A wound to the heart is harder to heal than a wound to the flesh. Viorica had given me hope that there were more of us, but A subtle fear concerned me. What if any other survivors had turned away from their lessons as she had?

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  Winter’s thaw came, and with it, easier travel. Dragos followed the rumor of strigoi, heard from a dark corner in the alehouse where he had weathered a spring storm. Though he avoided people, not knowing what, if any, consequences followed him from Sigovara, a brutal downpour was enough reason to take shelter.

  He kept to himself, but his ears, as alert as a rabbit’s, caught a few spare words overheard in hushed tones: Stanca? and a noble woman bewitched.

  The sparse woods on the way to Stanca? held an eerie silence. Not from ghosts or spirits, but by their absence. The trees hid no secrets; the underbrush hinted of wildlife. A rustle of a red squirrel in last year’s leaves pulled Dragos's heavy gaze from his feet. The skitter of a pine marten up a tree. The crack of a crow smashing snails from their shells on a nearby rock. Stanca? had tamed its forest. No spirits roamed.

  Despite the terrible failure with Viorica, he hoped that if anyone else from the Solomonari school survived, they hadn’t succumbed as she had. She’d said she’d seen others flee. He believed her.

  Thinking of her hurt, so he avoided dwelling upon her words. However, his thoughts clung to his Cohort. The other Cohorts and their teachers. Wherever they were.

  The wind sighed through the leaves, its cool breath slipping under his hood.

  “What are you chasing now?”

  Zgavra’s voice nearly made Dragos jump out of his skin. The zmeu floated a few feet off the ground, a shadowy snake-shape that hinted of claws, horns, scales, and fur. Orange eyes blazed from the fog of its body as it slowly faded into visibility. Its long snout hovered before him, black-scaled limbs tucked up against its belly, the shag of its fur like a shepherd dog’s. It bobbed gently in the wind, refusing to heed the idea of gravity.

  “Strigoi, well, rumors of them.” Dragos turned back to the road and started walking, balancing on the section between the ruts. “Where there’s a witch, there might be people I’m looking for.”

  “You haven’t said their names,” Zgavra said, flowing along beside him with ease. “Beyond the one I found—on my own—and was kind enough to tell you.”

  Dragos wasn’t sure whether the zmeu's actions were motivated by kindness or by a desire to stir the pot and see what happened. Likely the latter. Zgavra enjoyed the turmoil of mortals.

  “I don’t know who lives,” Dragos replied. In truth, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t given the zmeu the names of students from the Black School or his Cohort siblings. It was quite good at finding things.

  “Secrets, secrets, Owl,” Zgavra chided.

  Dragos sighed, eyes rolling towards the shadow beside him. “Not secret. More—I don’t know who they’ll be. Old information is like having none at all.”

  Like Viorica. Whom he would not think about. Not yet. Perhaps not ever again, if he could help it.

  The woods gave way to vineyards. Posts rose to his shoulders with ropes strung between, waiting for tendrils that guided him down the road. The buds had just begun to show new growth. The gnarled vines pushed tendrils that promised to burst forth with fruit. The wealth of the land was clear.

  A cart rolled toward him, led by a child and pulled by a donkey.

  The child looked healthy, the donkey fat. The land was robust, and so were its people, it seemed. As Dragos continued past, something about such a simple thing lightened his step. He’d seen too much of the other. Misery. Starvation. Despair.

  Stanca? was not a place for darkness. Strange that a rumor about strigoi would spread from here. Dragos lifted his head, sliding his hood back just a bit to see vineyards that went on to the horizon.

  Down the road beyond the budding fields, a fine manor rose, completed by soaring twin towers and a proper parapet with crenelations that spanned its top floor. The severe roof of the main building sloped to the parapets. It resembled a castle, except for the absence of a proper bailey. The lawn sprawled with gardens yet to bloom to their fullest beauty.

  Dragos openly gawked as he meandered, almost twisting an ankle in a rut. Zgavra chuckled. Dragos righted himself and adjusted the peddler’s box on his back with a shrug and rattle.

  “Never seen such a place?” It asked.

  “No,” Dragos murmured. The Croitoru house had been the finest he'd been inside so far. Not counting the school. The school was hardly a manor, like a potato to an apple. One, an institution: highly nutritional to some, poison to others, and that glorious home appeared to shine and promise nurturing.

  Dragos frowned. Apples were poisonous to some people as well. Huh.

