Ruxandra’s insides twisted as she looked at the little bottle. “We have no money.”
Jana shook her head. “No, my lady, we don’t.”
The woman frowned again. “I cannot give it away for free.”
“Can we pay for it tomorrow?” Ruxandra tried to keep the desperation from her voice. “And take it now?”
For the second time, Ruxandra’s words filled with power—with conviction and certainty and a strength that said obey me. The woman’s face went slack again. She nodded.
“Very well, my lady,” she said. “I will look for your servant tomorrow.”
Ruxandra cradled the perfume in her hands like it was a baby bird as they left the little shop. Her mind was spinning.
I made her do something. I made her do it just by asking. Can I control people?
She looked around the market square. A large man stood in front of baskets of wilted turnips and cabbages. He tipped his hat to everyone who went by and kept up a stream of patter. Ruxandra walked to him, listening as he extolled the virtues of his turnips and cabbages—the last from the fall harvest, you know.
“Good evening, my lady,” he said. “Turnips for the household?”
“No thank you.”
“Then some cabbages perhaps?”
“No.” She didn’t want to humiliate the man, but she needed him to do something a man wouldn’t normally do. “Do you ever balance turnips on your head?”
The big man laughed. “Now why would I do such a thing?”
Ruxandra put all her energy into the next words, concentrating on knowing he would do it. “Balance a turnip on your hat and keep it there until I leave the square.”
“Of course, my lady.”
He turned to his basket of turnips, went through several, and put them aside as unsuitable. Then he picked up a small round one and weighed it in his hand.
“Perfect, I’d say,” he announced. With that, he put it on his head and crushed it into his hat so it stayed in place. “How is that my lady?”
“Wonderful,” Ruxandra said. She bit her lip, turned around, grabbed Jana’s hand, and led her from the square. When she reached the edge, she looked back. The man waved at her, took the turnip off his head, and put it back in the basket. Ruxandra managed to get around a corner before collapsing into a fit of giggles.
“My lady?” Jana said. “Are you all right?”
Ruxandra nodded. I can command people to do things!
I could tell people to take me places and show me things.
I could show Jana things. We could visit the city together.
“Jana,” Ruxandra said. “Do you want to see the Hofburg?”
Jana’s eyes went wide. “Can we?”
Five hours and an exhaustive tour of the Hofburg later, Ruxandra carried the sleeping Jana to their room. The guards at the Hofburg, at her command, had led her to a butler who declared himself more than happy to show them around once she commanded him. The building had been filled with art, with religious relics, arms and armor, and magnificent staterooms. They even got a glimpse at Maxmillius’s bedroom.
It was wonderful. Ruxandra pushed open the door to her room and laid the girl on her small pallet bed in the corner.
“Where have you been?” Elizabeth demanded.
Ruxandra spun. Elizabeth sat in the chair, glaring furiously. Ruxandra had been so distracted by the evening she hadn’t noticed Elizabeth’s presence. She looked for words, but none came.
“I told you to stay here,” Elizabeth snapped. “I told you to stay where I could find you.”
“For two days,” Ruxandra protested. “You said two days.”
“That is no excuse!” Elizabeth rose and strode to the door. “Come with me.”
Ruxandra slipped the bottle of perfume into Jana’s hand and followed Elizabeth to her rooms. All her maids stood outside the drawing room. They looked terrified and exhausted. Dorotyas stood beside the door, a three-pronged strap in her belt.
Elizabeth shoved the door open, snapping, “Close it behind you!”
Ruxandra stepped inside and froze.
“I said close it!”
Dorotyas shoved Ruxandra from behind, sending her stumbling forward. She heard the door slam shut. Still, she didn’t turn around.
“Why?” The fury was gone from Elizabeth’s voice. In its place was a terrible sadness. “Why did you leave me?”
Ruxandra could only stare.
A wide, low-backed chair stood in the middle of the room. One of Elizabeth’s maids was tied facedown over the back of it. She was naked, save for the thick strip of cloth holding a ball of rags in her wide-open mouth. Her clothes lay beneath the chair, spattered with blood. The skin on the woman’s back, buttocks, and thighs had been torn open in a hundred places.
