Chapter Twenty-Seven

No hint of resentment could be seen in Darla's face. In the absence of light she glowed against the pale gold that upholstered the headboard of her bed, pale pink lips curved into a pleasing smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. There was a trick to that too, of averting her gaze, of finding a way to appear to be looking at Angelus without looking at him. Inwardly she was not precisely seething, though there was a certain degree of anger that she preferred to simply feeling inadequate.

She might have been fooled into believing that she had been granted a reprieve of sorts in the form of a dead girl that bore a passing resemblance to her who, had she survived, would have been a new and different kind of addition to their household. She had seen Angelus at work crafting the crucible that Drusilla was shaped in. For the longest time he simply watched her, refining his tortures on others. The first person he killed who was related to the object of his attention was a little girl who looked like her. Killed, turned, tortured, the shape of a cross burned into her forehead, spoiling the visage of the vampire doll he made and dressed in an exact copy of a costume Drusilla had worn.

She was a distant relative, a cousin of some sort, broken without art in haste to torment the object of his attention.

Claire Hamilton smacked of that kind of experimentation.

She ran her fingers through his hair as he labored over her, cynically appreciating the effort more than the effect of his hands and lips. He couldn't think that he was distracting her, and yet, he did, fooled by the catalog of her responses. A sigh here, a moan there, her finger's tightening his hair and then smoothing it down as her hips lifted. She could feel his lips shape a smile against her skin before his tongue gathered flesh to suck on, answered with a throatier moan of approval.

It felt good, but she wasn't distracted by it any more than he was truly engaged by the conflicts that gathered around them. The business with the vampires from across the river didn't really capture his attention, or something would have been done about them. The presence of an element of the church that might be hunting them didn't preoccupy him. He was bored despite that and in his boredom he would craft some new game to test them.



Pre-dawn light was spreading from the bow of windows in Drusilla's room. With a small sigh of annoyance, William made himself get up to draw the drapes. He opened one of the windows to enjoy the draft and picked up his discarded coat to look for a cheroot. Failing to find one in his pocket, he slipped into his trousers and left Drusilla's room to cross the hall to his own empty room.

He found it considerably tidier than he had left it before they had left for the party. It smelt of candles and pine cones. Willow's jewelry from the evening rested on his dresser where she knew that he would find it. He opened the box that held his cheroots and frowned at the meager supply. Bloody hell. Even if he slept most of the day away and rationed himself, he was going to run out of cheroots before sunset. He lit one anyway, frowning at the flavor. What he really wanted was a cigarette, and he had run out of those yesterday, so he was left in short supply of an unsatisfying substitute.

He picked up the bracelet that Willow had worn last night, not recognizing it. He generally left procuring a wardrobe and baubles for Willow to Darla, who actually cared about the details of her appearance, at least when they were all pretending to be one happy family. She kept the blue glass beaded necklace he bought for her in her room in a cloth-covered box on her dressing table. It suited her much more so than the cold, shining jet bracelet he let fall on the dresser.

He met Lucius in the hallway. The younger vampire hesitated and William smiled crookedly at the show of nerves.

Lucius hadn't been looking for William. Not yet, at least. He had a version of this evening's confrontation between Matilde and Willow courtesy of Andreas, who seemed to find it amusing that Matilde had been cowed, at least for the moment. Lucius thought it was far more likely that she was waiting for an opportunity to complain to the mistress of the house.

Keeping his voice low, he related what Andreas had observed, watching William for a reaction. He leaned against the doorframe, smoking, his gaze flicking to the closed door of Willow's room, a small frown appearing, but when Lucius was done, he simply nodded.

"Where are you off to?" William asked.

Out of habit Lucius checked the first floor before retiring to make sure that the house was secure. He found himself dismissed, though there was nothing particularly rude or heavy-handed in William's manner.

William waited until Lucius had gone down the staircase and was out of sight before his attention returned to the door across from his. He nearly stepped on Drusilla's dog, which was scampering after Lucius, probably hoping for a treat or at least company. He crossed the hall to Willow's door and opened it quietly, walking in and shutting it behind him. He knew immediately that she really was asleep this time. She had kicked off the covers and was lying half across the bed with one knee pulled up toward her chest. He might have woken her up to have a pointed discussion about what he meant when he told her that he expected her to bring any problems she had to him, but he smelled tears, faint, but still hanging in the air.

She had feelings and they got a bit bruised. If she felt bad enough to cry over it, then it stood to reason that she would cry again if he woke her up now to demand an explanation. That was a bit of drama that would spoil the balance of the day for him. He made a note to talk to her tomorrow and cocked his head at the sound of water running from the tap in the bathroom. Using the door from Willow's room he entered the bathroom and found Drusilla filling the bathtub.

She looked up at him and then beyond him curiously. Reading the look, he shook his head. "Asleep," he said, pulling the door shut behind him. Dru went to the window, opening it incautiously in his view, and before he could react to that, she snatched his cheroot out of his hand and tossed it out the window before closing it.

"Bloody hell," he grumbled, belatedly remembering the no smoking in the bathroom rule that Drusilla was fanatic about.

"It makes the towels stink," she told him, unrepentant.

"No worse than me," he pointed out, offended.

She glided over, resting her head on his shoulder, pushing her nose into his neck. "You smell better than stinky towels."

Slightly mollified, but annoyed about the loss of his cheroot, he tried to hold out for a bit more making up. "How much better?"

She nipped his earlobe. "Not that much," she admitted, pushing him toward the bathtub.

He forgot about the cheroot and his effort to fish for a compliment, turning to touch her face, feeling something twist in his chest at how sweet she was when she was deep in this oldest of all their games. Wife. Friend. Lover.

"I love you," he reminded her.

She preened. "More than anyone?"

"More than anything."

"More than . . . " her gaze slid to the wall that separated them from Willow's room.

He started to agree and realized that it wasn't precisely true. Differently, but not more. Drusilla had no beginning or end for him, and Willow always would. Willow would always be someone he knew before he loved her.

