Chapter Twenty-Three #3
“Julia?” I ask, shoving my cold hands into my pockets. The woods around us grow dense, and my eyes struggle to adapt to the new depth of darkness.
“Whatever her name is,” Aliz says. “I saw you both holding hands. It was adorable.”
An immature side of me wants to tell her that something is going on between us.
I want her to think that I have options, and that she’s not the only vampire I’m interested in.
But I can’t risk spreading a rumor that will affect Julia.
Just as I think of a reply that will get under Aliz’s skin, I trip on a fallen branch.
Aliz catches me, pulling me back against her chest. “Sorry,” she says, her voice an inch softer. “I forgot that you can’t see in the dark.”
“Pesky human eyes,” I reply. She laughs. I wish I could bottle the sound. She still has an arm around me, but instead of letting go, she links her elbow with mine, keeping me at her side.
“I don’t want you to fall again,” she says. The woods are quiet. No one can see us. But I feel like I’m doing something unspeakable by not moving away. “This doesn’t bother you, does it?” she asks.
“What?”
“Being so close.”
“I hate it,” I say simply. Aliz laughs again, though this time there’s a darkness to the sound. She leans down, suddenly too close.
“I know you’re lying,” she whispers against my ear. “Aren’t you?”
“Sure I am,” I hiss, tugging myself free. What’s wrong with her tonight?
“C’mon,” Aliz says, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t be cross with me, Cassie.”
“Stop annoying me, then,” I say.
“Annoying? Me?” she says. I wait for her to keep going, but instead she slows, staring through the branches at something I can’t see yet.
I hear her swallow, all while the hand resting on my shoulder plays with the fabric of my coat, nervous.
The path starts to clear, and the semblance of an old road splits the woods in half.
In the distance, I hear the river, and straight ahead, looming through shadows, the decrepit palace I saw in my dreams.
“Home sweet home,” Aliz says, unease in her voice.
“You scared?” I ask.
The path is even, and the starry sky lends just enough light to the dirt road for me to know I won’t trip again. All the same, Aliz keeps her arm around me.
“I moved in here the night I arrived,” Aliz says.
“With two maids and a bodyguard. But even with them nearby, it was terrifying. I couldn’t sleep.
I kept hearing sounds in the attic. There are rumors that there’s someone squatting up there, but even though I lived here for two years before moving to Tynarrich, I never saw them. ”
The windows, which in my dreams are always smashed in, are intact. The frizzled-up wisteria is somehow in full bloom, despite being months past its season. Perhaps, like the rest of the small palace, the vines are frozen in time, lilac petals turned to glass.
It doesn’t feel real. How could I have dreamt of a place like this before seeing it? I stare up, taking in every detail that matches the palace that haunts us both at night. When I glance at Aliz, she’s doing the same, a grimace hardening her jaw.
The one thing that’s missing now, though, is the panic I feel at the start of our dreams. Aliz’s eyes are black. I don’t have to run from her. And she’s not going to chase me.
“Is that why you moved to Tynarrich?” I ask, as we approach the front gate. “Because of a squatter in your attic?”
“It was a contributing factor,” Aliz says. “I wanted to feel like an ordinary student. And nothing set me apart from my classmates like living in a place like this.”
She gestures up at the towering stone facade, and I try to imagine her leaving Hungary behind and moving into this lonely and decrepit place. What exactly made her move here? “Where is the maze?” I ask.
“Across the river,” she says, letting go of my shoulder. “But I don’t want to go near it.”
The palace’s front garden is overgrown, tall bushes and weeds crawling over the path, blocking our way. Aliz draws out an old, oxidized key. The front doors groan as she pushes them open.
“Why not?” I ask. My voice echoes into the dark hall.
Aliz ignores my question, searching the ground for something.
A second later, a lantern lights up in her hands, an old fashioned one with a black frame encasing a candle.
She holds it up, its golden glow illuminating dozens of sculptures and paintings lining the walls.
Something akin to vertigo stops me from moving as I stare along the hall. It’s just like the one from my dreams. I can’t wrap my head around it being a real place.
I follow Aliz into the hallway and stare up at the paintings.
Even in the dim light, I can make out her features, and I know it’s her: Ada Astra is painted like Circe, amongst lions.
She’s in a deep burgundy gown, and her white hair is piled above her head in intricate curls, her lips ruby red.
She’s breathtaking and terrifying. The sort of vampire I’m glad I’ll never cross paths with.