It was hideous.
“What . . .” Ruxandra’s voice came slowly alive. “What happened?”
“I wanted to see you, Ruxandra.” Elizabeth’s voice was small. “I’ve been sitting in Rudolph’s court for four days now, waiting on his pleasure. Not once has he seen me. Not once has anyone spoken to me. The servants ignore me except to tell me to continue waiting or to leave. The courtiers don’t come near. They move away when I talk to them. They say things—cruel, heartless things—where they know I can hear them. I tried very hard not to burden you with this, Ruxandra. I tried to keep you out of it. Tonight I desperately needed to talk to you.”
That isn’t my fault. There is no excuse for this. Ruxandra wanted to say the words, but they stuck in her throat.
“But you weren’t there.” The anger came back, a fury that burned into Ruxandra’s ears. “I wanted to see you. I wanted you to comfort me, and you weren’t there!”
She shouted the last words, and they echoed off the walls. The sound of her voice somehow nullified the sight of the maid. She became small, not quite real, almost a doll. Only Elizabeth mattered.
“I’m sorry!” Ruxandra cried. “I did not know you needed me.”
“You risk everything by doing that! And now look what you’ve done!” She pointed at the bloody corpse.
“The one day I needed you! The one day I was so full of anger and so upset that I had to tell someone, and you weren’t there!” Elizabeth kicked the leg of the chair. “I need to talk to someone of the Blood Royal, and all I have are these stupid peasant bitches who don’t even know how to properly clean a room!”
“So you beat her to death,” Ruxandra said quietly. “You didn’t have to—”
“She was mine to beat!” Elizabeth drove the toe of her boot into the thigh of the corpse. “She was mine to do as I please with because she was a useless peasant bitch, and what I needed was you!”
Tears still wet the dead woman’s face. She’d made her wrists raw and bloody with her struggles against the ropes. Ruxandra tried to reconcile the Elizabeth she liked she knew with the woman who did this. The dead woman was a peasant, but even so the punishment had far outweighed any mistake she had committed.
“Now I have this.” Elizabeth’s voice went quiet again as she turned away. “How do I explain this, Ruxandra? There are already rumors about me. When the courtiers learn about this, the rumors will grow worse. That bitch Czobor will alert Rudolph, and he will take my lands, and my children will inherit nothing.”
She turned a tear-stained face to Ruxandra. “All you had to do was stay in your room, Ruxandra. Why couldn’t you do that?”
“I . . .” I was bored. I wanted to see the city. None of them seemed like good enough reasons, looking at the corpse of the girl.
“What do we do now, Ruxandra?” Elizabeth’s voice was frail and tired. “Tell me. What do we do?”
RUXANDRA TOUCHED THE dead woman’s shoulder. If I’d been here, would she have done this?
Somehow it was easier to think she wouldn’t have—that Ruxandra had had the power to prevent this.
“I’ll say she fell sick,” Elizabeth shook her head. “The other servants will say nothing. Dorotyas will see to
that. I think I can find a doctor to verify my story. It will cost money, but I—”
“I can hide her.” The words rushed past Ruxandra’s lips, practically of their own accord. “I can put her in the river if I hurry.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You can’t. You’ll be seen.”
“I won’t.”
“Ruxandra . . .”
“No.” Ruxandra willed herself unnoticed. “I won’t.”
“Ruxandra?” Elizabeth’s voice rose an octave. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open. “Ruxandra!”
“I’m here.” Ruxandra let go of her will.
Elizabeth gasped and stumbled away. One hand clutched at her chest while the other clung to the wall for support.
“How?” Elizabeth demanded. “How did you do that? When did you learn?”
“When I first went hunting,” Ruxandra said. “That night in the castle.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Elizabeth’s voice grew loud. “How could you keep this from me?”
“Because you wouldn’t let me hunt!” Ruxandra’s hands clenched into fists. “I like hunting! And I didn’t want to kill Jana.”
“Well”—Elizabeth shook her head—“I didn’t know you could do that!”
“Neither did I.”
