The stifled noise didn’t escape Kája. “Has it been so very long, then? I’ve lost track over the years. The passing of seasons does not matter when you can’t feel—and I don’t know how many years I lost to the vodník underwater.
“Emperor Rudolf came to Prague from Vienna because he imagined this city would spare him from his dark melancholy, but he was still an anxious, angry bastard. He thought if he surrounded himself enough with magic that it would bring him joy. My wife and I weren’t the only witches in his employ, and he also brought astronomers, artists, philosophers, and alchemists to live in his court. He met with scholars and politicians and rabbis. He filled entire rooms with talismans he thought would protect him from death, as though if those existed we wouldn’t have kept them for ourselves. He had silver musical instruments, casts of animal bodies covered in gold, miniatures of ships and buildings, horns and claws from beasts across the world, and more clocks than every church in the city combined. That was the first place I saw a vodník’s soul jar. At the time, I thought it was a curiosity, but barely gave it a second look. The work paid well, and the castle was a good place to live. We should have known it wouldn’t last.
“Rudolf was paranoid. He kept his gold locked up in chests to the point that sometimes those of us who lived in the castle ran out of food. He let his pets roam the halls—several people were mauled by a half-starved lion. At one point, he started hallucinating, and thought one of us had cursed him. Maybe someone did—he would have deserved it. It all got worse after the golem incident. A creature made of clay from the Vltava went on a rampage. It was built to protect the Jewish ghetto, but there was a tragic misstep. Dozens were killed before it was handled. Rudolf was certain the next incident would end his life, and became much stricter.
“In the end, Rudolf’s younger brother, Matthias, brought an army to the gates and locked Rudolf in the castle until he handed over the crown. Matthias hated witches. He didn’t trust us, even from the start. He ordered a purge of Rudolf’s magic aides from the castle. He took Rudolf’s paranoia and used it as an excuse to execute us all as traitors. I managed to convince the others to pretend that my wife was nothing more than an innocent woman, and that I alone of the two of us had any power. It was easier than it should have been. The soldiers couldn’t imagine fearing a woman. She was furious with me, but I couldn’t let her sacrifice herself with me when the purge started.”
There was a long pause. Domek didn’t dare speak. The stars were a silent vigil overhead.
Finally, Kája continued, “They cut off my head. That wasn’t common—hanging was easier, but I suppose they didn’t trust it to take with us. They had us all in a line in the central courtyard. By the time I got to the front, the block was almost black with blood. I saw my wife in the courtyard, watching. I think she was going to use magic to try to save me, or to throw herself under the executioner’s blade too. So I cast a spell to silence her with my final words. She was always so strong, so clever, and in my last action I took that away. It would have faded when I died, but it was enough to stop her from dying with me. I don’t know if she ever forgave me.”
Domek thought it was unfair that in his current form, the wisp couldn’t shed any tears. There was so much grief in the disembodied voice.
“Death is…disorienting. I don’t know how long I wandered on instinct before I came back to myself. By that point, I was deep in the woods, and I couldn’t gather my senses to get out. It was difficult to access my mind in this form, as a being of pure energy. It wasn’t until the vodník contained me that I regained my sense of self. At that point, I was in a jar and under several feet of water, so the only thing I could use my mind for was regret.”
“I’m sorry,” Domek said quietly. Kája had been a human walking the same streets Domek now guarded, and now he was trapped by magic to serve Domek’s will. The idea sat bitter on his tongue.
“I suppose servitude in Prague was my destiny. At least this time I have nothing to lose.”
“At the end of all of this,” Domek said quietly, “I’ll set you free.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kája said, almost friendly in his mildness. “If you were going to do it, you’d do it now.”
“I can’t yet. We still need to find out why the pijavice found you and brought you here. Without you, I won’t know where to look. I need you to help me find someone tonight. But I swear to you, in the morning, I’ll free you.”
