Ildar smirked, as though I'd lost my mind.
"And why would anyone hunt an ordinary boy—out here, in the middle of nowhere?"
"You don't understand. I've been getting strange messages on my laptop. Someone is watching us, recording what we do and when. Some things are even predicted—like my meeting with Yesenia at the library. Whatever this is, it concerns you too."
"Wait," Ildar said, holding up his hands. "What do you mean, your meeting with Yesenia was predicted?"
"Sometimes a blank document appears on my laptop," I explained. "And someone starts typing into it right in front of me. Earlier today, it said Yesenia would come to the library and struggle with gathering materials and quotes for her assignment, and then…"
I faltered. I had no proof beyond my own words, and that made me feel ridiculous. The real problem was that I barely understood what was happening myself—trying to explain it to someone else, let alone convince them there was a real threat, felt almost impossible.
"And then?" he pressed.
"Then the page started filling with absurd predictions about how Mark would die."
I fell silent. Ildar looked unsettled, but he had taken me seriously. As if trying to soothe my rising panic, he said:
"Someone's just messing with you. You can't predict someone's death unless you're planning to cause it yourself. Clairvoyants are an even bigger fiction than werewolves and vampires."
"I thought so too at first," I said, "but three out of three descriptions came true—and I barely managed to help Mark avoid them. The bus incident was predicted as well. If you and Yesenia hadn't stepped in, Mark would have been smeared across the asphalt."
Ildar frowned and fell silent, as though replaying my words, weighing each of them in his mind.
"I think," I began carefully, softening my voice as much as I could, "that whoever is sending these messages is interested in all of us. There's something wrong with this glamping park. It's too perfect. Too quiet. Too sterile. Think about it: the stranger wrote about me, Yesenia, and Mark—and now here we are, tied together by a single story, like characters in some ridiculous TV series. On this vast stretch of land, we haven't seen or heard anyone but ourselves. In all this time, have you seen even one person besides the manager?"
"Once or twice," Ildar replied, "we noticed some kind of very… peculiar gathering on the first floor. But Yesenia was never in the mood to join, so we just went back to our place without even stepping inside."
"Then how did you know something was happening in the main house at all?" I asked, surprised.
"Through the windows in the large hall."
"I think I saw some kind of dancing yesterday," I said. "But I didn't go in either."
"Dancing?" Ildar arched a skeptical brow. "It looked more like a ritual with strange chanting—or yoga for the elderly. From the outside, it's easy to confuse the two."
"And how often have you seen rituals before?" I smiled, amused by his idea of magical practices.
"Often enough. I grew up under the same roof as a brother and a sister who were witchers."
I stared at Ildar, wide-eyed. With that kind of background, it was hard to question his comparison. As far as I knew, without constant practice witchers slowly lost their minds: proximity to a source of magic was as essential to them as blood was to vampires. Rituals allowed a witcher to replenish themselves, to be filled with spirit, to become part of the natural cycle of magic. They maintained the balance of the world, regardless of whether they used their gifts for good or for harm.
In nature's understanding, evil was only that which was artificial—something that deviated from its original design. Tsunamis, earthquakes, forest fires: none of these were considered evil, merely acts of cleansing. Vampires and werewolves, however, remained an eyesore—one that particularly zealous covens and their gifted apprentices tried to eliminate again and again. That was why clans preferred to keep so-called "tame" witchers in their service. The children of the strongest guardians of the old order were stolen from their covens and turned against their will, bound forever to their creator's blood as weak-blooded vampires.
Perhaps that was why Ildar seemed so strange to me—so wrong in a way I couldn't quite define. He hadn't grown up within the walls of a major clan, as I had. He'd had a family where witchers were called brothers, not expendable pieces in a war. A real family—one closer to the human kind.
I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a house full of other children. I'd asked myself that question many times in my youth, when every free moment not spent studying or attending formal clan dinners was passed in the family library. Books had replaced closeness with peers, and for the most part I didn't regret it—yet the thought of how my life might have turned out differently still surfaced from time to time, an unwelcome subplot.
