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pissed off (and scared)

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A long time ago, my husband gave me a gun made out of bronze and some kind of ceramic. I didn't understand then why I would want a gun that wasn't made of proper steel, because there are so many things that iron is proof against; but I have unpacked and cleaned it now, because I do not think my other guns will work in this place, if they even survive it.

The aristocratic débauchée I once distrusted so is sitting cross-legged on the deck with Misha and they are reckoning in coloured chalk on the deck and the outer wall of the cabin. I am just waiting for someone to tell me what I should do. The ferryman is a gibbering wreck and Malfoy and Benedetto have told him to just keep us moving, with the not so subtle implication that one of them will blow his head off if he doesn't, but I think that's good for him, because if he isn't working he'll think. I will do whatever we have to do to get out of here. So I think will Benedetto, who is also watching them carefully. I wish they would figure it all the fuck out. Everyone looks a bit like a monster here, and I don't feel safe at all, because wherever we are, it is we who are the intruders here, just as the ghosts and spectres and dark things are strangers in our world. If there are hunters here, we are their lawful prey.

When I next see Jenica, I'm going to make her run a good fifty laps, and then I might just flog her. If I can ever force myself to let her go. That is the thought that will keep me sane.

I want one of those feathers Malfoy has that makes her seem more solid as long as she doesn't let go of it, but when I said that the vampire laughed and said I should thank God I'd never had the opportunity. I don't even want to think about that very hard, do I? We salted and burned my husband, but if he knew that I was travelling with a vampire and a Malfoy, he'd probably still find a way to roll over in his grave.

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suspicious

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I don’t like this. The only people who can tell me anything about my daughter are a British agent who blames her for killing his cousin, an aristocratic débauchée and a vampire. It says my daughter wanted to kill it, and even though it seems reasonable enough, it’s a vampire, and I can’t help thinking she must have had a good reason, because that’s what I want to think about my daughter. Even though for my daughter, I know, the fact of its vampirism would probably be reason enough.

But Misha insists that he’s heard of this creature before; it’s an astronomical and a medical researcher, it taught at Beauxbatons, it studied at Beauxbatons and the Collège de France and it’s even been to Durmstrang (though of course that was long before either of us was there). It swears it doesn’t kill people, at least not to feed. I know it kills in the Resistance, but now the Germans and their puppet government know who it is and what it has been doing (it has intimated that this is my daughter’s fault, but I really think the fact that it has been alive since before the Revolution and still appears to be very young has more to do with that than it lets on). It probably does drink German blood, but we have all been tempted. I don’t know what to think of it. It’s personable and handsome and it doesn’t appear to have done any harm to the girl it is travelling with. Misha says it has done a lot of research into the causes of its affliction and is looking for a cure, and that it has been known to help humans against others of its kind. I still can’t fully trust it.

Of course having been at Durmstrang, I’ve heard both the names Malfoy and Black. Séverine Black de Malfoy is not a surprising name for a woman who travels with vampires and spies, and she looks exactly like what she is, even in clothing a hunter would wear. That’s unsettling, though. The fact that she looks exactly like what she is almost certainly means that she’s more than just that.

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aggravated

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So we have almost made it to Calais. And this is a good thing, yes? Yes, because my stupid daughter, she is in Calais. No. She is not in Calais. She is under the water, halfway between Calais and Dover, but she is not dead. This makes no sense, these co-ordinates make no sense. How can she be under the water? Unless the merfolk have taken her, but knowing my daughter, if she ran into merfolk, even friendly ones, she would be dead, because like my late husband, blessed of memory, she shoots first and asks questions later, because she thinks she has learned so much from the men she has grown up around. And she has. But why did it have to be how to be as much of a fool as they are?

Misha has no answer for this. Misha knows she will be in England tomorrow. This is interesting information. Is it useful? No, it is not useful. Because the papers we have, they are wearing thin, people are beginning to remember us. Because it is not as though Misha, with that hair, or with his habits, is even remotely memorable. No, not at all. He should have told me where she was going when she first left. Then we would not have this problem, yes? Oh, but he could not do that.

She killed the thing she went to kill. This is good. This is the only saving grace in that she left. So she has killed it. Why does she not come home? No, instead we are all over France, looking for her. Looking for Jenica, because Jenica has taken off on her own. It is not as though she would be terribly hard to find even if Misha could not track her. People remember my daughter. They do.

She was in Calais for nearly a month. Naturally, they are telling tales of an assassination, and the assassin was a girl. My daughter, my stupid daughter, she is just like her father.

She is going to England. England. Zsuzsi is in England. Well, Cervenka went to England, and I gave him a note for Zsuzsi. Not that she can write back to me. Not that I can go where Cervenka has gone.