The next afternoon Merle thinks of the one place where some more of the truth might lie. She didn't finish reading the file she brought from Cobalt. Perhaps it's still in the library.
In fact, the file turns out to be still open on the table where she left it. She picks up the next set of papers. More minutes. Every detail documented in the same dry emotionless style as before. Every devastating fact simply recorded without comment.
After Darius's army was killed and Darius himself handed over to the Black Emerald Clan, Cobalt asked what they should do with Magdalena. Initially, the stone-hearted documents say, Cobalt had though that Magdalena would have to be killed. The knowledge she had of Darius Cole was too dangerous for her to be allowed to live. But then the Black Emerald Clan leader Lord Oberon came to visit Cobalt.
Oberon? Merle checks the papers she's already read. Is this the first time Oberon has been mentioned by name. Further back, amongst the early documents she finds a reference to the Lord of the Black Emerald Clan as the main contact point between Cobalt and the vampires. So Oberon really was Darius's jailer, too.
'And you know just how he likes to treat his prisoners,' says a soft voice behind her.
She turns to see Darius standing in the open doorway. 'Did you ...? Did you see into my head just then?'
'I can see a lot of what's in your head, Merle.'
'Did you kill the rest of the Black Emerald Clan?'
He nods.
'Why not Oberon?'
'Same reason he didn't kill me. Too good for him.'
'Why didn't you kill Kristina?'
He smiles again, this time more warmly and with a shrug. 'Nothing so sinister there, I just like Kristina. She didn't deserve to die either – but in the opposite way. Besides I needed someone for, well, you know. Blood Rites. And the idea of it just being me and Oberon.' He shudders. It's almost comic.
Merle wonders for a moment. 'Not because she's really Magdalena? Did you somehow turn Magdalena into a vampire and now she's Kristina?'
'Read the paper you're holding, Merle.'
Lord Oberon told Cobalt about the exact nature of Darius's punishment. How he was sentenced to live. According to him, if Magdalena was killed there was a chance her soul would find it's way into another human being. That Darius might one day track her down. That fact would give him hope. He wasn't, Oberon explained, to have any hope of future happiness. The only thing he ought to hope for was death. A death he would never be granted.
As she sets the paper down, tears are pricking at her eyes. 'What did they do to her then?'
Darius just points at the rest of the papers on the table.
Long laborious paragraphs tell her in detail how witches were brought in. Oberon paid them a staggering amount of money for a very complex piece of magic. She struggles to comprehend what she's reading. It seems that Magdalena was killed. Shot by a Cobalt operative. But her soul wasn't allowed to be released into the ether. It was magically stored in a specially constructed glass prism.
Merle lets the paper fall from her fingers and turns to Darius. 'That's just, just weird. She's in a prism? So where is this prism now? Do you know? Are you trying to find it? Can you just break it and then wait for her soul to be reborn in someone else?' As she says these words Merle feels something cold prickling in her heart. There's something else. Something.
'I know where her soul is now. I have managed to acquire its new receptacle.'
'Its new receptacle? What happened to the prism?'
'Storing a soul outside of a body is incredibly and continuously complex. And you know how vampires are about spending money. And about witches. They needed to find another way. The financial strain of keeping Magdalena's soul out of my reach meant they were thinking of shutting down Cobalt to save money. It was only ever meant as a snare for me. But when Cobalt found out about this they countered with a new proposal. The suggestion was that they should put Magdalena's soul inside another human being.'
'But Oberon said they couldn't do that. That then you would have hope of finding her.'
'Cobalt had a unique and devastating idea. Deliberately place the soul into an infant who would be brought up fearful and wary of vampires and, above all, fearful and wary of me. Put her soul in a place where I would never be able to reach it. In a place where, even if I escaped, even if I could stand before her, she would never accept me.'
Merle is holding on to the table's edge. She squeezes a little tighter, looking away from Darius at the swirling patterns on the carpet.
'Say it, Merle,' Darius whispers. 'I know you know. Tell me what they did?'
'Me.' She feels like the word claws itself out of her mouth. "They put it in me. The baby of Charles and Erin Cobalt. Your conquerors. The world's most famous vampire hunters.' She looks up and bites her bottom lip. Darius is staring at her. He doesn't speak. She swallows. 'Darius, I have to go to them. My parents. I need to speak to them about this. If I go now will you still let me have the antidote for my father?'
Darius crosses the room to her then, so fast she can't really remember him moving. 'Don't go.' His hands are tight on her upper arms. 'I want to be with you now. It's too soon. You're too vulnerable. They'll try and confuse you.'
She struggles and tries to pull away from his grasp but can't break his grip. He's so strong. Far stronger than Oberon. 'Darius, I have to.'
Darius grips her tighter, stilling her struggles completely. He looks into her eyes. 'Merle, you must not. You will not go now. You will go to your room and rest. Perhaps you will be ready to go in the morning. You must take this slowly.'
Darius's eyes look pure black. Not a hint of warm brown. His grip is painful 'OK,' she says finally, feeling nothing but relief at giving in to him, 'OK. But I will go first thing tomorrow morning.'
'We'll see.'