Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

PRESSURE BUILDS IN MY CHEST, and I can't feel the blade or see Sebastián or hear what's happening. Just like on the subway, the darkness around me is opaque and all-consuming.

But is it black smoke? Or have I blacked out?

A young girl is giggling and counting off in Spanish. " Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete —"

I can't see her, but I know she's me, back when I lived in this castle.

Young me is playing hide-and-seek. My parents said it was my favorite game as a child. Win or lose, that was never the point; I cared about the challenge. Dad used to make fun of how upset I'd get whenever he or Mom didn't choose a difficult enough hiding spot.

I roll my head into a muscled chest, and I know it's Sebastián when I inhale a snowy night. His scent fills my lungs with breath, and I cough out the bad air.

As the fumes fade, the dungeon blinks back into focus. The shadow beast is so close, I can see every smooth pane of his face.

The pressure in my chest is still there, and I look down. Sebastián's hand is between the blade and my breast. The dagger's point hasn't even broken his skin.

"Why did you do that?" His voice is thinner than I've heard it.

My heart rattles the walls of its cage. "You said intention mattered."

"So you want to die?"

I flinch from both the words and the force of their delivery. He steps away from me, and even though he produces no body heat, I feel colder without his touch.

Neither of us says anything for a few breaths.

"What do you want, Estela?"

When he says my name, a small bud inside me flowers.

"I want the same thing you want from me," I say. "The truth."

I cross my arms, hugging myself to cover my exposed bra from when he ripped my turtleneck—and also because I need it after what just happened.

I can't slow down to think about what I did, or I'll break.

Tears burn in the corners of my eyes.

"What do you want to know?" he asks at last.

I force back the wave of emotion threatening to overtake me and start with what I hope is an easy question: "Where do you go in the daytime?"

He doesn't immediately answer. "I do not know."

"I can't with you!" I say, throwing my arms in the air.

"I am telling you the truth," he says, as I cross my arms again to cover myself. "I do not know where I go when the sun comes up." His voice is heavy with gravity, like he's confessing to criminal behavior. "I only come to at nightfall."

I think of the vampire myth, how they sleep in coffins during the day, and I wonder if there's a grain of truth there. "So you appear in the castle at night and disappear at sunrise?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me that before?" I ask, and when he doesn't answer, I do it for him: "You don't trust me, do you?"

He doesn't deny it.

"I cannot trust anything about this castle until I know why I am here and who is behind this enchantment," he says. "For all we know, we are being watched."

"What?" I blurt. " Who—? "

"I do not want to frighten you any more than you already are, not when you are so near to giving up."

His description of me hits hard.

Is that how he sees me? Is that why he doesn't want to be partners with me in this investigation—he's worried I can't handle it?

"I can stomach whatever monsters are lurking in the dark," I tell him. "It's you I want to know about. Tell me something about yourself."

"You still fear I am a creation of your mind?"

"Even an imaginary partner would be better than no partner."

I don't break our stare, and I know this is it. The moment that determines everything between us. Whatever he says next will decide if I can trust him.

"I do not recall the exact instant I woke up here."

It takes me a second to realize he's spoken. The shadow beast's voice sounds so far away, it's almost small.

"It felt like my existence was coming in and out… flickering, how you described the lights."

I sit down on an edge of a wooden beam while he speaks.

"Once I managed to get a firm grip on this dimension, I knew something was off. Yet I could not figure it out; it was as if I could not access my full range of thoughts. Then I caught the scent of human blood."

Sebastián's gaze drifts from mine, enough that he's not looking me in the eye. "I did not have to think to make that kill. I acted on pure instinct. I yanked her head back by the hair and ripped into her throat, crushing her windpipe in one quick bite—or I should have."

"What happened?" I whisper, breathless.

"She went right through me. I thought she must be a ghost. Until I realized she had not reacted to my presence at all. She was glued to the news being broadcast of an attack on a train with a sole survivor, a teen girl. I was the ghost."

"And I was the teen girl."

He nods in assent. "I remember humans coming to the door every evening to drop off food, each new visit a fresh torture because none of them entered the house. I could not even attempt to taste them. Even more infuriating, they could not see me when I would get near the doorway."

Then it's true that only I can see him. Just like the black smoke. What does that mean?

"After listening to the news and reading through every book here, I learned that I found myself on a planet Earth, in a dimension that deems itself reality, where there is no such thing as magic. Or monsters ."

"Where are you from?" I chance, even though every time I've asked he's refused to answer.

"I do not know."

My gut hardens with distrust. "Sebastián—"

"My first memories are of this castle. I cannot remember anything before I appeared here. I know my past is within me, behind a spelled lock; I simply lack the key."

