Page 47 of Once Upon an Enchanted Castle

“I assumed they were all dead, and I had sent them to their doom. Days later, a lone survivor returned, bloodied and beaten, his body broken. Nothing more than a ghost of the man he once was. He rambled about monsters made of shadow and smoke. I thought he was mad. No one had seen such things in our world. He was dying, you see. Whatever shadow thing he fought infected him, turning him into one of them.”

He paused here, his gaze returning to her. At the mention of the shadow thing, her heart lurched, and a sick feeling crept into the pit of her stomach. She believed without a doubt she had seen this shadow thing along the docks in the port. Her father’s crew, too, had seen it. Somehow, it had crept back into their world. She thought of the book and the whispers from the pages. Whispers that had not returned since she started translating it once again.

“He was someone you knew,” she guessed.

He nodded. “My brother.”

Albert.The name written in the margin of the book leapt to her mind. Though she didn’t ask him, she was certain this was the name of his brother.

“I refused to let this dark magical being take him, control him, and turn him against me. He was all the family I had left. My mother died when we were children. My father had recently passed. In desperation, I sought something—anything—to keep him from dying and turning. The old kings forbade dark magic, but I searched for it, anyway. I sent emissaries to seek out libraries and bring back whatever volumes they found, buying them from their owners. Stealing them when they had to.”

He paused here, as though remembering that time. His hand brushed across his chin, his palm whispering against his skin.

“At last, I found the spell sealed in an ancient book written in the cursed language. I broke the seal. I said the words in the cryptic, thorny language. It was as though the shadow beast sprang from the pages. I begged it to save his life. To make him whole again. But that came at a steep price. A price I was willing to pay. I offered myself in his place, if only to save my brother.”

He pressed his lips together.

“And, so, it cursed you,” she finished.

Nodding, he said, “Cursed me to live between worlds. And marked me.”

Gooseflesh erupted along her arms and snaked down her spine, leaving a cold tingling sensation. He knew, all this time, the book was the key to breaking his curse. He knew the moment she showed it to him standing on the street outside the bookshop. That was why he insisted he hire her. Why he continued to insist she translate the book despite the strange occurrences in his castle.

He gave a humorless laugh. “When my brother found out what I’d done, he didn’t even thank me. He didn’t understand the price I paid for his life. Instead, he tried to kill me and steal the crown.”

Again, he stopped here and rose to his feet. He moved toward the hearth, leaning on the marble mantle with his back to her, as if he didn’t want to tell her the rest of the story. The muscles in his back were pulled taut. Tension filled the space between them.

“What happened then?” she asked, her voice timid and soft in the small room.

His back stiffened, the muscles flexing under the soft material of his shirt. “I killed him.”

A sorrow filled her, as she stared at him, and suddenly, unbidden, hot tears pounded against the backs of her eyes. He sounded so desolate, so guilt-ridden, when he said it, it was all she could do to remain seated. She clenched her hands into tight fists, wanting to go to him, to offer him comfort but uncertain what comfort to give him.

Finally, he turned to face her. For the first time, in his face, she saw a hint of something ancient. It struck her then, then. In all her readings, she never recalled an ancient kingdom that once ruled the realm of Cassoné.

She had one more question to ask him. “If I may ask, what was your brother’s name?”

“His name was Albert.”

Chapter 20

Inallthelong,lonely years of his life, he had never told anyone about his brother or the curse that bound him to immortality. When Albert learned the dark truth about him, he was horrified. He’d started planning the coup almost immediately.

He had not shared with her he was a man by day, a dangerous beast by night. Perhaps it was just as well she returned to her country home every evening and not stay here in this vast castle alone with him. Despite all his and Dickens’ precautions, he broke through his bonds every night.

Hewasdangerous. He was evil incarnate. He was death.

At breakfast, she’d questioned him about the howling wolves. She’d heard it near her small estate. It terrified him to know his beastly self was so close to her in the night. Though the full moon was waning and heading toward a new moon, his transformation continued. That, too, terrified him. For he suspected the curse was getting stronger and, eventually, would become permanent.

Leopold finally gathered his wits enough to cast a glance in her direction. She looked bereft, her lovely face creased with sorrow. He didn’t want her pity.

He thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. When she whisked them away, it confirmed his suspicion. She recomposed herself and straightened.

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

He wanted to fire off an acid reply telling her to keep her condolences to herself, the anger pumping under the surface. But he remained mute, watching her as she cast her eyes down to her clasped hands in her lap.

“What you did for him…your sacrifice…it should have meant the world to him. His betrayal must have cut you deep.”

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