“It is. Of course it is. They all give me lip-service as Niko’s hostess, but I know what they really think. I’m a joke to them, or else a scandal. I hate it!”
“I never knew you felt that way.”
“I try not to think about it.” Sophie shrugged and patted her face, smoothing it back into order. “Oh, Lotte, please do say you’ll stay and forget about my silliness. You will, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
Charlotte would have embraced her, if they hadn’t stood in so public a place. They were already attracting curious glances from the others, now that they had fallen so far behind. Charlotte took Sophie’s arm and walked forward in silence to catch up with the rest of the group. She hadn’t felt so fiercely protective since they had been children and she’d had to comfort Sophie after some particularly scathing nursery visit from their mother.
They’d been each other’s sole defense, back then, against their mother’s mercurial moods and her venomous temper, which could strike so suddenly and unexpectedly. Charlotte could still remember the feel of her younger sister’s consoling embrace—though Sophie had been only ten years old at the time—as eighteen-year-old Charlotte had wept, lashed by their mother’s words after her first, humiliating debut into Viennese society. When the news of Charlotte’s betrothal was announced three months later, to a man above sixty years of age, whom she had never met, it had been Sophie who had vowed resistance.
It was Sophie, too, who had given Charlotte the courage to stand against her mother then, for once in her life trying to refuse the course that her parents had set for her. The coldly calculated threats that she’d garnered from her father for that resistance had been nothing to the burn of her mother’s tirade, scorching her for her disloyalty and for the dishonor that a broken engagement would bring to her entire family.
In the end, of course, there had been no choice. She would have lost both her home and her family if she had refused to fulfill her allotted path. But once Charlotte had given in . . .
Oh. She shut her eyes against the vivid memory. Sophie, weeping bitterly over her older sister’s upcoming marriage, and Charlotte weeping, too, even as she promised frequent visits. Little had she known that, within a year, any visits would be out of the question. Within four years, she had relinquished even the faintest hope of them.
Charlotte had taken the place of a mother to Sophie from the moment that her younger sister had been born. Their love and loyalty to each other had been the only warmth that either of them ever knew in their family’s cold household. Once married, though, and hundreds of miles away, Charlotte had become so absorbed in Ernst’s worsening health, the endless demands of his wide-ranging correspondence, and the urgent needs of his estate and dependents, that her own correspondence had faltered and faded for lack of time and energy. Meanwhile, Sophie’s letters from Vienna, once so frequent and full of news, had become shorter and rarer with every year, until they disappeared entirely. By the time of Ernst’s death, Charlotte hadn’t exchanged so much as a page-long note with her sister in years.
Had she been responsible for abandoning her younger sister? At the time, she had guiltily excused her lack of effort by telling herself that Sophie must surely have formed new friendships to replace their former closeness. But, clearly, not one of them had worked to protect Sophie from her own whimsical nature, or reinforce her own better judgment and sense of honor. If Charlotte had kept up the correspondence and maintained her former loving support, would Sophie still have made this foolish, hurtful bargain with her husband and the Prince?
Walking arm in arm, their faces turned to one another, Charlotte and Sophie nearly bumped into the tall, stooped gentleman who approached from an intersecting path, his hands locked behind his back and his own gaze fixed on the ground. At their near-collision, his eyes widened. He jerked around to look after the group of walkers in the distance.
“I do beg your pardon.” With a hasty bow, he began to move away, but Sophie stepped forward to stop him.
“My goodness, I don’t believe I’ve ever met you! How funny. I thought I knew everyone here.”
Ahead, the rest of the group had come to a halt. Charlotte watched the Prince turn back to stride toward them, followed by the others.
Sophie shook the bright ribbons out of her face and smiled enchantingly, holding out her gloved hand. “I know we really ought to wait for a proper introduction, but just this once . . . I am Frau von Höllner, and this is my sister, the Baroness von Steinbeck. And who are you?”
