Something fragile shook in Eva’s chest as she recognized the moniker.
“Would you believe me if I said it?” he said, intuitively offering her a hand.
Eva glanced at it and debated whether it was impolite to reject it. “Say what?”
“That I met your mother, Dulce? That she was witty, and beautiful, and made of sugarcane?”
Her heart went from fluttering to pounding. Eva bit the insides of her lips. She wanted to flee with a lied pleasantry. She despised the implied meaning, his familiarity. He lowered his hand, but there was no judgment or inquisition in his fa?ade. He merely regarded her with those infuriatingly knowing eyes.
She refused to jump to conclusions, especially as she felt alone and vulnerable under the moonlight. “What does Ludivina’s mother have to say about this?” she said, deflecting away from Dulce.
“Ludivina’s mother was a woman I married to solidify my position in Fedrian politics. Do not worry about her opinion of me. Her absence should tell you everything you need to know. Besides, she would only expect honesty from me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Do?a Eva, but I’ve lived a life of hurtful truths. I was put into this world to open the eyes of my brothers and sisters, even if it was to a truth they didn’t want to see.”
“The truths of equality, regardless of our breed?” Eva muttered, desperate to make an escape. She felt equally tugged in opposite directions: her worry for Maior, and her fear of offending this man if his declaration meant what she thought it did.
“Indeed, though when I showed up at the Serrano hacienda, not even my handsome wiles could make your grandmother see that.”
Eva shot a glance at the hall, from where warm yellow light spilled to the cobbles. The servers who ferried trays of wine and amapola. The few dancing pairs that remained. Javier laughing beside a man twice his size while clinking sloshing goblets. A merriment devoid of Maior.
“Do?a Eva,” he said, seizing her attention, “in my youth, I went to Galeno expecting to leave with an army and coffers of support. Instead, I left without my heart.”
He paused, perhaps for the drama of it.
“When I met your mother, she was all skin of cocoa and eyes like dates.”
Eva looked away to the floor. She didn’t catch her tongue before saying, “And I’m a bachaca. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Don Samón, but I’m nothing like Dulce. And I don’t want to be.”
His lips thinned.
“My mother might have been sweet like her name,” she said, heart hammering, “but she was the weakest woman I’ve ever know.”
“Do?a Eva,” he growled.
“Forgive me if I speak a hurtful truth.” In a way, saying it felt cathartic. “She let a man destroy her happiness. But instead of fighting on, she abandoned me.”
“It wasn’t a man who destroyed your mother’s life—”
Finally she seized the courage to make the exit she’d wanted to all along. “Excuse me, Don Samón, I have a feeling Javier might be looking for me.”
Her lie was stupid and transparent, but she had better things to do than pretend for Don Samón’s sake. She didn’t want to look into his kind face and see that it belonged to a man worthy of such actions.
“It was your grandmother who stole her freedom and her happiness with lies.”
Eva heard his voice behind her and was glad he didn’t follow her.
The music sickened her when she stepped into the hall. She spotted Celeste listening to one of Don Samón’s friends, nursing a goblet while shooting glances at the doorway to the gardens. Across the room, Javier did the same. His gaze fell on Eva as she stalked from one door to the other in a hurry. He glared as if she didn’t have any right to retreat, to ruin the plans he had made for her tonight. The heat of heartache flooded her face. It stuffed her nose and threatened moisture in the corners of her eyes. With an equally scathing glare, she dared him to follow her, because she had many reasons to let him savor a slice of her wrath.
A shadow ran into her in the open corridor to the dormitories. Eva jumped, startled, only to see the ruddy cheeks and glossy tamarind eyes of Reina. Something about the fluster of her, appearing just as Eva’s own ruminations had spun her conversation with Don Samón round and round, made the ire boil over.
Eva got in her way to stop her, then cornered her against a pillar.
“This has been your plan all along?” she hissed, pointing a finger with the threat of prodding Reina across the chest with it. “You were planning to kill Maior?” Eva’s voice came out broken and shrill. In her chest her heart thrummed.
Reina flushed even more. She was paralyzed with a fearful resignation. “No—no.”
Eva tried discerning any guilt in her eyes but couldn’t. “To invoke Rahmagut you have to kill Celeste and Maior. I thought you loved Celeste?”
Fury flashed in Reina. She seized Eva’s wrist, yanking her this way and that before shoving her back. And through it all Eva was nothing but a doll to the strength in Reina’s grip.
Eva sucked in a breath, a sharp fear shooting up her spine. She didn’t have her iridio pendant with her…
“My relationship with Celeste is none of your concern,” Reina said with her tail lashing behind her. She was amped for a fight.
Eva couldn’t shake the deep disapproval, despite Reina’s aggression. “Right now, you are everything to Maior. How could you plot to betray her like this? You’re as fucked up as the rest of them.”
Footsteps echoed down the corner. The last thing Eva wanted was to see Javier make an entrance to patronize her, so she whirled toward her room, leaving Reina, stunned, against the same pillar.
Eva needed to get rid of the dress and fetch her geomancia jewelry before looking for Maior. She entered her and Javier’s room. The newlywed suite, as the nozariel maid had said with a giggle when she’d welcomed them inside. The chamber was twice the size of Maior’s, with a massive four-poster bed and an alcove furnished with a luxurious breakfast table. Windowless, the room had only one natural light source: the wide-paned doors to the alcove.
She paced the room to calm herself, her heart racing itself bloody. She refused to replay the conversation with Don Samón. She refused to draw a conclusion. He had sounded so familiar and kind, like he had loved the late Dulce. Which could mean many things… but in truth, most likely meant one.
Eva flung one of the decorative pillows across the room. She didn’t want to accept it! Don Samón had been so nice. And he was the face—the leader—of the independence movement. He was a hero. She didn’t want to see him as a—
Her train of thought shattered as Javier stormed into the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Eva Kesaré,” he said.
Eva met his anger in earnest. “Look who the tide brought in,” she said. “You’re exactly who I need right now.”
Her response gave him pause. “How could you walk away from Don Samón like that?”
Eva squeezed her lips shut. She wanted to summon that starlight fire. She wanted to burn a hole right through his chest.
“When someone as rich and famous as him wants your attention, you bloody well give it.”