At last, for want of anything better, she stuck the pen inside the note and crimped the edges so that it wouldn’t fall out. She wouldn’t be able to write any more letters, but what was there to say? Either Radu would muster up his courage and help her, or someone would find the note and help her, or she would be stuck there until she starved to death, because she had come to the conclusion that death was preferable to marrying Mihai.
She tossed the paper over the edge of the balcony, throwing it toward the middle of the narrow street so that it would catch more attention. Then she waited and watched. It was getting toward evening, and there was very little traffic on the street. It was narrow enough that few carriages passed by, and there were no pedestrians. She had a sinking feeling that the only person passing would prove to be Mattias, or worse, Mihai.
Then a woman came along the street. She was expensively dressed, with a large hat that made her look like a walking flower basket from Dacia’s point of view. She had a parasol, and an attendant footman laden with bundles. Dacia felt her breast swell with hope. Here was someone who wouldn’t be afraid to speak to the police, to help a young lady in need! Dacia leaned forward over the edge, even though it made her dizzy to do it, willing the woman to see her letter lying there, just a few paces away.
The woman passed right by the letter without once looking down. Of course. A well-bred lady would hardly pick up some trash off the street, Dacia realized with despair. She gave it another try.
“Hello! Hello there!” Dacia cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted down at the woman. “Help! Please help!”
The woman did not even look up, though her footman looked around, as though confused as to who was yelling. He didn’t raise his head, though, and Dacia gave up when her voice cracked. Even if they did look up, what would they see? A deranged, bare-armed girl waving at them?
She turned and looked at the roof again. There was a copper rain gutter running along the edge of it. She’d heard that burglars used rain pipes and gutters as ladders, but didn’t think that it was a skill she could master quickly enough to avoid falling to her death. However, the Rembrandt Hotel was one of the narrowest buildings in Bucharest, and though the building next to it did not have a balcony on the same level, it did have an attic window with a small ledge. Dacia wondered if she could creep along the rain gutter to that window, and climb inside the building next door.
She took a few steps toward the side of the building, gathering up her own courage. It was no use waiting to see if someone would pick up the letter, or if Radu would actually try to save her. She needed to save herself.
Dropping her comforter, Dacia started for the wall, thinking to climb on the low wall surrounding the balcony, and then onto the roof. She reached for the top of the wall, palms wet with sweat. She began slowly raising her knee, trying to find a toehold.
“Dacia! What are you doing?”
Dacia froze, one foot still on the balcony, the other braced against the side of the hotel. Radu was standing in the doorway, a valise in one hand and a shocked expression on his face.
“Were you going to try and climb up the roof?” He dropped the valise with a thud. “You could fall to your death!” He hurried over and grabbed her around the waist, peeling her off the wall.
“I would rather die than marry Mihai,” she snapped, but didn’t fight him as he carried her into the room.
“I brought you some clothes,” he told her.
“Oh, thank heavens. I didn’t want to die in my underthings,” she said, briefly postponing her climb down the hotel facade.
As she took the valise from Radu, she noticed that he was blushing and averting his eyes. She smacked him on the arm, hoping it left a mark.
“Are you truly embarrassed to see me like this? It’s your fault I’m here!” She flared her nostrils. “And you’ve seen me turn into a monster anyway!”
She lugged the valise over to the bed and found that it was full of Romanian-style gowns. She was a bit disappointed: it would have given her a sense of superiority to face Mihai in her French wardrobe. On the other hand, without a maid it would be far simpler to dress herself in the loose Romanian style.
She wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar smell rising from the clothing and studied the blue-and-yellow embroidery. Of course, Radu could hardly go back and make small talk with Lou while a maid packed her things. But whom did these clothes belong to, and how had Radu gotten them?
As though sensing her thoughts, Radu said stiffly, “They were my mother’s. They are quite clean.” He fingered a bit of the embroidery. “She didn’t like wearing the Florescu red all the time.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Dacia said, chastened. “Thank you.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I wanted to tell you: you didn’t turn into a monster, Dacia,” Radu said earnestly. “You turned into a wolf. A very beautiful, powerful wolf.”
