“She could not come with us?”
“No!” She howled before she immediately quieted herself. “No, it would completely defeat the purpose and I can assure you the mission would end badly if Charlotte were to go with us to a place like that. Francis is in the
Dark City
.” She whispered the words as though they were a curse. She leaned even closer to Valek, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “Abelim is one of the most dangerous places in the world. The city of death. It is a place of perpetual darkness, home to the original Vampire coven. The dark man mentioned it to you. The Parliament. They are legendary. Many of our kind think them to be mere legend, and long since destroyed by early up-risers of the Regime. I don’t know any Witch who’s even stepped foot over the city’s border. Francis has been exiled there on purpose. I understand that Vladislov and Francis had a prior history.” Sarah’s whisper grew just a bit quieter with this change of topic. “Vladislov put his ex-lover there on purpose, to protect him, to seek refuge from this war I think. Francis spoke to me a lot about it. Vladislov made it look like a curse, but he sent Francis to the only place he knew he would be safe. That is what I believe. We have to find Francis alone, without Charlotte. It’s the only way to seek the information we need to save her and keep her safe while we do it. If you think our little coven is bloodthirsty, I can’t even imagine how the oldest coven in the world would react to your human ingénue. And at any rate, I have no idea where the city even is. We’ll have to leave for weeks. Charlotte could never survive that long, being exposed to the elements. The others in the coven. She isn’t strong enough.”
“
We
?
You
would not stay with Charlotte?” His voice quaked. “I have no trouble going by myself, but who is to protect her while I’m gone?”
“How do you think you’d find your way to such a place on your own? Abelim’s borders aren’t exposed, out in the open. You need a Witch. And who knows where Aiden still waits for you to trip over him? You need to travel with protection.”
“And
you’d
be that protection?” He quirked an eyebrow at her.
Sarah looked slightly insulted. “Yes! I saved you well enough from those Trolls, didn’t I?”
“I could have handled it.” Valek’s eyes prick with blood. The thought of leaving Charlotte alone, without him for weeks, was too much to even think about.
“Třínožka wouldn’t let anything happen to her, Valek. Charlotte can stay in his burrow until we return.” She smiled, placing a comforting hand on his knee. “It is the only way. How are you going to protect her, if you’re the one who keeps hurting her?”
He closed his eyes and began inhaling slowly through his nose to even his emotions. He didn’t want Sarah to see him upset. “Do you think Francis will know what to do?”
She sat back again in the armchair. “You can either change her—”
“No.”
“Or you can kill her.”
Valek scowled at her.
Sarah’s response was a simple shrug. “Then we must go. Even if Francis himself has no solution, he calls the Silver City his home, and one of his elder comrades will probably come to our aid. I hope. Bring your research and your findings with that woman. What was her name? Eva. Show them what you’ve discovered. Either way, I have faith that your best answer lives in there, in that city.” She hopped up from the chair. She placed two coins on the table next to the teacup. “We leave tomorrow evening, before she wakes up.”
Valek slowly got to his feet as well and followed Sarah out of the tavern. He glanced back at the bar left in havoc, just like the rest of the outside world seemed to be. A bar stool was in splinters. The ale bottle was still smashed to floor. All of the other patrons watched them go.
How could he leave Lottie alone at a time like this? What was she going to think of him? What if Aiden were to find her while he was gone? What if Lusian or one of the others got too carried away? How would she fix herself?
“Can I tell her that we are leaving?” Valek asked.
“No,” Sarah shot back as she walked briskly through the tavern doors. “It must remain completely and utterly our secret.”
Chapter Thirteen
Degrees of Separation
Valek found Charlotte in the library with Edwin and Mr. Třínožka. Charlotte, dazed and absentminded, sat beside a chessboard in play as the two went at it in an intense round of the game. The Spider ruffled his giant, knobbed mustache as he moved his pawn forward. Valek could see how red and puffy her eyes still were from crying.
“Wrong m-move,” Edwin sputtered, grinning as his shaky hand pushed one of his knights forward.