"Have you searched the whole house?" Ildar asked, clearly trying to change the subject, as if family made him uncomfortable. "Maybe Mark left a note."
Now it was my turn to look at him as though he'd lost his mind.
"A note?" I scoffed. "In the twenty-first century, when everyone has a phone?"
"Fine. Have you checked your phone yet?"
I pressed my lips together.
"No."
We were still standing on the threshold when Ildar gestured for me to step inside my temporary home. A perfect gentleman—honestly.
After checking the tables and every other surface on the kitchen island and in the living area—just in case—I was forced to admit there was no note. Ildar trailed behind me like a warden, sweeping the space with his gaze, but he found nothing either. At last I reached for my fabric tote. When I lifted it, it felt disturbingly light. I looked inside and saw that my laptop was gone. There was only my phone, my wallet, Yesenia's work notebook filled with notes, and my own.
I turned on my phone's screen and saw six missed calls from my assistant, Karina, and a message from Mark. I hurried to unlock the screen and open my chat with him, but the phone rang again before I could read it.
"Karina," I said, not even bothering to greet her, "this isn't a good time."
"There may not be another one," she replied, her voice clipped, as though she could barely breathe. "You need to get out of the glamping park. Now."
"Slow down," I said, her words making my pulse spike. "What did you find?"
"I had a bad feeling about this place…" Karina swallowed audibly into the phone. "I went into the guest registration system anyway, and there's no data on anyone except one couple. And guess what? I checked the man—he's a vampire. Damn it."
A strange hissing sound crackled through the line, then Karina came back and continued:
"After you left, things in the clan turned… strange. They started holding meetings, talking about electing a new head, as if they'd already written you off—despite the fact that everyone knows you're Vladislav's direct and only heir. They began looking for other children. Older ones, at that. They didn't succeed. I started digging into what was being said at those meetings, and I found out something terrible."
She fell silent for a moment, then let out a sob. A cold sense of dread slid down the back of my neck.
"Karina," my voice hardened with impatience. "What the hell happened?"
Karina was crying. My ironclad assistant—the woman who could rein in even the most ancient vampire with a snap of her fingers and scold him publicly without fear—was crying. We were in serious trouble.
"The glamping park is a cover," she said, choking on her words. "The website, the services, the guest reviews—it's all fake. A farce."
"A cover for what?" I snapped. "Explain!"
"It's a court," she sobbed again. "A court of judges. They pass sentences here on vampires who bind their lives to the wrong people. Lisa, they know about Mark. The verdict has already been passed. He's to be executed."
The phone grew unbearably heavy in my numb hands and slipped from my fingers, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Ildar stared at me grimly, waiting for me to speak, but my mind was a storm of frantic thoughts. What if we were already too late?
"Yesenia," fear spread through my chest like molten lead. "Where is Yesenia?"
"She's still in the house," Ildar said. "Probably getting ready for our little evening gathering—or fussing over Svetozar."
A long, drawn-out howl rose from outside, and Ildar's face changed instantly.
"Something's wrong," he said, bolting for the door. I followed, forgetting my phone entirely.
We both broke into a run, trying to reach their house as fast as possible. The front door stood wide open, and on the threshold lay their shaggy dog, panting heavily and howling.
"Svetozar, boy," Ildar dropped to one knee, checking him over. "You're okay. You're okay. It's all right, my little one—I'm here."
The dog's fate was the least of my concerns. Without ceremony, I stepped inside. Their house had the same standard layout as ours, but the living room looked as though a hurricane had torn through it. Two chairs lay overturned, their legs snapped. Large shards of a shattered vase were scattered across the floor, mixed with wildflowers that had only recently given the room a light, romantic air. A painting near the sofa hung at an unnatural angle, and spiderweb cracks spread across the surface of the television screen—it had been smashed.
I already suspected what had happened, but I refused to believe it. Stepping over the shards, I called Yesenia's name—just as I had called Mark's earlier—searching every corner of the house. The only response was Ildar's voice, trying to calm the dog.
Yesenia was nowhere to be found.
Neither was Mark.
They had been taken. Torn away from us.
And by the laws of the clan, they were likely marked for death.