Page 3

Thea

L anterns hung on both sides of the massive door, but neither of them was providing illumination tonight. Still, I could see it clearly, set deep in the center of the gnarled surface like a gemstone: the letter A , surrounded by withered vines and gold filigree. People around the Realm called this the vampire castle in the sky, but for the few who’d wandered past this sacred door, it was simply Aventine Castle.

Several seconds passed before the Castle deigned to open its door, confirming its reluctance to let me in. Pricks of anxiety crept over my spine, making me still, a stilling of everything but breath and pulse.

You came all this way. For once in your life, finish what you started, the exasperated voice in my head grumbled.

My fist clenched around the grip of my suitcase as I finally stepped inside, the tremendous door closing behind me with a reverberating thud. Long shadows lapped over the room like deep sea water. Then I was in the dark.

“Hector?” I called out.

No answer.

I took another wary step, my eyes stretching wide to catch as many fragments of the deserted hall as the enduring gloom allowed.

It was impossible to describe the Castle in terms of breadth or height. It changed constantly and on its master’s whim—Hector’s whim now. With its indecisive proportions and fairylike ambiance, it often looked like something you had dreamt or read about in a story rather than a real-life place.

Yet for the first time, the Castle didn’t seem to be a living, ever-changing entity. It was lightless and eerily quiet, its air of abandonment filling me with a primeval sense of dread. Goosebumps surfaced all across my body. The hairs at the nape of my neck stirred against the chill.

The foyer, with its black paneled walls and impossibly high ceiling, stood cold and dark. The various chandeliers, spangling the entry up until the grand stairs, had fallen into disrepair, the countless rows of crystals dangling lifeless and dull amid the golden branches. The only illumination was coming from the stained glass window above the door, a softly filtered red light painting the room in the most unsettling of shades.

I tried using the compass as my guide again, but it was not bright enough to battle this darkness, so I set my suitcase atop the large bench by the door and rummaged through it for my matches. Clearly, the Castle wasn ’ t feeling cooperative tonight, so I would have to make my own light.

After I found the box of matches, tucked haphazardly amid my undergarments, I grabbed one of the lamps that hung on ornate brackets along the entrance’s walls and pulled at it with all of my strength.

The Castle resisted me—of course, it did, the old bastard—but I gritted my teeth and yanked harder, cold metal digging into the skin of my palms. “I will hammer it out of the wall if you don’t surrender it to me. You know I’m not bluffing,” I growled.

The lamp gave in abruptly with an angry clink, and I had to stagger, impromptu lantern in hand, to keep my footing.

Blowing the curls off my eyes, I raised the wick to my nose and nodded contentedly at the smell of fresh oil. “That’s better,” I muttered, stifling my trembling anxiety so I could focus on lighting it up. After a try or two, a little orange flame licked the inside glass.

With a sigh of relief, I held it out before me and sailed toward the stairs, my flickering shadow being my only visible companion.

As I reached the wide landing after which the stairs twisted and looped in both directions, I was attacked by yet another swarm of memories. When Esperida would hold her annual winter ball, hosting every vampire family in the Realm, Hector and I would dance on this very landing to the music drifting from the ballroom above, since humans—with the sole exception of Eron—were not allowed to attend any of these balls and gatherings.

Their world was a sacred one, a world of precarious balance and clandestine codes of honor. Only here, in their Castle in the sky, did the vampires have the freedom to be their true selves. The creatures of our nightmares. The creatures of the night. To them, night was not something dreadful that one had to endure until dawn. It was its own kingdom with its own secret laws, and only they were allowed to enter it.

But Hector was not made of darkness alone, and so here he had danced with me on those nights. Haltingly. Bashfully. With his hand in a closed fist against my back so he wouldn’t touch me.

Now there was barely any space to move on the landing, much less dance. The grand chandelier that used to dazzle above it dangled so low that some of the teardrop-shaped crystals were brushing against the carpet while others lay crushed to pieces around it, glinting like a spill of treasure in the demonic red light.

Gingerly, with a boulder lodged in my throat, I stepped around it and trailed up the left set of stairs. Although both sides unraveled into identical drapery-hung balconies, which then unwound into more stairs, creating a structure that seemed to spiral up into an infinity of destinations, I remembered that if you wanted to reach the bedrooms, you should always turn left.

I could also recall that this first level had been its own little forest once, covered in ivy and lichen and sprouts of multicolored minerals. I tried to console myself with the vividness of this memory. I know this path. These are the stones Hector’s hands have touched. This is the grass his feet have walked. But the corridor was as unfamiliar and lightless as the entrance and even darker without the moonlight filtering through the rose window.

These walls were no longer covered with moss but with a sequence of paintings and onyx pedestals, the elaborate vases atop them holding bouquets of dead roses, their blackened stems and aged thorns forming unsettling, cobweb patterns.