Before he could try to explain it she turned her face into his hand and kissed his wrist. "I love Daddy more than you," she said, without malice, simply stating a fact. "First you loved her not at all. And then you didn't wish to love her. And now you love her. When you love her best then it will all be even."

That was how she had worked it out? "Who will Willow love best?" he asked.

It was an idea that had not occurred to her. She shook her head. "None. Her heart beats, but it is so loud that she can't hear what it says."

"Can you?" he asked warily.

She nodded hesitantly. "Sometimes."

He bit his lip. He probably didn't want to know. Not that it mattered. She didn't have to—it wouldn't change what he felt. "What do you hear?"

Dru's gaze drifted downward, a delicate grimace contorting her features. "Home, home, home, home, home, home, home," she chanted faster and faster until it was almost a wail, sounding so much like a lost child that William found himself covering her mouth to make her stop.

She looked reproachful, and he eased the pressure of his hand over her lips. "This is what you make her alone in. I told you I could take it away, and you said no. You said 'never again.'" Her expression turned sly. "I can make her have her home with us," she promised.

He kissed her forehead. "I think we've already done that."

His voice was less than steady. Listening to Willow chant 'this isn't real' was unnerving enough, but he really thought if it was the worst of a bad moment, then it wasn't all that bad. He settled in the bathtub with Drusilla. He knew virtually nothing about Willow's life before he had met her.

Drusilla patted his cheek with wet fingers, awkwardly comforting even as she demanded his attention. He turned his head to kiss her fingers.

What place was home that left such a sound for Drusilla to find? Where was it? Willow's chief failure in her adventures in running away had been in having no real place to go. Her journals contained no hint of her origins beyond a certain street in Bristol, beyond her friendship with another prostitute. Who was she before that? Where was she from? With her accent and her peculiar mannerisms, someone, probably Angelus, had concluded that she was American, but that had been years ago, when they still talked about her like she was a houseplant, and not to her. Then she became a dozen stories and aliases made up on the spot to explain her presence. She was a sister, cousin, school friend of Drusilla's, a nurse, a servant. To his family, infrequently met, she was his mistress.

Around him the warm bath water undulated as Drusilla moved to reach for a ball of soap. The ends of her hair trailed in the water, sticking to his skin where it reached him. He admired her face in profile, the way she lifted her arms and let soap bubbles forming in her hands roll down her arms. He leaned forward to fit her against his chest. For a moment he let his chin rest on her shoulder.

They were the same temperature, warmed by bathwater. Under his chin, her shoulder matched the temperature of his skin, under the water, his hands moved over skin that was no more or less heated than his own. There was a time when he fantasized about what they could be if they were on their own. No Angelus and Darla, just like those first few days of his unlife when his whole being was completely engaged with the wonder that was Drusilla. Disliking Angelus was a reflex. It only went so far.

There was a symmetry and logic to their interactions that he recognized. Darla made Angelus and for a century that was enough. Then Drusilla was made and in her madness and devotion, completed what Darla lacked. Drusilla made him to make up for what Angelus was unable to provide her. He found and kept Willow because she provided something that Drusilla could never give him.

He thought that it was sanity. Or distraction. Or the exotic attraction of a warm, fragile mortal lover preserved for his amusement. There was something more to it, though. In a strange sort of way she chose him, without even realizing it. When he brought her to Angelus' room, she was more his of her own choosing than when they were alone.

After their bath, Drusilla rose, dripping water on the floor, ignoring the towels to go rummage through Willow's things in the bathroom. She experimented with the facial mask and the ointments and skin creams that Willow created for herself.

"Shall we wake her up?" she asked, coming back to the bathtub where he remained, soaking in the waning heat of the water. "You can close your eyes while I whisper that I love you and pretend it's her saying it," she smiled knowingly. "I do that. Angelus loves me. I know. William says it, but in here," she pressed her fingers against her temples, "it is Angelus."

She raked her fingernails over her thighs, bringing up oozing furrows of reddened skin and blood. The lucidity that she had briefly achieved was splintering.

"Say it," she demanded as he got out of the tub and started drying himself off. "Say it. Say it. Say it," she chanted. "I'll carve it out of her chest for you," she was reaching for the door that connected to Willow's room when he grabbed her around the waist, picking her up and carrying her into her own room while she rubbed herself against him. "I love you," she said and then laughed.

He wanted to tell her to stop.

"We are a tangle," she told him. "Drawing tighter and when it comes together," she snapped her teeth together. "You can tell us apart. As if it matters."



Willow woke up with dried tear tracks on her face and the inescapable feeling that everything had changed. She found herself looking to see if she was still alone in her room, and then to see if anyone had visited in the night while she slept.

There was no evidence of it. She got up and started to go about the business of getting ready for the day. The bathroom was a mess. The floor was wet, and the bathtub was full of cold, dirty water that made her shudder when she pulled the plug on it. Wet towels had been left on the floor. She washed her face and cleaned her teeth before gathering up the wet towels and depositing them in the hamper. Mr. Buttons scratched at the connecting door from Drusilla's room and after a moment of hesitation, she opened the door to let him out, shutting it quickly.


He shot through the bathroom and into her room and she followed him, going to her wardrobe to pick out a dress to wear. Her gaze kept shifting from the mirror on the dressing table to the door to her bathroom. This house was less of a maze than others they had occupied. Places where rooms connected to other rooms and the hallways were ignored in favor of passing through the occupied spaces. She almost preferred it the other way, when she thought it was better to know where they were, when she could count on someone to draw her back from the impulse to do something stupid.

When she finished dressing and putting her hair up, she left her room to go downstairs. A bundle of mail had been left in the foyer on a table that held a silver bowl that was starting to tarnish. In the kitchen she found Matilde making up what Willow thought of as a fake breakfast tray for Darla, who liked her dainty cups of hot, strong, bitter chocolate in the morning. She had cut tulips from the garden that were too big for the narrow cut crystal vase on the tray, rendering the arrangement slightly awkward.