“How . . .” Elizabeth’s eyes lit up. “It’s the blood. You’re finally drinking human blood and look what power it is giving you.”
Ruxandra nodded.
“I only want what’s best for you, Ruxandra.” Elizabeth spoke slowly, as if to a difficult child. “You know that. If I’d known you could hunt without being seen, I wouldn’t have worried.”
Ruxandra bit her lip. “Truly?”
“Truly.” Elizabeth stepped forward. “I love you, Ruxandra.”
Ruxandra’s mouth fell open. “You love me?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth took both of Ruxandra’s hands and kissed them. “I love you. You are the most magnificent creature I have ever seen, and I loved you from the moment I saw you. I would never do anything to hurt you. I swear.”
She loves me.
Elizabeth kissed Ruxandra on one cheek, then the other. Then she planted her mouth hard against Ruxandra’s. She stepped back, her breaths coming in heavy bursts, lust written clear in the red of her cheeks. “How . . . will you get rid of her?”
“I’ll carry her.” Ruxandra started undoing the ties on her bodice. “No one will see if I’m carrying her. Help me get these off, so I don’t ruin the dress.”
“All right.” Elizabeth helped her with the ties and the belt, and when the dress fell to the floor, she helped pull the shift over Ruxandra’s head. Ruxandra kicked off her boots and started on her stockings.
“My word,” Elizabeth said. “You are beautiful.”
Butterflies danced in Ruxandra’s stomach.
“After this,” Elizabeth said, her voice filled with passion, “you can have anything you want.”
Ruxandra’s eyes went wide. “Anything at all?”
“Anything I can give.”
“Then I . . .” Ruxandra fell silent.
“Then you what?” Elizabeth stepped closer. “What do you want, Ruxandra?”
Ruxandra felt embarrassed, though Elizabeth said she could ask for anything. “May Jana and I go out and explore the city? And may I have some money as well to buy things when we’re out?”
Elizabeth’s lips rose up on one side in the smallest of smiles. “Of course.”
She turned, drew the knife from her bodice, and cut the ropes on the dead girl.
“Thank you so much,” Ruxandra said.
Elizabeth nodded but didn’t stop cutting. Ruxandra stripped the last of her clothes away and waited.
Elizabeth cut the last cord and stepped back. “Ruxandra?”
Ruxandra picked up the body. “Yes?”
“Can you do anything else?”
Ruxandra stopped with the body half over her shoulder. Suddenly she wanted to keep quiet about her ability to sense emotions and to command people. But it’s Elizabeth. She’s helped me all this time. She loves me.
“Yes.” Why don’t I want to tell her? “We don’t have time to talk about it now if I’m going to get her to the river.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said. “After, then. If you would.”
Ruxandra opened the window. Night was fading, the sky slowly changing from black to deep blue. She climbed into the frame. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
With that, she willed herself unseen and jumped.
Ruxandra returned and found Dorotyas waiting.
“My lady is asleep,” Dorotyas said as soon as Ruxandra appeared in the window. She pointed at the closed bed curtains. “She is exhausted from the ordeal you put her through.”
“Oh.” Ruxandra climbed down. “Where are my clothes?”
“In your room.” Dorotyas walked to the door. “Where you were supposed to be.”
“I already apologized to Elizabeth.” Ruxandra realized she sounded like a sulky child and resisted the impulse to growl. “I’ll go to bed then.”
“Bed?” Dorotyas shook her head. “You’ll not parade through the halls naked. You can wait here until Elizabeth wakes.”
“Can’t you fetch my clothes for me?”
“No.” Pleasure laced the word, and a hard smile grew on Dorotyas’s face. “You can wait.”
“Did Elizabeth say so?”
“No. I said so.”
Ruxandra’s hands curled into fists. She wanted to stomp her foot in frustration but knew she would look stupid doing it. She wanted to growl, but she wouldn’t give Dorotyas the satisfaction of seeing her as an animal again. Instead, she walked toward the door.
“No, you don’t.” Dorotyas stepped in front of her. “You’ll do as I say and wait here.”
“You don’t get to give me orders,” Ruxandra said. “Move.”
“No.”
Ruxandra wished herself unseen.
