Vixen (6 page)

In fact, we’re not sitting formally at all, just perching on barstools at the stainless steel counter, eating the food while it’s piping hot, and laughing.

It’s the laughing that surprises me most. Granted, I tend to get giggly when I’m nervous. And for all Ion has done to ease my fears, I still feel crazy nervous.

But Ion is laughing, too. At first his laughter crackled as though he’d brought it out from a long storage, and it wasn’t used to air and sunshine. But the more he laughs, the more it sounds genuine, if a bit haunted. There’s a sadness behind his eyes I can see most clearly just as his laughter fades, in that intermission as he’s drawing his soul back from its spirited dance, and his façade shifts ever-so-slightly, and I wonder who’s really back there, behind the veil.

I don’t dare stare too long, into his eyes or anywhere else. It’s all too tenuous—my being here in the first place, the two of us, enemies, cavorting like friends. I think he knows it, too, and rather than openly acknowledge it, he keeps talking—about his fishing excursion and trying to bring the salmon home, flying through the air, only to discover when some fish tried to escape that they weren’t all properly dead.

He’s funny. Not in an odd way, but genuinely funny, making a face as though he’s the fish, surprised to be flying instead of swimming.

Ion watches me lift one of the last few pieces of asparagus to my mouth. He looks pleased with himself. “The asparagus was edible after all?”

“Yes. It’s delicious, actually.” I can feel a blush rise to my cheeks. Though I can’t admit it to Ion, I know exactly why I feel so sheepish. If I’d have known the asparagus was going turn out to be edible, I could have lied about liking it and Ion never would have known the difference.

Perhaps I should trust that Ion knows what he’s doing.

Wait. Trust Ion? My arch-enemy? I wriggle uncomfortably on my barstool. Perhaps Jala was right, and I am under a spell.

Who’s seducing who, here? And why?

It’s not a question I can ask out loud, but it lingers in the back of my mind all through our conversation, even when I’m laughing the sincerest of laughs.

Our pleasant meal passes all too quickly, and Ion leaves the dishes to soak while we tour the rest of the castle.

The rooms are all exquisite, even with much of the furniture covered by clear plastic sheets to keep off the dust. There are suites of bedrooms with canopied and four-poster beds, parlors and sitting rooms with overstuffed chairs and cozy fireplaces, marble bathrooms from various periods of modernity, game rooms, a greenhouse conservatory growing mostly vegetables and herbs, with a few exotic plants for color, and saddest of all, a nursery complex of five rooms—three bedrooms for children, one for a nanny, and a common playroom in the middle, besides private baths.

“Oh, how precious.” I nudge the rocking horse with my foot, and it wobbles back-and-forth with a nimbleness that belies its long dormancy. Like many of the rooms in the house, the nursery dates back to a bygone era, a Victorian-Edwardian age of gilded dreams long ago lost to the light of a gloomy day.

Ion doesn’t say anything, which isn’t like him. Up to this point, he’s been a quick wit.

When I look at his face, I see his gaze is fixed on a pile of building blocks near one wall, and his mouth is twitching as though he’s fighting the words inside.

Because the words want to escape? Or because he feels obligated to speak, but the words don’t want to come?

I’m terrified to ask. It would be easier, far easier for me, at least, to ignore this gravid silence and move on.

But the veil that has cloaked everything behind his eyes—the one that hides his sorrows—seems to be waving at me almost desperately.

There’s another Ion behind there, isn’t there? The boy of fourteen in 1918, a man who still thinks he failed.

If Ion is going to fall in love with me, really in love, I’ve got to know who that boy is, behind the veil.

So I muster up a courage more desperate than that which brought me to the castle in the first place. And I ask, “Ion? What is it?”

His head moves in something more akin to a tremble than a shake. “I haven’t been in this room since I outgrew it as a boy. This was always my favorite house of all our estates, and my sisters were all many years, decades, even centuries older than I. I was the only son born to my parents, born long after they thought they were too old to have any more children. This was supposed to be my house.”

He stops as though gathering his thoughts, which would be helpful, since they’re coming out all scattered and hard to follow. I don’t know what he’s getting at until he continues, “This castle, of all my family’s properties, was the one I’d chosen to be my inheritance. Coincidentally, it was also the only one not seized by the government—only because it’s too far from anywhere for them to send someone to seize it, and I’m not sure they even realized it existed. When I graduated from the nursery, and I left this room for the last time, I built that block tower.”

