"Explain. Please," I told Stoker once he led me into a large sitting room situated at the back of the house. Apparently, he wasn't using the front rooms, which faced the street.

Standing by the door, I watched him switch on a couple of tall lamps placed on both sides of a long sofa lining the wall on my right, then walk across the room to light a fire in a large fireplace. Once the lounge was well lit by its lively and warm flames, I chose an armchair that stood closest to the hearth, removed my coat, and sat down.

Stoker took it from me and laid it on top of a tall, ancient looking chest of drawers placed on the right side of the fireplace, not far from an enormous writing desk standing by a floor to ceiling French window, which overlooked, most probably, the back garden. All I could see behind its long, white curtains now was perfect darkness.

"Well, we all know about your husband," he said, sitting down on the sofa across from me. "He is not one of the most ancient vampires, but he's definitely one of the most famous, or should I say, notorious ones. A celebrity."

His casually uttered words made my temper rise immediately, reminding me why I did not like him. "That's your fault, Mr. Stoker. You, by writing that silly book of yours, made him look like a monster!" I called. He was definitely the most unbearable vampire I had ever met.

Lucas chuckled somewhere behind me. "This shall be fun," he said, depositing a large tray laden with a teapot, cups, biscuits, and even sandwiches on the low table separating me from Stoker who was seated on the sofa.

Sitting down in an armchair at my side, Lucas poured a tea for me in one of the cups, then placed one of the other two, apparently already full, in front of his uncle.

"Your husband already had an interesting reputation when I met him, even before I used him in my book," Stoker said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "But let's talk about that later, if we must. As I have said before, we all know about the cruel Prince Vlad's love for his first wife, whose identity remains unclear-- all we know is her first name. Samara. A woman whom he loved so much that when she died, he resolved to let himself be slayed on a battlefield. Saved at the last moment, he was changed and thus became one of us. But instead of enjoying his new, eternal life throughout centuries, he let himself be trapped in a sort of a cursed... time loop, created by a powerful witch. That was supposed to be the price to pay for the hope of ever being reunited with his lost love again. Because if he stayed, the witch promised, his beloved would find her way back to him once her soul was reborn in a distant future, and set him free..."

"But... wouldn't she find him if he left that cursed place?" I asked, so enthralled by the story that I did not realise I was talking about myself.

Stoker smiled. "No. Apparently, his accepting that life as a punishment for letting her die was part of the... deal. Only once he had served his sentence, she would come back."

"But it's not fair. Her death was not his fault..." I muttered. "And the witch? Who was she?"

"The Princess' old nurse, of course," Stoker announced matter-of-factly.

Suddenly, the room seemed to start spinning around me. I grabbed Lucas' arm with my left hand and closed my eyes, bringing my other hand to the side of my head, pressing my cold fingers against my throbbing temple. It couldn't be true.

"That's nonsense," I said, trying to persuade myself as I looked at Stoker again.

"If you say so, Princess Samara." He smiled infuriatingly.

"But it can't be true," I insisted stubbornly. "It's impossible."

"I'd except this kind of reaction of anybody else but you, Samara. You speak as if you haven't just come back from there. From the place and the man about whom every vampire in the world talks, but no one except you and me knows that they really exist."

I opened my mouth to argue some more. Closed it. He was right, of course. Letting go of Lucas' arm, I squirmed in my armchair, feeling confused and uncomfortable under Stoker's cool, analytical gaze. He was observing me as if I were his favourite science experiment.

"Eat something, please." Lucas disturbed my train of thought. "Your friend Lia told me to feed you."

Being used to all sorts of humans and vampires reminding me to eat, I took a biscuit absentmindedly, chewed and swallowed, then took a sip of my tea.

"How do I go back?" I asked after a long while, making Lucas nearly spill the contents of his cup. Is that... blood? I wondered, observing him.

"What?!" he called. "So he, your husband, made you come back here for your security, I guess. This means that the place he lives in is too dangerous for you, right? He can't protect you there; otherwise, you wouldn't be here, correct? And you, instead of embracing this situation as your best chance to raise your child in the safety and comfort of the modern world, want to go back?"

