“That is because you don’t understand what really matters. Family. Power.”
“No, I—” Lou began to argue, but her grandmother cut her off.
“You little fool,” said Lady Ioana with disgust. “I am done with you!”
And she flung herself backward out of the tree. Lou screamed and stretched out a hand reflexively, but her grandmother changed into her bat form before she could be hurt, and flapped off. The others of the Wing, who had been circling the tree in consternation, flew after her, chittering in relief.
Lou tried to go after her, but couldn’t find the strength. Flying at Lady Ioana’s left wing was a bat who used to be Lou’s mother. Lou could not bring herself to face her mama, not tonight. And what would happen if Lou did capture Lady Ioana? Would her grandmother be imprisoned? Executed? She was evil, but she was also a very old woman.
Lou couldn’t be responsible for that. She was not like her grandmother.
Well, not like her Florescu grandmother, anyway.
With the last of her strength she became Smoke and slithered out of the tree. She oozed back to the palace grounds and into Theo’s coat, which he still cradled in his arms like a baby.
“Are you well, my houri?” His voice was tender, and Lou blushed.
“Did you catch that old bat?” Dacia licked her lips in anticipation, then grimaced as she tasted some of the blood that was still smeared across her face.
“I did,” Lou said. “She threatened us all, but there was nothing I could do . . .”
She felt foolish now, and weak. Lady Ioana was completely without scruples, and should have been stopped at all costs.
“Does she know that Mihai is dead?” Aunt Kate was wearing a soldier’s coat with a darkly stained bullet hole in the left breast.
“Yes,” Lou said shortly.
“Well, there’s that at least,” Kate said. “She’ll want revenge for our betrayal, but at least she knows not to try and instigate another coup.”
“What shall we do now?” Lord Johnny looked around, chewing his lower lip. “The king and queen are safe, I think all of Mihai’s men have been captured. We need to see to the bodies, and Mr. Carver—”
“Must we?” Dacia hunched her shoulders. She raised her sleeve and scrubbed at the blood on her face, wavering a little where she stood as though her legs weren’t very steady.
“I know what to do,” Aunt Kate said, a touch ominously.
Dacia looked up. “No!”
“No, please!” Lou struggled down from Theo’s arms, trying to make herself taller, but she’d been closer to her aunt’s eye level when she was being carried. “Aunt Kate, I can’t stand any more killing!”
“I am trying to show our family a better way,” Dacia said at the same time.
Aunt Kate looked at them in great astonishment. “Dacia! My dear Lou! You don’t think . . . Good heavens! I have no intention of killing William Carver! I’ve known him since he was in short pants! You and Dacia should go to bed at once, there has been entirely too much excitement this evening!”
Lou stared at her aunt for a moment, and then she started laughing. It wasn’t her usual laugh; no, it was the laugh of a madwoman. Staring at Aunt Kate, who was wearing a dead soldier’s coat but still sounding exactly as she always did in the parlor at home in New York, Lou laughed and laughed.
She only got herself under control when Dacia started to sob.
FROM THE DESK OF MISS DACIA VREEHOLT
24 June 1897
Dear Mr. Carver,
I am quite distressed at your accusations, and little know how to reply.
However, I must say that your ludicrous stories about my family are hurtful in the extreme, and your insistence that we were involved in the murder of a Romanian aristocrat has had me prostrate with horror these past two days.
I can only hope that you seek help for these delusions. It is shocking to find a gentleman of your tender years so indulging in drink, and I hope that you can find the strength to stop before you come to grief. Far be it from me to harm anyone’s reputation through malicious gossip, but if you persist in spreading these lies about my family, I will be forced to counter your slander with the true tale of how you were found, drunk and raving, in the gardens of Peles Castle last week!
I think it best if you and I have no further contact, save that which polite society demands of us.
With best wishes for your recovery,
Dacia Vreeholt
STRADA SILVESTRU
“Give it to me! Give it to meeeee!”
“It’s mine!”
A book sailed past Dacia’s ear as she sat at the little writing desk in the corner of the sitting room. It hit the wall and fell, cover askew, beside the letter she was just finishing. Without looking around, she picked up the book, straightened the crumpled pages, and then put it down at the edge of the desk before blotting her letter. She calmly addressed an envelope while the whining behind her became screaming, put the letter inside, sealed it, and rang for a footman.
“Please deliver this by hand,” she instructed the footman, raising her voice to be heard over the racket that her twin cousins were making. The footman took the envelope and fled with relief, and Dacia went to the doorway and called across the entrance hall to Radu, who was in the library with his father and Uncle Daniel.
“What is going on in here?” Radu said when he came in. He looked in disbelief at Lou’s younger brothers, who were scuffling on the floor for possession of a single, now very crushed and unappetizing, doughnut.
“Hold them down,” Dacia said.
Radu reached down and grabbed each of the twins by his collar, picking them up and pinning them to the sofa with one movement. Dacia went to the writing desk and got the book they had thrown and came back to face them.
“Be quiet and listen to me, both of you,” Dacia said, after getting their attention by smacking the book loudly into her palm.
“Why should we?” David looked at her sullenly.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll turn into a wolf and bite the both of you,” Dacia said in a low voice.
