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Mina had a puzzle to play with, so things were shaping up to be her favorite kind of day.
First, the facts as she knew them:
1. Maria had lit up as soon as she’d seen her, despite the fact that Mina was certain they’d never met before.
2. The theory that Mina held some unknown significance to Maria was supported by the way she quickly made and maintained contact, despite her much higher social standing.
3. Maria was almost certainly a vampire, and likely an old one, going from how well she managed herself in human society.
And most intriguingly:
4. In spite of all of the above, Maria seemed to have no idea that Mina was a witch.
A puzzle indeed. What value could she, Mina the Mere Mortal, possibly hold to a vampiress of Maria’s power? The only way to find out would be to play along, and play she did.
And then-
Him.
They locked eyes across the ballroom.
In another life, perhaps, she would have seen just another man. Handsome, mysterious- but no more. In this life, he was the reason she’d studied her craft. She’d learned dreamscrying. She’d learned tasseography and crystallomancy to divine his location, and come up empty every time. She’d studied with the ancient Romani covens and traveled all the way to Greece to consult with the seers of the Old Ways. And nothing, nothing, nothing- nothing more than being able to more fully watch him in her dreams.
Maria cut into their staring with a bright, easy laugh. “Well, I know my friend is very beautiful- But I'm a bit offended,” She teased.
His face- his face, she was seeing it in reality- remained stoic, fixed on hers. “Forgive me,” He murmured softly.
Mina had to fight to stay standing. Her heart began pounding at the sound of his voice like a gunshot had gone off next to her ear, rather than a gentleman merely whisper.
“Your beauty brings light to this place filled with dark suits and top hats. Madam, it is an honour and a pleasure to see you again.”
So it wasn’t just her. He clearly knew something- but how much? “Have we met before?” Mina asked carefully.
He smiled, the expression soft and bittersweet. “In a dream, perhaps. I have this strange feeling that we have known each other for a long time.”
Well, she knew that much. She wanted more. “That's very romantic.”
His smile turned chided. That hadn’t been her intention at all. She’d misstepped. “Excuse me,” He demurred. “I seem to have lost my mind and my manners. Vlad the Second, Prince of Wallachia. Count Dracul.”
He bowed and pressed a kiss to her glove-clad hand. She was fervently glad she’d chosen lace, and not her thicker velvet.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” She replied, studying him. If she’d moved too quickly before, perhaps she should return levity to the moment now. She turned. “Maria, you promised me hot chocolate.”
Maria grinned broadly. “Yes, but first we're going to have a little fun.”
The circus was wild, unlike anything Mina had ever seen, even in her travels. Vlad had eyes for only her, however, no matter how novel or wild the sights. She felt like a silly schoolgirl; she had never been the type for trite romantic gestures, and here she was, pretending she didn’t know how to shoot a gun just so he would show her.
The way he smelled- the way his arms felt around her, the weight of the gun in her hands, his whisper in her ear- she knew this. It was as familiar as walking, breathing. Dancing.
Mina had begun to piece at least some things together. Whatever was happening, Maria was in on it. She was too careful as she managed the evening- dipping in whenever things grew tense, pretending something caught her attention whenever Mina and Vlad had gone too long apart.
In the Fright House, she was there one second, gone the next. “Maria?” Mina called, suddenly worried. She was alone, in the dark- and her companion had been a vampire- “Mina!”
Suddenly, he was there. Any unease she felt melted away “This way.”
She let him lead her out. It was implicit, the trust she felt.”
As the evening drew to a close, he spoke up. “I took the liberty to have libations prepared while we wait for tonight's show.”
“Excellent,” Maria purred.
They entered the most opulent hotel suite Mina had ever beheld. “Ta-da!” Maria crowed. “What do you think?”
“It's wonderful,” Mina said honestly.
“I don't know about you, but I'm starving.”
Mina eyed her companion. A double entendre? “I'm exhausted,” She shrugged. It was true- she was worn and tired. Food was the furthest thing from her mind.
