Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Charlotte
The Aerie
Charlotte’s Bedroom
Exhaustion took Charlotte. She slept until…well, she had no idea. There were no windows and no clocks in her room. Well after breakfast, as the tray waiting for her had long since gone cold. The previous night—the entire day—felt like a fever dream.
A first aid kit waited not so subtly on the bedside table, the broken glass had been swept away, and the fire tended to. The room was comfortably warm as was the teapot waiting at the hearth.
Charlotte ignored the tea and the tray. If Miles were being held prisoner, she needed to do…something. Yes, this was a well-armed military outpost. The guards she saw yesterday left little doubt about that. And she had no idea where Miles was being held or how well guarded. Or what happened to Luis. She couldn’t imagine that the two would allow themselves to be separated. If they were imprisoned while she cavorted with Draven…
Her stomach churned at the nearly hopeless situation. She had no useful information, and the only weapons she possessed were a gun with six silver bullets, a wooden stake, and a silver dagger. Hardly an arsenal to take on a fortress. Be that as it may, she could hardly sit back and do nothing.
Charlotte secured the dagger in her bodice. She wasn’t a fighter, but she wasn’t helpless. She’d gather information, starting with Miles’s location.
The door would not open. Locked. Again.
So much for not being a prisoner.
“Hello? Unlock this door,” she demanded, banging on the door.
No one replied. Charlotte filled the silence with a few choice, unladylike words.
Annoyed and angry, she dragged the small table and chair to the center of the room, directly in front of the door. Whenever the door finally opened, she wanted her jailer to see her displeasure.
Charlotte poured the hot water over the tea leaves to steep. It was a shame that the thoughtful person who filled the kettle did not think to place the breakfast tray near the fireplace to keep it warm. Why would they consider her comfort? She was a prisoner, after all.
Trying her best to eat a few bites of cold porridge, she gave it up as an impossible task. Toast would do.
Using the butter knife to spread the butter and jam proved difficult with her bandaged thumb. Switching to her off hand, she made a mess, spreading the toppings in uneven clumps.
This isn’t a society event , she reminded herself. No one would judge her less-than-elegant manhandling of toast.
Having finished her breakfast, such as it was, without the arrival of her jailers, she decided to have a hot bath. Two weeks of near-constant riding on horseback or a cart left her stiff and sore. She liberally applied a scoopful of soaking salt and scented oil to the tub, swishing it together to dissolve the crystals. She unwrapped her bandaged finger. The skin was mildly inflamed but otherwise healing nicely. With the water steaming, Charlotte eased herself in. A good long soak helped ease the ache in her back and shoulders, leaving her skin soft with a lavender scent.
Lemoine found her just as she exited the washroom.
“The day is half-gone and you’re not even dressed properly,” the older woman said, appearing in the door without warning. She carried a stack of neatly folded towels.
“Don’t you believe in knocking?” Charlotte quickly tied the robe closed, face burning. The silken fabric clung to her still-damp skin.
“I knocked on the outer door,” Lemoine replied.
“You’re purposely misunderstanding, and I just got out of the bath. No one informed me of the day’s schedule,” she said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. She was not in the mood to carefully dance around the unspoken topics of polite conversation, which prompted her next question. “Why was my door locked? Lord Draven said it was only a temporary measure.”
“Don’t be absurd. If Lord Draven said it was to be unlocked, it was unlocked. These old doors can stick and require some force to open.” She delivered her stack of towels and gathered up the damped ones.
“I understand how doors work. It was not stuck. It was locked,” Charlotte said.
Lemoine briskly went about her business, ignoring Charlotte to tidy the washroom by wiping down the counter and using a discarded towel to mop up imaginary water on the floor. She pushed up the sleeves of her shirt, revealing red welts on her inner wrist.
Bite marks.
Charlotte sucked in a breath, surprised at how angry and raw the marks looked. That had to have been painful to endure.
