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  But if I did that then the entire trajectory of my life would be radically altered. What I even exist anymore?

  Would I cease to be? I was a direct result of Aziria’s curse.

  Ahead a thatched roof shack rested upon a hill. A curl of sinuously winding smoke danced through the night. Bird feathers and what looked almost like rustic dream catchers sewn through with seashells hung above the mantle of her crooked doorway.

  Glancing back at me, she tipped her chin toward the entrance. “If you follow me inside you are as much a part of this as I will be should anyone learn of us. I will not force you, Beatrice—”

  I twitched, almost forgetting the false name I’d given her.

  “—But once you’re inside no one can save you. What is your choice?”

  I wet my lips. It was the right thing to break the curse over us, and if somehow, someway I could affect a positive change in Aziria’s own story, mores the better.

  Squaring my shoulders, I stared her right in the eye as I said, “Aye. I’m in.”

  Her smile was both wicked and charming. Gesturing with her arm, she bade me enter first.

  With a last flickering glance over my shoulder into the darkness that hid Dracula from me, I entered.

  First days, then weeks, and finally months had gone by. I’d returned to my own timeline every so often to leave notes for my sisters when I knew they’d not be home, telling them always that I was safe and well taken care of and that I hoped to return home very soon.

  And in that same time one thing had become startlingly clear to me. Aziria was exactly who Dracula claimed her to be.

  She was a wild card. Capable of doing dark and frankly terrifying deeds, whenever I thought of the nest of snakes she’d mass slaughtered for their poison sacks I felt a wave of revulsion slide through me. And yet, I’d also witnessed her heal a nearly dead baby crow—now her familiar, who cawed from the corner of the potion’s shelf.

  We’d been working on refining what would ultimately become my curse. She’d begun the testing phase of the curse, using yet more animals as her test subjects.

  Killing one after another, hoping to see one of them resurrect, but they never did. And each night I returned home to Dracula, sobbing great big wails. Knowing I could never go back there and witness the brutality of what she did, and yet, also knowing that if I had any hope of finding our cure I must remain on.

  The weariness of pretending to be someone I wasn’t also ate away at me. In short, I felt like the worst kind of person and hated myself for it. Never could I have imagined that when I’d suggested to Dracula that we time trip that it would be near as trying as it was turning out to be.

  I knocked at the door of the cottage, rolling my hood higher up on my shoulders. It was a chilly, blustery night.

  Dracula and I had had a tiny row tonight. He wanted me to stop this. Wanted us to go back home. Told me that he was struggling seeing me struggling so. That we’d survived so many centuries through our curse and we would survive centuries more, that nothing was worth losing me over.

  And all of my pent-up fears and anger, resentment and shame, just came boiling over. I’d lashed out at him, hating myself the instant I did it. But pride kept from me taking it back.

  I’d left without telling him goodbye or even that I loved him. And now I regretted it deeply. I was a terrible person, I squeezed my eyes shut.

  The door creaked open.

  When I looked up, I saw her. But this was no longer the Aziria I’d first met. Each curse she’d muttered had altered her. She was haggard in appearance now. Hair thinning around the crown of her head. Skin that’d once been firm was now loose and sallow and full of liver spots.

  The thing about curses was that they always demanded their due. Not just from the recipient of the curse, but also from the one who cast it in the first place. Her outside was turning as ugly as her heart.

  She looked fifty years older now and it tore me in two.

  “Aziria,” I said softly. “I am come.”

  She nodded slowly. “Come in then. Don’t let in the bloody cold,” she snapped.

  Her temper was a short fuse now and I knew it had more to do with how she felt physically. The curse was going to eventually kill her too. And just like the dozens of creatures that now littered her grounds, she would eventually join them.

  Walking hunchbacked toward the workbench, she pointed at a new jar of herbs. “I think I’ve found it, the final ingredient we’ll need to end this thing once and for all. Downy hemp-nettle.”

  Picking up the jar, I stared at the beautiful and benign looking white flower within. And in my heart I knew this was it. The final piece of the puzzle. This was what would ultimately lead to mine and Dracula’s ruin.

  My heart raced in my chest and my mouth felt dry. My throat swollen and heat settled behind my eyelids. The overwhelming sense of all that I’d seen and done and gone through had led me directly to this moment hit me like a ten-ton sledgehammer.

  “Well!” she snapped. “Bring it here girl and stop acting like a bloody fool.”

  I jerked, sniffing and surreptitiously wiping at my eyes so that she’d not see a gleam in them.

  I took her the innocent looking flower jar. She quickly pulled one out and crushed it to bits in her mortar. Then she added the broken bits to the spell bubbling over the open flame. Instantly white light blazed through the hut and she cried out. A sound of exultation and shock.

  I recoiled, instantly tasting the foulness of the spell lacing the air and knew this was it. After months of toil she’d figured out the spell.

  I hugged my arms to my chest and shook my head. “What do we do now, Aziria?”

  She grinned, teeth looking yellow and fragile. “We test it, girl. Of course.”

  And then moving more spryly than I’d seen her move in a while she walked over to her cawing crow.