Ion nods toward the intricate structure of stacked wooden blocks, whose design, though cubist, nonetheless mimics that of the castle we’re standing in. “I claimed then, with too much optimism, with too much pride…” he falls silent.

I’m not sure, but I think he’s afraid of letting too much emotion creep into his voice.

After swallowing a few times, he continues, “I claimed then, that my children would be the next to play with these blocks—that I would show them this tower I made as a boy. I didn’t understand that the world was going to change, that everything I knew and loved would be gone. Of all the things I’ve lost, all the dreams I’ll never see fulfilled, these blocks are still here. Mocking me.”

Ion’s staring at the blocks. Who knows what century-old memories are playing through his head right now?

I’m staring at Ion, really at both of us, as though I’m outside my body, watching this conversation unfold. It’s like a scene in a movie, except I don’t have the soundtrack to tell me whether to fear for the characters, or feel hopeful.

Why did Ion share this story with me? It’s an intimate glimpse of a painful place, and something he very easily could have walked away without mentioning. Does he want me to see—to know—his painful past? Why? Because no one’s ever walked through the castle with him, and he’s never before had a chance to share?

Maybe.

Or maybe it’s a carefully orchestrated attempt to win my sympathies.

Ion is cunning. Charming. Even deceitful. I know that. I’ve been warned.

And I promised myself I would not fall prey to his charms.

Unsure how to respond, I don’t say anything, and Ion leads me back out of the room. I’m still holding his elbow, and he reaches across and gives my hand a squeeze. “I’ve saved the best for last.”

We’re walking toward closed double doors, and I feel a rush of excitement mixed with fear. What is this
best
that Ion has purposely saved for last?

What’s on the other side of those doors?

Ion opens the doors wide and I see the room on the other side. It’s the ballroom with the concert grand piano—the room with the great arched windows and wide curved balcony, which I observed from the woods a summer ago, when Ion was playing the piano.

The room is enormous, with massive crystal chandeliers dripping from the ceiling, wax candles still fitted in place. Like much of this place, this room doesn’t appear to have moved all the way into this century, or even the last.

But it is gorgeous. Parquet wood floors give the room a surprisingly warm glow, while the enormous windows—each at least two stories tall, and the ceiling easily three stories above us, with balconies lining the sides—let in the fading light of night. This far north in Siberia, it doesn’t get dark out until quite late.

I’ve been here a long time, haven’t I?

The windows are swathed in immense curtains of yellow silk, which adds to the warm feeling of the room.

Ion crosses to the piano, lifts a candelabra, and blows a tiny stream of fire from his lips, igniting the five candles. He turns to me, the candle glow illuminating his face with flickering, uneven light. “What do you think?”

I realize I haven’t said a word—haven’t reacted at all, save for a gasp when Ion first opened the doors. “It’s splendid.” I’m tempted to ask if Ion has ever been to balls in this room, but I’m afraid of more heart-wrenching stories like the one he told me in the nursery. If he was thirteen or fourteen when his world came crashing down, then he likely never danced at a ball in this room.

Unsure what else to say, I let go of Ion’s elbow and head for the piano. “You play?” It’s as much a statement as a question, a not-too-lofty assumption, given that the piano is free of dust, a clear sign he’s been here—unlike the nursery. But I don’t want to let on that I saw him through the window last summer. I am not a creepy stalker.

Maybe a little bit of a stalker, but not the creepy kind.

Or if I am, I don’t want to let on about it.

This is hard.

Ion lifts the lid and plays an extensive, elaborate scale all the way up the keys, crescendoing grandly, playing six notes at once and all in the same key. “Do you play?” he asks me while the sound is still fading in the air.

I look from his face to his fingers, debating my response. I’m the best pianist in my family, though that’s not saying a whole lot. I could probably do a scale like he just played, in a key every bit as complicated as the one he just played in, but dragons are naturally competitive, especially the males, and I’m not here to fight, or show off, or anything like that.

Besides, even if I meet his scale-playing challenge, he’s no doubt got years of practice on me. Ultimately, I can’t win.

So I’m not going to start. I shrug. “A bit. I’m not nearly that good.”

“Play something for me.” Ion pulls the tufted leather bench out from where it’s tucked away almost under the keys.