Kája didn’t answer. They stayed by the river until Domek’s hands began to ache from the cold ground and roots below them. Stars covered the sky now, nearly as bright as the lamps and buildings being lit on the opposite bank. In the opera house, the performance would be just beginning. Domek recalled the melody from the first aria, the one that had swept him into a new world.
The address on the invitation from Darina was distressingly near Ora’s own house. How long had the Zizkovs been festering in her neighborhood without her knowledge?
Kampa Island was a small section of Malá Strana, cut off from the rest by the Devil’s Stream, which moved lazily between houses and under the bridges and watermills. Many of the resident artisans needed the power the water brought for their craft, but the beauty of the area had drawn in many wealthier residents as well. The façade of the Zizkov house was painted the pale blue of a spring sky, and there was a terrace on the second floor crowned with two marble statues. It faced a small square, with one side of the house facing the larger street and the other forming part of the line of walls that framed the stream.
The trees that lined the square had recently sprouted leaves, small green buds that smelled of new beginnings. It was approaching eleven, and the weather had been clear for the last several hours. A small pink bridge crossed over the Devil’s Stream from the square.
From this side of the Vltava, the castle on the hill loomed like a sentinel, casting the city in its shadow. The night sky, still free of the recent rainstorms, was swathed with the wisps of clouds that spread like errant paint strokes over the moon.
If Czernin’s estate whispered of old money, the Zizkov family’s house screamed of new. They may have retained the name from their old haunt, but the family had upgraded homes to one of the poshest areas of town. The entrance hall was full of imported luxuries: vases from the Far East, furs and ivory from African animals, and silk drapes along the walls. Every surface was a new texture, simultaneously inviting the viewer to indulge and warning them that they weren’t worthy.
It was nauseatingly gaudy.
She focused on her surroundings, taking note of everything. She couldn’t let her relief over Alena’s forgiveness soften her tonight. She had enemies all around, and she couldn’t risk distraction.
The air stank of spoiled blood.
She displayed her invitation to a doorman. He was human and wearing an unfashionably low collar that displayed the array of needle marks on his neck. “Welcome, madam. Everyone is gathering in the parlor. Go through the entrance on the right.” He gestured, but made no move to follow her. It was a sign of the Zizkovs’ new money that their staff was so poorly trained. Clearly, the human had been hired for what was in his veins rather than his head. In this case, his unprofessional attitude would help her. Ora needed the chance to snoop around before she met with the rest of the guests.
She paused a step into the room as the door clicked shut behind her. This was no reception suite—the circular room had been cleared of all furniture. There were scratches on the walls as though it had been a cage for one of the big cats whose fur decorated the entry hall.
There was a shift to her left. Ora barely had time to turn toward it before she was tackled to the ground. From the scent and strength, she identified her assailant as another pijavica. Someone must have already identified her as a spy. Though her gown restricted her movement, Ora recovered quickly and rolled with the tackle, using her attacker’s momentum against him. She ended up pinning him to the ground, staring down through her loosened hair. The other pijavica
was shirtless, revealing scars from before his transformation. He was muscled like a dockworker, not a soft lord who would have owned a house such as this.
He smirked, and then shoved her so hard that she not only flew off him, but skidded halfway across the room. He got to his feet and prowled toward her. She met him halfway in a blur. Ora hadn’t fought so hard just to keep her feet in decades, not since she had been jumped by a pair of pijavice in Singapore. Her training, courtesy of Czernin and others around the world, had gone to rust after years of easy living.
Not wasting her breath on talking, she ducked, jumped, spun, and scratched as quickly as she could. Her opponent seemed like he was barely exerting himself, blocking her hits and returning his own as though they were playing a game. If she didn’t do something soon, her energy would wear out and leave her clumsy. Letting him toss her across the room, she used the extra few seconds before he closed the distance to jump up and tear one of the curtain rods from the wall. A heavy drape hung from it, but that wasn’t what she needed. Snapping the bar over her knee, she tossed one half and the fabric aside and pointed the jagged end toward her attacker.
