7. Rose #2
“We’ve been keeping tabs on him throughout the years,” Solon says, eying Dylan warily. “Lately though, we’ve lost contact. Or rather, we lost our contact. We assume he’s still alive though. The kicker is…” He trails off, a grimace on his face.
“What?” I ask.
“He hasn’t seemed to age,” Solon says. “There’s a whole group of witches that haven’t aged at all. Their aging seems to have stopped twenty years ago.”
“Twenty-one years ago,” Dylan says dully. When he meets my eyes, they’re bloodshot. “They stopped aging when they took my twin.”
Solon nods slowly. “Yeah. That’s what we’ve been afraid of.
We think the witches had an interest in you all specifically because you’re the children of Amethyst, who was turned, and never should have been able to reproduce.
We think they thought your blood holds special properties. They might be right.”
“But you’re the most valuable,” I say, and point at Lenore. “You were able to turn Solon and my mom without creating monsters. Why not go after you instead?”
“As you can see, we don’t have children,” Solon says. “By choice. But they have come after me. They’ve come after Lenore, and they’ve come after your mother. That’s why everyone is in hiding.”
“Except you’re hiding in plain sight,” I say.
He gives me a wise smile. “That’s the best place to hide.
Not only does this house seem to operate as a museum during the day, we have it so that people think we live elsewhere.
In fact, we do operate a feeding room here in the city, it’s just no longer in Dark Eyes.
It’s in the decoy house. As long as the wards hold here, and they’ve never failed so as long as I’ve been in the house, then we’re protected. ”
“They didn’t hold up very well when they took Leif,” Dylan says snidely as Lenore comes over and pours him more vodka.
Solon looks chagrined. “I know. Because I wasn’t there. We believe it was an inside job. Someone that had already been in here before. We assumed it was Ezra at first, but I’m good at sniffing out the truth and he was telling the truth.”
“Now you really look like you could use a drink,” Lenore says. “Bloody Mary?”
I nod. “So, after that we went into hiding?”
“Yes,” says Solon. “But not right away. Things were a mess. We all wanted to get Leif back. We did all we could think of. It wasn’t until she discovered she was pregnant with you that they thought changing their names and hitting the road would be the safest option. They just wanted to protect you.”
“And they did,” Lenore says. I watch as she pours in tomato juice and then a few spoonfuls of dark red liquid.
My stomach growls, immediately recognizing the smell and look of blood.
She gives me an impish smile. “Told you. A real Bloody Mary. It will perk you right up. When’s the last time you fed? ”
I just shake my head. “I don’t know.” I look back at Solon. “My parents said Valtu has the book.”
Solon nods at Lenore. “I think I’m going to need one of those too.”
She passes the drink to me and he continues.
“Yes. He has the book. We had hoped he would bring it here to help us with it, use the book to try and track down Bellamy and Leif in some way. But he didn’t.
He said he had to hide it to keep it safe.
But it didn’t matter anyway, because I don’t think there was anything he could have done to help. Bellamy covered his tracks too well.”
My heartrate has already increased since I said his name and I take in a deep breath to steady myself.
“And where is Valtu now? Is he alive? Is he okay?” Solon rubs his lips together as Lenore hands him his drink.
“You know that’s why I’m here right?” I add, feeling frantic now. “I need to find him.”
The tension in the room rises as he takes a deliberate sip of his drink, wetting his lips.
“I’m not sure you want to do that,” Solon eventually says. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”
I shake my head, not understanding. “I don’t get. Of course he wants to be found. It’s me. He was my damn husband at one point.”
“Didn’t he kill you?” Dylan points out softly.
I glare at him. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”
But even as I say it, I know the truth. He did mean to kill me. He meant to kill Dahlia, the witch who betrayed him, who was sent to slay him. He just didn’t know it was me .
“He never would have killed me if I had dropped the glamour in time,” I go on.
“Drink up, Rose,” Lenore says, nodding to my drink.
I don’t want to drink up. I don’t want to be distracted or placated, not now. But the scent of blood is too irresistible. I take one sip and I feel all the cells in my body growing with life, as if being reborn, and that was just from a few splashes of blood.
I finish the drink in one gulp, my veins feeling warm and tingling, and my mind sharpens. No distraction here.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t find him?” I say to them. “Give me a good reason. Is he…” I trail off, afraid to speak the next words, in case they’re true. “Is he…married?”
Did he fall in love with someone else?
Oh god, I don’t know how I’d be able to stand it.
“I doubt that,” Solon says, scratching his chiseled jaw. “It’s been a decade since we last heard from him, however.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I’m losing my patience.
“Valtu was living in Mittenwald, in the Bavarian Alps,” Lenore says, her expression soft. “He’s probably still there. He’s got the Book of Verimagiaa with him. The book has an immense hold on him. We wanted him to help us in tracking the witches, but he never ended up doing so and…”
“Valtu just sort of…gave up,” Solon adds. “He settled in Mittenwald. He has wards and spells all over the town to protect him, in case Bellamy or other vampires are hunting the book.”
