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“Now we know what happened to Dina Frost and Jenny Valetta. Now we know the terrible truth.” Octavia’s fists clench by her sides. “This fiend has been taking our students. It has to be stopped.”
I open my mouth to tell her she’s wrong. But by doing that, I will admit that I knew all along.
“Is Cyrus Dracul the only vampire that has been resurrected?” Laila asks. Her voice trembles.
“Perhaps we should find out,” Octavia says.
She leads us to the back of the crypt, and I frown, confused. I hadn’t thought there was anything back here. And then she whispers something and waves her hand. It reveals a hidden door leading deeper into the castle.
“As the youngest, Cyrus Dracul was kept in the main crypt,” Octavia explains. “I suppose Alaric thought he was the least threatening of the family. The rest are farther down. My mother hid the door, though they never hid Cyrus’s. I believe there was too much Dracul magic attached to it already.”
“Why keep the vampires here at all?” Laila asks. “Why not bury them or burn them somewhere?”
I turn to my roommate with my eyes wide in disbelief. “Burn them?”
“I just don’t understand Alaric’s thinking,” Laila says. “He wanted to get rid of the vampires, right? So why notactuallyget rid of them?”
Octavia leads us through the mysterious doorway and down a set of stone steps. “Dracul Castle is the ancestral seat of the Dracul family, and the magic here is strongest with Dracul blood present in the building. It’s said that Alaric wanted to be able to harness that power, which is why he kept the family down here in the crypts.”
It’s dark here, without the perpetual candles that light our way everywhere else. She swoops her hand again, and the corridor lights up. Unfortunately, it illuminates a rat scurrying up from whatever lies below.
A shiver works its way across my skin. I wonder if Cyrus knew the crypts were connected. If he did, he never told me. I’d assumed the only way to get to his father, mother, and sister was by following the tunnels. But all this time, there was a hidden door. Surely, he couldn’t have opened it without Octavia, though.
My mouth is dry, like all the water in my body has evaporated. I don’t know who brought the ward down. For all I know, Cyrus found a way. And if he did that, he could have found this door too.
Cyrus?I put out feelers with my mind.
Nothing.
He’s left me, and part of me wants to curl up in a corner and rock back and forth. My knees are weak as we take the last steps down into the bowels of the castle. Dank, stale air arrestsmy nostrils. I wonder if anyone has been down here in a hundred years.
I hope not.
Octavia pushes open the next door, and we step into a large chamber not unlike Cyrus’s crypt. Both Laila and I cough as dust is whipped up from the stones below our feet. I wrap my arms around my body for warmth. Octavia’s light follows us in, illuminating our path.
The first things I notice are the same bloodred drapes hanging from the walls. The next are the coffins. Two of them.
Both are empty.
I stop, my feet planted to the ground like I’ve grown roots. My heart jumps around in my chest like it wants to beat its way out of my body.
Two empty coffins.
CYRUS!I scream his name over and over, and there’s something at the very edges of it. A sense of someone looking in. The barest hint of his guilt. It’s there. I’m sure of it.How could you do this? How could you lie to me? Did you use me to gain the knowledge needed to let them out?
No answer.
I watch, numbness spreading from my forehead down to my toes, as Octavia walks towards the coffins. Next to me, Laila is very still, her back ramrod straight. My eyes dart around the crypt, searching every shadow in every corner of the room. We have no guarantee that the vampires are not still inside this room.
“Are they… Do they… belong to… Cyrus’s mother and father?” I ask.
My mind conjures the image of Vladimir Dracul. Thepower-hungry king who enslaved werewolves. A genocidal maniac.
Octavia stops next to the first coffin. She turns slowly towards us, and I can barely hide the terror and hurt on my face.
“I believe these coffins belong to Lavinia and Anastasia Dracul,” she says. Then she nods towards another dark space at the other end of the crypt. “Vladimir Dracul is through there.”
Octavia steps towards that dark corner of the room, and I know we’re about to find out whether Vladimir Dracul has also risen from the dead.
