Masks and Shadows (19 page)

Walking arm in arm, their faces turned to one another, Charlotte and Sophie nearly bumped into the tall, stooped gentleman who approached from an intersecting path, his hands locked behind his back and his own gaze fixed on the ground. At their near-collision, his eyes widened. He jerked around to look after the group of walkers in the distance.

“I do beg your pardon.” With a hasty bow, he began to move away, but Sophie stepped forward to stop him.

“My goodness, I don't believe I've ever met you! How funny. I thought I knew everyone here.”

Ahead, the rest of the group had come to a halt. Charlotte watched the Prince turn back to stride toward them, followed by the others.

Sophie shook the bright ribbons out of her face and smiled enchantingly, holding out her gloved hand. “I know we really ought to wait for a proper introduction, but just this once . . . I am Frau von Höllner, and this is my sister, the Baroness von Steinbeck. And who are you?”

The man shot a quick look at the approaching group, sighed, and removed his hat with a flourish. He bowed sweepingly. “It is an inestimable pleasure to meet both of you ladies. I am Count Radamowsky.”

Friedrich woke with a start as percussion crashed in the orchestra. God, how long had he slept? All the actors were singing together now, while the full assembled orchestra played support for them. It made an utterly godawful racket.

He sighed and wriggled into a more comfortable position. No chance of sleeping any longer, but still . . .

His foot brushed against paper. He froze.

No
. They couldn't be watching him all the time. This had to be something completely innocent. There was no reason to be worried at all. And since there wasn't . . .

He reached down to pick it up just as anyone would, quite naturally, out of simple curiosity . . . or, no, to
prove
exactly how safe it really was, so he wouldn't even be tempted to waste his time on absurd worries any longer.

There was no name on the note. But when he turned it over, the familiar seal sent a sinking sensation through his gut.

Goddammit.

So, they'd caught him sleeping on duty. So? He ripped open the note, cursing his trembling fingers.

Friedrich crumpled the note into a ball without bothering to read any of the rest of their bloody nagging. It was all too unbearably depressing for words.

Of course, there was no question about it.

He would go.

“Radamowsky.” It wasn't the Prince who spoke first, but Ignaz von Born. The alchemist stepped forward, brandishing his walking stick like a weapon, and glared at the other man, ignoring Charlotte and Sophie just beside him. “What do you think you're doing here?”

“Why, the same as you must be, Herr von Born.” Radamowsky smiled easily, but Charlotte had not missed his glance of appeal to the Prince. “Have you had a pleasant visit so far, my friend?”

Von Born tightened his lips and grasped the handle of his walking stick as if it were a throat that he was throttling. “Until now, I had.”

“My dear Count.” Prince Nikolaus walked forward, rubbing his hands together in what Charlotte might have taken as a nervous gesture, in another man. “When did you arrive?”

“But half an hour ago, Your Highness.” Count Radamowsky turned to smile at the assembled company. “I was so enchanted by the beauty of the view from my window that I set off to enjoy your fine gardens immediately. Will you forgive my rudeness in not waiting inside to be greeted by you?”

Prince Nikolaus gave an unusually expansive wave of his hand, heartiness—and relief?—emanating through his voice. “Of course. There is nothing to forgive.”

“But—oh!” Beside Charlotte, Sophie gasped. “Pardon me, sir, but are you
the
Count Radamowsky? The one I've been told of? Herr von Born said that you can conjure ghosts and—”

“Ahem. I didn't
quite
say—”

“I am,” Count Radamowsky said, with a bow, “that very Count Radamowsky of whom you speak. Perhaps someday I may have the privilege of seeing you in one of my Viennese
salons
, madam, or—”

“Someday? But it must be soon—today! Oh, Niko!” Sophie flew to the Prince's side and gazed up at him adoringly. “You lovely, lovely man. You promised me I should see a ghost conjured, and then you invited Count Radamowsky to do it for me! You knew how much I longed to see him. You were wicked, to keep his visit such a surprise!”