Without comment Willow found a taller, more substantial porcelain vase and filled it, wondering if the truce that had been established last night would hold. Matilde accepted the substitution, replacing the vase with the one Willow selected, and hefted the tray before looking at her in a semi-critical way.

"You've made a mess of putting your hair up," she observed in passing.

Willow grimaced at her retreating back. She was carrying the tray down the hall to the salon, which meant that Darla was awake and would be down soon. Intent on avoiding her, Willow decided to forego heating more water for tea and settled for a glass of water and bread smeared with butter for her breakfast. Wrapping it in a napkin, she went to the library with her meal and the mail and found Angelus there, sitting behind his desk.

He took in her bread and water breakfast and the mail tucked under her arm in a comprehensive glance before gesturing to a corner of the desk were a chair was positioned.

Feeling somewhat relieved by his lack of attention, Willow sat, placing her glass and the bread in the napkin on an immaculate corner of the desk, before turning her attention to the bundle of mail yet to be opened, read, and sorted.

Mail for Darla she left unopened since she preferred to keep her correspondence private. Invitations and social correspondence was generally addressed to Angelus, as were the bills from trades people. There was a bill from the furniture dealer for the chaise William had purchased for her room, less the consignment on the settee it replaced, and a commission for the re-sale. Bills went into a pile that would be addressed with a note to their bank to pay the bills out of the household account, and she felt a stab of regret at not having thought to ask the shop keeper to hold back the consignment from the bill, leaving a cash balance that she could have retrieved in person.

Working out ways to skim money off the household accounts had kept her busy for years, though in practice, she was careful not to indulge the impulse. Behind an unlocked door in a drawer was a fortune in jewelry that she could make use of when she made her escape.

Thinking back over the last few days, she looked up at Angelus. Darla would write a note to their hostess complimenting her on the party last night, but the night before, Angelus, Drusilla and William had dined at the Hamilton's. A note and a small gift were in order.

"Should I write a note to the Hamiltons?" she asked.

A small smile twitched at the corners of his lips. "Yes, do that," he said, seeming amused for some reason.




William came in while she was putting her hair up again, and stood in the bathroom door, leaning against it as he rolled a cheroot between his fingertips, possibly aware that he was facing a long day with a slender supply of tobacco at his disposal. He brought it to his lips and strolled over to the fireplace to find a match to light it. Mr. Buttons ran over to him, sniffing the cuff of his trousers, and he pushed the dog away with his bare foot.

"I thought I'd take him to the park," Willow said.

From the tone of her voice, he understood that she was asking a question. He had barred her from walking during the day before he knew what potential threat her acquaintances from the park posed. Now that they had a social context, and no connection to the assault on the house, he supposed that there was no real reason to keep her confined to the house and the grounds.

"I thought I'd ask Darla if she has any errands."

He flicked ash into the cold grate. "Errands are for servants," he said, watching her pin her hair up. "We should get some."

"I did," Willow reminded him. "You killed them."

Her tone of voice was flattened with something. Resentment? Anger?

She was wearing the gray silk banyan again. "If she sends you into town, buy some cigarettes for me," he said, watching the silk smooth over her back as her arms dropped to her sides.

Or possibly the resentment was directed toward her hair. She was scowling at the mirror, prodding at a lump in the twist of her hair and repositioning a hairpin. He considered it for a moment and decided that she had probably been reminded to feel guilty about the dead servants.

"I'll need money and directions."

It wasn't an unreasonable request. "Go eat something. I'll find you," he said, taking himself off to see Darla. He found her in her room, still in bed, but awake. There was a tray on the bed with a pot of chocolate. It was the kind of thing he might have told Lucius to bring to Willow when he wanted to be indulgent.

"This is novel," Darla greeted him without looking up from a letter she was reading.

The bedroom was part of the master suite, connecting to Angelus' room across the hall by a dressing room and a bathroom. Angelus' room was dominated by white and gold. This room was darker, the walls covered in red silk.

He sat on the corner of the bed, uninvited. "Willow is going out," he announced. "Do you have any errands for her?"

She looked up. Objectively, she admired the picture he made, lounging at the foot of her bed, half dressed. "Drusilla and Willow need new dresses. She can make an appointment for the dressmaker to come here," she said. "I'll want to see fabric samples."

He nodded, looking around the room. "I'll tell her."

Darla smiled. "Bring her back with them when she returns," she ordered.

His eyebrows lifted at the tone of her voice. Instant obedience was never one of his virtues. He thought about it, weighing it like it was a request before nodding his assent.

She went back to reading her letter. It was a missive from her sire. Angelus had been a kind of declaration of her independence from him and he accepted it with remarkable grace when he could have destroyed her and her little family. They corresponded regularly. His handwriting was oddly neat and orderly. He used a writing machine that mirrored his handwriting to make a true copy of his letters, keeping their correspondence private.

She had written to him before they left Lisbon for Vienna and Prague and again after they had been introduced to the vampires who lodged in Zlata Ulicka. This letter came between those two and it was full of gossipy tidbits about the region. As usual, there was no hint of interest in her little brood, unless she read between the lines. He had no purpose in sharing what he knew about the region, potential rivals, and possible snares other than to lay that knowledge at her disposal.

She closed her eyes for a moment, conjuring the memory of the dank underworld of Berlin. Arrested in eras that were crushed under the relentless press of time, were vampires that had been made by the Master and his followers. She came and went as it pleased her, assured of welcome when she returned to stand at his side. No visit with her family had gone well, but it did not preclude the possibility of returning again.

When she opened her eyes, William was gone. He knew what she wanted Willow for. He would refuse her. He would find some way to out of it. His rebellions were consistent and carefully calibrated. She wondered if he would ever choose, as she had, to test the limits of what would be tolerated for the sake of what could be discovered by making up rules as you went.




