, either.
The Zissu brothers’ shop wasn’t far, and I remembered the way, past the glowering Black Church. I inhaled brisk night air, head bright and empty, chest constricted as I scanned the town square, looking for anyone who remotely resembled robed cultists or Huck. I tried asking a lone elderly man if he’d seen any “priests” passing by, but he only turned in the opposite direction, unwilling to even acknowledge me. A pair of lovers embraced by the fountain as I passed, which only made me angry. That might have been Huck and me if he hadn’t gone and gotten himself kidnapped, or whatever he’d gone and gotten himself.
Stupid boy. My boy. My responsibility to find him.
Clouds of white breath trailed behind me as I headed around the Black Church and made my way down the smaller street to the twins’ shop. It struck me that if Sarkany’s robed goons had taken Huck, then Sarkany might be nearby. Would he trail me? But why take Huck? Why not take me, too? Wasn’t I the one with Vlad’s blood in my veins? Wasn’t it my father who’d taken this damned job? Why not me?
I juggled Huck’s rucksack onto my shoulder and reached into my coat pocket. My fingers grasped Lovena’s wooden talisman.
To keep me safe, she said.
Me. Not Huck.
I had it in my possession. I left him upstairs in the tavern. Lovena told me to sleep with it under my pillow. To keep it close.
She failed to tell me to keep Huck close as well.
No one seemed to be following me—no Sarkany or the wolf. Nobody at all. But I kept my eyes on the shadows just in case, and I ran as fast I could, down the dark stradă, legs and arms aching, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I ran until I spied the old coffeehouse, and there! Warm light behind the window of the antiques shop.
I prayed they were still inside.
In a billow of white breath, I came to clumsy stop in front of the shop. The door was locked, and a hanging sign was turned to say Închis—Closed—so I pounded on the door. I spied a silhouette passing by the window, and then the door swung open, and I found myself staring at an unexpected sight.
“Hello, little empress,” a rough female voice said around a puff of cigarillo smoke that rose up in tendrils around a red head kerchief.
“Lovena?”
“Yes, my girl. Don’t look so surprised. What is this? Did you get into a fistfight?” Quick fingers lifted my chin to inspect my black eye in the light spilling out from the shop.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, stunned. “How . . . ?”
“How did I get here?” Her eyes crinkled as a dark smile lifted her lips. “I am a crow witch, little empress. I flew here alongside my winged familiars.”
I blinked at her, mouth open, until she laughed huskily. “I was an hour from here, at a friend’s house in Rupea. You think just because I live in the woods, I don’t have an automobile? I am not a heathen.”
“But . . .”
She made a dismissive gesture. “The brothers sent me a message that you were here, and I just arrived. We’ve been communicating since you visited me. I was in Sighișoara earlier today. My nephew said you spoke to him before my sister’s incident.”
“The baroness,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry, Lovena. Is she—”
“Alive? Yes.”
“She didn’t jump,” I said.
“I know. She was compelled by dark magic. I told her to keep the ring in the box. It was the one rule in the house when our mother was still alive. There was nothing more I could do in Sighișoara but sit around the hospital and squabble with family, so I left to give them space.” She shrugged and then added, “I am also looking for my dog. My crows tell me she is close.”
“I saw her in the Hoia Forest with two wolves,” I said. “Near Cluj.”
“With wolves? That is good,” she murmured. “If she’s gone wild, there’s a chance she has broken that man’s magical hold. I will find her again. Funny that I’ve anguished more over Lupu than my own blood.”
“This is all our fault. If my father hadn’t taken the job with Rothwild, then none of this would have happened. Your sister . . . and now Huck. They’ve taken Huck!”
“Hush, girl.” Smooth hands gripped my face. Smoke curled around my hair. “My sister’s fate is her own making. Now, what is this about the boy?”
I started to explain about the tavern, but behind us in the distance, a shout interrupted me. Lovena dropped her cigarillo on the street and squinted over my shoulder, peering down the deserted cobbled street. I swung around and saw it too.
A dark figure ambling toward us. Stumbling. Shuffling.
Huck!
