Page 122 of Castle of the Cursed
I shake my head in disgust, and I hate that tears burn my eyes because he doesn’t deserve them. “You chose the wrong ally, Teo. Whose body do you think Antonela will use next, after…?”
I can’t even finish the sentence.
“Bea may not have accepted it,” he says, filling in her name for me. “But from the moment we sent Nela to the other castle, we owed her our submission.”
He is unflinching in his devotion. He is Antonela’s loyal soldier to the end.
“What about me?” I hear myself ask, and I didn’t expect to sound so young.
“You got to live.” His eyes grow Felipe-like again in their intensity. “You traveled beyond this castle, this town, this country—you got to cross the ocean and grow up free of this place’s shadow!”
“So, this is it then?” I ask, my voice still small. “You’ve chosen sides, you love my sister, and now you want me to die. No pity or help for me. Is that right?”
I hate that it hurts.
This man with my aunt’s face, my mother’s brother, has yet to express a single ounce of love for me. Yet he’s willing to die for my sister—the girl he murdered.
“I’m sorry, Tela,” he says, for the first time actually sounding it. “You deserved better.”
“I’m not asking you to betray Antonela,” I say, boxing out Sebastián and moving in to make the conversation feel more intimate. “All I’m asking for is a chance. I deserve to fight for myself. For my life.”
As I say the words, I realize I couldn’t say them with the shadow beast’s gaze on me. Not with how careless I’ve been about my life around him.
I came to Oscuro feeling so cavalier about surviving the Subway 25, convinced I was an oversight that could be corrected at any moment. And thirteen days later, I’m fighting for a future I could never have envisioned.
“What is it you think I can do for you?” Teo asks me, and I have to blink a few times to clear the moisture from my gaze.
“Explain to me why my sister can’t possess me like she did Bea.”
“Magic is inherited in pairs. You share power as a unit and are meant to keep it in balance. Antonela can only inherit your body if you are gone and the body still functions.”
Something isn’t right.
I think back to what she revealed to me about the spell: When Bastian drains you, he will return to his realm, and I will be released into your body. Then the same spell that took our parents’ lifeblood will return it to me.
“If Sebastián kills me,” I say, frowning, “how will my body still function?”
Teo looks like he’s said too much, but I can’t let him go silent now. “He doesn’t need to drain me then,” I theorize out loud to gauge my uncle’s reaction, his face close enough to read. “The spell is triggered to send Sebastián back home when he drinks just enough of my blood to stop me, but not kill me.”
Teo’s eyes widen for a flash, just as his twin’s did when I exposed her secrets. “There must still be blood in your system for Antonela’s regeneration spell to work,” Teo admits, and the shininess of his eyes betrays his excitement to share this knowledge.
“Magic that is only possible because she sacrificed my parents’ blood,” I remind Teo. “She killed both your sisters.”
“Why is she afraid of me?” Sebastián moves in again, and between us, we’re completely blocking Teo’s path.
“She’s not,” says my uncle.
“Lie again, I dare you,” says Sebastián, glaring at Teo in a way that makes me nervous. “What happens if I drink Antonela’s blood while she is in possession of a body?”
Teo doesn’t answer.
“Estela, leave.” Sebastián’s shadows spread across the bookshelves, his darkness expanding as his stare narrows on Teo’s neck.
“Okay,” I say, and I step back like I’m going to obey. “Goodbye then—”
I walk toward the exit, hoping my uncle gives us something right now, because I trust Sebastián to go through with his threat—
“Wait!”
