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It had been the longest night of Sypha’s life.
As she and the three other hunters waited—weapons and magic at the ready, on a crumbling perch that now seemed far too small, water churning ominously around them—she had time enough to contemplate her chances of dying just meters from Dracula’s door. Their journey there, up spiraling towers and down underground passages and across a stormy sea, had been daunting enough.
But there was also the night that Sypha had faced alone, the night she’d never speak of even if she had the words. That one endless night in which she’d fallen to the cyclops, been petrified and left for dead in a forest—just another statue in the cursed country that was now the vampire king’s courtyard.
There had been no time, then, to fight back or even to scream. No time, after, that she could mark by the sun across the sky. She could see nothing but that last midnight, too dark for stars, her last sight before her vision turned to stone and her face froze into a perpetual mask of shock. Her life had become an eternal midnight, with no rest or dreams or even the promise of a new day. No speech, no sight, no movement: a captive, of the stone and of her mind.
But there was sound, or she thought there’d been, once. It was silent too often to know. And sometimes there was touch, or the fantasy, the memory of a touch: the pelting of rain on the sculpted contours that had once been flowing garments; the solid weight of the base beneath her feet; a clawed hand touching, almost caressing, the planes of her face—
There was no human who’d think to find her, much less help her. The people of Wallachia had been told that Sypha Belnades, their newest knight out to slay the dragon, was a man, some conquering wizard she’d never known. Her brothers at the monastery had surely replaced their blue robes with a funeral black. And her parents had died long before, murdered by the very people who could have been saved by this doomed mission. There was nothing but the undead and her living tomb.
When those men, Trevor and Grant, had slain the cyclops guarding her and broken its curse, it had felt like that same starless night. In all that mattered, it might have been. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t slept, and, she realized—as she shattered her stone prison with a bolt of lightning, to the astonished eyes of her new partners—she had never given up on her cause. If anything, it felt stronger. Everything did: the scents and sounds of the thunderstorm, the sparkle of magic from her staff, the hatred for the demons who’d poisoned her homeland and driven so many young witches like herself into death.
But, unlike her sisters in magic, she’d been blessed with another chance. Now she had everything to prove. She refused to fail a second time.
And she’d proven herself well. She’d seen Trevor’s admiring stare as the flames she’d conjured from nothingness swept even beyond the reaches of his Belmont family whip to consume Dracula’s skeletal army in blazing ribbons. When her lightning spell lit up that twisted tower in unearthly blue and sent pillars of bone crumbling to the spiked floor below, she’d known Grant wasn’t joking as he scaled the wall to dodge its sparking path.
They’d saved her once already. She couldn’t remain in their debt. She would not be an obligation.
Even that vampire, Alucard, had been silently impressed as she fought her way across the castle’s aqueduct just minutes before, freezing all that stood before her in a spray of ice crystals and shattering them with a strike of her staff and never once taking a hit. The monsters never even realized they were dead (—she tried not to remember how it felt—), and she hoped Alucard saw it for the warning it was. She had no reason to trust any vampire, let alone one that claimed to be Dracula’s son. She could not believe her partners saw his knowledge of the castle as an advantage and not a threat. But she hadn’t argued when Trevor had prevailed against him in battle and welcomed him to their cause. She just watched and waited, knowing she could will death upon him if necessary.
She’d show no mercy to the creatures who’d shown none to her. She would not lose.
She was once the hope of Wallachia. She had become the mystic warrior of her little team, striking hard and fast to the astonishment of hunter and prey alike.
And now—now, on the longest midnight of her life, just before the heart of the castle at last—she was so damn tired.
Sypha was jolted from her thoughts as the churning surface of the water finally broke. Patches of red blazed out stark amidst the white foam—for just a moment. Then the necks of the beasts were emerging from the depths and stretching impossibly long into the too-dark sky, as blank crimson eyes stared down at the hunters with a look almost of amusement. Twin sea dragons, red as blood, now flanked the weathered platform, close enough to seem all fins and scales, horns and fangs: close enough to kill.
