Constance spent the ride trying to master her fear so she could influence the supernaturals. But every attempt left her more exhausted than before.
They stopped several times for fresh horses, and each time Baines pulled out his knife and looked at Simon meaningfully. At one such stop, the supernaturals left. She couldn't say how she knew exactly, she just did.
They traveled this way for two days. The coach shaking her to her bones as the horses pulled it at a gallop.
She slept fitfully, Simon beside her. When he was awake, he snapped his watch open and closed without stopping, Constance afraid that it would push Baines over the edge.
It was dark when the coach finally rolled to a stop, gravel crunching under the wheels.
"We're here," Baines said, rousing Constance from the half sleep she'd been in.
"Simon," she whispered. "We're here."
"Where is here?" He asked carefully.
Baines was holding the door. Constance went first so that she could check for what exactly she wasn't sure.
A castle loomed up before them, the moon full and bright overhead.
"Greyfield, keep," Baines said with cold pride.
It wasn't Bunsall, alive with wealth, surrounded by neat gardens. Instead, it was a fortress, cold and grey, sitting on top of a hill, the sound of the ocean cold and hungry behind it. Baines led the way to a towering door, the human footman who had joined them at some point, shadowing them from behind.
She considered grabbing Simon and running, but she didn't know the wilderness surrounding the castle, or the cliffs it was built against. Far away, she heard a wolf howl. Simon stepped closer.
Like the mouth of a terrible beast, the door screamed open on ancient hinges. A musty smell assaulted her nose and a bent butler stood there, the light from his candle throwing shadows on the stone walls.
"Is everything ready?" Baines asked, ushering them inside.
"Yes, sir," the old man said with a grim smile. "We've arranged it as you requested. The others are waiting."
"Good," he said, the door clanging shut behind them.
The footman and the butler struggled to place a huge wooden beam across the door. Constance's heart battered her chest.
"Come," Baines said.
"Sir," Constance said, trying to keep her voice steady. "We've been on the road for days. We're tired and hungry. Might we have some food and rest?" She didn't want to ask him for anything. What she wanted to do was spit in his eye, but Simon looked weak and she couldn't afford to be anything but humble with him in tow.
"You may rest after." He began walking, his footfalls echoing down the corridor.
"After what?" She asked, following reluctantly Simon beside her.
He led them to the end of the hall. The butler produced an ancient key, which Baines inserted with precision, the lock screeching open. He waited for the butler to pull the door open, revealing a narrow staircase descending into the gloom. Dread sluiced down her back and her hands shook. She stood at the opening, afraid to move. There was something down there, something old and hungry, and she could feel it searching for her.
"This is the only way," he said when he noticed she wasn't following.
Her feet wouldn't budge.
The footman pushed past her, grabbing Simon.
"Don't touch him," she growled, lunging after them, the footman half carrying, half pushing her brother down the stairs in front of her.
The men kept moving without bothering to respond. She forced her feet forward, the sound of the door closing behind her like the jaws of a monster snapping shut.
They went down and down, the smell of stale air and mildew growing stronger, the walls flickering from candles ensconced in the wall. She could hear a low thrum coming from Simon in front of her and her blood boiled at the stranger's hands latched on to his arm.
She tried to calm herself and think. They were in Baines's home, if one could consider it a home, but she didn't know why. Was he going to try to kill her again? They wouldn't need Simon for that, would they? Her teeth chattered as her heart beat furiously and her feet carried her down, down, down.
It was a full moon, and she had the worst feeling that Hugh was waiting for her at the bottom. That Baines would toss her and Simon to him and she wouldn't be able to save them. She was tired, scared and hungry and she was fairly certain she wouldn't be able to influence anyone supernatural, let alone Hugh's powerful wolf form on a full moon.
The stairs stopped at an ancient stone arch, revealing a circular walkway with stone pillars reaching up into the gloom. Off the inside of the circle was a large drop to a stone floor, covered in dark stains. The entire place felt like a sinister amphitheater hidden underground, older than any of the ruins in Rome. Halfway around the circle, a stone platform jutted into the space. It was toward this that Baines led them.