  Something caught his eye and made him forget his poor metaphor. It was only because he’d stared at the manor in contemplation that he even noticed.

  He stopped in the middle of the road and squinted, pushing his hood back. From one of the towers, an immense rope—no, a thick cluster of dark ropes—hung nearly to the ground. Tiny flecks of gold glinted near the bottom, which was the strangest thing. Who would put gold on rope? And what was it made of to be so dark and lustrous?

  “What is that?” he whispered, his voice hushed by confusion. There was no one else to hear. If they did, they’d think him mad. The zmeu did not show itself to people unless it was on some whim or jest.

  The zmeu’s curiosity was piqued, and it winnowed away to look, swift as a zephyr.

  Why would lengths of rope be dangling from a tower? An escape would only require one. Was it something dyed and hung out to dry? He looked deeper, turning his mind’s eye to the task. The faintest shimmer of Unspoken spirits glittered around the lengths that hung from the window. What could that be? His mind flipped stones of thought while he waited for the zmeu to return.

  The beast flew over and streaked up to the open window. Just as swiftly, it returned.

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  “It’s a girl!” It chuffed, amused.

  “What?”

  The zmeu congealed from a cloud into a man in a rustle of fabrics. He wore a simple, forgettable face of prime age and the plain clothes of a traveler. He gave his long brown coat a light brush and tutted.

  “That is her hair, dear boy.” Zgavra surveyed the manor with the wide grin of someone expecting to be entertained. “Something from the spirit-rivers has afflicted her.”

  Hair that impossibly long… was beyond nature’s habits.

  Dragos hissed softly and narrowed his eyes at the shapeshifter. “And you expect me to help?”

  He felt compelled to help, being uniquely qualified. Zgavra knew it. Dragos remained still, glaring at Zgavra. “What if I won’t?”

  "I know you too well, son," the creature chuckled, patting Dragos on the shoulder.

  Dragos snorted, brushing the zmeu’s hand off his shoulder. “We’re to play father and son, then?”

  Zgavra shrugged and strode toward the lengthy track to the manor. Dragos stood there a moment, looking from the zmeu to the cascade of dark locks. With a sigh of acceptance, he followed, tugging his hood back down to shield his eyes from casual glances.

  He followed the zmeu up the drive, curving around the gardens until they got to the sweeping front door. It was as impressive as the rest of the building, with granite arches housing austere, warm-toned oak double doors. The massive lion-shaped brass knocker fascinated him.

  Dragos had never seen a real lion. He’d only known lynx. The mane gave it away. He’d seen drawings.

  Zgavra booped the brassy nose with a fingertip, giggled, and then rapped it smartly.

  “We’re just—walking up to the house?” Dragos whispered harshly at its shoulder. Bold. Decisive. No.

  Insufferable. Obnoxious creature. Dragos stood behind it, like he imagined a proper son would. His hood stayed pulled low to hide his eyes, which he kept on the smooth granite at his feet. The soft tap on the other side heralded someone approaching.

  In the shadow cast by the other, the Unspoken thing pretending to be a man, Dragos first noted the door opener’s shoes. Leather, soft and fine, well cut and fitted. They were not some homemade craft, but a proper cobbler’s work.

  “Yes?” the man asked briskly. Dragos heard in his voice an accustomed command and a tone that bespoke no time for foolishness.

  Zgavra spoke with airs, the rise and fall of his tone like that of a showman reeling in a mark. “My deepest apologies, but we happened to notice your, hmm, predicament while walking down the road to Stanca?.”

  “There is nothing to be seen, sir.” The man’s voice was firmly assertive, but the nervous undertone lay beneath it, sabotaging his words.

  “Ironically, we only pause to mention it because,” Zgavra paused and turned to show Dragos, whose hood was ever pulled low. The moroi viu of his nature never felt so obvious. Dragos stood there, looking at his feet.

  Zgavra said, “My son had a similar affliction.”

  This was not the wanderer’s way. He didn’t go seeking; troubles always found him, placed in his way as if by fate, like iron shavings to a lodestone. As he stared at the man’s shoes, he wondered if it wasn’t just another way fate caught his hand and put it over a flame.

  And how did Zgavra know he’d had a similar affliction? Dragos thought back to walking down a road with the girl, Alina, and remembered. He’d thought Zgavra had left them alone. It mustn’t have. Lurksome eavesdropper.

  “Had?” The man’s voice changed; his desperation lay bare in a word.

