Half of the titles are in Latin and Greek, a couple in Italian, and just a few in Hungarian. I trail my gaze along the spines, feeling my pulse in my ears as I skip all theA’s.The Book of Blood and Roses.I keep picturing a medieval sort of tome, with handwritten text and well ornamented paintings and vibrant miniatures. But perhaps the book will be tiny, instead. Unassuming.
And I’m caught up in my theories when at last I seeit.
Book of Blood—A, Volume I.
It’s incredibly thick, but the spine itself isn’t too tall. Plain black leather, with the words embossed in gold. I don’t touch it, not fully registering the title until I see the book next to it.Book of Blood—A, Volume II.I crouch down, not saying a word yet, until I realise thatthe three bookcases nearest to me all have that same title,Book of Blood—A.
Penny saidbook,singular. But this—I keep walking, feeling my throat tighten. How was I supposed to smuggle all of these out? I start running, following the order, until my frustration reaches a boiling point, and I grab one at random, just to get an idea of its weight.
As soon as I lift it from the shelf, the book crumbles.
I stumble back, hitting the wooden balcony, while the dust that seconds ago was a full book continues to scatter around me. I don’t breathe, waiting for it to rewind. It must be an illusion, I think, my heart thudding.
“Fuck!” Aliz shouts from the top floor. I lean out, just in time to see her lean down. “It just vanished!” she shouts.
“Keep it down,” the ghost of Ada Astra says. “You’re in a library.”
I rush back to the books beforeBand lift one off the shelf at random. The exact same thing happens, pages crumbling between my fingers. “What is going on?” I ask.
“Those books are as ghostly as I am,” Ada cackles. And when the lights flicker, the endless shelves are suddenly empty, cobwebs replacing their pages.
No.
“Father had them all burnt. He did not like my research.”
“But…” I start, looking down the balcony, a sudden wave of vertigo almost knocking me off my feet. “We need it.”
“Silence,” Ada says.
“Please.” Aliz rushes down the spiralling stairs, her face pale. “Sister. Weneedthat book. We have to undo the contract!”
“Well, that’s easy enough,” Ada says, sitting back up, smiling at her blood kin. “Fortunately for you, I once had to sever the tie with a would-be Familiar, and it was a simple matter.”
I tighten my grip on the wooden balcony, trying my best to hide my reaction to that. Could she be referring to Catherine Lovelace? But why would she have her painted, if sheseveredher contract?
“Simple?” Aliz asks, disbelief colouring her voice. “You know the cure?”
“What do you think can undo abloodcontract,sister?” The ghost utters the wordbloodmockingly. I wonder if this is what Ada Astra really was like, or if this sour-mouthed creature is just an amalgamation of her worst qualities.
“I don’t know,” Aliz says, her voice trembling. But I notice a change in her expression, something sobering.
Ada waves her ghostly hand, and a book appears before her, with the same spectral glow as her skin. The wordsBook of Roses—F, Volume IX,are written on the front. She flicks through it, stopping halfway. “ ‘To undo a Familiar’s blood contract, both the recipient and the vampire must drink the blood of an enemy, straight from an eternal fountain, beneath the light of a full moon.’ ”
“An eternal fountain?” I ask as Ada clasps the book shut, and it vanishes.
“A vampire’s disembodied heart, free of ribs and skin!” she says. “If you both eat a heart beneath the light of a full moon, the Familiar’s contract will be erased.”
Elia sits unmoving on the green sofa, looking up at the now empty bookcases. Are they always like this when she comes? Empty? I can’t understand why such a place, an empty library, would be so well protected.
Slowly, I let thecurefall into place. If I was the only person involved, it would be easy enough. I could hijack any blood party, find any scumbag, and grab their heart straight out of their chest.
But Aliz is not like me. I wait to hear her protest, ask for a different solution, but she’s gone terribly quiet.
“You’ve found your answer,” Elia says, the warmth with which she spoke minutes ago missing. She sounds much older for once, two thousand years slipping from her tongue.
“There is noBook of Blood and Roses?” I ask, just one last time. “No real library?”
“Oh, it’s very real,” says Ada Astra, appearing before me in a cloud of blue smoke. “But it’s all in my head.” She steps close, lowering until I feel her ice against my ear. Her voice drops to a whisper. “So you cannot ransack my collection,Blood of Callisto.”
