Page 125 of Castle of the Cursed
“We are trapping her spirit,” Sebastián corrects me. “Para atrapar un espíritu means your sister must be in noncorporeal form.”
“You mean I need to get her to leave Bea’s body?” I ask, and Sebastián nods in assent.
There’s only two ways that’s going to happen: either Sebastián destroys her current shell, or Antonela has to believe she can move into mine. “We’ll have to fake my death again,” I say.
“Your sister will not be as easy to fool as your uncle. She risks too much entering the castle prematurely. She will not do so until she is sure the spell has broken.”
“Then how do we convince her?” I ask, turning to face him.
“We will have to put on a good performance. I have to drink enough to weaken you, so she will believe the spell has sent me home and I am no longer a threat.”
“Unless you actually disappear,” I say ominously. “We have no idea what amount you need to drink to end the spell keeping you here,” I point out. “Not to mention the fact that we’re missing a key ingredient for this trapping spell—my aunt. And I’m not sure how I’ll convince Teo to help—”
“You cannot,” says Sebastián matter-of-factly. “He will die before he gives up on Antonela. I will be the one doing the chanting.”
I frown at him. “How? You’re not of Brálaga blood.”
“I will explain later. First, we must get you those seeds.”
We hurry down the stairs in silence, but as we’re crossing the mirror room, I can’t hold in the words anymore. “Teo said you can go home without killing me if you drain Bea.”
“I know.”
We reach the fork in the hallway and cut toward the windowless cathedral. “What do you think about that?” I prod.
“I think I already said I choose you over everything.”
His words still warm me, but I can’t help saying, “If you’re staying because you don’t want to hurt me, this is your chance to go, pain-free.”
I don’t slow down. It’s like I can only have this conversation on the move, without having to meet his eyes.
“Estela,” he murmurs, keeping pace with me easily. “Look at me.”
I don’t know why I can’t. I quicken my pace as we cut through the string of barren, doorless rooms, toward the jardín de sangre.
“Tell me how you feel,” his voice whispers in my ear. “If you want me to go, I will go.”
I stop moving when I’m on the red rug, atop the purple room. Sebastián stands before me, his silver eyes piercing mine, fishing for the words that won’t surface.
“I love you,” I say at last, my voice thick with unshed tears. “And that makes me afraid that I’m going to lose you.”
“You will not,” he assures me without skipping a beat, “because I love you, too.”
His statement is a symphony, and I will my eyes not to well with water.
“Yet at the moment,” he says, embracing me, “I am more afraid of losing you.”
The walls blur as he transports us to the cathedral. When he sets me down before the stone wall, I search the rocks for the right one. After a few seconds, he points it out to me.
I spill my blood to open the secret door to the shed, and I pull on boots to head out to the jardín.
I can hardly think of the hope I felt sprouting in here just two days ago, when Bea showed me this place. Now that future is gone, uprooted by Antonela, just like my old life with my parents.
Sebastián gives me a handful of seeds before ripping into a blood bag from the small freezer. After swallowing, I use the canister to blood the garden, the way I saw Bea doing.
I approach the plants that resemble legs and arms with toe-like flowers and drizzle blood over them. A wave of dizziness hits me, and I wonder if I took too many of those seeds.
I turn toward the tiny trees with bone-like trunks and tonguelike leaves, when I see the foliage start moving around me.
