Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

I'M BACK ON THE JOURNAL room floor. I blink a few times, disoriented.

"Hello, sister."

I scramble backward as the body that was once Beatríz rises as Antonela.

"What have you done?" I ask, my voice breaking.

"Spared you. That is what you like, right? For someone to die in your stead?"

The emotionless expression belongs to a soulless creature. I thought Bea was cold when we met, but this is the face of true winter.

"If Bast does not hold up his end, the whole world will die for you," threatens Antonela. "I will draw everyone here. La Sombra will be unable to resist the temptation of such a blood feast."

She looks to my uncle. "Leave now," she commands him. "I will catch up."

"Don't go with her," I tell Teo. "She just killed Bea!"

Teo locks his gaze on mine, and I know that it doesn't matter that my sister just murdered his—he's already made his choice to serve Antonela. "Your sister has sacrificed more than any of us," he says. "It's our turn now."

" You sacrificed her! How many deaths can you bear on your conscience?" I dig my hand into my pocket for the syringe. "Felipe's? Your sister's? Mine? All in an attempt to justify what you did to Antonela twelve years ago—to avoid being her killer, you've become a mass murderer!"

He lunges at me, and I pull out the syringe to strike—but he ducks and elbows me in the side.

I gasp for breath, bending forward, and the needle slips from my fingers.

" Go, " Antonela says to him again, and Teo obediently leaves the tower.

Alone with my sister, I am overcome with regret as I stare into my aunt's face. If I had never let Felipe into la Sombra in the first place, if I had just followed Bea's two simple rules, none of this would be happening. If I had listened to her about not trusting my uncle, I wouldn't have manifested Antonela, and my aunt would still be alive.

"I am sorry this is the extent of our reunion," says my sister, though she doesn't sound one drop remorseful. "I trust Bast remembers our pact and is ready to do his part, yet should he hesitate, you will make sure he goes through with it… for your world's sake."

She turns toward the stairs, like she's going to leave.

"Where are you going?" I call. "Don't you want to greet your prince? Why not wait and deliver your message?"

"I doubt he will be happy to see me. Nor do I wish to distract him from finishing his task."

She truly is indifferent. To everyone.

The room darkens again, and I think it's Antonela turning into black smoke, until I see the flash of silver. Bea must have done as I asked and left blood for Sebastián so he could access the journal room.

"A man is outside," he says to me, barely glancing at Beatríz as he sweeps into the room. "Is it the brujo?"

"You mean caster, " says Antonela from under my aunt's skin. "No, he is not."

The shadow beast spins around and stares at Beatríz in surprise. "You can see me?"

"But can you see me ?" asks my sister softly, moving closer to him. "Do your part, and you can go home. I did not lie about that. Goodbye, Bast."

In the fraction of a second it takes Sebastián to work out what's happening, Antonela has already dashed out. She moves at superhuman speed, like him.

Sebastián chases after her.

I run down the stairs, trying to see what's happening, sliding and grabbing the wall. I race past my reflection in the mirror room, and when Sebastián finds me, I'm wheezing in the corridor by the dining hall.

"She is gone!" he says, nearly growling with frustration. "What happened?"

I feel the same hollowness I experienced after my parents died. That sense of emptiness that comes from nothing mattering because all the people you love and who loved you are gone and you're just drifting.

I was supposed to be an anchor, and yet I am unanchored.

"You knew," I say, turning my back to him because I can't stand to look at Sebastián and see Prince Bastian. "Last night, when you got your memories back, you knew about my sister. And you said nothing."

"Our conversation was difficult enough. I did not want to overwhelm you."

"My tiny human brain couldn't handle more."

"I am not sure it could," he says, my sarcasm falling flat.

"Well, it doesn't matter. You're going to kill me. So just get on with it."

I know the brave thing would be to face my fate head-on, but I can't look at him. I can't let the last thing I see in life be him murdering me.

He doesn't say anything, and I appreciate that he doesn't bother denying the facts. The seconds drag past in unbearable silence, knowing every breath could be my last.

