It was on the third night of my sojourn in this melancholy fortress that I first beheld her. I had wandered, half in dread and half in fascination, along the interminable corridors of that vast castle. My heart beat with the hollow rhythm of a man who knows himself imprisoned, yet still dares to wonder what mysteries the stones conceal. The air was cold, yet fragrant, as though some unseen flower bloomed in defiance of the dust of centuries.

Never have I beheld a vision so arresting, so majestic. The Count’s daughter. She stood with the stillness of moonlight falling through stained glass, her beauty of such eternal cast that I could scarce draw breath. Her countenance was pale as ivory, yet not with death, but with an immortal calm. Her eyes—dark pools, fathomless—seemed at once to pierce my soul and cradle it. And though her lips were curved in something between sorrow and serenity, there lingered no malice, none of that dreadful hunger which I felt coiled like smoke about her sire.

She spoke, and the hush of her voice trembled through me as though the walls themselves bent to listen. “You are far from home, Mr. Harker, and in the company of shadows. Yet not all shadows wish you harm.”

Today, she stood in the doorway of my chamber, veiled in the silver dimness that poured through the narrow slit of a window. Her face was grave, yet suffused with a radiance that could not be wholly of this earth. And though my heart leapt as one startled by danger, I felt no terror—only a reverent awe.

“Mr. Harker,” she said, her voice a low music, “you wander in peril where every stone holds memory of hunger. You must guard your soul, for my father’s shadow grows restless. He has heard of her.”

I knew then that she spoke of Mina. At the sound of her name upon Isabella’s lips, a chill pierced me more deeply than the icy walls of this place. That she—across oceans—should already be marked by his thoughts, is a terror I can scarcely endure.

And yet, even as I shuddered, she stepped closer, her eyes searching mine with such unearthly gentleness that my resolve weakened. How could such a creature, born of that accursed lineage, bear within her such compassion?

I asked her—for I could not restrain myself—“Why do you aid me? What draws you to speak kindly to one who is but a stranger, and a prisoner?”

She lowered her gaze, and in the dim light her lashes trembled like the wings of some night-bird.