He tore off his mask. It cracked as it hit the ground. Sam took the stairs as quickly as her feet would carry her, not daring to look back at the sounds of M. Voland chasing behind her, his long strides eating up the distance between them.
Sam burst into Mr. Ashdown’s office and spun, putting all her body weight behind closing the painting, only for M. Voland to shove it open as if it were nothing, sending her stumbling back. He was on her before she could so much as draw breath to scream, forcing her against the wall, the picture frame digging into her back.
“This didn’t have to be so difficult,” he said. His hand closed on her wrists, so tight she gasped, and he yanked her arms high above her head and held them there, veins out.
But before he could do anything, an old woman’s voice sounded behind him. “M. Voland. You had better not be doing what it looks like you’re doing.”
It took Sam a moment to realize what it looked like. The painting had closed, leaving them looking not like a channel and a blood thief, but a man and a young woman. Alone. Unchaperoned. With him pressing her against the wall in Mr. Ashdown’s office. She flushed, for while none of this was her fault?—and no one could mistake their situation for consensual?—Sam’s was the reputation that might be ruined.
M. Voland jerked away from her. Sam gasped, tears springing into her eyes. Behind him stood an old woman in black brocade, her hands folded in front of her. Grey eyes gleamed in her sun-wizened face, her silver hair pulled back into a plait that wound around the back of her head like a crown.
“Or what?” M. Voland said, his voice nasal with blood. “I caught her spying in Mr. Ashdown’s office. I was going to let her go after. I was doing the ungrateful thing a favor.”
The old woman laughed. “Spying?” she said. Her accent, like most at Ashdown Manor, was English. “You don’t truly think she could have gotten into Mr. Ashdown’s office on her own, do you? Did you forget the locks? The secret passages?”
Sam was beginning to get concerned. What exactly had she done while given over to the song? More importantly, how?
“Well, I?—” For the first time, M. Voland looked doubtful.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman scoffed. “She’s one of Mr. Ashdown’s. I dare say she belongs in his chambers more than you.”
“Merde,”M. Voland cursed, turning on Sam. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
She should have, she realized, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. It would have been the perfect excuse. In her fury, she’d forgotten the first rule of getting away from men: belong to another man. Sam used to know that. It was as if with Hel, she’d forgotten how to be afraid.
“Indeed.Merde,” the old woman cut in before Sam could answer, and she smiled, sharp as the crescent moon. “Now Imightbe able to convince her not to tell anyone...”
A few minutes later, after the old woman and M. Voland had worked out an arrangement involving the loan of some spectacularly rare books?—during which Sam surreptitiously searched for an absent Heathcliff?—M. Voland left, leaving Sam alone with the old woman.
“Sorry about that, dear,” the old woman said with a grandmotherly smile. “I know you don’t belong to Mr. Ashdown, whatever reason you had to be in his office, Miss...?”
“Harker. Samantha Harker,” Sam said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Samantha. My name is Alice Grey,” the old woman said. She began leading the way out of Mr. Ashdown’s office and through the manor. With one last glance back, Sam followed. “Please, call me Alice. I’m too old to stand on ceremony.”
“What you saw, I wasn’t, I was just?—”
“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Alice said. “I used to run away too, back when I was pursued by young men. They’re always after the same thing, aren’t they?”
“I suppose so,” Sam said uncertainly, wondering how different her life would be if she had to worry more about the quality of men’s affections than their lust for her?—
“Blood,” Alice finished for them both.
Sam’s head snapped up, and she stopped walking. So this woman, too, was after her blood. She ought to have expected as much! How had she thought anyone would be safe in this cursed manor? “I’m not?—”
“It’s all right,” Alice assured her, holding her hands out as if Sam were a wild animal. She felt like an animal.
“Stay back,” Sam said, her voice panicked. She would be the one to determine if things were all right, thank you very much! The song nipped at her thoughts, offering a wayout out out?—out of the mansion, out of her body?—and, oh, she was tempted. This woman looked frail, but she had scared M. Voland, which meant Sam couldn’t underestimate her.
She tried to dart past Alice, but the old woman blocked her path. Sam swallowed a scream?—the last thing she needed was to draw the attention of more bloodthirsty Vespertine!?—and braced herself, but Alice didn’t touch her. She only pushed up her sleeves, revealing flesh crisscrossed with silvery scars, some knotted with age, some still red. She had a bandage on her left wrist, blood seeping through in the four lines of a fleam.
Alice smiled at her. “I’m a channel too.”
Oh.Sam had never met another channel before. This, then, was why she was so deep in the mansion?—even at Mr. Enfield’s remembrance, she’d been called upon to tithe blood.
“There, see?” Alice said, pushing her sleeves back down. “Friends?”
“How did you know?” Sam asked, for she had no scars, nor had M. Voland been wielding a fleam when she’d caught them. “That I’m a... a...”
