The Keep: The Watchers (34 page)

T
he day came. Antonsmas…Up Helly Aa…whatever they wanted to call it. I didn’t care. It was my day. The day I’d break into the castle and stake Alcántara.

In a stroke of luck, Frost was nowhere to be seen as I left. Usually, she spent every free moment lurking at her desk and studying, followed by gloating about how much studying she was doing. Briefly, I wondered where on earth someone like her got to this time of day, but mostly I was just psyched. Her absence meant I didn’t have to explain to anyone why I was heading out with my wetsuit on a bitter cold night, under a pitch-black moonless sky, with only an hour left till lights-out.

It was dicey moving around in the dark, when so many other creatures came out to play, but I couldn’t risk being caught. For once, my main concern wasn’t the guys—if Ronan was right, the vampires and Trainees would be busy in the keep, whereas I could think of a dozen Initiates who’d love nothing more than
to tell on me for sneaking around like this…assuming they stopped pummeling me long enough to think about it.

I’d actually worn my wetsuit under my coat and congratulated myself on the stroke of genius. The neoprene material was thick and would keep me warmer than my catsuit, yet was also snug enough to move freely and climb in. And who knew? If I slipped, the thing might even protect me from superficial wounds. In my first year, I’d mended enough tears in my uniform not to underestimate that particular side benefit.

I’d already scoped out the best and least steep spot to make my descent. Now that I knew the exact location of the sea gate, I hoped to have an easier time navigating the hillside, picking my way across and down—with an emphasis on
down
. The tide was at its highest peak, and wetsuit or not, I had no intention of setting foot in that water. A freezing night swim in that black churning sea frightened me more than the vampires’ keep did.

I shed my coat once I reached the cliff’s edge, rolling it into a ball and stashing it by a rock. Would I survive the night to retrieve it, or would some nosy Acari eventually find it instead? Everyone could wave it around and celebrate how tenacious me had finally met my end.

I couldn’t think that way. As low as I’d felt lately, I needed to be positive. To taste success. To imagine it as an inevitable thing.

This is for you, Emma.

And for me, too, I thought. I’d reclaim myself, no matter the risk. And the risk, I knew, was tremendous. It could very well be my last.

Sucking in a deep breath, I looked out into the vastness, taking
in the night. The moon was just a tiny crescent hanging low in the sky, and water swept before me, rippling like black satin sheets tucked somewhere beyond the horizon. Ronan had once told me to embrace the darkness, and I saw now what he meant. I felt cloaked in it. One with it. The night was mine.

The darkness was far from complete, though, and it was due to more than merely my improved vision. It was the stars. Millions of them clung here at the edge of the world, spattered across the sky like paint flung from a brush. Magnificent, they stole my breath, as though I’d never even known stars before
Eyja næturinnar
. The island’s one gift to me.

Or rather, one of its gifts. I would receive something more tonight, only it was something I’d steal: the truth. I would wrest the secret of this island if it took my dying breath to do it.

I was resolved. Time to do this thing.

I did a body check, wriggling my feet, feeling the stars tucked in my boots. I flexed my arms, testing the stakes I’d jammed up the sleeves of my wetsuit…stakes whose ends were carved like so many triangles.

The cloak I’d stolen was lashed across my chest like armor. I hoped it would be my armor in truth, disguising me enough to get into the castle unsuspected. I needed only enough time to find Alcántara. To take him by surprise. Stake him.

My night from there looked iffy, but I was okay with that. Because I’d be me until the end. Not Alcántara’s creature. Not a dupe in service of vampires.

Starlight hummed on my back as I descended. Confidence and resolve guided my hands and feet. I found holds so easily, it felt like magic.
Thank you, Carden.
He’d taught me about climbing. Me, his dove with wings of fire.

The thought was a blade, quick and deep, there and rejected just as quickly. I’d be even more than what he’d believed possible—I’d have a heart of fire, too.

I came to a thick shelf of brush. I knew the gate was concealed just below. I shimmied around and down, and then I was there. On the rock plateau.

The porch
, I thought with a smile.

I was so close now, and oddly, my heartbeat was slow. My hearing was hollow, my vision focused to a narrow point. This was it, and I was calm.

I pulled the gloves from my hands, wadded them up, and shoved them inside my suit. Twining my fingers around the bars of the gate, I leaned close and held still, holding my breath, opening to the universe to feel if anyone was near. But the tunnel was dark and silent.

It was time to break in.

I had five crude stakes in varying lengths and sizes; two hadn’t been thick enough to carve into a triangle, but I had three possible fits. This gate and its lock were a mystery to me—if one of the stakes actually slid into place, whatever happened next would just have to be a surprise. At this point, I
hoped
there’d be a surprise. The thought of climbing back up that hill, defeated again, was too much to bear.

I inserted the first triangle and gave it a jiggle. Too small. I told myself no big deal and went to the next one. But the angle on that one was slightly too obtuse. I could use one of my stars to whittle it to size, but I didn’t want to waste the time if I didn’t have to. I willed myself to be calm as I tried the next and final one. It slid in perfectly.

I waited. But nothing happened.

I wiggled the end of the stake. Turned it. I pushed down, pulled up, but still nothing. Panic began to crackle up my back, numbing my fingers and ratcheting up my heartbeat. I felt around the triangle. The fit was snug, but it was in there. I pried and twisted, and all it did was give me a splinter.

My panic began to bleed out into despair. Was this it? I tried to tell myself it was only a temporary setback, that I’d just have to go back to the drawing board. But such things were easy to say and hard to believe.

Despair hardened into frustration. Was I destined to keep failing like this? How was it the damned vampires still managed to get the best of me when they weren’t even around?

Frustration sharpened into anger.

