“They’re night-biters, right? Or can they cruise the daylight?”
“They say the younger ones, the new ones, or the ones who have recently fed off of fresh blood, can bear a measure of indirect sunlight without turning to stone. But not the direct touch of the sun. Yet they are all drawn to the warmth of the sun’s touch.” She gestured toward the distant peaks. “I am told that there are many stone vampires in the gardens of the Eyrie castle, up on Devil’s Mountain. That is how the von Mecklundburgs used to execute them, bind them in the sunlight.”
My nerves chilled, icier than the air. “I thought those were statues.”
She spread her mittened hands. “They would be statues now.”
“But not carved statues. Those were once . . . people?”
“They were once people made into inimasang. They are also apparently drawn to the scents of rose and hawthorn, yet those plants are deadly to them.”
She turned abruptly and plunged down the path, through the arbor, and to the street. I followed, buttoning up my coat again, but I left my hat off. It felt good to cool off after the sweaty exercise I’d gotten working with the prisms inside the cottage.
As we began to slush our way down the steep street, I glanced back, and caught sight of those round hives. “Is Margit a beekeeper?”
“She is the beekeeper’s wife,” Tania said. “The beekeeper is Josip’s brother Mateo.”
“Who were the others?” When she hesitated, I raised a hand. “No, I get that they are important Salfmattas and a Salfpatra. I also get it that they have all kinds of secret levels and so forth.” I was on the verge of asking, What I really want to know is, why did all the important people feel it necessary to tramp up here on a winter’s day to watch me nauseate myself over prisms? “Except maybe the kid.”
“Kid?”
“The schoolgirl with the blue sweater. . . . You didn’t see her, did you.”
Tania’s dark eyes flashed wide. “A ghost invisible to me. Curious!”
“May I buy that hexagonal prism?”
Tania’s rare smile lit her face briefly. She dug in her bag, then handed me a narrow box carved of rowan wood in intricately interwoven patterns of oak, ash, and hawthorn leaves. I slid it into my pocket, where it thumped against me, an unfamiliar weight.
“I don’t have that much cash on me,” I told her when she named the price. “I only brought enough to take an inkri if we needed it.”
“You can bring it to the shop later. I must return now. Theresa will have long finished my deliveries.”
As we slid down a patch of ice under the sheltering boughs of twisted fir, I said,” You never used a prism to talk to ghosts, right?”
“Never. Has your ghost spoken to you?”
“Not the smallest hint of a screech, a groan, or a clanking chain, and I can only see him in the mirror, for some reason. The only one who has spoken to me was Ruli, or Madam Statthalter. But that was just once. Not since.” And when Tania’s eyes widened, I told her what had happened. At the end, she shook her head.
“I do not know why she would fade so fast or how you can speak to her again. As I told you on Christmas Eve, it is seldom that I hear them anymore. It is strange, how there seem to be no rules for ghosts.”
“Well, I think she saw me. I am sure she was talking to me. But I don’t know if Armandros sees me. The only thing that moves is the smoke on his cigarette.”
Tania accepted that without surprise. “Those I saw did not always speak, as I said. The older ones, I couldn’t understand them. The easiest to speak to, the one who heard me, was the little girl.”
“The little girl?”
Color stained Tania’s cheeks.
I grimaced. “Hey, was she a friend of yours who died? I’m sorry.”
“No, no! No friends died. She was an ancient ghost. Very.” Tania looked away, then added firmly, “I am not sure of her identity.”
Oh yes she was, but she didn’t want to fess up. She cast a furtive glance around us. The street had begun to broaden, and a sleigh whizzed by, carrying a group of kids singing a round in Russian to a skipping, minor key melody.
It was clearly time to drop the topic of ghosts, even in French. Besides, I wanted to get to more urgent things. “When they talk about madness. Do people really go mad, or are they accused of being mad, because they see things no one else sees?” I kicked at muddy slush. “It’s fairly recent that I learned to accept that I can sometimes see other times. Now I’m told that that’s dangerous. Or maybe I already am mad, because when you really think about it, it should be impossible to see other times.”