“All right, all right. You sit here, Princess, and I'll bring you hot chocolate.” Maria insisted.
There it was again- Maria deferring to her, serving her, despite Maria’s connection to the crown and Mina’s lack of true connection to anybody.
She caught movement in the corner of her eye and spun. She may be a perfectly capable witch, but she wasn’t stupid enough to let a vampire sneak up on her.
But it wasn’t Maria.
“Thank you for accepting my invitation.” Vlad said quietly, eyes on her.
“Your apartment is fit for a king.”
“I'm just a prince.”
Just? Mina wanted to laugh, but apologized instead. “Sorry.”
He tilted his head, moving closer. “You live in Paris?”
“No- far to the north, and in the country. Our life is quieter.”
“You like the quiet?” His questions were intense, like the fate of the world hung on her answer.
“Not at all,” She said honestly. “I love nature. Birds. Trees. And the wind that makes them sing.” She had certainly learned that much, living among the covens as she did. “May I ask, where do you live?”
He took a slow breath. “My family home is an old castle, at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains in Romania… There I know only winter and loneliness.”
A castle. The mountains. Winter. That all felt right.
But- not loneliness.
“I love winter,” She said almost absently, trying to catch the tail end of her connection. “With its harsh landscapes. My- my mother dreams of Andalusia.” What to call Angelica, other than her mother?
“Perhaps the memory of another, older life.” He murmured.
A pleasure to meet you again. I have the feeling I’ve known you for a long time. Another, older life.
Mina was putting together the puzzle pieces.
“I suppose so,” She agreed breathlessly.
“May I show you something?”
“Yes.”
He led her into the adjoining room and pulled out something small, lovely, and silver.
“It's beautiful,” she murmured. “What is it?”
“It is a music box. Many people think it was invented in the 18th century by the Swiss. But I found this one at the merchant's table in Constantinople. It dates from the 15th century.”
“Remarkable.”
“I gave it to my wife as a gift.”
That jolted Mina from her curiosity. “You're married?”
“Widowed,” He said, and the grief was so thick she could have drowned in it.
“Forgive me.”
A slight smile. “You're forgiven.”
She returned to lighter things. “And it still works?”
“Of course.” He wound it, and then stepped closer.
A song played. A song-
“Do you know this melody?” He asked.
Mina did. She did, she- but how? It wasn’t in any of her dreams, they hadn’t been clear enough for music such as this. “It seems so familiar. I've traced my memory. I don't know from where, when.”
“Keep searching.” He instructed. Begged. “In your heart. And your skin. In your soul. You feel me, Elisabeta.”
Elisabeta. It rang through her like a church bell, and Mina gasped. He moved to withdraw, but she seized his hand. “Is that who I am?”
“Elisabeta?” Not a reply to her question- a question of his own. His eyes searched hers, blown wide, intense.
He was asking if she knew him.
She answered. “I know this song. I know you. I’ve always known you, ever since I was old enough to dream. I just don’t understand how. I- I’d begin to think I made you up, after so long searching and finding nothing-“
He stepped closer. “You searched for me?”
“Of course I did. I love you. I just- don’t know how, or why.”
He reached out with a shaking hand to touch her cheek. “You are my beloved. My one and only true love. I am damned, Mina. I am a dead man condemned by God's will to live.
Mina frowned. “Why would God do such a thing?”
“Because he took you from me. So I cursed him and abandoned him.
He brushed his thumb under her nose. It came away ruby.
“Despite many popular beliefs, I don't like blood. Even if yours has a delicious taste to it. Without it, I would only be a repulsive old man you would refuse to look at.”
Mina felt incomprehensibly stupid. She’d been so enthralled by the sight of him that she hadn’t considered the very obvious fact. “You’re a vampire too.”
For the first time, he looked confused. “Did Maria tell you about herself?”
“No,” Mina shook her head. “But a competent witch should know a vampire when she sees one. I was so shocked to see you that I lost the common sense to recognize what you are.”
“You are a witch? No- more important. You knew me when you saw me?”