The man shot a quick look at the approaching group, sighed, and removed his hat with a flourish. He bowed sweepingly. “It is an inestimable pleasure to meet both of you ladies. I am Count Radamowsky.”
Friedrich woke with a start as percussion crashed in the orchestra. God, how long had he slept? All the actors were singing together now, while the full assembled orchestra played support for them. It made an utterly godawful racket.
He sighed and wriggled into a more comfortable position. No chance of sleeping any longer, but still . . .
His foot brushed against paper. He froze.
No. They couldn’t be watching him all the time. This had to be something completely innocent. There was no reason to be worried at all. And since there wasn’t . . .
He reached down to pick it up just as anyone would, quite naturally, out of simple curiosity . . . or, no, to prove exactly how safe it really was, so he wouldn’t even be tempted to waste his time on absurd worries any longer.
There was no name on the note. But when he turned it over, the familiar seal sent a sinking sensation through his gut.
Goddammit.
So, they’d caught him sleeping on duty. So? He ripped open the note, cursing his trembling fingers.
Brother Friedrich. As an initiate into our sacred mysteries, you are invited and required to attend our ritual tonight inside the Eszterháza Bagatelle at the hour of eleven o’clock. The password will be “The Elements of Fire.” Do not neglect ...
Friedrich crumpled the note into a ball without bothering to read any of the rest of their bloody nagging. It was all too unbearably depressing for words.
Of course, there was no question about it.
He would go.
“Radamowsky.” It wasn’t the Prince who spoke first, but Ignaz von Born. The alchemist stepped forward, brandishing his walking stick like a weapon, and glared at the other man, ignoring Charlotte and Sophie just beside him. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
“Why, the same as you must be, Herr von Born.” Radamowsky smiled easily, but Charlotte had not missed his glance of appeal to the Prince. “Have you had a pleasant visit so far, my friend?”
Von Born tightened his lips and grasped the handle of his walking stick as if it were a throat that he was throttling. “Until now, I had.”
“My dear Count.” Prince Nikolaus walked forward, rubbing his hands together in what Charlotte might have taken as a nervous gesture, in another man. “When did you arrive?”
“But half an hour ago, Your Highness.” Count Radamowsky turned to smile at the assembled company. “I was so enchanted by the beauty of the view from my window that I set off to enjoy your fine gardens immediately. Will you forgive my rudeness in not waiting inside to be greeted by you?”
Prince Nikolaus gave an unusually expansive wave of his hand, heartiness—and relief?—emanating through his voice. “Of course. There is nothing to forgive.”
“But—oh!” Beside Charlotte, Sophie gasped. “Pardon me, sir, but are you the Count Radamowsky? The one I’ve been told of? Herr von Born said that you can conjure ghosts and—”
“Ahem. I didn’t quite say—”
“I am,” Count Radamowsky said, with a bow, “that very Count Radamowsky of whom you speak. Perhaps someday I may have the privilege of seeing you in one of my Viennese salons, madam, or—”
“Someday? But it must be soon—today! Oh, Niko!” Sophie flew to the Prince’s side and gazed up at him ad
oringly. “You lovely, lovely man. You promised me I should see a ghost conjured, and then you invited Count Radamowsky to do it for me! You knew how much I longed to see him. You were wicked, to keep his visit such a surprise!”
“Well . . .” The Prince patted Sophie’s hand. A long look passed between the two men. Charlotte fancied she caught the merest suggestion of a shrug in the Prince’s shoulders. “Now that you are here, Radamowsky, would you be so kind as to oblige Frau von Höllner in her whim?”
Ignaz von Born snorted and spun around to glare into the closest flowerbeds. Behind him, Charlotte saw Signor Morelli watching in silence. Her breath sped up. She turned away. She had made a fool of herself last night. Now, he probably thought her doubly a fool for involving herself in this supernatural play.
“Sophie,” she began, in an undertone.
