“Well, you are surely a Witch of the thirteenth generation?” Evangeline asked.
Sarah nodded.
“As am I! We are like sisters. I can sense our spells from miles away.” She folded her hands delicately in front of her.
“Well, good!” Francis stood gallantly from where he sat. He clapped his hands in front of his face. “Now we have two Witches to ensure Charlotte’s safety,” he said with a fangy grin.
“Pardon?” Evangeline’s eyebrows rose.
“We are plotting our uprising against the Regime,” Lusian explained.
“And the only way for any sort of break-in to be successful is if we send Charlotte in as a distraction. But you know your way around the palace now. Perhaps you could help us,” Valek said.
Evangeline’s emerald eyes dazzled as her mouth twisted up in an odd sort of smile that Charlotte didn’t quite understand. “Of course, I would — I would do anything to help my Charlotte.” She wrapped her arms around Charlotte again.
Sarah grumbled something incoherent and walked to the middle of the circle. She yanked a long, silver chain from her pocket. At the end of it, Charlotte recognized her small, silver whistle. She grabbed for it, but Sarah pulled it out of her reach.
“My whistle! Where did you find it?” she asked amazed, studying its details in the firelight. It was tarnished; the grooves caked with dirt, but otherwise just as beautiful as it had always been. “I thought I had lost it forever.”
“I found it the night you and Valek came. It was mixed among the broken glass near the front door. I figured you must have dropped it when you broke in,” Sarah explained. Evangeline marveled at it, too. “I haven’t given it back to you yet, because I wanted to clean it up for you. It was caked with blood and dirt. And also”—she strung it around Charlotte’s neck—“I had a feeling about you. I’ve been working on the spells for days.”
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.
“You’ll see.” Sarah smiled and glanced toward Evangeline. “It will come in handy when you need it most.”
“As in, once I’m inside the Regime walls,” Charlotte concluded.
“Thank you very much for that, Sarah,” Valek said.
“Of course,” she replied. “Charlotte is, after all, one of us. I don’t like this any more than you do.”
“And I’m sure there’s something I can do to help in addition. There are a few other spells I can think of,” Evangeline added.
Sarah grimaced once before smiling at the other Witch. “Well good, then. It will be a pleasure to work with you. We start in the morning.” She sharply turned on one toe and disappeared quickly back into the upper portions of the house.
“Morning is an hour away,” Evangeline said to the rest of the coven.
“We suggest you get your rest, then.” Francis smiled. “If you’ll follow me back up to the house, you’ll find several empty bedrooms. I suggest we find you one most fitting.” He smirked, catching his tongue on the tip of one fang.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The rest of the coven lingered around the fireplace. Some of them silently watched it die out. Some of them chattered out loud about what they had seen and talked about, all the while glancing in the direction of the south wall of the basement, where Valek and Charlotte sat close together, their fingers intertwined.
“I know you’re scared,” he admitted.
“I am. But I would do anything to make your world safe again.”
“Our world.”
“You know what I mean.” She put her forehead against Valek’s cheek. Her face lit up. “I get to stay with you tonight!”
Valek didn’t say anything in response. He smiled.
“Unless Francis will make you stay with him,” she continued.
He looked down at her and stopped smiling. “How intuitive you are.”
“Will he?” she asked.
“We are changing the subject.” Valek pulled his face away from hers.
She looked down and started to fiddle with the hem of her dress. “Do you like the clothes Sarah has given me?”
“Yes. Very much,” he answered, but did not look at her.
“How long do I have with you before they make me leave?”
Valek sighed and pulled her by the waist onto his lap to face him, like he used to when she was a child. Only this time it made the muscles in his middle tighten. “I don’t know, Lottie. As long as it takes Evangeline and Sarah to come up with a way to make sure you will be protected.”
“Sarah doesn’t trust her,” Charlotte divulged.
Valek looked at her, surprised. “Are you mind-reading now as well?”
She smiled, nervously straightening his tattered ascot. “No. Call it women’s intuition. It doesn’t take immortal powers to sense that.” She looked at him. “Do you trust her?”
“She has no devious thoughts. For me, there is no reason to not trust her.” He thought for a moment. “I will keep my distance, however.” He chuckled.
Charlotte did not find this funny. She let her hands collapse in front of her. The scar Valek had left from that first night started to ache faintly on the side of her neck. She winced as she brought her hand to it.
“What is it?” he asked, worried. He pushed her hand aside to examine it.
“Nothing. It just burns sometimes,” she admitted.
Valek frowned. He had never heard of that before. “Burns?”
“Just a little. Very lightly, and only once in a while.” She smiled at him. “I like it. It makes me think of you.”
“Tell me if it gets worse.”
She leaned in to kiss him. But he didn’t kiss her back this time. She looked at him expectantly.
“It feels inappropriate, Lottie.” He glanced toward the gaggle at the fireplace.
She accepted this and leaned in again, only to put her cheek on his shoulder this time. Her nose brushed against the cool skin on his neck. “You’re my hero, Valek.”
“And you are mine.”
She could feel Francis’ stare burning into the back of her head still. She only glanced for a moment over her shoulder before cradling Valek’s cheek in her hand. “Tell me about it. How did it happen?”
Valek frowned and delicately removed her hand. “It is a very long story.”
“Tell me the short version, then.”
He sighed, a small smile returning to his lips. Francis continued to listen from the distant corner. “It was the beginning of World War One. Czechoslovakia was a cultural wasteland heavily oppressed under the weight of the Iron Curtain. Our language — our very national identity was on its deathbed with the start of the First World War.
“I had just moved to the city from a small village in Eastern Moravia with my young wife. We were very poor. There were more opportunities in Prague for a doctor.”
His eyes were distant and foggy. Charlotte could tell he wasn’t in the room with her anymore. “She didn’t want to move.” He laughed, but there was an immense sadness that underscored it. “She told me life would be more difficult in the city away from her parents. But I was young and stupid. I was excited to begin my life and to establish who I was. But the winter was very cold that year….” His sentence trailed off and he stopped talking altogether.
Charlotte lowered her eyes and climbed off him. She stayed next to him, his hand in hers, and waited for him
