I didn’t want their sympathy. I wanted their help. “Is there anything you can do? Magic of some kind? Lovena, you gave me the talisman—will it protect me in the castle?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said, shaking a viscous substance in a small bottle. “Not when harm is looking you in the face.”
I looked at the brothers. “Is there nothing you can do?”
“Everything we know about the castle, we have shared,” Mihai said. “There is little written about it. No paintings, no books. That note is the most we’ve heard of it in years.”
“Under the Black Church,” his brother murmured. “That is amazing. Very smart of them. Very smart indeed.”
“There is the old folklore... the children’s tale about the temple inside. Remember the rare book we sold?”
Mihai nodded quickly. “Yes, that’s right. Local stories spoke of a temple deep inside Barlog, one that was there long before the castle was built. Parents would tell their children who didn’t behave, the dragon in the mountain would carry them away to its den inside the castle, to the ancient temple where it slept. But these were medieval stories. People also said the Pied Piper would lure children away with a magic flute.”
They were right: that didn’t help.
“We will try to research it,” Petar assured me. “Maybe there is something we’ve missed. It’s best to consider everything before rushing in.”
They looked at me like a pair of frightened rabbits, adjusting their glasses and occasionally glancing toward the window, and it struck me that this is what they were: timid creatures, hiding behind magical wards, staying out of sight. But I didn’t have that luxury. I had too much to lose. My entire broken family. My tribe. Everyone I loved.
Huck moved his head and moaned.
“Huck!” I said. “Can you hear me? Huck?”
Crouching over him, I tried to wake him, but he was in a daze. Like a man who’d overindulged in drink, in and out of consciousness.
At least he was alive.
I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to “hear” him. The cicada noise I’d heard outside was gone. Was that a good thing? Was the magic that had puppeted him now spent? Or maybe I was too panicked to hear anymore. I ran my finger over the white scar on his cheek, feeling as if I were standing alone on a beach, letting waves of jumbled emotions surge and retreat.
“Go sit down,” Lovena encouraged. “I will nurse the boy, and the twins will figure out what to do about the castle. Be patient.”
Anger rose inside me. They were treating me as if I were a feeble and stupid child, as if my father had all the time in the world. Were we all not staring at Huck’s listless, poisoned body? What state was my father in right now? Had I spent the last week running around Romania with dead bodies piling up, merely to sit back now and hope for the best while absolving myself with anot my problemattitude?
No, I had not.
Frustrated and anxious, I paced around the dusty shop while the twins argued and Lovena bent over her work, mixing her remedy. I had to trust that she could heal Huck. It was out of my control now. But my father wasn’t, and I couldn’t afford a wait-and-see approach with him, which was more than likely wait-and-dead.
If my mother were here, what would she do? Wait by Huck’s side, praying?
My mother never waited for anything. And she wouldn’t hesitate to go after Father, no matter the risk.
And Huck, what would he do if our places were reversed? Would he stay with me or go after Father? I know I’d want him to go. So I had to assume he’d want the same.
Family first.
No one was paying attention to me. Keeping quiet, I dug around my satchel and put Father’s journal inside my coat and the iron ring box in my pocket. The door was only a few steps away. I unlocked it and reached up to silence the shop bell. Then I gave one last look at Huck and slipped out of the shop.
JOURNAL OF RICHARD FOX
July 27, 1937
Cape Sounion—Athens, Greece
On day six of our lazy tour of the beautiful Apollo Coast, Jean-Bernard and I docked his yacht at a stunning spot that overlooks the Temple of Poseidon. I could stay here for months and never tire of the blue water. Alas, I was forced to take a break from sunbathing and drove back into the city to meet with my old friend Constantine. He’d been doing a little sleuthing for me as a favor, and what he’d found was surprising.
Seems our dear friend Mr. Rothwild has a past he’s been trying to keep buried. In 1929, he was going by his father’s surname: Bartok. With the help of some wealthy friends, he raised enough money to fund a political run for a seat in the Hungarian parliament.
The reason Rothwild’s political career never took off was because during a 1930 fundraising trip to Romania, the twenty-year-old son of a wealthy Romanian businessman suffered a fatal head wound during an argument with Rothwild that turned violent. The incident occurred at the home of one Natasha Anca. The photograph I saw in the widow’s house makes more sense now. There were rumors that she tried to cover for Rothwild.
