“I have to ask,” said Vlad, smiling to reveal perfectly even white teeth, “whether it’s true you have a pet frog. Someone told me you carry it around everywhere.”
“Well, yes,” I said cautiously. “His name’s Gogu. I rescued him a few years ago.”
I waited for the nice young man to shrink away, to make 237
an embarrassed comment, or to fall silent. Instead, he leaned forward.
“May I see?”
I was charmed. I got Gogu out and held him on my palm, where he embarrassed me by cowering in abject terror. “He’s usually quite friendly,” I said. “I don’t know what’s come over him.”
Vlad reached out to touch, and such was the shock emanat-ing from Gogu’s small body that I drew my hand away.
“Oh, yes, I find them fascinating,” Vlad enthused. “I have a big collection myself, you know. It’s a special study of mine.”
“Really?” I began to wonder whether it was possible that there might be a man who was not only eligible, but genuinely suitable—someone I could actually come to like. From over by the hearth, Cezar was staring at us with an expression dark as a thundercloud.
“Yes, I have one of every species to be found in the Carpathian region, and a number of more exotic ones as well. But nothing quite like your little fellow. I can’t tell exactly what he is. You realize how very unusual it is for him to be active in winter. A scientific curiosity of the first order.”
“Yes, well, I think Gogu’s one of a kind,” I said.
“I can see that we have a great deal in common, Jenica,” said Vlad. “I’ll ask Mother if she can arrange a return visit in the spring—I could show you my laboratory. I’ve devised a wonderful new method for preserving my specimens. They keep more or less indefinitely, you know. I start with a few drops of ether on a cloth, and then—”
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“Excuse me.” I felt sick. In my hands, Gogu was trembling like a leaf. “I think I hear Aunt Bogdana calling me.”
I fled to the safe company of my aunt and her friends. Tati was no longer with them. I scanned the crowded room, wondering whether she had gone back upstairs already.
“Tatiana is such a lovely dancer,” observed my aunt’s friend Elsvieta. “And what an exquisite gown . . .”
“If it’s possible to obtain something similar,” said another woman, “I think your son will be flooded with orders after tonight, Bogdana.”
“You’re a nice little dancer, too, Jenica,” Elsvieta went on, smiling at me. “I could see my son was enjoying himself. Vlad is rather too fond of his own company and his experiments. I hope you may come to visit us in the spring. A little riding, perhaps, and some music. It would be so good for him.”
“I’m sure Jena would welcome that,” said Aunt Bogdana, alarming me. “If her father approves, of course. We hope very much that Teodor will be home by springtime. Jena, who is that young man dancing with your sister?”
I looked across the room and froze. Maybe there was no black coat tonight, but I knew instantly who it was, and my heart filled with terror. Tati was in a trance, moving in his arms like a graceful bird. Sorrow wore a mask—black, of course—which didn’t do much to disguise his snow-pale skin and burning dark eyes. He had made some concessions to the nature of the gathering. His hair was tied back at the nape of the neck, and he wore a white shirt under a traditional waistcoat: black, embroidered with red flowers. Black trousers and boots 239
completed the outfit. Around his neck was our mother’s silver chain. He held Tati reverently, as if she were the one thing he valued in the world. Their eyes remained locked as they went through the steps of the dance—there might as well have been nobody else here.
“He dances well,” commented Elsvieta. “But he does look rather . . . intense. Who is he, Jena?”
I thought frantically. “Er—I think he came up with Judge Rinaldo’s son, Lucian,” I mumbled. “I’m not sure what his name is.”
“The mask is too much of an affectation,” said another woman. “But he’s quite striking, isn’t he, with that very dark hair and the pale complexion? Your sister certainly seems to think so.”
I looked around wildly for Cezar and saw him near the passageway to the kitchen, talking to Iulia. He looked distracted and she looked miserable. I muttered an excuse and dived into the crowd. What was Sorrow thinking? Did the man have a death wish? And how could Tati have encouraged him? They’d planned this—the butterfly dress proved that. I had to get rid of him now, immediately. If Cezar realized where Sorrow had come from, our sedate party would descend into violent, bloody tragedy.
They had left the hall before I reached the spot where I had seen them—close to the steps up to the terrace from which Tati and I had made our terrifying passage to the Other Kingdom at Dark of the Moon. The door stood slightly open. Through the gap, the freezing air of the winter night seeped into the crowded chamber.
