I didn’t reply.But to my surprise, he didn’t laugh.Instead he said, ‘Want to learn?’
‘You’d teach me?’
‘I can’t say I’d be any substitute for a full-blooded vampire, but you’d be a sight more likely to survive if you can land a hit against me than if you went in unprepared.You can’t even cut apples properly.’
Judging by the misshapen pile of mangled apple segments I’d left, he was right.
So in the mornings, after Raleigh had gone to bed and before Moira rose from hers, Enrique and I began to meet in the yard to spar.I can safely say that if the Queen had come that morning I would have died on sight.But as the weeks bled into one another, I found it easier to defend myself against Enrique’s attacks and began to predict where he might end up, when his figure blurred as he lunged at speed.He wasn’t a fraction as fast or strong as a full-blooded vampire, but his abilities far surpassed any human’s.It gave me some insight into Raleigh’s full power and what I might be able to expect from his sire.
However, there was one lesson I learnt from a few weeks of training with Enrique that struck clearer than any other: as long as I lived, I would never have the power to kill the Queen.
Fifteen
FOR ALL OF MY FIXATIONon regicide, I hadn’t forgotten about my research.The clarity that Enrique’s lessons gave me helped renew my fervour to find an alternative cure, even if that fervour wasn’t optimistic.I found two more texts confirming that killing the sire was the solution to my problem, and another claiming that a silver dagger to the heart would reverse the curse, which I hoped was the author alluding to the sire’s heart, and that they hadn’t one day discovered that they were horribly, tragically wrong.
Raleigh’s chemistry experiments continued to turn up nothing, though we persisted in working with his blood.One night Raleigh found a way to keep its components separated long enough to experiment on, although it had a habit of re-forming if we left it alone too long.Still, no matter what we tried, it seemed the same things affected each component the same way.Every part of his blood boiled when it came into contact with silver and evaporated when I took it into the sun.And still he insisted on trying the same experiments again, then again.I had the suspicion that he didn’t know what to do next, or perhaps he simply liked doing it.
I wouldn’t have minded had he not insisted I be with him when he did.As much as I found myself looking forward to our evenings together, the lab was small, so I was forced to wedge in side by side with him, praying that he couldn’t detect how my heart raced humiliatingly every time he brushed my arm reaching for a new beaker.
‘You need to repeat an experiment several times to prove the result,’ he explained to me in patient tones when I finally spoke up, which was the same line he’d used for weeks.
‘And what is the result?’I asked.‘We haven’t learnt anything.’
‘I’m open to other ideas if you have them,’ he said testily.
‘I have ideas,’ I snapped, ‘but I can’t test them on blood.I need an actual vampire.’
Which was true.Ever since my trip to Triz I’d been pondering the contents of the bag Father Leon had given me.Inside was a wooden crucifix, which made me wonder if there was a difference between wood and silver, or if something else was at play.Raleigh had seemed only faintly averse to my homemade cross when I’d first tried to kill him, but he was utterly paralysed by the silver one Yann had wielded in Orlfen.Silver, I now knew, would hurt Raleigh on contact, but I wanted to know how much of his aversion to the cross was real and how much was reasonable caution.
I waited for Raleigh to turn me down, but instead his brow hooked in curiosity.‘Can I know what I’m agreeing to before I sign my body away to science?’
I hadn’t expected him to agree, and now I wasn’t sure what to do.‘I don’t think it would work if I told you,’ I admitted.
‘Good thing I trust you, then,’ Raleigh said without hesitation.The ease with which he spoke wormed into me, shattering another layer of my defences.‘Do you have everything you need here?’
I left him to clean up his useless blood trial while I ran upstairs to find the bag Father Leon had given me.I returned to the labwith the bag, filled only with a collection of crucifixes, including the one from Orlfen, and a scrap of fabric I’d cut from my curtain to serve as a blindfold.The curtain had regrown itself somewhat indignantly before I’d left the room, and I found myself apologising to the castle.
Raleigh had cleared a space in the lab by the time I returned.I told him to sit while I hefted the bag onto the table and removed the scrap of curtain.Raleigh immediately seemed to know what it was for.He blinked at it, then looked away quickly, colour dusting his cheeks.
‘I don’t know if I …’
‘It’s just a blindfold,’ I said dismissively.‘For this to work, I can’t have you seeing what I’m doing.’
‘This isn’t some sort of trick, is it?’he asked.
I raised my brows.‘What could I possibly gain from killing you at this stage?’
He stared at me for a moment, his expression inscrutable as he studied mine, then sighed and obediently donned the blindfold.It made him look strangely vulnerable – smaller somehow.
I tore my eyes away.I wasn’t here to stare at him, even if the idea was irritatingly appealing.There was an experiment to do.
I withdrew the wooden cross and waved it at him.Raleigh didn’t so much as flinch.Interesting.I placed it on the table and brought out a rosary, which had been threaded with a silver crucifix at the end.Again, there was no response from Raleigh, even when I dangled the cross right before his blinded eyes.So his aversion to the cross had to come from its perception.
Finally, I removed the crucifix from Orlfen.At first he still gave no response, but when I pushed it towards him along the table Raleigh hissed in a breath, teeth extending viciously.‘What is that?’
‘Tell me what you feel.’
His lips trembled as he sounded out the right word.‘Terror,’ he said at last.
