There was a second image…a few years later….
She was lying in a hospital bed. She was comatose, the doctor was saying. There was no chance of recovery. Next to her, Charlie was sobbing. His hair was black, with silver streaks. No chance of recovery? But why? What had hap pened? What was happening? And where was Ben?
Why was she lying on the hospital bed? What was wrong with her? Was she dead? But vampires did not die. So what then—what had happened? And that terrible anguish on her brother’s face. She had never seen him look so wretched.
And where was her baby? Where was her beautiful black-haired baby? The baby with Charles’s dark hair and Ben’s blue eyes. Where was her beautiful daughter? Where was her husband?
What was this?
What was she seeing?
Her future?
She wrenched away. Back to the boys’ dormitory, where she was straddling her first familiar.
“Don’t stop….” Bendix looked at her through a dreamy haze. He was already feeling the soporific effects of the Caerimonia Osculor. “Why did you stop…?” he whispered. Then he was asleep.
Allegra put her clothes back on and gathered her things. What had she seen? What had just happened? All she knew was she had to get out of there as quickly as possible.
SEVEN
Love Sick
For two weeks, Allegra would not leave her bed, nor would she accept any visitors. She refused to eat, she refused to go to class, and rebuffed every entreaty—from her teachers, her resident adviser, her roommate, her teammates. The field hockey championships came and went without Allegra’s involvement (Endicott lost, 4–2). She did not want to see anybody. Especially Ben, who had sent dozens and dozens of roses and left countless messages on the answering machine. Instead, she spent the hours lying huddled underneath her flowered comforter, alone and in despair. She had no idea what had come over her, only that she could not face her life. She could not face Ben. She did not want to think about anything. She just wanted to sleep. Or lie awake in the dark.
Finally, she allowed one visitor into her chamber.
Charles sat on the butterfly chair across from the bed and regarded his sister with a wary eye. He remained silent for a long time, taking in her matted hair, the dark circles under her eyes, the bluish color on her lips that meant she was dehydrated. The sangre azul was keeping her alive, but just barely.
“You did this to me,” Allegra rasped. “This is your fault.” It had to be the only explanation. Only Charles was powerful enough to have done it. There had to be a reason for what happened. It had to be Charles.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said, leaning forward. “Allegra. Look at you. What’s happened?”
“You poisoned his blood!” she accused him.
“I did no such thing. And if his blood was marked, you would be in the hospital, not here.” He stood up and opened the curtains to let light into the room. Allegra cowered from the sudden brightness. “Is that what happened? You took the human as a familiar?” He clenched his fists, and she could see the effort it took for him to say those words.
“Swear you had nothing to do with it,” she said. “Promise me.”
Charles shook his head. He looked sadder than she had ever seen him. “I would never harm anyone whom you cared for, and I would never stand in the way of your…happiness. I only wish you did not think so little of me.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered. He was telling the truth. And if Charles was telling the truth, then she had to face the truth. That her vision was a warning.
“What did you see, Allegra?”
She turned toward the wall and away from him. She couldn’t tell him. She wouldn’t. It was too horrible.
“What is scaring you so much?” he asked tenderly. Charles knelt by her bedside and clasped his hands.
Allegra closed her eyes and saw the terrifying vision again. She knew now what it meant. In the dream, she was not dead. She was asleep. She would sleep for years. A decade and more. She would wither and sleep, and her daughter would grow up without a mother. Her daughter would grow up alone, an orphan, another ward taken under Cordelia’s care.
As for Ben—what had happened to him? What did it mean that he was not in her second vision? Because she was sure he was the father of her child. Her baby had his kind blue eyes. He was there at the birth. Allegra’s heart was certain even if her head screamed at the impossibility. She would bring their child into the world. A Half-Blood. Abomination. A sin against the Code of the Vampires. A code she had helped establish and enforce. The vampires were not given the gift of creating life; that blessing was reserved to the human children of the Almighty. And yet it had happened…but how?
Somewhere in the depths of her soul and her blood, she knew the answer. It lay somewhere in her past…in a past life that she could not bear to remember.