“I’m not thinking about him,” she said before pushing away from the table and exiting the conservation room. Rain hammered against the corridor windows, and the trees swayed in the gusty wind, smacking the glass with their leaves.
The best thing to do was to put Mr. Drake out of her mind by whatever means necessary.
With that settled, she focused on the more immediate concern of her exhibit. There were still several items that needed to be cleaned before the opening ceremony in the morning.
She approached the first table, which contained a gold ring with a deep-green stone sitting on a plush pillow. A placard perched in front of the ring read:
Discovered in the ruins of a Transylvanian castle in 1835, this bloodstone signet ring, which is said to darken on moonless nights, contains crimson inclusions in the jasper reminiscent of flecks of blood. The ring is mounted in gold, and the band is etched with Greek markings that warn any who wear it will suffer a terrible curse.
Do not touch the ring.
Its last owner was plagued with fever within a month of acquiring it and spoke of deep-red eyes watching him from the ceiling above his bed.
The story was a fiction of her own creation, intended to attract guests’ interest enough to keep them moving to the next table, which held paintings of known vampires. With luck, someone who visited the museum would recognize them andbe curious enough to share what they’d seen with others. Their gossip would spread like wildfire and force the demons out of hiding.
There was one other item on the table: a carved, ivory crucifix strung into a rosary with obsidian and ivory beads. Uncle Ethan had once told her it had originally been used to bind vampires into obeying hunters, but whatever power it had once possessed was long gone.
She moved on and picked up a mahogany cane accented with bands of gold and silver. The handle was bronze, shaped like a fox’s head. As she turned it around in her hands, she realized something that had been bothering her since the previous night. There had been an unusual bruise on the fledgling’s neck, oval and capped by uneven blemishes. As she tried to remember where she’d seen it before, the world tilted.
Felicity sprung out of the cupboard and ran sobbing to Mother’s side. She was so still, Felicity could almost pretend she was sleeping. The only sign that she’d been attacked was an odd, elongated bruise on her forehead.
That was it. Sweat dripped down Felicity’s back. The mark on the fledgling’s neck was the same one she’d seen on Mother’s skin, made by the hilt of the golden dog’s head dagger with a chipped ear.
It could have been a coincidence. There were many such canes in the museum, topped with bronze animal heads. But if she was right, the creature that had attacked her had been marked by the same vampire who had killed her parents.
She dropped the artifact and rushed home, hardly noticing the rain drenching her dress. All she could think about was that revenge was finally within her reach. In her haste, she nearly knocked over a young woman wearing a lacey white bonnet over her bright-red hair and a day dress the color of daffodils on the sidewalk outside her family’s townhouse. Felicity stammeredher apologies—the woman had been moving so quickly that their paths had crossed before Felicity had realized a collision had been imminent—but the woman ignored her. Felicity spared a moment to watch her race up the steps to the neighboring building before she continued inside the hunter base and then to the study. When she arrived, the doors were open, and her great-uncle was in his usual spot in a leather chair beside the fireplace, spectacles perched on his nose.
She hesitated in the hallway until he gently closed the book he’d been reading and set it on the table beside his chair. “You look rather piqued, Felicity.”
She dipped her head and stared at the scuffed toes of her boots and the soaking hem of her dress. “I have a report to make.”
The leather of the chair creaked as he stood, but she did not look up. Showing deference was the best way to avoid being punished for what she was about to reveal. It didn’t matter if he was furious, as long as he believed her.
“What have you done?” he asked, in a voice that was so soft that it sent shivers down her spine.
If he was already in such a terrible mood, she couldn’t tell him the entire truth. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and laid out a story that was less likely to send him into a rage. “I was, ah, walking home last night when a fledgling attacked me. There was no maker in sight. I managed to kill it, then found a bruise on its neck. It was the same mark I saw on my parents the night they were killed.”
“I see,” the old man said.
The room fell silent, aside from the crackle of the fireplace.
“Explain to me,” he said, spitting the words through gritted teeth. “Why you continue to be the most disobedient member of this family?”
A dozen excuses cluttered her mind. Before any could make it out of her mouth, he drew back his arm and slapped her so hard that she was flung to the ground.
She clutched her cheek and struggled to her feet. “G-Great-Uncle, please! The vampire who killed my parents is in the city. We have to find it and avenge their deaths.”
He crossed his arms. “You’re a scribe, Felicity. It’s your responsibility to record our history. You lost the privilege of being a hunter when you failed to kill the Earl of Kingsbury.”
Her cheeks burned, more from the scolding than from the impact of his palm hitting her skin. “Will you at least investigate?”
He sighed. “Yes. I will grant you that much. However”—his jaw worked—“do not test me again. I allow you to remain in this house out of respect for your parents, but if you disgrace this family, I will be forced to take drastic measures.”
With that vague threat, he left her rubbing her sore cheek and wondering if she’d made a mistake. She had no intention of stopping her search, but if he was willing to slap her for defending herself, what would he do if he found out she had been borrowing weapons and sneaking out of the house in her brother’s old clothes?
Being locked in her room would be the least she could expect. With the influence he held over her cousins, all he had to do was order them to say that she’d taken leave of her senses and have her carted off to the madhouse.
But as usual, Great-Uncle Ezra underestimated her. As scribe, she had long ago memorized the patrol routes. She could easily explore without running into them by mistake. Her problem was of a much more mundane and shameful nature—she was scared. If not for Mr. Drake’s interference, she would have perished on the cobblestones of Whitechapel.
