Celeste sat on the floor next to a bookshelf, surrounded by her mother’s old books, with her back to the open tunnel door. The hem of her black dress was filthy, brown from the slop plaguing the estate after the week’s never-ending rain.
Reina stopped, taking a silent, hesitant breath as the fears that had festered in her all these days returned: It was she who had driven Celeste to partake in the tiniebla hunt. It was because of her that Celeste hadn’t been by her mother’s side during the last moments of her life. Her actions had added to the grief, and Reina was sure Celeste saw this as clearly as she did. She tried not to think of her role in bringing Do?a Laurel to Do?a Ursulina’s laboratory—to the brimming iridio ore. She had so many reasons to be ashamed, but she couldn’t turn her back forever.
Reina draped her hands over Celeste’s shoulders by way of greeting, and Celeste jumped.
“Hey,” Reina said.
“Oh—I thought—that you were one of them, again.”
“No, they’ve left,” Reina told her gently. All week Celeste had been perpetually fleeing the sobbing women who’d suffocated her with their tears as soon as they saw her, as if Celeste were the one obliged to console them. As if she hadn’t been the one to lose a mother.
“Where have you been?” Celeste demanded.
Silence clutched Reina. Silence and fear.
She wasn’t worthy of the pain she felt. Do?a Laurel had been Celeste’s mother, not Reina’s. Reina didn’t know what it was like to lose a mother, because she had never had one.
“I was giving you time,” she lied.
“Mi mamá is dead, and I am all alone. That’s how you take care of me? By giving me time?”
Reina lowered her gaze. She kneaded her leathery hands.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand why this hurts so much.”
“You’re supposed to take care of me,” Celeste bit out, “so do it.”
Reina obeyed. She embraced her because it was the only thing to do. Celeste was cold and smaller than Reina. With heaving shoulders, Celeste buried her wet face in the crook of Reina’s neck. Celeste squeezed her, and Reina knew there was love there, and that she would do everything in her power to protect it.
For the first time since coming to ?guila Manor, Reina devolved into that perpetual state of fearing the unknown. For, without the protection of the Benevolent Lady, anything could—and would—happen.
Soon enough, it did.
12
The Archbishop’s Inquisition
The Saint Jon the Shepherd celebrations were back in Galeno again. The annual weeklong revel celebrated the patron of passing time. They always happened right after Eva’s birthday, when the buttery araguaneys planted around the city bloomed after the rainy season. The trees took Galeno in a flurry of petals yellow enough to make the sun itself blush. The Serrano hacienda had an araguaney in one of its many courtyards, in the center of a garden populated by a wrought iron breakfast table and matching chairs for two. It was a romantic setting, the seats arranged between two large bushes to protect the privacy of whoever enjoyed its amenities.
Eva couldn’t say she enjoyed Don Alberto’s company. Especially not when he stared at her during their long awkward pauses, trying to understand the reasons for her introversion. Eva would never speak of it, of course. Because how could she ever explain to him that she had spent nine months without color? How could she name the feeling of muting the impulses inside her—of drowning herself in prayer to the Virgin to repel any thought or desire stirred by her valco side?
After the milk snake had slithered into Pura’s bed, Eva decided magic was a fair price to stop demons from latching on to their lives. She stopped speaking of geomancia and visiting Do?a Rosa. To appease the rancor in her grandmother and all the Serranos who witnessed or heard of the tigra mariposa, she pretended she was completely and utterly free of rebellious thought. Eva became Do?a Antonia’s poster grandchild: devout, dutiful, silent. She’d earned Pura’s forgiveness, even if the loving Pura, who’d inherited Dulce’s nature, hadn’t made it difficult.
Don Alberto took Eva’s hand in his big sweaty one. “I have always been very enthusiastic about you, Se?orita Eva. But sometimes, when we spend time together like this, I worry this feeling is not reciprocated.”
Eva withdrew her hand. Like all their meetings, this one had been arranged by Do?a Antonia. Hearing him pretend otherwise annoyed Eva to no end.
Lately, she’d grown resentful of her role, and restless. She swallowed thickly, once again battling the urge to shatter her pious fa?ade.
“It’s merely your own hesitation that’s stopping you, mi se?or,” she said dryly. “You already know how I feel about our future together.”
She accepted it, begrudgingly. He was smart enough to recognize this; otherwise he wouldn’t be taking so long to formally propose.
“My preference is a bride with a little more passion.”
This time she did look at him. She frowned at his round face, his cheeks flushed and his temples perspiring from the afternoon heat.
“I understand the rules of this game,” he said. “How propriety demands a coy act for the sake of modesty. But this is not coyness anymore. Every time I see you, you make me doubt that you can be the wife I’m looking for—someone with love to give.”
The way he regarded her, demanding more when she had already given up so much, evaporated the last ounce of pretense she could spare.
“You know as well as I do, you won’t find this passion in any of the other women suitable for your rank.” She didn’t care about her lack of tact. If he was going to become her husband, why did she have to continue pretending? Eva was already being forced into a life she didn’t want. The last thing she needed was to keep on acting like this was a dream of her own design. “We are each other’s last options,” she added coolly.
Don Alberto stiffened. He folded his hands under the table. “You’re incorrect in thinking I don’t have choices, se?orita.” He called her se?orita anytime he wanted to patronize her. Anytime he wanted to assert he had more wisdom for being two decades her senior. “And you’d do well to be grateful for this. I’m not the one carrying the reputation of causing every curse and misfortune that has befallen the Serranos.”
He wasn’t wrong. She had been the cause of her mother’s sadness and the bringer of discord into the hacienda.
“I’m not the one who befriended the witch the Contadors keep hidden in their house.”
The iron chair scrapped the cobblestones as he pushed himself up to his feet. Eva followed suit, insolently so. Their glares clashed for a fraction of a moment before the courtyard door swung open.
Néstor emerged with a relieved sigh. “Eva Kesaré, I was looking all over for you.”
Eva smoothed her skirt and offered her uncle a tight smile. The whole interference was staged. She had begged him to interrupt the meeting when Don Alberto had come calling earlier in the afternoon.
“I suppose this is as good a stopping point as any,” Don Alberto said without sparing Eva a glance. “I have business to attend to with the governor. I shall see you again soon, Se?orita Eva.”