“That’s what you think,” Dacia said briskly, taking out a gown, sash, and apron. “I see it somewhat differently. But then, I’m not under the thumb of Lady Ioana and the Draculas.”
“Dacia, I—”
“If you want to help me, you’ll get me out of here,” Dacia said. She was pushing down thoughts of Radu’s mother, her late aunt Mina, who had died when Radu was twelve. She had been a Florescu by blood and marriage, Uncle Horia’s second or third cousin. Had she been the Claw? What had she been like? Would she have approved of her son abducting Dacia? “If you’re not going to help,” Dacia went on, “then you can go. It’s bad enough that I have to live with this curse; I don’t need to have my own family betray me as well.”
“We’re not monsters, Dacia. We have a great gift,” Radu said with such dignity that she turned to look at him. “You can turn into a wolf anytime you choose! No! It is not just a gift: it is power!”
They were silent for a long time.
“Be that as it may,” Dacia said at last, putting aside the little thrill that had run through her at the thought of having this power, as Radu termed it. “Is serving the Draculas how it was meant to be used? Is that all there is for us?”
“Lady Ioana says that we live to serve the Draculas,” Radu said bitterly. “That is why God made us this way.”
“I don’t believe that for one minute,” Dacia retorted.
Radu smiled faintly. “Neither does my father. Nor does Aunt Katarina.”
“Then what do they think?” The gown trailed from Dacia’s hands, all but forgotten.
“I don’t know if anyone knows why we are what we are,” Radu said, gazing out the window. “But I know what I feel. I feel like the Lady of Shalott.”
“What?” Dacia dropped the gown in astonishment, and would have burst out laughing, if Radu’s face had not been so serious.
“In Lord Tennyson’s poem,” Radu clarified, red staining his cheeks but his eyes still on some distant vision. “ ‘I am half sick of shadows,’ cried the Lady of Shalott. I am not half sick, I am full sick of being a shadow.”
“From darkness into light,” Dacia said.
Radu’s gaze sharpened, and he turned to look at her. “My father says the prophecy has nothing to do with the Draculas. There is no mention of them in it.”
“Actually,” Dacia said. “I think it has everything to do with the Draculas.”
She stooped and picked up the crumpled gown. “I’m going to get dressed now,” she announced. “And then I’m getting out of here. Lou must be frantic! Are you going to help me or not?”
“Of course I’ll help, but they’ll kill us both if we’re caught,” Radu warned, one hand on the latch.
“My dear Radu,” Dacia said. “You do remember that anytime you choose, you can change into a wolf as well?”
Hotel Bucharest
Rua Gradeszky
15 June 1897
Dear Aunt Kate,
Your former lover, Prince Mattias, has abducted Dacia. Prince Mihai ordered the abduction and plans on forcing her to marry him, or so I assume from his previous
behavior toward her. Mr. Theophilus Arkady and Lord John Harcastle are helping me rescue her.
If you have any sort of fondness left at all for your nieces, or if you have any respect for your queen, you will assist us.
Lou
THE HOTEL REMBRANDT
Being in a gentleman’s hotel room was of course a very damaging blow to a young lady’s reputation, but Lou was not concerned. Dacia’s kidnapping trumped matters of social status in Lou’s mind, and both men had seen Lou mostly naked just that morning, anyway, she remembered as she entered the very masculine hotel suite.
Lord Johnny invited her to sit on the sofa and then went to pull the curtains.
“Well, Miss Neulander,” Mr. Arkady said, sitting across from her. “If you are truly seeing flashes of what your cousin sees, this may help us more than you know.
“Though it is frowned upon by the Society, I have some little skill with magic.” He spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “I think I can help you to locate her.”
“What are you going to do?” Lou drew back.
