Authority. Power. Status. These were the variables that shaped a vampire’s life. One day, Phoebe would understand them. Until then, she was content to watch and learn from two women who clearly knew exactly how to not only survive, but thrive.
But it was from the castle’s chatelaine that Phoebe was learning the most about how to be a vampire. According to Fran?oise, Ysabeau was the oldest and wisest vampire left on earth. Whether or not this was true, Ysabeau made Freyja and even Miriam seem young and inexperienced by comparison. As for Phoebe, she felt every bit the infant whenever she was in the woman’s presence.
“There you are.” Ysabeau glided across the garden, her feet making no sound on the gravel, her movements smoother and more elegant than even Madame Elena’s. “You two do know that you can’t really dig to China, as the ancients hoped.”
Phoebe laughed. “There go my morning plans, then.”
“Why don’t you walk with me instead?” Ysabeau suggested.
Phoebe stuck her spade in the ground and hopped to her feet. She loved Ysabeau’s walks. Each one took her through a different part of the castle or its grounds. Ysabeau told her stories about the family as they strolled through the courtyard or the house, pointing out where the laundries had been, and the candlemaker, and the blacksmith.
Phoebe had been to Sept-Tours before, back when Matthew and Diana were timewalking and Marcus had wanted her close. She’d returned after the couple came home, too, and a few times since the babies were born. But something had changed in Phoebe’s relationship to the house. It was more than the fact that she was a vampire. She was a true de Clermont now—or so Ysabeau said, confident that Phoebe’s mind had not changed when it came to Marcus.
“The sun is rising fast today,” Ysabeau observed, looking up at the sky. “And there are no clouds. Why don’t we go inside, so that you can take off your hat and glasses?”
Phoebe linked arms with Ysabeau as they turned toward the castle. Ysabeau looked a bit startled by the familiar act. When Phoebe pulled away, fearing she had broken some rule, Ysabeau instead drew her closer. The two of them walked slowly indoors, drinking in the early morning scents.
“Monsieur Roux burned his croissants,” Ysabeau said, giving the air a sniff. “And I do wish the priest would stop changing his laundry soap. I no sooner get used to the smell of one than he buys another.”
Phoebe sniffed. The sharp, floral scent did not smell “springtime fresh,” but of chemicals. She wrinkled her nose.
“Did you hear the fight last night between Adele and her new boyfriend?” Phoebe asked.
“How could I not? They were on the other side of our wall, and shouting at the top of their lungs.” Ysabeau shook her head.
“Madame Lefebvre—how is she doing?” Phoebe asked. The old woman was in her nineties and still went around to the shops every day on her own, pulling a wire cart to hold her groceries. Last week she’d fallen and broken her hip.
“Not well,” Ysabeau said. “The priest went round yesterday. They don’t expect her to live out the week. I will go and visit her this afternoon. Maybe you would like to come?”
“May I?” Phoebe asked.
“Of course,” Ysabeau said. “I’m sure Madame Lefebvre would like to see you.”
They were inside now, and making their stately way through the ground-floor rooms: Ysabeau’s salon, with its gilded furniture and Sèvres porcelain; the formal dining room, with the statues that flanked the door; the family library, with its worn sofas and piles of newspapers, magazines, and paperback books; Ysabeau’s warmly colored breakfast room that always looked as though the sun was streaming into it even on the cloudiest days; the great hall, with its high beamed roof and painted walls. In each room, Ysabeau revealed something about what had happened here, once upon a time.
“Diana’s firedrake broke one of those,” Ysabeau said, pointing to a large lion’s-head vase. “Philippe commissioned a set of two. I must confess I was never very fond of them. If we are lucky, Apollo will break the other and we can find something new to take its place.”
Another memory of Philippe popped up in the formal dining room, with its long, polished table and ranks of chairs.
“Philippe always sat here, and I sat at the other end. That way we could manage everyone’s conversations, and make sure that war didn’t break out between the guests.” Ysabeau ran her fingers over the chair’s carved back. “We had so many dinner parties in this room.”
“Sophie’s water broke on this sofa, on the day before Margaret was born,” Ysabeau said when they reached the family library. She plumped one of the cushions. Though the rest of the sofa was covered in faded brown, this cushion was a rosy pink. “We did not have to replace the whole piece of furniture, as Sophie feared, only the cushion. See, this one does not match the others. I told Marthe not to even try, but to use something that would always remind us of Margaret’s birth.”
“Here, I tried to frighten Diana away from Matthew,” Ysabeau said in the breakfast room, a smile turning up the corners of her lips. “But she was braver than I knew.”
Ysabeau turned slowly around in the castle’s lofty great hall, inviting Phoebe to do the same.
“This is where Diana and Matthew held their wedding feast.” Ysabeau surveyed the large room with its suits of armor, weapons, and faux medieval decorations. “I was not there, of course, and Philippe did not tell me about it. It was not until Diana and Matthew returned from the past that I heard the tale. Perhaps you and Marcus will celebrate here, and fill the hall again with the sound of laughter and dancing.”
Ysabeau led Phoebe to where a set of stone stairs climbed to the crenellated heights of the castle’s square keep. Instead of climbing them, as they normally would, Ysabeau drew Phoebe toward a low, arched door in the wall that was always locked.
Ysabeau took a worn iron key from her pocket and fit it into the lock. She turned it and motioned Phoebe inside.
It took Phoebe’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the changing level of light. This room had only a few small windows fitted with colored panes of glass. Phoebe took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes to help bring them into focus.
“Is this another storeroom?” Phoebe asked, wondering what treasures it might contain.
But the stale air and faint scent of wax soon told her this room had a different purpose. This was the de Clermont chapel—and crypt.
A large stone sarcophagus occupied the center of the small chapel. A handful of other coffins were set into alcoves in the walls. So, too, were objects: shields, swords, pieces of armor.
“Humans think we live in dark places like this,” Ysabeau said. “They are more right than they know. My Philippe is here, in the center of the room as he was once at the center of our family and my world. One day, I will be buried here with him.”
Phoebe looked at Ysabeau in surprise.
“None of us is immune to death, Phoebe,” Ysabeau said, as if she could hear Phoebe’s thoughts.
“Stella thinks we are. She didn’t understand why no one would save Dad,” Phoebe said. “I’m not sure I understand myself. I just knew he wouldn’t like it—that it would be wrong.”
“You cannot make every person you love into a vampire,” Ysabeau said. “Marcus tried, and it almost destroyed him.”
Phoebe knew about New Orleans and had met those of Marcus’s children who survived.
“Stella may have been the first human to ask you to save someone’s life, but she won’t be the last,” Ysabeau continued. “You must be prepared to say no, again and again, as you did last night. Saying no takes courage—far more courage than saying yes.”
Ysabeau took Phoebe’s arm again, and resumed their walk.
“People wonder what it takes to become a vampire.” Ysabeau gave Phoebe a sidelong glance. “Do you know what I tell them?”