He went down the back stairs, barefooted, looking for Willow and paused at the foot of the stairs. Willow was in the kitchen, but she was not alone. Lucius was there with a book open in front of him, sitting at the workbench. Matilde was watching Lucius with an expression that was less resentful than usual. Willow had her back to him and didn't realize that he was there.

The book was her Baedeker. Lucius was explaining how to get to a shop where she could purchase his cigarettes, reminding him that he had forgotten to retrieve his wallet. He shrugged it off as he came through the door. "Make sure she has enough money, for a hack and anything she needs to buy," he said, passing that responsibility on to Lucius as he approached Willow, slipping one arm around her waist and ducking his head to nuzzle her throat where it was exposed above the collar of her dress.

She hadn't bathed this morning, probably due to the mess left in her bathroom. "Darla wants you to stop at the dressmaker and arrange for her to come here. She wants you to bring fabric swatches back with you."

Lucius reached into a pocket and started counting out coins for her.

"I can take the trolley," she said.

"Not with the dog," Lucius countered before William could point that out.

Her idea of a meal consisted of toasted bread with a bit of jam smeared on it. A tiny bit of the jam clung to her upper lip and William turned her face up to him to kiss it away, seeing a hint of confusion and distress in her eyes.

He had an idea of what was causing it. He kissed her again and picked up the jam smeared butter knife lying on the side of Willow's crumb laden plate. He twirled it with a flourish thinking of George Hamilton's startled face before he brought the dull point down hard, pinning Matilde's hand to the table. Men fight. Women scream. The responses didn't actually change after death.

Matilde's shriek of pain was abruptly cut off when he slapped her hard enough to get her attention.

"I'm busy right now, but you and I are going to have a short conversation. I'll be doing all the talking," he told her. "Don't go anywhere," he said breezily, taking Willow by the elbow and directing her faltering steps to the hallway.

"What did I tell you last night about bringing problems to me?" he asked.

"I didn't do anything," she insisted. "I just thought about it," which was true and very disturbing, in her view. She had just thought about it and felt the power to make her will manifest gather. That wasn't natural.

She tried to pull her elbow free and stepped on her skirt, stumbling a little. He gave her a little shake. "Willow?"

"What?" she looked shaken. "How . . ." she looked behind him, and answered her own question. "Lucius," she said.

Without bothering to check to see if he had followed them, William gestured to the foyer. "Make yourself useful and get her hat and gloves," he said, moving toward Willow. Lucius passed behind him as William backed her up against the wainscoting under the staircase. "When I tell you to do something, I expect it to be done," he reminded her.

Resentment flared to life in her eyes. "It's done and sorted out. You are going to ruin it," she predicted.

"Ruin it?" He braced one hand above her head, the other lifting her chin. His thumb traced her jaw.

Willow tried to gauge his mood as his thumb reached the corner of her mouth. She turned her head enough to kiss it, resenting him for the gesture that was calculated to mollify. His fingers nudged her chin higher, tipping her head back. For a moment they stood there, locked into a silent battle. She was probably right about having sorted something out with Matilde that his interference would undo. That wasn't the point. If he couldn't trust her to obey such a simple injunction, she wasn't going out.

"I want to know if anyone speaks to you, in the park. Do you understand me?”

Her chin dipped slightly. "Yes, William," she said, sounding like she had already figured out that she was going to acquiesce.

He placed a soft kiss on her lips. “I like it when you call me Will,” he reminded her.

She stared back at him. "I'll keep that in mind. Maybe I'll do that when I manage to teach Mr. Buttons to heel."

He pinched her chin. "Clever," he complimented, backing off to secure her hand, escorting her to the door.

Lucius had her hat and William took it from him, setting it on her head. It was an Italian straw bonnet dyed gray to match the dress with a bit of black satin trim. It framed her heart-shaped face. She accepted her gloves and a small purse from Lucius.

Lucius had gotten out the leash and was snapping it on Mr. Buttons' collar. The dog barked, springing up as he realized that he was going for a walk with his second favorite person in the world as Lucius passed the leash to her.

She was disconcerted. Two spots of color stained her cheeks. William smiled at her fondly. “Don't be too long, sweet,” he admonished.

But she surprised him when she looked up at him and seemed to realize that he was enjoying her reaction. Lucius opened the door for her, carefully stepping out of the way of the sunlight that the open door allowed in. William could feel it crawling over his skin until she shifted to block the light with her body. Her lips moved soundlessly.

Idiot, she called him, and then she smiled, pulled to the open door the dog was bolting through by the tug of the leash.



He was grinning at the sight of her, one hand clutching her skirt as she maneuvered down the stairs, the other fighting the leash as the dog leapt ahead of her when Lucius started to shut the door. Angelus was coming down the stairs. She always hiked her skirt up just a tiny bit too high.

"Willow is going out?" He stood at the landing, resting his arms on the carved wood rail to watch from a less sunlit spot as she wound the leash around her hand and tried to pull the dog back while she opened the gate at the foot of the walk. The dog whined piteously at the restraint and she shook the leash loose again and got pulled through the gate for thanks.

William let Lucius shut the door. Pale wisps of smoke rose off his skin. Angelus smiled at him beatifically. "Remember that time in Bath when I had you chained up and Drusilla played with the drapes?"

William turned his head to look up at him. He pretended to consider. "No. Was it good for you?"

Angelus laughed. Drusilla had left him in the sun long enough to cause his skin to smolder and then she would let them down and Angelus tasted the heat coming off William's skin, licking his nipples until he was lost in the sensation for a few moments before Drusilla threw back the curtains again.

"Where is your precious girl off to?" Angelus asked.

"Errands," William told him, completing the turn to walk back to the kitchen. Angelus waited until he was passing the landing and vaulted over it to crash into him, slapping one hand across his chest.

While Lucius watched, they grappled with each other. Angelus was bigger and stronger but William was more agile and quicker. They backed off, not entirely relaxing, swaying a little as they moved to leave no opening.

