“Come, it’s time to meet with Don Samón.”
“But dinner’s not until later,” Eva protested. Mingling with the gentry in Galeno, dealing with their fake pleasantries, had always been a source of discomfort.
“Yes, but his friends started gathering earlier, and now everyone’s out there eagerly waiting for us.”
“Eager to meet Do?a Celeste, more like,” Eva mumbled, sparing Maior’s bedroom a hopeless glance before following him through the candlelit corridor.
He gently took her wrist and maneuvered her to the shadows of the courtyard closest to the dining hall. Eva’s curiosity made her docile, and she followed him to the darkness.
“Listen, tonight, just act your best at the dinner, all right?”
Eva rolled her eyes, even if it was too dark for him to see it. “I thought we already agreed—”
“Yes, but, also: Remember our bargain? How when I took you out of Galeno, I told you I was going to need your power?”
Eva straightened up, her pride bloating. “Of course.”
“Tonight is the night. After the party, we have to be ready to invoke Rahmagut.”
“What?” she blurted out, and he shushed her, tugging her farther into the courtyard’s dark. They had talked about this moment, but recognizing that the day had arrived was different. Eva always assumed it would happen on the claw’s last day.
She tripped on the cobbles with the sudden pull, unaccustomed to her borrowed espadrilles, and stumbled into his chest. Javier caught her without decorum before she could face-plant on his tunic, his grip on her arms firmly propping her up. As Eva glanced up, she realized they were but a breath away, his touch a furnace to the perpetual warmth of the island. She wished she had brought the iridio pendant, for without it she was powerless against him. But with her cleavage exposed in this dress, she’d made the decision to leave it in the room. She didn’t know what these people were like, if they were like the gentry of Galeno, quick to condemn her for geomancia.
“What did you expect? We’re here. Why would we procrastinate it?”
His breath was a tickle on her nose, feathery like the treacherous flutters in her belly. She wrangled herself free before her body could betray her further. “You can’t just suddenly say that. What’s the plan? And what will I have to do?”
“Yes, I tried getting a moment alone with you today,” he hissed （and her chest palpitated at the double meaning）， “but you spent the whole day fucking around with Maior, so what was I supposed to do?”
Eva’s eyebrows bunched up. “Tell me now?”
“Don Samón is waiting for us to make his toast. And he’s not exactly open to the idea of communing with Rahmagut. So I say we do it as soon as we can, without his noticing, if possible.” He straightened his tunic where their tumble had rustled it and circled Eva to head back inside. “Do?a Ursulina should be arriving soon, if she’s not here already somehow. She is motivated—by what, I don’t know—but she will be bringing everything she needs to get it done. That’s our moment. And you should be ready.” He stepped closer, his slender fingers lifting her chin to bring her eyes to his. He was bold like that, as if he had every right to the proximity. They had a magical binding, Eva supposed, one she’d signed agreeing to be his. “We don’t want her or Enrique to say their words to Rahmagut before we get our chance. You’ll be the one to stall them.”
Eva let out a shuddery breath. “How?”
“Remember how you nearly scorched me in the Plume? And how you reached into the Void and angered all those tinieblas? It’s likely there will be tinieblas in Rahmagut’s tomb. If that’s the case, manipulate them to our advantage.”
She pulled her chin away. “But she’s the strongest geomancer in Sadul Fuerte.”
He chuckled. “Sadul Fuerte is just a city. Someone needs to take the title of strongest in all Fedria.”
In their rawest form, the words were meant to compliment, but Eva couldn’t shake off his flippancy. The way he pulled her here and there like his personal flamethrower, giving her as little information as possible.
“Why do you treat me like what I say doesn’t matter? Everything’s a joke to you,” Eva said with a small voice of defeat, fatigued by it.
He took her hand as if she were wrong. Eva pulled free.
“I don’t know the details yet, that’s why. Do?a Ursulina has conveniently made herself unavailable. I suppose it’s smart of her, since the Liberator has a whole company of seasoned warriors ready to stop her if she shows up. But he doesn’t want to antagonize you.”
Eva clenched her jaw and followed him toward the corridor’s candlelight. “Yeah… about that—he was acting weird this morning,” she muttered. “Like he recognized my name.”
To this, Javier let out a noncommittal grunt.
“So you’re just going to throw me blindly to the jaguars again?”
“There aren’t any jaguars in Tierra’e Sol.”
“Great. More riddles.”
“All I’m asking of you is to act like a well-mannered lady. Like how Do?a Antonia raised you. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“When? When it’s too late?”
“Eva Kesaré, I haven’t plotted against you.”
“Such a filthy lie,” she said. “And don’t call me Eva Kesaré.”
Maybe he didn’t want to make a scene, or maybe she had gained respect in his eyes. He only sighed and said, “This will be good for you. Don’t ruin it.”
He herded her along into the main hall, where a long dining table had been set up to cleave through the center. The yellow, blue, and red banners of Fedria’s new republic hung near the three entryways. Yellow lanterns hovered near the ceiling, tied up by threads of iridio that were obvious to Eva, giving the hall an agreeable warm glow.
The people from earlier were already seated at the table. The women wore ruffled dresses in the Fedrian fashion, much like Eva’s, the dresses an ivory or cream cotton and the ruffles of richly pigmented colors. The men wore liqui liquis in variations of their choice of dark blue, black, or cream.
Ludivina spotted them and waved Eva to her side, where two chairs had been left empty. Eva shot Javier a suspicious glance but walked to the girl anyway. Their closeness to Don Samón and his daughter meant they were guests of honor of some kind. Celeste and Reina were already seated at the table, to Don Samón’s other side and next to a single empty chair, which was surely Maior’s.
In no time at all, they were served a grouper-and-mackerel stew, and when Don Samón made a point to introduce his new guests to the surrounding people—whom he called his closest friends and supporters—the food made it easy for Eva to smile and utter all the pleasantries Do?a Antonia had taught her. As much as Eva wanted to hate the moment, his open smile made it easy to surrender to it. No one had cold looks to shoot at her antlers or cared that her new husband was a valco from Sadul Fuerte. It didn’t take long for Eva to see why everyone’s eyes held genuine love for their former commander. She supposed that made her lucky to sup so close to him like an honored guest.