The film sped up. Perun collapsed onto a sofa as his mother talked to him, her words running together into a dipping and rising litany of soothing sounds. She stroked his head, left and came back with tea, and finally left him to rest for a few hours when his eyelids began to droop and close in physical and emotional exhaustion.

The fast forward wasn't as bad as it had been in the factory. Perun only felt a slight bit woozy before his former self drifted off into a dense, black sleep. He idly wondered if Veles had mixed something in the tea, but on second thought, she probably hadn't needed to. He had been on the verge of total collapse.

Some hours later, when his former-self's eyelids fluttered open again, the world springing back into colour and focus around him, he was immediately stabbed by a pain in his chest that reverberated down to the very core of his being.

He gasped and then cried out in a long, drawn-out moan.

Libuše! His princess was dead. Was that true? Or had he dreamt it? 

Throwing the day blanket off, he rushed down the corridor and threw open the bedroom door. He had to see her again, just to make sure. 

Just to prove it to himself.

The bed had been stripped, leaving nothing but a bare, vacant mattress with an eiderdown folded neatly by the carved footboard.

Libuše was gone. Not just dead. Gone.

Perun was just as startled as his former self and they both reached out to the brass door handle for support.

That's correct, he thought to himself after a few seconds of staring. She was gone when I woke up. That's what happened. And I never saw her again. He searched his mind for the location of her grave, but came up empty. He would have to ask when they finally let him out of this infernal machine. Demand to know where they'd taken her. Perhaps she was in the cemetery as the Memoria, or maybe she was nowhere. Maybe she'd disappeared into thin air. It was so easy to make that happen if you knew how, and Dima, Dimitri the Morbid, was a most excellent gravedigger.

His former self knew nothing of his intense deliberations, but was still standing shocked by the door before bursting into action. Rushing forward, he rounded the end of the bed and dropped to his knees, scanning the dark recess underneath it. When he didn't see what he was looking for, he righted himself and tore open the drawer of the nightstand, only to slam it shut again with a bang and a curse.

The tin. The tin with its vial of powder was gone. Someone had removed it, and that meant someone knew about it.

Blackmail. The word exploded in his mind like a gunshot.

The blinds had been fully opened and afternoon sunlight poured in through the high, double windows. He sat on floor, almost in the same spot he'd been kneeling in hours previously, watching tiny specks of dust dance in the rays, one hand running through and gently pulling at the hair above his forehead.

Mother. He'd tried so hard to keep Libuše's addiction a secret from her. From everyone, but most of all her. He knew what she thought of lotus-eaters. And now she knew. She had to. She would have been the one. . .she would have. . .

He had no idea how things stood between them now she had solid proof in her hand. She could clamp down, control him more, demand to know even the most intimate details of his private activities. Or she could look the other way, knowing he'd learnt his lesson and leaving him to grieve.

A sound between a snort and a sob escaped him and he pulled on his hair even harder.

He didn't believe that for a moment. She would have her ever-watchful eye more sharply focused on him, observing and registering his every move. 

Anything you had on anybody could, and would, be used against them when the time was ripe. That was simple logic. And he really couldn't blame her when she did, could he? That was how business worked. He'd held something back and she'd found out. Of course there'd be consequences. Of course the bars and ropes holding him in place would be tightened. 

But there would be consequences for him, and him alone. Not for his princess. That he wouldn't allow.

At the thought of the degrading gossip about her being traded over the marble counters in cafes and tattle articles in the society pages of the newspaper, a slice of pain cut through him making him wince. All those people shaking their heads, eyes wide with pleasure — Princess Libuše, a common drug addict! Weak, unable to handle her fame, a fake, a fallen woman, no better than you or me...how delightful!

Plans began to take form in Perun's mind. 

Something tragic, nothing less would do. That was how she had to die. An illness. A complicated pregnancy. A bitter, midnight death scene surrounded by loved ones in a room full of romantically flickering candles. A tearful goodbye in his arms.

As he thought through the fantastical stories and rumours he could create and circulate, the pain lessened somewhat. He was in his element of promotion, creating a show, creating a legend. He could turn this all around. He could counteract anything Veles had in the works. He could continue to spin the myth of Princess Libuše to its conclusion and beyond.

