Chapter 31
Castle Dracula, Transylvania
Mina had stopped counting the days. She’d stopped tracking when Vasile visited, placing a tray before her only to vanish again for hours until his next delivery. She’d stopped feeling the pangs of hunger entirely, choosing sleep above all else.
When she slept, she could visit Lucy and Jonathan. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and see the vibrant blue of a summer sky. She could sit in a meadow, a warm breeze pushing strands of hair across her eyes. She could lie back and watch the clouds drift overhead.
And then she would wake to utter darkness, silence clinging to the walls, oppressive. But she didn’t cry. She had no emotion left to summon. With every waking hour came an emptiness so consuming that she would have preferred death to her current, meaningless existence.
So she slept.
She was in the middle of a dream when footfalls echoed in the distance.
She turned away from the sound, desperate to cling to her dream. She was in Hampstead Heath with Lucy, listening as her friend spoke of her engagement. In the dream, she was happy for Lucy—yet a distant ache settled in her chest for reasons she could not name.
Then a sharp squeal cut through the park—a terrible sound of metal on metal. Lucy did not react, but Mina turned toward it, searching for its source.
A hand closed around her arm.
She gasped, her eyes flying open to darkness. A shadow loomed above her, hunched and peering down. She scrambled upright, pressing herself against the wall as visions of violence crowded her mind.
“Easy now,” a voice said. A man’s voice—though she could make out no features, only that it was neither the Count nor Vasile.
“You’re not real,” she whispered.
The figure remained still long enough that she nearly convinced herself he was imagined.
Then he spoke again. “Are you Mina Murray?”
She did not answer. Her thoughts struggled to catch up. Had he been sent to harm her? To finally end this?
The man knelt. When his hand touched her leg, she flinched away, pain flaring through her ankle.
“I need you to stay completely still,” he said. “Do you understand?”
She stared at the shadow, still unsure of whether he existed at all.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.
Something whistled through the air, followed by the crash of metal against stone.
A rush of cold air swept across her bare feet, and her heart thundered.
Part of her longed to believe this man had come to save her—yet she could not let herself believe it.
The disappointment would be unbearable if he had not.
Another sharp crack—stone striking metal. Then the stranger rose to his feet.
“Come now, let’s go,” he said, reaching toward her. Mina scrambled backward, only then realizing her chain was no longer fixed to the wall.
Her gaze snapped to the door—the slim crack of light along its open edge. She surged to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she lurched toward it. She made it barely three steps before her legs buckled beneath her, sending her crumpling to the floor.
She gasped through the pain, dragging herself forward until a firm hand closed around her arm.
“Hey,” he said sharply. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She stared up at the shadowed figure looming over her, feeling like a rabbit caught in sight of a fox.
“I’m going to help you up now.” He hesitated, as if waiting for her to resist, then slid an arm across her back and lifted her upright, placing her on her feet.
Shame washed through her as she tried to stand but found herself unable to place much weight on either foot. She desperately wanted to flee, to take this opportunity to run through that door and escape from this prison, but she didn’t have the strength.
Weak. Just as the Count had said.
Even without her chains, she did not have the strength to save herself.
Emotion thickened her throat, and she swallowed, anger building in her chest.
“Are you alright?” the stranger asked, still holding onto her.
“They’ll come for us,” Mina said, her voice weak. “We need to go. Wherever you’re taking me, we need to go now.”
That seemed to be all the confirmation the man needed, for he swept her off her feet, holding her like an infant in his arms.
Weak.
He opened the door, and even the dim lighting in the corridor felt blinding. Mina squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach queasy as he carried her down the hall.
It was still sinking in, the reality that she might escape that dreadful room. Yet she was still afraid to let herself believe it.
What if she was dreaming? What if she were to awaken only to find the blackness around her again? This felt different from her usual dreams, but perhaps her mind was simply growing more creative after so long in isolation. Perhaps her madness was festering, strengthening.
“Are you in pain?” the stranger asked, his voice low.
It was then that she looked up at him, taking in his features.
She froze.
“You,” she whispered. The man she’d thought of distantly since that night with the wolves. The decision she’d regretted nearly every moment since. The stranger who’d offered her an escape.
“Ah, so you do remember me,” he said, his gaze fixed ahead. “I was beginning to take offence.”
He turned down a hallway, the flames along the walls giving way to darkness once more. For a moment, panic flared—would she awaken now to find herself alone in that damp dungeon? But then she felt the warmth of his hands as he lowered her carefully to the ground.
