Her feet carried her to the kitchens to grab some cold almojábanas while she waited. The anticipation worsened her aches. She didn’t want to wait outside the laboratory door, right where she could still hear Maior’s protests to Do?a Ursulina’s examinations. But she didn’t want to walk away either and forget to fetch Maior once her grandmother was finished, especially not as both Do?a Ursulina and Don Enrique kept throwing jabs at her, calling her useless.
Reina had worked hard this past year, enduring Don Enrique’s disdain and Do?a Ursulina’s ambition, avoiding Javier at every turn, because she wanted them to see she belonged in the household. She had tended to Celeste’s fevers and sadness. She had fought off a specter or two who’d threatened the iridio mines. She had kidnapped innocents and had stumbled upon the bone and sinew and guts that were the product of this cursed mission. Her hands were dirty, but she couldn’t waver now, when they were so close, when the coming of Rahmagut’s Claw would make it all worth it.
Through a sooty window, Reina caught Javier climbing into the traveling carriage while she chewed on the cheesy almojábana. He was accompanied by a small escort of armored soldiers, hurrying them to pack their supplies. Reina didn’t like him any more than she had when she’d joined the household, but at least now she trusted he acted in favor of their purpose.
She tried to image her life afterward, and her thoughts flitted back to Celeste. To those Páramo-sky eyes and moonlight face that were so exquisite to stare at for hours at a time. What would Celeste feel for the person who brought her mom back?
Reina found the laboratory in cold darkness when she finally descended for Maior. The room was devoid of lights and smells and whirling sounds in Do?a Ursulina’s absence. Reina brought in a torch from the outside, its light caressing every crevice and revealing Maior shivering against a wall. She cowered at the sight of the firelight, so Reina left the torch propped against an empty holder near the door.
Blood stained the insides of Maior’s bare legs and arms, originating from a slit in her wrists and from the depths of her thighs, underneath the rough-spun dress. Reina frowned. This was unusual. Her grandmother never harmed the women. But there was no nearby knife that Maior could have used to harm herself.
Slowly, she knelt by the shivering Maior. “Are you all right?” Reina said, though her voice and hands ran cold.
“You left me,” Maior whispered. A remnant tear rolled down her cheek, plopping over her collarbone. Her bob was short enough that Reina could easily see six of the nine birthmark dots behind her ear.
“We have a room set apart for you. I’ll take you there,” Reina said. “The caudillo will shower you in luxury to make this easier—”
“Like I’d ever forget what you’ve made of me!” Maior cried, burying her face on the inside of her elbow. “I’m not some dog that can be appeased with a thrown bone.”
“You’ll have your own room. A servant will come and take care of you—pamper you. You can have a warm bath and sugary cakes and soft, silky dresses,” Reina said, hoping Maior cared about such luxuries at all. “No one will come for you here, though, only Do?a Ursulina’s cruelty.”
For lately, she had grown crueler.
Reina tugged Maior’s wrist and brought her to her feet, the threat turning her malleable. She led her out to the icy corridor, then walked her down to one of the farthest doors. She forced a tight smile and opened the room. It was a comely chamber with a small bed, a dark wood dresser, a dining table, and a loaded bookshelf. The girls received the hospitality of a guest in the confines of the underground until the test of the babe confirmed or denied their identity. If they turned out to be a true dama, there was another room down the corridor where Do?a Ursulina laid them in an endless sleep to await their fate.
“And I’m supposed to be happy staying here?” Maior asked as she walked to the center, gesturing at the brightly patterned wool blankets, the tapestries of wildflowers and alpacas dressing the wall, the cushioned espadrilles peeking from beneath the bed. “Just let me go home. That’s all you have to do—let me go.”
“One thing is what the donkey thinks and another what the rider wants,” Reina said automatically.
Maior’s nostrils flared. “Spare me your nozariel sayings!”
“What I mean to say is it’s not my call.”
“I’ll do anything in return.”
Maior’s despair—Reina knew what it was like. She knew what it felt like to hang by the mercy of a stranger, when a small act of kindness was enough for her to carry on hoping. And her heart ached at the memory of Do?a Laurel doing exactly that to her life. So she took off the rings on her index fingers. They each encapsulated a litio potion, which served as the conduit for protection magic.
“I can’t do anything to help you,” she said, offering them to Maior, “but I want you to know that I’m your ally. Take them.”
As far as Reina was concerned, litio was the simplest and most harmless type of geomancia. It was only good for barriers and wards. In Maior’s hands, they wouldn’t harm anybody.
Maior’s shoulders tensed. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“See it as a loan. I have to come back for them, eventually, and I will have to come to you.”
As Maior took the rings, her cold fingertips grazing Reina’s in the exchange, her touch lingered. Then she snatched them to her chest as if they were a prized treasure.
A smile threatened Reina’s lips. She was no good at using litio anyway. “Would you like me to come by tomorrow before high noon?”
Maior accepted the invitation for company with a nod.
Reina hurried out. At the final step out of the underground staircase, she ran into her grandmother, who held a stirring baby boy. Reina sucked in a breath, the sight paralyzing her.
“Where have you been? I went looking for you to hand you this,” Do?a Ursulina said, depositing the bundle in Reina’s arms. “Take him to the mountains now.”
“She’s one of them,” Reina said. She couldn’t explain how she knew it. But the presage had latched on to her heart and wouldn’t go away.
“I do not need your reassurance. Don Enrique wants to be absolutely certain.”
Reina’s gaze fell on the babe’s rosy cheeks. He seemed so alive and healthy.
Her jaw rippled, tense.
“Don’t despair, Reina. If you’re right, then there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
17
A Hidden Constellation
Reina didn’t linger near the mountain clearing where she deposited the babe. She wasn’t supposed to, lest she get in the way of the demons drawn to the site or was tempted to strike them down with her machete. Interfering would only yield the test moot. And she wasn’t motivated by the possibility of doubt. Rahmagut’s Claw was going to stain the sky for only twenty days, and then it would be gone for another forty-two years. They needed to have all the preparations sorted and ready for when the star’s cyan tail weakened the fabric separating el Vacío from their world. According to Do?a Ursulina, at any moment now they would gaze up to the inky velvet and see the beginnings of its journey across the night skies.