"What is—" but Constance's question stuck in her throat.
Edward and Mary were waiting at the platform. They nodded to Baines, but neither looked her in the eye. Constance noticed then, other figures standing on the perimeter of the walkway, their faces hooded by bishop robes and shadow. She searched the arena below them. Hugh was nowhere to be seen.
Baines nodded to the footman. The man dangled Simon over the edge, Simon's legs kicking empty air. Constance grabbed for her brother, catching the edge of his wrinkled shirt, but Baines latched onto her arm and pulled her back.
"Put him down!"
"Constance!" Simon called, his face white.
"Stop!" she screamed.
The footman leaned down as far as he could and dropped Simon the last couple of feet. Her brother landed with a thud. Constance swung at Baines with her free arm. He let go of her, barely moving out of the way of her fist in time. She dove for the edge, someone hauling her back before she could plunge over the side.
"Don't be a fool," Baines hissed as the footman pulled her back. "You could shatter your ankle from a drop this high."
She fought anyway, landing a blow to the footman's shin with her slippered foot. His arms squeezed around her tighter, pulling her off her feet.
Simon had gotten to his feet and was hugging the wall, looking around the arena, his chest moving erratically.
"You will calm yourself, Miss Allen," Baines said, facing her.
She forced herself to stop struggling. He nodded to the footman, who set her back down.
"Please let him out," Constance said, her voice shaking. She pulled away from the footman's grip and made herself look Baines in the eye. "Please."
"We will retrieve him soon enough," Baines said, smoothing out his hair. "But first you will face the rite."
"I don't know what that is." Except she thought she might. Emile had told her about an ancient ritual.
"They held your mother's ceremony here, too. It was too dangerous to do it in England, even in those days."
Constance's heart beat out an uneven rhythm.
"Constance?" Simon said, sounding too far away.
"It's going to be alright," she answered breathlessly.
Baines reached out and touched her cheek tenderly, the way she'd seen him touch Mary. She forced herself to hold still. Simon was still in the pit, and she would do whatever it took to get him out.
"Your mother was incredible," he continued. "I'd seen nothing like her. She took the monster out in less than five minutes. Nearly pulled its head from its body."
Constance's mouth was dry. Emile had said they had sacrificed her people in some kind of coming of age test.
"We were supposed to wed your mother and I." His voice went cold. "Learn from her, Constance. She ignored her duty and look where it got her." His hand was still on her face. Her skin crawled. "I know you won't be so foolish."
"I can't—I'm not strong like she is," she managed her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.
"I know," he said. "If you had been, I don't think the monsters I hired to get you here would have been successful. But you withstood a night with a werewolf unscathed. I have an inkling of how, after tonight, I'll know for sure." He finally moved his hand. "That's why we're going ahead with the rite, even though you're fully a woman who's already been exposed to monsters."
He held his hand up and there was a scraping sound as a small portcullis lifted on the other end of the pit. It had blended so seamlessly, hidden in shadow, she hadn't noticed it before.
"What's happening?" she said, her eyes on her brother.
A young man stumbled into the pit. His face was sunken, his skin a sickly yellow. He shielded his eyes from the dim torchlight.
He shrank away from the hisses raining down on him from the robed figures.
It took her a moment to realize it wasn't her own fear snaking along the ground of the arena, the color a match to the poor man's sallow skin. He was afraid. They had left him in the dark for a long time. He was forgetting who he was. His fear drifted across the floor like a dirty yellow fog.
Her heart lurched. What did Baines think this poor creature was going to do? Anyone with half a brain could tell he was sick and weak.
The man's eyes landed on Simon and his fear changed to something so strong it stabbed into Constance, pushing her back a step.
He. Was. Ravenous.
The yellow coalesced into one strong sickly air current. He'd been without nourishment for such a long time. He'd assumed he was going to starve to death alone in the dark. But there was fresh blood just feet away. He took a lurching step toward her brother.
