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  He grunted. ‘I believe that on occasion, as men begin to age, a certain irascibility can creep into their nature.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve had a few experiences of that.’

  Ágoston stood up, and Leah realised that his admission was as close to an apology as she was going to get.

  ‘I have a shoot this morning, and I must get ready,’ he announced. ‘So I’ll leave you in the hands of my far less irascible son. Please try not to corrupt him.’

  Once the old man had gone, Leah picked up a bowl and scooped muesli into it from a tub. She added milk to her cereal, poured herself a glass of juice, and sat down. The sight of the cooked meat, cooling in its juices, reminded her of what she’d seen clinging to the glass of her bedroom window. She paused over her breakfast, a worm of nausea curling in her stomach.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Luca asked, crushing out his panatela.

  ‘You had visitors last night,’ she replied. ‘We had visitors.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’

  He poured himself a cup of coffee, stirred in sugar. ‘You saw?’

  ‘I saw.’

  He nodded.

  ‘What were they?’

  ‘I thought you were hosszú élet.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So perhaps it’s time you started to educate yourself.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Not over breakfast.’

  ‘Are they dangerous?’

  ‘To some.’

  ‘To you?’

  ‘Not as much.’

  ‘Then who?’

  He stared. ‘My father advised you not to come What might you infer from that?’

  Leah took a sip of her juice. ‘Something was outside my window last night. I don’t know if it was one of them, or something else. But it was on the balcony.’

  Luca opened a silver cigar box and removed a fresh panatela. He lit it with a slim gold lighter. Puffed out smoke. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘I saw it.’

  ‘The security sys—’

  ‘Go upstairs if you don’t believe me. Whatever it was, it left tracks. Smeared something godawful on the window.’

  His eyes still hadn’t left hers. Did she see a trace of unease in them?

  Luca went to a bureau and opened a drawer. He removed her Ruger and placed it down on the table. Last night she’d returned it to his care. ‘Keep it with you from now on,’ he said, and strode out of the room.

  After finishing her breakfast, Leah poured herself a coffee and took it to the viewing window, staring out at the mountains beyond.

  Luca returned a few minutes later, his eyes troubled.

  He checked. And now he knows it’s true.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, throwing her a coat. Not a fur, this time. A mountaineering jacket.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You wanted to speak to one of the kirekesztett women.’

  ‘I want to speak to all of them.’

  ‘You can speak to one, and I want to be there. Depending on her reaction, maybe more.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Are you coming or not?’

  Pulling on the jacket, Leah pocketed her pistol and raced to catch up.

  Outside, the morning air was frigid, but the sunlight, where it touched Leah’s neck, conveyed a delicate warmth. Luca tossed her a pair of gloves. ‘It’ll be colder where we’re going.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  The doors to the five-car garage were rolled up into their recesses. Overnight, someone had cleaned the Phantom and parked it back in its bay.

  Now, an enormous Ford pick-up waited on the tarmac. Luca pulled a set of keys from his pocket. The truck’s door locks jumped, and its indicator lights flashed. A few moments later they were heading down the hill, the vehicle’s oversized tyres crunching over snow.

  Interlaken’s snowploughs had been busy overnight. The main road had been scraped clean, revealing a smooth grey strip split by a single white line.

  Luca headed south, following the route’s curves in silence. To their left a mountain stream tumbled and hissed, swollen with the morning’s snow melt. To their right, a high wall of flat-edged bracing stones kept the mountainside from spilling onto the roadway.

  The sun climbed higher, its light scattered by the branches of trees. All around, the slopes were dense with scrubby mountain pine laden with powder.

  When their road broke out into a grassy plateau, Luca ducked his head and peered up at the sky. He seemed to concentrate for a moment, and then he slammed on the brakes, swerving into a rest area where five snow-dusted picnic tables stood in a row.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Leah asked, hand braced against the dash. Luca threw open his door and climbed out. ‘OK,’ she said, addressing the empty seat. ‘Best not tell me.’ In turn she jumped down and walked to the back of the vehicle.

