Vero was in Luiz’s home in Lusitan, and knew at once that this was a dream. She left that place a long time ago.

  She left every place eventually, before the shades could find her.

  No one else was in the house with her, so she stepped outside.

  “Momma! Momma!” A beautiful little girl with dark red hair and bright blue eyes ran up to her, and Vero caught the child up in her arms.

  The girl gave Vero kisses, and she could see Luiz approaching from the same direction. He held hands with an even younger boy. The lad had lighter hair than the girl, a closer shade to Vero’s own.

  “This isn’t one of my memories,” Vero stated plainly.

  “It could have been. If you had stayed, that is.”

  “I wanted to stay. I always want to stay. But I can’t.”

  Luiz nodded. “I understand. That’s why I let you go.” He nodded towards the girl. “Do you know her name?”

  Vero looked at the daughter in her dream. “You’re Olivia.”

  Olivia hugged her neck. “That’s right, Momma!”

  Luiz motioned towards their son. “And him?”

  “No- I… can’t.” The boy’s look rended her heart, but her mind was blank.

  Then he was gone, as though he had never existed. He never did.

  Vero looked around her in desperation, but to no purpose. “Where is he?! Where did you take him?!”

  She clung tight to Olivia, lest she be snatched away as well. “Momma! Why couldn’t you save him? Didn’t you love him? Why did you let him die?”

  Luiz was untroubled. “He wasn’t real, Vero. You left; don’t you remember? He was never born and neither was she.”

  As he spoke, Olivia vanished from her arms.

  Vero struck Luiz’s chest uselessly, her limbs were impossibly lethargic. “Why did you take her from me?!”

  “Vero, it was you that took her away. This is all nothing but a dream. You’re not here anymore, and neither am I.”

  Then he was gone. And Vero was alone.

  She fell to the ground and wept. She expected the dream to end soon, but it did not.

  Without the strength the stand, she cried alone in the dark for a very long time before she finally woke.

  When Vero did wake, she was still in darkness and quickly checked her body to reassure herself that she was alive. After that initial burst of panic, she became perfectly still. Memories of all that transpired slowly came back to her, and she tried to determine if someone had been left to observe her or not.

  Once her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw that she had been placed in a small bedroom. She was lying on a cot soft enough to have been filled with feathers. The walls were covered by tapestries, and under the blankets it was comfortably warm. The only furniture in the room, besides the bed, was a wooden table with chairs. There was an elaborate candelabra atop the table, along with a bundle of- something. The way out was blocked by a solid wooden door.

  Vero pulled off the blankets and checked herself. She had been undressed and all her things taken. All her personal possessions were with Heward, so that was not much of an upset to her. To look at her body, she was not injured or abused in any obvious way while she was unconscious. She felt no pain when she moved.

  She climbed to her feet and her legs held up under her. It seemed they decided to capture her alive after all. If that was so, then everything had gone even better than she hoped. There was no reason for her captors to expect that she intended to be captured, since by the time it happened, quite truthfully, she had not.

  The object beside the candles was a dress. It had a simple cut, but was a soft and warm wool fabric in what looked like a deep red. It was difficult to discern color in the dark. There was a set of soft cloth shoes alongside it.

  Vero had no objection to dresses. So long as one could put them on unaided, and the hem did not drag on the floor. The notion of vampyres, or their clockwork slaves, removing her clothes while she was unconscious made her skin crawl. This dress met both her standards though, and anything would be preferable to exploring further naked.

  She took the candles out of their stand and judged the candelabra as a weapon. It was sturdy iron and could be used a club. Vero took both the candles and the stand, then checked the door. There was no lock and she pushed it open.

  On the other side was a large solarium. After her first steps, she froze. The floor was made from wooden slats, which released a strange chirping sound as she walked across them. A large fire burned in its hearth, and moonlight filled the room through a magnificent dome of glass in the center of the ceiling.

  “You may recite your moonrise prayers to the Lady, if you wish.”

  The woman from the library appeared out of a doorway, which led to a much larger and more richly appointed bedroom. It was a doorway she gracefully closed behind her, before seeming to glide as she moved closer. Was this the Countess?

  “I often do,” the woman continued. “Now that my guest has moved those grotesque statues into the laboratory. Really, Vero- you’re not going to strike me, are you?”