This time, though, none of the paintings come to life. Even so, I’m afraid to walk past them, in case the paint cracks and she reaches out, covered in blood.
“You know why,” Aliz says, snapping my attention back to our conversation.
“Every nightmare has the exact same ending,” she whispers, low enough for her voice to not echo off the ceiling, chipped frescoes adorning the surface.
There’s a faint whiff of soot, a chimney that must have been burning a few days ago. “I always catch you.”
She runs a hand down my back, and I swallow hard, playing with the wire frame of my glasses.
A grand staircase marks the end of the hall. Behind it is the crystal ballroom, stars and branches visible through the glass ceiling. “Do you know where your sister’s bedroom is?” I ask.
“Upstairs,” she says. We begin our ascent, marble stairs covered in dust. A large portrait of Ada Astra decorates the landing, this one displaying a more natural side of the old heir.
She’s in a flowy, Grecian inspired dress, and her white hair falls in soft waves to her hips.
Her blue eyes follow me as I walk past her.
“She was pretty,” I say. Aliz frowns at me.
“Like me?”
“You’re…” I glance at her, attempting my best impression of indifference. I cup her cheek. “Gorgeous.” It’s true, but I ensure sarcasm drips from my voice, as saccharine as I can muster. She bristles, pursing her lips.
“Cassie,” she complains. “Don’t be mean.”
“Don’t fish for compliments,” I reply.
The walls of the first floor are identical to those on the ground floor, a variety of sculptures, marble and bronze with limbs reaching out to grab passersby.
Behind them, though, instead of paintings are mirrors.
I gawk at my reflection. I barely resemble myself, my dyed red hair with a brassiness in it that I’d not noticed before.
But worse are my features, flushed, glasses hiding eyes that are somehow…softer. Everything about me before reaching Tynahine, all my edges and sharp corners, are blunt now, curved. I’m a picture of health. What would Penny think if she saw me?
The lantern moves, floating away, and only then do I remember Aliz doesn’t have a reflection.
Just like last time, I can hear her, feel her, but she’s missing.
Instantly, I’m there, ten days ago, just after finding the mark crawling across my collarbones, her hand tugging my hair, her tongue running up my neck, fingers slipping beneath my shirt, pressing her knee between my legs.
“It’s creepy,” Aliz says. “Perhaps you should hold the lantern, so it doesn’t look like you’re being stalked by a ghost.”
I take it from her, its weight enough to ground my thoughts. Just then, my old phone vibrates. I draw it out, Penny’s face filling the screen. I decline the call as fast as I can and shove it back into my pocket.
“You could have answered,” Aliz says.
“It’s fine,” I say. It vibrates again. I can practically see Penny, sitting in her office, irritation blooming across her features. I decline the call again and hold my phone close, out of sight as I open our chat. Can’t talk, I type quickly.
“Your girlfriend?” Aliz asks.
“Why are you so obsessed with my love life?” I counter. My voice comes out too harsh, leaving no room for a lighthearted reply.
“I’m not,” she says curtly. Luckily enough, Penny doesn’t call again, though she doesn’t reply to my text, either.
I feel myself growing awkward, until Aliz says: “That’s her room.
” Her voice changes, lowering with graveness.
Double doors stand at the end of the mirrored hall, sculptures at either side holding long swords.
Somehow, Ada Astra’s room is exactly what I was expecting.
A grandiose chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling, crystals catching the lantern’s glow.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room is free of dust, as if someone has been taking care of it.
The walls boast painted landscapes framed in gold.
There are swords perched on the wall, too, some with a gleaming sheen to them, iron or silver, while others are rusty needles that look like they’d crumble the moment you touch them.
At the centre of the room, on a stained-glass podium three steps high, is a coffin. It’s a monstrous thing, as wide as my own bed, padded with red cushions. The white wood looks like porcelain, and engraved in gold is the same emblem that decorates Aliz’s coffin. And my neck.
She stops beside me, staring at it. “What if someone’s inside?” she whispers.
A cold draft slams the door shut. Aliz jumps at the sound, grabbing my shoulders and letting go just as fast. She hisses something under her breath. Then the palace is completely silent.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I finally say. “This is your sister’s coffin, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Aliz says.
“Can I open it?” I ask, making my way up the three steps.
“Go ahead,” she says. Her arms are crossed, and she shifts uncomfortably, looking between me and the coffin.