Chapter 26
“What if you could do something about it?” Nostro said as he punched the button on the elevator. They were going to the 204th floor—the top floor.
“Do something about what?”
“The murine residing in the Viper Morada.”
Lila contemplated. “I would like to free them. To show them the world beyond the Morada, to show them that vampires and humans can and should coexist.”
She saw Nostro nod from the corner of her eye before he turned to face her.
“I will stop playing coy. I want to make a bargain with you, Miss Bran. And I mean with you, not Draven. I have the utmost respect for him, but this is only something you can give me.”
Lila lifted an eyebrow, turning to him. “I’m listening.”
Nostro smirked and turned back to the grate. “I will tell you when we arrive. For all I know, your lover is still eavesdropping. He’s head over heels for you, you know.”
Lila smirked. “I know.”
“I’ve known him since before he was first changed, and I have never seen him as he is now,” he chuckled. “Love radiates off of him, his eyes practically melt anytime they land on you—which is always, by the way. He has been looking at you every moment I’ve seen him since your arrival.”
Lila blushed, remembering the feel of his eyes on her, the hot trace running along her back like his fingers grazing over her skin.
“I’m happy the both of you have found a love like that.”
The elevator dinged, and Nostro pushed open the door. “Now, Miss Bran, will you, um—” he rubbed his hands together. “Will you take my arm again, please?”
Nostro’s demeanor had changed. She wasn’t sure what it was, but he seemed . . . nervous. Lila took his arm, and Nostro took a deep breath.
“Gustov, what’s—”
He pushed the final door open to reveal the stone rooftop of the tower, blindingly lit with sunlight.
With his free hand, Nostro pushed the blackened shades onto his eyes with a small hiss.
Then he took a step forward.
“What are you—”
“Testing a theory, Miss Bran, a theory I have a really good hunch about.” Another step, dragging Lila with him.
“A theory? You’ll die!”
“Not if my theory is correct.”
“Gustov!”
“Tell me, do you love Ambrose Draven?”
Another step.
“I—What? Of course I do.”
“Tell me about it.”
Another step.
But this time, Lila was beginning to understand.
She took a step with him.
“I love that he sees me. He knew from the moment we met, I was not the meek murine the Reinicks made me out to be.”
Step.
“Go on,” Nostro insisted. His feet were at the borderline of shadow and sunlight.
“I was always brave, always a bit reckless, but he made me see it in myself. He didn’t give me power. He gave my power to me. He made me see myself.”
They took a step, Nostro’s skin touching the sunlight. And as Lila and Nostro held their breaths . . . nothing happened.
“And he’s good in bed, I’m sure, right?” Nostro nervously chuckled, forcing the same nervous sound out of Lila.
“That definitely helps. But it doesn’t even begin to cover it. He is just . . . everything. He has helped me at every turn, he has a heart of gold though he pretends not to. He cares so much and so deeply for those he loves. He is the kind of man who would stop at nothing to help those in need.”
“Is that why you’re marrying him?”
The question hit Lila like a punch. She wasn’t exactly hiding her finger, but she hadn’t said the words out loud yet. But leave it to senile old Gustov Nostro to be the one to notice.
She swallowed. “Yes, that is why I am marrying him. Because I love him and I know he loves me. And I want whatever our forevers will be, to be together.”
Nostro smiled, and the two of them stood in the gleaming light of the early afternoon sun. It must’ve been just before noon, and Nostro stood, breathing deeply.
“Don’t let go,” he whispered. “I don’t know if I need to be touching you to be here, but just in case I’d rather not turn into a crisp.”
Lila cocked an eyebrow again. “Oh, now you’d rather not burn? Not five seconds ago?”
He waved her sass away. “I knew what I was doing, dear.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
“I was being guided into the daylight by the Sun Child. When you get this old, life becomes all about taking risks.” He wiggled those caterpillar eyebrows.
Lila laughed from her belly, and copied Nostro who’d thrown his head back to embrace the light.
“It really does feel like you,” he whispered. “I couldn’t remember exactly if it was the same. But it is. Only, your warmth is more comforting. This is getting a little hot, and my skin is . . . perspiring,” he chuckled.
“Well, you are in a long black coat. That tends to add to overall heat and sweat.”
“Such a smartass,” Nostro tutted behind a grin. “The sky is also a blue I didn’t remember. I thought it’d be . . . darker? But it’s beautiful. Like a gem.”
Truthfully, Lila also had forgotten what true sunlight felt like. She’d been out only at night, dusk, or dawn, whenever the sun was still too shy to come out fully.
Now, she felt like warmth was filling her blood, her bones. She felt like the sunflowers in Nostro’s memory, reaching for the source of it all.
