For two days, the snowfall didn’t cease. It blanketed Saint George’s monastery in a shroud of white, leaving the party from Mara Vardac stranded within the high walls.
Father Cernat cared for Nathaniel himself, setting the broken bone and brewing poultices from the herbs in the infirmary to dull the pain and stave off infection. But they both knew his skills were not enough.
“Lord Cumberland needs a hospital,” the priest whispered to Vivienne, who kept a vigil at his bedside. “He’s strong, but….” The look in his eyes made her afraid.
She made sure the fire stayed lit and replaced Nathaniel’s blankets when he pushed them to the floor, burning with fever. When she did find snatches of sleep, she suffered from nightmares, though she never remembered them — only woke with a scream trapped in her throat.
The children’s father, Cristian, came to check on Nathaniel’s condition each morning. No one knew who had fired the shot, but Vivienne could see he felt terrible. Yet when she asked him what Father Nicolae had told him, he refused to speak of it.
Vivienne demanded another audience with the abbot. This was denied.
And so she sat in the infirmary, listening to the monk’s voices rise and fall in the church, listening to the wind blow along the ramparts, and burning with a desperate need to find Alec. To see his face, touch his hand.
Just once more before she lost him forever.
And then, on the third day, dawn broke with clear skies and the reinforcements from Satinari finally arrived. A doctor, the constable, and a dozen other men, including the mayor of Mara Vardac and the innkeeper, Master Korzha.
“The pass is open?” she asked, having thrown her cloak on and run out to the gates to meet them.
Master Kozha nodded from his horse. “The snow is deep but the wind scoured it from the road.” Relief showed on his face. “We came in time then.”
Vivienne didn’t reply. She hurried back to the infirmary while a group of monks saw to the new arrivals. Nathaniel’s eyes were open, though his handsome face was ghostly and tight with pain. She eased herself down to the edge of the bed and took his hand.
“Vivienne,” he murmured.
She helped him drink some water. “The doctor is here, my dear. He’ll see to you.”
He gave a small nod. “Tell me again what happened. It’s all a fog….”
“Gavra was no abbot. I still don’t understand, Nathaniel, but he has Anne. Florin and Constantin were his conspirators.” She drew a breath. “He claimed Anne is still alive.”
“Thank God,” he muttered weakly.
“They escaped, I’ve no idea how.” Vivienne paused. There was much Nathaniel didn’t know about her. She would tell him all of it someday, but not now.
Yet she could make a beginning. “I have what’s called a bond with Alec Lawrence. The cuffs we wear … they’re not simply a symbol. They have power, Nathaniel. Magic. Do you understand?”
“No, but that’s all right.” He searched her face. “Go to him. I’ll return to England as soon as I can. The doctor’s here now.”
A tear ran down her cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Vivienne kissed Nathaniel softly on the mouth. He gripped her hand.
She gave the constable her statement, impatient to leave. And then she was striding for the stables, calling for her horse.
Vivienne galloped down to Mara Vardac, stopping only to pay Mistress Korzha for the mount and take the carvings of Innunu and Kavi, She of the Nine Flails who meted out vengeance. The rest of the luggage she abandoned.
From Satinari, Vivienne caught a train heading east. She followed the bond where it led her, not eating or sleeping, through a succession of villages and towns and cities, hardly aware of where she was, only where she needed to go.
With each hour, Alec drew closer.
Vivienne understood he was doing the same thing she was, and it lent her strength.
And then, after three days of hard travel, she found herself in a tiny train station somewhere in the mountains of Switzerland. Her hands shook as she heard a whistle shriek in the distance, saw a puff of smoke, and a minute later the train pulled in and she was running like a madwoman down the platform, searching the faces of the passengers as they stepped off.
And here came Alec, levering down the steps with his cane, his face pale and drawn. Vivienne barreled into him, her cheek pressing against his coat collar, and he held her for a long moment as she sobbed uncontrollably.
“I found you, Viv, don’t worry,” he whispered into her hair. “What’s happened?”
She pulled away, trying to steady herself. Alec looked shocked. She knew he’d never seen her like this before. Not once, in all their long years together.
“Is it Cyrus? Cassandane?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she held up her naked wrist. “A man took it … not even a man. Something….” She was nearly incoherent. “He gave me a message.”
Alec stilled.
“He said to tell you D’Ange sends his regards.” Her voice broke again. “Who is he, Alec?”
They caught a night train to Munich.
Vivienne fell asleep with her head on Alec’s shoulder. He listened to her soft breathing, felt her heart beat in rhythm with his own.
He knew she hadn’t rested in many days, so he hadn’t told her all of it. She wouldn’t have absorbed much anyway. Alec had simply said it was a man he’d hoped might be dead and that they needed to go to Cyrus Ashdown right away. She had nodded, compliant in a very un-Vivienne way. And then she had slept like a child in his arms, rousing only to change trains or eat the awful food he’d bought in the stations.