For just a moment, the group of hunters pressed closer together, waiting. Then the first jets of fire shot from the dragons’ gaping mouths, just above the team’s heads, and in another moment, the group had separated and everything had changed. Another battle had begun.
Already Grant had sprung from the platform, clinging to a projection on the massive pillar above and tossing daggers at one dragon’s throat, as Alucard disappeared in a cloud of mist. He was soaring in bat form to another perch before the mist had dissipated, and sending out a wave of fireballs in his vampiric state by the time it cleared. Their light reflected off the links of the Vampire Killer as Trevor, now the dragons’ main target, struck with the whip from the center of the platform and ducked to avoid another rush of flames.
Sypha dropped down with him and stared, almost dazed, at how quickly the others had leapt into the chaos—after so many other attacks, on a night as long as this. After the flames above her died down to smoke, she cleared her mind and bolted to her feet. Throwing out her arms, she called a wall of ice crystals into reality and launched them at the dragon nearest to her. The demon would fall like all the others. Before the crystalline shards had even connected with the wall of scales before her, she was drawing back her staff for the finishing blow.
The crystals latched onto the dragon’s neck in frozen hooks, an icy patch spreading slick and glassy across the red. Carved metal sliced through the air. Blue flames shimmered along the staff’s length and sparkled in its wake, like the wandering fires of the swampland beyond the castle walls. The solid crack that meant a certain kill resounded through the air, and Sypha’s lips turned up in a faint smile.
But it was not like it was before. There was no explosion of grotesque and twisted ice shards, no death roar from the beast. There was only the wet, solid sound of flesh hitting ground as a chunk of red splattered against the platform, just missing Sypha’s sandals. She could barely tell scale from tissue; it was red inside and out. The great red dragon still towered above her, armored head in the starless heavens, only a circle gouged from its neck to show where her staff had hit. It was too powerful to fall to her magic alone.
Sypha took a cautious step back, the rhythmic cracking of the whip a reminder that Trevor was still locked in combat behind her. Her eyes never left the dragon ahead. It was beginning to feel like that night so long ago, that endless tonight when she’d realized she was outmatched. She needed a new strategy. If she could only dodge, or try to summon lightning, or—
Another blast of flames clouded her vision before she could finish that thought. Acting almost on instinct, Sypha conjured another wall of ice. Her makeshift barrier was enough to block the fire—it melted almost instantly, making her eyes water with the rush of heat and steam—but too far away to even scratch those shining crimson scales. She tightened her grip on her staff and dashed to the platform’s edge. She had no choice but to get close.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the sea dragon sank once again into the foam. Sypha stared at the surface of the water, panting, waiting for the telltale flash of red. It never came.
The stone floor beneath her crumbled and shook as some almighty force rocked its pillared supports. The dragon was attacking from below. Sypha tensed as the platform shook again, preparing to leap, like Grant had, to the stone projection just ahead. She was too late. With a crack even louder than metal on ice, the ancient pillar on her side of the ledge split in two, and, in a shower of shattered rocks, she tumbled into the depths.
The sudden shock of the icy water froze her in place for an instant, even as she knew she needed to escape, to resurface. That moment was all the dragon needed. From below, fangs sank into the fabric of her trailing robes, tugging her farther from the brightest spot that meant the water’s surface.
Struggling against the press of the water and her own exhaustion, she brought the full weight of her staff down upon the dragon’s head. The staff’s magic flames flared to life, lighting up the darkened water with a spectral blue glow. Again and again she struck out, aiming at the dragon’s eyes, its fangs, at anything that might make it loosen its grip. Her hits practically bounced off the thick layer of scales. But there was no other option: her ice spell would only be a death sentence for herself, here in the dragon’s underwater lair.
One misaimed strike to the side of the dragon’s head snapped the spines of a fin. The soft connecting skin, now torn, streamed jagged and pink in the frothing dark water. It wasn’t enough to hinder the beast, or even to seriously harm it. But it was distracted, and that was enough. As soon as she felt the grip on her robes release, Sypha raced to the wavering light above.