“You’re getting warmer, dear. I think you’re recharging.”
They stood in silence for another few moments, arm in arm, before he pulled her down to the floor, lying flat on the stone with his arms splayed out like a sunbathing starfish. Lila lay next to him, her hand holding his.
“Tell me about this bargain,” she said.
He hummed, not looking at her. “Tomorrow I will make a bargain with Ambrose to test your skills in exchange for joining your endeavor against Drusilla and her strigoi.”
Lila shot up. “You’ll what?”
“Relax, dear, I’m telling you now, aren’t I? I know the Crow Lord well. And while he’s had his eyes on you all night, he’s also kept his distance, allowing his most treasured possession to walk around a den of vampires. Seeing his faith in you, and meeting you myself—plus, now there is this,” he reached a long boney hand toward the sun above them. “I will go anywhere the Sun Child tells me to. I believe in your power, Lila, but over this short evening, I’ve also come to believe in you. I am proof right now, lying in the sun, of your power and the truth to the prophecy. But I need my people to see it as well. So, tomorrow, I will ask Ambrose to have you show me your power.”
“Why not just ask me directly?”
“Because it needs to be a bargain between the Crow Lord and the Maggot Lord, a union between manors.”
Lila remembered the feather tattoo on Maronai’s hand while they were at the Arachnid Estate—the same bargain she knew Ambrose would ask of Nostro.
She sighed, lying back once more. “You vampires and your bargains.”
“It’s rather stupid, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “Anyway, for demonstration, I will have you complete a sort of . . . obstacle course. In what I can only assume were throes of passion, you cured half of the strigoi population in the dungeons of my tower, which I thank you for. Those were good people who shouldn’t have been forced into what they were. But many strigoi, like the one I’m told attacked you in the Arachnid Estate, are beyond saving. I will throw a few at you, nothing more than you can handle. But use your judgment. Heal those you can, attack and defend against those you cannot.”
“Great, so you want me to fight. You do realize I haven’t properly trained in the three months I’ve been captive to the Reinicks, right?”
Nostro waved her away again. “Darling, you have power now. What use are muscles when you can incinerate a man just with a touch?”
He had a point.
“Plus, I saw you on the dance floor. I know your body is still more than capable.”
And sitting out here in the sun, Lila knew he was right. Something about her didn’t feel like the weakling she’d been when she first snapped out of the collar-induced haze. Nor how she felt when she first went to the Crow Court. She didn’t feel weak.
She wondered, had she healed her body in more ways than she knew after the Viper Morada?
“Okay, then what’s the bargain you want with me?”
“Simple. In exchange for your compliance tomorrow, and making sure Ambrose agrees—because I doubt he will agree to this for you, especially knowing there is a possibility of danger—I will help you liberate and rehabilitate the murine of the Viper Morada.”
Lila felt her eyes go wide as she turned to him.
“You’d—You care that much? For humans?”
“Believe it or not, dear, I once was human.”
Lila sat up. “I—I know. But . . .”
“I’ve told you. Humans and vampires must coexist in order to live. And I do not believe treating one as slaves is the way to go. Humans treated vampires like monsters who had to live in the shadows. Gather enough angry vampires and the Mass Death happened. Who is to say the tide will not soon flow the other way? It is not about right and wrong, good and evil, monster and man—it is about balance.” He lifted his hand to the sun, reaching those long skeletal fingers. “With the day comes the night. With the sun comes the moon. They are not enemies, they are a cycle. A cycle that depends on the other to continue. The sun is not a slave to the moon, and the moon is not a slave to the sun, and therefore man should not be a slave to a monster and vice versa. Help me, Lila, and I will help you liberate your two worlds. Your heart and your mind. Your soul and your skin.”
“All at the price of me agreeing to show off my powers?”
“I need my people to rally behind you, just as I am. I need them to see and to feel just as I do. They will not blindly believe just on my words alone. Many of my people have been affected by Drusilla’s strigoi. It is a sickness long overdue for a remedy, and the Maggot Mansion has been hit by it the hardest. If they see you heal those who we’ve believed had no hope of being healed, they will fall to their knees for you. We believe in the Sun Child here, Lila. Children have been told her story for centuries. And they will see you and they will know you.”
Lila didn’t hesitate, “All right, Gustov Nostro—you have a deal.”
He smiled a toothy grin, full of sharp fangs. “Then, my dear, it’s rather hot and I think this old man will like a good day’s rest.”
They both stood, and as Lila glimpsed down at their still joined hands, a small sun with wispy rays sat tattooed in the flesh between Nostro’s thumbs and wrists.
“Get some good rest,” Nostro said, leading her to the elevator. “You’ll need it. For at midnight, you’ll be entering the arena.”