That silenced both of them. They had heard some very strange things since arriving in Bucharest with their father a few days before. First from eavesdropping on Lou and Dacia as they told Uncle Cyrus their story, then from having a disheveled Will Carver, still unwashed and reeking of whiskey, arrive on the doorstep to accuse Lou and Dacia of being murderers.
“You can’t really—” began Adam, but Dacia interrupted him.
“Oh, can’t I? Are you really willing to risk testing me?” She leaned over them, and they shrank back. “Your mother is gone, and I am sorry. I do not know if you will ever see her again. If you wish to cry for her, by all means cry for her, but the rest of your bad behavior stops today.
“There will be no more fighting, whining, screaming, stealing, lying, or arguing. You will do your lessons quietly and stop playing pranks on your tutors. You will speak with respect at all times, and above all you will be kind to your sister.
“You are Neulanders,” Dacia reminded them, “from a very old New York family, and also Florescus, from an even older line. You will start acting like it. Today.”
“What if we don’t want to?” Adam had his lower lip out so far a raven could have perched on it.
“Radu,” Dacia said.
Radu grinned. He leaned over the back of the sofa, so that the twins could see him grinning. As they watched in horror, his teeth became longer and longer, and his face stretched to accommodate them.
Dacia smiled. “Do I make my point?”
The twins looked back at Dacia, whose hands had shortened while her nails had grown increasingly long and hard. With apparent casualness, she scratched three long lines in the soft leather cover of the much-abused book. The boys nodded.
“Good. You may go.”
The twins fled from the room, and Lord Johnny came in, chuckling. Dacia quickly returned her hands to normal.
“That was b
rilliant,” he told her.
“Thank you,” Dacia said, putting the book down in embarrassment.
“Nice to see you,” Radu told the young lord. “I’ll just be going . . . ?” He edged toward the door, shooting Dacia a wink.
“Actually, I need to speak to both of you. And to Lou,” Lord Johnny said.
“She’s gone to lunch somewhere with Theo,” Dacia said, a little bubble of pleasure rising in her chest at the thought.
She was coming to terms a little more each day with her murder—execution—of Mihai and his men. Her nightmares did not cease, but she thought they might as time blurred the edges of the memory. She knew that it troubled Lou a great deal also, though her cousin seemed more concerned about the whereabouts of Lady Ioana, and her mother, of course. But Lou was blossoming under her newfound power, and also under the tender attentions of Theo Arkady, who had met with Lou’s father’s approval as well.
“Ah, he’ll probably tell her, then,” said Lord Johnny. At Dacia’s gesture, he seated himself on the sofa so lately occupied by the terrified Terrible Twins.
“Tell her what?” Dacia sank down on a chair opposite, steeling herself for more bad news.
Radu hovered between sofa and chair, clearly torn as to what to do. Radu had done a lot of hovering lately. He seemed relieved that the Wing were gone, and that the Claw had sworn fealty to King Carol, promising to plot no more against the rightful king. But even though his part in the treasonous attack had been unwilling, he still smelled of guilt at times.
“I have an offer for you, from my employer,” Lord Johnny said.
“Your . . . employer?”
“The head of our Society,” Lord Johnny clarified. “He would like to invite you . . . that is, you, Dacia, Radu, Lou, Miss Katarina, and any other Florescus who might be interested, to join us in our battle against people such as Mihai.”
There was a long silence.
“This represents a very bold move on the part of the Society,” Lord Johnny said, somewhat awkwardly. “This is the first time that persons who are known to have . . . natural power . . . have been offered a position with us.”
“Instead of just being hunted down?” Dacia said, but without any malice.
“Er, yes,” Johnny said, sheepish.
“Well,” Radu said finally. “I can speak only for myself, of course, but I’m certainly willing,” he said with a faint grimace that was belied by his pleased smell.
“Capital!” Lord Johnny stood up and shook hands with Radu.
“I’ll go tell Aunt Kate,” Radu said, ducking out of the sitting room. “Maybe this will bring her out of her room.”
Their aunt had retreated to her room the morning after the Night Attack.
Mattias Dracula, though he had quarreled with his nephew and fled rather than take part in the battle, had surprised them all by retreating to a monastery in Bucovina for a period of reflection, stopping only briefly to bid Aunt Kate farewell. Aunt Kate had said nothing, merely gone to her room and shut the door.
Dacia was staring down at the pattern in the rug. Finally she looked up at Lord Johnny.
“I know what I have to offer you—your Society, that is,” she said bluntly. “But what do they offer me?”
“A good question,” Johnny said.
But before he could continue, Dacia interrupted him.
“I have a reputation to maintain, you see,” she said, her voice coming out a bit too high and fast. She thought again of her nightmares. In some of them, Lady Ioana and her mother watched her kill Mihai, and laughed. “I’ve managed, despite all this, to salvage that. My name remains untainted despite Will Carver’s accusations and the Incident in London.
“My mother will not speak to me now, however, and my father might very well follow her example. My maternal grandmother is a fugitive, along with roughly half of my Romanian family. So I ask you, what can your Archangels do for me?”
