The Lights of Prague Read online

  Today, Domek passed the towering gates of the palace and went into the garden alongside instead. He was meeting a friend for an exhibit at an art gallery nearby, but with Imrich’s quick dismissal, he had time to update his journal before his friend arrived, an indulgence he rarely had the time for. His handwriting, when sketches weren’t enough, was painstaking and uncoordinated, but he needed the space to let his ideas take form. Like a tree in a clay pot, his mind could never hold all of his own questing roots.

  He found an isolated spot in the garden overlooking the forested drop of the hill on the other side of the castle.

  His journal had fallen to the bottom of his bag, and he had to dig past the pijavica’s dusty jacket and pants. He would have to remember to add the spare clothes to the pile that the lamplighters collected to dispose of at their guildhall.

  He reached deeper into the bag, and then hesitated when his hand closed over something unexpected. The pijavica’s cloth-wrapped bundle. He had forgotten about it. Disgusted, he began to push it aside, but hesitated. Since last night, the cloth wrapping had loosened, revealing not the blood-filled flask he’d expected, but a clay jar. It was engraved with a delicate, swirling pattern, and had been fired without glaze.

  Domek glanced around, ensuring he was still alone in the park, and then carefully loosened the lid and peered inside.

  The jar was filled with fire.

  The clay grew hot in his hands, as though he’d grabbed a poker from the hearth, but when he tried to drop it, he couldn’t move his fingers. He jumped to his feet as the jar shuddered in his grasp. The ball of fire, which had seemed to burn inside the closed jar without kindling or air, drifted upward to float in front of him—a strange, flickering orb no bigger than an apple.

  The fiery ball hovered over the path. Below, the dirt began to ripple, kicking up dust and fallen leaves which wriggled like worms before being drawn into the growing whirlwind. The fire was at the center of its own small storm, climbing into the sky.

  It would be difficult to fight while he was trapped clutching the jar with frozen hands, but Domek braced his feet anyway. He didn’t recognize the apparition. Was it some sort of spirit? Apart from the wraith-like bubáks that lurked in dark alleys, Domek’s adversaries were generally corporeal.

  The jar’s heat dulled to a soft glow, like the small warmth of a gaslight. He was finally able to let go of the clay. Keeping hold of it with one hand, he reached for his stake with the other. Hawthorn didn’t work on monsters apart from pijavice, but his silver blade had fallen with his bag to the ground. Did he dare look away to find it? His hair whipped around his face, and it felt as though invisible fingers grabbed at his clothes.

  “What is this?” Domek murmured. He could hear the chatter of the tourists gathered nearby. How large would this windstorm grow? The devastation it could wreak would be immense. A twig whipped his face like a slap. “Stop!” Domek shouted, holding out his free hand.

  Domek was stunned when the whirlwind died. He looked at his palm. It was seared with the symbols from the sides of the jar, though the pain had vanished with the heat. The brands had already healed into silvery scars that shone in the afternoon light. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. The floating fire pulsed in the air like a man panting for breath after a run. “Stay still,” Domek tried.

  The orb stilled, though its flames continued to flicker under the sunlight. Daytime was supposed to be the sane part of his life. Part of him, the part that had once thought monsters were a fairy tale, wondered if the flame was some prank. Domek knew his reputation among the lamplighters. He was a bore, too serious about the things that mattered, and dismissive of the daily problems faced by his peers. There were several who would have been amused by his raving about a living flame to their leader, but none had the resources to pull off something like this. Domek’s shaking hands were still branded with the jar’s intricate, strange pattern.

  Was it the scars that gave him power over this thing? It had reacted to his voice. Perhaps it was some new perversion of the pijavice, a mindless servant bound to its owner.

  “Lift that stone,” Domek said, pointing to a nearby rock. It had wobbled during the earlier whirlwind, but remained half-buried. The orb of fire pulsed brighter, and the stone rocketed into the air. It flew overhead, and clattered onto the roof of the castle. Domek swore. He should have known that any magical item belonging to the pijavice would be dangerous. There must be some method to control it. If Domek phrased his commands carefully, perhaps he could learn the extent of its abilities—and then its purpose.