  Vero had reflexively prepared to fight with her makeshift weapon, but she now lowered it again. “Who are you, and what claim do you have to this place? I was told it was constructed by a man named Hector, and is presently the demesne of the Black Palatine.”

  “I know. And that is what troubles me. My name is Elizaveta. My family name, and my father, are both long since extinct. I’m going to tell you many more things, some of which you will believe at once, and others for which I expect you will demand proof. Some of these things, I hope, will make you more inclined to trust me. And others, I fear, will cause you to suspect me. All I shall say is that I am your ally, perhaps your only true ally in the whole north.”

  “A pretty speech.”

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  “If I intended to seduce you with words, I would do so. It is my intention to reason with you. Expose your neck to me.” Elizaveta made her final statement a demand.

  To her own horror, Vero felt her body respond beyond her own control.

  “Be silent and hold still.” Elizaveta approached, and though Vero tried to retreat from her, she found that she could not.

  Vero tried every mantra she knew, but although her mind remained her own, it had been separated completely from control over her body.

  “I understand how frightening this must be for you, and I regret that it must be so. I only wish to make it clear that if it was my intention to kill you, or to control you, I would do so now. And you could not prevent me. I have already looked through your memories while you slept, I know what a violation you must find this. I did so only to ascertain your identity, and I swear that I will not take advantage of you in such a way again. In restitution, whatever you ask me, I shall promise to answer you honestly.”

  A cold finger ran along Vero’s cheek and Elizaveta leaned forwards. Vero strained every muscle to escape, but to no avail. Then she felt the light press of a kiss on her neck and Elizaveta withdrew.

  “I now release my hold on you.”

  At once, Vero’s hand went to her neck to reassure herself that she had not been bitten.

  “And I am the one who designed that poison in your blood, so I hope you do not believe that it was my fear of it which held me back. It was formulated to kill only one vampyre, the one I brought you here to destroy.”

  Something had gone terribly wrong.

  Vero realized she had missed something, perhaps many things. She certainly did not trust Elizaveta, and she had never trusted the Curia, but now even Pentarch and his allies were unquestionably suspect.

  Who could she trust? She was enmeshed within a plot, the size and complexity of which she still could not determine, and none of the plotters could be relied upon not to turn against her.

  She must find the holes which the conspiracy had not foreseen. What was the priest Alexius? Was Fra Heward found by chance, or by purpose? Ramiro was waiting for her in Burgorod, she did not trust him either, but she doubted he was in the employ of any power save his own vices.

  Besides a clenching of the jaw, Vero made every effort to give no visible sign of upset. “You didn’t answer my second question.”

  “Didn’t I? Repeat it then, if you will. I seem to have forgotten.”

  “What claim do you have to this place?”

  “This is my ancestral home; my family has lived here since the Imperium first came to this land. This castle is of new construction, but the foundations sit atop the original legion camp for this mark of the province. It was once the outlet of a pass which ran through the mountains, but was lost before I was born. My father, Hector, was the last military governor of this region. It was right that he should build his hall and donjon here. But that structure is also now gone.”

  “What happened to it?” Vero had noticed that Elizaveta’s cooing affections had subsided. Wearily, she realized the vampyre was trying to match her own posture and tone.

  “The Thing under the mountains. It is also, I expect, the same force that destroyed the legion camp and the highway pass it protected. This present castle is of my own design, although I often must make repairs to conform with the new shapes into which the mountain presses us. Mine, however, is the closest demesne to Teutonia, where the Black Palatine seeks to press his claim as an elector. And as he considers me his vassal, he has come to reside here.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “In another month it shall be thirty-two years.” Longer than Vero had been alive.

  “What's delayed him?”

  “Nothing. Time is no factor in the plans of the ageless. He’s manipulated his subjects and earned their confidence since birth. And the world would be shocked to know what council they shall give their children as elders. In time, poor men may become rich, and the powerful grow frail. He will succeed eventually, if he is not destroyed first. From there, he will attempt to leverage himself into the grand princedom itself.”

  “To what end?”

  “The kaiser has held more real power than the emperor for centuries. With the armies of Teutonia, he no doubt believes he’ll be able to conquer the remainder of the Imperium and declare himself an eternal emperor. Then he shall cast his eye towards your free successor kingdoms.”

