I have never gone this long without drinking, and my thoughts when I am awake are preoccupied with thirsting for my wife in so many ways ... I find that I am unable to even ponder plots and strategies and can focus only to ask, Is there to be a trial? Has a date been set?
I am sorry that I am not able to render more assistance.
L
P.S. I do force myself to clarity, and recall that I would also appreciate news of my esteemed "in-law" Dorin. I know that I should be grateful to him for returning Antanasia to my side, and yet I cannot forgive his toxic, infectious instinct for self-preservation, which I fear influences my wife too much—ironically—to her peril.
Here is one for your philosophy books, brother: is there anything more dangerous than the desire to live free of danger?
You will either LOL at my attempt at profundity—or scratch your head if I already make no sense.
Chapter 71
Mindy
I WAS SITTING in the dining room at breakfast, expecting to pick at a loaf of bread alone, 'cause Jess had disappeared
since the disaster at the funeral. She'd sent her little servant to me the morning after the mess, with a note asking me to be patient while she was busy for a few days, sorting stuff out.
I was kinda afraid she was hiding in her room and might never come out. So I was totally surprised when the door opened and in walked Princess Antanasia—looking better than she had the whole time I'd been in Romania.
She'd done something with her hair and put on a nice pair of dark-wash jeans and a sweater that didn't make her look desperate to be a princess but was right for a teenage ruler. She didn't look like the girl who used to hang out with me in Pennsylvania, but she didn't look as crushed as before, either.
"Jeez, Jess." I dropped my half-eaten breakfast. "You look better today!"
Like usual when I opened my mouth, I said the wrong thing. But like usual, Jess didn't get all offended. "Thanks." She sat down and reached for a slice of bread. "I feel better."
I was glad to see Jess actually eating, but me ... I still wasn't hungry. And I got sick again when the door opened one more time and Ylenia came walking in. She still looked like a pale, frizzy Jess knockoff to me, and I didn't get how Ronnie could've...
"Hey." Jess seemed surprised to see her cousin. "I didn't expect you, and I'm afraid I'm busy."
"That's okay," Ylenia chirped, in her fake voice. "Mindy and I are actually going to Bucharest." She made a little frown. "Unless you need me to help you with anything."
"No, I'm fine." Jess slapped a ton of butter on her bread. "You guys go have fun."
I stood up, grabbed my tote, and did my best to smile, and I hoped it came out better than it felt. I had a lot of fake stuff, from Gucci bags to Manolo Blahnik shoes, but I had never been very good at being fake myself. "Okay, we're gonna head out, then."
Jess seemed honestly glad that we were doing something together, and I tried to focus on that. At least I was making her a teeny bit happy. "See you guys later," she said.
"Yeah, later." I followed Ylenia out of the room, thinking, Let's just get this over with. Every time I looked at her, I saw Raniero bending over her, his teeth changing, and I wanted to scream. It had been bad enough when I only thought she was stealing my best friend.
I stopped short. Are you just jealous, Min? Is that really why you hate her?
The door was swinging shut behind me, but at the last sec I caught Jess saying something to one of the servants. "Ceaiul, te rog." It was one of the first times I'd ever heard her use Romanian—not counting whatever the heck she'd said at the funeral—and it reminded me of something, so I popped back in, digging in my bag. "Hey!" I found my Amazon gift and handed it over. "I forgot to give you this. Hope you like it!"
"Um ... thanks." Jess seemed surprised again. I didn't wait around for her to tear off the plastic, but I did look back real quick to see her smiling when she saw her new copy of Fluent in Five Minutes: Romanian.
Then I went out and found my tour guide waiting, and I made myself take her pale, cold little arm in mine like we really were friends. "Come on, Yleni," I said. "Let's go see what you have in store for us, huh?"
Chapter 72
Antanasia
I KEPT FORCING down bread and tea, knowing that I had to eat, and flipping through the workbook to the Romanian-language DVD Mindy had given me.
Good old Mindy. She always knew what I needed. And I was glad that she and Ylenia were trying to be friends. It would mean a lot to me if they could get along.
I turned another page in the book, surprised that so many words in the dialogues seemed familiar. I'd never tried to do more than pick up phrases by listening to Lucius and others speak, but when I saw the words written out, I realized that a lot of them were rooted in the Latin that my mom had drilled me on as a teenager, to prepare me for the SAT I ended up never taking because I skipped college to rule vampires.
Still, as usual, the foresight of my mothers was helping me. I needed to learn Romanian.
Had I maybe been not just a coward, but also a little ... lazy?
"Scuzati-ma?"
The exact words I was reading in "Dialogue 3: Polite Phrases" were spoken behind me, and I looked up to see the servant who usually brought tea offering me something different on the silver tray.
"Aceasta este...?" I made an effort to ask what she was giving me. "This is...?"
"De La Lordul Raniero Lovatu."
I was pretty sure she said, "From Lord Raniero." I'd heard him addressed that way at my wedding and laughed at what I'd thought was an overly formal courtesy. I wasn't laughing anymore.
