It was the smell.
The anchovy-and-dirty-clothes odor of the study was worse, mixed with months of accumulated grime, because Mircea didn’t think the maids were ever allowed in here. This wasn’t like that; it wasn’t a bad smell, although there was a good bit of dust involved. It was just . . . whatever the underlying scent was, he didn’t know it.
And he’d thought he knew them all.
After more than a decade as a vampire, Mircea had built up an impressive scent catalogue in his head, despite not being a Hound, what those of his kind were called who had particularly sensitive noses. He’d seen a blind one navigate a crowd once with perfect dexterity, even stopping to pick up an old woman’s dropped purse and offer it back to her. He’d talked to him later in a bar, and discovered that he could almost see, the scent clouds in his head resolving themselves into hazy images of people, canals, even buildings, that in some ways were more distinct than anything Mircea’s eyes could perceive.
That vampire would probably have known everything in the room in a moment, where it was and what it was, even in pitch-darkness. But Mircea wasn’t that vampire, and the skin of his neck was ruffling. He motioned to the witch to hand him the candle, then pushed it through the gap and held it up, the small flame illuminating . . .
Nothing, because a couple lanterns had just flickered to life, all by themselves.
He and the witch looked at each other.
“You first,” she said.
Mircea went in.
Chapter Fifty-five
Mircea, Venice, 1458
Mircea looked around, still not sure what he was seeing.
The room looked like a storehouse for weapons, only he didn’t know why anyone would bother keeping these. Baskets held sword and ax blades that were almost eaten away by rust, their pommels long since lost to time. Ragged quivers were full of arrows that looked like they’d disintegrate with a breath. An old piece of cloth—possibly a banner, judging by the shape—lay on a table, so tattered and burnt that it would have been impossible to display any other way.
Yet it had once been magnificent: a heavy weight of silk with glimmers of gold here and there, their brightness undimmed by time. And it had some sort of pastoral scene painted on it, although it was so faint now that he couldn’t quite make it out. He bent closer, putting out a hand—
And had it grasped by the witch, hard enough to hurt.
“Careful.” Her voice was rough. “It looks like the praetor collects more than just human art.”
Mircea frowned, not understanding. And still didn’t when he raised the candle, because the lanterns left deep shadows draping the walls in places. And sent light dancing over maps he didn’t recognize, books he couldn’t read, and strange-looking shields with designs he’d never seen. And clothing . . .
That was trying to crawl up his arm.
He dropped the candle, and the witch’s hand abruptly tightened, jerking him back. “Fey,” she told him, before he could ask. “And old—very old. I don’t even know how the spells are still active.”
Mircea stared at the mail shirt now gleaming on the floor. Unlike the weapons, it showed no ravages of time, shining as brightly as if just made. And it hadn’t felt like metal, but more like silk against his skin. He’d never seen anything so fine.
He looked at the witch, because something had just registered. “Fey?”
“Yes, fey. You know.”
Mircea didn’t know.
She put fingers beside her ears and wiggled them at him.
He just stared.
And then snapped out of it, because they didn’t have time for this! “The fey are a myth! A tale told to frighten children!”
“Like vampires?”
Mircea stared at her some more.
And then caught a pair of greaves trying to inch their way out of a basket. Which was less of a concern than the fact that they stopped as soon as he spotted them! He looked at them, slumped innocently over the weave, and felt a hard shiver crawl up his spine.
“Be careful what you touch,” the witch said, completely unnecessarily, and moved off to begin a search. Mircea retrieved his guttering candle and took it as far from the damned armor as he could get. Only to be distracted by something on the banner.
Or to be more precise, something in the banner, which moved between the rents, shivered over the threadbare patches, and thundered across once-verdant fields, now gray with age. Something that sent little puffs of dust up, here and there, as it traveled across the surface. Something . . . impossible.
Half in disbelief, half in wonder, Mircea edged closer, tracking the movements of tiny riders on tiny horses, silently braying hounds, beaters with their little sticks, driving prey before them, and deer that flickered in and out of sight as they fled across ghostly fields—
And then off the cloth entirely, golden light that hadn’t come from Mircea’s candle following them as they jumped to something covered by a sheet.
Mircea sidled over and gave a cautious tug. The fabric slithered away to reveal a huge, leather bound book on a wooden stand. It was open to a page where a hunt was depicted, one he could see clearly now, because there was no corruption here. Like the mail shirt, it looked like it had been finished yesterday, the colors so glossy and bright that he was almost afraid to touch it, lest he smear the paint.
But he did, after a brief glance over his shoulder at the witch, who was muttering to herself and whacking at something in a basket with a piece of broken spear.
Mircea turned back to the book, and gingerly turned over a gossamer page, being careful to touch only the unpainted edge. And then another and another, because they were like nothing he’d ever seen: illustrations, in vibrant hues picked out in gold, that would have been wondrous enough on their own. But, like the ethereal hunt, they also moved.
He saw nobles riding in procession, their gilded leather trappings gleaming under a painted sun; peasants tilling the land, the soil under their tiny plows so warm and rich that he swore he could smell its scent; people dancing around a painted bonfire, the little sparks glowing like jewels as they rose off the page and into the gloom; and two navies clashing in the midst of a majestic, rolling sea, which sent what felt like miniature sprays of water up at him.
He turned page after page, eagerly, almost hungrily. They were painted poetry, all of them, more perfect than any masterwork he’d ever seen. Far more, he thought, after sighing a little too hard on a page, and sending a noble’s hat flying, which the tiny man scrambled around and only just managed to catch.
Mircea stared at him, sure he’d been mistaken, and accidentally brushed the edge of a painting. And had a very small, very angry squirrel glare at him from under the edge of his fingertip. And then push out from beneath the pad to bark at him in outrage.
He grinned, utterly enchanted, and turned over another page.
And felt his smile grow puzzled.
That was . . . strange.
The illustration took up both pages this time, bright and colorful, like all the others. But instead of a distant view of an expansive scene, it showed only a close-up of a crowd—very close. So much so that Mircea could see virtually nothing, except the backs of jostling, milling people.
Something appeared to be happening up ahead—something important, judging by the animation of the crowd—but he could see little of it. Just occasional glimpses of a bright blue sky, and something that might be a castle on a hill. But the view was so intermittent that even that was debatable. He found himself pushing at the crowd of bodies, even poking at a fat man who refused to budge, trying to see—
Everything.
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