Still twitching with repressed competitive instinct, I sit, wracking my brain for something impressive I can play off the top of my head. If I’d known I was going to have to woo my mate with my piano skills, I’d have practiced harder and memorized something particularly impressive.

What do I know that I can play by heart? The longest elaborate, impressive piece is the one I performed with my sister Rilla for our piano recital last year, an eleven-minute memorized duet. I played the treble. She played the bass.

She’s not here, but it’s the primo line that’s the most impressive anyway, with or without the secondo. And right now, it’s the only thing I can think of that I know well enough to play without the music, save maybe for a few movie theme songs and some short Bach pieces I use as warm-up exercises, neither of which are likely to impress Ion.

Scooting to the high-note end of the bench, I apologize ahead of time. “I haven’t played this in a while. It might be rough.”

I’ve got no more than five or six chords out when Ion surprises me by taking a seat at the other end of the bench. For a second, his fingers hover soundlessly over the keys.

I pause.

“Keep going.” He winks at me. “I know this one.”

So I keep playing and try not to have a heart attack, as Ion pounds out the bass line, even going so far as to work the pedal, which is helpful, because that was always Rilla’s job. For a few minutes it’s pure thrill, the notes carrying through the gorgeous acoustics of this room, melody and harmony soaring together as though Ion and I were meant to play side by side.

And then we get to the part where, in the original music, the primo and secondo are supposed to cross hands. Except that Rilla and I didn’t want to cross hands (in addition to being competitive, dragons can also be fiercely territorial, even over something relatively insignificant like piano keys, besides which, we, like our t-rex forebears, have slightly shortish arms) so we learned the opposite parts on our other hands in order to avoid crossing hands.

Ion starts to reach past me.

I break tempo and shake my head. “I only know your right hand,” I explain in an apologetic voice, fearing our duet is about to come to an abrupt end.

But Ion simply gives a tiny shrug and plays the part that was supposed to be my left hand part, which Rilla always played.

Wow, he’s good.

So then for another minute or two I’m thinking we’re actually going to do this, we’re actually going to play this whole song together, and it sounds awesome, and we make an amazing team together, and whoever said Ion was evil was clearly wrong or at least they never heard him play the piano—when suddenly my fingers, which until this point have been playing along happily as though there’s nothing in the world they’d rather be doing, stop.

I freeze, aware for the first time in long seconds, maybe even a minute, that I’m not even sure anymore where I am in the music, and my fingers were playing without my conscious participation, and I have no idea what comes next.

I ruined it.

Ion backs up a few notes and plays back through, as though prompting me.

It doesn’t help.

He reaches across me and places his larger, surer hands over my smaller, trembling ones, and hits the keys.

The right keys.

The ones I couldn’t remember.

For five or six stunned notes he plays for me, generating the music I’d forgotten, working my fingers like a puppeteer, until I remember and carry on, as though those few notes were just a hurdle, and once I’m over it there’s no stopping me.

Ion deftly moves back to his part and plays along, right up through the glorious finish.

As the final note dies on the air, I pant, catching my breath. “How did you know that song?”

“It’s not uncommon.” He shrugs. “I’ve been alone in this castle for nearly a hundred years. I get in a lot of piano practice.”

“Thanks for—um—rescuing me.”

“Any time.” He’s looking at me sideways, still sitting beside me on the piano bench, a wry half-smile on his face.

I stand and head toward the balcony. In addition to being competitive and territorial, dragons don’t like being rescued.

Ion comes up behind me, unlatches one of the wide windows, which is functionally more like a door, and swings it open wide.

We step outside into the mild night air.

The stars are twinkling in the twilight above us, and the air is crisp with mountain scents. I breathe in deep draughts of it, clearing my head of the stifled thoughts that plagued me inside.

Out here, I have little to fear. I could turn into a dragon in an instant and fly away before Ion could even catch up to me, if I wanted to.

I cross to the railing and place my hands against its cool surface, looking out over the scenic mountains, all shadowed and brooding in the dark.

It’s beautiful out here. I can understand why Ion would choose to live here—why, out of all his family’s holdings, he’d pick this one as his favorite. The air is so clean. There is no one, save for Eudora and her yagi—no one outside the dragon world, for miles and miles and miles.

Here, a dragon can be a dragon without fearing what people might do or say.

