Chapter 6
SIX
Lo
Lo stumbled out of the room. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
An icy sweat made her shiver. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding.
Everything spun around her, too bright and shiny.
When she closed her eyes, hellish images returned.
The blood. So much blood. She swallowed back bile and the bitter aftertaste of that strange potion.
A group of people huddled together on the other side of the room. Their bodies blurred until she saw a familiar rebozo and long pair of braids. Mayté.
Just the sight of her best friend was enough to vanquish the hell in her head. Lo blinked back tears. Without a doubt they had both made it into Fortune’s Kiss. “Mayté!” Lo almost tripped over her cloak as she rushed to her best friend.
Mayté whirled around and her face lit up. “Gracias a Dios!”
They held each other tight. The smell of cinnamon with the subtlest hint of paint hit her nose. Mayté’s smell. The best and most comforting scent in all of Milagro.
“I’m so relieved,” Lo cried out.
“Me too,” Mayté said. “For a moment, I didn’t think I’d made it.”
“Yes, I was so worried, but as soon as I saw your rebozo, I knew everything was going to be all right.” Lo tugged at the fabric.
“Ay, that’s why I wear it. It’s my signature look.” Mayté twirled. Lo tried to scoff, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “But wasn’t it so strange?” Mayté asked. “Did you have to drink a potion too?”
Lo’s heart stopped. She slowly nodded.
“Ah! Then maybe all of us had to. As soon as I drank it, I had these strange visions. I saw myself as a famous painter. It was amazing. All the nobles were bidding on my artwork. Mine.”
“Well, my father became a good man,” Lo blurted before Mayté could ask what she had seen. “And my family was happy.” She slipped on a smile, even though everything inside her churned like a sick storm. Lies. But reliving the truth even for a moment would make her vomit.
“Oh, really?”
Lo nodded. She couldn’t meet her best friend’s eyes. Her own gaze traveled to Mayté’s skirt. Scarlet and flowing.
Just like her father’s blood.
A chill gripped Lo and the tiniest of voices whispered in her ear. What would your dear friend do if she knew you murdered your father?
“Lo?” Mayté gave her a questioning look.
“You’re both here too?” a new voice interrupted.
Lo gasped and Mayté’s mouth dropped.
Dominic Castro waved. He wore a bright red cravat at his neck. In the candlelight, his white suit almost appeared to glow. “It’s good to see some familiar faces. I was worried I wouldn’t know anyone.” His cheeks were flushed, and black hairs stuck to his forehead.
Lo fought a frown. She came to Fortune’s Kiss to escape her suitors. Still, he was the least offensive of them. He had laughed at Juan Felipe when she snapped at him, so he had a sense of humor. She managed something of a smile. “Dominic, I never expected to see you here.”
“Yeah, what are you doing here?” Mayté bluntly asked.
An heir from Las Cuatro didn’t need Fortune’s Kiss, especially the oldest son. Someone like Juan Felipe or even Ernesto would have likely used their wish to make their family the most powerful in all of Milagro. What was Dominic’s end game? She would have to keep her eye on him.
“I could ask you the same.” Dominic quirked an eyebrow.
“I think it’s obvious why I’m here.” Mayté rolled her eyes.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He offered a weak smile. A genuine-seeming gesture, but Lo knew all too well that everyone wore a mask.
Mayté huffed and tugged her rebozo.
“Well, I …” Lo tried her best to muster up naive innocence. “I thought Fortune’s Kiss looked fun, you know?”
“You’re gambling your dreams just for the fun of it?” Dominic stared at her as if he saw through to the truth of her sins.
No, no. That was the paranoia talking. It must have been a lingering side effect of that damn potion. “Maybe.” Lo smiled, resisting the urge to pull her cloak tighter around her. She needed to get a grip.
Before Dominic could question her any further, Mayté suddenly gasped, loud and strangled as if someone punched her in the gut. “Carlos?”
“What?” Lo whirled around. Mayté’s older brother came in from one of the doors, bewilderment written all over his brown face. It was really him.
“Wha—” He slowed to a stop, a wide-eyed gaze locked on Mayté. Until it flickered to Lo.
A warm tremor ran through her heart. Carlos’s attire may not have been as extravagant as Dominic’s; he didn’t have a suit or cravat.
