We hunch down in the backseat of the car as Goran pulls out of the lot. I can feel the crinkle of the envelope in my pocket as he talks urgently on the phone. Claudia, meanwhile, is dialing up what I assume to be another fit from Piotrek.

“How did you know Ivan?” I ask when Goran finishes his call.

“I didn’t, personally, though your mother did. And he did not know I was acting in this capacity or you would now be talking to a corpse and that envelope would be in the Historian’s hands. There was a time when no hunter would harm a monk, if only for fear of his soul. Those days are gone, I’m afraid,” he says, stopping at a corner. I shrink down lower, will myself to be small. Claudia drops her voice and hangs up a few seconds later.

“The envelope . . . where did Ivan get it?”

“From you, of course.”

Claudia stares at me from across the seat. The car turns, accelerates down the road.

“You said your brothers were willing to die for our cause. Why? If Bathory was a monster?”

“It was a Franciscan who helped hide her illegitimate first child—a daughter—before Elizabeth’s husband, Ferenc, could have the baby killed. Who ultimately brought her here, to Croatia. The brothers have hidden many of Bathory’s descendants, keeping the secret genealogy of children placed for adoption by parents who could not dare raise them . . . At one time even helping those children learn to coexist with their own gifts and excessive energy in the age before pharmaceuticals.”

The ADHD. I glance at Claudia. She looks like she’s barely holding it together. And I admit, a marathon sprint sounds awfully soothing right about now.

“But you’re Progeny.”

“Yes. And so I have my own reasons for wanting to help you.”

“Because you knew my mother.”

“Helping you aids all the Progeny. But yes. Perhaps selfishly I wanted to see Amerie’s face again.”

A strange, dawning thought. How old is he—nearly forty? “Are you . . .” I’m not sure how to even ask this.

Claudia’s brows lift so high they practically crash into her hairline.

“No,” he says. “I don’t know who your father was. Only that he died nearly ten years ago.”

He turns off the road as his phone rings. A moment later he pulls the car to a stop and twists in the seat.

“The boat is there, the blue and white. Quickly.” We get out, shed the robes. I embrace him with so many unanswered questions.

As the boat pulls away, I look back at him once where he stands beside the dull gray Opel. Somehow I think I will never see those sturdy shoulders and that reassuring demeanor again.

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