Chapter Seven
Seven
AS THE DAYS BLED AWAY I found myself in the library more than any other room in the castle.
I kept to my usual sleep schedule, rising and sleeping with the sun, so I didn’t see much of Raleigh outside of meals.
He insisted that we dine together each evening – his breakfast, my supper – but any conversation was strained at best. We sat at opposite ends of the table, far enough away from each other that there was no possibility he could reach me without leaving his seat if he ever decided his goblet wasn’t enough to sate him.
And I tried to keep my attention squarely on my meal.
I could barely look at him when he was drinking.
Pig or human, it didn’t matter what was inside his chalice.
If he spoke too soon after taking a sip, the blood coated his teeth, staining them crimson.
It was enough to turn the strongest stomach from the greatest of delicacies, and all I had to choke down was Moira’s watery stew.
Incredible how picky we become when food is plentiful.
Raleigh had stopped pretending our engagement was anything to celebrate, which I was grateful for.
Over time I stopped flinching every time he entered the room, and I no longer spent my waking hours dreading his next appearance.
It seemed that he had begun to go to great lengths to avoid the risk of any physical contact.
If we unexpectedly crossed paths in the halls he would freeze, and I could have sworn the walls would stretch to give him extra room to step around me, merely nodding before scurrying off to wherever it was he went all night.
I saw more of Moira, but she fell back into a nocturnal pattern in line with Raleigh’s hours after my first week.
When she woke early she would join me in the library, offering very little help except to remind me that she knew far more about vampires than I did, but I was grateful to have another human around and I suspected she felt the same.
The more time I spent with her, the more I wondered what had led her to becoming the housekeeper to an undead prince.
I asked once, as delicately as I could muster, if she loved him, and she laughed so hard I thought she would pass out.
‘Trust me,’ she said, ‘you’re much more my type.’
Some days I would see no one at all. I felt like a ghost, already haunting the halls I would die in.
I knew no more of Yann’s fate than I did when I first arrived.
I wrote to him as Raleigh suggested, but no reply ever came.
It wasn’t just Yann either. Every day I wrote letters to Father, to Johanna, sometimes even to the people I hadn’t considered friends in years.
I told them nothing of my own circumstances but assured them I was safe and implored them for news.
Was Yann alive? Why had he never replied?
Had the dam been dismantled? Every day I handed the stack to Moira, who swore she had sent them on, but not even Father answered my pleas.
I soon discovered why. One morning, while forcing down Moira’s best attempt at a semmel, I spotted a splash of red glinting in the unswept hearth.
I abandoned my bread to investigate, crouching amidst the ashes while I used the poker to scrape the item towards me.
It was still sticky to the touch, gritty with ash, but misshapen and reformed as it was, it was undeniably sealing wax.
Raleigh. Hot rage began to coil inside me. He’d been burning my letters, the absolute bastard. He had already brought me here against my will, isolated me from my family and forced me to work like a slave in his horrible spider’s nest of a library and he couldn’t let me have this one luxury.
I slumped against the wall, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, and hurled a handful of ash towards Raleigh’s usual seat in desperate frustration.
I was really going to die here. Raleigh was already severing my ties with the outside world.
Father and Yann would never really know what had happened to me.
I would remain here, stuck in this eternal loop of dust and blood and tedious books about vampires.
I would never see my mother’s face again.
Only Raleigh’s. Moira’s, for a time, but at least she could look forward to oblivion.
All I had was eternity. Eternity with him.
I rolled the ash and wax between my fingers until it turned a murky burgundy. How had it survived the flames? Wax and fire didn’t exactly pair well. The seal must have slipped through the grate before it could catch alight, but still it held up remarkably well.
‘Did you want me to find this?’ I asked the empty room.
There was no reply, as usual. But when I looked back, the hearth was empty.
That night I was up late, determined not to stop working until my candle had burnt to a stump.
Tonight’s book was more fanciful than useful, but the author had a fascinating tale about an aristocratic coven in the Bavarian mountains that had me enthralled.
They spoke of a queen so lovely that even the purest of maidens would fall to her charm.
Lucky maidens, I thought. If I’d been afforded the luxury to choose which vampire aristocrat to be abducted by, I would have much preferred the seductress queen on the other side of the mountains.