Their game was silhouetted against the dying glow of the fire. Charlotte’s curls were messy around her lovely, alabaster face with freckles as faded as the stars at sunrise. Her gaze remained distant, as she was lost inside her own mind, replaying the horrific scene of
Valek Kills the Poor Human
over and over again in her mind. He must have entered too quietly, for she didn’t look up at him at all. How fortunate he was, to be able to watch her so candidly—to get to witness every emotion, reaction, and thought play within her giant, emerald eyes, without her having any sort of knowledge he was watching her at all. It was for this ability he was able to know her better even than she sometimes knew herself.
Valek deliberately approached her at a steady, human speed, so she would notice him before he got to her. His little doll finally glanced up, a sad and tired smile turning up the corners of her pale lips. He was more than surprised to see that smile. Apparently, she’d already forgiven him for his horrific stunt.
“Where did you and Sarah go?” Her gaze flickered toward something just behind him. Valek sensed it was the aforementioned Witch, who had also just appeared in the library doorway. He heard her shoes on the wood as she flitted off down the hall into some other part of the house.
Valek extended a hand toward Charlotte. “May I steal you for a moment?”
She blinked at him once before taking his hand, allowing him to pull her gently to her feet. Edwin and the Spider stopped their game, both turning to Valek with curiosity.
“You cannot
steal
her. Who will be here to witness my win?” Mr. Třínožka grumped.
“I will have her back shortly, gentlemen.”
Mr. Třínožka grumbled something incoherent and moved his queen to the F7 space on the marble board. “Checkmate,” he said to Edwin, his mustache bristling over a massive grin. Edwin sputtered.
Valek led Charlotte out of the library by the hand, noticing that as soon as they walked out of the room, Sarah slipped back into the library behind them. Her thoughts told him she was taking a few of her spell books for their journey and did not want Charlotte to see her doing so. She was successful, in that Charlotte failed to notice her.
Valek stopped just before the staircase, thinking for a moment, though not letting go of Charlotte’s warm hand. He hated this plan of simply leaving her. He looked down into her wide, confused eyes as she searched his face. His initial goal was to just be alone with her one last night before he and Sarah began their journey, but he decided being in that house, with all of them listening in on their conversation, was not exactly being
alone
. Not knowing when they would return, he needed to find a way to tell her of his plan without actually telling her.
His eyes began to swell with blood tears and he turned his face, hiding from Lottie, as he always did. It was his best and only defense. He feverishly blinked them away as he thought of a place he’d rather go. His memory traveled over the previous weeks and months until he locked on a favorite memory in particular. It was the night he’d first learned Charlotte’s true feelings for him. The night she’d found him with Evangeline, the night of their conversation by the fountain outside of the Elven cathedral. In spite of his deception that night, the memory truly was a happy one.
“Grab your sweater,” Valek said grimly, though he did not wait for Charlotte to respond as he reached up to tear her purple knit sweater from the carved coat rack by the door.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice small as she shrugged it on, quickly fastening the buttons.
He pulled the door open and ushered her out into the night. “I need to get out of this house.”
“But you
were
just out of the house.”
“Again!” he snapped. Hearing her pulse pick up, he realized he sounded rather manic. He pulled her down the crooked porch steps and back into the wet snow, where only her footfalls made wet, hurried sloshing sounds while his movements remained unnaturally silent next to her.
“You’re acting strange,” Charlotte accused, wrapping her free arm tightly around herself. Her teeth had already begun to chatter. “What did Sarah say? Where did you two go?”
Valek found it increasingly difficult to make eye contact with her. “The tavern.”
Charlotte cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why would
you
go to the tavern?”
“Sarah wanted to go, and she wanted company.”
She frowned up at him. “Why didn’t you invite me?”
“I thought you might have been too tired to go. At any rate, I thought you were furious with me.” Lying to her was as uncomfortable as holding his breath—doable, but painstakingly distressing. “Speaking of which, how do you feel now? Is your scar bothering you?”
