We go down a large corridor. The end has a mini portcullis and a drawbridge. But when the flat door lowers, a lush, green, manicured garden greets me. The sunset is long gone, but soft glow balls hover low next to a concrete path. Square hedges, up to my waist, encircle an acre’s worth of land. Bushes dot the outside of a four-split herb garden. In the middle is a water fountain, the main feature of which is a man with his back turned towards us. Then I see what the statue is looking at. Beyond the property hedges is a break in their formation, allowing access to cedar trees. Huge, forest cedars. They don’t look over three hundred years old and they aren’t as large as they can get, but it’s something. The forest goes on for miles.
“This may not be exactly what you need, but…” The count waves his hand in a grand gesture. “This is yours to visit while you are here.”
“Wait,” I start because I’m confused. “You… you did this for me?” I squeak, because this is more than I could hope for. So much more.
“Well, the forest existed before you blessed us with your visit…” Okay, now I know he’s being facetious but I let it go. “But I added a few more details I thought might… make you feel more at home.” I’m so shocked, I don’t even know what to say. He continues, “I know dryads need their… circles.”
I’m not ready to correct or inform him of what a dryad circle is, but this gesture both relieves and disturbs me. “I… I’m flattered and so grateful,” I start but then I take a deep breath and shake my head. “But I won’t be staying long enough to have made this worth your… energy and… investment.”
The count turns to me and stares. He contemplates what I’ve just said, but he wears a mask fronting cold fury. “Explain.”
“I was dropped here by mistake. I don’t know how or why, but I think my transfer papers got mixed up. I’m supposed to be in Arcadia at the Academy of Enchantment.”
Anyone other than a dryad would think the count was bored with our conversation, but, again, dryad. We naturally see things people try to hide. Even the little emotion he shows me is enough to gather his “tells.” Add my talent for True Seeing and no one is going to pull the wool over my eyes. His mask is still in place, and then I see something behind his smooth features attempting to hide his anger. What I see is terrifying.
A face within a face. I can’t make out the second face, and I nearly scream at the horror, but there is something—or someone—inside the count, and it’s not him. It’s something foreign. Or maybe it is him? The real him? Or maybe he’s cursed. Possessed? I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s gone in a flash, and I’m left wondering if I just imagined the whole thing.
“Everly?” The count grasps my shoulders.
“What?” I play off my distress with a smile.
The count is having none of it. “You…” Then he cuts himself off. But it’s almost like he can’t breathe. I wait, and almost ask if he’s alright. He turns and says, “You are safe here,” but it’s eerie. As if those words didn’t belong to the count. Like he’s two people and they each want very different things for me.
In a flash, the count is back. The one that nearly laughed at my ‘you’re hot’ outburst. This count seems to be the real one—the one who feels more at home in his skin. I feel safe with this one. The other one? Not so much.
NINE♀♥♂♂♂♂EVERLY
“Well,” the count says. “Whether you’re staying here or not, Riven has, most unfortunately, placed me in charge of your safety and survival.”
I skip over the most unfortunately part because it’s all bluster and go right to the heart of his statement. “The headmaster of the Academy of Necromancy?”
He nods. “You have an appointment with him tomorrow. Any questions you have about your transfer should be directed to him, not to me. As I am not your point person, and frankly, I don’t care.”
Great. “Do you have a phone I could use?”
“I do not.”
Of course. This place is like centuries on centuries old. Of course there isn’t a phone. Still, I groan and sigh into the palms of my hands. “Why do you have to be so old?”
I hear a nasally huff and look up. There’s no indication of who reacted, the ghoul or the vampire.
“I will have you know I am not much older than you are.”
“Maybe when you were turned,” I say with a shake of my head. “But if you were really my age, you’d at least have one phone!”
And on the subject of the count’s age… he looks like he was turned when he was in his twenties.
“Come,” the count says. “Stregen wants to show you to your other accommodations.” The ghoul steps forward, and the count motions to him. “This is Stregen. If you want anything, tell him.”
I really want to touch the count and use Identify to answer the questions I have. Specifically, does the count have a mental link with Stregen, as Harlow suggested? Are ghouls alive? Why hasn’t Stregen spoken or introduced himself? And what the goddess is going on inside the count? But I can’t do it. Dryads are trained in congeniality. There’s no way I can be that rude, even at the behest of a certain incubus.
I expect Jean-Claude to go off and do countly things, but he