Ion leans backward against the railing beside me, perched almost sitting atop the balusters, his body turned inward, toward the castle, his arms crossed over his chest. It’s a bit like he’s facing me, except we’re beside each other.

“Did you find it?” He asks after a long silence.

“Hmm?” I’m lost in thought, wondering what it would be like to live out here in these lonely wilds, to live out my almost-immortal dragon life in this untamed safe place.

“The artifact you were looking for?”

I keep my expression stoic, completely neutral, but on the inside, I’m fighting a war.

Do I keep up this masquerade, or tell him why I’m truly here?

How can I expect him to be honest with me, if I’m not honest with him? He’s been more than generous with his time, his tour, dinner. Do I owe him the truth?

Do I owe him anything?

Do I want what I came here to get?

I turn, leaning my hip against the railing, facing Ion, studying him.

Do I really want this mysterious man? In so many ways he’s all I’ve ever hoped for. But he’s also burdened with a long, tragic history. I don’t doubt it’s a fascinating history—but is it something I want to live with?

And most importantly, can I trust this man? Jala’s warnings still ring in my ears. I don’t think Ion has put a spell on me. But how can I know?

Ion has waited several silent minutes for an answer while I’ve been debating what to tell him. Now he uncrosses his arms and plants his palms against the railing. “Or perhaps you don’t want to tell me whether you’ve found it? Do you need to come back?”

What is it about his question that makes it almost sound as though he’s reluctant to have me back? “Jala wanted me to fill in so she could return home for a visit.”

“That’s fine if Jala wants to return home, but you need to recruit someone else to do her job. Someone who’s not a dragon.”

“What?” I can’t believe I’ve heard him correctly. His words were clear, articulate, and all that, but I must have misunderstood him. I
must
have. “I fixed your shoulders. You said it’s been weeks since anyone—”

“Months, actually, but that’s not the point. I can live with caught shoulders. I cannot—” Ion swallows. His palms, which were open, now tighten into fists, which he taps against the railing as though he’s fighting something.

Not me. He’s not fighting me. I don’t even feel threatened. Whatever he’s fighting is inside him.

He straightens so he’s no longer leaning against the rail at all, and he turns to face me. For all his life experience, he looks no older than any guy at my school. With his scars all covered up, you’d never guess he was different, except for his glowing eyes. “You cannot visit me again, Zilpha, daughter of Ram and Ilsa.”

For a moment, I can only stare at him. Is he testing me? Playing some kind of game? “I had a pleasant visit.”

“Yes. Well.” He flexes his fingers as though to relieve tension. “I hope you found what you were looking for. If there’s anything more you need, state it quickly. I do not intend to receive you as a visitor here again.”

“But, what did I do?”

“It’s not what you did. It’s who you are.”

“I don’t understand.”

Ion’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t explain.

I’m still trying to sort out what could possibly have caused him to go from being a welcoming, generous host, to turning me away forever. “Did I forget to say thank-you? Was it some point of etiquette? Did I use the wrong fork? You only gave me one fork. Was it a trick?”

“I don’t care about etiquette. You’re a dragon, Zilpha. A beautiful, rosy-eyed, female dragon. And your parents would kill me if they had any idea…” his voice trails off. He makes a noise in his throat that might be a whimper or a desperate laugh, I don’t know which, but neither makes me feel any better about this situation. He pulls his hair-tie out again and runs his fingers back through his hair before smoothing it down and tying it back just as it was before. “I don’t understand why they sent you. Is it because you look the least like your mother, and they thought somehow I might not recognize you?”

“They didn’t send me.”

Ion stops his fidgeting and stares at me. “Of course they did. To find the artifact.”

“There is no artifact.”

Ion’s eyes are hardening into an icy glare. “Do they know you’re here?”

It occurs to me that, among the cardinal rules of safety when dealing with potential kidnappers or what have you, there’s something about never letting your enemy know you’re alone. Meaning, if Ion wants to do harm to me, the last thing I should do is let on that no one knows I’m here (save Jala, who’s only human, and not nearly a threat to Ion) because if he decided to kill me or lock me away in his dungeon (he didn’t show me a dungeon on the tour, but in a castle of this size there’s got to be one, or at least an inescapable room somewhere half underground) the only thing that might possibly stop him would be the knowledge that my ferocious dragon parents might show up any moment to rescue me.