Tania sent me a narrow, considering glance. “You have studied the mathematics, I think you said.”
“Well, some. I wasn’t all that great at it.”
“You know what they teach about how we move about freely in three dimensions, but the fourth is time. That is, the past is still there, but we cannot move back to it. We can only move forward.”
“Theory of relativity, replacing Newton’s idea that time is immovable and absolute.”
“Now we are taught that, in some places, the border is thinner, so that yes, some people can look backward,” Tania said. “The Seers find it easier with the prisms, though some use the sphere.”
“Okay. Practice with the prism. Got that. But Tania, sometimes I see the past and there isn’t any prism, or diamond, or anything.”
“Yes,” she said, casting another of those wary glances around as we tramped through the slush toward the inn. “That is why you must learn control.”
I stopped in the middle of the street and faced her. “They’re worried about me. Aren’t they? Grandmother Ziglieri postponed her trip, all the others were there, not because of my grandmother and the Dsaret name, but because they think I’m either crazy, or going to go crazy with this Sight thing?”
Tania’s gaze dropped, then she squared herself to face me. “Yes. This is why they advise you to learn control.”
I whooshed out my breath. “Okay. Thank you for telling me,” I said, struggling mightily for a cheery tone, while my inner chicken was going bucka-buck-buuuck! in a mad cackle.
A few yards farther was the intersection with the inn’s upper street. People stood in knots talking and gesticulating. The energy reminded me of crowds right after witnessing a fender bender, or when some big sports event was going on.
A few buildings short of the inn, I got that crawly sensation of being stared at. I thought immediately of Ruli’s picture and wished I’d put my hat on. Yep, there were weather-ruddy faces staring my way. Then they looked away quickly.
Tania picked up the pace. I stumbled beside her, studying those cobblestones under the slush as if reading my future there.
When we reached the entrance to the inn, she said, “I must go to work.”
“Okay. Thanks for everything, Tania.”
She scurried on, and I stepped inside.
Natalie Miller sat at the table nearest the door, coffee and a slice of Anna’s date bread before her.
She swallowed her coffee and hefted a canvas bag. “Laundry delivery! You can buy my lunch—”
A roar outside the dining room windows sent splats of snow flying up to rattle the glass so hard the holly wreaths jumped and the glass amaranth pendants swung and glittered.
Everyone faced the window, where a screaming red Maserati hulked, engine growling.
A slim figure in a drop-dead black duster and spike heeled boots ran up to the door and thrust her way inside.
Phaedra Danilov yanked off her bug-eyed glasses and said into my gawping face, “Get into something good. Fast.”
“What?”
“I think you’d better be at this Council meeting,” she yanked back her sleeve, glared at her wrist, cursed softly, then said, “in five minutes. But they always begin with a reading of old business.”
Nat flicked me a wave. “Catch ya later, okay?”
I grabbed the canvas bag and jetted up to my room, where I flun
g the clean clothes. Years of fast costume changes for ballet got me into the periwinkle dress and downstairs at mach ten, where I found Phaedra checking her watch again.
She gave me a chin-lift of approval, and we climbed into her fuel-injected rocket car. She took off with a roar, zipping in and out of traffic with skill and far too much speed. I contemplated advising her never to visit L.A. unless she wanted to spend her entire stay in traffic court, but suddenly there we were, whizzing under the triumphal arch. She skidded sharply right—no cars allowed in Sobieski Square—and pulled up behind the imposing building on the north side of the square. I’d sat in front of the same building on my first day in Dobrenica, wondering how to get at my grandmother’s (nonexistent) marriage records.
A pleasant half-hour’s walk was a streetcar ride of about fifteen minutes. Phaedra got us there in six.
She released the wheel and let out a sigh.
“Why am I here?” I asked as we got out.
