Page 91 of Castle of the Cursed
Obviously.
“What do you remember?” I ask, trying to speak over the cracking of my heart so he won’t hear it. “Of your home?”
“That I am as trapped there as I am here,” he says, the edge in his voice growing sharper. “All the knowledge I hold, all the worlds I know, every great battle, I have learned it all from afar. I am always entangled in others’ games. Even here, with you. I am an inmate shuffled from one prison to another, without any say in where I go.”
“Fight back then,” I whisper.
“What?”
My heart pounds in my chest. “Against all odds, you and I have met. We come from literally different worlds, and yet our paths have crossed. Against all odds, you didn’t kill me on our first meeting. Our entire relationship has been impossible, but it’s happening. We can change things—”
“Not anymore,” he says. “This is over.”
“No,” I breathe, and then I can’t say more because the rest of my frame is splintering. The slightest movement will shatter the illusion that I’m whole, and I’ll crumble into a million broken pieces.
“Go rest,” he says, surveying the view, his back to me. “I will keep watch for your uncle.”
Daylight makes everything more gruesome.
Bea and I stand in the jardín de sangre, where Felipe’s corpse is buried, and I can’t understand how we got here. Felipe wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve a death sentence.
“How did this happen?” she whispers.
“Teo did a blood spell on Felipe using the blood he took from me, after promising him Antonela’s hand in marriage—”
“Antonela’s—?”
“Yes. All Felipe had to do was carry a message for… Sebastián.”
“Who?”
The shadow beast may have broken up with me, but as long as he’s stuck haunting this place, it’s going to be hard to keep him hidden from Beatríz. “Someone else has been living in this castle.”
My aunt’s gaze grows murderously grave. “Did you invite a friend—?”
“No, he’s not human. Besides, he was here when I arrived, but you can’t see him.”
She blinks, and the hardness is gone from her face, replaced by a concern I recognize well.
“It’s not like that, either,” I hasten to say. “I’m not imagining him.”
“Let’s start with who is he?” she asks, adopting a neutral tone.
This is already not going well.
I sigh and let it out: “He’s a vampire from another realm who only appears at night. He arrived the day of the subway attack, so he’s part of the spell that killed my parents, and I’m the only one who can see him.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I’m not sure she’s even blinked.
“I named him Sebastián because he lost his memories in the spell,” I go on, “but he’s really Prince Bastian, future ruler of the vampires. We think Teo brought him here, but we don’t know why.”
I keep hoping that giving her more details will prove I’m telling the truth, but I can hear that it’s sounding less and less believable.
“Estela, forgive me for asking, but if you’re the only one who can see him, how can you be sure he exists?” Beatríz cringes like it causes her discomfort to ask the question, but I can’t blame her. I was questioning the same thing a few days ago.
“Let him prove his existence to you tonight,” I say. “Okay?”