“Not hawthorn, but I bet I can make it hurt,” Ora said, crouching slightly.
The man stepped forward, unfazed, but halted when the door at the other end of the room opened. “That’s enough, Crane.”
Crane turned around, straightening from his fighting position. “We were having fun.”
The newcomer, a posh blond man dressed in dove gray coattails, clicked his tongue. “There will be at least two more guests for you to enjoy. Come through.”
“Good fight,” Crane told her.
Keeping her curtain rod between them, Ora slipped past him and walked out with the new pijavica. Once the door was closed, she twirled the curtain rod around her fingers. “What was that about?” she demanded.
“Just a little test,” he said. “This gathering is exclusively for a certain caliber of person.”
“Surely you could sniff out any mortals without needing that setup,” Ora said.
“We’re not just looking to weed out humans,” the blond man said. “We’re looking for the best. If someone fails, we sweep the floor and hope the next guest is better suited. I’m pleased you were. The last two didn’t make it through.”
“What a kind way to greet your guests,” Ora said tightly.
“Kindness has never quite been a factor I’m concerned with,” he said. “This is an exclusive gathering. I’m Hans Mayer, leader of this family. We only want potential allies here. No untrained gutter rats. Who are you? I don’t remember giving you an invitation.”
“Olga Filová. My friend gave me hers—Darina Belanova. From Lord Czernin’s family,” Ora said, pointedly brushing dust from her torn sleeve.
“She told us about you, Lady Filová,” Mayer said, leading her from the room.
There were around a dozen pijavice scattered in the parlor. From the ripped gowns and cravats around the room, everyone had gotten the same welcome as Ora. “Get settled,” Mayer instructed. “We’ll be along once everyone has arrived.”
He left the same way he’d come, no doubt to watch Crane attack another unsuspecting guest. Ora looked around the room at the small gathering and straightened her spine. This would be the true test.
* * *
“You’re sure this is where she is?” Domek asked, peering at the blue house from the end of the bridge.
The wisp floated beside him. At Domek’s request, he had dimmed his flame to that of a gas lamp. Anyone looking too closely would notice the strange, unattached light, but thus far they had stayed away from prying eyes.
“Quite,” Kája told him.
The curtains of the house were all tightly closed, which could have simply indicated a desire for privacy. Ora was his only firm lead in this entire mess, and if he was wrong about her, he would need to find another approach to solve the mystery of why pijavice were hunting Kája and other wisps across Europe.
And every minute he wasted also delayed his mission to find the monster that had killed Webber.
Domek spoke softly and urgently. “I need to get inside. Can you help me?”
“I can make you invisible to anyone looking,” Kája said. “No smell, no visuals, no sound. Unless you run into something, no one will detect you.”
It made sense. In stories, wisps floated in and out of visibility when they lured their victims into danger. “Do it.”
“It’s done.”
Domek looked down at his arms skeptically. He could still see himself. “Are you sure?”
“I can make you invisible to yourself as well,” Kája suggested. “Or to me. Would you like me to make you disappear entirely?”
“No,” Domek said quickly. “No.”
“I used this spell when I was alive,” Kája said unexpectedly. “I was antisocial, and preferred to avoid attention. My wife laughed at me for it. It’s disorienting the first time.”
Domek did not know how to respond, so he only nodded. “Stay with me, invisible as well. I might need you again,” he said, peeking at the house again. A hack out front had just disgorged two more people, a tall black couple in well-tailored clothes. Was their gait supernaturally graceful, or was paranoia simply rampant in Domek’s mind? Taking a deep breath, Domek strolled across the street as confidently as he dared. The newcomers didn’t turn to look at him, even when he walked directly past them.
“You’re not using the front door?” Kája asked, keeping pace beside him. “What was the point of my spell?”
