Chapter Twelve #2
We set off side by side, keeping to the path framing the castle wall. I balanced on the edge of the shadow, ready to shove Raleigh back into the dark if he strayed too close.
‘Enrique tells me you met,’ he said after a time.
‘Is that the man who yelled at me for sleeping through breakfast?’
‘Sounds like him. He’s the reason I left in the first place. I wanted to interview him before I hired him, and he didn’t have the coin to make the trip himself.’
‘You hired him?’ I don’t know why I was so surprised. It felt less likely to me that a prince would choose to hire someone so brash than that he had wandered in off the mountain and set up camp in the kitchen.
‘He’s our new chef,’ Raleigh said. ‘Well, your new chef, I suppose. I obviously won’t be eating anything he makes, but I’m told he’s one of the best.’
‘He’s going to live here?’ I asked.
‘Of course. I tried to give him a room on the first floor – I hate the thought of anyone having to sleep in the servants’ quarters – but he insisted on sleeping downstairs.
I understand why Moira does it. Her room looks like a church and we both know I can’t have that anywhere near me.
I can’t get a read on Enrique, though. He didn’t even smile when I told him he had the job.
Maybe he’s nervous around his new employer. Did he seem any more relaxed to you?’
It took me a moment to realise he had finished speaking. I wasn’t used to this talkative new Raleigh. It felt like he was making up for three hundred years of solitude in a single evening. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Honestly, I think he hates me.’
Raleigh laughed. ‘I’m relieved. I wasn’t sure if he hated everyone or just me.
Not that I blame him. He’s had a rough run of it, I hear.
No one’s willing to take a risk on a palace chef who trained in Versailles these days.
Unfortunately being almost unemployable is a bit of a prerequisite in order to find someone willing to work for a reclusive vampire prince. ’
‘You told him?’ I asked, aghast.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ he said with a shrug. ‘He’d find out eventually anyway. I’m obviously not very good at keeping it a secret.’
‘No, you’re definitely not.’
Raleigh snorted. ‘In any case, he already knew. He’s a dhampir himself.’
‘A what?’ I’d come across the term in passing during my research, but it didn’t appear in any of the library’s dictionaries so I didn’t know its meaning.
‘A dhampir. The child of a human and a vampire. All the best chefs are,’ Raleigh replied. ‘Or so I hear. They say their supernatural senses make for highly sensitive palates.’
An uneasy chill travelled down my spine. ‘I didn’t realise such a thing was possible.’
Raleigh didn’t seem to notice the significance, nor did he notice my discomfort. ‘Of course. That said, it’s rare. The mother has to be human, and she rarely survives, but it does happen every so—’ He froze mid-sentence, then looked down at me, suddenly serious. ‘Are you all right?’
I hugged my arms close to my chest. ‘Is that why you wanted a human bride?’
Raleigh let out a sigh. ‘Of course not. You don’t have to worry about that.’ He tore away and started walking again. ‘I have no intention of consummating this marriage unless you decide you want to.’
I’d lifted my foot to start following him but stumbled as he spoke. ‘What if I never want to?’ I asked before I could stop myself.
‘Then we never will,’ he said simply.
Somehow this made my ears burn hotter than anything else he could have said.
I stuttered though a few syllables of a nonsensical reply, then cut myself off when I noticed his shoulders were growing increasingly tense.
I decided to deflect the matter entirely.
‘I thought you’d want an heir,’ I managed at last, catching up to him.
Raleigh’s shoulders loosened. ‘An heir to what? The only reason Rostenburg hasn’t been overrun by Hapsburgs is because I’ve been hypnotising them and forging their records. If I die they’ll realise there hasn’t been a new prince for three hundred years and shove an archduke on the throne.’
His flippancy was oddly soothing. Another woman might have met those words with grief, but I was strangely relieved.
Whenever I’d talked to Yann or my father about marriage, the notion of heirs always came up, as though I was good for nothing more than my ability to bear sons.
To hear Raleigh say the opposite came as a shock.
‘Then why do you want a bride?’
Raleigh shrugged. ‘Eternity is lonely without a companion.’ He paused, staring into the distance. ‘And who wouldn’t want a chance at love?’
Did he think I’d forgotten about his own deadline?
He’d told me before he needed a bride for something at the conclusion of the century; did he really think I’d buy his wistful musings about love?
He was skirting the truth again, I could tell, and the knowledge made me feel hopelessly claustrophobic.