She broke the surface, gasping for air, vaguely aware of the chaos just above: the cracking of the whip, the rain of fire and knives, the heat and light from the second dragon’s flames. She glanced around, in search of anything she could climb onto. Just as she spotted another ledge, closer to the water—she’d crossed it with her partners just before the dragons emerged—another powerful strike from below sent her crashing into the castle’s wall.
Perhaps she’d been a statue too long. At first she thought she’d shattered.
Her eyes closed as she slumped forward, and her staff slipped from her hand. That was enough to break through the fog of pain. She was diving to retrieve it even as it felt like all the muscles in her body were shouting. Just as her head slipped below the water, she heard another voice shout too.
“Sypha!”
It was Trevor. She hadn’t thought they’d noticed her.
The staff glinted silver just beyond her reach. She kicked forward, stretched out, felt her fingers curl along the base, aimed for the surface again. Blank eyes glinted red just below her.
And she’d thought the dragons had been close before, when she’d been surrounded with her team and on solid ground. The dragon was swimming ever nearer, stirring up the water into bone-white foam with every sinuous twist of its body, so close she could almost count its fangs. It would not risk attempting to drown her again, she realized—it would kill her right here. The surface was inches away, but the dragon was at her level in an instant, stretching forward with teeth bared.
A morning star split the water between them. Flickers of flame and swirls of smoke radiated from the Vampire Killer even as it lashed into the depths again.
The distraction was enough. The dragon turned its attention to Trevor, still attacking with the whip from the broken platform, and sent out more flames. Sypha resurfaced at a distance and paddled to the lower platform, barely registering the flashes of light and crack of metal on scales from the battle behind her.
As she reached its edge, she realized, again, just how tired she was and how much everything hurt. How could she expect to fight Dracula when she couldn’t even take a hit? Nothing had been so hard that night for Trevor or Grant, or even that vampire... And her clothes were soaked now, too, weighing her down further; even her staff felt too heavy. The ledge, just above her head, might as well have been a mountain. She shook her head and cleared her mind.
After lifting her upper body as far onto the ledge as she could, she aimed an ice spell at the surrounding water. The newly frozen surface was just solid enough to work as a final step onto the aged stone. She pulled herself to its center and let her staff fall, the hollow ring of metal echoing in time with the ice melting back into water. She sighed, wrapping her knees to her chest to ward off the chill, and sat wringing out her garments as she watched the last moments of the fight before her.
From the broken platform just before the castle’s entrance, Trevor was still striking with the Vampire Killer, the weapon’s mystic fires tearing deep gouges into the remaining dragon’s neck. There were no more taunting bursts of fire just above his head, no further ambushes from below. The dragon was desperate now, lunging open-mouthed at the hunter, attempting to burn him at close range. Trevor dodged the attacks with deft lashes of the whip, graceful movements strong enough to tilt the beast’s head away and send its attacks off course.
Grant and Alucard stood in wait on the projection above, silently poised for battle. They seemed as aware as Sypha that Trevor was capable of finishing this on his own.
At least someone here was.
The remaining half of the platform was littered with chunks of red. Some patches of scales shone dimly in the scant light, while flesh streaked black sent wispy plumes of smoke into the air. Sypha thought she could just make out the angles of a fin among the gore, the roundness of sightless red eyes. So they’d already slain the other dragon in the time it took her to inflict a single wound, to escape with her life.
The wet and choking roar of the dragon was enough to jerk Sypha’s head from her knees. She leaned forward to watch it writhe and twist, blood the color of its scattered scales oozing into the turbulent water from the smoking gashes cut into its neck. It seemed barely able to hold its head aloft. With one final thrash of the whip, the demon fell apart, gouts of dragon flesh splattering thickly to the platform in a crimson rain.
There were several long seconds of silence as the hunters waited again. Experience had taught them never to expect Dracula’s army to stay dead. The only sound was the faint rush of water and their own heavy breathing.
Finally, Trevor turned away from the dragons’ mangled remains, brushing fragments of scales from his tunic. He faced the shadowed hall that stretched like the mouth of a demon to the wooden door that would lead them to the deepest part of the castle at last. Grant nimbly leapt down to his level and Alucard followed, his cloak fluttering around him as he landed. The three of them turned expectantly in Sypha’s direction.