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I went halfway up the steps before I called. “Tati?” I glanced back over my shoulder. Beyond the half-open door, the music played on—nobody had followed me. I went higher.
“Tati, where are you?”
At one end of the parapet, a long black coat lay neatly folded on the wall. At the other end stood my sister and her lover. Tati’s arms were wound around Sorrow’s neck, her body pressed close to his, as if she would melt into him. His hands were enlaced in my sister’s long hair as he strained her slight form against him, white on black. Their eyes were closed; their lips clung; they were lost in each other. It was beautiful and powerful. It was impossible. I cleared my throat, and they opened their eyes and turned to look at me.
“If Cezar sees you, he’ll kill you,” I said bluntly, picking up the black coat. “You must leave now, right away. How could you risk yourself like this? Tati, come inside.”
Sorrow took the coat. He did not put it on.
“Jena, just a moment longer,” pleaded Tati.
“Now!” I hissed. “Do you want to see him run through with a pitchfork? Sorrow, go, please! Just go!” As I spoke, I heard someone coming through the door at the foot of the steps, and a voice.
“Jena?” It was Cezar.
Sorrow slung the coat over his shoulder. He reached out, and Tati threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. He stroked her hair, murmuring something.
“Jena, are you up there?” Cezar sounded anxious rather than suspicious.
“I’m just coming down!” I called in what I hoped was a 241
casual tone. I jerked my head violently toward the other end of the terrace as Sorrow disengaged himself from my sister once more. Anastasia had used some kind of portal to reach the Other Kingdom from here—I hoped he could do the same.
“Go!” I mouthed. “Now!”
“It’s freezing cold out here, Jena, and you don’t even have a shawl. You’ll catch your death!” I could hear my cousin’s heavy tread as he climbed the steps.
Tati was standing frozen, her eyes on her lover as he swung up onto the parapet. “Goodbye,” she whispered.
“Goodbye,” Sorrow said, and, slipping his arms into the black coat, he stepped off the wall and into space. I sucked in my breath, then let it out as Cezar appeared at the top of the steps.
“Come inside, girls,” he said. “Get warm by the fire. Jena?
Are you all right?”
Tati walked past him, unseeing, and vanished down the stairs. I wanted to go to the parapet: to look over, to see whether Sorrow lay among the trees far below like a broken doll.
“I’m sorry to have worried you, Cezar,” I said shakily. “I needed some fresh air.”
“Maybe we can find a quiet corner, just the two of us, eh?”
He put his arm around me. Under the circumstances, I let him.
Anything to distract him from the oddity of the situation.
“Come, my dear, let’s go in.”
As we made our way down, it came to me that a sudden descent from a castle wall might present no difficulties at all for Sorrow. He had been in the Other Kingdom a long time. Perhaps he had indeed changed: become less like a human and more 242
like one of them. Maybe he’d gone through a portal; when Anastasia had taken us across, it had felt like falling. But maybe he could spread out his black coat and fly like a bat. I shivered.
That had been too close, by far.
“It’s all right, Jena,” said Cezar. “I’m here.”
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Chapter Ten
My heart, still thumping from Sorrow’s narrow escape, slowed with relief when Cezar left me to go off and find the quiet corner he had mentioned. I kept myself very busy: first chatting to Aunt Bogdana, then dancing with R˘azvan and Daniel and some other young men, whose names I instantly forgot. Gogu’s comments were predictable:
Too tall, you’d get a sore neck just talking to him.
This one smells.
Lavender silk. What more need I say?
I imagined a different face on my partner: a tangle of dark hair, a sweet mouth, wary green eyes. Beside the man in Dr˘a-gu¸ta’s mirror, tonight’s collection of suitors seemed entirely without character. Then, in my imagination, I heard my sisters’
screams as the green-eyed man turned to something monstrous, and I knew how foolish it was to let myself think of him. Dark of the Moon had opened up a realm of peril—dream about it too 244
much and I might be drawn into forgetting my sense of right and wrong. This world, I told myself sternly. These suitors, this life.
If you want your family to be safe, if you want to protect Piscul Dracului, this is the way.
I kept watch over my sisters, something that was second nature from our visits to Dancing Glade. I spotted Tati and Stela retreating upstairs together—Stela stifling a yawn, Tati drifting along at her side. Iulia was talking to R˘azvan. Whatever he was saying to her, it had coaxed a smile to her face.