“See if you can stand.”
She set her right foot down first, the muscles weak but responsive, some feeling returned to her leg. Then she tried her left, pushing through the ache. She held tightly to him, a part of her afraid he might vanish—that none of this would be real.
With one arm still hoisted over his shoulder, she walked for the first time in days, maybe even weeks.
He moved slowly, allowing her to readjust to the sensation of taking one step after another, her eyes fixed on the ground ahead.
When she looked up, she saw rows of benches in the distance—no, not benches, pews.
The strangest sensation washed through her as she sat up, looking around the underground chapel where she and the Count had married.
Tears pricked her eyes and she inhaled sharply, desperate to find escape before she let herself fall apart.
She was so close to surviving, so close to freedom, and she would not allow anything to get in her way.
The two moved quietly down the aisle, turning toward a doorway to the right of the altar.
The stranger opened it with his free hand and helped her inside.
He shifted out from under her, helping her lean against a nearby wall in the darkness.
Mina listened to the sound of movement, something tearing, and then a low hiss as a flame came into view.
She watched as the man pulled a lantern into view, having been hidden behind some piece of furniture, and then lit it, the space filling with an orange glow.
“Hold this, will you?” He held it out for her, and she took it, watching as he lifted a small rug to reveal a trap door hidden beneath.
Mina’s chest tightened at the black abyss below.
As if reading her thoughts, the man said, “Do you want to survive?” She looked up at him, his face cast in shadows. It took a moment, her mind spinning, but then, slowly, she nodded. “Alright. I’ll lower you down first. I’ll be right behind you.”
She swallowed down the nausea in her throat, looking down into the blackness. But what choice did she have? Staying here meant death—a slow, painful death at that. It was either die quietly or die trying to survive.
She exhaled sharply. “Okay,” she whispered.
Slowly, he lowered her down into the hole.
Relief filled her when her feet hit the ground, though her ankle tinged with pain.
As she looked around, she could see nothing but black, and all at once, she felt as though she couldn’t breathe.
As though the darkness itself was suffocating her.
But then he lowered the lantern, and she reached out, grasping it in her hands and stepping out of the way.
Her hands shook, the fragments of light flickering against the stone tunnel around her.
When she felt a hand on her back, she flinched. But as she turned, she found the stranger’s solemn expression. She looked behind him, seeing that he’d already made it down and closed the trapdoor behind them.
“Do you want to hold the lantern?” he asked, gesturing to the way she’d been grasping onto it like a lifeline. She nodded, feeling weak, but the thought of being stuck here in the underground in the darkness was too much to bear. “Alright. Lead the way.”
Mina took a deep breath and began to walk.
The air was heavy and wet, thick with the scent of earth and mildew.
Water dripped from somewhere overhead, the sound echoing through the stone corridor.
The ground beneath their feet sloped downward, allowing for more space as they moved deeper into the tunnel, and all the while, Mina’s mind was racing.
This had been the same stranger who’d offered her escape before, the night before everything had changed.
But still, she didn’t know why he’d been here that night, or even why he was here now.
What if she’d just gone from one kind of prisoner to another?
She tried to force the thoughts away, focusing simply on each step forward.
Eventually, the path began to widen, then it split into two separate passageways. Mina paused, looking down each black tunnel, but the man directed her left, and so she went.
“Is this how you made it in the first time?” she asked, her voice still scratchy from underuse. He merely grunted his agreement, and she let the silence enclose them once again.
Mina couldn’t say whether they walked for minutes or hours, each step into the endless shadows feeling like an eternity, her chest tightening with the fear that these tunnels might never end, that she would be trapped here to wander eternally.
But then, the air grew colder, the damp scent of earth giving way to the sharpness of pine.
When she heard the distant groaning of wind, felt the tendrils of a fresh breeze, hope alighted in her chest.
A hand grasped her arm, and she halted, turning back toward the stranger. There was a look in his brown eyes, an expression of concern that she hadn’t yet seen. Anticipation crawled through her—they were so near to the end of the tunnel, so close to freedom.
“What are—”
“Shh,” he said, his entire body still, as though he were listening.
She stopped. Her heart was loud in her ears, and she spared a glance behind him, into the pitch blackness.
Then, she saw movement. A shape in the shadows.
“Don’t tell me you’re leaving so soon.” The voice was smooth, melodic, and Mina peered around the man, her eyes falling on a woman with long red hair.
Clarimonde.