The Watchtower

victims they must have previously slain in anticipation of Marduk’s arrival. I overheard them say that they must let the beast rest today before ‘transforming’ him tonight.”
    “Were you able to get his blood?” I asked, taking a step toward Will. His cheeks had the flush of blood in them, but he shook his head.
    “I couldn’t risk it while Marduk was conscious. He’s grown too powerful. But during the day while he rests…”
    “I can draw his blood,” I said. “If I can get into the Hôtel de la Reine.”
    Will looked toward Madame La Pieuvre. They exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher. For the first time I wondered how Will had thought to send me to her. How did they know each other?
    “I can get us into the Hotel,” she said. “I knew Catherine de Médicis well. She showed me the secret passages she had built. Like any Medici she was an inveterate intriguer—for good reason.”
    “Will you go with Garet, Octavia?” Will asked. “And make sure she comes to no harm?”
    “Of course, mon cher . When we have Marduk’s blood, we will go to Ruggieri’s tower. I believe that with the watch Garet has made, the two of you will be able to travel forward to your own time.” One of her arms drifted toward Will’s face. At a warning look from him she let it flutter back down. The Medicis weren’t the only intriguers, I suspected.
    *   *   *
    Madame La Pieuvre led us to a room with heavy drawn shutters. “You will be safe from the light here,” she told Will. She offered to show me to my room, but I said I’d stay with Will until dawn.
    “As you please, my dear, only remember that you will need your rest, too. We must be on our guard when we go into the Hôtel de la Reine.”
    When she had gone, Will drew me down onto the bed and tried to kiss me, but I turned my face away. “You two seem very friendly. Was Madame La Pieuvre also one of your conquests?”
    Will grasped my jaw firmly in his hand and turned my face so I had to look at him. “No. I did her a favor. When did you become so jealous? I wouldn’t have thought you were the type.”
    “I suppose since I’ve had to take a seventeenth-century tour of your exes,” I replied, hating the bitter tone of my voice but unable to get rid of it. “You mentioned quite a few in your sleep yesterday. Who is Bess?”
    The corner of Will’s mouth twitched. “I called out Bess’s name? How extraordinary! I haven’t thought of her in centuries. How strange to think she’s still alive in these times!”
    “Perhaps you’d like to go pay her a visit,” I said, getting to my feet. “As long as you’re in the same century.”
    Will was on his feet blocking my way to the door before I’d even seen him move, his hands gripping my shoulders, his face centimeters from mine.
    “Is it really these trifles that concern you, Garet? Do you really care about the women I took to my bed over the centuries more than the men and women I took to their graves?”
    I started to answer that I shouldn’t have to choose, but then I saw the anguish in his blood-rimmed eyes. “You couldn’t help taking blood. It’s what Dee made you.”
    “But I could have helped killing. I started out believing I could drink without draining my victims, but I soon learned that the blood was too much of an addiction. The first deaths may have been accidents, but then I stopped caring whether I stopped in time or not. All I cared about was the blood. For centuries I was a monster no better than the creature who made me.”
    “But then you stopped killing?”
    “Yes, about a hundred years ago I learned to control my thirst enough to leave my victims alive. It only becomes dangerous when I feed from the same source over and over.” He caressed my neck and I felt his touch thrum through my body. I’d been holding myself tight with anger, but his touch made me vibrate like a plucked violin string. “As I’ve warned you.”
    I sighed and felt the tightness in my muscles melt further. The release brought me an inch closer to him. I could feel the heat of the blood he’d drunk moving through his flesh. Suddenly it didn’t matter to me where he’d gotten the blood—or what other women he’d loved in the past. What did the past matter? I had warped time with the timepiece I’d made—couldn’t I wipe our pasts clean?
    “After tomorrow you’ll be free of this curse and free of your past. You can start over.… We can start over.” I closed the centimeter gap