“Speak! Or are you a mute?” Don Enrique said.
“There was no plan,” Reina said. “If Celeste is gone, then she didn’t plan it. What if she’s in danger? What if—”
Do?a Ursulina snorted.
Don Enrique turned to her. “What is it?”
Do?a Ursulina waved a languid hand, tittering. “Look at her, deflecting with talk of Celeste being in danger. Danger of what, exactly? Pray tell, who sees those valco antlers and decides they want to cross the daughter of the most powerful man in Venazia?” Her shrewd eyes fell on Reina. “Don Enrique, it’s obvious she doesn’t know. True, she’s like a puppy to Celeste, but she would tell us if she were keeping secrets for her. Let us end this charade.”
Reina’s fists were clenched and blood-drained, her nails threatening to bite through her skin. She focused on that pain. She squeezed hard so she wouldn’t have to feel the disgust radiating off the caudillo’s gaze.
Don Enrique rose to tower over the desk. “Your purpose in my home has always been a precarious one. Lately I have wondered why I’m keeping you at all. And if you can’t even be bothered to protect my daughter—to stop her from whatever ridiculous game she’s playing—then I have no use for you.”
Reina’s gaze glued to the desk. She couldn’t look the caudillo in the eye. She wasn’t useless. She wasn’t like the kitchen slaves of Segolita, never daring to pursue a better life just because their blood was nozariel. She had trained and bled and endured Do?a Ursulina’s tutelage. She had kidnapped women and deposited innocent babes on the mountain.
She was not useless.
Don Enrique went on. “If you can’t even be useful to me now, then your employment in my household is obviously nothing but a waste of resources.”
“Don Enrique,” Do?a Ursulina purred, conversationally, as if seeing Reina berated were as interesting a sight as the frailejones, “the Benevolent Lady Laurel trusted her, and Celeste still does. There is use for her.”
“And you expect me to care for your opinion?” Don Enrique snapped. “She’s daughter of your son! And from what I hear, with tastes that clearly must run in your blood.”
Reina frowned and extended a glance at her grandmother. What was that supposed to mean?
“Se?or—”
“Silence, Ursulina.”
Reina’s eyes fell on Maior. With her hands folded over each other and her eyes vacant, Maior was a pretty but wretched imitation of Do?a Laurel. Disgust flooded her as she imagined the use the caudillo was planning for Maior.
“I allowed her here under the assumption of her strength—that she would be capable like Juan Vicente—but I’ve yet to see any of it.”
“I’m not useless,” Reina muttered, the sight of Maior feeding her nerve.
“What did you say to me?”
Reina welcomed the anger like an old friend. She rose to her feet. “I am not weak. I kidnapped those girls. I brought them to your dungeon. I left innocent babes on the mountain. You should see me as worthy.”
It stunned Don Enrique and Do?a Ursulina into silence.
“I’ve earned my keep and devoted myself to your cause and to Celeste. Not only because Do?a Laurel and Do?a Ursulina wanted it of me, but because Celeste’s my friend.” The words rushed out of her, fast and hot. “If she’s gone, then she didn’t plan it. It must have been against her will.”
She almost spilled Celeste’s secret to reaffirm her conviction. Or the truth about Do?a Laurel’s hidden mountain home, in the hope that they might find Celeste hiding there after all. But seeing Maior like a puppet by Do?a Ursulina’s side made Reina realize she didn’t trust Don Enrique’s intentions. Did the pursuit of Rahmagut’s legend twist his mind? Or had his heart already been rotten, even when Do?a Laurel had been alive?
Her heart pumped so hard it ached, but Reina couldn’t back down.
“If you don’t believe me—that I’m more than a duskling and that my loyalty is to you—then let me prove myself. I will gladly find her. I don’t know where she is, but Celeste wouldn’t just leave without telling anyone. She’s not… she’s not selfish. She would at least tell me. And I would do anything to protect her.”
Don Enrique stared her down, but this time Reina didn’t look away. Even if the seconds were nothing but pallbearers, escorting time to Reina’s undoing under the caudillo’s wrath. She couldn’t look away.
“If I say you are weak, it is because I see you and know it,” Don Enrique said in a low, dangerous tone. “I could snap your neck here and now to end your misery if I so desired. Your insecurities reek, and that fake heart of yours betrays you.” He smiled, but there was no mirth in his eyes. “Because I value loyalty, I will give you this opportunity you cry for. I will let you show us if your words are true.”
“All we need are her whereabouts,” Do?a Ursulina said as she stroked the thick locks of the doll beside her.
“Do not make me silence you again, Ursulina,” the caudillo snarled, never once peeling his gaze from Reina’s.
Reina didn’t see it, but she could feel her grandmother’s outrage.
With one swift movement, he cleared the clutter from his desk. Scrolls, quills, and seals rolled to the ground, ink spilling and documents flying. He uncapped the fat ring on his thumb and emptied bits of iridio potion over the desk. It was but a sliver of sparkly black fluid, the viscosity like milk. With his left index finger, he spread it into the shape of a sigil, tracing a pattern to trigger an incantation of iridio. He gestured at Reina with his gaze and said, “Do it. Swear those words to the stars that watch us.”
Reina’s blood pumped hot and fast, tingling her ears and stinging her underarms. She slapped her dominant hand against the sigil, her bared palm burning from the lick of corrosion. Don Enrique did the same.
With Don Enrique’s left palm and Reina’s right splayed against the moist wood, Reina said, “I will bring Celeste back—”
“You vow not to return without her.”
“I’ll find her and help her return, unscathed—”
“Unscathed and unspoiled, for she left as a maiden, and as a maiden she will return.”
“It’ll be the proof of my loyalty, and in return—”
“And only with Celeste at your side will you be allowed to course these corridors again. For without her, you are banished.”
Reina stared at the caudillo, speechless. In her shocked pause, the incantation sealed into place.
The air was sucked from the room and into a parallel plane with a whirlwind, then thrust back in. The sigil glimmered red under their palms—the color of his dominant personality trait, brightly visible thanks to the bismuto spell still burning through her—and the agreement sealed into a pact.
“Now, hold on—” But before Reina could muster a full sentence, jabs of iridio shot at her chest, flowing around her heart like scalding water. “No,” she sucked in the air, the chair saving her from recoiling against the ground.
“You no longer belong in this manor,” Don Enrique said. “Even your grandmother can attest to it.”