  Luca was staring up at the sky. He raised a finger. ‘Look.’

  She cast her eyes upwards and saw it wheeling above them, wings outstretched, a wide brown shape against the morning: the unmistakable silhouette of a raptor.

  ‘Golden eagle,’ he said, smiling. Luca put the fingers of his right hand to his mouth and whistled, high and mournful, two individual notes.

  Above, the bird adjusted its wings and arced away from them. Then it looped back and dived. For a moment Leah thought it intended to strike, but it levelled out just in time and skimmed over their heads, close enough for her to feel the turbulence of its wake. The eagle banked, swooped back towards them. Legs thrust forward, with a mighty beat of wings, it landed on the truck’s tailgate.

  Leah gasped. She watched it tuck away its wings, talons clicking and scraping on metal. It turned its head to study her with flat amber eyes.

  ‘Stunning,’ she said. ‘Beautiful.’ Neither word really did it justice.

  ‘Deadly, too,’ Luca told her. ‘And intelligent. They’ve been known to drag goats off cliff tops. Easier to kill them that way.’

  ‘Right up your street,’ she said. ‘Is it male or female?’

  The bird opened its beak and cried, a hooting high-pitched call.

  ‘This one’s a girl.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She just told me.’

  Leah’s mouth dropped open. ‘That can’t be true.’

  He paused, and then he was laughing. ‘Your face,’ he said. ‘No, it isn’t true.’

  ‘Funny,’ she snapped, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn. ‘Hilarious, actually.’

  His laughter abating, Luca considered her. ‘You still have a lot to learn, don’t you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you. About us. The hosszú életek, I mean. About what’s possible, and what isn’t.’

  She prickled with irritation. ‘An ignorant little girl, you mean.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He nodded back towards the bird. ‘The females are always larger. That’s how you can tell.’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t tried to stuff her and take her home for your father’s collection.’

  ‘I think he has one, actually.’

  ‘Will you teach me that call you used?’

  ‘Perhaps. Watch this.’ He extended his arm and clicked his tongue. The eagle flapped its wings once, then hopped on. Luca’s arm dipped as it took the bird’s full weight. The creature’s talons closed around his woollen jacket, cutting into the fibres.

  He’s showing off, she thought, with a jolt. Luca Sultés is trying to impress me.

  As if receiving from him some silent signal, the bird launched itself into the air and flapped into the sky.

  A single feather had fallen into the truck’s bed; a shaft of white, the vanes a mixture of coffee and cream. Luca picked it up. ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘For you.’

  Leah rolled her eyes. ‘So chivalrous.’

  Be careful. And don’t be stupid. You don’t want to get into this.


  She was still holding the feather as she climbed back into the passenger seat.

  They followed the road further south, winding through scenery that looked like it had been carved open with a knife. The river beside them boiled with white water. Already the morning sun had melted most of the overnight snow, revealing lush meadows and delicate Alpine plants.

  They passed a sign to Stechelberg, the road straightening as it led them along the wide floor of the Lauterbrunnen valley. She saw cows grazing its pastures. Higher up, black and white long-horned goats.

  The town itself was tiny: a bed and breakfast, a hotel and a scattered collection of homes. Luca steered the truck into a car park beside a huge concrete building. One side was a gaping hole from which four heavy cables rose up and out, climbing at a steep angle. A large sign read:

  Stechelberg

  867m 2844 ft

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.

  Luca switched off the engine. ‘It’s the only way up.’

  ‘She doesn’t live in Stechelberg?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘You’ve heard of exposure therapy?’

  ‘Yeah. And you can keep it.’

  ‘Shall I drive us back?’

  ‘What?’

  He pointed through the windscreen. ‘If you want this badly enough, you’ll do it.’

  ‘Why all these tests?’

  ‘View it as therapy.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m the one who needs it.’ She opened her mouth, hesitated. ‘Give me something in return.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’re in a position to bargain right now.’