The supply of pastries began to run short, and people still seemed to be hungry. I headed for the kitchen to check with Florica. As I entered the passageway, my cousin stepped out of the shadows and grabbed me by the arm, making me gasp in fright. There was nobody else around.
“Don’t do that!” I snapped as my heartbeat slowly returned to its normal pace.
“Are you trying to avoid me, Jena?” Cezar asked, not letting go. “I need to talk to you alone. I said so when we came inside, but you’re always somewhere else. Come and share some ¸ tuica.
˘
Rest for a little.” When I opened my mouth to tell him that Aunt Bogdana had asked me to come straight back, he added, “I have something to say to you. You must know what it is. Jena, this needs to be in private.”
I glanced around frantically. The sound of laughter and clink-ing platters filtered up from the party. From the other end, behind the closed kitchen doors, came the sound of scrubbing: Florica and her assistants, starting to clean up. In the middle, Cezar and I stood in our own little patch of awkward silence.
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“If you’ve got something to say, better just go ahead,” I told him.
He had held on to my arm all this time. Now he grabbed the other arm as well. I had my back to the wall, and his face was unpleasantly close to mine. I could smell ¸ tuica˘ on his breath. I gritted my teeth.
Get on with it, wretch.
“You know what it is. You know how much I want you, Jena. You look wonderful in that red gown. I can’t keep my eyes off you. Jena, you will marry me, won’t you?” The words came out in a rush. Before I could draw breath—let alone start to say I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man in all Transylvania—Cezar bent forward and kissed me.
I had often dreamed of my first proper kiss, though the dreams had not contained a particular man, just a vague idea of one. The kiss itself, I knew all about. It would be tender and sweet and exciting all at once. It would make my knees go weak, and at the same time it would make me feel safe, and loved, and beautiful.
The touch of Cezar’s mouth on mine destroyed every trace of that dream. His kiss was not about love or tenderness. It was a kiss of possession, and it bruised my lips and wounded my heart. When he was done, I wrenched my arms from his grip and stood there shaking, using all the strength I had to stop myself from hitting him.
Tell him.
I drew a deep breath. There were words bursting to get out of me—furious, hurtful words. Though I was shaking with 246
humiliation, I kept them back. Cezar held power in our household. If Father died, that power would become absolute. My refusal would offend my cousin, there was no avoiding that. But I must do it as tactfully as I could. He had the capacity to cause terrible damage to all the people I loved.
“Thank you for your proposal,” I said in a tight voice.
“Cezar, this just wouldn’t work, you and I. We’re too different. We don’t think alike. We don’t enjoy the same things.
We’d argue all the time, and be desperately unhappy—”
“Jena, Jena, Jena,” he muttered, moving in close again. He pressed his body up against mine and put his lips against my ear. “You don’t mean that. Haven’t we been friends since we were small children? All lovers quarrel, that’s the way things are. Besides, this solves the problem of your father’s estate. I’m family already. I’m sure this is what Uncle Teodor would want.
Come on, Jena, you’re just teasing me. . . .”
His hand went down the front of the red gown, and my rage finally got the better of me. In the pocket, squashed between Cezar and me, Gogu was quivering with fury. “Stop it!”
I shouted, and hit Cezar across the cheek, hard. “Don’t you dare touch me like that! What do you think I am, some girl who lets every drunken oaf pinch and fondle her in dark corners? I’m not going to marry you, Cezar, and if I have anything to do with it, nor are any of my sisters. Don’t ever put your hands on me again. I’m saving that privilege for my future husband. And there’s one thing plain as a pikestaff: that won’t be you!” I turned on my heel and marched off to the kitchen, and I didn’t look back.
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*
*
*
After the guests had retired for the night, I retreated to our bedchamber, exhausted and distressed. My mind hardly had room to hold the double shock of Sorrow’s foolhardy appearance in our midst and Cezar’s crude behavior.
I took off the red gown, knowing that I would never wear it again, and slipped into my night robe. I put Gogu on the side table. Stela was asleep. Tati lay in bed with her eyes open. The others were sitting on Iulia’s bed, conversing in whispers. Nobody looked happy. On some level, perhaps, our party had been a success, but the possibility of finding suitors we genuinely liked seemed farther away than ever. I remembered Tati saying once that the Other Kingdom might spoil us for life in our own world, because nothing could ever match up to it. Tonight I was beginning to wonder whether that was true.
