Page 38 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

“Sounds the same to me.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“While you being jealous of the scenarios you’ve made up in your head is the epitome of seriousness, right?”

I ignored him, returning my attention to my disconcertingly feverish reflection in the mirror. I pinned up the last of my curls. Put on my earrings. Grabbed my perfume bottle. Hector refused to leave my side. He watched me with keen fascination, as if I were going through the most interesting tasks in the world.

“You must make haste. It’s almost midnight. We shouldn’t leave our guests waiting,” I urged, running the perfume wand from behind my ears to the dip of my collarbones.

Suddenly, Hector bent over me and took the underside of my jaw in his hand. My breath hitched at the abrupt contact, but I dared not move as he angled my head to the side and lowered his face to the crook of my neck. He inhaled deeply. Once. Twice. “Is this why you always smell of roses?” he asked as he pulled himself upright, completely unaware of the underlying sensuality of what he’d just done.

ButIwas aware. Terribly, painfully aware.

My hand shook a little as I let the wand slip back into the pink bottle. “It’s from Oliar’s Palace,” I croaked. “It’s this little shop in Thaloria. Esperida took me there on my sixteenth birthday and got it for me. I haven’t stopped wearing it since.”

At the mention of Esperida, the tension in the room changed, shifting from fickle and playful to heavy and mournful. When Hector spoke again, his voice was low, barely a murmur. “I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to the funeral. You should have been there, and it’s my fault you weren’t. I know an apology doesn’t fix what I’ve done. I know how cruel it was of me.” He turned his face away. “But… I don’t know, Thea. Maybe this is all that I can be.”

I tried to swallow around the boulder in my throat, but it was impossible. It was forged from things so much stronger than me. Sorrow and grief and bone-deep anger, for Iknewthis was not all he could be. “Did you hate me that much?”

“I could never hate you,” he whispered.

“Then why didn’t you write to me? And I’m not just talking about the funeral. I know you were too devastated to write then, but earlier—”

A sudden knock made us both flinch. Hector fixed his shirt quickly and rushed to the door, cracking it open only wide enough to give me a glimpse of Alexandria’s long, lustrous braids.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” she said courteously, and I was surprised by the deep quality of her voice, which didn’t match her youthful appearance. “Mikko and Delyth wanted to ask you something.”

As Hector opened the door fully, I saw the twins’ white-clad forms standing hand in hand before their mother, their wide, unblinking eyes pinned on Hector.

“Good evening, Lord Aventine,” Mikko said with an eerie formality for a ten-year-old.

“Please, you can just call me Hector,” Hector reassured him.

The boy did not return the sentiment. “Well, sir, we don’t mean any disrespect.”

“We really, really don’t,” Delyth contributed, with her high, ghostly voice ringing as solemn as Mikko’s.

“But could we be excused from tonight’s dinner?” continued Mikko, prompting a rather unsettling dialogue between him and his sister.

“For you see, Mother says it’s going to be a very adult evening…”

“Since Aunt Camilla will be there…”

“And as we’ve stumbled upon your observatory…”

“And discovered the most peculiar set of instruments…”

“Like your telescope, for example, that sees into other Realms…”

“Yes, how remarkably delightful to sit in your room and watch the fairies dance through the glass…”

“We would like your permission to spend our night there…”

“And promise that by dawn we’ll be in bed…”

“Is that alright with you, sir?” Delyth finished, and the two of them stared expectantly at Hector.

“Of course,” said Hector warily. “The Castle will set you a nice dinner up there.”

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