Page 74 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

Back at the bedroom, it was a different world. Bright, clear, ineffably lovely. Dorothea had drawn back the curtains, and the eager spring sun was soaking the overlapping rugs in unsteady golden pools. The Castle was floating a bit higher than usual, and the view out of the dewed glass was a cotton-candy daydream.

When she turned, an instant pang of desire went through me. The sunlight caught her face, her neck, the top of her breastbone before it disappeared beneath the white cotton of her nightdress. Everything about her was gleaming and reflecting as if she were celestial, a girl made of nothing but magic and reveries. The rest of the room stood transfigured in relation to her.

“Is everything alright?” she asked sleepily.

“I have to go hunting.”

She nodded, trudging toward the bed with half-lidded eyes. “I’ll try to get some sleep before the ceremony.”

I caught her wrist just as her knee dipped into the mattress. “Are we okay? No regrets?”

Her smile was a drowsy sunrise, slowly lighting up the valley of her face. She got on her toes and pressed a kiss to my lips. Brief. Soft. Yet it ignited a fire in my bones. Now all I wanted wasto splay her on this bed, kiss vows up her thighs, and have the fullness of her breasts in my hands again.

“No regrets,” she promised, and I believed she meant it.

She looked… content. More than I’d seen her be in a long, long time. There weren’t any words good enough to describe what her happiness did to me, only that it made me feel reassured and healed in channels of my heart that had stood scraped raw for years now.

As she climbed onto the bed, the nightdress clung to the curve of her hips, gliding over and between her thighs in a way that made me inwardly groan. I’d been with women before. One woman, to be precise—a comfortable and clandestine affair that only existed when I happened to be in Kartha, which ended permanently and unobtrusively after my parents’ death. But that was beside the point. The point was that Ishouldbe able to show a bit more restraint in a situation like this. If only my good reason and sober composure didn’t evaporate into thin air every time I breathed near this girl.

“I was wondering,” Thea prompted as she settled between the row of pillows.

“Yes?” I encouraged.

She looked at me curiously. “What happens next?”

I shook my head, chuckling. “That is a very funny thing for a seer to ask.”

“I know,” she admitted, her gaze growing bleary, far-off. “I just wish I had the answer.”

I thought for a moment. I thought the way Mother would, allowing this small part of me that was undeniably hers to rise to the surface, a surface that was not perfect or unmarked by any means, but at least a brighter place than this pit of sorrow and regret that had opened up inside me ever since I lost them. It was strange trying to think like her, but it was also comforting. Arevelation, even. I was no longer afraid to confront her absence or admit that my need for her guidance hadn’t died with her.

In moments like this, I wished I could talk to the Castle.Reallytalk to it, not just watch it bring to fruition my every desire and command. But the Castle was quiet, quieter than usual, its grief ancient and unyielding compared to my own mortal one.

I was beginning to understand why so many places in the world stood haunted and why so many morbid stories followed them even centuries after the tragedies that had befallen them. People had the ability to change and therefore the ability to heal. Places were eternal. And so were their wounds.

In the end, no voices of wisdom reached me from the great beyond. There was only me. Imperfect. Scarred. A heart full of human hope. And for the first time in my life, this didn’t seem too terrible of a fate.

“I don’t think there is a next, Dorothea,” I finally said. “I think there is only now.”

30

Thea

As it was getting close to dusk, I sailed down to the kitchen and started on the ceremonial wine. Hector’s ascension to vampire society wasn’t going to be the celebration we had hoped for, but I still wanted to bring back some normalcy into our lives, a touch of sweetness amid the trial and death of the past few days.

The wine simmered with cloves, cinnamon, orange peels, and two cups of blueberries for half an hour before it was time to stir a generous amount of honey into the mixture. I left it on the stove a few more minutes, then let it cool so I could strain it. The kitchen was warm and sweet-smelling now, and the dusk outside was a sunburst of periwinkle and peach.

The flickering candles by the window, the smell of the wine, the coziness of the kitchen… I almost felt like I was back in Thaloria, at Nepheli’s balmy apartment in the city, where we would curl up after our classes to have something to eat and discuss our day.

Since her wedding was in less than six weeks, I would probably never get to see that apartment again. The thought came with a surge of melancholia. I had no idea what the next chapter of my life was going to look like. I wished I could have a vision, a peek into the future, but no matter how much Iconcentrated or called upon my powers, there was nothing but a vast whiteness, a void waiting to be filled. Perhaps destiny, much like Hector, was trying to teach me the value of now.

I left the wine on the counter and went upstairs to the treasure room, looking for something appropriate to wear. Instead, I found Hector, dressed in a fine white tunic and formal black trousers. His one hand was adorned with his golden wristlet, the other with the signet ring Esperida had gifted him at his sixteenth birthday. A ring I knew he’d never worn before today.

He was bent over an open trunk, staring at something intensely. When I was close enough, I wrapped my hand around his waist and stole a peek over the crescent of his bicep.

It was a dress, long and white as snow. The sleeveless bodice was bejeweled with pearls, the back decorated with a jumble of crisscross ribbons. The skirts were of gauzy silk, gathering and unfurling around the hem like sea foam. Each wispy layer was embroidered with shimmering white roses, a whole garden of them, no less magnificent than the ones decorating the halls of the Castle.

“It’s beautiful,” I sighed, almost too scared to take it in my hands, as Hector offered it to me.

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