Sypha grabbed her staff and clambered stiffly to her feet, suddenly conscious of the state of her appearance, of her failure. She jumped toward the intact half of the platform, feeling again, in midair, the soreness of her body, the weight of her clothing. She almost skidded on a streak of blood as she landed, just managing to catch her balance by throwing her staff forward. At least she was allowed some dignity tonight. With a sudden rush of irritation, she kicked a lump of scales and flesh over the edge before moving to approach the other hunters.
The three of them were already facing the door by the time she caught up, Grant reaching for but not quite touching its ornately carved surface. “So, gonna give us a heads-up this time, kid?” he asked, glancing at Alucard. “What’s your daddy got through here? Pool of lava, pit of spikes... again, or—”
“I can’t guarantee the castle will be the same as I remember,” Alucard replied. From behind his back, Sypha rolled her eyes. “But this door once led to a courtyard, with several watchtowers, and from there to the main hall.”
A courtyard? It couldn’t be the same one... But just through the door, Sypha thought she could almost smell the fragrances of exotic blooms, hear the discordant melodies of a creature neither human nor bird. Apparently the others did too.
“And what’s that?” Trevor asked, his hand moving automatically to the handle of his whip.
“Those are—”
“Harpies,” Sypha interrupted, the odds of making it through the night flashing across her mind once more. Those beasts were relentless. They’d carry other demons in their talons when they were many, to drop upon their unsuspecting prey, and would use those same talons to tear into flesh when they were alone.
“Yes,” Alucard said, again seeming surprised by her knowledge—or maybe just the fact that she’d spoken at all. “They roost near the upper levels.”
“Well, after the fight we’ve just had, hunting on solid ground again should be easy,” Trevor said. For a moment, Sypha thought he cast a smile in her direction. She looked away. “Everyone ready?”
Grant pulled out a dagger, made a brief stabbing motion against the air. Alucard reached for the handle of the door. Sypha wrapped her drenched mantle closer around her body. It did nothing to improve the chill of the night.
Trevor looked in her direction again. Squinted his eyes. “Or...” he began, “...is it safe to take a break?”
“What?!” Now all three of the men were staring at her. Again. She couldn’t take any more of their pity or charity or whatever they thought they were doing for her; not tonight. They couldn’t just stop now, not so close to—
“I mean, it looks like the sun’s rising soon,” Trevor said, stepping away from the door to the edge of the hall and looking out over the site of their battle. Sypha and the others joined him. The sky did seem a bit lighter than she remembered; she could just make out the shadows of trees on the distant shore. “Maybe we should try to get some sleep before stepping further into hell.” Another glance at Sypha. “It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?”
It had.
Sypha said nothing. From the corner of her eye, she saw Grant nod, while Alucard watched in passive silence.
“Hell, I’m game,” Grant said. “So are we going through here during the day, then, or what? The bastard’ll never know what staked him!”
Alucard seemed slightly taken aback. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said. “Some plants in this courtyard open at daylight—to feed. Should we stop now, we may have to continue tomorrow evening.”
Stopping for the night felt pathetic enough. But an entire day? Sypha had failed again, and her entire team knew it. She’d let everyone down.
“Is this just because you can’t go out in the day?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“I can, actually,” Alucard responded. Sypha doubted that. “But doing so would not be worth endangering us all further.”
There was no room for argument, not with the rest of the team clearly against her. With a sigh, Sypha sank down against the cold and mossy wall. From the other side of the short hallway, Trevor did the same.
“I’ll stand guard at the bridge,” Alucard said. He gestured briefly to the mangled dragon corpses. “With the top predators here eliminated, the merman colony may yet attempt an ambush. The three of you should be safe if you remain here.” With another burst of mist, he was soaring in bat shape to what remained of the collapsed bridge before any of them had the chance to respond.
“Little dramatic, isn’t he?” Grant asked, leaning on the wall just before the hallway.
“That’s how they all are,” Sypha said, no longer attempting to hide her irritation: with vampires, with tonight, with everything.