As I took some papers rolled up like a scroll off the tray, I glanced down at my workbook, reminding myself of what to say. "Va multumesc. Thank you."
The servant bowed and backed away, leaving me to push aside my plate, pull a rubber band off the papers, and unroll them. And when I saw the drawings in front of me, I realized that Raniero had told the truth. He was very good with maps.
He'd even remembered to include a detailed plan to something hidden in the castle. I'd forgotten it existed, but I intended to start using it that very night.
Chapter 73
Mindy
I WAS HONESTLY getting worried that maybe I didn't like Ylenia Dragomir 'cause she had a million things in common with Jess, like living in Romania and seeming to be smart and being a vampire, so it probably made sense that over the course of, like, two hundred years—when I was long gone—they would become the world's best friends, and Jess wouldn't even remember me. And maybe I hated Ylenia 'cause she had some kinda past with Raniero.
I really did start to think there was something wrong with me while we rode around Bucharest in a car that was so small I half expected clowns to jump out of the trunk every time we stopped at another boring museum or park.
That car—which apparently Dorin used to pick up Jess when she first came to Romania, which was no doubt when she started feeling not like a princess—sucked, but Ylenia ... I had to admit that she seemed okay.
Until we stopped at a building that looked like the White House, if somebody squashed a giant wedding cake on the roof, and she started giving her tour-guide spiel. It was a boring building where boring stuff happened, but by the time we pulled away, I knew I'd finally seen something interesting.
I'd got a peek into the real Ylenia Dragomir—and I wasn't the only jealous one in that clown car.
Chapter 74
Mindy
THE ROMANIAN ATHENAEUM was not where the president of Romania lived. It was actually a big theater, and I followed Ylenia and a couple other tourists who were crazy enough to visit Bucharest in the snowy season into the main part, where all the seats were.
"This is really pretty," I said, rubbernecking around. "Like, wow."
"Yes, it is 'wow.'" Yleni was gawking, too, like she'd never seen the place either, even though I knew she had. "It's considered the most beautiful building in the city." She pointed to the ceiling.
"Look at the brilliant red color, like blood, and the gold leaf. And when it's filled with the sounds of the orchestra, and the people and vampires dressed in their finest clothes ... It's just amazing to be here on a summer night, even if you're only sitting in the least-expensive seats, watching from far back."
You could never go anywhere without a vampire bringing up blood, so that didn't seem weird to me. What seemed weird was the way she got very dreamy and sort of drifted off, so we both stood and just stared at everything—way after I was ready to go. It was a fancy, nice place, but I was getting depressed, 'cause even if I didn't wanna hate my new frenemy, I still did, and I wanted to go back to Jess's castle. I wasn't learning anything from Ylenia except communist history.
Maybe for once Cosmo was wrong. Maybe hanging out with a frenemy just made your head—and your heart—kinda hurt.
I was just about to tap her arm, 'cause she seemed really lost, when all of a sudden she pointed to some seats on the second floor—the kind of box seats where rich people sit—and said, real soft, but in a way that about made me jump out of my skin, "That is where I first saw Lucius ... and Raniero."
Why had I ever doubted Cosmo ?
Chapter 75
Antanasia
I STOOD IN front of the huge mirror that hung on the wall of my dressing room—but I didn't look at the pale young woman reflected there.
Instead, I reached behind the top right corner of the heavy wooden frame, searching blindly with my fingers.
Lucius had shown me the hidden door when we'd first gotten married, and he'd directed me to it more recently when he thought I might be in danger. "You know where to go." But I hadn't known what he meant. I'd forgotten all about that door until Raniero drew his map—and included the network of tunnels that Lucius had promised were waiting behind the walls.
"Of course we have an elaborate system for escape concealed within the stones," he'd said, guiding my hand to the latch. "We are vampires, and we never seem to slake our thirst for deception." I'd met his eyes in the mirror, and he'd smiled. "Not that I would run from danger!"
We'd only been married a few days, and everything was so perfect that even the mention of emergencies couldn't stop me from smiling. Not when we were alone, hands touching, my husband's powerful body at my back. "And me? Do I ever run?"
Even in our first blissful days together, Lucius had of course understood the risks we faced, and his hand around mine had stopped while he'd seriously considered his answer.
"I do not know. In theory, princesses do not flee. But if you were ever truly in danger, I cannot imagine myself not forcing you to run to safety." He'd paused, eyes softening, and added, "And should we ever be fortunate enough to have children, I would compel you to protect them while I remained behind. Just as our parents protected us at the expense of their own existences."
I still felt way too young to think about babies, but Lucius always thought in terms of family, and something about hearing him mention, for the second time in our brief married life, that we might actually have children together...
I'd felt an intense rush of emotion for my new husband, who would be an amazing father, and I'd turned around and kissed him ... and that must have been why I still couldn't find that latch with my fumbling fingers. We'd never finished the lesson.
"Come on," I mumbled, growing impatient and digging deeper under the wooden frame. It seemed impossible that the mirror, sized to reflect kings and queens in full regalia, would ever move. But then I found it. A little metal bump, like a button. I pressed it, and that huge mirror released from the wall so quickly that I almost yelped, because I was sure it was going to fall and crush me. It must have weighed over a hundred pounds.