Angelus feinted and lunged at William. Anticipating the move, he ducked, threw his shoulder into Angelus' midsection and nearly managed to sweep his feet under him before Angelus grabbed the hall table to check his fall.

The violent movement sent a hand-painted vase spinning to the lip of the table, tipping over, and William dove for it, catching it before it hit the ground.

Angelus looked up the stairs to see if their scuffle had drawn any attention. "Good catch," he complimented, straightening. William returned the vase to its proper resting place and rolled his eyes when Angelus smacked the back of his head as he strolled past him to the kitchen.

He found Matilde where William had left her. She could have unpinned her hand, but she had decided that the safest thing to do was to wait and try to figure out if she was really in trouble.

Angelus tilted his head to one side. "Maybe I was hasty about that whole railroad spike phase you went through," he mused as William joined him. "Are you going to start making your way through flatware? Can I expect you to fork your victims next?"

William cast him a withering sideways look at the taunt and forbore to comment.

"What has she done?" Angelus asked. He sounded mildly interested, but not enough to interfere, which neither Lucius nor Matilde understood.

William shook his head. "I don't know. I forgot to ask, and you know how Willow is. 'Little Miss Go Along and Get Along'" he shook his head. "Doesn't work that way. Eventually someone decides to make themselves an object lesson," they had switched back to English, so Matilde was unable to follow any of this.

With a slight thrill that tingled in his spine, Lucius was. It wasn't just the words that were starting to make more sense, it was the whole package. Intonation, the body language. He found himself absorbing impressions of William, from the arrogant lift of his chin to the indolent indifference that was expressed as he traced the outline of Angelus' handprint on his chest.

His lessons in English had been terminated as soon as the household was reorganized, but he still had his books and exposure to the language that was used to exclude them. 'Object lesson' rolled in his head, interestingly terse and yet full of meaning and menace.




The park was empty Willow discovered. In fact, the street had been quieter than usual. She would have expected to see trades people, like any other day, but there had been none. She was a little late. Getting out of the house had taken longer than expected and she thought that William had changed his mind at the last minute when he had been staring at her with what she recognized as a need to impose his will on her tempered by his version of affection.

He had been teasing her. For a moment she thought that he had figured out that she had something to do with his vastly depleted store of tobacco.

Was it a holiday? There were holidays, not exactly like she remembered with school let out and the mall, the movie theatre, and Bronzing to pass the time. Of course, she was twenty-four now. She should be graduated from college by now, with a job or grad school, or maybe both, and her holidays would have changed.

Where was everyone? Where were Harry Wyndham and David Giles? Had she, in a fit of madness, imagined the whole conversation last night? She could have sworn Wyndham understood what she was saying. She couldn't exactly say, I want to help the Watcher's Council and I'll tell you everything I know, but we have to get as far away as fast as we can. Vampire. Enhanced hearing. What little she did say could have been construed in a lot of ways if they were overheard.

On the other hand, Watchers Council operatives had not struck her as being geniuses in the other time that she had encountered them.

She was walking downhill toward the ornamental pond, when she finally saw them. Relief washed through her, so much so that she felt a little dizzy and had to step off the path for a second to catch her breath. Her hand rested on the rough bark of a tree, and on the edge of her awareness, she could have sworn she felt something, like adrenaline, but without the pounding heart.

She was sure that they saw her too. Harry started to raise his hand to wave, but David caught it before the motion was complete and they turned away, walking in the direction of the north gate.

"Okay," Willow muttered to herself, wondering if she was supposed to turn into 19th century stalker woman and follow them. She looked down at the dog and stooped down to unhook his leash.

Granted freedom, he didn't catch on immediately. He jumped up to try to lick her face, muddy paws scrambling for purchase on her silk dress.

It was a stupid idea, she realized, looking up to watch the two retreating figures before fumbling with the dog's collar to reattach the leash. She tried to ignore the way her heart was beating sickly in her chest, hollow with disappointment and a certain amount of dread.

"If this were Sunnydale and one of Spike's skanky, not-yet-dead girlfriends showed up at the Bronze to give us the poop on Spike what would we have thought?" she asked Mr. Buttons.

He danced around in a circle and barked a couple of times.

"Yep," she nodded. "We would have thought, not so fast, sister," she said sadly.

It wasn't true. Not even remotely, and she knew it. Spike didn't have girlfriends. He just had Drusilla, until he didn't and he didn't seem to have the least idea of what to do except get her back. And they would never have given up on anyone that easily.

"We've got errands," she reminded the dog.




"I knew she would come," Harry said. He wanted to stay and find out what she had to say.

David didn't. The fact that she had returned to the park confirmed that she had a freedom of movement that bore some consideration. A note had arrived that morning from Emile requesting a meeting at lunch. Harry insisted that they visit the park on the chance that she would come there again. David agreed to that, but insisted that they would not approach her. They left early for lunch and made a circuit of the park. David had been ready to leave when she appeared.

"There she is," David agreed, scanning the trees behind her. The chances that a vampire in broad daylight shadowed her were nil, but he had no intention of speaking to her. Harry started to lift his hand to wave at her and David caught his arm.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "We are leaving."

"She knows that we've seen her," Harry protested. "It's rude."

David snorted at that. "Unpardonable," he retorted. "What the hell is she up to?"

Harry muttered something about staying and asking her that very question, and then subsided. "We've learned so much from just watching."

"Was that sarcasm?" David glanced over his shoulder. She had made no move to follow them and was bent over petting her dog. "She has freedom of movement during the day," he pointed out. "Which means that she is trusted by notoriously untrusting creatures."

"You think it is a trap?" Harry concluded.

David gave him a sideways look as they left the park. "Trolley or cab?" he asked, forbearing to ask how Harry was holding up on his bad leg.

"Cab," Harry said.

"I'm not drawing conclusions. The interesting thing will be if she comes back," he said. "We won't discuss it with Emile."

"He could help us," Harry argued.