“What do you—” Trevor began.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” she said. “Like the piles of bones in every corner of that ship, or-or those skulls in the caves he used to practically tile the walls! All those corpses on sticks, and—” And statues in the woods. She shook her head. “And if we don’t make it out of here alive, that’s what we’ll be too: just another goddamn trophy in his collection. To vampires it’s all some sick game. What makes you think Alucard’s not toying with us now, just waiting to drain us in our sleep and throw us away?”
“Sypha,” Trevor said. “He’s not Dracula.”
She knew that very well. “We shouldn’t have listened to him. We should have kept going.”
“If you’re going to blame someone, at least blame me. Stopping here was my idea, after all.” He crossed his arms. “I only thought I was helping you. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“I didn’t need any help!”
“Oh, and you think your skull wouldn’t end up on display if we went up there right now?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the jutting towers hanging unseen overhead. “Now, in your condition?”
“My condition?!”
“Sypha, you almost died!”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
The hallway fell into an awkward silence. Sypha looked away from Trevor and Grant, gaze fixed on the door to the courtyard. A harpy’s song echoed faintly in the distance. She had been unprepared for the cyclops then, long ago and tonight, but she should have known better now. She’d had so much time in the stone to reflect on all her mistakes; she shouldn’t have needed to be saved again. What was the point of hiding beneath these clothes, behind a legend who’d never existed? Trevor and the others surely knew her for what she was and could never be.
Grant cleared his throat. “I think I’ll go see if Bat Boy needs any help.”
Trevor shifted from his position on the floor. “Are you sure? Those monsters—”
“Yeah, definitely,” he said, casting a quick glance between the two of them. “Don’t forget, I’ve been a monster too. I’m probably family to them. At least an in-law.” He pushed off, too quickly, from the wall. “Be seein’ ya.”
Sypha turned to watch him go. “Don’t stick your neck out.”
“Sypha...” Trevor groaned.
In seconds, Grant too had disappeared into the twilight. Sypha couldn’t blame him.
Trevor met her eyes as she turned back from the steadily lightening sky. “Seriously... are you all right?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
The cold felt like it was seeping into her bones. Sypha tried to concentrate on fire, on the feel of heat, spreading and warm and alive. Memories usually helped: the flickering candles as she pored over occult tomes long after the rest of the monastery had retired, or sitting with her parents and sister witches around a bonfire, before she’d known they had anything to fear. Even the dragons’ flames.
But all she could feel, all she could summon, was the solid bite of ice.
She idly twisted her monastery’s silver ring around her finger, trying to ignore the silence and how it now felt even deeper than before. Trevor was still watching her, she realized. He sat quietly against the opposite wall, chin in his hand and mouth twisted with slight amusement.
“So, what you said about Dracula...” he began.
“What?” Sypha immediately straightened up, narrowing her eyes.
“I thought monks weren’t allowed to swear,” he said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she replied. She’d thought about phrasing it a different way, but didn’t want to humor his point.
Trevor must have suspected something about her; she’d known it from the moment he’d asked if she was “the Sypha Belnades” when she’d introduced herself hours before. She’d told him she was a monk, and she had the clothing to prove it, but beyond that, she’d left him and the others to assume what they would. After years in the monastery, Sypha didn’t know, herself, if she was truly a witch in the guise of a monk, or the other way around.
“I also thought they had tonsured hair.”
Sypha glanced down, realizing too late that several long strands of hair had slipped, wet and tangled, from beneath her cowl. She didn’t want to know how long they’d been there, or how long any of the team had gone without telling her. She scowled and shoved them back inside.
“Is this what you plan to do until the sun rises?” she asked. “Sit here and interrogate me?”
Now, with Trevor’s eyes still on her, she was suddenly aware of just how her wet garments must be clinging to her, of the curves of her body visible beneath the austere blue robes. She pulled her legs back up to her chest. But Trevor continued to look in her direction, no less curious, with an expression showing interest of a different kind than she was expecting. It was a look she was so very tired of seeing tonight: that look of sympathy, of pity.