He gave her a reassuring smile, but that didn’t help. The last time she had seen magic, her mother had turned into a bat. Although she felt her own, personal transformation that night had been a thing of wonder, she didn’t particularly want to see Mr. Arkady turn into a creature in the middle of Lord Johnny’s suite.
“I want to help you see clearer,” he said.
“Are you sure it will work?” Lord Johnny paced the room, checked and rechecked that the door was locked, and peered out the windows several times. He stared into the mirror over the sideboard and adjusted his tie, making it even more crooked.
Mr. Arkady just gave him a look, and he subsided. Lord Johnny muttered something and took a chair across from Lou, slouching like one of Lou’s brothers being tiresome. Lou wondered if he was in love with Dacia. She was sure that Dacia was in love with him, though he wasn’t her usual sort of beau, like the immaculate Will Carver.
Clearing his throat, Mr. Arkady brought her attention back to himself. She caught herself staring at his long lashes and dark, dark eyes and blushed, and he cleared his throat again.
“Yes, well, Miss Neulander,” he said hurriedly. “I am going to burn some incense, and have you breathe in the smoke while I play the flute.”
Lou felt her eyebrows climb to her hairline. This was unlike any magic she’d ever seen. But then, her entire knowledge of magic consisted of her family turning into wild creatures in a dark forest.
“It is perfectly safe,” Mr. Arkady went on. “And it will help you to think better. Concentrate on your cousin. See if you can pick up any clues about where she might be.”
“All right,” Lou said.
She tried to sound nonchalant, as though this were something she did every day. When Mr. Arkady gave her a sympathetic smile and reached over to squeeze her hand, she knew she had failed in her nonchalance. They both blushed, and he busied himself lighting some sticks of incense that were planted in a brass bowl of white sand on the table near Lou’s elbow.
Once the incense was smoking, Mr. Arkady reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small flute. About the length of his hand, it was wood, painted red, and carved with angular patterns. He placed it to his lips the way one would play a clarinet or an oboe, straight on, rather than sideways.
“It’s the shepherd’s flute of my people,” Mr. Arkady explained. “A bit different from the Western flutes that you are used to.”
“All right,” Lou said again, because she didn’t know what else to say.
He began to play, very softly. The flute had a beautiful sound, like wind chimes. He wasn’t playing any tune that she could detect, only a series of long, soft notes that flowed into one another. After a minute, Lou found her eyes closing as the soft flute played on.
Lou thought about Dacia as she leaned against the high arm of the sofa, unable to open her eyes. She just breathed in the exotic scent of the incense and murmured her cousin’s name. Where was Dacia now? Was she well?
And then Lou saw.
Dacia was standing in a narrow room with a sloping ceiling. She had just finished dressing in a traditional Romanian gown and was still tightening the sash. The room was small and the furniture plain but good quality. Lou had the distinct feeling that it was a hotel room.
Dacia stiffened and raised her head, sniffing at the air.
Lou opened her eyes. For a nauseating moment, she could see both Dacia’s hotel room and Lord Johnny’s. She coughed, choking a little from the incense, and the vision cleared.
“Did you see her?” Lord Johnny leaped from his chair to kneel in front of Lou.
“She’s not far from here,” Lou said, her voice faint. She coughed again. “It felt high, and narrow . . . a hotel room. A rather strange hotel room. The ceiling sloped, and the room wasn’t very big, but the furniture was nice enough.”
“Are you sure it was a hotel?” Lord Johnny asked, perplexed. “And nearby? There’s nothing like that around here.”
Lou coughed again. “I’m sure.”
“It had a bed?” he pressed. “It wasn’t an office? Or the back room of a shop?”
“It had a bed,” Lou said. “There was copper, something copper out the window . . . A shutter? A . . . balcony!” She sat up straight. “I’ve seen it! I think I’ve seen it! Isn’t there a hotel near here that is very, very narrow? With a peaked roof with copper facings on the balcony? We passed it when we were having lunch with the Szekelys!”
“That Dutch hotel, on Smardan Street,” Mr. Arkady said with a small cry of recognition.
