Meg Cabot - Insatiable

“I remember,” Holtzman said. “But what exactly did you accomplish there, aside from very likely alerting the Antonescus that we’re aware of them? You know that doorman is going to tell them we were there. And we’re no closer to finding him.”

“No,” Alaric agreed. “But we have the name of the girl.”

“And what earthly good will that do us?”

“Oh,” Alaric said, “quite a lot of good, I imagine. Because she’s going to lead us straight to him.”

Then he added thoughtfully, “If she lives through the night, that is.”

1:00 A.M. EST, Friday, April 16

Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York

Meena had spent quite a lot of time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, back when she’d first moved to the city. She’d been especially drawn to a portrait of Joan of Arc by an artist called Jules Bastien-Lepage, which hung in the nineteenth-century wing.

The painting showed Joan standing in the yard of her parents’ cottage, staring off into space, apparently listening to the voices of saints. Ethereal, haloed figures floated behind Joan’s back, seemingly whispering to her.

The painting wasn’t anything that special. Compared to other treasures the museum held, it was considered one of the collection’s lesser works.

Still, Meena always made the canvas her primary destination upon entering the museum and would, when she was feeling especially disheartened or hopeless, stand for nearly an hour looking at it, in the company of similarly downtrodden souls.

But Prince Lucien didn’t lead Meena toward the nineteenth-century wing when he pulled her into the Metropolitan Museum that night.

Instead, he guided her toward the medieval art exhibit on the main floor, through the darkened, hushed Great Hall.

It was strange being in the museum after it was closed. Meena had never seen the halls so empty…or so quiet.

She could actually hear her own heart thumping steadily with the excitement of what they were doing-despite Lucien’s insistence that it was fine, she felt that there was something illicit about their being there. Of course there was!

And now Lucien was holding her hand again.

His grip wasn’t exactly warm-his fingers always seemed a bit cool to the touch-but it was oddly reassuring, the way it had been that night outside of St. George’s Cathedral.

And yet there was an almost boyish excitement about him, too, an eagerness with which he seemed to want to show her the treasures the museum held. He playfully held a finger to his lips as he guided her along.

“Are we going to set off any alarms?” Meena asked nervously, holding a squirming Jack Bauer in one arm.

“Only if you try to steal something,” the prince jokingly replied.

“Oh, well, I guess I’ll have to restrain myself then,” Meena said, teasing him back. She was pleased to see that a lively side to him was coming out. He may not have watched much television, but he knew how to have fun.

Soon they were surrounded by hauntingly beautiful triptychs of the Madonna and child, and bejeweled golden crucifixes that seemed to glow with the otherworldly light that came from their display cases. Lucien steered her away from these and toward a collection of fifteenth-century portraits and woodcuts. Meena couldn’t read the cards on the display cases attached to the portraits because it was too dark, but Lucien explained, “These are of Prince Vlad Tepes of Wallachia-you know, the man I was telling you about, the one who’s such a hero in my country. He lived in the age of the first printing presses, so there’s a great deal of historical documentation about him. His father, Vlad the Second, was a member of the Order of the Dragon-established by the king of Hungary in order to unite neighboring kingdoms against the Ottoman Empire. So Vlad Tepes was indoctrinated in the order as well…at the age of five, right before his father handed him and his little brother over as hostages to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire as a personal guarantee he wouldn’t attack the sultan while the boys were under his roof.”

“Oh, dear,” Meena said, feeling slightly deflated. This story was a bit of a downer.

She supposed she wasn’t surprised to hear of Vlad’s father’s cruelty, giving his sons over to a sultan in order to preserve peace, considering his image in the portrait. If Vlad Tepes looked anything like his dad, he couldn’t have been very nice. He had a long, sinister-looking black mustache and beady eyes.

Or maybe they just didn’t know how to draw very well back then. Meena had always avoided this part of the museum. Her tastes tended to run more toward the Romantics…

Lucien didn’t seem to notice Meena’s dislike for the subject matter, however. As a history professor, he was obviously very enthusiastic on the topic of his country’s greatest forefather.

Lucien went on. “Although his brother was a great favorite of the sultan, the Ottomans didn’t treat Vlad Tepes very well, I’m afraid. And when he finally did inherit the throne from his father and return home to Wallachia, he was still quite bitter about the whole thing…and things didn’t improve much for him after that, I’m afraid. He had an unfortunate life, filled with much sorrow. His first wife, whom he dearly loved, was a beautiful and innocent young woman. Some people even whispered that…well, that she was like an angel on earth.”

Meena raised her eyebrows upon hearing this, and she saw Lucien give her a quick smile.

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you’d like that part of the story.”

He took her hand and led her toward a primitive black-and-white woodcut depicting a turreted castle with a river running beneath it.

“Unfortunately,” he said in a voice that seemed carefully devoid of emotion to Meena, “it doesn’t have the kind of ending you like. Vlad and his wife lived in warlike times. Upon hearing their castle was under siege by the Turks-who were rumored to be unspeakably cruel to royal female prisoners back in those days-his young bride threw herself out an upper-story window, preferring death to what she thought she’d face at their hands.”

Meena sucked in her breath, her gaze flying to one of the high turrets pictured in the woodcut.

“She fell into the river beneath the palace window and drowned,” Lucien continued in the same emotionless tone. “That river is still referred to today as the Princess’s River.”

“Oh,” Meena said unhappily. She was liking this story less and less. “How sad!”

“It was sad,” Lucien said in agreement. “And it gets sadder still. Her husband had married her for love…a rarity in those days. He was never the same after her death. Some say he went mad. He began to treat his enemies-and even his own subjects, his own sons-in a…well, in a very regrettable manner.”

Meena looked up sharply when she heard him say the words a very regrettable manner.

Because while his tone had still been as distantly academic as ever, and probably no one else would have noticed the slightest difference in his voice, Meena knew: the prince was thinking about his own childhood. Lucien’s father had treated him in “a very regrettable manner.” She was certain of it…even more so as she watched the way his gaze seemed to burn as he stared down at the woodcut of the Princess’s River.

And Meena’s heart twisted with pity for him. Yes, he was a prince, and handsome and rich and worldly.

But she knew what it was like to have problems. Real problems. The kind that kept you up nights, stumbling around in the dark, reaching for amber prescription sleeping-pill bottles.

It was at that moment that Meena was gripped by an urge, as sudden as it was fierce, to save him…the same urge she felt with everyone she met and knew was going to die soon.