“Only if you’ll let me,” Trevor said. Sypha laughed, low and bitter. “Look, I was just trying to lighten the mood. I don’t expect you to tell me all your secrets. I just wish I knew what happened tonight.”
Sypha looked once more at the mess of red staining the platform outside. “I’d think you would have seen that for yourself.”
“I don’t mean with the dragons. I mean with whatever happened before.”
“Before?” she asked, knowing exactly what he meant.
Trevor tapped the handle of his whip for a few seconds, seemingly searching for words. ”It must have been hard,” he finally said. ”Trapped inside the stone.”
“It didn’t feel like anything.”
“But I know you’re still thinking of it,” he said. “What you said to us just now... dammit, Sypha, I’m worried. It feels like you’ve been pushing yourself all night, and if you’d kept that up, you could’ve put more than yourself in danger. And I’m not just talking about our team—I mean what we’re fighting for. Everyone. We’ve all come too far to start taking risks like that now. If we can’t stop Dracula, then who will?”
Even now, through her haze of fatigue and discomfort, she recognized that Trevor meant well. He’d saved her life—twice now. He was always the mediator of their team, and trusted his fellow hunters no matter who or what they were. He was so unlike her, and still he wanted to understand her. Sypha just didn’t see how he could.
“If we want to have a chance in hell of living through tomorrow night, we’ll need to do it as a team,” Trevor went on. “We need to help each other. What happened with that cyclops back there—in the forest?”
The one secret she was sure she’d kept from everyone, and he’d brought even this one into the light. She supposed she had no choice but to admit it: how her failure was even greater than they could imagine.
“It didn’t happen in the forest,” Sypha said, dropping her gaze to her robes. “It happened here.”
“Here?”
She tilted her staff to the end of the hall. “Just past that door. In the courtyard.”
More silence. She didn’t look to see Trevor’s expression—she couldn’t.
“You’re saying you’ve been here already? You’ve done all of this before?”
“No, I got there from the second tower, the one with the clock. The other bridge leads here too.”
“It used to,” Trevor said.
Sypha chanced a glimpse at him, confused. He seemed slightly dubious, but not pitying. Not yet.
“Come over here,” he said, gesturing to his side of the hallway. “I want to show you something.”
Wincing as she stood, she leaned on her staff and walked the short distance across. She gingerly brought herself back down into a sitting position beside Trevor, and leaned back as far as she dared against the wall. The pain was always present, but at least it was bearable.
“...sorry about that,” he muttered, turning his gaze downward too. “Guess I should’ve come over to your side.”
“Too late.”
From the belt around his waist, where the Vampire Killer and his other weapons hung, Trevor removed some sort of pouch. He carefully unfolded it—it was a cape, Sypha realized—revealing the creased and tattered parchment that had been encased in its center.
“I’ve never seen you wear that,” Sypha said, running a finger along the folds of the cape.
“Had to use it to protect this.” Trevor dropped the parchment into her lap. “The cape resists water. Couldn’t chance losing the map. I drew it myself, you know.”
Sypha squinted through the graying light at the sketch before her, eyes widening as the intricate details came into focus. Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. There was the castle, appearing deceptively small and manageable in the center, surrounded by the sea they’d crossed together. There were the trees of the forest, the crosses that marked the abandoned church and Alucard’s tomb, even a tiny black semicircle carved high up on the castle’s exterior—the very hallway they were passing the night in now.
“You drew this?” she repeated, unable to hide her astonishment. “This is amazing!”
Trevor shrugged. “I had to. My family’s spent their lives hunting demons and tracking these lands. I wasn’t about to go in unprepared—or leave nothing behind for another Belmont to follow, if I never made it inside.” He smirked. “Worst coming to worst and all that. But look at this.” He pointed to one side of the clock tower. “Is that what used to be your bridge?”
The drawing there had been scraped off and hastily replaced, the new sketch a lower quality than the surrounding landscape. Instead of a bridge very like the aqueduct they’d already crossed, all that remained was a pile of rubble just emerging from the vast expanse of waters that made up Castle Dracula’s moat.
“Thing collapsed before Grant and I could even set foot on it,” Trevor explained. “You were lucky to get across.”