  ‘Your visitors. Outside on the lawn last night. Tell me what they were.’

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Then you were even more foolish coming here than I thought. If you’re not careful, your ignorance is going to kill you.’

  ‘So help me out. Educate me.’

  ‘They were lélek tolvajok.’

  She frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly. You have no clue what I’m talking about, do you?’

  Leah shook her head.

  ‘You grew up with hosszú életek, yet they’ve prepared you hardly at all.’ He stared through the windscreen at the mountains beyond. ‘Perhaps they thought the tolvajok had all died out. Or perhaps it’s only kirekesztett they prey upon now. Whatever the reason, it’s still inexcusable. They should have told you.’

  ‘Prey upon?’ She watched his eyes, unease clawing at her.

  ‘The tolvajok have preyed upon hosszú életek for as long as we’ve both existed.’

  ‘You said earlier they’re only a danger to some.’

  ‘They’re a danger to all. But yes, some more than others. You, especially so.’

  Those claws sank deeper now. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because of your age. Because of what they’ll want from you.’

  ‘Which is?’

  He pointed through the window at one of the cable cars sliding into the building.

  ‘We need to go. Now. Or we’re going to miss our ride.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t, Luca.’

  ‘If you want this enough, you will.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  Inside the building, Luca purchased their tickets and they boarded the next car to dock. Leah’s heart was a hummingbird in her chest. The car was wider than a bus and virtually all glass. It swung gently as it began to rise – bizarrely quiet – and she heard herself moan as her stomach slipped away from her.

  Quickly the valley floor receded, the building from which they’d emerged dwindling first to the size of a shoebox, then a matchbox. Leah clenched her teeth so hard she expected, at any moment, to feel them shatter. She wanted to close her eyes but, morbidly fascinated, found that she couldn’t.

  They rose higher. This was no cable car route that skimmed the surface of its mountain slope. Soon they were impossibly high above the earth. She could see the whole of the Lauterbrunnen now, opening up like a vast canyon below her. Waterfalls plunged over cliffs, misting as they plummeted hundreds of feet past rock.

  The cable car trembled and Leah tasted bile.

  This is not happening. I am not this high up.

  Mercifully, through the front-facing windows, she saw the winching station above them begin to grow larger, its brown steel ribs sharpening into view. Its huge sign read:

  Gimmelwald

  1367m 4485 ft

  A village of traditional log cabins clinging to the mountainside, Gimmelwald was an even smaller community than Stechelberg. Laundry fluttered from washing lines. A few blond-haired children ran through its only street.

  Leah breathed out explosively as they lurched to a halt inside the station, but Luca shook his head. ‘Not quite.’

  ‘Another?’

  ‘Another.’

  ‘We couldn’t drive up?’

  ‘No roads.’

  The second cable car took them up to Mürren. According to the sign she saw as they arrived, they’d reached an altitude of 5,413 feet. The doors opened and they filed out, the air greeting them so bitter it drew tears from her eyes. Leah paused to recover her breath, heartbeat beginning to slow as she felt solid ground beneath her feet once more.

  Mürren, despite its greater altitude, was a much larger village than the farming community of Gimmelwald. Clearly a tourist destination, it was startlingly beautiful nonetheless. Houses opened onto back gardens that dropped away at surprising angles, hemmed by low wooden fences. There were no cars.

  At this altitude, snow still clung to the branches of trees and sat heavy on the rooftops. A wisp of cloud passed overhead, so low that it skimmed the tops of the buildings. Overshadowing everything, the grey stone peaks of the Alps.

  Off the main street, Leah followed Luca to a black-painted chalet with bottle-green shutters. He bounded up the concrete steps and yanked on a bell pull.

  ‘What’s her name?’ she asked, squinting up at the windows. The ground-floor shutters were all closed.

  ‘Patience,’ he said.

  ‘That’s her name?’