  I gasped and shook my head. “Not, Petey. Please.”

  She hissed as she dipped her ladle into the black iron cauldron. Without saying a word though, she shambled over toward the familiar that I’d grown fond of and held up the spoon.

  “Please, Aziria, you can stop this. You must not do this thing. You know it works. You don’t need to test it out on him. Please, stop. I implore you.”

  Her jaw clenched tight and for just a moment I thought that maybe I’d gotten through to her. I knew she loved the creature, I’d often catch her feeding it bits of her supper. Or scratching its head. Crooning to it. Witches were very fond of our familiars.

  I cried out when I saw her lift the spoon and Petey dipped his beak into the poisonous drink.

  It took less than a second before he keeled over, dead.

  She flared white just as he did. And instantly I saw clumps of her silver hair fall to the ground. With a shudder she gripped the bench before her. But her rheumy eyes remained fixed on Petey himself.

  I didn’t know how fast or slow this process might be for him. But I did know it would work. My soul had recognized the stench of the spell instantly.

  He revived just minutes later, flapping his wings and cawing in a dazed and confused kind of way.

  She grabbed him and hugged him to her breast, murmuring words to him that I had no doubt she would not wish me to hear.

  “I’m sorry, Petey. I’m so sorry. But mummy had to do it. Mummy had to do it. I love you. I love you so much.”

  I couldn’t check my tears anymore. They came hot and hard. Petey was probably the only thing in the world she actually did love.

  From my time spent with her I knew she’d long outlived her family and friends. She had nothing. And Dracula was right, her love of him had turned to threads of hate long before he’d fallen in love with Evanora.

  She resented his long life, his ability to never age. And his power. It was why she’d gone dark, because she could not stand to lose at anything.

  She was now a haggard old woman, and beings that she was a witch she could probably still live another century or so, but not if
she enacted the final curse against us. That incantation would surely end her.

  A deep and mournful sigh caught my ear. When I looked up she was already looking at me. Her eyes weren’t just rheumy now, but nearly white. Her hair, what little bit she still had left, was white as freshly fallen snow.

  She looked like the caricature of the withered hag of tales, but in her face I could still see the remnants of the great beauty she’d once been.

  “It is done. All that remains is the end of all things.”

  I shook my head. I’d tried so many times to set her on a different path, to no avail. But her course was set and I knew deep down that it must be. This must be. And I resented that fact with every fiber of my being. It did not seem fair. True, Aziria wasn’t an angel. In fact, she could be downright scary when she wished to be. She had a capacity for cruelty that was breathtaking, but I also saw the woman. She was convoluted and complex. But she’d not set out in life to be evil.

  I’d also learned a great deal from her. She’d never been stingy with her teachings. In short she was the yin and the yang. Neither completely good nor even completely bad.

  She was still stroking Petey’s head and there were tears glistening in her eyes. And for the first time since she’d begun this madness I sensed an edge of hesitancy in her.

  “You love him,” I stated matter of factly.

  She glanced up and for a moment her frame went rigid, but then she nodded softly. “He will be alone when I am gone. Always returning, never understanding why.”

  Setting him down, she rubbed at her eyes with her forearm and sniffed twice. “Gods, what have I done, Beatrice?”

  I went still all over, the fine hairs on my arms lifted up and I was sure she must be able to hear the beating of my heart.

  “What?” I whispered brokenly.

  She looked directly at me with those eerie white eyes of hers. “I have ruined myself in this quest for vengeance. The next curse will kill me.” She grinned, exposing now rotted and blackened teeth. “I know it. I am weak and frail. My vanity and pride has taken me down, just as he always warned me it would.” Her laughter was chilling. “But I would not listen. I never do, you know.”

  If she didn’t cast the curse I would probably cease to be. And yet, I could not in good conscious allow this to happen either.

  “Can you not end this madness now then? Stop this while there is still time to live something of a life? Do not abandon Petey, he’ll need you.”

  She shuddered and I knew the mention of her familiar had hurt her deeply.

  “I am more than this, Beatrice. You should know this. But I hate them both. I hate her for having him and I hate him for being so damned happy. He and I were never good for one another, but he was king and powerful and I craved that power. It was not him I loved. Not truly. I have to do this. They must pay for what they’ve done to me.”

  I knew that. I’d known that almost from the beginning, it was the loss of her position that’d wounded her most. And as a proud woman she could not back down. Would not back down. It was not love that’d set her on this course, but envy.

  “You are not horrible person, Aziria. That I can say with all honesty. You gave me back my speech. You taught me so much.”

  And as I spoke it suddenly dawned on me what I must do. She sniffed.

  “Let me do it then.”

  “What?” she asked shocked, brows gathering tight.

  My pulse stuttered like my old speech. And I shivered. I’d never cast a curse before and truthfully no part of me wished to do this, especially to my own self. Or to my greatest love.

  But I could not allow Aziria to kill herself over this. I could see she no longer actually wanted to do this but she was too proud to ever own up to it.

  And the truth was, this had to happen. Because I couldn’t risk the possibility of my ceasing to be. I had more than just me to consider. My sisters. Dracula. The curse had to happen.

