for a few other things,” he said. “I wanted to help more. But I controlled myself.”
“We could have used the help,” I said.
“I am not so popular in New Sodom,” Dracula said. “In certain quarters, my involvement would not have been welcome.”
“You mean with the Mercians,” I said.
“Yes. We can see how much difference my reticence made,” Dracula said.
“I wish you’d been here last night,” I said. “It was great till the place burned down.”
“I meant to be. I could not resist. But I booked a commercial flight and we were grounded by bad weather in Brussels. That is the last time I let anyone else fly me anywhere.” He threw out his arm toward the mill. “But this,” he said. “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what I can do. Look at this place.”
The empty windows didn’t stare the way books always say they do. They were shut. Shut in pain. Through the gaping doorway, I could see down to the basement and up to the sky.
“Wiped out,” I said.
“In any case, you accomplished much, very much. I am proud to know you, Cody Elliot,” Dracula said.
“I did find this,” he said. “I expect you know the rightful owners.”
From under his coat he took out a carefully folded square of cloth.
“It’s Justin’s,” I said. “Where was it?”
“Over there,” he said, pointing off toward the river.
I unfolded it.
“It is very old,” Dracula said. “See? The grommets wore through in the wind. Probably it tore loose before the fire started.”
“Sorry, Mercy,” I said to the angel and the twisted snakes. “We did try.”
“Mercy?” Dracula said. “Did Mercy Warrener make this flag?”
“Yes,” I said.
Dracula held it to his lips and kissed it.
He said two words in high jenti that I knew: “My love.”
“She must have been a great woman,” I said.
“She was the heart and soul of her people. Their essence,” Dracula said. “Their queen.”
“She never mentioned anything about that in her journal,” I said.
“Journal?” Dracula said. “There is such a thing?”
“Just a lot of scraps of paper she saved over the years for her family,” I said.
“I must see this thing,” Dracula said.
“It’s at Vlad, in the special collections room,” I said. “I don’t know what it’s doing there. It’s not even cataloged.”
“Is it possible?” Dracula looked up at the gray sky. “Mercy, did you reach out a hand across …?” He shook his head. “I am being foolish,” he said.
“Maybe not,” I said. “I’ve kind of had a feeling she’s been around, off and on.”
“She feels so close,” Dracula said, and kissed the flag again. “I asked her to wed me and she said she would do so. It would have healed the wound between her people and mine.”
“You must be the Beloved,” I said. “In the journal. Every year she remembers the day her Beloved went away.”
“Yes,” Dracula said.
“So what happened?” I said. “I mean, if you want to talk about it.”
“There were no Burgundians in New Sodom then,” Dracula said. “I had come on an adventure. To see the New World, and the jenti living in it. And if they had found something worth having, I would lead the Burgundians here and we would seize it. That was my thought. But I met Mercian, and changed my mind.”
“Mercy’s real name was Mercian?” I said.
“Mercy Ann Warrener,” Dracula said. “Mercian. And she was a silver eagle. When she told me she would have me, I felt like I wanted to live ten thousand years, and spend each day of them with her.”
“But why’d you break up?” I said.
“The regalia. Her regalia, her crown and scepter, disappeared,” Dracula said. “They were most secret and sacred things. They had survived more than a thousand years already. They had survived the loss of Mercia itself. Only two people knew where they were. Mercy and her mother, Queen Susannah. Mercy told one other, myself. When they disappeared, I was naturally blamed. The Mercian militia came. I was lucky and escaped. Most of me escaped.”
He held up his right hand, and I saw that the last two fingers were missing. “Captain Danforth was an excellent swordsman.”
“And the regalia never turned up, right?” I said.
“No,” Dracula said. “Mercy went uncrowned. There were no more Mercian queens.”
“I just figured something out,” I said. “I think some Mercians believe those regalia are in the mill. Or were.”
“Why?” Dracula said.
“The whole thing,” I said. “The weird marks Gregor found over one of the storerooms. The fact that nobody seemed to own the