Chapter Fourteen #2
“Faust,” she says. The Night Dean? She answers the call, and another language pours from her lips, fast, her voice slightly higher.
Her native Hungarian, I realise. She glances over at me and my neck, and then shouts something into the phone.
The only word I make out is nem, which she says several times, and I’m guessing, based on her expression, that it means no.
Finally, she hangs up, lips pursed.
“What is it?” I ask.
“He wants to see us.”
“Us?” I say. “Why? Have you told him?”
“Of course not!” she says. “But Faust has eyes everywhere. It’s all right.
” She paces around the room, still holding her sword.
“Even if he knows, he’s not going to tell my dad.
I mean…” She looks at my neck again. Aliz is so nervous that when she bites her lip, she draws blood.
Her wound heals instantly. “We’ll be fine! ” She doesn’t sound convinced.
“He won’t be able to tell your father anything if the mark is gone,” I say, gesturing at the blade hanging at her side. Aliz jolts, as though she’s only now remembering it’s there.
“All right,” she says.
“And try to avoid beheading me.”
“I don’t usually behead people,” Aliz replies, face serious. I lean against her coffin, and she stands just a little too close. She raises the blade carefully, and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the metal to burn me when it touches my skin. Instead, it’s like a sheet of ice.
“Did that hurt?” she whispers. I breathe out slowly and meet her gaze again.
“It didn’t,” I say. “Is the mark gone?”
Aliz leaves the sword on the coffin and runs a finger over my neck. “No,” she says, voice grave. I swat her hand away, trying to not think about how good her touch felt.
“Let’s go, then.” I find my tartan scarf and wrap it tightly around my neck.
“Right.”
Dread prickles my stomach once we leave our room. What if the dean has finally discovered what happened with the Red Ribbons? And now he’ll expose me in front of Aliz. No, I tell myself. He wouldn’t have left me alone with her if he suspected me of being anything but an ordinary human.
It’s dark out, so we’re able to walk through the woods separating Tynarrich from the main campus buildings.
Old lampposts, black and gold, fringe the narrow path that snakes through the woods.
I realise, as we skid down a slope, that it’s my first time seeing her outside.
She walks fast, her brogues sinking into the fallen pine needles, and I run after her.
“If the Night Dean knows, what’ll happen to us? ” I ask.
“I guess we’re about to find out,” she says.
We head into one of the largest buildings in Tynahine, the first floor made up of colossal lecture halls, and the second a row of offices.
At the very end of the hallway, Aliz stops.
I stare at the sign. Dr Faust Nocth. There’s more writing beneath the name, but Aliz doesn’t give me time to read it, banging on the door.
A smooth baritone rises from inside. “Come in.”
Aliz takes a deep breath. Which doesn’t help me feel calm. “All right,” she whispers.
She walks through, and I follow. The room is a simple office, walls lined with bookcases. A large glass desk sits before a boarded-up window, an old tapestry hanging over it.
“Hello, girls,” Faust Nocth says. He smiles up at us from behind his desk, and a chill runs down my spine. His black hair is long, falling just past his ears, his cheekbones are high and sculpted. I’d been hoping to stay away from Tynahine’s administration as much as possible. And yet here I am.
“Dean,” says Aliz. She says a couple of words in Hungarian, and then remembers I’m here. “You wanted to see us?”
“I don’t usually pay attention to what my students take out from the library.
But three days in a row of borrowing books about blood contracts, and well, I’ve grown rather concerned,” he says, his smile revealing his deadly fangs.
I swallow hard. Well, at least he hasn’t figured out I’m a hunter.
“Can you take off that scarf, Miss Smith?”
There’s no helping it. Aliz makes a sound of protest, but I ignore her, pulling it down. I just hope she hasn’t left me with a hickey.
“I can explain,” Aliz says, her cheeks bright red.
“Please do,” says Nocth, leaning back in his leather chair. Silence falls in the office, and he focuses his attention on my neck. “You’ve had that for a few days, haven’t you?”
Aliz shifts uncomfortably next to me and clears her throat. “It was an accident,” she says. “And it wasn’t Cassie’s fault. So, if anyone is going to be expelled—”
“No one needs to be expelled,” he says, smiling at her. “We simply have some rules that ought to be followed. Especially when it comes to Familiars.” My hands twist into fists, but I keep my words bottled down. I can’t say, I’m not a Familiar, not with this glaring mark on my skin.
“What are those rules?”
“Well…” He gets up. “Nowadays, when we talk about Familiars, we usually think of those who submit to their masters through written contracts. A vampire will promise that after five or ten years of service, the human will be converted.”
“But we didn’t do that,” she says, and he nods.
“Yes, I’m aware of that. In the past, it was different. Instead of a document, the contract would be signed with blood.”