  And ultimately it would have to be me that did it.

  But Dracula would not like this. My looks would alter and the stain of darkness would infect my soul as surely as it’d infected hers.

  Maybe this was stupid. No, it was stupid. It was foolishness what I was saying, but it was also the only thing to do.

  Walking over toward the cauldron I unstoppered a clear empty vial and filled it up to the very top. Aziria stared at me with shining white eyes.

  “Why would you do this, Beatrice?” she asked, voice reedy and thin, so ancient sounding compared to the vivacious tonality of it just months earlier.

  Once it was full, I stoppered it and turned toward her.

  “Because,” I inhaled deeply, “I believe we all deserve a chance at happiness. And because I owe you more than you can imagine.”

  “I have ruined myself forever. I will be a poor, old spinster until the day I day. I have nothing. No one. You have your beauty still. My course is set.”

  She reached for the vial, but I pulled my hand out of reach and shook my head. “You have Petey. And my undying gratitude. You’ll never understand why, but you have it nonetheless. Let me do this last act for you and then go and rest easy. Choose to walk a new path, Aziria. One less filled with hate and pain. Release this demon once and for all.”

  Her nostrils flared. “You will not come back again, will you?”

  Her perceptiveness shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I shook my head. “No, I will leave after this deed is done. You will never see me again, but know that I will always think fondly of you.”

  Hesitantly she lifted her gnarled and twisted hand toward my face. And then she patted my cheek. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “You’re a good girl. Thank you, Beatrice.” And then grabbing my face in her hands she murmured a spell. But this one wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before.

  “May your days be filled with joy. And every happiness you could ever want or know.”

  Golden light radiated through my body and I knew she’d blessed me. Witches so rarely did this thing because to do it gave a piece of your soul to the other. The gentleness of hers astonished me.

  And I knew, even without her ever having to say it, that she cared for me as deeply as I did for her.

  With a kiss upon both her cheeks, I turned on my heel and walked out the door. Tears fell down my face as I clutched the vial to my breast.

  The instant I scented dark nights I knew my prince had returned to me.

  Immediately I fell into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably, not able to speak a word. But I knew he already knew. He always knew. He kissed the top of my head.

  “I’m sorry, Dracula. I’m so sorry. For today. And yesterday and all the days before it, the other lives when I hurt you. I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

  “It is I who is sorry, dragā. You took on too much. This was too much.”

  I rubbed my nose into his chest, drying off my tears, before looking up at him and smiling softly. “We’re free, my love. I know what I need to do now. But first…”

  He nodded. “I know. I heard.”

  I waited to hear him tell me how stupid of an idea it was. How foolish I was being to do this thing. To enact my first curse. But he said none of that.

  “You’re right. And I’ll be right there to help you. Aziria and I may not have loved one another by the end but I did not enjoy watching her kill herself. No matter what happened, at the end of the day she and I were once lovers. And if I must be cursed, then I would wish for it to happen by the hand of the one who loves me most.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears, but he brushed them away with his thumbs. Then scooping me into his arms he raced us toward a place I’d never seen before. A dark and foreboding manor, I recognized it instantly.

  “This is the manor.”

  He nodded and kissed the crown of my forehead. “Da. It is our home. And has been forever.”

  We were silent as wraiths as we entered through a hidden stairwell where nothing but rats lingered.

  I sh
ivered, but he held me tighter. “Almost finished, my darling girl. You did so well, my Rose. So good.”

  I warmed to hear his praise, even knowing where we headed to now.

  In moments we were moving through the long hallway that I instantly recognized. Behind closed doors I heard the muffled sounds of sighs and moans.

  Evanora and Dracula. I thought of Aziria then. Couldn’t help myself. After months of working alongside her I knew I would never think of the witch the same way again.

  But nor could I blame Evanora and Dracula either. In the end the fates had worked out all their lives in the way that it should be. I only wished Aziria the best and hoped that she lived many long and happy years with Petey.

  Resting beside the door was a covered platter. And judging by the smell of roasted venison and boiled vegetables I knew that had to be dinner.

  Dracula gently sat me down on my feet. Then covering his lips with a finger he crept toward the platter and lifted the cloche. Steam wafted upward.

  He looked at me and I knew the time was now.

  Gripping the vial with white-knuckled intensity I somehow managed to tiptoe over to him. A bottle of blood wine sat opened. And I knew that was the best way to curse them both.

  Uncorking the vial I poured the entire contents of the odorless and tasteless curse inside. Around the lump in my throat I whispered the dark spell. And the white tingle of dark magick lit up the wine bottle. Fading away almost instantly. I wondered how much I would change after they’d drunk of it. And I also wondered if he’d still love me as he once did when I did alter.

  Chin trembling and crying silently, I stood there watching as Dracula partook in his own curse by gently setting the cloche back down. Without a word he scooped me up and we returned back the way we’d come. None the wiser about the unalterable course we’d just taken.

  Only once we were clear of the manor did he set me down. We kissed with a wildness that sparked like flame between us.

  Making love out in the middle of the open night uncaring and desperate. Both of us understanding what we’d just done and why the action had been necessary.