I don't know what to think. He claims to know nothing, not about his past, nor where he goes in the daytime. Either he's admitting the truth, or he's clinging to his secrets.

Or he and Beatríz are playing me.

"What about the memory of the blue bear?" I ask it in a whisper, but he snaps his gaze to me so fast that I know I struck a nerve.

"There are flickers of moments," he says after a beat. "I have had flashes of another place, a world more savage than this one. I believe my memories are still within me, simply repressed by the spell. Yet I cannot trust anything, not even myself, because I cannot remember."

He almost sounds tired. "If even I am not trustworthy, how can I trust anyone else?" he asks.

The question pierces my heart, encapsulating everything I'm feeling. I thought the shadow beast impenetrable and wholly unrelatable—but it turns out he's the only being in the worlds who understands me.

"Then am I alive because of the protective spell, or because you want me around?" I ask.

Something like warmth softens his gaze, and he says, "You are alive because I hope to stave off madness."

His silver gaze dips to my cheek, and I know he's looking at my dimple. The warmth spreads to the rest of his expression, shifting the atmosphere between us. I flash to the way I felt when I saw him laugh, and I think this is the first time he's made me smile.

It's more likely he wants to stave off starvation, says the small, argumentative voice in my mind. It's true that as long as I'm around, Sebastián has a blood source.

"I…" His voice drops out, and he closes his mouth, still staring at me in that softer way, a slight glaze in his eyes. As if he's been hit in the head and left dazed. He seems unsure what he wants to say.

"I accept your offer of partnership," he says at last, and I bite my lip to keep from gasping.

"And I vow not to touch you again without your consent."

I check Beatríz's room as soon as I wake up, but I don't see any signs that she's back.

Felipe's family's food cart stands empty in the kitchen. I open the fridge to find that everything has been stowed inside in a wall of colorful plastic containers that vary in shape and size. It reminds me of Tetris.

Seeing this gesture of Sebastián's makes me feel more taken care of than anything my aunt has done until this point. If I couldn't get the shadow beast out of my head before, he now consumes my every brain cell.

Even though I now believe him to be real, he still feels like mine. Especially since I first saw him in my dreams, and I'm the only person who can perceive him—plus, he's trapped in this castle with me.

I've never had a boyfriend or a best friend or even a pet, and I wonder if this sense of emotional possession is part of what makes someone feel yours .

We're just partners on the same case, the small voice reminds me, and my mind flits to Dad's dozen axioms. Raul's Rule #8: Whatever you do, never make a case personal.

As I pluck my last clean sweatshirt, I note that I'm going to need to do laundry soon. The top feels a little loose on me, and I realize it's the one Nurse Leticia gave me to use the last time I visited FBI Headquarters. At the thought of her, I feel the dagger's hilt in my grip as I drove it into my chest—

I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that will blind me to the memory. Lety would be horrified by what I did.

I'm horrified.

Last night, it didn't feel real. I was so sure that Sebastián would save me. But in the light of day, I'm terrified of myself, what I did, what I might be capable of.

I don't want to be alone right now. What I really need is a friend.

Even though I saw a side of Felipe I didn't like, he's still my friend. My experience with the concept may only come from books and television, but I know that friendship means accepting a person as they are, flaws and all.

When I get to the bookstore, Felipe looks beyond relieved to see me. Purple bags betray his lack of sleep, and I'm overcome with guilt.

"Here's your cart back," I say before he can speak, wheeling it forward to him.

"Are you okay?" he asks, his eyes bouncing across my face like an anxious parent's.

"Of course!" I say, waving off his worry. "The banging was a wind tunnel effect that sometimes happens at night. I think it's why people assume the place is haunted." I pluck the excuse from a winter we spent in Hanover, New Hampshire, where the wind howled so much that it would slam shut all the doors.

"But there wasn't any wind—"

"Please thank your parents for everything," I press on. "I had a really nice time… for the most part."

He cringes with guilt, and I know the subject change worked. "Sorry again for what I said about you not having anywhere else to go."

"Don't say it again, and we're fine," I say, even though there's more to it than that. Felipe may not have outright expressed his feelings for me, but his reaction last night to the possibility of my leaving makes me worry they've become more than friendly.

We head to the back of the store and climb the ladder to the attic. "What would you like to read about today?" he asks.

"I'm curious about la Sombra's history with supernatural creatures… like, have there ever been any vampires ?"

"Oh—I have the perfect book!" Felipe's voice quivers with the same excitement every bibliophile gets when they're asked to recommend the right read at the right time, and I'm glad he doesn't pry into my choice of subject.