Lemoine scowled and shoved down the sleeves. “Get dressed. The Master is unavailable to dine with you this evening. Instead, he wants you to tour the Aerie.”
The production, the theatrics of Lemoine cleaning, annoyed Charlotte. She had a bath. She did not dump a bucket of water on the floor. And yes, she was put out that she wouldn’t see Draven that night. They shared a connection, she thought, a spark.
Beyond the physical, she had questions. He promised to answer. The lost research opportunity irritated her. Nothing more. Certainly, it wasn’t the subtle jab that her nights belonged to him, and he appeared not to be interested.
“What happened to the beast in the corridor last night?” Charlotte asked.
Lemoine paused in her cleaning. “There was no beast.”
“I heard—”
“The wind plays tricks in the Aerie. It can sound quite fierce.”
“I know what I heard,” Charlotte insisted.
“Did you see a beast?”
“Well, no.” Stringer had herded her back into her room before she could see anything.
“There you have it. Nothing more than your imagination,” Lemoine said imperiously, implying the matter was settled. “You mustn’t let such fancies carry you away. Nothing good will happen.” She paused, letting the gravity of her warning weigh upon Charlotte. “Now please dress unless you wish for the entire population of the Aerie to be intimately familiar with your dressing gown.”
Charlotte fought the urge to pull a face and sneer at the woman’s words. Instead, she walked into her inner chamber and slammed the door.
The nerve of that woman.
She hardly expected praise from Lemoine. The woman seemed incapable of saying anything without making it an insult. But she could be civil. Well, if Lemoine could not be pleasant, then Charlotte felt no compunction to return the favor. She’d never been deliberately rude before. How exciting.
Charlotte had not mistaken the wind for the commotion in the corridor last night, and the injury on her thumb was not her imagination. It was real. A beast had been outside her door.
“She’s a liar,” Charlotte said. Then, almost in a whisper, “A shitty liar.”
She feared she was not adept at profanity, but practice would help. Lemoine would certainly provide plenty of inspiration.
By the time she finished dressing and arranged her hair, Charlotte was resolved. If Miles were being held captive, she would help him. Somehow.
* * *
“The way to a woman’s heart is through the library,” Charlotte muttered under her breath. If that were true, she dreaded the journey.
“Pardon? Did you say something?” Lemoine asked in a too-sweet voice.
“This library is charming.” Charlotte plastered on a pleasantly bland expression.
The library wasn’t bad, per se, but it was underwhelming. The room was tiny and cramped, barely larger than a storeroom. No tables. No chairs. Simply four walls lined with bookcases, nothing more. At least those shelves were full. Light panels on the ceiling did not provide enough light to comfortably read. Charlotte had to pull books from the shelf to hold them to the light to read their spines. The entire bottom shelf was lost to shadows. The books themselves were rather worn and tattered.
She expected an ancient vampire to have amassed a considerable collection, not…this. All right, she could admit it was bad. The Aerie’s library was atrocious, but Charlotte would be damned before she said a negative word against it.
All afternoon while on their tour of the Aerie, Lemoine took offense to whatever Charlotte said. Lemoine took her through the Aerie from top to bottom, starting with the greenhouses on the upper levels. When Charlotte asked how could the greenhouses feed the entire population, Lemoine said in a clipped tone that the valley grew most of the Aerie’s food and they stored it for the winter months. Charlotte got the same response when she inquired about livestock. “We only keep a few chickens, for fresh eggs. We do know how to salt and store meat.”
Charlotte switched tactics, no longer asking questions but remarking on the efficiency or ingenuity of design. The mess hall? Remarkable that it could serve two hundred people at a time. The kitchens? Terribly organized. The barracks? Cozy. Private quarters? Spacious. The commissary? So many vendors. Any comment Charlotte made deepened the frown on Lemoine’s face.
The main thing Charlotte noticed was the wide berth people gave when they saw Lemoine coming. One man, carrying a stack of folders, turned a corner, saw them, and promptly turned around. Apparently, she was sour to everyone, not just Charlotte. That was heartwarming in a way.