"Please don't do this," Constance said, her stomach clenching. She turned to her cousins. "Please, he's just a child. Put me in there instead."
Mary looked pained.
"You have all the tools you need to save him yourself," Baines said.
"No, you're wrong," she said, blood rushing through her head. "I can't—please let him out."
The man was still lurching toward her brother. The murmurs from the crowd were growing stronger. He looked up at them and hissed back, his fangs lengthening like Emile's had when Constance's anger had gotten the better of her.
"Be quick Miss Allen. Now that we've unleashed his true nature, he won't be able to control himself."
The vampire ran at her brother, his pace supernaturally fast even in his half-starved state.
No! It was all she could think. It didn't slow him down.
Yellow misted up toward them. She closed her eyes and tried to feel no.
The pounding of his feet stopped. He shook his head, confused, then began pacing in an arc around Simon, who looked so small and afraid Constance thought he'd make a poor meal.
She reached her fingers into the mist. Please, we're captives too. Helpless, scared, hungry, she tried to feel what those words meant.
He looked up at her, his eyes large, pupils fully dilated. It was tenuous. She could feel his emotions; hunger and fear intertwining filling the arena. And another thread, small and fraying. He didn't want to hurt Simon, and that had been the door to her desperation. But she didn't know how to put her thoughts into feelings, and it would not be strong enough to keep his hunger at bay for very long.
She took a deep breath but kept her eyes open. He deserved to see that she saw him. Not a monster, but a soul. Then she let her fatigue bubble up to the surface, let it radiate down her limbs across the platform and into the pit, transforming the mist from sickly yellow to a sleepy cranberry.
"You're tired too," she whispered because it helped ground her in the emotion. She recalled what it felt like to fall asleep with a full belly. "You're not hungry."
He blinked at her, long slow blinks.
"You're tired. So tired." She remembered what it was like to fall into bed with a million more things left to do. The constant grind.
The young man swayed a little.
She kept her eyes locked with his. Constance wanted him to see that despite the people surrounding him; she meant him no harm. Then She let herself feel bone weary. Weary from being abducted and carted across the country. Tired from pretending she didn't hope for Hugh's love, that she didn't feel something for him herself. She let herself feel every kind of tired she'd ever experienced. She imagined it seeping out of her fingertips and snaking across the arena toward him like a heavy London fog.
The vampire blinked slowly, and then he sank down onto the ground. It wasn't as hard as it might have been if he'd been fresh. If he hadn't endured endless time alone, nothing but his ancient thoughts for company.
It's alright, she thought. Rest now.
He closed his eyes, his chest rose and fell rhythmically.
"What did you do?" Baines whispered.
Constance was sure she shouldn't speak lest it break the spell she'd managed to weave over this poor soul.
"Once you tell me exactly what you did, we will retrieve Simon."
Constance swallowed. She was feeling the strain of projecting her emotions while filtering out the vampire's hunger and fear.
"Miss Allen?"
"It's not words." A throb pulsed behind her left eye. "It's feelings. I can feel what he's feeling and I can make him feel what I'm feeling. I don't really understand it."
Baines nodded to Edward.
He moved up beside her. "Excellent work Cousin."
He jumped up onto the wall, grabbed the ledge, and dropped into the pit. Constance could finally breathe. He was going to get her brother.
"The vampire," she whispered, glancing at Baines. "He's scared, and he's hungry. He didn't want to hurt Simon."
"But he would have."
"Only because he was starving."
"Only because we unearthed his true nature."
The sound of metal drew her attention back to the arena. Edward had drawn a sword. He swung it up over his head and brought it down so fast Constance's brain couldn't make sense of what was happening. She didn't even have time to cry out, but her shock jolted the vampire awake. And then the blade hit the vampire's neck and his head rolled toward the center of the pit, his eyes wide with fear.
There was cheering, scattered applause, but all Constance could hear was Simon screaming. She stood, numb, staring at the head severed from its body, black viscous blood pooling around it. Simon kept screaming and then she was falling backward through the darkness.