“Because despite Ivan’s misgivings, I knew you—better than Ivan did in some ways. He was right; you did many things that never made sense. But you always had your reasons. Even when you disappeared. I don’t understand it, and I’m angry with you—”

“I’m aware.”

“But unless your intelligence got erased with your memory, I believe you have a reason. And I believe Ivan when he says there was something very big that caused you to do what you did. And so I trust you. If I’m wrong, I won’t be disappointed or hate you. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll be dead. And so will Piotrek. And you’re the one who will have to answer for doing what our hunters could not.”

She might as well have struck me.

She turns toward the doorjamb, and it takes me a minute to realize she’s traced the marking with a tapered finger. “This is Glagolitic,” she says. “A very old Croatian alphabet used in the liturgy.”

“I thought Latin was used in the liturgy,” I say. But I’m still stuck on what she said before. Am I prepared to have even more lives on my conscience?

“The Pope made an exception in the thirteenth century. This symbol is the letter V. It is also the number three.”

“Why three?”

She holds her hand out like a claw. “The Bathory coat of arms has three claws on it. Our ancestor Vitus is said to have killed a dragon—like Saint George did—with three thrusts of his sword. The coat of arms shows three teeth of the dragon biting its own tail. Vitus was given the name Bator—‘brave’ in Hungarian—which became Bathory. We brave, who slay the dragon. This is our legacy. It is who we are,” she says, looking intently at me. “Our ancestors are also affiliated with the famous Order of the Dragon. As was Vlad Dracul the third,” she adds, with a slight, rare smile.

“Vlad . . . as in Dracula, the vampire?”

She slaps my hand. “Don’t be stupid. Vampires don’t exist. Come.”

For its drab exterior, Claudia’s apartment is the poshest kind of bohemian chic I’ve ever seen. A red velvet settee sits beneath the chandelier ship in the middle of the living room, a leopard throw across a curved arm. The walls are hung with several pieces of what look like very old and potentially very valuable art—as well as several framed pieces of what I can only call graffiti. A kilim rug sprawls across the wooden floor beneath a tufted ottoman. There are little lamps everywhere with red and orange silk shades. Claudia systematically stops to turn several of them on.

The galley is small but modern, tiny pieces of art hanging beneath the cabinets.