fix them with a label, as an entymologist will label his specimens. He feels he understands Cosmina, and if you go to him, you will ask him to create a new understanding, a place where I am a greater evil than she and where you are to be believed above his own mother. What man is capable of that?”
And whatever villainy the countess was guilty of, none was greater than the piece of sophistry she had just constructed. Of course she was entirely correct. There was no proof she had ever coaxed Cosmina to become the instrument of her revenge-only the carving fork under the pillow and Cosmina’s look of surprise had betrayed her. The structure of my argument had nothing sturdier than sand for a foundation, and I saw the whole of it blow away upon the winds of her scorn.
She rose and rang the bell. “Would you care for some tea, Miss Lestrange? I feel the need for some refreshment.”
My hands fisted at my sides. “No. I will leave this place and I will not speak of this. But I see you for what you are. You are a monster,” I said, my voice low and harsh.
Just then the door opened and the countess smiled over my shoulder, baring sharp white teeth. “Tereza, Miss Lestrange was just leaving. Will you-” But whatever she meant to ask was lost, for she broke off, putting her hands to her mouth, as if to stifle a scream. Suddenly she opened her mouth, and as we watched in horror, a river of blood began to flow, over her lips and onto the floor.
“Strigoi!” Tereza cried, pointing with a shaking finger.
Her scream brought Frau Amsel who ran to her mistress, taking up a basin to catch the blood. She turned to me, her eyes wide in her pale face. “Fetch the count! Go now! And take the girl!”
I turned and put an arm around the white and shivering Tereza, urging her to leave. As we quitted the room, I glanced over my shoulder one last time at the gruesome scene. The countess was covered in her own blood, for it had spilled from the basin, staining her hands and skirt and puddling upon the floor. Frau Amsel fretted and fussed and held the basin closer, but even as she did so, the countess raised her eyes over Clara’s shoulder and met mine, her gaze calm and inscrutable. I hurried out with Tereza and found the count.
The next hours were tense and watchful ones. Without Dr. Frankopan, there was no physical nearer than Hermannstadt, and once more Florian was dispatched to the city to find a doctor and bring him back. In the meanwhile, the haemorrhage was stopped and the countess was dosed with a sedative left by Dr. Frankopan and sent to sleep. It was thought too dangerous to move her, and so the count emerged at last and told the rest of us to retire, for his mother rested and he and Frau Amsel would stay with her.
I ached for him, for his eyes were deeply shadowed and mournful, but he belonged to her then, and I left him to spend my last night alone in the Castle Dragulescu.
In the end, it was not my last night, for with the countess’s collapse, our travel arrangements had been thrown in disarray and Charles and I were forced to postpone our departure one day further. It was not a pleasant day, for there was much whispering about the countess’s condition and there were furrowed brows and dark looks among everyone in the household. Charles was fretful and nervous, ready to be quit of the place, and he chafed at the delay, even as I relished it. I had one more precious day to commit to my memory all that I wanted to remember about the place, and I wandered the castle, free of interference and interruption as I took my leave of it.
That evening, as the sun sank beneath the high peaks of the Carpathians, I wrapped myself against the rising chill and ventured into the ruined garden. I knew he would be there, and the burden of farewell lay heavy upon my heart. We had seen little of each other with all that had happened, and whatever idyll we had enjoyed together, it had come to an end. It remained only to say goodbye.
He did not turn as I approached, but Tycho pricked up his ears and gave a little whine of protest. I bent to scratch his head.
“He will miss you,” the count told me.
“And I him. I owe him my life,” I said, burying my face into the ruff of thick grey fur at his neck. After a moment, I wiped away my tears and rose.
“You must not weep,” the count said with some severity. “How can I let you go if you weep?”
“And how can you not?” I asked, knowing the inevitable was upon us.
We walked for a little while then, deeper into the decaying garden. I could see the remnants of beauty there even yet, and I knew it could be made right again.
“I will restore it,” he said, intuiting my thoughts. “I will make it right again. My grandfather would have approved.”
“It will be magnificent,” I said, seeing it in my mind’s eye, beautiful and fertile and full of the promise of living things.
“I will make all of it better,” he said, his voice firm with conviction.
“I know you will. You will be the saviour of this place.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “I am no saviour, least of all of myself. And I very nearly destroyed you. I cannot ask you to stay. Not now. My mother is-” He broke off, then cleared his throat, continuing on in a voice rough with emotion. “She is dying. Consumptive, the doctor tells me, although she will not own it. She clings to her legends and her superstitions because they give her comfort, but she is dying, and it will not be quick and it will not be easy. I must do what I can for her. Alone.”
I stared at him. Had I been wrong then? Was she simply a malicious old woman with a cruel sense of humour to play upon my fears? Or was she something darker and more evil still, a
“I did not realise,” I said slowly.
“There is often consumption in the village,” he explained. “She used to nurse the valley folk before she fell ill. I ought to have seen it when I came home,” he said, his complexion darkening. “She was so pale and fragile. Her eyes were so bright. How did I not see?”
I thought of the symptoms she had manifested; the symptoms of a consumptive were very like those of a vampire. Even now who was to say which she was?
“How did I not see what she was?” he continued, and for an instant, something fierce and almost angry flashed in his eyes. Did he know then? Did he sense the monstrous evil within her? Whatever his feelings, he did not share them, but he recollected himself and gave me a joyless smile. “I must attend to her,” he said smoothly. “I am the only one who can see to it she is taken care of as she must be.”
Again that slight, shivering touch of something not quite right. Grief at his mother’s ill health, or something darker? “I know,” I said, summoning a courage I did not feel. I had not thought it would be so hard to leave him. “I must go. I have a novel to finish, and a life to begin.”
He fixed me with those startling grey eyes. “So we understand each other, then.”
“Not entirely,” I said, breaking off a withered leaf so I did not have to look at him. “You see, I realise now it was all trickery. Everything you made me think about you, it was all just the sophisticated japes of an experienced seducer. You came to my room by way of the tapestried stair, you made me believe you were something more than human. I see it now.”
“If you want apologies, I will make you none,” he said fiercely. “I wanted you and I knew what to give you to make you surrender. Yes, it was calculated and deliberate, but it was not malicious. I had my conjurer’s tricks and I used them well. Even now you do not know what to make of me, and I will not own what I am. I want you to think of me when you leave this place and wonder whether I am merely a mortal or something beyond. A better man would release you and want you to love another. I am no better man. I am selfish and flawed and I have nothing to offer you that is not broken or imperfect, including myself. And so I offer you nothing. But I will love you until the day I die, and no man will love you more.”
He kissed me then, and I clung to him and we stood as long as we could in the shadows of his grandfather’s garden, watching the first stars shimmer into life in the pale violet sky.
“When this is over,” he said, his lips against my hair, “come to me in Paris. I will give you everything you could desire.”
I opened my mouth, but he put a finger to it. “No, do not answer. Just think on it. You will live in luxury, I promise. You will dress like a countess, be the envy of everyone who sees you. I will keep you as you ought to be kept, with every wish and whim fulfilled.”
I pushed his finger aside gently. “As your mistress,” I said.