“We’re taking the servant’s entrance,” Domek said. He didn’t want to see Ora until he had to.
At the nondescript side door, he only had to wait a few minutes before a maid walked out, carrying a dustpan. “I deserve a raise for having to sweep this up,” she muttered to herself. Though she stepped within a hairsbreadth of Domek, she didn’t even glance at him. “No one warned me I’d have to deal with remains.” She emptied a pile of ash onto the ground.
“Someone killed a pijavica here,” Domek said, frowning. As Kája had promised, the maid didn’t flinch when he spoke.
That settled the question of whether this were some benign gathering of Ora’s friends. Had someone else in the lamplighters known there would be pijavice there that night and set up a lure? Or were pijavice killing each other?
The thought that it could have been Ora in that dustpan disturbed him, but he pushed his reaction to the side.
“Come on,” Kája said. “We should go through now. This way we don’t have to try to open it ourselves. You can’t go through doors.”
Domek followed him inside to a bustling kitchen, or what had once been a kitchen. The space now appeared to be a dressing room.
“Tell me this was not all a ploy to play Peeping Tom,” Kája commented dryly. “You acted like you were on some noble crusade.”
“I’m not…” Domek said, averting his eyes to the ceiling. “What are they doing?”
The women were dressed in—or in the process of putting on—sleeveless dresses, revealing their necks, shoulders, and décolletage. The men had foregone shirts all together. They were chatting and bickering as though it was perfectly normal to change in a kitchen. Two women were helping another secure her hair in an elaborate up-do, while another used a small hand mirror to apply lip color.
“I’m not sure about this,” one of the women said. She was one of the youngest of the group, barely out of girlhood.
“You’re about to earn more than you’d make in a month scrubbing dishes,” another said, nudging her with a hip.
“It is the kitchen,” Kája explained. “They’re putting together dinner.”
There were two creatures particularly adept at thoroughly ignoring those around them: cats and pijavice. It was a defensive tactic: removing oneself from a situation through poise and disdain rather than having to give up a room. Looking around the parlor, one would think that every battle-ragged pijavica there had deliberately chosen to
rip their own clothes and then stand along the walls, engrossed in examining one of the Zizkovs’ many artifacts. The room’s array of plush chairs and cushions on the floors were untouched.
Ora walked over to one of the women, an aristocratic brunette in a ruffled yellow gown. One sleeve had been torn off, but she wore it confidently. She had sharp cheekbones and heavy eyelashes that made her look tired. “Hello,” Ora greeted. “Quite the welcome, wasn’t it?”
The woman looked her over disdainfully. “Quite,” she said.
Ora maintained her companionable expression. Despite her aloof air, Ora pegged her as recently transformed. She was trying too hard.
“I’m Olga Filová,” Ora said.
The woman hesitated before answering. “Lady R,” she said.
With a conspiratorial smile, Ora said, “Not comfortable mentioning your real name?”
“I’m not sure I should be here. If I leave, I don’t want this to follow me.”
Ora leaned in slightly closer. “How did the Zizkovs approach you with this invitation, if you’re so reluctant to reveal yourself to other pijavice? You’re clearly not someone looking to make friends.”
“They know I’m skeptical about joining any group,” Lady R said. “I’m on casual terms with one of their newer members. He knew when he gave them my name that I wasn’t convinced, but the Zizkovs promised a show tonight that would change my mind. They want some new family members. I was bored, so, here I am.”
The pijavice in attendance all seemed as new as Lady R. Would Czernin’s name mean anything to them, or set Ora apart as different? “They said the same to me.”
Lady R glanced around, obviously aware everyone would be able to overhear them, and then added, “I didn’t expect them to be so…common. Did you see the foyer?”
“Dreadful,” Ora agreed, matching her disdainful tone. “If I don’t join their family, maybe I’ll at least offer the name of my decorator.”
The Lights of Prague Page 23