  “And why is it that you wish to stop him?”

  Elizaveta moved to recline on one of the sofas beside the hearth. “Put yourself at ease, Vero. It’s some time yet until supper, and we have much to discuss until then.”

  Vero sat, but remained upright.

  “I don’t care a whit for politics,” said Elizaveta. “All I desire is peace to continue my research. I want the self-styled Black Palatine gone; it is as simple as that. Your order seemed the most expedient method. My father had some friends among your Curia. I created the poison, and I sent the plan to your masters. All I required was a vector to introduce the poison. I believed your order provided the simplest solution, although I can see now that I was mistaken. It seems your leaders are just as fond of politics as my own ‘Lord’.”

  “What do you know about our order?”

  “Not much. Nearly all of what I know I learned from peering through your memories. The location of your fortress is only a secret today, because those who reside there have been silent so long that all who remember have long since rotted to dust. It was common knowledge in my own living day. Slayers would go there to be trained to hunt restless dead, poor creatures wracked by curses, and all the mutant byproducts of aimless wizards’ god-play. Supposedly your order once hunted dragons as well, but even in my earliest childhood, no one had seen a dragon in living memory. Perhaps more information could be found in my father’s old journals. I could look through them for you, perhaps we could find something to use against your Curia.”

  A handsome bribe. Vero was sure Elizaveta knew more than she was letting on. “How did you send a message to them?”

  “Third parties, I do not wish to be more specific. They made their own arrangements for the message to be delivered. Although when I searched your memories, I did find the one I believe they used as their messenger.” Elizaveta smiled enigmatically. “You might be able to guess who I mean, but even I can’t know for certain that I am correct.”

  Vero suspected Isolde at once, but Alexius or even Lothair might be the agent. “Are these third parties the Lodge of Illusionists?”

  The smile went away. “I told you I do not wish to be more specific. I promised to answer you honestly, not to volunteer everything you wish to know.”

  “You claim to have created the poison in my blood. Does it work as I’ve been told it does?”

  “Yes... but I'm not certain what your bathe with the nymph has done to your humors. We shall study it together while you are here, and I will explain how I developed it as we work, if you like.”

  “Are you not afraid that the Black Palatine will look into my mind as you’ve done and see that you’ve been disloyal to him?”

  Elizaveta’s smile returned, broader than before. “He hasn’t my skill at sifting through memories, dear one.”

  “How can that be? I believed that the Black Palatine was the eldest and most powerful vampyre, at least on this continent.”

  Elizaveta returned to her more formal attitude. “So he is, or else I would have destroyed him myself. Power does not necessarily imply technique, however. His abilities of hypnotism are potent and brutal. You've seen how he’s altered the minds of his servants?”

  Vero nodded. “They moved more like mechanical toys than living men.”

  “They are blunt ugly tools, but effective ones. Over time he takes away their passion so they feel no fear, but they also feel no joy. He takes their sensations so they experience no pain, and they grind themselves to death without knowing. He scoops out all their will; this makes them perfectly loyal, but also helpless without his own will to direct them. He orders their lives by a mechanical clock. It tells them when to eat and when to sleep, because they would waste away to nothing if left to themselves. It is beyond both my power and my desire to do this to any servant, let alone to bind an entire castle. He seeks dominance, where I seek understanding. Thus, I use my weaker strength to observe your mind and spirit as they are, without seeking to change them into a reflection of my own. That is why I seek to earn your trust, rather than enslaving you to my will.”

  Vero believed Elizaveta was speaking the truth, but the vampyre had access to her mind, and she could no longer implicitly trust her own instincts. “You’re not the first to say that to me.”

  Elizaveta looked confused.

  Did she not see Alexius in your memories?

  Vero moved the conversation forward before the vampyress could notice anything amiss. “Tell me your plan, to destroy the Black Palatine.”

  “He will attempt to batter, or seduce, you into revealing what you know by any means he can imagine. But he will not dare to unleash the full scope of his hypnotism on you, for fear of obliterating the very information he seeks. He knows you're here to destroy him, but he doesn’t know how or why. He'll want to discover for certain before he kills you, but it's only a matter of time before his gluttony overrules his reason. That is the moment you must be ready for.”

  “When will I meet him?”

  “This evening. He intends to have you for supper.”

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