  He was contemplating an unequivocal way to phrase his next order when he heard a familiar voice from the garden entrance.

  “Domek! There you are.”

  “Go back in the jar,” he instructed. The light pulsed once, and then drifted back inside the clay jar. It glowed for a moment, as though fresh from the kiln, and then returned to its original dull brown. Domek quickly returned the jar to his bag and turned to the approaching man.

  “Afternoon, Lord Bauer,” Domek said.

  “You know, most people wouldn’t use a man’s title to annoy him,” Cord Bauer said, shaking Domek’s hand and clasping his forearm. Domek winced, but the man’s silk gloves prevented him from noticing Domek’s strange new scars. Though nearing thirty, he appeared younger than the lamplighter. He wore only a mustache, rather than Domek’s fuller beard, and kept his hair coiffed carefully below his hat. Dressed in a sleek gray suit with a starched white collar and a looming black top hat, he seemed to belong in the nearby castle.

  “Most men wouldn’t be annoyed by it. It’d be a shame to waste that. It’s been a while, Cord. Where have you been?”

  “Oh, you know. Horse races, dens of iniquity, and various other places my father thinks are draining my life away,” he said. “I’m glad I could convince you to come out today. You need a bad influence in your life.”

  “Corrupting me with an art gallery,” Domek said. “What will my mother say?”

  “Your mother loves me,” Cord said. He frowned at Domek. “You look as though you could use the break. Are you all right?”

  Domek smoothed down his hair, which felt tousled under his fingers from the windstorm. “I had a meeting with Imrich before this,” he said.

  “Ah, of course. How is the old bastard?”

  “Apparently now I’m a coward in addition to being a general idiot.”

  Cord shook his head. “He doesn’t appreciate what he has in you. I still don’t see why you need to waste your time on him when you have Zacharias.”

  “My uncle can’t hire me full-time, and lamplighting isn’t enough. Some of us need to work for our money.”

  “Well, maybe Imrich will leave you his business, but either way we’ll raise a glass when he finally croaks. For now, distraction. Shall we?”

  Sternberg Palace sat near the entrance to the castle. Many of Prague’s most beautiful houses sat a stone’s throw from the castle, built by lords eager to be near the emperor’s influence. The National Gallery had purchased Sternberg Palace at the turn of the century from heirs too destitute to keep it functioning.

  Above the grand white façade, dark statues lined the roof like oversized crows. Cord paid their fee, and they went through the ornate entry hall to where the base of a massive four-flight staircase emerged. A crowd of tourists and locals clogged the stairs toward the temporary exhibit halls, so Domek and Cord started with the ground floor.

  As they passed a line of paintings, Cord regaled Domek with stories of his adventures. He described a Prague worlds apart from Domek’s, full of ballrooms and gambling halls instead of dark nights and alchemist’s labs.

  On patrol a few years earlier, Domek had stumbled on a group of men beating another man in an alley behind a gambling hall. The men had been an entirely human sort of scum, but with odds of five against one, Domek hadn’t hesitated before leaping to their victim’s rescue.

  He had stepped in and fought them off, nearly losing
a finger to a knife in the process. Cord had bullied Domek into his carriage to get the slice on his finger stitched by a surgeon, and had been determined that they would become friends. Years later, even though Domek was often mistaken for Cord’s servant rather than his companion, he had never regretted stepping into that alley.

  On the first floor, paintings framed in ornate gold lined the walls: there was an early map sketch of Europe with Prague drawn in the center, and another where seven planets orbited the sun. This was the world the Bohemians had once imagined, with Prague at its heart and the heavens above.

  “How much more is out there that we don’t know?” Domek asked, staring at the swirling planets. His learning was firmly grounded, and the abyss of space disturbed him. It reminded him of the floating fire tucked at the bottom of his bag. There was so much hidden just on the streets of Prague, and worse in the monster-infested tunnels below. What dark secrets could lurk upon the moon or beyond?

