night to night, and his glamour will work on her mind as well, hiding him from her, even as it hides her from the Master of Constantinople-and hides her from me. If your husband is alive at all, it is because the Master of Constantinople seeks to use him as bait to trap her, for he fears her, even as Grippen does."
"Grippen?" said Lydia. "Isn't he her master, as he is Ernchester's?"
"It is not unheard of, for fledgings to turn against those that get them." He turned his hand over. The light seemed to shine through his fingers like parchment, illuminating spidery bones. "It takes great strength, and great anger... but then, Anthea is strong. He has always distrusted her, as all masters distrust their get; and between Anthea and Grippen has always lain a most delicate balance of wariness, and power, and hate. I do not think he would have made her vampire had not he thought he would lose Charles when Anthea, still a mortal woman, died."
"So they didn't... they weren't made vampires at the same time."
"No. Charles was forty, Anthea thirty-three, when Grippen took Charles. Anthea was a widow for over thirty years. She had grown old when Charles finally came for her- or got Gnppen to come. She hated Gnppen for holding the dominance of a master over her, but she understood that it was the gate she had to walk through if she would be with Charles again. It is... a rather sad tale. Will you have more?"
She shook her head. As he took the cup from her, she saw how his clothing hung on him, as if there were nothing inside it but bones. The turned-back cuffs of his shirt showed wrist bones knobbed like hazelnuts under milk-white skin. "Thank you," she said softly.
He made a move, as if he would take her hand, then stopped himself. For a long time their eyes held, and she thought, quite irrationally, There is something else to say.
It was he who moved his face aside, still for a moment, then turning fully to look at the door. "I will remain here until it nears dawn, though I doubt he will be back. Tomorrow the bolt of the door can be repaired, and things placed about the doorsills and the windows that he cannot pass. I have no doubt he learned from Karolyi that you were here and wanted to put you under his influence-to force you to tell what Karolyi has been trying to persuade from you, did you but know it."
Lydia shivered, thinking of the long climb to the bedroom. Even Margaret's presence in the bed beside her seemed welcome now.
Ysidro put his head a little to one side, listening. "She sleeps now." He started to speak again, then didn't, as if he, like Lydia for the moment, did not wish to raise the issue of Margaret, and his use of Margaret, between them. There is something else, Lydia thought again as they stood together, looking at one another in the lamplight. But Ysidro turned away and settled himself in the chair she had occupied, folding his bony arms within the shirt that seemed too large for him. Lydia slipped the cloak from her shoulders, and when he took it, slowly climbed the stairs.
As Ysidro had said, Margaret was asleep. She'd loosened her corsets and pulled the pins from her hair but still was dressed, as if she'd fallen asleep huddled wretchedly on top of the covers, and in the glow of the bedside lamp her face was taut with unhappy dreams. Lydia's hands shook as she unbuttoned her torn shirtwaist, for reaction was settling on her. She had no intention of turning out the lamp beside the bed, but it was too bright for easy sleep. As she walked around to it, she saw half a dozen sheets of paper on the floor around Margaret's basket of crocheted flowers.
They were tumbled untidily, as if she had been reading them when sleep overcame her and they'd slid from the coverlet. When Lydia picked them up, she saw the handwriting, precise and black and, though the ink was clearly modern, nothing that had been seen since the days of Elizabeth.
They were sonnets.
About darkness. About mirrors. About roads untrodden stretching endlessly into night. One of them Margaret had ripped into quarters. Lydia had to lay it on the nightstand to fit its pieces together again.