Page 102 of Castle of the Cursed
“We saw you.” Their lips spread into a too-wide smile.
“I-I do not know what you are talking about,” says my sister. But nerves undercut her voice, and Red’s smug smirk takes over their entire face.
“How did you do it? How did you unlock the Atrium door?”
“I did not,” says Antonela.
“You got our instructor’s blood,” says Red, narrowing their gaze. “How did you pull it off?”
“I did not,” she says again. “The school must have judged me more worthy.”
Red’s smugness hardens into anger. “We will be Chosen,” they say in a low growl, pointing to themselves and Cyclops. “And you will stay behind.”
“We will see,” says Antonela, showing more backbone than I expected.
“You think a human could ever pose a threat?” asks Red, reveling in revealing to Antonela that they possess this information. “Yes, I found out what you are. I cannot fathom how one of your kind has made it this far.”
“Did you say human?”
Red glances at Cyclops, annoyed by their interruption. “I did, so what?”
Their panoramic eye looks back down at the book they took from Antonela. “Human blood is a Bleeder delicacy,” Cyclops reads out loud. “It is the only offering that will gain any being an audience with their sovereign.” They look up from the book at Red, eyebrow nearly at their hairline. “We could trade the human for Bleeder blood. You were worried about what would happen if we were to run away—but if we become more powerful than any caster, we will not need to live in fear!”
“You cannot,” says my sister, voice cracking as she turns from Cyclops to Red, whose face looks like a match that caught fire. “There is no need, since you are likely to be Chosen!”
Red looks like they’re considering their friend’s plan, and it’s clear their bravado is as hollow as their heart. They are just as terrified as anyone else about not getting Chosen, enough that they’re willing to risk everything.
“How would we get there?” Red asks Cyclops.
“Someone wrote it here in the margins,” they answer, and Antonela’s face falls. “A red door in the Atrium.”
They both look to my sister, who’s blanching. “Y-you cannot do this—”
Red yanks my sister’s hand and slices a line across her palm with their sharp nails. “If your blood really opens the Atrium door, you might be graduating from this place after all.”
“Help! Let me out!” Antonela screams. She pounds against the wooden walls of her tight confinement. “Please! I need to stay at the school! This is important!”
All I can see is the darkness around her. I think of the grains of sand falling in the hourglass, like drum hits beating in tune with my heart. My sister is running out of time.
After a while, she gives up shouting and slips a hand inside her cloak, retrieving something too small to see. She maneuvers her arm up to her neck in the confined space, and she winces, but the cloak veils whatever she’s doing.
When the lid pops off, I see that Antonela is in a coffin. Rough hands reach down for her.
She’s heaving, like she can’t breathe, and Cyclops shoves a face mask over her mouth and nose. It’s blue and flutters like it’s producing oxygen.
As I look around at where we are, my mouth falls open. We’re on the rocky edge of a mountain that I have seen before. It was in a drawing in Felipe’s vampire book.
This is Prince Bastian’s castle.
Red and Cyclops stand unmasked and gawk at the view, in as much awe as Antonela. The air is pitch-black, and there are no lights, no moon, no stars.
A door opens into the mountain, and seven fanged men with silver eyes like Sebastián’s file out. They seem to be guards.
One of them sniffs the air. “Casters are forbidden here.”
“We have brought a gift for—”
“It does not matter what you have brought,” says one of the guards as Red pushes my sister forward. “Casters are not permitted inside. Go now, or your lives are forfeit.”