“Well . . .” The Prince patted Sophie's hand. A long look passed between the two men. Charlotte fancied she caught the merest suggestion of a shrug in the Prince's shoulders. “Now that you are here, Radamowsky, would you be so kind as to oblige Frau von Höllner in her whim?”

Ignaz von Born snorted and spun around to glare into the closest flowerbeds. Behind him, Charlotte saw Signor Morelli watching in silence. Her breath sped up. She turned away. She had made a fool of herself last night. Now, he probably thought her doubly a fool for involving herself in this supernatural play.

“Sophie,” she began, in an undertone.

“Of course I shall,” Count Radamowsky said. “But we will need darkness for the proper ambience. May I have the use of a good-sized room, Your Highness, at—shall we say—eleven o'clock tonight?”

At five minutes to eleven, Friedrich neared the end of the long path to the Eszterháza Bagatelle. Half the torches had been extinguished, so he had to find his way through near-blackness. Only the sound of his boots crunching against the path served as proof that he hadn't lost his way.

He wasn't drunk this time.
To say the least
. He'd tried to drink beforehand, to bolster up his nerves, but he'd only gagged and had to spit the beer out when his stomach had rebelled against him.

Ridiculous to be so afraid. He was sober, not prey to nightmare fancies. He was a lieutenant, even if that was only an honorary title. More than that, he was a von Höllner, and that still meant something, didn't it?

Friedrich drew up his shoulders into a martial stance as he marched up the angled set of stairs to the central door. Perhaps it would be locked, he thought hopefully. Perhaps . . .

It cracked open before he could even touch it.

“Password?” a voice whispered, behind the door.

Oh, hell
. “The elements of fire,” Friedrich muttered.

“Pass, Brother.” The door swung inward.

Blackness yawned through the open door. Friedrich could hear the far-off sound of male voices chanting deep within the building. He swallowed.

“Brother?” the voice prompted.

“Yes, all right.” Friedrich scowled. “I know what I need to do.”

He stepped into the darkness.

Chapter Thirteen

“Close your eyes,” Count Radamowsky intoned. “Let your breathing slow. The aetheric veil is only just beyond our sight.”

Carlo crossed his arms and watched from slitted eyes. In the darkness, lit only by flickering candles, Radamowsky's smile looked nearly demonic. Carlo wasn't surprised that Ignaz von Born had walked out with a snort of open disgust, only moments after entering the room. He couldn't entirely explain why he hadn't followed von Born's example.

The seats in the music room had been arranged into a circle surrounding the alchemist. Radamowsky carried no props save his own expressive gestures and the deep, reverberating timbre of his voice—which, Carlo thought, made this already a far better show than most of the attempts he'd been forced to witness in various other courts in his career.

His narrowed gaze fell on Baroness von Steinbeck beside him—the mark of her dark eyelashes against her cheek, the slow, even breathing that moved her chest—and jerked away.

Shadows flickered across Radamowsky's face.

“The aetheric veil draws closer now. Closer, closer—
ah
.”

Friedrich felt his way through blackness with one hand pressed against the wall. The chanting grew louder and louder, until it nearly deafened him.

His outstretched foot hit a closed door that emanated heat through its wooden bulk. He took a breath. When he finally found the handle of the door, after a fumbling search, it nearly burned him.

He turned it anyway . . . and walked straight into Hell.

“I call upon the ancient masters to help me raise the aetheric veil between the worlds of the spirit and the flesh,” Count Radamowsky declared. “I call upon them in the ancient tongues.”

Thick syllables rolled out of his lips. Some of it was very nearly Italian, Carlo thought—or Latin, at least—but the rest he could not identify. Yet his first instinct—to dismiss it as invented gibberish—faded as the words continued. They rolled out in order—in
perfect
order. They filled his head and resonated within it. They almost made sense. They meant something . . . if he could only see it . . .