Fernanda balked. “But you said she’s seen your thoughts. Won’t she know you might try and go there?”
A good point. “I’ll tell Father’s solicitor we are headed east for a long while. Surely word will get around town with us leaving so abruptly. And if Maricela knows my mind in the slightest, she’ll assume I’d never be foolish enough to actually risk such an arduous journey north for something that might not even work.”
“True. And you are, orwere,quite averse to danger.”
Something crashed just outside their window. Fernanda clamped a hand over her mouth to seal in her scream. They stood in stunned silence. Waiting. But Lalo could hear nothing over his sister’s thundering heart. And he hated it. He hated himselffor causing her even more distress. He’d been the one to hold Fernanda as she screamed for their parents. He had been the one to wipe her tears and braid her hair while she finished her final days of school. Lalo made a promise to himself that she’d never lose him.
And she wouldn’t.
Nor would he let anything happen to her. He’d find a way to remedy this. To keep her safe.
He grabbed the map and the many notes he had taken since their parents’ murders, then started stuffing them into his father’s old satchel.
“Quickly, pack only what you can fit in one trunk,” he ordered.
She nodded and turned for her room.
“Don’t forget Mother’s jewelry,” he added. “And Father’s pipe. We will have to barter them to pay for a coach on such short notice.”
Fernanda stopped and glanced over her shoulder.
“What exactly is in Del Oro?” she asked.
Lalo sighed. “My only hope.”
CHAPTER 2
Carolina
Del Oro
A callused hand fastened overCarolina’s mouth. Her eyes shot open. The instincts she’d been honing since the age of ten flared to life. She slid her hand upward, reaching for the dagger hidden beneath her pillow, then stilled when she heard her nickname spoken in a feather-soft voice.
“Lina.”
She squinted through the darkness. Blinked hard.
He was home.Finally.
Carolina’s grandfather had been gone for over a week. Hunting the foul monster that had killed Señora Costas near the river that wove through the valley. La señora shouldn’t have been out there. She shouldn’t have left her home and family after the sunwent down, but her husband was ill, and people believed she was desperate to bring him water from Orilla del Río.
The area was sacred, a long-retired cemetery from generations before that overlooked Del Oro. People still traversed the overgrown path to pray for their loved ones and, because of that, most believed the waters nearby were blessed by the dead. Going there had been a fatal decision.
Abuelo and his men had mounted their horses the moment her family said she was missing. Her body had been found, drained of blood. Carolina’s abuelo and his men galloped toward the forest where the sedientos came from without hesitation.Sedientos,that was what the people of el pueblo had come to call them. The thirsty ones.
Since he was home, and waking her from sleep, that must mean they had found the vampiro and sliced into the fiend’s heart as it deserved.
Carolina’s eagerness could no longer be contained. She had to know about the hunt. Had to hear everything Abuelo did.What did the sediento look like up close?she wanted to ask.Was it as frightening as the last one that had scaled over the thick walls surrounding el pueblo?
There were varying kinds of monsters. Some looked perfectly human. Others slightly less so—their nails too long and sharp, their teeth too. But some sedientos looked like corpses escaped from the grave. They all shared two things in common, though: blood-red eyes that glowed in the dark when the light hit them just right and a wicked thirst for human life.
She started to speak, but Abuelo’s hand was sealing her lips shut. Carolina raised a single dark brow. Her grandfather grinned. His graying mustache quirked upward like a second smile.
“Shh,” he mouthed. He jerked his chin in the direction ofCarolina’s slumbering cousin in the next bed over. Nena was rather unpleasant when roused too early from her beauty sleep. Even if that untimely awakening was due to their grandfather’s return.
Abuelo’s hand slipped away from Carolina’s mouth, and he stepped back.
“Come,” he whispered.
