Page 27 of Castle of the Cursed
We’re in front of the double doors that open into the windowless cathedral. “They led me here,” I say, reaching for the handle.
Sebastián flings the doors open and advances into the cathedral, his shadows darkening the air, until the entire hall is an inky black night. I get the sense he’s scanning the whole place at once.
“There is nothing here,” he says when he’s finished, appearing before me. As the shadows retreat into him, the air brightens back to a dull reddish hue.
“Yet this room holds secrets,” he says with a frown.
“Like a hidden door?” I ask, wondering if it’s the purple room.
He cocks his head to the side, surveying me. “Why did you bring me here?”
I hear the death lining his voice, and I know my brain isn’t big enough for the both of us. The shadow beast and I can’t coexist.
“What makes you think I’m the bruja, and not my aunt?” I challenge him.
“She cannot sense me, nor can I touch her. You alone perceive me—so you must be behind the spell.”
How convenient; I created a creature only I can see.
Sebastián’s viselike grip closes around my neck, and pain shoots through me.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Lightning flashes in the silver of his eyes as my pulse picks up speed. He’s excited by my fear. “Any last words?” he whispers, our noses nearly brushing.
I inhale his starry scent, and I can almost feel the moonlight of his gaze tickling my skin. This cathedral may be windowless, but the night sky has never felt closer.
“If you’re going to kill me,” I squeeze out through his grip, “can I at least pick the room?” My mind must have conjured the shadow beast to protect me from the truth, so it’s possible he also holds the answers.
I watch his jaw clench before he opens his fist, freeing my neck. “Where?”
I massage my throat and take measured breaths. I’m seeing spots, and my head is throbbing, but I use what energy I have left to dig into my pocket and hold out the photograph. “Here.”
When he reaches for it, I keep my grip on the paper, so he can’t take it. Our fingers rest there, touching.
A shiver runs down my middle when he looks at me. Then he studies the picture.
He stares for so long, and with such focus, that I take him in slowly and uninterrupted. His sculpted face is smooth, sans age markers, not a wrinkle or blemish anywhere. Yet the rest of him is harder to make out.
It’s as if his body is cloaked with the night itself. The length of his form is covered in a formfitting fabric so dark that it shades the air around him, shrouding his details. Yet the blackness isn’t opaque; there are lights in its depths, and I get the sense that if I look long enough, I might not even notice when his hands close around my neck again.
“No,” he says, and I blink, forgetting my question.
“I have explored this castle every night, and I have not seen this room… Yet it feels familiar.” This last part sounds more muted, like he’s thinking out loud.
He stares at me now, with the same quiet intensity. “How did you come to possess this?”
“This picture is what lured me to this castle. I know something happened to me in that room, but I don’t know what. I’ve come to find it.”
He watches my lips move as I talk, and an inner warmth spreads down my middle. But being attracted to my own hallucination makes me even more screwed up than I already am, so I close my eyes to shut him out. Yet I still see him against the black of my lids.
When I open my eyes again, he’s gone.
Along with my photograph.
I wake up earlier than usual, so I cross paths with Beatríz in the kitchen. “I’ll walk with you today,” she says, wearing another dark and outdated dress.
I was planning to return to the cathedral first thing to see if I could locate the photograph I lost last night, but now I’ll have to wait until later. We walk in stiff and uncomfortable silence the whole way to town, and when we get to the bookstore, she goes inside with me.