"Just that this world suddenly stopped feeling so safe, what with the troops of vampires following me around, Lucas. And I... I did not find him now, after centuries, just to lose him again. I... can't live without him, of course I'm going back! Abraham, you must help me!" I turned from Lucas to Stoker.

"Well... it might not be as easy as you think."

"What does it mean?!" I called, my voice laced with despair. My heart was beating in a furious rhythm, making me bring my right hand to my chest, willing it to calm down.

"See, I've spent years researching you, your husband, that place, and even the other 'time travellers' who crossed over... But I have never found one who would have returned there once they left."

"No," I said firmly. "I refuse to believe it's impossible. I spoke to Alina, the receptionist in the hotel in Bran. She promised to help me return next Halloween."

I saw Lucas look to Stoker curiously. "Alina?"

"There's this family related to her husband. They guard his secret from the very beginning. Apparently, one of them recognized Samara..."

He looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded, while Lucas said accusingly, "I can't believe you didn't tell me anything about this, Uncle. This Alina and her family, the Impaler himself guiding the tourists in the castle, or her... That she might be real... You made me believe it was all just a legend!"

"What should I have told you, Lucas, and what for? So you could attempt to find your way in? I promised your father not to tell you anything..."

Stoker started to explain, but Lucas interrupted him, "And even when I told you about meeting her in Bran, about her name, and that ring from the painting... You kept denying everything until last night... Something could have happened to her because of you! I can't believe I listened to you when you told me to keep my distance from her, that she was just a normal girl, that I was making a fool of myself..."

"At first, I told you I wasn't sure that it was her because I wasn't. And later... I wanted to respect her husband's plea," Stoker said defensively, looking from Lucas to me, then back. "I..."

"You are not his real uncle," I said the first thing that popped into my mind just to change the subject, to stop their escalating argument. "You two are too different. I mean..." I took a deep breath, taking time to organize my thoughts and find the right words. In the end, I said, looking at Stoker, "You are a vampire, but you are different from Vlad. And Lucas is different from you."

"You are quite perceptive, Samara. You are correct. Your husband survives on animal blood. I, on the other hand, could never completely eschew human blood. I live on blood bags, which I buy from hospitals," Stoker said.

"And I'm still just a half-vampire. My father is a vampire, and my mother was a human. I only started taking human blood recently to prepare for the transition," Lucas said, sounding much calmer now. "Once I'm changed, I'll live on animal blood too, now that I know it really is an option," he said, scowling at Stoker. "Just how many things did you keep to yourself, Uncle? Living on animal blood was supposed to be just a myth as well."

Stoker only shook his head despairingly, ignoring his question, so Lucas continued, looking at me again. "Bram and my father are distant cousins. So we, my little sister and I, call him Uncle."

Lucas is really a half-vampire, as you suspected. My subconscious kept repeating while Lucas spoke. I sat perfectly still, watching him, taking him in. From all the things I learned today, this one seemed to be the most important at the moment. Lucas is a half-vampire; his mother was a human like me. Your child will be like him.

"You two will talk later," Stoker said, deducing the direction of my thoughts and the multitude of questions that were bound to follow. "It seems that you'll be spending a lot of time together. It's getting late, Samara, Lucas should take you home before your friend starts to worry about you."

"Right," I said, trying to refocus on him. "There's something else I'd like to know. You keep saying that Vlad asked you not to reveal yourself to me... Why? And how? How could he have asked you?"

"Lucas, that chest of drawers behind you," Stoker said, sounding nearly as bossy as Lia.

I turned away from him to conceal my smile and watched as Lucas approached the piece of furniture.

"The big pile of letters in the bottom drawer... " his uncle instructed. "Yes, that's the one. Thank you," he said, taking the letters from Lucas and looking at me when I turned back to him.

"Here. There's one letter from your husband for every year that passed since eighteen-ninety, when I visited your other world. I only got the last one two days ago-- it seems that whoever brought it through this time was in quite a hurry, and instead of delivering it in person to one of the guardians of the castle as usual, left it behind one of the paintings in a corridor. Alina only found it by chance. That's why I didn't know about your arrival to London, or, to be more precise, about your existence at all, sooner. You can read it, if you wish. He begs me to watch over you, help you, should you need any help, but not to approach you personally, because our meeting would draw unwanted and potentially dangerous attention to you." He looked at me seriously before adding, "You shouldn't have come here, looking for me. Now they all know."