“Not for long.”
Trevor was questioning her before she could allow silence to descend, a faint smile on his face. “So what happened with you and Grant up there, anyway?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Like I told you: Dracula turned him into a monster, forced him to guard the tower. What did you do, just ignore him? Cruel.”
She raised an eyebrow. “There was nothing up there but a nest of Medusa heads. I set it alight and ran.”
“But... Grant was up there for months,” Trevor said, suddenly serious. “Sypha... just how long ago did you fight that cyclops?”
She tried to ignore the pit in her stomach, the sudden rush of guilt he had almost made her forget. “I... I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I don’t want to know—not until we’re out of here, and this is over. If we ever get out of here.”
“We will. Look.” He flipped the parchment over. “I’ll get Alucard to tell me the layout of the rest of the castle—and whatever the hell else is inside. I’ll draw it out here, before we’ve even crossed the threshold. We’ll be better prepared for Dracula than he is for us.”
Prepared.
“I guess tha-that was my mistake,” Sypha said. She turned away from Trevor’s quizzical gaze and flipped over the map, squinting again at the lines that represented the courtyard’s watchtowers. “When I fought that cyclops, it felt just like tonight. I thought I could handle it. But I was tired, then, and hurt—” She tugged the shoulder of her robe down slightly, revealing a jagged scratch. “—those damn harpies were everywhere—and I realized I could die here. I could die, and no one would find me, because I was alone. And then... and then it happened. He trapped me in the stone, and then there was nothing: nothing but my mind.”
“God, Sypha, I’m sorry.”
“I used to wish he’d just used his hammer on me, broken me where I stood. But Dracula wanted his newest trophy intact. I could sense his magic even through the cyclops’ spell. Just the worst, the strongest kind of dark magic, hitting me in waves as soon as he entered the room. I almost heard him, like a pulse, a vibration inside my mind, as he ordered the cyclops to take me outside and stand guard. Maybe he was speaking to me too. And he touched the statue, like a collector of art—those claws running across my face... And then I felt nothing, for months, trapped inside, in a forest I couldn’t see.”
“I never knew. I couldn’t have imagined—”
“No, of course you couldn’t. He was very careful.” She laughed bitterly again. “All those ancient statues he placed me with... maybe it used to be a garden. Who would have noticed me if you hadn’t come along—who would have cared?”
“Sypha, I’m sure someone would have,” Trevor said. “I noticed you right away. Out of all the statues there, you were the pr- the only one that looked real.”
His slip didn’t bother her nearly as much as she felt it should have. Still, she chose to ignore it.
“But how long would that have taken? It’s been months since the Church sent me out, and nothing’s changed. Are we really the only four in Wallachia capable of making it even this far?”
“I guess we might be,” Trevor said. “You know things are bad when men of the cloth turn to Belmonts and...” He looked her over again. “...magicians. Sometimes it gets tiring to look at the ones you’re fighting for, the normal people with the normal lives who curse your birth, and just think ’if you only knew.’”
“That’s why I pushed myself tonight,” Sypha said, turning her head up to look into his eyes. They were blue. ”If you’re still wondering. Because if I was who everyone was counting on, then I couldn’t fail again. I couldn’t let you—the team—put yourselves out for me too. I thought I could do better than the last time. But then you had to save me.”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
“Well...”
“As far as I’m concerned, you already have. That lightning spell, back in the tower? I felt guilty just standing back and watching. A lifetime of training, and I barely touched my whip once.” He pointed to the map, drew a line with his finger from their little cavern to the village church. “Just remember: you’re about the only one between here and the rest of Wallachia whose ass I haven’t kicked. Grant and Alucard can’t say the same.”
Sypha rolled her eyes. “Because you never had to fight me.”
“Because I’d be afraid to fight you.”
She shoved him. “Oh, come on.”
“Seriously. And I’d bet Dracula is too.”
“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better, Trevor.”
He’d done enough already.
“I’m dead serious. And soon he’ll be, too. Dead, that is.”
“I got the joke.”
“Keeping you as a statue? Outside? Away from him? He knew you’d wreck the place soon as you made it in.”