The tour skipped the armory, training facility, stables, or anything militia-related, Charlotte noted. While she was anxious to find Miles, she didn’t want to rouse Lemoine’s suspicion. Too many questions about dungeons and whatnot and she’d find herself locked back in her room. As it was, Lemoine acted like Charlotte was a spy actively gathering intelligence for enemy forces. Heavens forbid that she ask about the tech casually used in the Aerie.
The more she saw, the more she realized that the Aerie was a complex labyrinth with many floors, corridors, and possibly a few secret passages. She couldn’t hope to explore it all in a month, let alone one afternoon. While Lemoine’s tour did not bring them anywhere close to a holding cell or dungeon, Charlotte felt confident that she’d locate them. If anyone caught her poking around where she shouldn’t be, she’d claim to be lost.
Considering all the corridors, stairs, and lack of windows, it wouldn’t be a lie. The Aerie, while massive, had a sameness to it. The walls were constructed of gray stone, smooth and featureless. Light panels—original and miraculously still functioning after two centuries—affixed to the ceiling barely offered enough light. The entire complex seemed shrouded in shadows. Some destinations, such as the massive assembly room, stood out, but one shadowy corridor looked much like another.
“This library is adequate. It does not compare to the Master’s private library,” Lemoine said.
Charlotte perked up at the mention of a private library. That had to be where Draven stashed the good stuff. “May I see that?”
“No. It is private,” she replied in an icy tone.
“Lord Draven said I was permitted everywhere.”
“Excluding the restricted area, yes.”
“Including the library?”
“Lord Draven’s private library,” Lemoine said in a tone that invited no further questions.
Well, Charlotte would find a way into the private library on her own. She smiled pleasantly. “I imagine there’s plenty in here to keep me occupied. Are you a reader?”
“No. I have an occupation.” Lemoine unsubtly lifted the watch fob hanging around her neck on a chain. “I must return to my duties. I trust you will be able to find your way to your rooms.”
“Yes, thank you.” Charlotte turned her back, dismissing her. It wasn’t quite the cut, but it was the best she could do. She’s had enough of the older woman’s judgmental tone. Some people really were more tolerable in small doses.
Charlotte kept her gaze on the bookshelf before her, randomly pulling down volumes as if they interested her, all the while listening to Lemoine’s retreat. Once alone, she relaxed. Being the focus of Lemoine’s ire was exhausting work. Surely the woman’s loyalty and protectiveness to Lord Draven spoke to the qualities of the man to inspire such devotion, but it currently felt like a burden.
Well, now that she was free of the woman, Charlotte intended to explore. She grabbed an interesting volume from the shelf for plausible deniability and journeyed down the corridor and the nearest staircase.
Without a map or an idea of where prisoners would be held, she traveled downward. That seemed correct. In novels, prisoners were also kept at the top of isolated towers or in the darkest depths of the dungeon. The Aerie had one tower which, she had been informed several times, were Lord Draven’s private quarters. Seeing as how the vampire in question threatened her life over dinner, she did not wish to be caught trespassing and test his ire.
But he did carefully tend to her injured thumb. The moment had been…Charlotte hesitated to call it tender, but it certainly had been warmer than she expected. Draven insisted on performing these acts of care for her—forcing his coat and gloves on her, bandaging a cut—and acted offended while he did so, like she begged and pleaded for his assistance. Hardly. She was perfectly capable of wrapping gauze around her finger, thank you very much.
She passed a few people, all in uniforms of blue and gray that would blend against the winter sky. Giving a brisk nod, she continued her journey with purpose. Charlotte learned long ago that if one acted as if they belonged, people would assume that must be true. That attitude got her into the restricted section of the university library on several occasions.
A bell tolled. The corridors filled with people, all in a hurry to some destination. The tide of people swept Charlotte along, bringing her past the dinner hall and to the marketplace. Which was a generous description. Exactly four vendor stalls occupied the space, and one of them served beer. People enjoyed their off-duty time, lounging in the pseudo-town square or trading coins for the usual consumable: tankards of ale and sugary treats. The space buzzed with conversation and laughter.