"And he might even appear to," David said dryly.




The remainder of Willow's day was more eventful than she anticipated. She went to the shop Lucius provided her directions to and purchased cigarettes for William. After that task was discharged she went to the dressmaker's shop to schedule an appointment and collect fabric swatches for Darla. Mr. Buttons' presence was tolerated for the sake of the anticipated size of an order, promptly paid for. It made Willow feel slightly guilty, like she was committing a form of extortion. Little dressmaker shops like this one were facing extinction. It was already happening. Ready-made clothing was cheaper and the quality was improving, creeping into the realm of haute couture.

The underpinnings of day and eveningwear were mostly mass-produced now, cutting into what was once a part of a dressmaker's trade. Accessories like scarves, cloaks, gloves and hats were also being made on a larger scale. In twenty years a shop like this would no longer exist. This wasn't a great mystery unraveled due to her understanding of the future. People whose only answer to it was to try to work harder to retain the customers they had understood that the world was changing.

She was offered a glass of wine, which she accepted. Mr. Buttons got a small bowl of water while they waited for Madame.

She was taking her first sip of the wine when the Princess Stazari arrived, waving off a shop girl who offered to fetch Madame for her. She walked into the small parlor Willow occupied with a friendly smile on her face. "I saw you in the window, and made my driver stop," she said, as if they were old friends.

Astonishment made Willow pause with the wine glass half way to her mouth before she remembered that she should stand up and attempt a curtsey. She was getting up while the princess was moving to the settee to sit beside her.

"Don't," she gave a spare shake of her head. "Not that I don't secretly enjoy it sometimes," she admitted with a small smile, "but I can see I caught you by surprise. You left early last night, and I hoped that we would talk more."

"Uh . . . hello," Willow put in lamely. Mr. Buttons abandoned his water dish and tried to slip past her to investigate the newcomer. She snagged his collar and made him sit.

The princess waved to her driver. "Please take Miss Grant's dog for a walk while we visit," she entreated.

The driver collected the leash from her and pulled Mr. Buttons across the slick floor a few feet before he got the idea and obediently scampered after him.

"Adorable," the princess said.

"Not really," Willow gestured to her grass and mud-stained skirt.

She was answered with a conspiratorial grin that reminded her of having Buffy to make grumbling comments to.

"I am glad that I saw you," the princess went on. "Staz suggested that I invite you to tea, but this is so much better."

Not so much like Buffy, she decided. Maybe more like Cordelia. Who was more likely to marry a Prince and give him a cute pet name? Focus, Willow, she scolded herself.

Before she was required to say something semi-intelligent, Madame arrived to greet her and ask if she had been made comfortable while she waited. Recognizing her cue, Willow said that she had been made very comfortable and introduced her companion before taking refuge in her wine glass.

The open bottle and a tray with two more glasses and assorted pastries was carried in as the dressmaker perched on the edge of her chair to pour and then to ask Willow what brought her to the shop.

She relayed Darla's request.

An assistant was dispatched to the cutting room to obtain fabric samples. While they waited Madame offered to show Willow, and by extension, her companion, some sketches that she had made after their last fitting.

She was finishing her second glass of wine before they were finished. It wasn't until they were outside the shop and the princess was insisting that they would drive her home that Willow realized what was so unsettling about all of this. It wasn't just the odd behavior of the Watchers in the park, it was the way this woman was trying too hard to be nice to her. It made her want to ask Buffy the one question that she had never asked her.

Why?

The driver brought Mr. Buttons back to her and opened the carriage door for the Princess. An afternoon of pretending to be someone she wasn't loomed before her. It was, in a way, preferable to being exactly who she was.

Once she settled in with Mr. Buttons at her feet, quiet for the time being, the princess asked where they were taking her.

"Have you ever been to Zlata Ulicka?" Willow asked instead.

A tentative smile appeared. "It's nothing special," the princess said. "Do you want to go there?"

"Do you mind?" Willow asked.

"Not at all," she answered.



In another life, William had been surrounded by servants. The servants in the home he had occupied as a human vastly outnumbered the family. They functioned independently and in concert with the family, performing their duties around their own mysterious order. Chambermaids and footmen came and went, but the core group, the butler, housekeeper, his mother's maid, his father's valet, remained the same. They were the enforcers of order.

There had been a saucy chambermaid when he had come home at the end of term when he was fifteen or sixteen. She found reasons to dust or tidy things in his room or the library when he was there. The attention was obvious, flattering, and a little intimidating. It was also a kind of test. It wasn't so much that his parents took a dim view of abusing servants so much as the cadre of servants that maintained the order of the house took a dim view of it.

His virtue remained intact through the break.

One of the things he recognized almost at once when they arrived was that a similar order had coalesced amongst the servants Willow had assembled. Lucius was the most obvious keeper of that order. He was the dominant personality. Matilde and Cook were partners. Willow would have been horrified to know it, but she had chosen well when she picked them. Out of the group that they had initially turned, only one proved unmanageable; the rest were competent, maintaining the patterns established in the household before they were turned. The house in Prague was the smoothest functioning household that they had enjoyed. Normally such a large number of newly-turned vampires would have been halved by now. Someone would have displeased Angelus or neglected some task that Darla demanded of them, or made the mistake of thinking that Drusilla wasn't to be taken seriously. Willow's presence was its own invitation to a loss of control.

When they left Prague, William thought it was likely that they would keep the lot of them. In a roundabout way he owned two homes in England. There was the Charlotte Street house and a manor house that his father had spent a decade refurbishing in Suffolk. In autumn he would take Willow to London for the trip that she had been promised. They would go to Suffolk for Christmas.

He intended to ensure that he had a stable, secure environment for Willow's last days as a mortal and her early days as a vampire. She wasn't Christian, but she got wistful around Christmas. He made a mental note to find out more about the Jewish observation of Hanukkah. This little household that she helped to create was going to be a part of that and it was high time that they got that through their thick skulls, he decided.