“He could have broken me to pieces at any time.”
“And he didn’t. And he won’t. And tomorrow night, he’ll go to his grave regretting it.”
“Thanks, Trevor.”
“Anytime. And if you’re worried about going back to the courtyard, just remember: it could’ve been worse. If you’d gotten wrapped up by those mummies on the ship, we might’ve just had to leave you in the coffin.”
She waved her staff in the direction of his head. “That was awful.”
“Then let me try again. If you’re worried, I’ll fight the cyclops this time. Think I handled the last two pretty well already!... Wait. If you don’t want to be turned to stone again, then why in god’s name did you take on Medusa alone?”
“Because Medusa didn’t have a hammer!” she said, poking the side of his face.
He laughed, throwing his arm around her shoulders. Then he removed it just as quickly.
“You’re freezing. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I could han—”
“Don’t start.” He draped his cape around her shoulders. “Can you start a fire here, or what?”
“I tried, earlier,” Sypha said, curling closer into the cape. “But all I could feel was ice. It’s difficult to summon more than one element at a time.”
“What’s your staff for, then?” Trevor asked.
“Mostly whacking monsters on the head,” she said. She smiled as he laughed again. “I made it to look like my parents’ staff... but theirs was much better. I’m not sure yet what else to enchant it to do.”
He raised his eyebrows in admiration. “Seriously? You made that? No wonder you went back for it.”
“It’s simpler than you’d expect; mainly the application of my fire spell on metal. It’s almost boring, really.”
“Try it now.”
Sypha realized what he was getting at. Wrapping his cloak tighter around herself, she shakily pushed off from the wall. Trevor bolted up to help her to her feet. She stood to face the sky, slowly lighting up with dawn, and closed her eyes. She imagined the warmth of the sun, of flames molding the metal of her staff. She soaked in the warmth around her shoulders, imagined setting this entire castle ablaze. Her eyes shot open.
A perfect circle of flames hovered in the air before her. She willed it to hover just above the passageway’s stone floor, like a campfire with no kindling. For just a moment, she stood close by it, immersing herself in its warmth. Then she turned back to Trevor.
“Hey, great job,” he called. “Don’t let Alucard find out you stole his trick.”
“Alucard? Please. He’s an amateur. Let’s get something to eat.” For tomorrow we die, she thought unbidden.
“Of course,” he said, stepping closer to the fire to join her. “But what is there? I’m not scraping that moss off the walls.”
“Neither am I,” she replied. She stepped around the fire and made her way to the remaining half of the broken platform. Then she knelt down, gathering pieces of dragon flesh into her arms.
“Oh no,” Trevor said. “No.”
“Oh yes,” Sypha said. “I haven’t eaten in months! Besides, it’s fresh. I’m sure it’s safer than meat from out of the wall.” She extended a piece just above the floating fire.
“Hang on,” Trevor said. He removed his dagger from his weapon belt. ”You’ll need something to take off the scales first.”
Sypha accepted the dagger. “Of course,” she said. “How ridiculous of me.”
They sat there, at the edge of the hallway, in the heat of the fire and the light of the day, taking turns stripping the scales from the thick and smoky strips of flesh and holding the meat to the fire on the dagger’s edge. It was, Sypha realized, perhaps the most peaceful moment she’d had since that neverending night began. On this perch splattered with blood and gore, at the edge of Dracula’s demon castle, it all felt strangely domestic.
Before Sypha could raise the cooked dragon meat to her mouth for her first bite, Trevor was holding out his hand. “Wait,” he said. “First you’ve got to place your bets.”
“My bets?”
“What’s sea dragon taste like? Fish, or chicken?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“I’ll say... fish. They had fins. Trust me on this one.”
“Then I’ll bet chicken. Loser has to go to bed first. Gotta rest up for our big debut.”
“For tonight... Dracula dies,” Sypha said, almost believing it.
“Hell yeah!” Trevor touched his slice of sea dragon to hers. “Cheers! We’ll eat on three.”
Sypha smiled again—perhaps she was making up for lost time. What harm was one more night, after all?