The remaining stands had bolts of finely woven fabric and buttery soft leather, as well as already completed garments for those without the time or inclination to sew. She passed fragrant soaps, enticing lotions, and a variety of pomades for styling hair.
She felt eyes on her as she drifted through the market. Was a new resident so unusual? Lemoine made it sound as if the Aerie were besieged with new arrivals, yet everyone watched her with curiosity. Perhaps it was her manner of dress. She noted that many people here were out of uniform and dressed in a more typical fashion, even if a considerable number of women wore trousers.
Charlotte worked her way through the marketplace and down a level that held the crafters. Three massive workshops were connected by a central courtyard. The sounds of hammering metal on metal and machine noises filled the air. The temperature was hot, the air filled with steam and smoke. People barked orders. Others shouted for layabouts to get out of the way. Oh. They meant her.
Charlotte stepped back, pressing herself against a wall as a man pushing a heavily laden cart came through. A tarp covered the contents, and the wheels made a rhythmic, clicking sound.
She went down another level, finding more workshops and storerooms. Bustling corridors thinned. She passed fewer and fewer people. The air grew stale and cold. Water dripped, the sound echoing down the corridor. The stone walls grew rough, as though they had been carved directly from the mountain. She was completely alone.
It didn’t take long before she was well and truly lost. Charlotte found herself standing in front of a massive steel-plated door. Yellow and black diagonal lines decorated the top and bottom of the door. This was the only door she had seen so far to warrant some form of ornament. It must be important. It went without saying that the door was locked.
A black box was affixed above the door handle. There were three rows of three buttons, nine in total. Tiny, raised bumps on the buttons formed a code. Perhaps at one point, the buttons had numbers or symbols, but the paint had been worn away long ago.
Charlotte brushed her fingers over the bumps. She had read that Old Earth had a tactile language for those with impaired vision. Only a few of the oldest settler artifacts existed as examples. Was this that language? She had never seen it in person and certainly never touched it.
Of course she had to touch it. Obviously.
Pushing a button produced a beep. A screen flickered to life, displaying amber characters on black. It was a number. One. She pressed the next button. Two. The next was three.
The screen blinked.
A grating noise took her by surprise. The screen went blank.
“It’s a code,” she muttered to herself. If Miles were being held captive, he would be behind that door. She had to open it.
Charlotte stretched and flexed her fingers. Three digits to the code. Simple enough, if time-consuming. She already entered 1-2-3. Now on to 1-2-4.
“You’re a long way from your rooms,” a voice said behind her.
Charlotte jumped, hand pressed to her chest. She hadn’t heard footsteps behind her. “Captain Stringer, you gave me a fright.”
“Pardon me. That was not my intention.” He looked pointedly at the lock and raised his eyebrows. “That area is restricted.”
“It’s not labeled,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She sounded guilty. She gave a weak smile. “I mean, is it? It’s not labeled. There seem to be no signposts anywhere. I’m quite turned around.”
“Yes, our new residents often require rescue. You’ll soon learn the layout and all the shortcuts.”
“Did it take you long to learn the layout?”
“No. I was born here.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if to confirm that they were alone, and withdrew a key from an inner pocket of his coat. “This will unlock all the doors in the Aerie. Almost all.”
Charlotte glanced at the strange device on the door. If it was a lock, it was not one she was familiar with. “I see.”
“Even from the inside,” Stringer added in a conspiratorial tone.
“Oh.” Charlotte clutched the key tightly. “Thank you.”
He gave a half-bow and swept out a hand, directing her gaze down the hall. “I’ll escort you back to your rooms now and have your dinner delivered.”
“An early evening is probably for the best,” she agreed.
Stringer steered her away. She glanced back, committing the door to her memory and memorizing the route. She’d find her way back.