But it didn't come off the wall. It just swung back a few inches on invisible hinges to reveal a black passageway. Just like Lucius—and Raniero's map—had promised.
Peeking into that dark, musty tunnel filled with dust and cobwebs, I almost changed my mind. After all, I was starting to get better control of Emilian, and I could dismiss him if I wanted to go somewhere alone.
But the new princess who was emerging inside me ... she wasn't even sure she trusted her guard anymore. I wanted to be able to use these passages whenever I preferred to move in complete secrecy. Like I did that night.
And so with the route I'd memorized from Raniero's map in my brain and a flashlight in my hand I stepped through the looking glass. Taking a deep breath of the stale air, I turned around and pulled the mirror-door closed behind me, even though I wasn't sure the latch could be undone from the inside—or that the exit at the other end hadn't been sealed up generations ago as the rambling castle evolved. For all I knew, Raniero had never really set foot inside these passages and knew them only in legend.
Glancing over my shoulder, I considered testing whether I could return that way—then decided I wasn't going to start this journey by turning back.
I was done with looking back.
Chapter 76
Mindy
"RANIERO?" I KNOCKED real soft on his door, 'cause it was late by the time me and Ylenia got back from Bucharest. I couldn't wait till morning to talk to him, though. I had to know what had happened with my ex-boyfriend and Jess's cousin, even if it killed me.
I could still hear Ylenia talking about Lucius and Raniero, and how she'd watch them from the cheap seats, drooling over them—and hating them at the same time.
"Every head would turn to see Lucius, with his black hair and dark eyes that seemed to know everything, and Raniero, with his olive skin and smile that made the debutantes shiver, because you knew he was so wicked.... They looked like they ruled not just the vampire kingdom, but the world, and you could hear everyone whispering, 'Vladescu ... Vladescu...'"
I didn't wanna, but I'd had to ask her. "Did you ever, like, hang out with them?"
She'd given a creepy smile that said way too much about her and Lucius and Raniero—and Jess. "Oh, no! That was before Vladescus fell in love with Dragomirs ... back when even a European, educated, noble Dragomir was just dirt under their feet!"
Oh, she'd about burned up with jealousy, to think of an American farm girl coming over and winning the prince's heart....
"Raniero?" He still didn't answer, so I knocked louder, 'cause it suddenly seemed weird—even weirder than somebody describing his smile as "wicked"—that Ronnie had closed his door. He never did that. Supposedly, he didn't even have one on his beach shack. Just an old shower curtain.
I turned the knob, which rattled but didn't give. And Ronnie never locked anything. He practically wanted people to steal his stuff.
All of a sudden I was not just upset but really worried about him, and I dug around in my bag till I found a nail file, which I jabbed in the old lock, just like I'd seen on a million TV shows when I shoulda been studying.
For once, though, TV paid off. Or maybe the lock was just so old it was easy to pick. It looked like it was from the Revolutionary War or something.
Either way, the door opened after about five jabs, and a second later I was in the room. It was dark in there, and at first I didn't move, 'cause that room ... It smelled like Ronnie. Like surfer Ronnie, who had somehow smelled like the beach even when he lived in Pennsylvania. His skin and hair always smelled like coconut and salt water and ... sunshine. It was stupid, but the creature of the night I loved really used to smell like sunshine to me.
I knew I was acting like a stalker, but I started walking toward his bed, thinking I'd just sniff his pillow. Just for a second.
Something stopped me, though. Something on the floor that tangled up my feet, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on my butt and trying not to yell, 'cause I got jabbed when I fell. I didn't know what the heck happened, so I started feeling around—and it was like I was sitting in a pile of dust.
I sniffed and smelled something different, too. Like... wood.
The floor of Ronnie's room smelled like the wood shop at Woodrow Wilson High.
I felt around a little m
ore, and my fingers hit that sharp thing. A bunch of sharp things.
Tapping the floor with my hand, I tried to count 'em. One, two, three, four, five...
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I gave up and picked up just one and said out loud to nobody...
"Raniero Vladescu Lovatu—why the heck are you carving all these stakes?"
And why did somebody call you wicked?
Chapter 77
Antanasia
AS FAR AS I could tell, the tunnels did match the map that Raniero had drawn, which was reassuring. Yet it was still hard not to be uneasy as I followed the route I'd memorized deeper and deeper into the heart of what felt like a true labyrinth, straight out of mythology. I stumbled a few times on the uneven floor and tried to keep that math-oriented side of myself trained on counting small deviations from the main path.
I needed the thirteenth tiny branch to the left. That would take me where I wanted to go.
"Don't be afraid," I said out loud, when my flashlight flickered like the battery was dying. "Don't be scared."
That had to be my mantra now. I would chant it aloud if I had to.
But it was almost impossible not to be nervous as the ceiling lowered and the beam from my flashlight started to get dimmer. I must have walked a mile, and it felt like I was heading straight into the mountain.