"I want," he says softly, "to thank you. For showing me joy ." He says it like it's a new vocabulary word, and he's trying it out in a sentence. "As Prince Bastian, I was cruel, greedy, unyielding. I believed my heart was truly made of iron, and that is why I did not bother with the pursuit of anything other than power."

By the volume of his voice, it sounds like he's moving closer.

"Yet you found my fracture lines," he says, and I feel him standing over me. "You showed me the strength of softer emotions is they are malleable enough to sneak in through crevices too tiny to be perceived. That is why I did not notice your grip on me until I was already yours."

My heart is ramming my chest, and I have no idea how to feel. Most of me wants to turn around and look at his expression while he's speaking, but to what end? Why is he saying things to make me fall in love with him right as he's about to kill me?

"I don't need all this sweet talk, Sebastián. You can't sugarcoat murder, so just get on with it."

"I am not going to kill you, Estela."

He sounds farther away now, and I turn around slowly, anticipating a trick. "Yesterday you wanted to break the spell," I say. "You said you were over me—"

"I am not over you. I am beneath you."

He drops to his knees, and it's the last thing I expected from the future king of the vampires. "By your world's standards, I am a murderous monster. You were right about cursed castles being for evil princes. I do not deserve you."

After Felipe's betrayal, Antonela's villainy, and Bea's murder, I can hardly believe Sebastián is the one who is still here, sticking by my side. And as I search his eyes, it dawns on me that Beatríz wasn't the one who made this castle a home for me.

That feeling started long before she and I connected.

It's not la Sombra I belong to—it's Sebastián.

A cracking sound reverberates in my chest, like I've been splintered in two, and I collapse into myself. Yet before I hit the ground, I land in his arms.

I let myself break, and he holds me while I shatter. Everything is gone, slipped through my fingers, again . And once more, I've been left behind.

"You are not alone," he says, and I realize he's been saying it for a while now, repeating it to me like a mantra.

"But I am," I say. "You will have to go back home one day to sit on your throne—and even if we find a way to get you there that doesn't require killing me, what would be left for me here? A future as la Sombra's new caretaker, cursed to be alone like my aunt was?"

His brow furrows, and he's silent for so long that I worry about what he's going to say.

"I have been thinking of something you said, about how we should fight our fates. I think you are right. We are impossible —and that proves anything is possible." He chuckles at himself, and I'm relieved to spy some light in his eyes.

He's not the heavy-eyed Prince Bastian, nor is he the less burdened Sebastián. He's someone new.

"I have spent my entire existence caged in a castle," he says. "If that is to be both our fates, I would rather be locked away together than apart."

"What are you saying?" I ask, and it's like I suddenly don't understand the English language.

"I am not leaving you," he says, those five words changing everything. "I will keep you company for the rest of your long, long life. I choose you over… over everything."

I can hardly breathe as he rises and holds out a hand to help me up. "What if I live to be a hundred?" I ask as he pulls me closer.

"Time is not a factor where I am from, so it will not matter when I return." His lips meet mine, but the kiss is too brief. "Yet if you plan on living that long," he says, and I groan in complaint as he steps back, "then we must prepare for your sister. Your uncle was waiting for her outside, and she collapsed into his arms. Corporealizing consumes a great deal of energy, so she will need to recharge. No doubt that is why she needed his help to get somewhere safe."

"The clínica," I say. "Looking like Beatríz, no one will question Antonela."

"It is likely she will send your uncle here during the day, when I am not around, to check if you remain alive. I think you should get some sleep now, and leave at sunrise to hide. Do not return until nightfall, when I can protect you—"

"Or," I say, hating his idea, "I can stay here and catch him. My uncle seems to know a lot about Brálaga magic, and I'd like to ask him some questions."

"How will you overpower him?"

I dig into my pocket, but the syringe isn't there.

"I won't have to," I say. "I'll pretend to be dead, and when he comes close enough to check my pulse, I'll stab him with one of my aunt's syringes."

I expect Sebastián to dismiss my idea for fear of my safety, but this new version of him considers my words. "You will need to tie him up. Do you want me to show you how?"

