Page 113 of Castle of the Cursed
RAUL’S RULE #11GET INSIDE THE SUSPECT,S MIND, BUT DON,T LET THEM INSIDE YOURS.
CHAPTER 26
I’M BACK ON THE JOURNAL room floor. I blink a few times, disoriented.
“Hello, sister.”
I scramble backward as the body that was once Beatríz rises as Antonela.
“What have you done?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“Spared you. That is what you like, right? For someone to die in your stead?”
The emotionless expression belongs to a soulless creature. I thought Bea was cold when we met, but this is the face of true winter.
“If Bast does not hold up his end, the whole world will die for you,” threatens Antonela. “I will draw everyone here. La Sombra will be unable to resist the temptation of such a blood feast.”
She looks to my uncle. “Leave now,” she commands him. “I will catch up.”
“Don’t go with her,” I tell Teo. “She just killed Bea!”
Teo locks his gaze on mine, and I know that it doesn’t matter that my sister just murdered his—he’s already made his choice to serve Antonela. “Your sister has sacrificed more than any of us,” he says. “It’s our turn now.”
“You sacrificed her! How many deaths can you bear on your conscience?” I dig my hand into my pocket for the syringe. “Felipe’s? Your sister’s? Mine? All in an attempt to justify what you did to Antonela twelve years ago—to avoid being her killer, you’ve become a mass murderer!”
He lunges at me, and I pull out the syringe to strike—but he ducks and elbows me in the side.
I gasp for breath, bending forward, and the needle slips from my fingers.
“Go,” Antonela says to him again, and Teo obediently leaves the tower.
Alone with my sister, I am overcome with regret as I stare into my aunt’s face. If I had never let Felipe into la Sombra in the first place, if I had just followed Bea’s two simple rules, none of this would be happening. If I had listened to her about not trusting my uncle, I wouldn’t have manifested Antonela, and my aunt would still be alive.
“I am sorry this is the extent of our reunion,” says my sister, though she doesn’t sound one drop remorseful. “I trust Bast remembers our pact and is ready to do his part, yet should he hesitate, you will make sure he goes through with it… for your world’s sake.”
She turns toward the stairs, like she’s going to leave.
“Where are you going?” I call. “Don’t you want to greet your prince? Why not wait and deliver your message?”
“I doubt he will be happy to see me. Nor do I wish to distract him from finishing his task.”
She truly is indifferent. To everyone.
The room darkens again, and I think it’s Antonela turning into black smoke, until I see the flash of silver. Bea must have done as I asked and left blood for Sebastián so he could access the journal room.
“A man is outside,” he says to me, barely glancing at Beatríz as he sweeps into the room. “Is it the brujo?”
“You mean caster,” says Antonela from under my aunt’s skin. “No, he is not.”
The shadow beast spins around and stares at Beatríz in surprise. “You can see me?”
“But can you see me?” asks my sister softly, moving closer to him. “Do your part, and you can go home. I did not lie about that. Goodbye, Bast.”
In the fraction of a second it takes Sebastián to work out what’s happening, Antonela has already dashed out. She moves at superhuman speed, like him.
Sebastián chases after her.
I run down the stairs, trying to see what’s happening, sliding and grabbing the wall. I race past my reflection in the mirror room, and when Sebastián finds me, I’m wheezing in the corridor by the dining hall.