Alec couldn’t think beyond getting to Ingress Abbey.
Please, God, let Cyrus still have it.
Alec understood now why he had suddenly lost control of his power. It was a queer side effect of the cuffs that the bond remained until the gold band touched the skin of another mortal, but if Vivienne wasn’t actually wearing hers, the daēva’s ability to use the Nexus would be trapped inside it.
But Alec didn’t give a damn about that. What terrified him was that if their bond snapped, Vivienne would age and die, and he didn’t know if it would be gradual or all at once. Would all that borrowed time suddenly catch up with her?
He rested his cheek against her forehead and watched his reflection in the dark forest speeding past the train window.
If he hadn’t left her alone, this would never have happened.
Now, four trains later, they were finally pulling into Greenhithe Station in the tiny English village of Dartford. Alec roused her and hired a cart to take them to Ingress Abbey. An enormous neo-Gothic manor on the banks of the Thames, it had been a convent before King Henry seized it to fund his ruinous wars with France.
Vivienne seemed to revive as they rattled down the long driveway. She sat up straight, her hands tightly folded in her lap.
Cyrus’s bonded daēva, Cassandane, must have seen them coming through a window. She threw the front door open and enclosed them both in a bear hug. A tall, broad-shouldered woman who kept her hair cropped short and preferred men’s clothing, she was one of their dearest friends — and half of the only other bonded pair remaining in the world.
“No Anne?” she asked with an edge of worry … though not too much. It was Anne, after all.
Vivienne shook her head. “Inside. We’ll tell you all of it.”
They found Cyrus in his library, warming his slippered feet by a coal stove. Threads of silver wound through his hair and he looked much older than Vivienne, a man in his middle fifties. This was because he’d lost his bond with Cassandane for a period a long time ago, aging in the interim until they finally found each other again.
Cyrus had penetrating eyes, a patrician nose and thin, harsh lips, but they formed a smile at the sight of his visitors. He rarely, if ever, left Ingress Abbey anymore.
Alec strode across the room, his heart beating fast.
“Do you still have it? The rose cross?”
Cyrus raised shaggy brows. He gave a slow nod.
Alec fell into an armchair. “Thank Christ.” He leaned over and handed Cyrus the cigarette case. “This was in the pocket of a man who followed me to Gran Canaria. Ring any bells?”
Cyrus took the case and examined it. “Oh, dear,” he murmured.
“Out with it,” Vivienne snapped, her old fire returning. “What does the symbol mean? Who is he?”
Cyrus met her eyes. “The Archangel Gabriel. The messenger of God.”
She stared blankly. “Who the hell are you talking about?”
Alec answered. “His name is Gabriel D’Ange.”
Vivienne sank down in a chair next to Alec. “Father Gavra,” she said softly.
“That’s what he called himself?” Cyrus asked. “It’s Gabriel in Romanian.”
“Give me that.” Cyrus handed her the case. She glanced at it, then took one of the cigarettes inside and lit it, her jaw tight. “Well, he has Anne.” She held up her wrist, pulling back the sleeve of her gown. “And my cuff. So let’s have the whole story and see if we can find a way out of this mess.”
Cassandane drew a sharp breath. Cyrus made a noise of sympathy.
“I’m so sorry,” he said gently.
Vivienne glowered.
Alec leaned back, stretching his achy leg. “It was a long time ago. I’d been hearing rumors of an angel of death, a vigilante who preyed on men of power who had escaped punishment due to their money or influence. He left dozens of bodies across Europe, all drained to husks.”
“A necromancer?” Cassandane asked.
“Clearly, but not the usual. This one had particular tastes. His own brand of rough justice.”
“I do vaguely remember that,” Vivienne said with a frown.
“They were bad men, his victims?” Cassandane gave Alec a funny look.
“Yes.”
“I would’ve let him have his fun,” she muttered.
“He was an Antimagus, Cass,” Alec replied with a touch of asperity. “Our sworn enemies, remember?”
She grunted and poured a glass of palinka, the nasty homemade moonshine she drank like water.
“The trail led to Strasbourg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire,” Alec continued. “The year was 1614, I believe.” He looked at Cyrus, who nodded. “The man we sought had a strong interest in Christian mysticism. He would carve a symbol into the withered flesh. The sign of the Archangel Gabriel.”
Vivienne raised an eyebrow.
“I started asking discreet questions. They led me to the Society of Unknown Philosophers and eventually to two men. Johann Constantin Andreae and Gabriel D’Ange. They were both members and practitioners of natural magic.”
“Natural magic?” Cassandane frowned. “I don’t know that.”
Cyrus removed his spectacles and started cleaning the lenses on one sleeve. “Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa coined the term in his 1526 De vanitate. It encompasses arts such as alchemy and astrology as opposed to ceremonial magic, in particular goety and theurgy, which deals with the summoning of spirits. White versus black magic, if you will.”
