Betrayals

She was tall for a girl, and her hair was a glory of reddish curls. Narrow shoulders, wide blue eyes, a pointed chin, and a long, old timey dress of red silk. That hair was perfect, held back from her heart-shaped face with two black-velvet bows. She half-turned, leaned back, and hopped up to perch on Dylan’s desk, shoving paper back with her skirt.

I stared. Her boots were pointed and heeled, and rows of tiny buttons marched up her shins. She crossed her ankles and looked at me. Her eyes turned a little lighter as dark streaks slid through her hair, the curls becoming looser and longer as her aspect flooded her. The twin points of delicate little fangs touched her pink-glossed lower lip.

Holy shit. I stared some more.

“Dru,” Dylan said, calmly enough. “This is Lady Anna. Milady, this is Dru Anderson.”

“Hello, Dru.” She had a sweet, chiming voice. I stayed where I was, nailed in place, my mouth half-open. “Is that a nickname? What is it short for?”

I was so not going to answer that. But my mouth opened anyway. “You’re svetocha.” The words just fell out. “Jesus Christ. I thought I was—” I sounded accusing, and Dylan straightened self-consciously, his jacket creaking. “Holy shit.”

Her smile faltered for a moment. “I’m a well-kept secret. If the nosferatu suspected, they would attack every place we own, even this small satellite of the Order, with far more frequency. Already, with you here for such a short period of time, we’ve had several students injured and a marked increase in the number of… incidents.”

So that’s my fault? Jesus. A hot ugly feeling welled up inside me. I closed my mouth with a snap.

We looked at each other for a few minutes, her fangs retreating and the curls in her hair tightening up, until she looked just like a storybook impression of a princess.

“We are hoping that the attack on this Schola was merely routine, a matter of them probing our defenses. Though it seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” She tilted her perfect head. “Hopefully none of them escaped to carry tales.”

I finally dug up something to say that wasn’t a cussword. “Where’s Graves?” This was all very well, but he was the one person I wanted to talk to. I needed him here for this.

Dylan shifted uneasily. “He’s in the dorms.” His fangs were out, and he looked unhappy. It was just a subtle downward tilt to the corners of his mouth, but it was such a change from his generally irritated expression, it was pretty shocking. “Milady wanted to meet you, Dru. It’s a high honor for a first-year student.”

Color me all impressed and shit. “Why? I mean, why did she want to come here? If I’m such a problem.”

“You’re not a problem—” Dylan began, but the girl glanced at him mildly, and he shut up so fast I was surprised he didn’t lose a chunk of his tongue.

“May I?” She cocked her head, and Dylan spread his hands helplessly. She smiled a little bit.

Those teensy little fangs were creepy as hell, especially when she tilted her head and looked cat-content. “You are unruly, Miss Anderson. You have been here barely two weeks and have already pressured a Kouroi into sparring with you, with unpleasant results. You seem to have no pride in your heritage, which isn’t your fault, given your upbringing, but it is distressing. You have so much potential, but you seem content to waste it on pointless intransigence.” She was solemn now, her mouth turning down like she tasted something a little unpleasant but was too polite to spit it out. “That’s our fault. We have not expressed to you the reasons why we do things as we do, and I confess I have been very busy making arrangements for your continued safety, as well as other… arrangements for the safety of others in the Order. The work has taken up so much of my time that I have been unable to meet with you before now. And… well, I suppose the best way to say it is just to say it.”

I don’t like the sound of that. My “wrong” chimes were ringing like mad. I shifted uncomfortably. The chair had gotten really hard all of a sudden. Dylan made a soft coughing noise, clearing his throat. His dark eyes flashed, but whether it was a warning or an allergy attack, I couldn’t tell.

Anna lifted one narrow hand, and her nails were lacquered pink too. My God. All she needs is a muff and a cute little pink cell phone all covered in rhinestones. Ugh. The smell of her, spice and goodness and warm perfume, reminded me of something, but I didn’t know just what. I was too busy staring at her flawless face, the blush rising in her matte cheeks, the arc of her eyelashes.

My next thought was sudden and chilling. I could never in a million years look like that. I’m not sure I’d want to, either.

“We don’t know why Reynard saved you from Sergej.” Her tone dropped to confidential instead of just worried and hoity-toity. “Did he tell you anything at all?”

Reynard? Oh yeah. She meant Christophe. “He said he was part of the Order, and—”

“He said that?” Her gaze sharpened over my shoulder, and I knew she and Dylan were exchanging a Look that could have been Parental. Or at least Teacherlike. How old was this girl? She looked about eighteen, which could have meant anything here. “Would it surprise you to know Christophe Reynard hasn’t been an official part of the Order for a good seventeen years or so? The negotiations to bring him back to us have been… difficult.”

“Nobody trusts him.” Next to her careful, polite, well-modulated tone, my voice was harsh. I’d scraped my throat raw with coughing. “Dylan said when he came back he’d train me, because—”

“Dylan is of Christophe’s camp. He’s been his supporter for a long time, and indeed was Reynard’s sponsor. He argued and pressed and cajoled to have Reynard accorded the honor of membership in our ranks, despite his… unfortunate ancestry.”

“His what? Slow down and speak English.” I pushed myself upright in the chair. I was tired and hungry, and I wanted to see Graves. And oh yeah, I wanted to curl up in bed and shake. I wanted to lock my door and the shutters over my window and spend a little time just trembling. It sure as hell sounded good.

There was a slow, uncomfortable silence. “You might as well tell her,” Dylan said. “If you’re going to.”

“I suppose so.” She fixed me with her limpid look, and I felt every pimple I’d ever had fighting toward the surface again. “Did Christophe tell you anything about his family?”

“Just that his mom was dead too, I think.” It was hard to remember when I was thinking through soup. Come to think of it, he hadn’t told me much at all. “Other than that, nothing. What’s this all about? He didn’t tell me a goddamn thing, and nobody’s told me really anything since I got here.”

“It would surprise you, then, to know that Christophe’s given name was Krystof Gogol?” A significant pause while I shook my head, mute, wondering where the hell she was going. “And the nosferat you escaped from two months ago, the acknowledged king of those who hunt the night, was born Sergej Gogol?”

“Huh?” I was exhausted. That’s the only reason why it took ten full seconds for what she was really saying to trickle through the fog in my head. “You what?”

Anna’s shoulders slumped. For the first time, she looked a little tired too. But it was just a gloss over her prettiness. “You didn’t know. Christophe is Sergej’s son. The eldest and, for a time, the most proud and wicked of his progeny. He saved you from his father and disappeared. But even before that, Reynard was interfering in your family.”

My heart was beating very loudly. All the breath had whooshed out of me. “Say what?” It was a tiny little squeak from a dry throat.

Anna hopped off the desk and faced me squarely, her hands clasped in front of her. She said what I was afraid she’d say. “We have reason to believe, Miss Anderson, that it was Reynard who gave away your mother’s location to Sergej. And we need your help to find out if he did.”

She laid the manila folder on the desk’s cluttered surface. Her pink-lacquered fingernails scraped slightly. “This is what we think happened. Your mother was in a safe location.” The folder flipped open, and the world skidded to a halt underneath me.

My teeth ground together behind the frozen lake of my face. They were tingling again, and the red sparkles at the corners of my vision were back. I swallowed harshly, tasting danger and rage.

It was an eight-by-ten glossy in full color, and it showed a yellow house with an oak tree growing by the front