“Of course I shall,” Count Radamowsky said. “But we will need darkness for the proper ambience. May I have the use of a good-sized room, Your Highness, at—shall we say—eleven o’clock tonight?”
At five minutes to eleven, Friedrich neared the end of the long path to the Eszterháza Bagatelle. Half the torches had been extinguished, so he had to find his way through near-blackness. Only the sound of his boots crunching against the path served as proof that he hadn’t lost his way.
He wasn’t drunk this time. To say the least. He’d tried to drink beforehand, to bolster up his nerves, but he’d only gagged and had to spit the beer out when his stomach had rebelled against him.
Ridiculous to be so afraid. He was sober, not prey to nightmare fancies. He was a lieutenant, even if that was only an honorary title. More than that, he was a von Höllner, and that still meant something, didn’t it?
Friedrich drew up his shoulders into a martial stance as he marched up the angled set of stairs to the central door. Perhaps it would be locked, he thought hopefully. Perhaps . . .
It cracked open before he could even touch it.
“Password?” a voice whispered, behind the door.
Oh, hell. “The elements of fire,” Friedrich muttered.
“Pass, Brother.” The door swung inward.
Blackness yawned through the open door. Friedrich could hear the far-off sound of male voices chanting deep within the building. He swallowed.
“Brother?” the voice prompted.
“Yes, all right.” Friedrich scowled. “I know what I need to do.”
He stepped into the darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
“Close your eyes,” Count Radamowsky intoned. “Let your breathing slow. The aetheric veil is only just beyond our sight.”
Carlo crossed his arms and watched from slitted eyes. In the darkness, lit only by flickering candles, Radamowsky’s smile looked nearly demonic. Carlo wasn’t surprised that Ignaz von Born had walked out with a snort of open disgust, only moments after entering the room. He couldn’t entirely explain why he hadn’t followed von Born’s example.
The seats in the music room had been arranged into a circle surrounding the alchemist. Radamowsky carried no props save his own expressive gestures and the deep, reverberating timbre of his voice—which, Carlo thought, made this already a far better show than most of the attempts he’d been forced to witness in various other courts in his career.
His narrowed gaze fell on Baroness von Steinbeck beside him—the mark of her dark eyelashes against her cheek, the slow, even breathing that moved her chest—and jerked away.
Shadows flickered across Radamowsky’s face.
“The aetheric veil draws closer now. Closer, closer—ah.”
Friedrich felt his way through blackness with one hand pressed against the wall. The chanting grew louder and louder, until it nearly deafened him.
His outstretched foot hit a closed door that emanated heat through its wooden bulk. He took a breath. When he finally found the handle of the door, after a fumbling search, it nearly burned him.
He turned it anyway . . . and walked straight into Hell.
“I call upon the ancient masters to help me raise the aetheric veil between the worlds of the spirit and the flesh,” Count Radamowsky declared. “I call upon them in the ancient tongues.”
Thick syllables rolled out of his lips. Some of it was very nearly Italian, Carlo thought—or Latin, at least—but the rest he could not identify. Yet his first instinct—to dismiss it as invented gibberish—faded as the words continued. They rolled out in order—in perfect order. They filled his head and resonated within it. They almost made sense. They meant something . . . if he could only see it . . .
His head tipped forward as the strength flooded out of the muscles in his neck. He couldn’t even find the will to be afraid.
Red flames shot up from the floor in all directions, filling the Bagatelle’s dance hall. Heat licked Friedrich’s face as he staggered back and stared, bewildered, into the inferno that had appeared in the middle of Prince Nikolaus’s pride and glory. On the ceiling above him, the familiar black-lacquered paintings of Chinese life overlooked a scene from a nightmare. Before him, black-robed figures mingled in the fire. The mirrors on the walls reflected the flames and multiplied them in dizzying profusion, until the room seemed to stretch out forever in a sea of red and black.
“Brother Friedrich, how good to see you.”
The familiar voice behind him was filled with devilish amusement. A firm hand on Friedrich’s back propelled him into the room.