The art, which had always been peculiar, as most things about the Castle were, had taken on a darker edge as well. These paintings used to tell stories of the sky and its many mysteries. Now they were abstract pieces of horror, full of blood moons, demon skulls, and rotting arrangements of fruits and florals. I could almost smell the decay through the canvas, hear the buzz of the flies circling their spoiled flesh.

Out of everything, the Castle’s willingness to embrace all things dead was the most concerning to me. Dreadfully, chillingly concerning. In truth, I grew so nervous that my hand holding the lamp started to shake, the little magic in my veins rising to warn me, Turn around and leave. If you follow this destiny now, you will not be able to abandon it later.

I didn’t want to listen. That was the problem with me. I always gave myself excellent advice, but I was never very good at following it.

“Could you point me in the right direction, at least?” I grumbled to the Castle.

Something in the wall to my left gleamed, one of the Castle’s many secrets, which Esperida had only shared with Eron, Hector, and me.

The Castle had multiple surfaces of running water set and framed into the walls like mirrors. They resembled waterfalls trickling over glass, something whimsical but decorative. In reality, they were portals that could take you anywhere within the Castle’s halls. The downside, however, was that they had a mind of their own. Not only was it impossible to choose your destination, but as you passed through them, you also got drenched to the bone.

Water , Esperida had explained to me once, is purifying . This one more than others. If you want to move through the Castle’s bones, you have to be cleansed of any mortal vanity.

But water, sacred or not, was still water, and I was already feeling the beginnings of a terrible cold creeping on me.

I decided it was wiser to ignore the Castle’s fiendish suggestion altogether, as my reflection in the mirror was alarming enough. My unbound curls were littered with pink petals, my complexion had taken on a rather ashen appearance, and my eyes were tugged so gruesomely wide you’d think they were trying to pop out of my skull.

And I could have sworn there was something in the glass. Something slippery and silver-white. Something shimmering. Something watching me.

I snapped my eyes shut, cursing my fear and wild imagination. When I opened them again, there was only frazzled old me, the lamp clattering in my trembling hand.

“At least warm the place a bit,” I bristled at the Castle. “Light a fire, perhaps?”

The temperature took a dramatic plunge, and my teeth started to chatter.

“Old bastard,” I hissed under my breath, continuing to shiver my way in the dim.

At the end of the hallway, another unfamiliar space opened up, a huge, round room with damask-dressed walls. As I raised my lamp, the light caught intricate patterns of untamed flora. Eventually they turned from fabric to real ivy and primrose, trailing up the vaulted ceiling and curling around the single lantern that dangled over the midpoint from a long brass chain.

Five entrances were circling the room, not including the one I’d just gone through. Four of them were arches, leading to other dark, mysterious corridors, but the one in the middle was a door. It stood ajar enough for a thin band of light to creep past the sill and stretch over the black and white squares of the floor. The light was dull and unsteady. It quivered like my heart.

Cautiously, with my breath caught in the siphon of my throat, I pushed the door further open, its screeching making the skin of my neck crawl.

The room was large but intimate, with dark walls and mismatched mahogany furniture. There was a great deal of velvet as well, hanging over the window and fitted over the armchairs. The ceiling was a dome, a night sky strewn with countless four-pointed stars, some artfully painted, others fragments of the universe itself.

What drew my attention the most, though, was the floor, which was covered by overlapping burgundy rugs and littered by a dizzying array of crystal decanters. They gleamed blood-red under the flickering light of the candelabra in the corner, holding about a dozen smoldering candles, wax dripping down the pale tapers. The decanters I knew were of wine and not of blood, for the whole place reeked of liquor and ripe sweetness.

At the far edge of the room, a massive, four-poster bed swam in various dark textures. And in the center of it lay a man.

I had only ever thought of Hector as a boy, but there was no doubt that the person on this bed was a man.

He was naked save for a pair of white linen undershorts, lying on his back with one knee bent and one arm thrown above his head. The candlelit beauty of his body was something of a marvel. It drew my eye against my will and struck from me a sudden sense of longing.

Hector had always been a beautiful boy, tall and lean-muscled with a gentle, aristocratic face, carved by a loving hand.

But everything about him was harder and broader now. His sculpted chest and abdomen, his strong arms, even the defined line of his jaw looked unfamiliar to me. He seemed taller too—tremendous, in fact—his long, muscled legs taking up almost the entire length of the bed.

With a low, restive sound, he turned, and the candlelight hit his face.

My heart sank. Everything inside me sank.

He was as pale as the moon, the skin around his closed eyelids etched with purple shadows. His full lips were slightly parted and pulled over his fangs. His dark brows were pinched, his expression tormented, as if he was having some kind of a nightmare.

Without thinking much of it, I rushed to his side, set the lamp on the nightstand, and climbed up on the bed. The sudden movement made him stir, murmuring something unintelligible under his breath. I bent over him and touched a hand to his forehead. He was cold as ice.

“Hector?” I called gently, and when he didn’t respond, I cupped his bare shoulders and shook him a little. “Gods, when’s the last time you fed?”