We settle on the stools, and he sets a large white tome on the high table. "This book's author was a Brálaga. They catalogued la Sombra's brushes with the supernatural over the centuries and gathered information to create this almanac of magical creatures and potions."

Felipe opens it to the index, then he flips to a page near the end with the heading Vampiros .

" Vampires come from another realm, " he translates, and I recall that Sebastián referred to the subway as an interdimensional attack. " They're made of dark energy… and they survive by sucking the life force of other creatures. In other words, blood ."

"If they're in this book, does that mean vampires have been in la Sombra before?" I ask.

"Not necessarily. It could also be that another being familiar with vampires provided this information. The author doesn't cite their sources, and this book was published in the early 1900s, so we can't know."

"Does it say anything about how a vampire would cross over, if they could?" I press.

Felipe frowns, and I know I need to back off, or he's going to start asking questions. He skims the text for a few seconds, then he says, "According to this, the only way a vampire could enter our reality is by making a pact with a witch."

I feel my face paling. This is all fitting a little too neatly with the narrative Sebastián has fed me. And yet the word pact implies he would be in on the spell.

Is that the real reason he won't tell me anything about himself? Are he and Beatríz working together?

"Okay, you're worrying me," says Felipe, studying my expression. "You've gone from skeptic "—he emphasizes the word, like he's proud to use it correctly—"to believer in no time."

"I'm not a believer yet . You'll have to keep reading to fascinate me."

He reviews the text again. "It says here… a vampire can't manifest at full power in our realm. They will be limited by the spell that brings them here."

I have to blink a few times. " Full power? What does that mean?"

He shrugs. "It doesn't go into detail."

I pull the book closer. "Show me."

He leans in, and I feel his breath on my shoulder as he points to the last line on the page. I wait for him to translate, but he doesn't say anything.

I read to myself: Si un vampiro cruza a la realidad de la Tierra, será limitado por la magia de sangre que lo transportó. When I look up at Felipe, he's nodding at me encouragingly, so I sigh and try to work it out for myself.

When I was younger, I struggled to read. If I stumbled on a hard word, Dad would cover it up with a ruler, revealing just one syllable at a time, until I managed to pronounce the whole thing. It was one of the first things he taught me: when a problem feels too big, break it down into its smallest possible parts.

So I focus on the first half of the sentence and start with the words I recognize: Vampiro is vampire, realidad is reality, Tierra is Earth. From the context, I gather cruza must mean cross, and I say, " If a vampire crosses into Earth's reality…? "

By Felipe's face-splitting grin, I know I'm on the right path.

The second part of the sentence reads: será limitado por la magia de sangre que lo transportó. I think limitado must mean limited, magia is magic, and sangre is… blood .

I stare at the Spanish term for blood magic for so long that I don't react until I hear Felipe's voice: " If a vampire crosses into Earth's reality, they will be bound by the blood magic that transported them. "

I turn the page for more, but there's a new heading: Venenos.

"Venoms," Felipe translates.

That's it for the vampire section. I shut the book in frustration. Bound by blood magic. If Beatríz is behind the spell, it follows that Sebastián would be anchored to the castle.

I inhale sharply as Felipe's finger brushes a stray curl away from my face. "Your hair was by your eye," he says, dropping his hand quickly.

I snap to my feet. " Why, though?" I ask, pacing the attic, looking everywhere but at Felipe. "Why does a Brálaga have to live at la Sombra? Why hasn't anyone sold the castle yet?"

I wait for him to speak and provide an answer, or at least point to a new book, but he stays quiet. So I meet his gaze.

Only he's not watching me. He's staring at the closed white book on the table.

"What is it?" I ask.

Felipe stands, too. "You're looking for facts when all this town has are stories."

"Okay, then," I say, crossing my arms. "Tell me a story."

He turns to the bookshelf, and I wait for him to pick a text. "We don't have religion here. We have la Sombra." He surveys the spines as he speaks. "The Oscurianos, those of us who choose to stay, we believe we are here for a purpose. But you won't find that purpose in any of these books. It's old knowledge, the kind that gets passed down not in ink, but blood."

He seems different as he says this. Older. "It's not just the Brálaga line that remains unbroken," he goes on. "I showed you the property records. Every bloodline is loyal to this town. To la Sombra."

"But why ?" I insist.

"Some of us believe… I believe… the original Brálaga hailed from another realm," he says, picking up on what he was telling me in his room. "We call it Otro. Other. We think by opening a gateway, he's made us vulnerable to that dimension, and he had to seal the opening with blood magic. As long as Oscuro's founders' bloodlines remain planted in this soil, the gateway to Otro stays sealed."

"What happens if it opens?"

The light in Felipe's eyes dulls. "La Sombra would swallow our world."