He could win.

But only if no one else had issued their own version. If the rumour mill wasn't already grinding his love to ash. 

He had to find that out before everything else.

Climbing to his feet, he went down the corridor to the bathroom, stopping short when he saw that every surface had been cleared of Libuše's personal toiletries.  Empty, clean shelves stared back at him. The creams and lotions, her toothbrush and tooth powder, the perfumed Spanish soap, all of it had vanished. Even the back scrubber no longer leaned against the lion-clawed bathtub.

He stood and stared at the freshly scrubbed sink, both copper taps shimmering as if brand new, before finally turning them on and splashing handful after handful of cold water into his face, rinsing his eyes of the salty crust of tears.

Mother had done quite a thorough job.

When he returned to the salon, numbness was creeping in on him. His system was shutting down. His feet were dragging. 

By the mantelpiece he stopped and looked out the window, staring at nothing but the reflexes of light that bounced off of the world outside. 

The apartment was silent as it had been the night before, and the sound of his own feet on the bare wooden flooring seemed louder than he'd ever heard it. It echoed and bounced as if the furniture and carpets had disappeared, too. As if the entire flat had been cleaned out, emptied, the shell left abandoned where it had once been so alive. The quiet ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece was the only left to keep him company.

When had it happened? When had she stopped breathing?  At what exactly moment had his life fallen apart? He looked around as if an answer could be found floating in the air.

Standing at the window, staring out at the world continuing on as it did without the slightest bit of knowledge that his own had crumbled, his former self's vision began to blur. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but it didn't help.

The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece began to grate on his nerves. His darling's life was over, left grotesquely unfinished, and yet time marched on in pace with the world outside with its petty concerns and the routines of daily life.

If her life had stopped, time should stop, too. 

Without really understanding what he was doing, he turned and reached out for the smooth wooden casing. Taking it down from the mantelpiece, he stepped forward and smashed it repeatedly into the wall, relishing the resistance against his arm. 

First the wood began to crack and bust apart at the seams and then the interior, shaken loose, began to spill out like entrails.

Finally, the clock lay in pieces at his feet, splinters of wood, cogs, shards of glass and springs scattered over the wooden floorboards. Small, red specks of his blood decorating them.

The clock face, a silver circle with black hands, jutted out from the debris, showing eighteen minutes past three.

Time had stopped. 

And now he felt nothing. Was nothing.

In the silence that followed, a hollow silence unlike any he'd ever known, the rustle of silk skirts floated towards him.

"Feel better now?" as soft voice said.

He turned around. Veles stood in the middle of the salon, her dark hair falling in ringlets down over her shoulders and her light green day dress shimmering like the shoots of spring flowers in the sunlight.

"Where is she?" he said, his mouth dry. His own words echoed strangely in his ears.

"At the undertaker's. Our domovoj collected her."

The domovoj.  Perun drew in a sharp breath of recognition.  He should have realised. 

The house servants. The ones who were always around to clean up messes before disappearing into the shadows again. The creatures that glided in and out of houses like ghouls, because that's the same type of creature they were. 

The two men in the identical pinstripe suits who had appeared in his office with the message from Veleček now made total sense. That's how they'd left without making a sound and straight through a closed door.

They'd been domovoj, not vampires.  And he hadn't recognised that because he'd utterly forgotten they existed, like everything else. 

Both Dima and Veleček must have thought he'd not only lost his memory, but his mind along with it. And perhaps they were right. Perhaps they were right about everything. But that would mean Dima--

"You found it," he heard his former self say to Veles. "The tin. Or was that the domovoj?"

His mother shook her head. "They know nothing of it. She wasn't worthy of you. I can say that now. I understand you had feelings for her, but—" He held up his hands, gesturing to stop, but she continued on. "-- but you don't know everything. You don't know what danger she posed to you. It's best this way, believe me."

