Vincent Heartwood's Arc

Chapter 8 of 9

By morning the man would drink or refuse. Either way, Vincent had a worse problem. The elixir kept a body alive, but it did not keep it still. Morwen had warned him once. Bodies fight the change. They arch and shake. The guest room held a bed, a chair, and a fire. It had no way to hold a man whose heart stopped and started again. Vincent stood in that room now and saw it plainly. If the man convulsed here, he could break his own skull on the stone floor. Vincent went down to the great hall. Dracula sat where he always sat, cloak pooled around his boots. Morwen ground herbs by the cold grate. She looked up first. "He'll decide at dawn," Vincent said. "But I have nowhere safe to do it. The tower room can't hold him if he seizes." Dracula's red eyes fixed on him. "You thought of the odds. You forgot the floor." His voice stayed even. "When I turned mine, I laid her on stone. She woke with bruises she never asked for. Do not repeat me." Morwen set her staff down. "Then don't turn him in the castle at all." She stood. "I keep a place for this. A small house, warm, made for slow changes. Soft beds. Padded walls. Someone to watch the whole night through." Vincent stared at her. "You never told me." "You never asked where the ones who lived recovered," she said. "Two in three wake. They wake there." Dracula rose. His jaw tightened. "Witch magic built it?" "Witch care built it," Morwen said. "Warm light. Straps that hold without cutting. A fire that won't spread. I've buried the third. I've saved the two. In there, more of them are the two." Dracula was quiet a long moment. Then he nodded once. "Take him there. Better her house than my floor." Vincent felt the knot in his chest loosen. "Show me." They crossed the grounds in the dark. The house sat low and lit, warm lamps burning on its porch, curtains glowing gold. Vincent stepped inside. A wide bed stood ready. Padded cloth lined the frame. Soft chairs waited near a guarded hearth. The room smelled of clean linen, not stone and cold. "He can shake here and not break," Morwen said. "And I'll sit the whole night if he drinks." Vincent ran his hand along the padded rail. For the first time, the danger felt like something he could hold. He turned to them both. "Then this is where I bring him. If he says yes." But a new fear rose as he said it. The man had agreed to a tower room with a fire and a lock he controlled. Now Vincent would ask him to leave that room. To cross the dark grounds. To lie down in a strange bed built for dying and waking. The safe place was ready. The trust to move him there was not.