Page 87 of Time's Fool

A hard hand gripped me under one elbow, and I already knew that touch well enough to guess who I would see when I looked up. Sure enough, it was the vampire Louis-Cesare. Better known as the handsome lying bastard.

But for the moment, I was too happy to care. All vampires lied. At least his were mad enough to be obvious!

“You are looking well,” he said gallantly, another lie.

“I do not have a glass, but if I did, I think it might tell me otherwise,” I replied, still laughing.

And then I noticed what he was carrying.

“Is that for me?” I asked, reaching for it. But he was faster and pulled the tray away. That wasn’t difficult, as he was ridiculously tall and I was not, and I no longer had the ability to simply float upward.

“It is,” he assured me, before I could prove to him how high dhampirs can jump. “But I thought you might like to dine on the terrace.”

“Terrace?”

That word would have made sense in Italy, where many houses had one to take advantage of the usually fine weather. But this was not Italy. The smells and sounds drifting in the window had already told me as much.

But I wanted confirmation. “Where are we?”

“Târgoviste, one hundred years ago. And your father is waiting upstairs.”

He held open the door behind him, and I walked through it without thinking. I didn’t even remember to put my shoes back on; it didn’t seem to matter. I headed up the narrow staircase he indicated with a buzzing noise in my head.

A week ago, had anyone asked me which would be stranger, losing my body and floating around London for an evening or meeting my father, I would have looked at them as though they were mad, but now. . .

My brief stint as a spirit already seemed unreal, just some fever dream that the witch had cursed me with, whereas this was very much happening and far too soon.

Halfway to the top, I abruptly turned around, only to find Louis-Cesare right behind me. We were almost eye to eye, as he was several stairs below me. That wouldn’t have normally made it difficult to lie, but I wasn’t in a normal frame of mind. I wanted to pass him to get back downstairs, but was unable to explain why.

But he didn’t seem to need an explanation.

His free hand took one of mine, giving it a little squeeze. I looked down at our joined hands; why did that make me feel better? I didn’t want comfort, especially not from him! I wanted . . .

I wasn’t even sure. To have life make sense again, at least long enough for me to catch my breath? To have all of this fade away and to wake up back in my bed above the taverna, ready to meet with some strange vampire who wanted to offer me a king’s ransom for a week of my time?

That was when things had started to go poorly. Before that, the world had made sense and I had known my place in it. It was a terrible, terrible place, but I had made peace with that. I did not know how to make peace with this!

“Do you want me to take the food back to your room?” Louis-Cesare asked, his face a study in compassion. “I can tell him—”

“What? That I am too afraid to meet with him?”

“You’re not afraid—”

“Am I not? Then what is this, since you know so much?”

The words should have come out harshly, as bravado, but they didn’t. Instead, I was horrified to hear my voice quaver, almost as if I was begging him for an answer. I couldn’t meet with Mircea like this!”

“I will be with you,” he told me quietly. “I will not leave your side.”

“And is that supposed to help me?” I asked sarcastically. I barely knew the creature!

But again, my tone betrayed me. It sounded like a scared little girl’s, begging a protector not to abandon her. It made me furious with myself, and Louis-Cesare seemed to know it.

He said nothing that time, merely squeezed my hand again.

And I began to wonder if he had been lying, after all. He knew me too well for our short acquaintanceship. Far too well.

I wasn’t used to that. Friends, even lovers, were of the moment as a dhampir, passing out of my life almost as soon as they entered it. No one knew me!

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