He gave a short nod, and when he replied there was satisfaction in his voice. “You’ve begun to learn, Victoria.”

She started to turn away and noticed that his dark shirt, which was cravatless, had gaped away from his throat. “Those are new bites.”

His hand jerked slightly, as though he’d begun to raise it to close his collar and stopped himself in time. “Unfortunately.”

“Was Sara right? Did you go to Lilith?”

“Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

“Why would you do such a foolish thing?”

He spun away as if to start to the door, and she reached out and grabbed his arm. Hard. “Max.”

His muscles flexing under her fingers, he turned back, his expression flat except for furious eyes. “Yes, I went to Lilith. Yes, she left me with yet more marks of her possession.” This last word came out with rank bitterness. “Why it can make any difference to you, or to our current task, is not clear to me. Let’s go.”

“Alone? With her? Surrounded by all her guards? Max, she could have killed you.” She couldn’t let it go; she couldn’t drop the subject. How could he risk himself that way?

What would have happened if he’d not come back?

Or…worse? Dear God.

At her rapid questions he paused and looked down at her. Now his eyes were bleak. “You understand nothing of her, do you? Victoria, if I were to give you one last piece of advice, it would be this: Find out who Lilith is, or she will beat you as she has beaten so many others before.” He pulled firmly away and started toward the massive stone door.

Victoria followed, anger still spiking through her. He was so high-handed, so reticent. So cold and removed. Why did he still act that way, treat her like a naive girl, after all they’d accomplished together?

He had the door open before she reached him, and the pale gray that came through the crack was ominous in its dimness. The sun was nearly down, and Max was right—they needed to get the papers safely back to the Consilium before Akvan or his followers realized they’d come and gone from the very chamber the demon had been trying to gain access to.

Just as she was about to walk through the door, where Max waited on the other side, Victoria remembered the leather cord in her pocket, and its small splinter of obsidian. Although she had considered keeping it as a potential way to draw Akvan out of his lair, after what Max had shown her in regard to its power, she realized it would be foolhardy to take that chance.

No one could say she didn’t learn from her mistakes. Even Max.

But when she reached into the small breast pocket of her man’s coat, it was empty. Empty! The cord had fallen out somehow…sometime since she’d left the Consilium.

It had to have been, she realized, when she removed her coat just outside the Door of Alchemy in order to take off Aunt Eustacia’s armband. The necklace must have fallen on the ground then, when she slung the coat over her arm and worked the bracelet down from her upper arm. It had to be on the ground outside.

“Are you coming?” Max, at the door, sounded impatient as usual.

She didn’t respond, but instead, with one last look about the laboratory, she slipped out through the narrow opening. It was going to be difficult to find in the lowering light, but they would have to try. She couldn’t leave it for someone else to stumble upon. “Max, I—”

“Shh!” he hissed suddenly, coming to attention.

She would have heard it too if she hadn’t been focused on the loss of the little splinter: a crashing in the brush very nearby. Coming vaguely from the direction of the villa, it was loud enough to portend either a cluster of newcomers, or a very large, very careless person.

And then Victoria heard voices. Shrill voices, raised much too loudly in argument.

Her entire body went cold and then rigid.

And it wasn’t because there was a vampire sending a chill over the back of her neck; indeed, there weren’t any undead in the near vicinity.

No, this was much worse.

Max’s face changed from one of arrested expectation to one of confusion. If Victoria hadn’t been so disconcerted, she might have found it amusing. As it was, she started toward the noise just as something—someone—blundered through a pair of overgrown bushes spreading over an old path.

“…daresay, you should have stayed home, Nilly! That little stick—Oh!” Lady Winifred, the Duchess of Farnham, shambled to a halt so quickly that her companion plowed into her from behind, sending her curls and jowls jouncing. The reticule-size silver cross around her neck bounced into the air, then thunked heavily onto the duchess’s bosom. “Victoria, what on earth—Oh! Oh, my!”

“Oh!” squeaked Lady Nilly, peering from behind the duchess’s broad shoulder.

Victoria had stepped toward them, followed by Max—whose dark look had been the catalyst for their choked gasps.