‘That’s a rather flimsy reason to abduct someone. ’
‘I believe you came willingly.’ He peered down at me with a grin far more like the one I’d come to know and hate. Only it wasn’t rage that twisted his features now. His eyes held no darkness.
I rolled mine away. ‘Before that. You can’t have abducted me because you thought I would love you.’
‘No, I abducted you to punish your father.’ Raleigh kicked a stone in his path. ‘You know that.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever tell me why.’ It wasn’t a question. He wouldn’t tell me the reason he was looking for a bride; I had no reason to expect he’d tell me this.
‘It’s not a pleasant story. I’d rather you didn’t dwell on it,’ he said. He was so disappointingly predictable. But then he added, ‘Besides, you’re more than just a tool to punish your father.’
I wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘Because I can read English?’ I tried.
‘What? No.’ Raleigh stopped abruptly. ‘Because you’re a person, Clara. Is that worth nothing?’
No one had ever suggested to me that I had value in myself. I was always simply the mayor’s daughter. Yann’s girl. Raleigh’s bride. I was always supposed to stand by Yann, support my father’s decisions. Be the daughter, the wife, one day the mother.
To Raleigh, I was Clara.
‘Thank you,’ I muttered. A slick buttery feeling wormed its way into my chest as Raleigh nodded to himself. I hoped he hadn’t noticed how much his words meant to me.
We only walked a short distance more before reaching the edge of the castle wall. I didn’t notice the shadows end until Raleigh disappeared from my periphery. When I turned back I found him staring wistfully at the beam of light blocking his path.
‘Is it warm?’ he asked.
It was the middle of June. Of course it was warm. ‘Somewhat,’ I said.
His eyes were unfocused, staring deep into a time long before this one. ‘I don’t remember when I was last truly warm.’ The words curled into the evening, tendrils of melancholy rooting him into the ground.
I shifted, shaking myself free of the spell. ‘What would happen if you came out here?’
Raleigh snapped out of his trance. ‘Haven’t those books taught you anything?’
‘Ha,’ I said dryly. ‘I know you burn, but humans burn in sunlight too. Why is it any different for you?’
The idea amused him. ‘Shall I show you?’
There was a time when I would have wanted nothing more than to see Raleigh burn, but my agreement stuck in my throat.
I didn’t know what he was planning as he stretched his hand out, the skin of his palm crossing the light’s threshold.
At once, smoke began to smoulder against his skin.
He hissed. His palm turned red, then blistered, the skin cracking in seconds.
Then, when the pain was unbearable, he snatched it away and cradled it close to his chest, back in the shade.
‘Why did you—’ I rushed to him, then grabbed his hand without thinking and unfurled it to assess the damage.
The redness was already beginning to fade, the skin knitting back together.
In a matter of moments his hand was back to normal.
I ran a thumb over the pristine skin, marvelling.
With a pang, I realised he had trimmed his nails since the night before.
They were now every bit the hands of a human.
When I glanced up again, he was watching me carefully. ‘I heal quickly,’ he said.
‘Your shoulder didn’t.’
‘The bolt was silver,’ Raleigh reminded me. ‘But, like I said, it’s almost healed now. Would you like to see?’
I quickly declined before he started to undress, but I had to admit I was curious.
The books I’d read had only touched on this sort of thing.
None of the scholars had a live vampire to experiment on, so the descriptions were vague at best. It suddenly occurred to me that I had an opportunity none of them had, an asset they all lacked. I had Raleigh.
Why had I never thought of this before?
‘Can I experiment on you?’ I blurted out without thinking.
Raleigh, shaken, took a step back.
‘There’s no guarantee there’ll be a cure in your books, but there’s something in silver, in sunlight, that your body can’t handle. If we can work out what it is, maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to find a cure.’
‘I don’t love the idea of you poking me full of silver.’
‘I wouldn’t do anything that could kill you. We’d have to work together anyway. You know more about vampires than I do.’
Raleigh considered it a moment longer, and then to my surprise said, ‘I expected you’d ask eventually. I didn’t offer originally because … well … if you’d known this was an option, you would have used it as a ruse to try to kill me.’
My instinct was to be offended, but I had no grounds to refute this. I’d already tried to kill him once.
‘Has Moira ever shown you the lab?’ he asked.
I wasn’t sure what a lab was.
‘Laboratory,’ Raleigh said when I asked. Then, seeing my blank expression, added, ‘It’ll be easier to show you.’