“It throbs just a bit,” she explained. “But it isn’t hurting me right now.”
Valek pulled her along a bit faster. “Good.”
They walked past the center of the square that had once been so busy, you could barely move through it. Ogres, Elves, Phasers, Witches, and any other imaginable creature of the night would crowd there, peddling items from their fruit and deli carts. The smell of smoked meats used to hang on the air, among the bustling sounds of inhabitants bartering with one another. Those sounds and smells were now only ghosts in his memory as he and Charlotte began to approach the Elven church packed between Broucka General Store and another shoppe.
“What are we doing here?” Her glassy stare focused on the gothic façade. Her gaze darted from one screeching gargoyle to the next, until it rested back on Valek.
He could hear the fear build in her mind. She was thinking that Aiden could perhaps be hiding in the bowels of this cathedral. While that made sense, Valek knew he wasn’t. If Aiden were anywhere within the Occult radius, Valek would surely know. He imagined the Elf’s thoughts would be so loud because of his passionate rage he’d be able to hear him coming from a kilometer away.
Valek thought back to that day, both dreadful and brilliant. Charlotte clad in stark white, the most glorious vision against the light of the coming day. That had been Valek’s first sunrise in more than three hundred years. That memory was branded into his mind for eternity—the enamoring vision of Charlotte’s scarlet curls and emerald eyes against the pale, yellow light. Her beauty had been set aglow by it. Each and every time Valek looked at the sun now, that was what he saw.
They did not enter the church. Instead, Valek led her by the arm around the side of the cathedral, down the cobblestone pathway, and into the garden where Charlotte had first professed how she truly felt about him. He would never forget that night, either. All of the confusing impulses. Her exhaustion. His embarrassment.
This garden was the only thing that remained consistent about their Occult city now. It looked just like it had when he’d originally found her there, crying by the fountain, face buried in her delicate little hands. Probably under some spell, he’d suspected. The jasmine continued to bloom against emerald green leaves and grass. In spite of the winter snow falling all around them, the season had no effect on this small paradise, as though it was safely under the shelter of a glass globe. Safe and unchanging.
“Valek, why did you bring me here?” she asked, as he listened to the many happenings inside of her mind.
She was confused—afraid of him, even. She had every right to be. But the beauty of the spring that lived in this oasis, paired with the white winter coming down all around them, was enough to ease her, if only slightly. Her gaze finally left his face as it trailed around where they were. For a moment, Valek’s peace returned as he watched her appreciate it.
“Because I do not know where else to truly be alone with you.” He released her hand. That felt like the first honest truth he’d spoken to her all day.
Charlotte looked at him expectantly as he circled to the front of her, taking both of her hands in his. “Valek—”
“I need you back. I need the
real
you to return to me.”
Charlotte looked at him, mouth falling open. “But I
am
the real me.”
“You aren’t. So much has changed, and I feel like it’s all my doing. Lottie, I am so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I created this.”
“You didn’t! I’ll be fine—”
Suddenly, she groaned, gritted her teeth together. It was coming back. The pain she was experiencing was so palpable, it almost became physical for him as well. It seemed to be returning more frequently than ever. His experiment was proving itself accurate. He could sense the burn begin at her throat and spread all the way across her chest and shoulders. Her thoughts screamed it at him to the point where it actually became physical for himself. Panicking, he grabbed up her hot hands in his cool ones again, willing the incineration to stop. This was it. He refused to experience another night of putting her through this. Sarah was right. This needed to end.
“You are sick,” he argued. “You are dying, it’s true.”
“Is that what you and Sarah were talking about—what happened to that girl?”
Valek didn’t want to answer anything further. Instead, he shut his eyes as tightly as he could and continued to tune in to her immolation, wanting to be punished by it as well. Wanting to experience the pain along with her. He hoped it would distract from his overwhelming guilt.
“Valek, did Sarah tell you to bring me here?” Her fingers knotted up in the lapel of his overcoat. “What is going to happen to me?”