Still pinned to the table by the knife that was buried in the table, Matilde waited. It was a little ridiculous and she was aware of that, but she remained where she was. Her gaze flicked to Lucius who was leaning against a counter, watching this with a slightly puzzled expression.

"You might have thought that this was an inquisition," William said, sounding patient, "but I'm not interested in who did or said what to whom."

She sensed another more compelling presence entering the kitchen from the backstairs. Darla. Her head started to move to the right.

William snapped his fingers. "Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

She went absolutely still while she waited for Darla to intervene.

William shook his head. "If I think that you aren't capable of paying attention, I stake you," he warned her.

There was dead silence. Angelus was sitting on a stool, watching all of this with a small smile as he paged through the book Lucius had left open on the counter.

She didn't want to look at William. There was a voice in her head that howled that he was the least of them and not to be considered.

If Darla had stood behind him she could have pretended, but she stayed just out of Matilde's limited range of vision, and she was forced to look at him. He had his thumbs tucked into the waistband of his trousers. His uncombed, unruly hair stuck up in places. He might have been mistaken for a mostly undressed boy, but his expression was deadly serious.

"I would have freed myself by now," William told her. "The difference between you and me is that I would have gotten away with it. You won't. It is unfair, but that is one thing you will discover that life and unlife have in common. Fair doesn't enter into it. Right now the only thing keeping you from a dustbin is the fact that you are doing what I told you to do."

Lucius frowned at that, his gaze shifting from Matilde, who looked furious and confused, to William, who was infuriatingly relaxed.

"There are two ways this ends. You decide that complying with unreasonable demands is beyond you, free yourself, and try to carve my heart out before I stake you," he held his arms apart, presenting his chest with the livid handprint over his heart as a target. "No one would stop you."

For a moment Lucius closed his eyes, knowing that it wasn't true. Angelus and Darla might not, but as the muscles tensed in the back of his neck, he knew that he would, without understanding why he was certain of it.

"The other way this ends is a bit more complex," William told her. "It is a matter of accepting an underlying principle, and that is always more difficult."

Drusilla had woken and wandered down the backstairs to join Darla. Without invitation, she wrapped her arms loosely around Darla's waist and let her chin rest on her shoulder, dark eyes drinking in the tense little game being played in the kitchen.

"It's like a play," she murmured to Darla, a smile in her voice.

The presence at her back, the loose embrace, made Darla tense with a distaste for being touched that lingered. It didn't go unnoticed. Drusilla kissed her cheek, making a shushing sound and Darla let herself relax fractionally, turning her head to look at Drusilla. She had pinned her hair up away from her face, leaving the length of it to fall in uncombed waves. She was wearing William's discarded, wrinkled shirt, unbuttoned over a skirt that was banded at the bottom in three rows of red velvet over brown wool. It was part of a traveling dress with a smart little fitted bodice and a fur trimmed hat.

Darla had come down to the kitchen to find her maid. She wanted a bath and her hair dressed and while she was capable of doing these things for herself, she preferred to have them done for her and was annoyed to be required to go looking for her maid. She didn't know if William was simply bored and toying with Matilde or if something had happened that had prompted the confrontation, but she had not been inclined to interfere.

"I don't make unreasonable demands that can't be met," William said. "You could stand there all day. It isn't that hard. Pain? It's insignificant. Making yourself stand there, when you don't want to, when you think that you shouldn't have to is the hard part."




Harry watched the smoke from Emile's cigarette hang in the air and then dissolve only to be replaced by another thin cloud of smoke when he exhaled. They were meeting at the same tavern, outside in full sunlight that made him feel uncomfortably aware of how tired and warm he was.

He was starting to consider the possibility that he would never regain the full use of his injured leg. Sipping warm beer, his stomach churned as the memory of looking down at the injury he had suffered came back to him. Shredded cloth, skin, muscle, and the gleam of something that he understood to be a part of his kneecap, the only thing he recognized in the disorder of his mangled leg, made him feel the sweat dampening his skin congeal.

David and Emile were engaged in a polite exchange of carefully-edited information. It was nothing that either party would not have discovered on their own. David's account was a summary of the evening spent in the company of the Scourge of Europe. Emile's news consisted of the discovery of a human heart on the doorstep of the mission. Harry picked at the bread that was on the table, rolling the soft inside of the bread into balls that were buttered with sweat.

He was convinced that David's gamesmanship in the park was a tactical error that would have consequences for all of them. This was what happened when the hunters became the hunted.

“It could be bait for a trap,” Emile was saying.

“Or a warning,” David agreed. They were meeting in their usual place, outside, under the chestnut trees over warm, bitter ale.

"Traps are interesting things," Emile mused.

For the three men at the table there was one obvious conclusion. The quarry was aware of the mission's other activities. David wondered if there was a connection between the girl's conversation with Harry and her subsequent appearance in the park and the grisly discovery at the mission. He couldn't discount the possibility that this was all an elaborate game for the vampires and that the girl was simply more bait. If she was bait and she was as valuable to them for reasons that were not yet clear as he suspected, then it was a trap that probably placed her at low risk.

It was possible that she had her own agenda and he and Harry had to sort out how they might answer that before they were confronted with it. Harry's original idea of simply abducting her, reckless and potentially dangerous as it was, now struck David as workable. If they made any type of contact with her again, allowing her to return to the vampires' lair was out of the question. They had to have an exit strategy in place before that could happen. He briefly considered engaging Emile's assistance and discarded the notion. If they did take her alive she had the potential to be an asset of nearly incalculable value to the Watchers' Council, a position the Order of St. Ubaldus was likely to adopt as well.

A little fieldwork was in order tonight. David was curious about what Emile would do now that the mission appeared to be compromised.



Zlata Ulicka during the day gained charm and lacked mystery. A small smile played on the princess' lips as they strolled over the cobblestones with Mr. Buttons obediently walking at Willow's side, apparently having been walked by the driver into a state of compliant exhaustion.