I nod in assent, and he disappears.

"What happened after you made the pact with Antonela to cross over?" I ask as he returns with ropes bundled in his arms. I assume they're from the dungeon.

"That was before I knew you," he says, casting his gaze around the space. "You will want to tie his wrists, ankles, and waist to something like… the stairs."

"I'm just asking," I say as we walk toward the gargoyle banister.

"I would prefer not to add to the rift between you two. Is it not enough that I choose you?"

"Can't you tell me what the pact was?"

"She betrayed me. She told me I would be able to feast all I wanted on Earth, and when I was ready to return, I just had to find her double. You. She told me once I drank enough of your blood, the spell would break, sending me back home. She did not tell me I would lose my memories, or that I would be trapped in this castle. Now, let's learn some knots."

He loops a rope around the iron banister, then he twists it around, showing me a simple knot. He does it a few times, until I memorize the steps, and then I try it.

"Good work," he says. "I brought a thinner rope for his wrists because you want to minimize the chance of him squeezing a hand out."

He loops the rope around my wrists to show me a way to handcuff my uncle, then he lifts my bound hands, hinging the rope on the gargoyle's wing above me. I am nearly on my tiptoes, and I tug down on my arms, but they're tied up tight.

"You want to make sure your suspect is helpless," he says, and as he stares at me, a change glazes over his eyes. "Then you want to show them you are the one in control."

He grabs the zipper of my hoodie and tugs it down slowly, revealing my tank top.

"What's next?" I ask breathily, every part of me growing excited.

"Next, you expose your suspect for who they are underneath ."

I gasp as he pulls down my pants, leaving me in my underwear. Then he lifts my hips and cradles my legs in the gargoyle's arms, spreading them open. As he stands between my thighs, I finally work up the nerve to ask, "Does your shirt come off?"

A beat later, Sebastián is only in pants. His torso might have been carved from actual rock, every line and ripple perfectly symmetrical. My fingers fidget overhead, itching to touch him.

His lips find my neck. I feel his mouth brushing along a vein, and I brace myself for the stab of sharp fangs—

But it's his warm tongue that strikes. As he draws designs down my throat, his fingers caress up the insides of my thighs, and the temperature rises about a hundred degrees.

I grow sensitive and lightweight as his strokes inch higher, until he slips beneath the cotton of my underwear.

My spine digs into the metal banister, and I gasp, my gaze blurring with pleasure. I moan as his touch intensifies, my body throbbing like a pulse, until the stirrings of release shoot through me. "You're… spectacular," I whisper.

"I hope to always make you feel this good, Estela," he murmurs into my ear, as he unhooks my arms from the gargoyle's wing. After untying the ropes binding my wrists, he sweeps me off my feet, and by my next breath I'm lying on my bed.

"I will bring you—"

"I don't want to eat," I say, cutting him off. My stomach is too full of emotions to digest anything else at the moment.

Bea is dead. Antonela is a monster. Sebastián is mine. As much as my brain tries to process these facts, it doesn't seem to be working as fast as my heart. "Can we just lie down for a little?" I ask him.

He joins me on the bed, and I snuggle into his side. His arm closes around me, and neither of us says anything for a while, my breaths the only sound in the room.

After Mom and Dad died, I didn't think I would ever recover any sense of family, but in the past couple of days with Bea, I had hope for the first time. That hope grew exponentially in the seconds when I thought I might actually recover my sister.

So much hope extinguished in a single meeting.

I think of Antonela growing up in the other castle, and Beatríz growing older in la Sombra, and Sebastián being trained for leadership in his mountain throne—and it occurs to me that all three of them have been trapped in a castle that doubles as a cage.

I have been so much freer than them, and yet I have always longed for a home.

My mind drifts to the four girls on the subway train. I used to try not to think of them because their fate seemed too cruel. Yet now that I have seen other horrors, I can complete the thought that began over seven months ago, when Dad caught me staring at them.

I wasn't just curious about the girls' lives.

I was jealous .