“But how—” I feel my blood boiling, my throat tightening. “How can something be a contract when neither of us knew—” I look at Aliz, and she has the same expression as I do. “We didn’t choose this.”
“It’s difficult for this mark to appear by accident,” the dean says. “But let me guess: For whatever reason, Miss Astra gave you her blood.”
We both nod, and a grimace of disgust momentarily flashes across his chiselled features.
“And for some reason, this blood was gifted beneath the glow of a full moon,” he says. “Was it?”
I see it. The window, wide open, the silvery glow of the moon filling our bedroom. Aliz is thinking the same thing, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“I really didn’t know,” Aliz says, her voice tight, after the office falls silent.
“How do we get rid of it?” I ask. “Can we?”
“I’m sure you have noticed that it hasn’t fully come into effect,” he says. “You’re not bound to Miss Astra’s will just yet. But once the next full moon reaches the highest point in the sky, the contract will be sealed.”
Those words, said so casually, stun us both. The room is spinning, my hands sweating as I gawk at him. No. “How do I get rid of it?” I ask again, trying to focus on the bright side. I’m still free. At least until the next full moon. “There has to be a cure.”
“There might be,” he says.
“Why didn’t you start with that!” Aliz exclaims, shoulders slouching with relief.
“Because I don’t know where it is.”
We stare at him, and Nocth’s blue eyes meet mine.
“What do you mean?” I ask slowly.
“You’ve both heard of The Book of Blood and Roses, haven’t you?”
Yes. I hesitate to nod. “But isn’t The Book of Blood and Roses impossible to find?” Aliz asks.
“Did you know, Aliz, that it was written by Ada Astra?” Aliz gawks at him and leans forward. “But the only copy that remains is hidden in her library.”
“I’ll go to Hungary, then,” Aliz says quickly.
“No,” Nocth says, shaking his head. “Her secret library here, in Tynahine. But no one, not even I, knows where it is.”
The secret library belongs to an Astra?
The name Ada is familiar. I think back to the tiny portrait in the gallery where the Red Ribbons held their meetings. Dreamwalker of Rome.
“Can’t you ask her where it is?” I ask.
“She has been dead for over two hundred years, Miss Smith,” Nocth says. “Demanding answers from the dead is no easy feat.”
A moment later, Aliz looks at me. “Ada was my sister. The one I was telling you about earlier.” The one murdered by Callisto. She turns back to Nocth. “So, if we find the library—”
“You will find The Book of Blood and Roses.”
“But you don’t know where the library is?” I press, and he shakes his head. “Well, if you don’t know, surely Ares Astra will?”
“I know this place far better than he does,” the dean says sharply, while I feel Aliz tense beside me at the mention of her father.
“And if I knew where it was, I would have brought it to you already,” he says.
“Can you imagine the scandal that will spread amongst vampiredom if they hear that the Astra heir has chosen a Familiar before even deciding on a husband?”
“We’ll find it,” Aliz says. She seems completely unfazed by those last words.
With everything that’s happened in the last few days, I hadn’t looked beyond myself to consider the implications of Aliz choosing a Familiar.
Of course it’s a big deal. But the panic that had filled her voice since we first came in here seems to have dissipated.
I don’t know how she can be so optimistic.
But now we know there is a cure.
Somewhere, deep in the labyrinth of Tynahine, lies my freedom. Both from the mark and from my mission.
“You can go,” Nocth says. I turn to leave with Aliz, but Nocth clears his throat. “You stay, Miss Smith.”
Aliz narrows her eyes at him, her mouth open. “Why?” she asks.
“I must speak to her alone.”
“Right,” she says. But she stops, looking at me. I shrug. After another hesitation, Aliz shuts the door behind her, and when I turn back to Nocth, his gaze is far more intense than it was seconds ago. Discomfort brews in my stomach. I ignore it.
“Take a seat,” he says, pointing at the chair opposite his desk.
I do as he says, tugging my skirt a little lower.
Perhaps he’s going to go into more detail about the symptoms of the mark.
He looks towards his bookcase just as it slides open, and someone, a young man, steps in.
He’s in the same cream linen suit he was wearing when I saw him in the campus security office, where he decided my concerns about the Red Ribbons were not worth listening to. The Familiar.
He doesn’t say anything, resting against the tapestry behind Nocth. Something tightens in my chest.
When I look at Nocth, I’m expecting answers. Instead, the Night Dean asks me a question. “Can I bite you, Miss Smith?” I blink, the words not fully resonating. And too late, I feel that familiar numbness at the back of my head, pins and needles. His eyes are bright red, glowing as he compels me.
As he tries to.
I don’t move. I can’t say yes.
“Impressive,” he says, the glow leaving his eyes. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you”—his fangs catch the golden glow of the desk lamp—“Rebecca Charity.”