It didn’t take long to find your hideaway. I could make out the shape of two long tables littered with ephemera, and after some groping around, I found an old oil lamp. Alexi, who was clever enough to always carry a pocketknife and matches, lit the lamp and cast its glow on the room.
Your strange devices looked even more ghoulish in the flickering firelight. Forceps and vials, eclectic light bulbs and compasses, all scattered around in an arrangement that only made sense to you.
One of the tables had been cleared into a makeshift gurney, and the wood was stained with blood. Perhaps you had carried out one of your experiments on a victim after you had drained them. Or before.
Alexi held the lamp high and we set about trying to find something, anything in the mountains of research to arm us against you. We riled through books heaped upon books, case study notes, and scientific journals, none of which contained what we were looking for. It didn’t help that we had to painstakingly return the papers exactly the way we had found them, which caused us to hemorrhage time. With each passing minute, my dread steadily grew. How long had we been down here? Ten minutes? Twenty? We could have spent the whole day down there and still not found what we were looking for, but we didn’t have that kind of time.
In the end, it was only sheer, blind luck that saved us. Alexi was flipping through a heavy leather-bound journal he had found stacked up with other books, and he gasped out loud.
“Constance! Come look at this.”
I pressed in close to him so we could share the light of the lamp, and flipped lightly through the journal. It was full of your looping, tight hand, pages upon pages of your personal theories and thoughts. It was not a diary. It was a casebook, containing all you knew about the nature of vampires.
“This is it,” I whispered.
I flipped faster through the pages, digesting everything I could. You had laid out your theories about our bodily processes, our strange hungers, our heightened abilities that came with age. You had also documented how long a vampire might be expected to live, if no act of brutality got in their way. You had jotted down a few quick notes about one death you had personally carried out. Your sire, I realized. The man whose blood had made you strong enough to sire vampires of your own.
My breath was as quick and shallow as Alexi’s now, my pulse roaring in my ears. He must have sensed that I had struck upon something, because he pushed in tighter to me.
“What is it?”
My fingers trailed down the page, committing every word to memory.
“Freedom,” I said.
Alexi never got the chance to ask me what I meant, because somewhere distantly in the house, a door opened and slammed shut. I heard the lilt of Magdalena speaking, her words indistinguishable, and then, unmistakably, the baritone of your voice.
I slammed the book shut and shoved it back in its place. Alexi was already scrambling back for the stairs, hauling me behind him with a tight grip on my wrist.
“We’re dead,” he huffed, more to himself than me. “If he finds us down here…”
“He won’t,” I whispered, feigning surety. “Hurry, little Alexi.”
We doused the lamp and hustled up the stairs as quietly as we could, pausing for only a moment at the landing to catch our breath.
Magdalena had detained you in the foyer and was chattering on prettily about something that was just barely holding your interest. You threw your eyes around the room, shrugging off your coat.
“Where are your siblings?” you asked.
“Here we are,” I said, keeping my voice even, my expression pleasant.
I realized how it must have looked, Alexi and I both emerging shamefaced and out of breath, lingering close to one another. Sometimes you were jealous when you had to share us with one another and sometimes you weren’t; it was impossible to predict. But you had taken Alexi finding refuge in my arms particularly badly, your dark mood clouding our household for weeks after you found me in the alcove. Probably because you knew it was you he was seeking refuge from.
“Did you bring me something to eat?” Alexi asked, in a breezy affect that didn’t quite fit the situation. He hadn’t sized you up quickly enough to realize that you had gotten home irritated and that your mood was only worsening.
“I wasn’t able to,” you said, voice clipped as you threw your gloves onto a nearby ottoman.
“What do you mean?”
“I was seen,” you said, your brows drawn tight together in consternation. “I had to abandon the hunt before it was finished.”
“Seen?” Magdalena echoed, crossing her arms over her chest. She raised a disapproving eyebrow at you, and you bristled dangerously.