“Cerisette showed up at Zorfal right after you did, on her way to the party. She was a little too smug about this Council meeting.”
“Smug? What about?”
“There’s something going on. Danilov and I both thought you should be here.” Phaedra’s voice sounded like a gull’s cry. She was furious.
We bent into the rising wind, Phaedra leading the way toward the middle of the row of four Palladian buildings, all connected at the second story and above by windowed arches.
The inside lobby was steamy-warm. It had a surprisingly martial air that I attributed to crossed cavalry sabers and rapiers mounted on the walls between gold-framed black and white photographs, along with older lithographs, of Riev a hundred years ago.
At a coat room inset midway along one wall, a Vigilzhi attendant gestured for a cadet of around eighteen to take our wraps, which he did with such scrupulous care I would have been amused any other time. The Vigilzhi gave us a pat-down—the Dobreni version of a modern-day weapons scan. But modern day took sharp turn when he picked up little silk bags from a basket. “Any diamonds or crystals?” Phaedra asked me.
“Don’t own any,” I said, as she displayed her hands for the Vigilzhi with fingers spread. The diamond she usually wore was gone.
We stepped away to find ourselves face to shirtfront with Count Robert, Tony’s uncle. He stood there with one foot on the slate-tiled floor, the other on the first step, blocking our way. He was imposing in a handsome suit, massive studs of white gold (or platinum, more likely) winking at his cuffs as he gestured toward me. “She has no business here.”
“Oh, I think she does, Uncle Robert.” Phaedra sounded like Shirley Temple in her most sugary movie.
The Vigilzhi addressed me. “Mademoiselle Kim Moor-r-r-ee?”
Consciously not looking at Robert’s glower, I said blandly, “Aurelia Kim Murray.”
The Vigilzhi turned apologetically to Count Robert. “She is on the Prime Minister’s list.”
Robert looked affronted, then he smiled broadly, with a crimp in the upper lip that suggested smugness to me. “Perhaps as well.”
He turned his back and started upstairs, but the cadet cleared his throat, and Robert remembered what he’d been sent down for, glowering as he began to unfix his cuff links.
“What’s his problem?” I muttered, glancing around Phaedra’s answer surprised me.
“Old sore point, made worse because you’re on the list.”
“Sore point?”
“Uncle Jerzy was banned ages ago.”
“Him again. Why didn’t I meet him last summer?”
She laughed softly, then her brows rose. “He’s your uncle more than he is mine. He’s your mother’s half-brother.” She laughed again as we started up the stairs. “How odd that sounds! He and Tante Sisi have always been close.”
“So he doesn’t live in Dobrenica, I take it?”
“Tante Sisi gave him the Paris flat, on the understanding we would always have a place to stay when we visit the city. The older people say he’s a horrid flirt—they either love him or hate him.” She laughed again.
“Gave him? How come he didn’t inherit?”
“He is like your mother. How to put it delicately? Grandfather Armandros’s son without benefit of marriage. He has lived in Paris for the past forty years. Tante Sisi asked him to come back with her, Tony told us. In support.”
We reached the top of the stairway, which gave onto a broad flagged landing with two sets of high double doors. They were open, revealing an auditorium-sized room set like theater in the round, the tiered circles of chairs looking down at a central table. The walls were paneled in dark wood, and hung with kingly portraits plus some ancient flags.
I turned to Phaedra. I wanted to ask if this Uncle Jerzy’s mother had also been scammed with a fake wedding, like my Gran, but the Council was already in session.
If I ever get you face to face, I said mentally to Armandros’s ghost, we are going to have a little talk.
A young guy wearing a pince-nez read minutes in a deliberate monotone. He perched at a high desk, like a pulpit or podium, behind Baron Ridotski. The Prime Minister had an old-fashioned bell, rather like a smaller ship’s bell, before him, as well as the customary papers and pens.
