“You thought I would harm her?” asked her father. “Why would I hurt one with such potential?”

Valerica ignored him, rocking her daughter against her chest. For the first time, she saw the shadows farther down, partly concealed by a bend in the tunnel. Shadows resolved into bodies as she walked closer. Bill’s lost blasting team, no doubt. Lost, but not to a cave-in. Still holding Alina, she approached until she was certain they were dead. The chests were torn open and the limbs broken. She turned away.

“What potential?” she asked.

He smiled. Decay had taken most of his teeth, and the ones that remained were brown, whether from rot or blood, she couldn’t say.

“You’ve done well, Valerica,” he said. “Can’t you taste the power in her blood?”

She backed away. He had swallowed the blood of her baby. That was how he had pierced Valerica’s illusion. She wanted to vomit.

“But you’ve done nothing to prepare her for the darkness,” he went on.

“Alina is innocent.” Unlike her father, whose birth caul had covered his face like a mask. Even as a babe, he had hidden his face from God.

He laughed, a sound of genuine amusement that pierced her with memories from her childhood. “The girl is damned, Valerica. I can smell the darkness enveloping her. Your darkness. You damned her, from the very moment you created her.”

“No.” It was Valerica who had cast the spell. The mark was on her soul, not Alina’s. “She was baptized the week after her birth.” Father Fanshaw had insisted. Elizabeth had borne a bastard child, and he wished to cleanse Alina of that sin. Valerica had been all too willing to comply, even if she wasn’t permitted to attend the ceremony. “She is pure.”

“I can save her from the hellfire of damnation. We can save her. Would you deny her that protection?” Her father scoffed. “You know nothing, Valerica. I have faced death. I know the fate you would lay upon her.”

She shifted Alina to her left arm and pointed her knife at his throat. Before she could take a step, the wooden handle twisted. Splinters drove into her palm, and the knife dropped to the ground, warped by his magic.

“You should have fled,” he said. “But I understand. It is difficult to abandon one’s child, yes?” He clapped his hands. At his feet, the small fire flashed, and suddenly Valerica felt Alina sliding from her grasp.

Valerica tried to catch her, but blood had turned Alina’s skin slick. Valerica’s fingers clamped around Alina’s leg, slipped. Alina wailed as she fell headfirst to the-

The fire faded. Valerica staggered back, nearly dropping Alina for real. She clutched Alina as tightly as she could without hurting her. The strigoi mort were adept at drawing nightmares from the mind. After so many years, Valerica was unprepared for such an assault.

Another flare, and Valerica stood in the desert again, holding the bloody razor. But where the coyote had been, now Bill lay butchered on the rocky earth. She tried to look away, but the vision followed.

“Ah, yes, I almost forgot.” Her father smiled as this second illusion faded. He licked his lips. “The valiant brother. Your baby’s blood calls to him as well. Shall I show him the fate which awaits him?”

Before Valerica could move, the fire brightened again. This time Valerica was unaffected, but Bill’s terrified screams echoed through the tunnel.

“You could fight me.” He pointed a bony finger at Alina. “Her blood is quite potent, Valerica. Your broken knife should be more than adequate to slit her throat.”

Valerica shuddered. She returned Alina to the rail car just as another nightmare took her. She pressed her forehead to the wall, eyes squeezed tight as she watched Elizabeth burn.

He knew she wouldn’t hurt Alina, but he wanted her to fight. He had the strength of the dead miners, as well as his victims on the surface. Nothing Valerica did could overpower him. He would wear her down until she had no strength left. Then he would take her. Her and Alina both. Bill, he would simply kill. Or more likely, he would taunt Bill’s mind until he took his own life.

Valerica grabbed her candle from the wall. Too shaken to stand, she bent down to kiss Alina’s forehead.

“Let them go,” she said. She rested her arms on the broken car. Alina reached up to tug a lock of Valerica’s hair. Valerica smiled and squeezed Alina’s hand, then brought her own fingers to the base of the candleflame, where the fire was hottest. “I’ll come back to Romania with you. I’ll do whatever you ask.”

The calluses dulled the pain for a moment, but soon the fire burned deeper, searing the nerves. Her arm shook as the skin of her fingers turned red, then black. Blood began to drip from cracked skin.

“Valerica, you are already mine, as is your daughter. Do you truly think I would accept such a bargain?”

Valerica looked up. “No.” She pinched her fingers together, screaming as the pressure sent new pain through her hand and up her arm. Collapsing against the cart, Valerica drew the fire into her own blood, then flung it away, down the tunnel, toward the broken bodies of the blasting team.

“Bun rămas, father.” Farewell. Perhaps this time he would stay buried.

He stepped toward her, and then thunder and light filled the tunnel. Her tiny flame had been enough to light only a single stick of the dynamite carried by those poor miners, but when it exploded, it triggered the rest. A wall of wind toppled the rail car. Valerica caught Alina with her good hand and rolled, covering her with her body. A futile gesture that would do nothing against the collapse of the tunnel, but she couldn’t help herself.

Stone and dirt rained down, but the tunnel held. Alina burrowed her head into Valerica’s chest.

Her ears rang, and she could see her father striding toward her, but she was too battered to flee. Blood welled from his chapped lips. His whispers charged the air with magic far more powerful than Valerica could fight. Then he stopped. In a single heartbeat, rage transformed to fear.

“Valerica!” he shouted, his bloodshot eyes wide. He backed away.

Water had begun to rise. The explosion hadn’t brought down the tunnel; it had cracked the floor, breaking through to the water below. The fire disappeared in a hiss of steam and smoke, and the tunnel went black. By the time Valerica pulled herself upright, the water was already to her waist.

“Where is the ladder?” Panic gave her father’s voice an edge she had never heard before.

The sharp scent of magic overpowered the salty, muddy smell of the water. The planks along the wall began to burn. Her father held one hand in the fire, maintaining the spell as he frantically searched for the way out. Spotting the ladder, he waded away from the wall.

He had only taken a single step when a surge of water knocked his legs from beneath him. He lurched back, grabbing the wall with his fingers and straining to keep his head above the surface. Valerica could see terror on his face. For so many years he had evaded death, mocking the laws of God.

He reached for her, and his arm was little more than bone. “Daughter!”

“Bun rămas,” she whispered.

A moment later, he was gone.

Any satisfaction she might have taken from his destruction was lost in her fear for Alina.

Valerica raised her daughter over her head, trying to get to the ladder, but the water was rising too quickly. Alina squirmed and batted Valerica’s hands. Over the pounding in her ears, Valerica could make out the sound of crying.

“I’m sorry,” Valerica said. Her father’s fire died, and Alina began to scream. She wanted to hold Alina close, but the water was already to her neck. “You’ll be with Elizabeth soon. You’ll be safe.”

She lost her balance. Salty water scalded her throat and face. She kicked as hard as she could, desperately trying to keep Alina above the surface. Her stomach convulsed, and her body tried to gasp and vomit at the same time.