“I started having night terrors as a very young child,” She whispered. “Despite being born in London, I would wake screaming in another language. My parents came to believe I was possessed and sent me to a convent.”
He stiffened, eyes flashing, and she smiled wryly. “Yes, the exact wrong place for someone like me. But one of the nuns was more open-minded, and instead passed me on to a light-witch coven she had worked with to exorcise demons in the past. She knew I wasn’t possessed, but also knew I wasn’t normal. She thought it might be manifesting talent, and in some ways, she was right.”
“So you were raised by witches,” He murmured, entranced. His hand found her cheek, traced through the edges of her hair, like he couldn’t resist touching her. In a way, she understood- she too was trying to ground herself, remind her body that this was real. Not a dream.
She refocused. “They taught me the craft. I’m not particularly talented with brews, but got very good at scrying and certain kinds of spell work. Whatever I thought would bring me to you. But I could never find you.”
“My castle has natural defenses against those who would wish to find it,” He said. He brushed a kiss across her forehead, almost dreamily. “I had devoted all my resources to looking for you. I never once considered you’d be looking for me, too.”
“Of course I was!” She pulled back. “I love you! Only- it is like I said. I don’t know how or why.”
“Or when,” He returned. “Take my hands. Hands never lie. They will tell you the truth about me, but also about you. About who you really are. And they will tell you how much they've enjoyed caressing your face and your neck,” His voice dropped lower, sultry, “And your hips too. If you know me- do you remember the last thing you said to me?” His nose was nearly touching hers. She willed herself to focus on his words, and not his lips. “You said, take care of yourself, my prince. My king.”
Mina knew the words like she knew her prayers. “My life,” She said, as though in a trance. “Because I cannot survive without you.”
His eyes gleamed with unshed tears, and she kissed him.
Mina had experienced moments of joy in her life, but even at her happiness, there was always loss. She would look behind her to meet someone’s gaze, and that someone would be gone. She would wake reaching for a body in bed that wasn’t there. She would laugh, and it would sound strange; half empty, like a song missing all of the base notes.
The next few days of her life had none of that absence. It was pure, whole, perfect bliss.
He very quickly arranged for transport overseas so that they could return home. She would never be parted from him again; this she swore to herself. She relearned him as they crossed the oceans, as they traveled from the shore to mountains. He was hers, and she was his, and he did the one thing she asked;
He bit her, so that she could have eternity with him.
It was strange; she knew from her studies that the change was slow when done to a living, healthy body. But there was more than she expected. Ice crept up her veins, freezing her body in time, slowing her heart. She felt that much.
But there was heat, too. A strange awareness. Of Vlad, of course, and of the heartbeats of the carriage driver, and the horses, and the herds of deer they passed- that was expected. But awareness too of things she’d honed in her craft. Of the ancient roots of trees stretching under the worn road. Of the ley lines sleeping in the earth. Of the wind whispering to her of things it had seen. Of the small dancing wick in the driver’s lamp, wishing it had more than just a wick to burn.
She wondered; had Vlad ever turned a witch before?
She thought not.
Still; no need to interrupt their beautiful kisses with her revelations. They had all of eternity to study what she would become. All of eternity to become something new together.
The castle was everything she’d ever dreamed; quite literally. Her feet walked the floors for the first time, but not her heart. The gargoyles were charming, personable.
Their room was just as she remembered it. It sang to her, welcoming her home.
She dressed in her old clothes, both for him and for her. It was like pulling a familiar blanket over her skin at night; both sides of her, the old and the new, held in her hands, his eyes.
And then, of course, their enemies came.
Vlad told her to stay put. Elisabetta obeyed. He was her prince, and the commander of armies, and she the princess. It was her job to obey, her job to run.
She spent precious moments like that. The gunsmoke, the scent of blood in the air- it made it hard to think. She’d never experienced those things as Mina, but Elisabetta had, so Elisabetta held their limbs, their minds.
Vlad returned; kissed her with blood across his face. There was something new in his gaze; something full of grief. But why? Why, when they were together?
He answered her unasked question.