Willow knew that she wasn't good at making the dog mind her. She tended to try to reason with him. She wasn't firm enough. When she had told William that she would remember to call him Will when she taught the dog to heel had been a roundabout way of asserting that she was no more trained than the dog. It wasn't true. She was starting to feel nervous already about how long she had been away from the house and what the consequences might be.

The carriage ride across the river had taken longer than she thought it would and it was late in the afternoon when they arrived. Late enough, with the sun slanting down over the rooftops, that there was sufficient shade for a vampire to stand in an open doorway watching them with a certain amount of curiosity. Coming here was a mistake.

"You've been here before?" the princess asked.

"Once," Willow answered.

"I don't believe in coincidences," her companion remarked. "My husband's family estate is in Walachia. It has been a sanctuary for gypsies since his grandfather's time. There is a woman who lives here who is a Rom—"

"Terese," Willow blurted out the name, startled.

A delighted smile was her answer. "There are no coincidences. We must have something in common that led to these connections," she concluded. "We are Americans in Prague, and of a similar age," she pointed out.

"I see what you mean," Willow nodded. "Not married to a prince with property in Walachia," she pointed out dryly. "Just interested in witchcraft."

"Hmm. Really? That's an interesting hobby," her new friend commented, sounding like she did not share that as an interest.

Willow made herself concentrate. "My cousin does not approve," she admitted. "He's very close-minded about anything connected to the occult."

"What about your young man? Mr. Crawford? What does he think of it?"

Having overheard some of Darla's conversation with Mr. Giles about a wedding, she was curious about the relationship.

"William?" Willow was trying to figure out if the impression that William had an opinion about her that was significant was one that had been fostered or one that her new friend had simply formed. "I don't know that he cares what I do," she said.

The princess looked puzzled by that, so Willow hastily added, "He's not the sort of person who makes you feel that you have to organize what you are interested in to please him."

Her expression cleared. "That's a nice quality. He seemed very pleasant."

A headache was forming behind her eyes and she mumbled something in agreement as the princess suggested that they visit Terese. It was precisely why Willow had suggested Zlata Ulicka as a destination, but she didn't believe in coincidence either.

Where was the rat-faced boy? Had she imagined him the other night? "I should go home," she said. "I have a bit of a headache."

"Then a cup of tea before we leave is just in order," the princess said, patting her arm.



Matilde was still standing in the kitchen with her hand pinned to the table as Cook started preparing supper for Willow.

Cook had warned her about this. They weren't one of them. They weren't part of what they were together, and in a very definable way, Willow was.

Lucius made a new list for the grocer to deliver after sunset. She had been beaten and sent to her room without being allowed to feed. It was easier than standing here, pinned to the table in a way that she could effortlessly end. Paulus was sitting on the stool Angelus had abandoned, looking at her like she had done something very stupid.

When Lucius spoke, Paulus' attention shifted to him and he appeared to be giving what he was saying greater consideration than he used to.

"When they go out together, they pretend to be a family. The way they did the night they came. It's a lie. We know that. We know what they really are. Darla made Angelus who made Drusilla who made William. Vampires. No different from us? Except in this: they are a family. They hold to that. I thought that it was something about the making of them, but I don't feel it. Not really. Neither does Cook. You think you do," he said. "But if it exists, it exists only for you."

"I think she's a part of the fiction that is the family because they can't support it without her. It is too much a part of the way they are with each other."

"And they hold together," Paulus concluded.

Lucius gave a brief nod. "I think so. How could she have survived so long if they did not support it?"

Paulus shook his head. "It's too complicated," he complained. "I don't understand it."

"Understand this: Darla values obedience. Angelus values usefulness. William values loyalty. Drusilla values nothing. Be what you have to be, and leave the girl alone. It is one of the things they agree on."



Terese and the princess, who was now insisting that she be called Maggie, were having tea while Willow talked to Arik in his workroom. Her headache had grown worse as the day grew later and when the chamomile tea did nothing for it, Terese had suggested that she consult with him.

She found herself telling him about the headache as well as the peculiar way that her magic was behaving inside the barrier wards.

He made her describe them again. It was an advanced bit of spell-casting, but he couldn't see any flaw in how it had been executed. She did not mention the other spells binding the house, like the reversal of the invite that she had executed. He made up a headache powder for her without opiates and suggested that she burn sage and larkspur for a general cleansing.

"You might want to try a magical colonic," he added, reaching for a book and jotting down the ingredients and incantations, giving her a semi-apologetic and embarrassed look. "You'll need to be near a body of water for this," he warned her. "A simple bath won't do. Spring fed water is best."

She read over the instructions. All the ingredients that were required were ingredients that she had on hand.

Dosed with the headache powder, Willow was able to relax into the cushioned seat of the carriage as they crossed the Charles Bridge at sunset. The view out the window was spectacular. Living so long among vampires she rarely had the opportunity to appreciate such sights.

"It's a long way from Quincy," the princess commented on the view.

Willow couldn't bring herself to think of her as Maggie. Princess Maggie. It sounded absurd. They had nothing in common. The few people that she felt any connection to since she had entered this century were all dead. The one thing she had in common with them, with Jane, Lucius, and Matilde, was that they lived in an unforgiving world and hadn't managed spectacularly to get by.

Seeing the grimace that contorted Willow's face, the former Margaret O'Connor patted her new friend's hand, thinking that it was her headache and feeling guilty for keeping her from home when she was feeling unwell. "You should close your eyes and try to relax," she advised.

Willow managed to nod, relieved of the pressure of making conversation that made sense.

It was twilight when they reached the house and the driver handed her out, carrying her parcels behind her as he followed her up the walk. She was a little surprised when Andreas opened the door for her. In a picture of cozy domesticity, Darla and Angelus were in the salon with Drusilla sitting at the piano and William was strolling into the foyer from the kitchen. She thanked the driver after Andreas relieved him of her packages and waved from the door at the princess in the carriage as they drove off.