“Dammit.” I slammed the side of my fist onto the butt of the stake. “Damn you.” Then I hit it again, harder. I’d curse all I wanted now—I didn’t care. I cursed and hit. “Damn damn damn all of—”

There was a sharp click.

“Crap!” I jumped about a foot in the air as the medallion sprang apart.

And then I giggled. Putting a hand to my pounding chest, I peered closer. “Holy crap.” I’d done it. The outer casing had been spring-loaded, and when I pounded the stake, the infinity had split in two, popping open and revealing the inner workings of the lock.

Tentatively, I tried twisting the stake again, and this time the triangle turned easily. The ancient tumbler clicked. The gate cracked open.

I sat for a shocked moment, listening to the crashing of the waves
and the silence of the beckoning tunnel. I smiled. And then I scrambled in.

The tunnel was dank, like something that’d been chiseled through the mountain centuries ago. The sulfurous smell was even stronger inside. I’d smelled it once before, fighting Lilac beside a hot spring deep underground. How extensive were these caverns? It was a disturbing thought.

I resheathed my stakes and scrabbled forward. Soon the tunnel expanded into something tall enough to stand in hunched over, then eventually to stand up straight.

I slipped on my cloak, shoving two of the stakes in the pockets, just in case. I readjusted the wetsuit underneath, tugging the legs back into place. The outfit might’ve been ideal for climbing in the freezing wind, but it was starting to bum me out now. Even so, it remained the best choice. I’d nabbed an extra shooter of blood at lunch and had rubbed some on my body in hopes of masking my scent, and what the blood didn’t mask, I hoped this pesky wetsuit would. Months of salt water had given it a briny odor—enough, I hoped, to hide what I was certain was the unmistakable smell of girl.

Because surely we had scents, right? After all, the vampires were predators, and we girls their prey. The not knowing lodged a spike of resentment in my heart. Why hadn’t Carden explained such things to me? Why wasn’t he here now? I’d once come to his aid, in a dank tunnel not unlike this one.

Then it struck me—that other tunnel had been unlike this in a
very fundamental way
: This tunnel wasn’t pitch black.

Crap.
I immediately darted to the side, clinging against the cold stone. I’d been so focused on my stupid clothes, and the difference
between starlight and this ambient light was so subtle, I hadn’t considered it. But ambient light meant there was electricity, or at least torches, somewhere nearby.

Light meant people.

I edged forward, every sense so attuned to my surroundings, I began to imagine sights and sounds that weren’t there. I gave my head a shake.
Can’t lose my grip now.

Soon the torches appeared, hung in occasional sconces along the tunnel walls. Just as it got too dark to see, the flickering halo of a distant torch would become visible.

The first time a tunnel branched off the main one, it gave me pause, but in my gut I had the sense of the castle’s location and I followed its pull. Was it the vampires calling me? The thought was too disturbing to entertain for long.

As I progressed, more and more smaller tunnels branched off the main one, and the maze of passages was getting complicated. I hid in dark crevices as I went, stopping frequently to make sure I had my bearings and that nobody was around.

I also tried desperately not to think of Carden. In these, what felt like my final moments, all my anger and resentment dissolved, and I just felt sad and alone. I really, really missed him. I wished I could’ve seen him one last time. I wished I could’ve known where he’d gone. Why.

The curve of the tunnel ahead threw sound at me, and I heard footsteps and the
whip-whip
of torches. A solemn procession walked by. Terrified, I held my breath and waited till they were well past to exhale. I sucked in a breath and something twinged at my nose. Incense. I waited a full minute after they’d passed before I followed.

But then voices echoed to me, coming from another tunnel.
I froze. More people. They might’ve been rounding the next corner or hundreds of yards away. The sound bounced off the rock, impossible to tell how close.

I strained my ears, making sense of individual speakers. Individual words. I placed one of the voices. It was so familiar to me, as familiar as any other on this rock.

It was Alcántara.

A
lcántara was speaking with someone. Slowly, I slid a stake into my hand. I parted my feet, imagining myself connected to the tunnel. I was a part of this mountain. A creature of the dark. I
was
the mountain. I relaxed my legs, felt the bounce in my knees. I was power
and
strength. I’d been born for this moment.

Could it be this easy? Might I take him unaware? I’d kill Alcántara, and though his companion might turn around and kill me,
he’d
be destroyed.

I’d have avenged Emma. Avenged Yasuo.

I strained to make sense of the conversation. The volume didn’t vary, so I took the risk that they’d stopped moving. I edged closer, to the lip of a branching tunnel. And then I halted, my every muscle seizing in place.

Alcántara was speaking with a woman.

I strained further, expecting to make out the familiar voice of a Guidon or a Watcher I might know, but what I heard instead
shocked me. It was deference…in
Alcántara’s
voice. He was speaking with a woman he feared.

There was talk of the list. Of the arrivals. It was hard to understand. They spoke English, but hers was heavily accented.

I braved a few steps closer. My knuckles hurt from the grip on my stake.

One of them shifted, and her voice suddenly bounced off the rocks, thrown to me as though aimed directly at my ears.

“You failed me, Hugo.”

“You have my most humble apologies, Mistress Sonja.”

Oh God.
My legs wobbled. I leaned against the tunnel wall for support.
Sonja?

“Why did you deliver the girl you did?” she demanded. Was this actually
the
Sonja speaking? Could that even be possible?
Sonja, ruler of vampires.
Had that meant Sonja herself had been Vampire? Did Sonja rule the vampires still?

Alcántara cleared his throat. He was nervous. I tuned in closely, replaying in my head what I’d already heard. He’d delivered a girl…. She hadn’t been the right one. I shuddered, considering just how many girls were at his disposal. How many had he “delivered” in his lifetime, and to what ends? “The girl’s friend was as dangerous to—”