  Dragos heard Zgavra’s smile. “Yes, but the clever boy found a cure. Shall we discuss it elsewhere than the doorstep?”

  What mattered was seeing the afflicted, not assuming it was the same thing. Dragos clenched his jaw and felt the zmeu’s grip on his shoulder, propelling him forward. He stepped into the cool dimness of the foyer. Scalloped archways led here and there to other rooms, but the man led them straight to the kitchen.

  A servant, then. He followed the man with the fine shoes to the clatter of a busy scullery. He urgently shooed the two women out. They protested, but his insistence became a demand. Dragos listened to them reluctantly shuffle out.

  The man gestured to the table laden with vegetables, glistening with water. A knife rested beside a cutting board upon which vegetables were piled for cutting.

  Dragos sat, wishing to snatch the food laid out before him. His stomach protested when he didn’t. The rumble was audible. He decided he didn’t like the little game Zgavra played and wouldn’t let the dragon play it again. For the moment, however, he was committed.

  The zmeu yanked his hood back. Dragos's hands flew up, too late. He glared angrily at Zgavra, then snapped a look at the man, who sucked in a breath upon seeing him. Not at his face. As far as he knew, he had a normal one, handsome, some have said, but his eyes were frightening, his paleness was such that it showed the veins beneath his skin, and his hair hung ghost white, bound in a leather strap.

  “As you can see, some things are incurable,” Zgavra pontificated, “but the boy’s hair did grow out of control for a time. Here, my son, tell the man how you fixed it.”

  Dragos shot Zgavra a hateful glare before remembering to tame himself before the stranger.

  “It was because I was born with it that I tried to fix it, Father,” Dragos said, as if reminding the zmeu of things it didn’t know. “And when it went wild, I had to come up with another remedy to control the newest disaster before Mother found out what I’d done.”

  The subtle emphasis on certain words warned the zmeu not to make up things about situations it knew nothing of. As he spoke, he looked at Zgavra’s face, which held nothing but fatherly affection. One he’d have liked to slap off its face.

  “Light bless you,” the stolnic murmured, looking at Dragos as if confronted by a disgusting tragedy.

  Dragos's attention shifted to the man who’d been eager to invite them in after hearing of a potential cure for an unknown problem. “What is your name, Dominule?”

  A whisper and a creak drew his focus from the man to the hallway where the two kitchen staff had gone. Apparently, they hadn’t gone far. He didn’t bother to look at them. There were greater concerns.

  “Nico Volpe, I’m the Stolnic for house Cel Tradat.” He glanced toward the doorway, which had been left open, and said more loudly, “Please pardon my employees. They don’t understand their rudeness and only care for the welfare of their lady.”

  Dragos nodded. Zgavra patted his shoulder affectionately. It took everything he had not to brush the hand off his shoulder. Instead, he forced a smile.

  “Domnule, I can’t promise I can fix this, but I can promise to try,” Dragos said to Volpe, whose hands wrung like he was trying to rub some filth off them.

  “I’m not sure the family would approve. I was hoping you’d know something I could do, something I could procure,” Volpe said, gaze slipping toward the door.

  “I cannot know until I see,” Dragos replied. “Take me to her.”

  Volpe’s hands clutched tighter, his knuckles paling, spine stiffening. He paced a step away, then turned back. The man fumbled with the crisp cuffs of his linen shirt, straightening them, the lightness contrasting with his dark skin. His desperate brown eyes darted, as if another answer would present itself. Then, he swallowed, and as if his pride had slid down his throat, he deflated.

  The stolnic paused and took in a deep breath. With a last glance at the door, he murmured, “This way.”

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  Or I will write words without breaks again. Scary.

  Zmeu (zmyeh-oo): A form of dragon. A shapeshifter that travels between the world of the living and other realms. They are known to steal fair maids to be their wives. Suffers great hubris. Very powerful monster given to chaos, born of the Umbregrin. Solomonari wizards ride them when controlling weather patterns.

  Strigoi (stree-GOY): All manner of creatures with wounded souls. It could refer to the undead, to witches, or ghosts, depending on the context.

  Moroi viu (mo-roi vee-oo)[rolled r]: A living person lacking a soul. Someone strange, atypical.

  Dominule (DOM-uh-nyool): Lord or sir.

  Stolnic (Stol-NEEK): Pantry manager, much like a butler, but with responsibilities regarding the kitchens more than the house and grounds.