I heard Raleigh enter then, but he didn’t notice I was still there until I turned the page. He froze mid-step. I refused to acknowledge him, hoping he’d take the hint and leave, but there was only so long I could endure his stare.
I willed my eyes to keep moving down the page. ‘What do you want?’
Raleigh shifted ever so slightly towards the door. ‘That damned hallway. I thought this was the way to my tower.’
I glared at him. We both knew whatever curse he’d laid on the halls had no effect on him.
I had no wish to spend time with him either, of course, but I wished he’d have the decency to at least be subtle about his plans to isolate me.
So I surprised myself when I said, ‘You don’t have to leave on my account. ’
‘I just came for a book.’ He passed by me, stopping at a shelf not far from my desk, too close not to be a distraction. I tried to find my place on the page again and made it through barely a paragraph when Raleigh said, ‘Do you have any recommendations?’
I swivelled in my chair to stare at him. ‘What?’
‘Have you read either of these?’ Raleigh asked, holding up two options: Gulliver’s Travels and Somnium.
‘Those are novels.’ I’d read both, but that was beside the point.
‘Yes.’
I stared at him. ‘Have you forgotten about the mountain of unread vampire academia?’
Raleigh studied me as though he had only just noticed I was upset. ‘But that’s what you’re here for.’
I slammed my hands down on the table. ‘Can you at least pretend you want to be cured?’ I cried. ‘Because if the rest of the year is going to be like this, I would rather you kill me now and be done with it.’
Raleigh stared at me. ‘Where is this coming from?’
A high-pitched laugh ruptured my lips. I’d always hated that laugh.
It only ever surfaced when I was arguing with Yann or Father, and I always knew I’d lost the fight from the moment it crossed my lips.
I waited for Raleigh to tell me I was being hysterical, as I had been told so many times before.
Instead he put the books down, found a chair and waited for me to speak, rolling the lace trim of one sleeve between two fingers.
As I watched him, my rage melted into confusion, then irritation. ‘You can’t keep me cut off from the world like this,’ I said. ‘I’ll go mad.’
Raleigh furrowed his brows. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Where are my letters?’
He paused. I tried to find any trace in his expression that he knew what I’d discovered, but he was a master at keeping his face blank when he wanted to. ‘What letters?’
So he was going to play oblivious. ‘From home.’
‘Juri hasn’t written to you?’
‘No one has,’ I muttered.
He uttered something under his breath I had a feeling no proper lady should ever hear, then spoke at a normal volume. ‘How many people have you written to?’
I put my palms to my eyes in desperation. ‘Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,’ I said. ‘I found sealing wax in the fireplace.’
He shrugged, but the tension in his shoulders was anything but nonchalant. ‘And? There are three of us living in this castle, Clara. You’re not the only person who writes letters.’
‘But I’m the only prisoner.’
‘You’re not a prisoner.’
‘Can I go home, then?’
My candle sputtered. Raleigh fished a fresh one from his desk, crossed to me and lit it with mine as the flame died.
He wedged it into the candlestick, hot wax running over the sides.
Then he turned to me. I scooted my chair back, suddenly aware of how close he was, how he loomed over me.
He twitched, as if he realised it himself, then returned to where he had been sitting.
‘I’ll look into the issue with the post.’
I didn’t reply. My question remained hovering in the space between us, unacknowledged yet thoroughly answered. I looked down, allowing my hair to fall over my face so he couldn’t see me fighting down the rising lump in my throat.
He was infuriating. Arguing with him felt like we were playing a game of chess, only he refused to move any of his pieces. If he would only admit I was his prisoner, I wouldn’t feel half the growing desperation within me, but his refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing made me want to scream.
‘What about your research?’ Raleigh continued. ‘How can I help there?’
I was tempted to tell him to do his own bloody research, but I knew I had an opportunity here that I shouldn’t squander. I ran my fingers over the cover of one of the books beside me that I’d been too intimidated to open, tracing the embossed lettering sullenly. ‘I need an English dictionary.’
‘Oh.’ Raleigh lit up. ‘I have one somewhere. One mo—’