“Wolves. Witches. Magic spells on banknotes. What’s a few supernatural heartbeats?” he said, shrugging comically. “If a vampire in a cape jumped out of the alley, I would not be surprised at this point.”
There were plenty of costumed vampires in capes shuffling in the crowd with all the historical Vlads, so that wasn’t a stretch.
I turned everything over in my mind and looked back at the mustard-colored house. “You know, maybe we don’t need David to set up a meeting with the baroness. He mentioned she was giving a speech at a clock tower. Maybe we can just catch her there. Do you still have the map of the town?”
“Don’t think we need one. Going to take a wild guess that it’s the big medieval tower with the clock at the top, there,” Huck said, nodding his head down the short lane, where people were gathering in front of a small stage.
That would be it. “Perfect,” I said. “Let’s go see if we can find this baroness.”
“How will we know who she is?” Huck said.
“We’ll figure that out when we get there.” Better than standing around in the snow.
We shuffled down the lane with several other people, ending up at the back of the crowd loitering in front of the empty stage. It was set up near the base of the clock tower, a stone building with needlelike spires that stabbed into the snowy night sky. A clock face adorned the top alongside a set of painted medieval figures that waited for the hour to strike and propel them into rotation. Glancing around, I was pretty certain it was the tallest structure in the fortress, and the only one that looked truly foreboding as it loomed over the cheery fairy-tale lanes.
And I wasn’t the only one looking up. Everyone’s attention was focused on the clock tower’s observation gallery: a covered balcony that banded around all four sides. Several hundred years ago, the city guard probably patrolled that balcony, keeping a watch for foreign invaders.
Something moved up there. On a balustrade with large, open arches, a lone figure leaned into the tower’s spotlights. A woman. Long, silver hair billowed in the snow-flecked wind. Her clothes were torn and bloody.
The watching crowd let out a collective gasp. Someone shouted out, “Baroneasa! ”
Baroness.
“Lovena’s sister,” I told Huck. What was she doing up there? A palpable, contagious panic rolled through the crowd.
With an anguished sob, the baroness climbed onto the snow-dusted handrail, as if a gun was pointed at her back, but I couldn’t see anyone else up there. What was she doing? She moved as if controlled by invisible puppet strings. As if her body wasn’t her own. She flailed wildly—
And tumbled over the side of the clock tower.
A rag doll falling through the snow. Down, down...
Until her body crashed through the stage.
The crowd surged backward. For a moment chaos and mayhem ruled. Screaming. Shouting. At the base of the clock tower, dark figures rushed toward the broken stage.
Was she dead? Could anyone survive a fall like that?
In shock, I stood frozen, gaping at the clock tower, unable to process the violence I’d just witnessed. It felt surreal, like a nightmare from which I’d awake. Huck’s firm hand gripped my arm and pulled me to the side to make room for someone who was trying to get their children away from the horrible scene.
“Was it her?” Huck shouted near my ear to be heard over the crowd. “It was the baroness? Lovena’s sister?”
It had to have been. Even now I heard her family name, “Kardos,” spoken in the buzzing chatter around us:A shocking tragedy. Why would she do such a thing?And then:Her poor family.
David.
His slender figure raced past us, pushing through the rubbernecking crowd with one of the guards who’d escorted us outside. A few others followed. There was more shouting and chaos. Uniformed police. Someone said she wasn’t dead.
“Did you see her clothes?” Huck said, dark brows knitted into a slash above his eyes, forehead marred with worry lines. “She was covered in blood before she jumped.”
My mind revived the ghastly scene, and a shiver raced down my back. I’d never seen anything like that before. The horror of it burrowed under my skin and made me feel shaky and unsafe.
And that’s when everything fit together in my head.
“She didn’t jump,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t do it of her own accord. She was pushed. Or coerced... like a puppet. She was trying to get away from something. Didn’t you see her face? She was in agony.”