The sick feeling came back, and Lou’s head pounded. No . . . someone was pounding on a door . . . not Lou’s door, the one where Dacia was. The pounding . . . it wasn’t pounding, it was knocking . . . but it scared her all the same.
“It can’t be Radu,” Lou said as Dacia’s fear stabbed through her heart. “It can’t be Radu, it must be him.”
Prince Mihai.
“I have to go to her,” Lou said.
Then she was the Smoke.
Her clothes fell away and she swirled out the window that Lord Johnny had opened in his fidgeting earlier.
Lou slithered through the air. She was reminded of the way dragons were depicted in ancient Chinese art, as though they swam through the clouds. She hoped that no one looked up and saw her . . . and then wondered why it mattered. What would they see? Would they understand what they were looking at? Would they care?
It was a relief to ask questions whose answers didn’t matter for once.
She followed her senses to Dacia. She would not be able to describe it to anyone, but it was as if she could smell and hear and feel her cousin with the same sense organ. As she got closer, she could almost taste Dacia as well.
The tall, narrow hotel that contained Dacia was not far from the hotel where Lord Johnny and Mr. Arkady were staying. Lou curled herself around the chimneys and then swooped down to the balcony, following the rain gutter that Dacia had tried to climb.
The door was closed, but that didn’t stop Lou for very long. She merely poured herself through the keyhole and into the room, ignoring the cramped and oily feel of the lock in her frantic journey to Dacia. She took her human form between her cousin and Prince Mihai, who didn’t notice her until she had finished her transformation.
“Lou!” Dacia threw her arms around Lou’s neck from behind, and Lou turned around, hugging her cousin fiercely.
“Are you all right?” Lou glared over her shoulder at Mihai.
The prince smiled at Lou, holding out his hands to show that he was unarmed.
“I have not harmed a hair on her head,” he said with a smooth laugh. “I only wanted to ask her a very great favor . . . but first, let us find you some proper garb, Miss Neulander!”
Lou looked at her bare arms and almost shrugged. It was becoming sadly normal for her to find herself undressed in company. Dacia let go of Lou to snatch up a Romanian gown from t
he bed. Lou stepped away, her back still pointedly turned on Mihai, who just laughed again. She was sure he was staring at her backside.
Dacia slipped the gown over Lou’s head, and Lou wriggled her arms into the sleeves and got her head through the collar as quickly as she could. Dacia tied the drawstring at the neck with quick fingers, and just like that, Lou was decent. She decided that there was a definite difference between having Mr. Arkady peek at her legs and Prince Mihai leer at her.
“Now,” Lou said brusquely, facing Mihai. “Just because you haven’t assaulted my cousin does not mean that you haven’t harmed her!” She planted her fists on her hips so that she wouldn’t slap the prince. “You will release her at once!”
“My dear Louisa—I may call you Louisa, may I not? Or perhaps LouLou, though that is such a silly name!” Another unctuous smile that made Lou want to slap Mihai even more, and he just went on talking without pausing for an answer. “Your dear cousin is free to leave at any time! I am sorry if the manner of my bringing her here caused either of you distress!” He looked from one to the other as though the idea that being kidnapped might be traumatic had never before occurred to him.
“Is she?” Lou folded her arms, frankly disbelieving.
“But of course she is! I am not a monster!”
Dacia flinched at the word, and Lou’s eyes narrowed. Mihai continued to smile as though he hadn’t noticed, but Lou was certain he’d used that word on purpose.
“Excellent,” Lou said. She took Dacia’s arm, hoping that her cousin could not feel how tense she was. “Let’s go.”
“Ah-ah!” Mihai waggled a finger at them. “There is one small condition.”
Dacia made a noise in her throat and Lou sighed. Of course there was a condition. How like Mihai to toy with them like this.
“You may leave,” Mihai said, “as soon as Dacia agrees to become my wife. We will go straight to a church . . . and then you may go wherever you like!”
Lou snorted. “Do you honestly think that she would marry you? And do you really think that you can keep her here forever if she won’t?”