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“I didn’t mean to insult you. I wasn’t putting you down—I just meant you were an average girl, understand?”
Oh, wonderful. It got better and better.
“Perfectly,” I said, glaring at him. “I couldn’t care less what you think of me.”
He looked at me calmly. “You can’t help it.”
“You don’t know anything at all about me!” I said indignantly.
“Maybe not,” said Gideon. “But I know lots of girls like you. They’re all the same.”
“Lots of girls like me? Huh!”
“I mean, girls who aren’t interested in anything but hairstyles, clothes, films, and pop stars. And you’re always giggling, and you go to the loo in groups. And you make snide remarks about some girl named Lisa or whatever for buying a cheap chain store T-shirt for five pounds.”
Even though I was irate, I burst out laughing. “You mean to say that all these girls you know make snide remarks about someone called Lisa for buying a cheap T-shirt?”
“Well, you see what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.” I didn’t really intend to say any more, but it just burst out of me. “You think all girls who aren’t like Charlotte are stupid and superficial. Just because we had a normal childhood instead of all those fencing lessons and instruction in mysterious prophesies. The fact is, you haven’t ever had time to get to know any normal girls. That’s why you have all these pathetic prejudices.”
“Oh, come on! I’ve been to school, same as you.”
“Yeah, sure!” The words were just spilling out of me. “If you’ve been trained for your life as a time traveler only half as thoroughly as Charlotte, then you’ve had no time to make any friends at all, and your opinion of what you call average girls comes from observations you made when you were standing about the school yard alone. Or are you telling me that the other kids at your school thought your hobbies, like Latin, dancing the gavotte, and driving horse-drawn carriages, were really cool?”
Instead of being insulted, Gideon looked amused. “You left out playing the violin.” He leaned back and crossed his arms.
“The violin? Really?” My anger had gone away again as fast as it had come over me. Playing the violin! Honestly!
“At least you have a bit of color back in your face. You looked as pale as Miro Rakoczy.”
Definitely. Rakoczy. “How do you spell his name?”
“R-a-k-o-c-z-y,” said Gideon. “Why?”
“I want to Google him.”
“Oh, did you fancy him so much?”
“Fancy him? He’s a vampire,” I said. “He comes from Transylvania.”
“He does come from Transylvania, but that doesn’t make him a vampire.”
“How do you know?”
“Because there are no such things as vampires, Gwyneth.”
“Oh, no? If there are time machines, why wouldn’t there be vampires too? Ever looked into his eyes? They’re like black holes.”
“That comes of drinking belladonna. He’s experimenting with it,” said Gideon. “A plant poison said to expand the consciousness.”
“How do you know that?”
“It says so in The Annals of the Guardians. In their pages, Rakoczy is known as the Black Leopard. He saved the count from two assassination attempts. He’s very strong and extremely skilled with weapons.”
“Who wanted to kill the count?”
Gideon shrugged. “A man like that has many enemies.”