"She didn't deserve to die, Mother, if that's what you're saying. She had a brilliant career ahead of her, a life, a. . . .No, it's not better that she's gone. Not at all. She was. . .weak. That, yes. I couldn't convince her to. . . she just couldn't see how it was destroying her. She had some crazy notion that it helped her somehow, but she would never say how. Only that I wouldn't understand."

Veles gave a slight shrug. "Most humans are weak. That's one of their most enduring traits. That's why we do business with them, but we don't invite them into our hearts. That could have dire consequences."

"You never liked her, and now you're happy she's gone."

"Like has nothing to do with it. A mother knows what's best for her children and I know what's best for you, Perun. I always have."  For a long moment, Veles stared needles at him before continuing. 

"This isn't the only matter I have to attend to. We have business this evening and you will be there. The new cinema studio, if you recall. I'll send a carriage to collect you around eight."

She turned away from him and headed for the door of the salon.

"Why did you remove all of her things?" Perun called after her. "Were you going to leave me with nothing to remember her by?" .

Veles stopped and appeared to smooth the front of her dress a few times before responding in a stiff tone laced with impatience. "Your feelings are too fresh. Sleep some more. We'll speak later when you're more yourself."

"I'm myself now. Why are all of her possessions gone? I want an answer."

Veles turned back to him, dark eyes crackling. "Not now."

"Now."

For a few moments, both of them stared, daring the other one to make one false move. Veles was the first to speak.

"For exactly the same reason I imagine you destroyed that." She nodded towards the scattered remains of the clock on the floor. "So that it's over and done with. She's gone and not coming back. Time to turn our sights to new business."

At that moment, something clicked over in his mind.

Business.

Distantly, the Perun in the time machine stiffen. Here it comes.

"How much did you know, Mother?" his former self asked, unable to keep the suspicion out of his voice. "About her. . .problem."

"Are you asking me if I knew about it before today? Then yes, I did."

"How? How did you find out?"

Their eyes met across the room and the last shred of doubt fell away.

"It was you," he said, simply. "It was you who kept her supplied. It was you who gave her that new tin of poison after I'd got rid of everything here. It was you who killed her. Last night. Before you came down and we went to the warehouse."

"She killed herself. I didn't have to lift much of a finger." Veles sighed and shook her head. 

"You are a good son, Perun, but a blind fool. She was desperate for anything that would make her famous. You should have seen that. She had you wrapped around her finger and she knew it. After you'd lifted her as high as you were able, she'd have abandoned you for anyone else who could have lifted her higher..You were only the first rung on her ladder to the stars, nothing more."

"That's a lie! You can't possibly know what she was like."

"Is it? Is it really? Then why was she in correspondence with theatres in Vienna and Berlin? Ah, I see you didn't know that! Did it also escape your attention that she'd already tried her luck with several of our production companies, you can guess which ones." Veles' eyebrows arched in a show of distain. "You didn't know everything about her, Perun. She was ready to leave you the moment anything better came along, and it could have killed you. I wasn't about to stand by let that happen. No mother who loves her child would."

"I murdered a man last—"

"Yes, I know. Thank you for that, by the way. He was a loose end that needed tying. You certainly made it. . .theatrical enough to attract attention, if I do say so. It's never good for our activities to make the front page of the newspapers, but this time it will work to our advantage quite well. The police will be scratching their heads for months over a few kilos of mincemeat. Bravo."

Veles smiled at him in genuine approval.

The words the drug dealer had said came back to him like a punch to the gut. She's a reliable customer. With money.

And then Libuše's furious voice, if you killed her. . . Her. Veles. 

"You bought the drugs from him, didn't you? That's how you supplied Libuše."

"Yes, he had excellent connections to Berlin. That's also how I found out about Libuše's letters to the different theatres. The little cheat came to me wanting to trade them for some of our pornographic reels." Veles laughed a small, silvery laugh that turned Perun's stomach. "I did him the favour and I'm glad I did. He saved me, and you, a mountain of problems."

Veles' face turned serious. "I love you, my child, and I'll always will. I'll protect you and keep you safe. Even from yourself. Be ready when the carriage comes tonight. Oh, and don't forget to tend to your hand. It's still bleeding."