I closed my eyes again, feeling faint. All blood drained away from my face, and I knew I looked as pale as a vampire. This was too much. This man knows Vlad a lot better than you do; they've been in touch for years...

"Samara, are you all right?" Lucas' panicked voice reached me even as I felt his hand on my shoulder, then on my forehead.

"She asked." I heard Stoker say defensively.

I opened my eyes, finding them staring at each other.

"I'm fine," I said weakly. "I want to know everything. So you two were in touch for more than a century. I... I had no idea. Vlad did mention you once or twice, but... I just never put it all together. I'm so..."

"Don't be so harsh on yourself, Samara. How could you even think of this possibility, even if he told you?" Lucas said, his voice soothing.

"He's right," Stoker said. "And knowing your husband, I'd say that he didn't want you to know too much, right? Keeping you safe, hidden from the vampire-filled world he dislikes so much, telling you only the most important things... That is more like him. And it might have worked if you stayed with him in that loop, and he continued to shield you from the rest of that world. But here, on your own..."

"It's not a loop. I don't know what exactly that place is. It has its own laws and rules, its own time. But the time does go on. It doesn't repeat itself," I said, more to myself than to the two of them. "It's like... an abandoned meander of a river, of the river of time. A tiny... rivulet diverted from the main, fast flowing stream, where all life gradually slowed down and evolved on its own, adapting to the new conditions..."

"That's very well said, Samara," Stoker said, looking at me curiously. "But may I ask you... why did you not stay? Why did he send you back? What happened? See, the last letter is very different from the rest of them. It's too rushed and doesn't explain anything."

"Vlad... killed a man. In self-defence," I said, avoiding looking at any of them, observing the diamond of my ring instead. I twisted it around my finger, and it glowed in the dancing firelight, the very way it used to do in the castle. "He's in prison. He and Junior, his son, thought that I'd be safer here, as... Rareş and the Vampire Council might take this opportunity to get to me, and through me to him."

I looked up and met Stoker's gaze. He nodded understandingly before saying, "They were right. I wouldn't put it past the Council to do just that. But you shouldn't worry. They have most probably let him go by now."

"No." I told him. "They didn't. I... can see him in my dreams often, and he is usually in a cell... Sometimes he sees me too and..."

"Do you mean you two communicate in dreams?" Stoker asked, looking stunned. "Do you talk? Can you hear, see... and feel each other?"

I nodded while he stood up and moved to his writing desk, removed a small notebook very similar to Lia's from his pocket, and started scribbling something furiously.

"And you see him always in that cell?" he asked, not raising his eyes from his notes.

Luckily, because I could feel my cheeks flush as I recalled a particular dream, as I replied. "No. Sometimes... It seems that he comes to me. Into this world. Or I can see things that have already happened, and those that are about to happen... These... visions are so much... more than simple dreams."

I hadn't noticed when Stoker stopped writing, but suddenly, I found him staring at me, making me blush again.

"Uncle, what does it mean?" Lucas asked him even as my phone rang, startling me.

I fished it from my handbag lying on the floor at my feet. "Lia," I said. "You're right. I should have called you, sorry. No, I did not notice it's half past ten already. I'm coming. I will. See you soon."

"Lia says hello," I told Stoker when I found him still observing me silently as I put the phone back in my bag. "I should go."

"We will talk tomorrow, Samara," Stoker said, fumbling through his pockets and taking out a box of cigarettes and a lighter. "Shall I come over to your place? Would that be easier for you?"

"Yes, please. If you don't mind."

"Good. Lucas..."

"I'll take her home," Lucas said.

As I stood up and Lucas passed me my coat, someone knocked on the French window, making me jump.

"I'm sorry for that," Stoker said. "That's just my friend. I'll see you tomorrow!" He called as Lucas shepherded me out of the room.

"What an interesting evening," Lucas said, leading me to the front door.

"It was. But do you believe in what he said, about the witch and the curse, and all the rest?" I shook my head incredulously.

"As much as I believe in you, Princess Samara, and us, vampires. Anything is possible, it would seem." He laughed.

He's got a point, my subconscious whispered.