Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Harriet
I arrive at Chez Dracul to pick up Alexandru at eleven the next morning. Our mission today is Berky’s Patisserie, but it’s a Sunday, so we don’t want to get there too early.
Gregor is in his usual long coat when he answers the door, the only man I know who can make a ponytail look severe and totally military.
“So, how are you liking your new home, Gregor?”
“Well enough.”
“We’re going to visit an amazing pastry chef today,” I inform him. “Do you have a favorite kind of pastry? I’ll send some back with Alexandru.”
“As I have told you, I do not eat pastries.”
“Do you like cookies? Berky makes some really outrageous cookies.”
“I will alert our overlord that you are here.” He exits the room. I listen to his receding footsteps. Is he a demon of some kind? Is that how he got to be over five hundred and thirty-seven? Or is he a human that Alexandru did something to, like whatever he did to my father?
At any rate, he got the memo on “overlord.”
Alexandru appears in his day-walking attire—a fine three-piece brown suit, dark glasses, and wide-brimmed hat and gloves. He pulls off the look with his usual predatory elegance.
“Did I do something to offend Gregor, do you think?” I ask as we head to the car. “Is he mad about the overlord terminology change?”
“Gregor does not care about such things.”
“He seems unhappy with me.”
“Gregor is always unhappy.”
“But he seems more unhappy. Like I did something to offend him. Are you sure you haven’t picked something up with your Spidey senses?”
“Gregor churns with dark emotions at all times. You should not worry about him.”
“Maybe he needs a day off. Does he ever get time off or anything nice from you?”
Alexandru doesn’t deign to answer.
I think back to Gregor’s room in the castle—it was a barren little garret, like something out of a medieval prison. “Did you at least make a better room for him here, since you had all this custom construction done?”
“That is not for him.”
“I don’t know if I accept that answer.”
Alexandru turns to me with strange intensity. “It is not for you to decide.”
“Did Gregor do something to make you want to punish him?”
“That is his confession to make, not mine.”
I start the car. “What if he reaches out to me, like he wants something nice, or to have a friendly chat?”
“He won’t.”
“Maybe he would if he knew that sort of thing was available to him in life, or if he had your blessing. Five hundred and thirty-seven years of scrubbing castle floors and being at your beck and call, never eating anything more than gruel, and you can’t give him a break?”
Alexandru turns to me with a cold smile. “I sometimes make him scrub blood from the dungeon walls with nothing but a small toothbrush.”
I study his evil, beautiful features, trying to decide if he’s messing with me.
But deep down—deep enough to chill my bones—I know he isn’t.
I’ve been getting too cozy with him.
I’ve somehow forgotten he’s a monster. What’s the matter with me?
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you and the Renfields? Any clue on the mysterious debt that ‘curses a despicable family to centuries of penance,’ as you put it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I do not wish to.”
“Maybe I wish you would.”
He regards me coldly. “Be careful of what you wish for, Ms. Renfield,” he says, voice so grave that it stops me from saying anything more. The rest of the ride is spent in tense silence.
The bell on the door rings as we enter Berky’s Patisserie. Two exhausted employees slump behind the counter, barely looking up from their phones. The air smells like espresso and warm sugar, and the display cases are mostly empty, save for a few croissants and a lonely eclair.
Alexandru removes his hat, tucking it under his arm so he can give the gloves his full, unsettling attention.
One finger at a time, he works them loose—slow, methodical tugs, each sharper than it needs to be.
I can’t look away. When all ten fingers are loosened, he slides the gloves off completely, strolling the room, him and those hands—broad, strong, unapologetically masculine.
He flexes them once. Why is that hot? It shouldn’t be. Those are killing-spree hands.
Berky opened this storefront twenty-two years ago as an upscale pastry shop.
I was ten at the time, and I remember going there with James.
I’d try to read the signs written in French, all delicate calligraphy and illustrations of macarons, and he’d eat the samples.
But over the years, she was beaten down by Midwestern tastes, and now the place is a confusing hybrid—part coffee shop, part pastry shop, and part accidental cookie emporium.
She never meant to become a cookie queen.
Berky Bombs started as a gag entry for the River Fair, the town’s annual shrine to all things fried, battered, or outrageously sweet.
Much to her dismay, her tray of giant cookies stuffed with caramel bits, chocolate chips, sprinkles, fudge, and everything else she could wedge in sold out instantly.
