Head reeling, I raced up the stairs, snatched up Huck’s rucksack, and sailed back down, bumping into the waitress while I took the stairs two at a time.
“I hope everything is okay,” she called out to my back.
No. No, it was not okay at all.
Sarkany’s goons had taken Huck.
22
THE TAVERN OWNER OFFERED TOfetch the police when I asked him if he’d seen the men taking Huck. He hadn’t. And I declined his offer. My father would say not to get them involved, and really, what could they do? In the time it would take to summon someone, I could be at the twins’ shop. Because that was exactly where I was going.
They knew magic. They could help. Theyhadto. Or I would burn down this entire town to find Huck.
Racing out of the tavern’s back door, I found nothing but garbage cans and slush. No sign of any people whatsoever. I pulled my beret down, shivering as I hurried around to the front of the building, past wrought iron streetlamps haloed in fog and into the town square. No sign of them here, either.
The Zissu brothers’ shop wasn’t far, and I remembered the way, past the glowering Black Church. I inhaled brisk night air, head bright and empty, chest constricted as I scanned the town square, looking for anyone who remotely resembled robed cultists or Huck. I tried asking a lone elderly man if he’d seen any “priests” passing by, but he only turned in the opposite direction, unwilling to even acknowledge me. A pair of lovers embraced by the fountain as I passed, which only made me angry. That might have been Huck and me if he hadn’t gone and gotten himself kidnapped, or whatever he’d gone and gotten himself.
Stupid boy.Myboy. My responsibility to find him.
Clouds of white breath trailed behind me as I headed around the Black Church and made my way down the smaller street to the twins’ shop. It struck me that if Sarkany’s robed goons had taken Huck, then Sarkany might be nearby. Would he trail me? But why take Huck? Why not take me, too? Wasn’t I the one with Vlad’s blood in my veins? Wasn’t it my father who’d taken this damned job? Why not me?
I juggled Huck’s rucksack onto my shoulder and reached into my coat pocket. My fingers grasped Lovena’s wooden talisman.
To keep me safe, she said.
Me. Not Huck.
I had it in my possession. I left him upstairs in the tavern. Lovena told me to sleep with it under my pillow. To keep it close.
She failed to tell me to keep Huck close as well.
No one seemed to be following me—no Sarkany or the wolf. Nobody at all. But I kept my eyes on the shadows just in case, and I ran as fast I could, down the darkstrada, legs and arms aching, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I ran until I spied the old coffeehouse, and there! Warm light behind the window of the antiques shop.
I prayed they were still inside.
In a billow of white breath, I came to clumsy stop in front of the shop. The door was locked, and a hanging sign was turned to sayÎnchis—Closed—so I pounded on the door. I spied a silhouette passing by the window, and then the door swung open, and I found myself staring at an unexpected sight.
“Hello, little empress,” a rough female voice said around a puff of cigarillo smoke that rose up in tendrils around a red head kerchief.
“Lovena?”
“Yes, my girl. Don’t look so surprised. What is this? Did you get into a fistfight?” Quick fingers lifted my chin to inspect my black eye in the light spilling out from the shop.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, stunned. “How...?”
“How did I get here?” Her eyes crinkled as a dark smile lifted her lips. “I am a crow witch, little empress. I flew here alongside my winged familiars.”
I blinked at her, mouth open, until she laughed huskily. “I was an hour from here, at a friend’s house in Rupea. You think just because I live in the woods, I don’t have an automobile? I am not a heathen.”
“But...”
She made a dismissive gesture. “The brothers sent me a message that you were here, and I just arrived. We’ve been communicating since you visited me. I was in Sighi?oara earlier today. My nephew said you spoke to him before my sister’s incident.”
“The baroness,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry, Lovena. Is she—”
“Alive? Yes.”
“She didn’t jump,” I said.