She was panting slightly, and she realized with a start that she had twisted her fingers into the satin belt of her morning gown until the fabric had shredded.
But Lord Johnny’s eager expression did not falter. He gazed at her from beneath his mop of hair—really, did he ever visit the barber?—and continued to smile. Then he reached out one hand and took her fingers out of the ruin of her belt.
“The Arc—the Society offers you the opportunity to go beyond balls and parties and worrying about your reputation, an opportunity to do what you know is right. But it also offers you a very interesting education in topics that would have given your governess the vapors . . . not to mention travel to exotic locales and exciting company.” He smiled winningly at her.
“Exotic locales?”
“Morocco, Bombay, Australia . . .”
“Paris?”
“Naturally.”
“Is that all?”
Lord Johnny laughed, and got to his feet. He held out a hand to Dacia, who took it, and he raised her up. Putting his other hand at her waist, he began to waltz her around the room.
“There’s also adventure,” he told her. “Not to mention romance!”
“Romance? Are you quite certain?”
“Oh, yes!” Lord Johnny bent his head and kissed her. “There must be romance!”
Dacia pulled back. “Your Society is very romantic, then? Lots of too-clever young lords who are going to write me sonnets and send me flowers?” She allowed herself to be kissed again.
“Well,” Lord Johnny admitted, “mostly just one young lord who is planning to write you sonnets and send you flowers, but he’s very, very dedicated to romancing you.”
They heard the front door open, and Lou’s excited voice calling out for her father.
“Papa! Dacia! Theo is taking me to Istanbul to meet his family!” Lou sang out. “We leave at once so that we have time to explore before I begin college!”
“Wonderful,” Dacia shouted back. “Johnny is taking me to Paris!”
Author’s Note
In the autumn of 2009 I had a fantastic idea for a story about two spoiled American cousins who travel to Bucharest and discover a Terrible Family Secret. The story would be set in the present day and be told through diaries, e-mails, and texts. I pitched the story to a good friend who is also a writer and she suggested that I set the book a hundred years (or more) earlier, which would make the Terrible Family Secret even more shocking, as young society ladies of the 1800s wouldn’t even have words to describe things like shape-shifting. This suggestion really sparked my imagination, and I set to work researching Romania, about which I knew almost nothing.
My goodness! What a rich and fascinating history! I had no idea that Bucharest was one of the stops on the Orient Express, that it was called Little Paris, and was the vacation spot for wealthy Europeans in the late 1800s. But I soon realized that I could read about Romania all day for weeks, and still never really understand it or capture the feel of the country.
And so I suggested to my husband that we take a little trip . . .
In the spring of 2010 my husband and I took a private tour through Romania with our guide, Horia Matei of Adventure Transylvania. Horia took us to palaces and fortresses, cathedrals and graveyards, monasteries and museums and farmhouses. It was the trip of a lifetime! I wrote pages of notes and descriptions and took hundreds of pictures.
I started this book in Romania and finished it back home in Utah. I know it doesn’t fully do justice to the rich culture and history of Romania, but I did the best I could, and I hope that you liked it. If you would like to see pictures and read more stories about our adventure in Romania, check out the Silver in the Blood page of my website, www.jessicadaygeorge.com.
Acknowledgments
This book needed a lot of help, and a lot of people deserve thanks, so bear with me!
First of all, a big thank-you to my husband, who wanted to go on a cruise, but didn’t complain when I announced that our vacation that year would be a research trip to Romania. You, sir, are an excellent traveling com
panion! (I’m sorry about the food . . .) Thanks also to Amy Finnegan, who suggested that I set the book in the 1800s that fateful day as we rode the zoo carousel with our kids. Special thanks to my kids, too, who first put up with my leaving them for two weeks to travel to a place that probably seemed farther away than the moon, and then with my being gone every afternoon for months while I did the actual writing. I definitely need to give a shout-out to my awesome babysitters: Miranda, Ethan, Kelsea, Elisabeth, Emilie, and Sadie! And thanks, too, to the fantastic library staff at my local library, who make it such a delightful place to work and browse.
A great big thank-you hug goes to Mary Kate Castellani, my editor. This is the first book that Mary Kate and I did together from beginning to end, and it’s been a joy. Many thanks also to Cindy, Cristina, Erica, Emily, Beth, Lizzy, Linette, Brett, and all my Bloomsbury friends. And to my editors who read the book but moved onward and upward before the work began, Michelle Nagler and Caroline Abbey, who both made me cry happy tears by immediately saying, “I just love Lou so much!”
Double and triple thanks served à la mode go to my agent, Amy Jameson, who not only encouraged me to write this book, but was so patient while I mulled and dithered and pondered over it for years.
And of course a big thank-you to all my family. My husband (again!), my parents and siblings, in-laws, and the kids (again!), who always remain so loving and supportive, no matter how crazy things get! I love you all!
Also by Jessica Day George
Dragon Slippers
Dragon Flight
Dragon Spear
Tuesdays at the Castle
Wednesdays in the Tower
Thursdays with the Crown
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow
Princess of the Midnight Ball
Princess of Glass
Princess of the Silver Woods
Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Day George
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