  ‘No. That’s some advice.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ she replied. Then, ‘Have you told her?’

  ‘I thought I’d leave that to you.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  He scratched his chin. ‘Let’s just say she doesn’t get out much.’

  The door opened, revealing a dark, wood-panelled hall. A woman’s face appeared around the edge of the jamb and Leah’s stomach twisted into knots.

  CHAPTER 10

  Budapest, Hungary

  1873

  Few of the city’s inhabitants walked the streets at this hour, and Izsák wished to avoid the ones that did. The moon was waxing, daubing Pest’s architecture with a spectral luminescence. He kept to the shadows, ducking out of sight when he heard footsteps or the snort and clatter of a horse. The hilt of the déjnin blade chafed his side.

  He had but one intention: find his father; find the only person left in this city who could make everything right.

  All dead soon, little one. All the Long Lives burned in a pile. Bones and ashes. Bones and ashes.

  He would not believe it. His uncle had told him that the tanács, at the Crown’s request, intended to sacrifice his father. The crippled servant had implied the rest of the hosszú életek would soon follow.

  It couldn’t happen. It couldn’t.

  If he could get to the Citadella, he could uncover the truth. He could prove to himself that the last two days had been a nightmare and nothing more. He accepted that his father was to be punished, but the man’s blood would not be spilled.

  If Izsák could find him, if he could stand beside József as he was judged, perhaps the tanács would be shamed into showing even greater leniency. Perhaps they could both be back in Gödöllö by tomorrow night.

  Stand next t
o your father? You couldn’t even summon the courage to warn Szilárd!

  But this was different.

  This was all he had.

  The Citadella stood at the top of Gellért Hill on the Danube’s west bank, the highest elevation for miles around. The stone fortress had been built by the Habsburgs twenty years earlier, a strategic position from which its cannon could target both Pest and Buda should the cities choose to revolt.

  Izsák could reach the foot of the hill via the Széchenyi chain bridge, but he dared not risk crossing it at night. Someone was sure to challenge him.

  Instead he walked the streets of Pest, waiting for sunrise. He passed the huge Academy of Sciences building, and sat for a while tucked behind a pillar at the top of the steps to St Stephen’s Basilica. Wind stirred the leaves of a newspaper beside him. It was a mournful sound. He wrapped his arms around his knees and closed his eyes. If only Jakab were here; his brother would know exactly what to do. Izsák accepted that Jakab had done a bad thing over in Buda, but perhaps that had been a mistake, too. A dreadful misunderstanding.

  No. He’s a rapist. You know that.

  When Izsák opened his eyes hours later, the sun had risen and he could hear birdsong. His backside ached where it pressed against stone. Pain thumped behind his eyes. He climbed to his feet and dusted himself down. Pulling the knife from his belt, he slipped it into an inside pocket; with the arrival of dawn, he’d be unwise to display a weapon so openly.

  By the time he crossed the chain bridge over the Danube’s wide brown ribbon, the morning’s river traffic was already moving. He saw tugboats, full-sailed schooners, a paddle steamer churning the water to foam. Gulls hovered and cried.

  Even this early, the sun was warm on his back. The notion, now, that his father would die this day had shrunk to the status of an infant’s night terror. The crippled servant had frightened him, yes. But Izsák’s reaction, fleeing from the man and the house, had been foolish, panicked. Once he heard the Főnök speak, once he saw his father and proved to himself that József was safe, he would talk to his uncle. The servant would be disciplined. There would be an end to it.

  He arrived on the Buda side of the river and began the climb up Gellért Hill to the Citadella. The building squatted on the summit, a graceless fortification of pale stone, punched with square holes for its battery of cannon. Some walls curved, others zigzagged. A group of soldiers, in blue tunics and peaked caps, lounged around outside the entrance. Most had rifles slung over their shoulders; one, holding a sheaf of papers, wore a sword at his belt. Relieved, Izsák saw they were making casual conversation, cracking jokes. It felt far from the atmosphere of an execution.