People came into the patisserie and requested them, so she started carrying them. She added a stuffed sugar cookie, all frosting and garish sprinkles, probably swearing in French the whole time, and people embraced that one, too, leaving her poor puff pastries in the dust.
“Is Berky around?” I ask.
The kids behind the counter regard Alexandru warily. The younger one peels himself off the wall and disappears through the swinging silver door.
Moments later, Berky emerges, wiping her hands on a striped dish towel. Her tight, dark curls are pulled back in a puff. Her name is actually Celeste Berquin, but somewhere along the line, somebody gave her the nickname Berky and it stuck.
“Bonjour, Harriet,” she says with a slight lift of the chin. Addressing customers in French is one of the last things she’s clung to.
“Bonjour, Berky! How’s it going?”
“A very busy Sunday.” She nods at her young charges. “Take a break, you two.”
“This is Alexandru, a friend of my late father’s.”
“Yes, yes, the Karsovian prince who lives at Kingston Manor.” She gives him a polite smile, but her eyes stay sharp. “Enchanté.”
“Le plaisir est pour moi,” Alexandru replies, because, of course, he speaks French.
Berky brightens at this. “Ah, enfin, quelqu’un avec un bon palais. Attendez. I have something for you.”
She disappears into the back in a swish of her flour-streaked apron and returns a moment later carrying a plate topped prettily with a small golden cake that has a tiny orange twist on top.
She sets it down on the counter between them.
“My latest baba au rhum. Wild yeast from my rooftop starter, Zacapa aged rum, and the citrus is mine too—kumquats, soaked and candied.”
“Ohhh, it’s one of your rum babas,” I say. She’s always trying to push these on people and put out samples. Go ahead, try! It’s more than soggy booze bread!
“I made a small batch today,” she says to him. “Try.”
“I’m sorry, Berky!” I rub my belly, hoping to provide an excuse for Alexandru not eating. “Not sure if we have room for any more food right now.”
Much to my surprise, Alexandru picks it up and smells it, then takes a small bite.
Excuse me, what?!?
His eyelids drift closed. “Mon dieu,” he says. “Exquisite. Better than in Versailles.”
Berky presses a hand to her heart. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
“I never say anything I don’t mean,” he replies.
I’m just standing there struggling to hide my surprise because, hello, Alexandru can eat food?
Berky claps her hands together. “Finally, someone who appreciates pastry that doesn’t come with sprinkles.”
“I’m sorry,” I tease. “The chocolate-filled almond sprinkle Berky Bombs? You won’t tear them from my cold, dead hands.”
“Clown food!” Berky turns back to Alexandru. “Did you know the first ones were made for a Polish king who found his cake too dry?”
“I was there,” Alexandru says absently. “In a manner of speaking.” He asks for a box, explaining that he wants to bring it home and savor it later on.
Berky grabs a box flat and assembles it. “Now, then. To what do I owe this honor?”
“This might seem to be an odd question,” I say, “but we’re looking into certain events that have occurred at weddings over the last year or so. I wanted to ask you about that cake of yours that collapsed—the three-layer cake—”
“Merde alors,” Berky mutters.
“Have you thought more about it? Come to any conclusions?”
“Conclusions? Oh yes. I have concluded what I will do to the person responsible if I ever get my hands on them.”
“So you’re sure it didn’t collapse from natural causes? Like being too tall?”
“Too tall! Is the Eiffel Tower too tall? Non. There is no such thing as too tall, so long as a cake has the correct supports, the proper weight distribution and temperature management. I promise you this: That cake was perfect. The engineering of it was perfect, and it was, of course, delicious.”
“So what do you think happened, exactly?”
“Somebody ruined it. Deliberately. A heat source was applied to one quadrant.”
“Are you sure?”
“Bien sur! The caterer saved the remains for me to inspect, and from what I saw, you would’ve thought it was the work of a blow-dryer, but somebody would’ve noticed that. I do not know how they did it.”
“So you weren’t there when it collapsed?”
“Of course not. The pastry chef does not stay for the wedding. I deliver the cake a few hours before the event, and the wedding planner helps ensure the cake is stored safely. Whitney was the planner that day, and she is a consummate professional. She and her people have a very specific system for bringing out the cake and protecting it from children and curious guests. She would’ve noticed if anything was amiss. ”
I exchange a discreet glance with Alexandru. “So it looked like a blow-dryer was taken to it?”