The words barely left my mouth before his big hand shot out and gripped my wrist. The entire room tilted as he yanked me down, rolled over, and pinned me against the bed with the weight of his body.

I screamed, first in surprise, then in sheer terror, as he hovered inches above me with his fangs bared, his veins throbbing, and his wide-open eyes shifting into the vivid, unadulterated red of bloodlust.

I used to think the way vampire eyes changed to crimson in moments of rage or hunger was like gazing at a sunset. One moment you were savoring the colors, and the next it was too dark to see. But I found no beauty in it now. Only bone-deep horror.

“Hector!” I shrieked, writhing against him as he seized both of my wrists and pinned them high above my head.

“How dare you invade my Castle?” he roared with the wrath of a thousand gods. The whole room shuddered. The bottles on the floor rolled around clattering. The windowpane across the bed rattled, threatening to burst open.

“For the love of the sky, you drunken brute! It’s me, Thea!”

How much could he have drunk to render himself unable to recognize his own best friend? Fine, perhaps not his best friend, but still.

“Oh…” he mumbled.

Gradually, like moving through a dream, his grip on my wrists relaxed, the red in his eyes dissolving into a familiar hazel-grey. Amber around the edges and pure woodsmoke in the center, a reverse sunburst that eased my fear only to fill me with nostalgia.

It sawed at me—the surge of memories that these eyes brought me. I often called what happened between Hector and me a fight. But it hadn’t been a fight. It had been a rupture. A shared destiny split down the middle.

Recognition had yet to grace his face, though. He looked at me through glassy, half-lidded eyes, the rise and fall of his shoulders slowing.

I yanked my hands free and brought them against his chest to push him back. But he was solid, impenetrable. Nothing gave way beneath my fingers. The bow of his lips seemed to rest a ribbon’s breadth from mine. We were so close I could smell nothing but him. Incense and soap and sweet cherry wine. And something else that was only his. Something I didn’t have the words to describe. Sometimes, when we were kids, I would pick fights and wrestle with him just to have this smell on my own skin later.

“Oh, I see now,” he murmured groggily. “I’m dreaming again. I’m dreaming of her.” A soft sigh escaped me as I felt the warmth of his fingers in my hair. “Her dark curls.” Slowly, he brought them lower to trace the arch of my brow. “Her lovely eyes.” Then, with a look of utter despair, he cupped my jaw and passed his thumb over the curve of my mouth. “Her lips. Gods, her lips. A holy man’s undoing.”

I watched him, dazed, as he used his thumb to nudge my lips apart, his face lowering to mine. For a heart-stopping second, I thought he was going to kiss me, and I was paralyzed from shock—shock and disbelief and a hint of the most unexpected sense of desire.

My whole body seemed to grow both taut and liquid with anticipation, my skin blazing as he moved closer. Closer. But then his lips brushed past my cheek, and he caved into the crook of my neck, his hands slipping down to grip my waist and pull me up on the bed so that his hips were aligned with mine and he could hold me against him as firmly as he wished.

“You smell so good,” he rasped, and to my further astonishment, his tongue darted out and traced a circle over the sensitive skin of my throat.

A strange feeling of suspense sloshed in my stomach as his fangs scraped the base of my neck, for a vampire’s bite was not as dreadful or deadly as some wanted to believe. It didn’t turn you like them unless their blood was already in your system, and it didn’t kill you if it was done properly. In fact, the vampire venom was famed to be the sweetest, most euphoric of intoxicants, the bite itself often described as something akin to fairy wine—a quick and thrilling way to lose all sense of reason. And of course, the stronger the vampire, the more potent the venom, and Hector… Well, he was the son of Esperida. I could only imagine how powerful his venom would be.

“I swear to the gods, Hector, if you bite me, I will defang you,” I grunted.

But Hector wasn’t listening. He was lost in a fever dream, chasing after his mystery woman. “That scent,” he groaned again, burying his nose in my hair. “Like honey and roses and magic.”

I couldn’t help the whimper that leapt from my lips. I would trust Hector with my life, but I was still painfully aware of my vulnerability, the strength of his body against the softness of my own.

Suddenly, as if he’d sensed my apprehension—and knowing him, he probably had on some subconscious level—he pulled back and just… stared at me, with pinched brows and eyes full of tears, cupping gently the side of my face.

“How lucky that dreams exist,” he said. “I wish to dream of you every night. I wish to go mad from it.”

“Hector,” I sighed, stunned by his delirium and fervor, this utterly unfamiliar side of him.

Who was he talking about with such heartbreaking longing in his voice? What manner of woman was haunting his dreams? The boy I knew cared nothing for romance, nothing for love. But I was starting to fear that this boy was forever lost.

He made a desperate sound deep in his throat as he rolled off me, falling on his back on the bed.

I lay there for a moment, numbed from adrenaline and revelation.

Then he turned, eyes closed, and took my hand in his. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Everyone always leaves me.”

In the mournful silence of the Castle, my heart strained with something I could not name. Grief and hope and memory all at once.