“Mittenwald,” I repeat. “Then that’s where I need to go.”
“Listen,” Solon says sharply. “It’s not going to be that easy. Valtu doesn’t want to be found.”
“He’ll want to be found by me.”
“No. He won’t.” He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply through his nose.
“Valtu was a broken man after you died. After Dahlia died. He was consumed by his sorrow and grief and that started to turn into anger. He always turned into a monster of sorts every time he lost you but this last time…” He opens his eyes and they pierce through me.
I can almost feel Valtu’s rage. “This last time was different. Because he killed you. And he couldn’t live with that. ”
He swallows thickly. “He managed to find a spell in the book. A spell of erasure. A spell for forgetting. I was with him when he did it. I warned him not to do it. That doing so would erase his humanity, but he was in too much pain, he couldn’t listen.”
“A spell of erasure?” I whisper, my heart starting to sink. “What does that mean?”
“It means he erased you from his life. From his memory. There is no Mina or Lucy or Dahlia anymore. You’re gone.”
I stare at him, mouth agape, trying to understand the words he just said.
“He used a fucking spell to erase me from his memory?” I manage to say, my heart pounding in my throat.
“I’m sorry,” Lenore says, eyes welling with sympathy. “I don’t think he thought you’d ever come back. He thought because he killed you…that never seeing you again would be his punishment. That you would, well, stay dead.”
“Now it’s my punishment,” I say to myself, feeling sick and dizzy and trapped, like my skin is growing too hot and too tight for me. “Now it’s my punishment because he won’t remember me, but I’ll remember him.”
“Dude,” Dylan says quietly, letting out a low whistle. “That’s fucking harsh.”
“I know it isn’t fair,” Solon says. “But Valtu chose the only way to make the pain stop. He’s not been the same since you’ve been gone.”
“He’s not been the same since he got that book,” Lenore says under her breath.
I refuse to believe it. I believe they’re telling the truth, or what they believe is the truth, but there’s no spell that will make him forget me, not for good.
“Then all the more reason I have to find him,” I say, getting out of my seat. “The moment he sees me, he’ll remember. I know he will.”
“Your glamour prevented him from seeing you last time and that was magic,” Lenore says, folding her arms across her chest. “What makes you think that this will be any different?”
Because I love him.
Because he loves me.
Even if he doesn’t remember me right now, my love will awaken his memory. I know it will. He can’t erase Mina, Lucy, and Dahlia.
Once he sees my heart, he’ll recognize it for what it is.
His.
“I’m not staying away from him and giving up.”
“But he gave up on you,” Solon says and fuck, does that ever sting. I can’t help but flinch.
“I’m going to find him,” I glower. “He’ll remember me. Like hell I’m just going to stay here and twiddle my thumbs and leave it at that. I’m going to fight for him.”
“Once again, he killed you, Rose,” Dylan says.
“He killed Dahlia,” I correct him sharply. “And I’ll make sure he remembers it.”
I step away from the bar and take out my phone. It’s one in the morning. I don’t think I’m going anywhere right now other than the hotel.
“And how are you planning to get to…where? Germany?” Dylan asks. “With what money? You barely afforded the flight down here.”
“ Flights ,” I say, reminding him that I paid for both.
“Look,” Lenore says, coming around the bar. “If you really want to find Valtu, we’ll help you.”
“Lenore,” Solon warns.
“What?” she says, throwing her arms up and glaring at him. “Call me a romantic, but maybe she’s right. Maybe Valtu will see her and…”
“The spell will break?” he suggests dryly.
“Yeah,” she says, turning back to face me, her lips twisting sourly.
“Something like that. And besides, this is my fault. If it wasn’t for me, Valtu wouldn’t have lost his mind.
He wouldn’t have…killed you. I’ve had to live with that ever since that day, you know.
I know that was partly my fault and I’ve regretted the way I acted ever since. ”
Okay. Maybe I like Lenore just a smidge better now.
“So,” she says, pressing her fingers together, her red lacquered nails catching the flickering candlelight. “As an apology, let me get you a flight out to Germany. Whenever you want to go.”
Okay. Maybe I like her a lot better now.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
“Rose,” Dylan whines. “Come on. You can’t just leave without telling mom and dad.”
“And you don’t know where you’re going,” Solon says. “ We don’t even know if Valtu is still there.”
“Well, do you know who would? I remember he was friends with a vampire…Bitrus? What about Dr. Van Helsing? I knew Abe when I was Lucy too. I looked him up, he’s still alive. At Oxford.”
Solon doesn’t say anything for a moment.
“You have his email,” Lenore reminds him quietly. “We’ll make sure Rose is set properly.” She looks me up and down. “And I’m probably going to have to lend you some clothes for the mountains, and well, seduction efforts.”
Fuck. Looks like I’m going to Germany.