“Elisabetta,” He whispered across her skin. “The curse will disappear if I do. You will regain your freedom.”
Fear stole her breath. “But you are my freedom. You are my freedom, my love.”
Hesitation warred in his expression.
A voice called from beyond their rooms. “Dracula. You believe you love her, but you expect her to sacrifice her life for you? You can save her. Your soul still belongs to God. If you truly love her, let her return to life. And you return to God”
Horror. Horror, horror, horror, even stronger than she felt on that day four hundred years ago. Vlad believed him.
He kissed her. She could tell he meant it as a goodbye. He held her with enchantment, whirled outside the doorway, slammed wood and iron behind him.
She screamed, more grief and rage than woman, and pounded on the doorway. “Open the door!”
She could still hear him on the other side. “Four hundred years ago, I asked a priest that God spare my wife. He did not.”
Didn’t he? Didn’t he, though? Were she and Vlad not here now, reunited, spared in God’s eyes? “Please! Please, my love, open the door.”
“Can you hear my prayer this time? Will you?” Vlad demanded.
“Whether he hears you or not? Only you can change destiny, my son. Save her. And then you will be in peace for eternity.”
Peace! As if she had not had it, these past few days. Eternity! As if she would not have it, if that infernal priest would stop interfering.
Spared. As if she was not spared already.
Returned to life. As if she had not been half dead already.
Elisabetta. As if she were not Mina, too.
Elisabetta was a princess. But Mina- Mina was a witch.
“Hurry up before I change my mind,” Vlad hissed.
The door had been a tree, once. She asked to become one again. It obeyed as it could not have when she was mortal; happily, bending centuries-old wood into new growth, peeling away from the stonework in dozens of split saplings. A working that would have taken an entire coven of witches, performed by her with a simple thought.
“Step away from my husband,” She snarled. The priest fell back a step, eyes wide.
She turned to Vlad, furious. He had meant to die, with her locked on the other side of a door. Their door. “Did you forget,” She seethed, “that I am a witch?”
She could see from his expression that he had. Her dear husband, one of the most powerful immortals on the earth and father of vampirism, startled by his wife.
She would end this once and for all.
“Both of you listen to me, and listen well,” She entoned severely. She must have made a sight; the newborn saplings that had sprung from the door were twining fondly around her ankles like tame cats, and she could feel the wind playing delightedly with her hair. The flames in the fireplace hissed and snapped. Once a romantic crackle, they were now eager to become a wildfire, to burn whatever she wished. “My salvation is just that- mine. And you will let me do with it what you wish.”
“My beloved,” Vlad whispered, reaching for her. “I cannot condemn you.”
She stepped away. He would not touch her, not when he was willing to die. “Are not witches already condemned? How much further could a single bite blacken my soul? No, I believe I am good because I do good. And you are good, too- and we shall do good together. You will not sacrifice yourself for me, just as you,” She fixed an angry stare on the priest, “Shall not use my soul to blackmail my husband into suicide. My soul has spent four hundred years lost, and is now found; do you truly believe it is the will of your god for me to lose it again so quickly? Why give me another chance on this earth if it is not His will?”
The priest simply stared, wide-eyed. “There has never been a Turned witch,” He whispered.
“Then my love and I shall each be the firsts of our kind. Perhaps that is the will of your God, perhaps not- but either way, you will leave us alone, unless you would like to meet Him sooner than you had planned.” When the priest didn’t move, she let the fire behind her creep across the stone floors, pool like water under her feet. “That means leave.”
He left.
She turned a fierce look on her beloved. “I trust that will be the last of that.”
“Of course, my princess. My queen.”
“And have you anything to say for yourself?”
“That I was misguided, and beg your forgiveness. I thought it impossible to be in any more awe of you, my Elisabeta. My Mina. My love.” He moved to his knees before her, and she too lowered herself to the ground to meet him there.
She drew him into a long, relieved kiss. “That would be a boring way to spend eternity. I intend to keep surprising you.”
He smiled against her skin, teeth sharp. “I would enjoy nothing more.”