This is when the snooping gets good.
King Nikolai’s book collection is... not what I expected. Philosophy. History. A collection of poetry with a cracked spine and a page marked with what looks like a well-used bookmark. The King of Krovenia reads human poetry and dog-ears pages like a college student? I was bracing myself for, I don’t know, military strategy guides and torture manuals. Not Shakespeare and Longfellow.
I pull out a distinctive, leather-bound volume and flip through it carefully. It’s in Krovenian, which I can’t read, but the illustrations are beautifully hand-painted. This single book is probably worth more than every possession I own combined. Not that I own much right now. Just a suitcase, laptop, and roughly fifty-seven thousand dollars in student loan debt from a private liberal arts college. And so far, my expensive degree isn’t helping much to pay back that debt.
I shelve the book and keep dusting.
Three months ago I began backpacking through Europe with my best friend Jenna. We’d both graduated and thought now was the time to do some traveling before tying ourselves down in advanced degree programs. We scraped together all our money, which wasn’t much, and left for Europe. The plan was hostels, cheap wine, and all that Eat Pray Love stuff but on a dollar-store budget.
It was all going great until Jenna met a hot Italian guy named Marco. She was supposed to be gone for “one night” and that was five weeks ago. Last I heard she’s living in his apartment in Trastevere and learning to make fresh pasta with his Grandmother.
Good for her. Truly. I’m not bitter.
Well, maybe a little bitter. This extended European trip only worked if I had a partner to help pay for costs. Right after Jenna Venmo’d me her half of the next hostel booking with a string of heart emojis and an “I’M SO SORRY” in all caps, my brother got a hold of me, again. I love him, but lately his mind is filled with muddled strings of conspiracy theories.
That was the exact same moment I saw this job listing.Krovenia Royal Household: Seeking temporary staff for castle maintenance. Work-visa program. Competitive pay. Room and board included.
I applied on a whim from an internet café in Prague, half-drunk on cheap beer. My resume — English degree, three years of barista experience, two summers of office temp work, and a brief stint as a library assistant — was laughably unqualified but somehow I got an interview. Apparently the household manager liked that I was “an articulate and well-read human.”
I was excited to get the job.Luckyto get this job. I’ve always wanted to see the inside of real vampire castle, but few humans are allowed.
Most vampires live in Krovenia, a tiny European country, but there are small Krovenian territories on other continents too. I’ve learned everything I can about their society, history and culture. As a teenager, I had a poster of a dangerously handsome Prince Nikolai on my wall — one of those formal royal portraits where he wears all black and stares into the camera with a dangerous smirk.
My older brother Derek mocked me relentlessly at every family holiday. “Still in love with your vampire boyfriend?” he’d ask, making kissy faces.
I’d throw things at him and insist it was academic interest, not a crush. I was lying, of course. It was absolutely a crush.
And now I’m inside an actual vampire castle, cleaning that same prince’s bedroom — he’s a king now — and my fourteen-year-old self is losing her absolute mind.
I stop dusting and pull out my phone. Derek’s last text from this morning glows on the screen:Any updates yet? Don’t get comfortable. Remember why you’re there.
I roll my eyes. My stupid, sweet, spiraling brother.
Derek is twenty-eight, an electrician with a solid job and his own apartment. He was always the stable and practical one who went straight into a trade while I racked up debt chasing a degree. I looked up to him my entire life.
Then six months ago, his fiancé, Sara, left him for a vampire.
Derek didn’t take it well.
At first it was just sad, normal heartbreak stuff, but then he found online forums and group chats, the dark corners of the internet where humans who feel wronged by vampires gather and feed each other’s worst theories. Derek heard what he wanted to hear, that Sara didn’t fall in love with a Krovenian and choose to leave him, no, she was glamoured and mind-controlled by a vampire. His fiancé didn’t leave him, she was taken.
Ugh.
Now my brother believes that Krovenians basically kidnap humans for their own pleasures and their King is the worst perpetrator of these atrocities. Of course this is total bullshit. There is zero kidnapping by vampires. And there’s no scientific evidence that vampires can glamour anyone, but Derek doesn’t want science. He wants someone to blame.
I stare at his text.Remember why you’re there.
He wants me to gather intel and find proof that the vampires are hiding something sinister. This obviously makes me uncomfortable. I instead took this job because I really, really need to find a way to pull my brother out of this dangerous conspiracy world he’s entered.
Plus, working here is no hardship.
I type back:Still settling in. Nothing suspicious yet.And then I put my phone away because the truth is, “nothing suspicious” is starting to feel like the understatement of the century.
The fundamental problem with Derek’s spy mission is that this place is nice.
Not “nice” like they’ve got good PR. Nice like genuinely good. Mrs. Vasek teared up yesterday when she was telling me about the King’s scholarship program for staff children. The cook has received three raises in the last five years without asking. The groundskeeper’s son just started at a university and the King is personally funding his attendance. I’m only a temporary employee and already the medical benefits are better than anything I’ve ever had in my life.
Everyone I’ve met talks about King Nikolai with genuine reverence. He remembers their names. Asks about their families. Personally intervened when a staff member’s mother was ill.