  Cord waved at him from the next staircase, which led up to the temporary exhibit they had come to see. “I doubt we’ll ever know everything,” he said, shrugging.

  Domek sighed and followed.

  * * *

  There was a dark ocean in Ora’s chest. It teemed with sharp teeth and gaping maws and spiked tentacles. Most days, she floated on top in a small rowboat, parasol on her shoulder, refusing to look into the abyss. If she fell in, she was quite sure she would drown.

  Despite her inner turmoil, it was a lovely spring day, and the sun was casting its deadly rays over the city unimpeded by clouds. Draped in a hooded velvet cloak, wearing gloves that reached her elbows under her dress, she stepped down from her carriage and was guided to the museum’s entrance by Lina. She had lost her ability to sweat when she had lost her tears and blood, but the heat was still uncomfortable.

  “Was this really worth the risk of coming before sundown?” Lina asked as she led her through the halls. Unfortunately, most of the museum was populated by broad windows, and Ora could only watch the tile beneath her slippers.

  “You did request that I not lock myself in forever,” Ora pointed out. “This exhibit is supposed to be lovely.”

  “I’m sure you could find a way to have the doors unlocked for you if we came back tonight,” Lina said. “This seesaw between sloth and recklessness is going to give me gray hairs. If you are going to risk your life, I would prefer if you didn’t bring me along.”

  “I’ve been doing this for more than two hundred years.” Carefully, she followed Lina’s shoes up the steps. “I know how to avoid the sun.”

  Lina hushed her, though the stairwell was so crowded with museumgoers that none would have been able to hear her. “Discretion would be advised, my lady.”

  “By whom?” Ora asked. “Come, Lina. You know boredom is far worse a danger to me.”

  “This was not what I meant earlier and you are well aware. I’m just saying, my lady, it wouldn’t kill you to slow down.”

  “Slowing down is dangerous, my dear. I’m incapable of slowing without freezing.”

  “Except in Mělník,” Lina said.

  Quietly, Ora said, “You’re overstepping.”

  “Apologies, my lady,” Lina said, though she didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. She had never been afraid of offending Ora. They walked through a curtain, and the ambient sunlight was replaced by a dull orange glow. “You can remove your hood, but please be careful.”

  Ora looked up to find the promised exhibit spread before her. The space had been transformed since her last visit, during which she had mingled with the city’s artistic patrons with an empty wine goblet in hand. Ornate tapestries from India had made the long boat journey to Prague and had been strung along the walls. The windows in this exhibit were curtained and the halls lit with candlelight to protect the line of ancient fabric from the harsh glare of the sun.

  The tapestries were a riot of color, the blues and reds and yellows bright even in the candlelight. Ora stopped before the first tapestry of a man and woman in a carriage drawn by four horses. In only mustard yellow, dark red, cream, and black, the artist conveyed the lush chaos of the scene. Ora took a deep breath, searching for some hint of the spice, marigold, and jasmine scents that had characterized her time in India. It had been many decades ago, just after she had fled Lord Czernin’s estate in the countryside. Her memories of the beautiful country were marred by the shadow of terror that had filled her, the way she had skittered across the sub-continent like a rat in a storeroom, body tense for the fall of the farmer’s ax.

  The museum smelled only of dust and the combined sweat of a hundred humans.

  “Even you have to appreciate the detail of this,” a man was saying to his companion, a calloused finger tracing the air just over a pattern of threads in one circular tapestry.

  Ora turned, drawn to that familiar, deep voice like a drunkard to a pub. “If it isn’t Mister Myska,” she declared, a smile unfurling as she strolled over to interrupt the conversation.

  Domek Myska turned, curiosity and surprise brightening his dark eyes. Those eyes, his square jaw shadowed with a closely trimmed beard, and curly, untamed brown hair may have had some influence in her interest in him. He was tall and broad as an oak tree. She sometimes forgot how raw and delectable he looked. His name—which meant mouse—could not have been less apt. “It’s nice to see you again, Lady Fischerová.” He nodded to her maid as well. “I hope you’re doing well, Lina.”

  “I am,” Lina said, abruptly.