Friedrich stumbled forward, flinging his hands out to protect his face from the leaping flames. He stopped himself just at the edge of the fire.
The dark-robed figure behind him swept forward into the heart of the flames, clapping his hands for attention.
“Brothers! Welcome all. Whether you found your way here from Eszterháza, Vienna, Salzburg, Pressburg, or somewhere very, very different . . .”
Friedrich blinked at the list and took a step too far.
Fire scalded his hands and raced up his neck. It covered his face, burning him, until he was weeping with the agony of it, crying out, begging incoherently—
A hand grabbed his collar and dragged him out of the flames. Ruthless hands beat at his clothing.
“Look, brothers! An initiate who did not follow our guidance. Brother Friedrich, did your invitation not clearly inform you where you would find a cloak of our order?”
Tears streamed down Friedrich’s raw face. “I didn’t—didn’t—”
“Didn’t want to? Didn’t even want to admit you are one of us, perhaps?” The voice hardened. “Look at this man, brothers. Allowed access into our mysteries, inclusion in our sacred rites—and he flaunts the contempt in which he holds us. What should we do with such a case as this?”
“Please,” Friedrich mumbled. “Please, I didn’t know—didn’t read—didn’t—”
Shouts echoed through the room, overwhelming his protests.
“Throw him into the flames!”
“Burn him!”
“Roast him!”
“Now, brothers.” The voice chuckled indulgently. “He is a sworn member of our order. We will show him the mercy of granting him one more chance. Brother Friedrich . . .” The hood swung toward him. Friedrich’s eyes were too blurred by tears to make out any more than the keen eyes within its shadow. “Brother Friedrich, do you repent the choice you made?”
“Yes,” Friedrich choked. “God, yes.” He repented everything —everything . . .
“You have one more moment of choice, Brother Friedrich,” the voice said. “It is your choice to make. I am certain—entirely certain—that we could find another cloak to shelter you. But only committed members of our Brotherhood may wear our cloaks. Are you committed to us, Brother Friedrich?”
“I—I—”
The hand around his collar shoved him back toward the leaping flames. “Are you a believing member of our Brotherhood or not?”
“I am!” Friedrich screamed.
“I am very glad to hear it.” Still, the firm grip held him, struggling, barely an in
ch away from the flames. “Brothers? Shall we grant him mercy and accept him back within our hearts?”
Mutters rose up within the crowd.
“Please,” Friedrich mumbled. “Please. Please!”
“Bring me a cloak,” the voice commanded. “Brother Friedrich has seen the error of his ways.”
A black-robed figure approached, holding a second cloak spread over his arms. But there was something terribly wrong in the way the figure walked—no, glided—through the flames.
It held out the spare cloak as it reached them.
Oh, God. Tears flooded Friedrich’s face once again, burning as they touched his scalded skin.
The figure’s feet did not touch the ground.
“You may open your eyes,” Count Radamowsky murmured.
Charlotte forced her heavy eyelids open with an effort. She couldn’t lift her head, but neither could she summon up the effort to worry about it.
Pale light shimmered around Count Radamowsky’s body.
“The first of my spirit guides, Nemenel, has joined us,” said Count Radamowsky. “Nemenel, my child, greet this audience.”
The pale light withdrew from Radamowsky’s body. It flattened into a long, streaming path of luminescence and floated across the open circle.
Gasps and sighs of appreciation sounded in the darkened room as Nemenel floated around the circle. Tears of wonder prickled at Charlotte’s eyes as she watched the stream of incandescent light approach her. She had never expected this summoning to work. She would never have imagined that it could be so beautiful.
Nemenel floated past Charlotte, hovering a moment before her chair. If Charlotte could have lifted her arms, she would have reached out. Such shimmering radiance—she yearned to feel it. But her arms remained stubbornly leaden, and Nemenel floated onward.
As the spirit reached Sophie’s chair, Count Radamowsky spoke.
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