“And that makes it better?” Mircea got up, despite the fact that there was no room to pace in their closet of a kitchen. Or in the rest of the shack he called home these days. A dainty old lady dipping her toes in the surf, the man who sold it to him had said. When the reality was that it was a roof and little else, one that looked like it could collapse into the sea at any moment. He should be glad to have it nonetheless; plenty had less. But he resented it, like he resented having to fawn and crawl to the praetor, to the wealthy so-called healers who had yet to heal a damned thing, to the whole world!
When he was alive, he’d led armies in suits of armor that cost more than this house, possibly more than the whole street. He’d returned to palatial dwellings, servants, the finest of food. And gold, so much that he’d become careless with it, and had to be chastised by his father, because too much liberality could be viewed as a sign of weakness.
He didn’t miss the money—most of the time—or the trappings and finery. He didn’t mind living in poverty, in mended clothes and patched shoes, in a city where ostentatious wealth was the only birthright anyone cared about. He didn’t even mind the contemptuous glances—
All right, that was a lie. They burned almost as hot as the sun, but he could deal with them. He couldn’t deal with this. Watching his daughter die, eaten alive by the curse that had already stolen his life, his wife, everything he cared about. And was now determined to deprive him of the last thing of value he had left.
It wouldn’t succeed.
Not this time.
“I can’t kill it,” he told Horatiu. “It’s part of her now. But I can trap it, imprison it, wall it away. This mage said he’s done it before, but it takes a fantastic amount of power, more than he possesses or I can afford—”
“Then this is over.”
“Like hell it’s over!” Mircea rounded on the old man. “He doesn’t have the power now, but I’m going to get it for him. And when I do, the vampire part of Dorina will never be a problem again.”
“The vampire part.” Horatiu’s rheumy eyes met his, and there was fire in them. “D’ye hear yourself? Has this latest charlatan rattled your brain, or did the sun cook it?”
“Have a care—”
“I am! I do! And the sense that has somehow left you.” The old man gripped his arms, and Mircea allowed it, despite the pain. Because Horatiu looked pained, too. And worried, more than Mircea thought he’d ever seen before. “She’s your daughter—all of her—aye, the vampire part, too. How d’ye think we found you tonight? Do ye think a human could have tracked you in time, through the maze of streets around here?”
“She is human.” Mircea pulled away, furious that Horatiu couldn’t understand. “She has abilities, yes, because of the disease, just as I do. But it’s killing her—”
“And this mage won’t? Men like him prey on the desperate, telling ye what ye want to hear, to gain what they want in return. He’s fed you a story!”
“He’s also the first decent chance we’ve had! The first to hold out any real hope—”
“Aye, that’s how they get you. They’re purveyors of hope, of dreams—and nothing else!”
“And how would you know?”
“How would you? Because he told you?”
“No. Because she did.” Mircea looked up, in the direction of the room where his daughter slept. “Dorina followed me tonight, to the praetor’s. Not in body,” he added, because Horatiu was looking alarmed. “Mentally. You were right about her gifts.”
“Mentally?” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. But she was there. And when I asked her how she managed it, how she could do anything after what she went through last night, do you know what she said?”
“I’m going to find out,” Horatiu muttered, also looking at the ceiling.
This time, it was Mircea who took him by the arms. “She said, ‘It’s only bad when we’re both awake at the same time.’ She knows, Horatiu. She knows there’s two of her, a light and a dark. The girl she should have been, and the monster I made of her.
“A monster I’m going to shut away—forever.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
The vision, or whatever it was, snapped, leaving me staring at Claire’s hallway. And visibly shaking and feeling like screaming; I wasn’t sure why. I suddenly had so many reasons to choose from.
The fey weren’t looking much better. Two of them had naked swords in their hands, but were being held back by Tall Guy. Coffee Lover was plastered to the wall, one hand on his sword hilt and the other clutching his mug, most of the contents of which were sloshed down his front. The final fey was on the ground underneath me, his face red with gore and broken blood vessels, his expression as shell-shocked as I felt.
Because that . . . What the hell was that?
Nobody spoke. Sunlight was streaming through the octagonal window, the beams lighting up the dust in the air and putting an ironic halo around the head of Angry Ass. The fey weapons were sliding back into their sheaths, courtesy of a terse gesture from Tall Guy, who must have noticed the change in my expression. Because Dorina’s rage—or mine, or a combination of both—was simply gone.
It looked like time had rewound and I’d just come out of my room, except that I was sitting on a fey.
I sat there some more.
Dorina, I thought blankly, but didn’t get anything back.
One of the fey cleared his throat. It wasn’t the guy on the floor, whose eyes were starting to pop, I realized. I slowly pulled my fingers out of his flesh and a sigh rippled around the hall, along with a fervent sentence from Coffee Lover in a language I didn’t know.
I also didn’t care.
“Dorina?” I said again, my eyes flicking around, as if I was waiting for her to materialize out of thin air.
Nothing.
“Dorina!” I waited, my heart about to beat out of my chest, my breath coming heavily as it hadn’t during the fight.
More nothing. She wasn’t going to talk to me. And there was a reason for that, wasn’t there?
“I didn’t tell Mircea to do that!” I yelled. “It wasn’t my fault!”
The silence was deafening. And accusing. But I couldn’t defend myself if she wouldn’t—
“Damn it, talk to me!” A sudden surge of emotion tore through me: anger, fear, longing, sadness. I didn’t know what it was, or why it was there; I just knew I was tearing up. Which made me even more frantic, because there was nowhere for the emotion to go.
She wasn’t here.
But she had been here, just a minute ago. And now she was gone, because, what? There was nothing left to talk about?
“Dorina . . .” I said, and even to me, it sounded sad and broken and weak.
No wonder she didn’t want to talk to me.
Someone cleared his throat. “It is Dory, yes?”
I looked up at Tall Guy, half-blind with tears I didn’t understand. He was staring at me along with everyone else, but instead of looking angry or shocked like the rest, his face was almost . . . gentle. It confused me.
“Are you unwell?” he asked, after a moment.
“I . . . don’t know.”
He crouched down beside me, and I realized that I was still straddling his guy. Should probably do something about that, as soon as I made sure that he wasn’t going to attack me again. And figured out why he had in the first place.
I poked him in the chest. “What’s your deal, again?”
He didn’t say anything.
His face was still too red, his eyes too prominent, and his stare too distant. He looked like he was reevaluating his life choices. Tall Guy didn’t have that problem, and after a moment, he answered.
“There is a series of heroic deeds among our people,” he told me. “Or ‘challenges’ might be a better word. Nine in all that, if performed before witnesses, grant . . .” He frowned. “There is no equivalent in English. One is remembered in song and legend thereafter, counted among the bravest of the brave, and greatly admired by one’s fellow warriors.”
“And that has what to do with me?”
“One of the nine is to defeat a vargr in battle,” he admitted.
Great.
“Well, I’m not one, so jumping me before I have breakfast won’t bring you any renown,” I told Angry Ass, and climbed off him.
He flushed some more, I guess at the implication that he’d tried to take me down when I was at less than my best. But he didn’t say anything. Maybe because I still had his knife.