  Lina may not have liked Domek because of his callouses, but Ora appreciated that he always made the effort to acknowledge her maid. Lina’s Romani heritage meant she was scorned or ignored by many of the people Ora had flirted with over the years, and was therefore a sure test of who was worth spending time on. There were few things she found less appetizing in a person than rudeness to her friends.

  “It’s always a delight to run into you, Mister Myska,” Ora said.

  “Ah, the famous Lady Fischerová,” said the other man. Ora had been uncertain if they were visiting the gallery together, as Domek did not seem the type to associate with a man in tailcoats and a top hat. “I am Lord Cord Bauer, since my friend seems to have forgotten his manners.” He brushed a kiss above her gloved knuckles. Bauer. That was the name of one of the men in Parliament, head of one of the wealthiest families in the city.

  “How do you know my mechanic?” Ora asked.

  “It was all very dashing and heroic, but it’s a story for another time,” Bauer said. “I’m much more curious to hear how you came to know our dear Domek.”

  “He’s a genius with his hands,” Ora said. She could smell the blush rushing to Domek’s face, though the color was hidden by the candlelight and his beard. His scent was of sweet honey and the tang of metal, both of which seemed to have seeped into his lifeblood. “My pocket watch broke last year, and I feared it was beyond repair. Mister Myska and his uncle took care of it. Since then, our paths simply seem meant to cross.”

  “We’ve seen each other at a handful of events in the city,” Domek said, angling his body between them as though to shoulder his friend from the conversation. Was he so eager to speak with her, or only embarrassed of what his companion would think of their long flirtation? Ora knew her charms, but Domek had never pushed their coy conversations further. She hoped it was simple shyness, but there were men uninterested in any charms offered by a widow. Sometimes, he seemed like the sun: powerful, pure… and beyond her reach. “There was an outdoor concert last winter by the Old Town Hall we found one another at.”

  “Mister Myska tracked down some mulled wine for us to drink.” She had stealthily poured it on the cobblestones when he had been distracted, trusting the general mess of the streets to cover it up. She had felt a tad guilty, as she doubted he had the money to waste, but mortal fare twisted her stomach horribly. “It was very kind of him.”

  “It was a cold night,” Domek demurred. “Are you enjoying the exhibit?”

  “It�
��s very impressive. I’ve been looking forward to seeing it. I’m a member of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts, of course, but am more of an uninvolved supporter. When I learned about this exhibit, I knew I must come. I spent some time in India in my youth.”

  “Did you?” Domek said. Finally, he seemed to forget the amused, watchful eyes of Lord Bauer. “What was it like?”

  “Warm. Ornate. Beautiful. You must go when you can.”

  “I’m not sure I’m fit for travel.” He flushed again, but this time it had the unpleasant stink of shame. “I’ve never even left Prague.”

  “Everyone is fit for travel,” Ora insisted. “Some of us are simply layabouts who can afford the time to swan off across the ocean. That’s the benefit of exhibits like this, for hardworking men such as yourself.” Beside her, Lina made a pained face.

  “A fellow layabout,” Bauer said. “I assume I’ve met a kindred spirit who gets a perverse pleasure from Domek’s disapproval. There’s something invigorating about spending time with an honest man, isn’t there? We were going to eat lunch nearby after this. You should join us.”

  “Oh, I wish I could,” Ora said, and the truth of it surprised her. After her morning, she had not expected to want any companionship. Around Domek, she felt alive and grounded in a way her melancholy morning and spontaneous decision to risk the sunlight had lacked. She wished she could go to lunch and dissect these men’s unusual friendship, to sit in the sunlight by the Vltava and drink a glass of wine. To experience the life she had never had, even before her baptism in blood. She searched for a lie, and hated the ease with which it fell from her tongue. Domek Myska deserved better than her. “I promised the curator I would meet with him after I finished looking through the exhibit about another project. Next time I’ll take you up on the offer.”

  “Another time, then,” Bauer said.

  “Enjoy the rest of the exhibit,” Domek said. He cleared his throat. “I hope I’ll see you again soon.”