“Stand back,” Lady Winnie said fiercely, brandishing an unwieldy wooden pike the length of her forearm and thick as her wrist. She aimed the pointed end at Max. “Has he hurt you, Victoria? One further step, and—”

“Did he bite you?” asked Lady Nilly, her voice breathless and her eyes so wide that white appeared all around her irises. “Did it hurt?”

“What are you two doing here?” Victoria asked, gently taking the duchess’s wrist and lowering the ridiculous stake.

“We’re hunting vampires,” replied Lady Winnie in a stage whisper, still eyeing Max balefully. “You poor dear. I don’t mean to frighten you, but I’m certain that man is a vampire.”

“He’s not a vampire,” Victoria told her, trying to keep her lips from twitching. A quick glance at Max told her he was not finding the situation amusing in the least. “Although I can understand the mistake.”

The sound he made could only have been described as a growl. “Victoria, it’s nearly dark,” he said, warning in his voice.

“Indeed. Duchess Winnie,” she said, using her pet name for the woman, “what on earth are you doing here?”

Suddenly there was more crashing in the bushes—although, to give her a bit of credit, it wasn’t quite so ferocious as that from before—and a puff of orange hair appeared, followed by the flushed-cheeked face of Verbena.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, my lady,” she said to Victoria, giving a brief curtsy. “I tried t’keep ’em from doin’ it—”

“Hmph.” Winnie sniffed. “If it weren’t for her, we would be back sipping tea and preparing for dinner.”

“What are you all doing here?” Max thundered.

Lady Nilly squeaked, her eyes popping again. Lady Winnie drew herself up bravely, but scuttled back a few steps as she closed her fingers around the crucifix, brandishing it like a talisman.

“A bit on th’ huffy side,” Verbena said to Victoria, casting a glance at Max. She must have seen the impatience in her mistress’s own expression, for she hurried on. “Lady Melly’s been taken off by th’ Conte Regalado. ’E’s been courtin’ her, milady, an’ I didn’t know until t’day when I heard ’em talkin’ about it.”

“Regalado has my mother?” Cold fear rushed through her, and her mouth dried. No, was her first thought. No. Not again. Not like Phillip…

Verbena nodded vigorously. “An’ the ladies there—they d’cided t’ come wit’ me when I come ’ere to see to ’er.” Now she produced her own stake, which, again to her credit, was much more of a comfortable size. And it looked a bit familiar, with its pink sequins and the remnant of a white feather still attached to the blunt end.

“When did they leave? How long have they been gone?”

“N’more than two hours,” Verbena replied earnestly. “He said he’d take ’er for a drive. Th’ ladies ’ere thought he’d bring ’er h’ere, if he was gonna—y’see—hurt ’er, and since they’d been here for that party, they insisted on coming wi’ me.”

Her mother, in the clutches of Regalado. The thought made Victoria’s insides churn like a sea storm.

She focused her sharp mind, pushed away the worry that threatened to turn her senses frantic.

Were they at the villa? If so, it was a blessing that she was already here herself…but there were any number of places he could have taken her. Victoria realized Max was looking at her, that he’d stepped closer, almost as if to offer assistance. He’d help her comb through the villa, go with her to delve down into the underground lair of Akvan and search for her mother.

Victoria looked directly at him, her veins singing and her mind working furiously, and pushed the numbing worry back. She could fret later. It was getting darker by the moment. She made her decision in that instant.

“You’ll have to take that back to…back,” she finished firmly, looking at the bundle of papers he still had. “I’ll see to my mother.”

He looked as though he might argue, but it was only for a moment. Then he nodded. “It’s important that we get this safely to Wayren,” he said.

“Take them with you,” Victoria added, gesturing to the ladies, feeling the brittleness in her movements. “I don’t need them—”

“I ain’t leavin’ ye alone, milady,” Verbena said, stepping toward her.

“I daresay, you cannot think to order me about,” said Lady Winnie, looking down her humped nose at Victoria. “Melly could be in danger! I shall not rest until—”

“Shh!” Victoria snapped to attention as the rush of a chill moved over the back of her neck. She and Max exchanged glances; he felt it too. “Go,” she told him, gesturing toward the rear of the estate grounds, where the darkness seemed to be growing even faster. He would go out the way he and Victoria had come in.

With a last, steady look, followed by a sharp nod, he disappeared soundlessly into the overgrowth, leaving Victoria with three ill-prepared would-be vampire hunters.