Bathory's Secret: When All The Time In The World Is Not Enough (Affliction Vampires Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

building to a side entrance and up several flights of stairs. The lack of people at this large castle niggled at Kati but she didn’t quite understand why.
     
    The atmosphere in this wing was different compared to Kati’s. It was warmer and smelled of old furniture made of noble woods which had been aged by use. The corridors were lined with beautiful long carpets of bright colors and were so restful underfoot. Paintings of important-looking people graced the walls, spaced by large wrought iron wall sconces lighting the halls. The rich spicy smell of the luxurious beeswax candles filled the air, reminding Kati of being in church. The tallow candles they burned at home never smelled so good. This was the family’s wing.
     
    Stopping at a door with a large clay talisman impressed with odd symbols suspended above the frame as well as a potently smelling pouch of herbs, the Countess produced a large iron link with a couple of keys out of a pocket deep within her full skirts and carefully placed one in the keyhole leading them into a small space lined with bookshelves. The shelves had no books on them, but were instead filled with countless neat stacks of old-looking notes. Papers of different shades of beige and off-white filled every row of the bookcases, only occasionally interrupted by the odd tired-looking but bound tome. At the far side of the room Kati saw a small table but no chair. On the table she recognized several binders’ tools just like her mother had inherited from Uncle Alex, only these were new and unused. Everything a bookbinder could need: from a book press to a sewing frame, dividers, scissors, cutters, shavers, hammers, folders, glue brushes in every shape and size, iron weights, boards and even tools she had never seen before. Placing the bundle of leather on the ground next to a box filled with spools of thread in various sizes, Erzsébet inhaled as if she wanted to absorb the papery essence of the room and smiled.
     
    “I brought these tools from Vienna especially for you,” she said smiling down at Kati who was awed by everything she was seeing.
     
    “You want me to use them?” Asked the child.
     
    “Have you ever been to school Katalina?”
     
    “No mistress,” answered Kati with a tinge of shame.
     
    “Wonderful! Do you know how hard it is to find a book binder who can’t read? I’ve searched high and low, from here to Vienna, and they all have at least a small grasp of letters, and sadly for me, most understand a little Latin too. The spread of Protestantism is making the learning of letters and the art of translation a more common occurrence than I like to see.”
     
    Kati stared; she was out of her depth with this conversation.
     
    “That’s alright my dear, you don’t have to understand, in fact it’s imperative that you don’t. All you need to know is that you will be practicing the skills your dear uncle taught you and your mother. All this time I was searching for an uneducated binder and you were in my back yard all along, so to speak.”
     
    “You want me to bind all these papers?”
     
    “Yes, and you’d better do a good job of it too!” She opened her eyes wide and Kati thought she could see a sliver of color around them.
     
    “I’ve seen examples of your uncle’s work and it’s quite good, I expect he taught your mother well.”
     
    “Why don’t you have my mother do them?” Kati asked innocently, instantly regretting speaking out of turn.
     
    “You will not question me!” She said raising her hand to which Kati instinctively turned away, but to her relief no slap followed the threat.
     
    “Yes mistress, I’m sorry mistress,” she said in one breath relieved to have been spared.
     
    “All these documents are extremely important to me. They are very old and unique and need to be bound with care and attention. As you do not know how to read you will do well to remember their order and not mix any of the pages up. If I find any mistakes in