“I’m afraid so. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock,” I said.
Matthew woke, straightening in his seat. “We’re there?” he asked sleepily.
“Just about,” Aidan said. “I talked to Nicole while you two were sleeping. When we land, the three of us are going to my apartment to wait. Nicole and Luc are going straight underground, gathering forces. When they’ve chosen the spot for the confrontation, we’ll join them, drawing the enemy to us.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked me, just as the plane bumped against the ground.
“How long do you think we’ll have? At your apartment,” I clarified. “Before they send for us.”
“Not long. A matter of hours.”
“That’s it?”
He nodded. “That’s it. We need to get you and Dr. Byrne something to eat right away.”
“What time is it?” Matthew asked.
“Hard to tell with no windows, isn’t it?” I glanced down at my watch. “Just after four in the morning, New York time. So that’s, what? Ten a.m. in Paris? The sun will have risen already—how will they get around?” I asked, assuming that Mrs. Girard and Luc hadn’t taken the elixir that made it possible to withstand the sun.
But crap, Aidan had taken it—which meant he was going into a fight with his abilities compromised. Again.
“Don’t worry,” Aidan assured me. “They have their ways. Paris has an extensive underground footprint, you know. It’s why the city is so popular with vampires. Tribunal Headquarters is really an entire network—safe houses connected via the Metro system and unused tunnels and chambers. It reaches far out into the countryside.”
“Wow, they should include that in the travel brochures,” I said sourly. “ ‘We’ve got vampires, all the way out to the burbs.’ That’ll get the tourists flocking.”
Aidan just shrugged. “It’s true of most cities with a large subway system. London, New York, São Paulo, Prague, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong.”
“Remind me to avoid those cities from now on,” Matthew said with a frown.
The plane rolled to a stop, and Mrs. Girard made her way to the front, pausing as she passed us. “You know the plan, Mr. Gray. There’s a car waiting to take you to your apartment.”
He just nodded, reaching for my hand and helping me to my feet.
I wondered where, exactly, we’d landed. A private airport, I imagined, but surely we’d still have to go through customs or something.
Turns out we did, but there wasn’t much to it, just a single agent who barely glanced at our passports before waving us along. We followed Luc and Mrs. Girard down a ramp and through a door that led to a garage, where two long, dark cars were waiting. Somehow, our bags had already made it off the plane and were being loaded into the trunks by liveried drivers.
Silently, we climbed into the rear car. Just like on the plane, Aidan sat beside me, Matthew directly across, facing us. The first thing I noticed was that a panel completely blocked my view of the driver, and the windows on the sides and back of the car were entirely blacked out—which was odd, because it hadn’t looked that way from the outside.
Curious, I tapped on the glass.
“We don’t need this,” Aidan said, hitting a button on a panel above our heads.
There was an electric whir, and the dark panels on either side of the car slid down, revealing normal windows. “They’re reflective from the outside,” Aidan explained. “So, looking in, you can’t tell the windows are blacked out.”
I suppressed a shudder. “That’s so creepy. How far outside Paris are we?”
“About an hour, if the traffic’s light.”
Matthew took out his cell phone, glancing down at the screen with a scowl. “If you guys don’t mind, I need to check my messages,” he said, looping a headset over one ear.
“Go ahead,” I said, scooting closer to Aidan.
Aidan reached for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine as the car slid out of the garage and picked up speed. “Are you scared?” he asked, his voice low.
“A little. I don’t know. I mostly feel resigned. A little relieved too, if that makes any sense. I’ve been dreading this day for so long—knowing that it would come, but refusing to let myself think about it. But if what Matthew said is true—you know, his vision—then I’ll just be glad to have it over and done with.”
He glanced down at our joined hands for a moment and then raised his gaze to meet mine. “You’re assuming that whatever we do today will fulfill our obligation to Nicole and her cause. I’m afraid I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Well, why not? If you end this war—”
“How am I to end this war?” he asked, his voice rising. “There’s no proof that this Dauphin legend is true. And even if it is, my role isn’t assured. For all we know, the man who raised me is my biological father, after all. This is madness, Violet.”
“You make them believe it. Listen to me,” I urged, squeezing his hand. “You’ve got Mrs. Girard’s army behind you and me and Matthew beside you. It doesn’t really matter if those other vampires can destroy you or not, because I’m not letting them.” I took a deep breath, gathering my thoughts. “You tell them that you’re the Dauphin, and you make sure they believe it. You can do this. I know you can.”
“You’ve that much faith in me?” he asked, leaning forward till his forehead rested against mine.
“I do,” I answered. “You just need to have faith in me. In Matthew and in his vision.”
“I love you, Vi,” he whispered, his breath coming faster now, mingling with mine.
“I know.” And then I kissed him, completely forgetting Matthew’s presence there in the car with us until I heard him clear his throat loudly.
“Sorry,” I said, drawing away reluctantly. “Everything okay?” I asked Matthew, seeing that his scowl had deepened.
“Oh, you know.” He stuffed his cell phone back into his pocket. “Just a half dozen or so messages from Charlie, wondering where the hell I am.”
“Uh-oh,” I said, hating the unfairness of it all. “What are you going to tell her?”
“I have no idea,” he said sharply. “Can we talk about something else? Maybe . . . I don’t know, combat strategy or something? Since we’ll have to all work together this time.”
That was enough to distract me throughout the rest of the drive into Paris.
Aidan’s apartment was pretty much exactly what I’d expected—large, exquisitely furnished, and comfortable. It took up the building’s top two floors on the side facing the Eiffel Tower, the second floor reached by a spiral staircase.
We’d stopped to pick up an oh-so-not-French lunch of cheeseburgers and fries—Le Royal Deluxe et des frites—a few blocks away, and after a quick tour of the apartment, sat at the long, rectangular farmhouse table eating. At least, Matthew and I were eating.
Aidan had disappeared back upstairs. I could hear him banging around above us as I slowly chewed my food, hoping my nerves would allow me to keep it down.
“So, this is where you’re going to live, huh?” Matthew took a sip of his drink, watching me over the rim of his cup.
“Apparently. It’s pretty nice though, right?” I glanced around, admiring the copper pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. “Awfully swanky for student housing.”
“And big,” Matthew added. “I think I counted three bedrooms besides the master suite, plus a formal living room and that little nook he called a parlor. There was a library on the second floor too. It’s got to be two or three thousand square feet, at least. What does he do with it all?”