Alec cleared his throat. “Andreae and D’Ange were also key figures in an even more elite and secretive organization called the Rosicrucian Order. The Order was said to consist of no more than eight members, all sworn bachelors and devout Christians. On the surface, it seemed benevolent. Charity for the poor, that sort of thing.
“I came to suspect the Order was more than they claimed, but I couldn’t prove anything. And I didn’t want to act unless I was sure. So I befriended D’Ange. I gave him the impression I might be a suitable candidate. And I finagled an invitation to his house.”
Despite the years, Alec still remembered that night. The smell of beeswax candles, the dusty bottle of wine they’d shared. D’Ange’s quiet intensity as he spoke of his new Order.
“He was called away during dinner and I took the opportunity to look around. I found a hidden door that led to a small chapel. It had a stained glass window depicting the Archangel Gabriel.” Alec’s voice hardened. “I knew then it was him. The altar had a bible and a Rosicrucian cross. I wanted to unnerve him, to goad him into making a mistake. So I took the cross.”
“What happened to D’Ange?’ Vivienne asked.
“He left Strasbourg that same night, I don’t know why. And you returned. We went to Athens to find the Greater Gate there. I never saw him again. But shortly after, the Order published several manifestos.” Alec looked at Cyrus, who had an encyclopedic memory for such things.
The old magus nodded. “Fama Fraternitatis, published in1614 in Kassel, Germany. It was followed by Confessio Fraternitatis and then The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in 1616. The last was quite different from the first two.”
“How so?” Vivienne asked.
“It was more … I don’t know, more personal. Poetical, if you will. Andreae was the anonymous editor. It related a dream by Rosenkreutz, the supposed founder of the Order.”
“Supposed?”
“We believe he was a legend,” Alec said. “A phantom. That the real founder was Gabriel D’Ange.” Alec sighed. “I never crossed paths with D’Ange again and the Order went underground after that.”
“And the cross you stole?”
“I gave it to Cyrus when I saw him a few years later.” Alec smiled faintly. “He’d just fled Prague after being tossed out a third-floor window by Protestant rebels.”
Cassandane gave a snort, eyeing her bonded with amusement. “The Second Defenestration. I told you to leave them alone.”
“Where was I while you were in Strasbourg?” Vivienne asked.
“You’d gone into the Dominion to hunt necromancers.”
“Oh, right.” She tossed the cigarette into the stove. “May I see this cross?”
“It’s in the strong room,” Cyrus said.
They followed him to a chamber with an ironbound door and waited while Cyrus produced a set of enormous keys.
“He’s like a squirrel hoarding acorns,” Vivienne murmured. “Magus, I always wondered if you had the Grail itself stashed away in here.”
Cyrus didn’t smile.
The room beyond was cavernous. Alec’s gaze took in an extravagant clutter of objects ranging from rusty swords to musical instruments from a bygone age, and a thousand other things, all stowed with care on wide floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Cyrus went directly to a glass cabinet and took out a cedarwood box. He eased the lid open.
Vivienne squinted. “I thought at least it would be a fancy one,” she said with a note of surprise. “It’s not even gold.”
The cross was the size of her palm, plain wood, with a rose carved in the center.
She held it up to the candlelight. “What does it signify?”
“There are various interpretations,” Cyrus replied. “The blood of Christ and the power of redemption. Christ’s mother, Mary, who was always closely associated with the rose. But it can also symbolize the union of opposites and the dualism in nature. D’Ange adopted the symbol, but the rose cross is much older than his Order, most likely dating back to the first century.” He paused. “This one could be that old.”
Vivienne shook her head and handed the cross back to Cyrus, who tucked it into the velvet lining. “Gabriel D’Ange,” she said softly. “I thought he might be a werewolf, but it never occurred to me that he wasn’t even the bloody abbot of Saint George’s. He knew so much about the monastery’s history, the paintings, all of it. He struck me as a genuine man of God.”
“He was,” Alec said quietly. “Or claimed to be.”
“The question is, what is he now?” Cyrus wondered with a troubled frown.
“I never saw him change,” Vivienne said. “But one of the others, yes. I think he was about to when D’Ange came.”
“And he has Anne.” Alec pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling a stab of guilt. He’d been so preoccupied with Vivienne, he’d hardly given a thought to his own sister.
“Did she know about any of this?” Cassandane asked.
Alec shook his head. “She’d only stopped to see me in Strasbourg for a single night. I didn’t tell her why I was there.”
As usual, Vivienne spoke the words no one else wanted to.
“Will D’Ange hurt her?”
Alec let out a long breath. “I don’t know. He’s a strange man.”
“I don’t think he will,” Cyrus said firmly. “Not without a reason. He always had a rigid sort of honor, if that makes sense.”
“Nothing makes sense,” Vivienne muttered. “Why now, after all this time?”
None of them had an answer for that.