I knew his tall frame as I knew my own hands. But something was horribly wrong. I dropped our luggage and raced toward him as he staggered into the light of the adjoining rowhouse.
His peacoat hung open. Blood dripped from small cuts on his forehead, down the bridge of his nose and over his brow. His eyes were glazed. He moved as if drugged, barely standing.
“Huck!” I cried out.
Lovena yanked me back as I reached for him. “No! He’s bewitched. Can you not hear it, child?”
I stared in horror at his dazed face, and then I did hear something. Faintly. A strange buzzing, like a cicada trapped in a spiderweb.
What had they done to him?
Lovena began murmuring something low and wicked sounding in a language I didn’t understand, but Huck stopped a few feet away. He stared in my direction, but his eyes didn’t see. Something was on his chest—a piece of paper. It was pinned to him with an old-fashioned hatpin, several inches long, like a note tacked to a bulletin board.
His eyes fluttered shut, and he collapsed on the cobblestone.
I wriggled out of Lovena’s grip and ran to him, dropping to my knees by his side. “Huck? Huck!” He was out cold. Or dead. Was he breathing?
“Move,” Lovena said. She opened his eyelid with her thumb and inspected his eye. Bloodshot. Pupils as big as the moon. “He’s alive.”
Relief gusted out of me as footsteps approached at my back. I glanced around to see the Zissu brothers hurrying toward us from their shop door. “He’s been tampered with,” Mihai said.
“Dark, quick magic,” his brother agreed.
“He smells of iarba fiarelor—white swallowwort,” Lovena said, and then explained, “It’s an ancient plant known to the Dacians. Very toxic. It may have been mixed with something else, but I know it’s used in possession spells. It opens the mind to the spellcaster.”
“Sarkany,” I said.
Lovena’s face darkened. “The devil who stole Lupu.”
“His goons took Huck from the tavern—the server saw men in black robes. She called them priests. It’s the same men we told you about, the ones who followed us from Istanbul.”
“This is what was used on my sister,” Lovena murmured.
Petar bent over Huck’s face and pointed. “That, on his forehead. A magical compass. He was sent out like a homing pigeon. Looks as if that’s some kind of message he was bewitched to deliver.”
My fingers trembled over the hatpin. The top was decorated with a small metal dragon. I yanked it out of him and whimpered when his body jerked in response. When I pulled the paper away from the pin, it left a smudge of Huck’s blood.
It was a folded note. I opened it and read words scrawled in smeared ink:
I have your father at the castle.
Take the path under
the Black Church. It will be unlocked.
Bring the ring. Come alone.
A chaotic storm of emotions thundered inside my chest.
“Sarkany has my father,” I whispered in shock, showing the note to Lovena, who shared it with the twins. “This is Rothwild’s castle? Barlog? Is this the secret entrance you were telling me about?”
“It sounds like it, my child,” Petar said, reading the note.
I looked up the two of them. “Why is Sarkany in Rothwild’s castle?”
“Perhaps they aren’t rivals, after all,” Lovena said, checking Huck’s pulse. “We need to rouse him. The toxic plant in his system is similar to deadly nightshade. Very dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Oh God!” I said. “Can you do something?”
She frowned at him as if he were an arithmetic problem to be solved. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “I think so. I will try.”
Mihai glanced down the dark lane. “We need to get him hidden inside the shop before someone from the order comes. Come, ladies. Let us help.”
We hoisted Huck’s limp body, and the brothers dragged him out of the street, shouldering his weight between them as they guided him inside. They laid him on the floor and locked the door, peering out the window warily.
“We are safe now,” Petar assured me. “The wards hold. They can’t see us.”
“But what if they saw us walk in here? If they were hiding somewhere and watching from afar?”
The twins looked at me, brows furrowed. They didn’t answer.
Lovena disappeared into the back of the shop. When she returned, she carried a small, handled case.
Kneeling by Huck, Lovena opened the case to reveal dozens of small bottles and vials. “I can brew something to counter the poison.”
“Is this plant the same thing that was used on Jean-Bernard?” I asked.
“Same that was used on my sister, so it’s likely. Is the Frenchman still alive?”