Page 21 of The Doctor and the Devil
“I went back to Amsterdam the very next day, forced to endure my mother trotting suitor after suitor in front of me in a desperate attempt to marry me off and put an end to my incessant wheedling to attend university,” Mina said. “Father continued to travel more and more after that. He still sought answers for the blood plague, and so he kept watch for news of your family.”
“I’m sorry,” I confessed, knowing the words meant little in the face of her pain.
“It is done,” she acknowledged, the hurt still evident in her voice. “I am glad you told me.”
The soft trickle of the waterfall was the only sound for several minutes as I gathered the courage to finish.
“I did as my father asked. I stayed to learn how to rule. His rage at Laszlo never cooled, and for a long time, I didn’t hear anything that would give me a clue as to my brother’s whereabouts.” My words became a whisper of lingering grief and emotion strangled my voice. “I was left alone with my father, without Laszlo to buffer our fractured relationship. My father hated me and resented that I was the one left to carry his legacy. Our remaining years together were…” I faltered.Brutal. Unkind.“…difficult.”
Before she could say or do anything that would diminish my resolve, I carried on.
“And then while I was away, traveling back from the Ottoman Empire, I received the news that my father was assassinated. He died as cruelly as he lived, and I barely escaped the ensuing political chaos. I went into hiding for a time, traveling under different identities. Soon, I had word of a mysterious disease—the blood plague—cropping up in the eastern part of France. I suspected Laszlo had something to do with it, or the men my father had sent after him who’d never returned. I set out after him. More and more cases were popping up, and it wasn’t long after that the rumors took on a life of their own. Unfortunately, I still seem to be at the heart of them, even though I’ve been trying to stop the spread of the plague.”
Mina’s jaw dropped. “What? You have? How?”
“Your father inspired my interest in botany. I’ve been using his notes to try and find a cure myself. I enjoy the study of plants, but I wouldn’t have come to it if I hadn’t been seeking a cure for the destruction my family’s curse has caused,” I admitted.
Appearing bewildered and overwhelmed, Mina sat back down, rubbing at the spot between her brows.
“Why does the Order believe you are to blame?” she asked. “Why are they hunting you, Rafael?”
“Truthfully, I do not know. I can only guess Laszlo’s disappearance and my father’s death have left me the sole heir to that particular mantle,” I said. “And there is some truth to that. If I’d sought my brother sooner, perhaps this would have been in my power to prevent. Besides, my reputation for being a young rogue that led to the moniker ‘Devil’ surely helped the rumors spread. Only now, I’m far worse than a wastrel and a cad—they all see me as Lucifer himself.”
We were silent for a time, listening to the fluttering of the bats and the steady symphony of frogs and insects heralding a new day.
“Sunrise is upon us,” I said, surprised that I’d lost track of time.
“So,” Mina began slowly. “Your father is gone. Your throne is gone. You’ve been here hunting Laszlo and trying to stop the blood plague, all while the Order nips at your heels. Where do I fit in?”
I stared at her, perplexed.
“Where do you fit in?Mina, yes, I am here to right my family’s wrongs, but I am also here for you. I’ve never stopped loving you, my brilliant doctor, and it’s the promise of a future with you that has inspired me to do better for this world. I hoped to have more time…to be further along in my search for the truth and the cure, but the Order’s actions have forced me to show my hand sooner than I wished.”
I reached for her, but she pulled away, rising to her feet.
“And with all of this—with twenty years of absence between us—I’m simply supposed to take you at your word? To trust you? We don’t even know each other anymore, Rafael. I didn’t know any of this! You had no idea my father had passed. You don’t know what I’ve been through over the last two decades! You think that coming here, weaving this tale of woe—true or not—and remembering my favorite tea blend is enough to wash away the grief, the betrayal, the time?” Mina whirled around the grotto, tears shining in her eyes.
“I have nothingbuttime. My love for you has not changed. Twenty years is nothing to me,” I insisted.
“It is to me!” she shouted. “You could have written, you could have sent for me, you could have shared some of this precious knowledge. We could have spent some of those years working together, looking for Laszlo, trying to find a cure. But instead, you selfishly sat in waiting, allowing me to think the worst of you because—why? You weren’t ready? Your greenhouse was still being built? You didn’t yet possess the answers that would make it impossible for me to refuse you?”
She shook her head in disbelief.
“All this time I’ve been atoning for what I thought were your sins, and now you tell me they are Laszlo’s? What am I to do with this information, Rafael? I forced my heart to heal from you long ago, secure in the knowledge that you didn’t care. You were happy with your father’s legacy and a family curse that leeched from the confines of your horrible castle.”
Stunned into silence, I could only watch as the tempest of her righteous anger dashed any hopes of our future together.
“I spent twenty years believing it was my fault.Iwasn’t enough for you. You allegedly fell into the arms of another woman because I wasn’t enough…I wasn’t a princess, I wasn’t immortal, I wasn’t a vampire, I wasn’t worldly enough, I wasn’t wealthy or charming or glamorous. I was the simple human daughter of a human scientist—the scientist who had failed you. That’s why I believed it.”
She shook her head again, and the motion gutted me to my rotten, black core.
“It wasn’t that I thought the worst of you all these years, Rafael. It’s that I thought the worst ofme.”
8
MINA
April 17, 1768