Dorotyas stared wildly around the room. “Where did you . . .”
Ruxandra walked past her, opened the door, and stepped out.
There was a purse waiting for Ruxandra when she awoke. Jana opened it, whistled, and poured the contents on the bed.
Her eyes went wide. “Gold florins. The small ones are four florins each. The large ones are eight. There’s ten of each.”
“Is that a lot of money?” Ruxandra asked.
“More than I’ve ever seen!”
“Is it enough to pay for the perfume?”
“One of the four-florin coins would pay for twenty bottles of that perfume.” Jana shook her head and started putting the coins back in the bag. “We can’t carry all this around with us.”
“How much should we take?”
Jana picked up three of the smaller coins. “That’s more than enough for anything we want, I think.”
“Good.” Ruxandra smiled wide. “Let’s go exploring!”
For the next three nights, that’s what they did.
They returned to the perfume shop and paid the shopkeeper for the lilac perfume. The woman didn’t seem surprised to see them—apparently she’d had no doubts they’d return. Then Ruxandra and Jana strolled through the city, looking at the fountains and statues. They went to concerts and taverns. Ruxandra discovered she liked the taste of wine, though it did nothing to fill her or make her intoxicated. She also discovered that the boys and young men in the taverns found both Jana and her worthy of attention.
Jana made Ruxandra promise never to go off alone with them because Lady Elizabeth wouldn’t approve. The men did their best, but Ruxandra remained firmly by Jana’s side. So the men took them around the city. Ruxandra learned new dances. Several of the young men suggested more, but Ruxandra managed to fend them off.
Jana, on the other hand, ended up kissing one of the boys on the second night. Ruxandra caught them at it and laughed herself silly. Jana spent the trip home bright red and blushing.
On the second night, after carrying Jana home to sl
eep, Ruxandra stripped to her shift and went hunting. The young men they met had told her which areas of the town were dangerous for a young woman to walk alone at night. It was there Ruxandra went.
The young bravo she found swaggering down the street smelled of sex and blood and radiated self-satisfaction. Ruxandra made sure he saw her and followed her into an alley.
“Hey there,” she said when he grinned and came toward her. “Want to fight?”
It was almost like hunting with the wolves.
The next afternoon, Ruxandra woke to a knock at the door. Jana opened it. “Yes?”
“Tell your mistress she cannot go out tonight,” Dorotyas said. “Lady Czobor is having a party, and Lady Elizabeth wants Ruxandra to join her.”
There was acid in the woman’s words. Ruxandra knew Dorotyas’s thoughts about her without even reaching for her emotions. As far as Dorotyas was concerned, Ruxandra was not in the slightest worthy to join Elizabeth anywhere.
Neither are you, Ruxandra thought.
“She’d better look her best, or you’ll get my strap, you hear me?”
The threat in Dorotyas’s voice brought Ruxandra upright in bed. She opened the curtain, ready to tell Dorotyas to leave, but the woman was already gone. Jana closed the door, took a deep breath, and turned to Ruxandra. She put on a bright smile that did nothing to hide the trembling in her voice.
“A party, my lady,” Jana said. “Isn’t it exciting! You’ll need your best dress. We should braid your hair, so that everyone can see how pretty your face is.”
Ruxandra slipped out of the bed and wrapped her arms around the girl.
“I’m fine, my lady.” Jana’s voice was muffled in Ruxandra’s breasts.
“She won’t hurt you,” Ruxandra said. “I won’t let her.”
Jana nodded. “Yes, my lady. You should wear your perfume, so you smell as pretty as you look.”
“Of course.” Ruxandra let Jana go. The girl stood straight and tall, refusing to show her fear. Ruxandra ruffled her hair. “Please make some tea, and then we’ll decide what I’m going to wear.”
It took two hours before Jana declared Ruxandra properly attired. Instead of boots, she wore soft-soled shoes for dancing. She’d put on her best blue dress and her cleanest shirt and shift. Jana combed and braided her hair, so the braids became a crown, framing her face, while the rest of her hair hung free down her back. She stood back, looked over her handiwork, and declared Ruxandra done.