Alec sat at opposite the Prime Minister, slim in his Saville Row suit, his expression shuttered. On our entry his eyelashes lifted, and our eyes met. His reaction was subtle, no more than a slight lift of his chin, a scant tightening of the corners of his mouth, but I knew with sickening certainty that he did not expect to see me there. He did not want to see me there.
Phaedra found seats where we could see everything.
The other Council members listened, or shuffled papers, or stared into space as the secretary droned out his flatly delivered summation of the minutes. Midway down the other side of the circle sat Tony, unfamiliar in a black suit with a tunic collar, no tie, his hair combed back into a ponytail, his ears bare of diamonds.
Honoré sat sideways to accommodate his leg. His shoulders were tight, his profile taut with the discomfort he obviously felt, and his silky black hair covered the knot on his skull where he’d been attacked.
There was only one woman on the Council, an older nun. She had to be the Councilor for Education I’d heard mentioned once or twice. The rest were well over sixty, some the age of the Prime Minister.
The first row of spectators was at least half women, promising, I hoped, change in the next generation. Central was the duchess, wearing elegant mourning black including a velvet hat with a sheer veil. Her hands were folded, one holding her gloves. For the first time she was not wearing her diamond ring. Next to her sat Cerisette, fashionably skeletal, her mourning black somewhat mitigated by the low neckline revealing the knobs of her sternum. Do guys find that attractive? I wondered, as the droning secretary shifted without fanfare from minutes to old business.
He cleared his throat, looked at the Prime Minister, then in that droning voice that was so flat it took on a kind of singsong quality, he summarized the findings of committees or witnesses, pausing when the Prime Minister touched his bell. After each touch, the secretary called for votes.
The only times the Council members spoke was “Ja,” “Nen,” or the Dobreni words for “second” and “third”—although twice, others spoke actual sentences, but that was after they raised their hands. The Prime Minister touched the bell, which silenced the secretary, after which the Prime Minister would say, “State your question,” or “State your comment.”
“Don’t they make speeches?” I whispered to Phaedra, under cover of a long report of a committee on findings about resurfacing a street.
“Cannot,” she breathed. “Used to cause duels. Arguments made in hearings only.”
The votes were not simply a show of hands. That is, the hands went up, but an old man, nearly hidden by the huge pulpit, read each name aloud as he counted, then noted the vote in a ledger.
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“Judicial. He’s a seer. A
ll testimony goes before him first, no diamonds.”
When old business was concluded, causing a susurrus of shuffling papers, I whispered to Phaedra, “Does that secretary guy read everything?”
“The Interlocutor. Tradition, dating from the days of Baron Stavraska of the Golden Tongue.” As the Council members murmured to one another, and the secretary consulted the elderly gent in an earnest, low conversation, she added, “The Soviets hated it.”
“New business,” the Interlocutor stated.
“Is it always like this, no one but him allowed to talk?”
“The rule’s only for public sessions.” She added in a breath of a whisper, “Honoré says there hasn’t been a Council bloodbath since 1714. Though in 1939 they came very close.”
I could feel the tension building as the Interlocutor set aside his old papers and picked up the new. “Guild messengers from the three eastern mountains report an outbreak of illnesses in the past week,” he droned, then rattled his papers and said even more dryly, “In five villages, people insist that these are vampire attacks.”
The Council and attendees stirred, some making scoffing noises, others shushing the whisperers.
Someone was permitted to ask a question, which I only partially heard because of the rustling and whispering, but it sounded like he was asking for a precise report on the illness in question, and whether or not it was an epidemic.
“As always, the weather has prevented us from hearing from the more remote villages,” said the Prime Minister. “But the Vigilzhi are sending investigative teams.”
Everyone accepted that.
Wind vanes, street lights for Habsburg Street, the dam—each item had to have three Council hands before it was either put to a vote or else remanded to committee for investigation. The only time the three hands were not required were when either Alec or Baron Ridotski seconded it.
The secretary then cleared his throat and held up his next item of business. His fingers trembled, and the paper rattled.