His hostess did read. But she was not fond of research. She drew her power from elsewhere. From a bargain which she still dreamed-foolishly, vainly-that she could avoid paying the price for, eventually. Jagiellon had merely become one with, and been largely consumed by that which he had sought to entrap and use for power. The powers and knowledge their masters had accumulated in planes beyond human ken and understanding was enormous… and devouring.

No-one could talk Count Mindaug into such folly. The written word was less powerful, but drew from far wider sources. He had laid his plans skillfully and long. Eventually, he would risk another throw in the game of thrones and powers. Besides, it suited his own vanity to believe he could deceive both creatures of outer darkness and fallen angels. He knew that was probably just vanity, but it appealed to him, nonetheless.

He studied the passage in the small book again. The book was not bound in dark leather taken from some creature of the night, nor written on a fragile parchment of human skin. But it ought perhaps to have been, because the matters explained therein were compellingly evil. Mindaug had long since learned that content, not form, mattered. He was glad that this fact had bypassed so many of his peers.

He got up from his seat in the book-filled small apartment the countess had set aside for him. That was a calculated insult on her part, and one that had failed to put him in his place. The books there contained a far wider realm than she herself controlled. The details of this magic… well, he doubted she would read them. But she had a fascination with blood, for obvious reasons. She would not care what came of her experiments, of the lusts generated or the offspring created. But he, Mindaug, would control them. The keys to that control were right here in this book.

Unlike his former master, the Black Brain who had taken possession of the grand duke of Lithuania, Elizabeth did not care for the less than immediate and proximal things.