I craved what they had, but I was terrified of my parents seeing that I wanted a more traditional life. It felt like a betrayal to them to desire what we didn't—or maybe couldn't —have. I didn't know about our residency issues, but I was aware we didn't have a lot of money.

"College."

As soon as I say the word, it feels like I've dislodged something that got caught in my throat years ago.

Sebastián rolls onto his side, giving me his full attention.

"I was going to take my GED," I say, staring at the ceiling, feeling like someone else has taken control of my vocal cords. "My parents never brought up the next step after that, but it was all I could think about. We were subletting a place in Asheville, and I hid the college brochures in the boxes of my morning cereal because my parents didn't eat that stuff."

I haven't thought of us in that Asheville place in so long that I feel a pang in my chest.

"I didn't want to break up our trio, but I dreamed of going to college and moving into a dorm. I'd have my own room, and friends, and access to a school library. I could finally stand still and feel rooted somewhere. I guess the lesson is be careful what you wish for," I add, my voice dropping out.

Sebastián presses a kiss to my wrist. "Thank you. For sharing that with me."

"What about you?" I ask. "Is there anything you wanted for yourself back home?"

After a moment, he says, " Blue bear, " so soft I'm not sure I heard it.

"Before you, I had only cared for one being," he says, "whom you called blue bear . All young Bleeders get one as our first kill. He is our first meal once we begin to hunt our own blood, only I chose to keep mine alive. Whatever instinct impelled me do that, my father made sure to strangle it. There is no room for softness in my world, especially not among royalty. It is a weakness I was born with that I was sure had been crushed. I never dared want anything for myself again."

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"My father's will is the only one that matters where I am from. He has been pressuring me to find a mate and perform the blood-bond, but with someone of his choosing. That is the real reason I accepted your sister's offer. I could handle loneliness alone, but to share it with a stranger sounded insufferable."

"What's the blood-bond?" I ask.

"An exchange of blood between mates that serves as the basis for procreation among my kind. Bleeder offspring are rare, and conception depends on the strength of the connection."

"So only Bleeders who are in love can get pregnant?"

He chuckles. " Love has nothing to do with it. There is a special sac in which we must deposit our blood, and then we bury it in fertile soil where we regularly feed it more of our blood. Only the most powerful blood-bonds can produce a child strong enough to climb out from the ground."

"That's so bizarre," I say, trying to picture it. "I hate the thought of you being blood-bonded or whatever to some amazing Bleeder and forgetting all about me."

He shakes his head. "If blue bear taught me anything, it is that when you care for someone, they stay with you forever. Even if all we get together is one hundred Earth years, I will carry the eternal heartache of your loss, and I will still be better off for having known you."

I curl more tightly into him, wishing I could pause life and stay like this for as long as possible; but after what feels like only a minute, he says, "Estela… it is almost time."

"No," I groan, but I can feel that the blackness has lifted, and sunrise is near, which means Sebastián will soon be gone.

"I want to make sure you are ready for today," he says. "Your uncle could show at any moment."

We get up, and after I use the bathroom, we stand together in front of the window. Gray light streams into the room.

"I'm eighteen today," I murmur, mostly to myself.

"It is the day of your birth," says Sebastián. "I have read that humans celebrate this occasion."

"I don't feel much like celebrating," I say with a shrug.

"We will have to change that when I see you tonight," he says with a smirk, even though the silver of his eyes swirls like a storm. "You remember how to tie the knots, right?"

I nod. The gray sky is giving way to blue, and there's no denying the sun is rising. Sebastián is going to vanish into thin air, and now that I have just seconds left, I don't want to lose a single one.

He seems to have the same idea because we begin to make out like the world is ending and any moment an asteroid will take us out. His kisses taste like blackberries and chocolate and minty ice cream.

I feel the first ray of light warm my face. Day has come, and Sebastián is going to disappear…

But we're still making out.

We pull apart and stare at each other in the brightening air. It's early morning, and he's still here.

"The black seeds," he says in awe.

I laugh in open delight. This is the perfect birthday gift.

Thank you, Bea.