Instead, he wore a white dress shirt. The top couple of buttons were missing.
He also had on beige slacks with a patch on the knee that his mother must have sewn on.
His thick, unkempt hair wisped into the tiniest of curls just under his ear. He looked handsome …
“Hello!” Dominic waved. “Another familiar—”
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Mayté’s words echoed, catching the attention of the other entrants, but she didn’t seem to care. She balled up her fists.
“I could ask the same thing,” Carlos said, voice steady. He was the calm to her fury. Always the water to her fire. “I’m here to save our family, including you.” Always the voice of reason, but this time his words didn’t douse Mayté’s flames. This time they were liquid fuel.
“Save … me?” Mayté growled. “Now you’ve decided to do something?” Her nostrils flared and her entire body shook. “All these years you could have stepped up to help, and only now you’re trying?”
Oh. Lo had seen her best friend look like that one other time before.
When they were only twelve and Carlos had just turned thirteen.
The two had fought about something Lo couldn’t remember, but the part that stayed forever in her mind was how Carlos spilled his horchata all over the table, soaking the pile of sketches Mayté had toiled over.
He swore it was an accident, but didn’t get far in his explanation, because Mayté gave him a black eye.
And now she was about to do it again.
“It’s too late!” She stormed toward Carlos, but Lo snatched her arm just in time.
“Let me go,” Mayté growled.
“No.” Lo clung to her best friend tighter. Mayté would never hurt her, no matter how angry she got. “Listen.” Lo leaned close and lowered her voice. “Don’t do this. Not here. You might get kicked out for fighting, and we must win this. Don’t forget what’s on the line.”
That seemed to be enough to calm her. “Fine,” she huffed.
“I wish you would have told me you intended to come.” Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now we’re competing against each other for the same thing.”
Mayté let out a soft, bitter chuckle. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m here for myself. When I win, I’m taking my fortune and getting out of Milagro.”
Carlos flinched, the pain of her words worse than a black eye. “What about our family?”
“What about them?” she scoffed. “Why should I help my family when they couldn’t care less about me? Carlos, you know what would have happened if I’d stayed. No one was going to try to stop it.”
Dominic quietly stared. Lo wanted to snap at him to mind his own business, but someone clapped.
“My, aren’t you Las Cinco children so amusing.
” A petite woman strutted to the front of the group.
She was wearing a gaudy gown with puffed sleeves, big ribbons, and long gloves.
Underneath her ridiculously big hat—decked out with flowers, ribbons, and …
a birdcage?—short brown tendrils curled into ribbons that framed her milky white face.
No doubt this fashion atrocity was coveted in Hispana.
“Who is that?” Mayté whispered.
“Senora Montoya,” Dominic answered.
“La Reina de Los Vampiros,” Lo whispered back, ignoring Dominic.
Senora Montoya stopped in front of them.
Her thick perfume was suffocating. Her children had been the ones in the gleaming white carriage who had nearly run them down yesterday, and Lo could see where they had gotten their haughty attitudes.
Senora Montoya tapped her cheek as she eyed the four of them.
“Oh, my. No, I meant Las Cuatro.” Her cold smile cut through Mayté and Carlos.
She wrinkled her tiny little nose. “I apologize.”
Carlos looked down, and Mayté gripped her rebozo tighter.
How dare she? Lo opened her mouth, but Mayté spoke first. “Once I win, Las Cuatro won’t matter.
” She stared straight into Senora Montoya’s eyes.
The world spat on Mayté and tried its best to pull her down to the mud, but no matter what happened, she held her head up high. Lo admired that.
“Ohhhh,” Senora Montoya squawked. “Is that so, dear? Well, I can assure you when I win, Las Cuatro will never be the same.”
No doubt if this deranged woman won, she would use the fortune and power to make sure el orden antiguo ruled all of San Solera once again. If Mayté and Lo lost, they would eventually return to a nightmare. A world possibly even worse than the one they’d left.
“Then may the best person win,” Lo said, voice as sharp and cold as a steel dagger.
“Ah, Lorena de León,” Senora Montoya cooed. “You could’ve been a perfect match for my son, had it not been for that bullheaded father of yours.”
“Sorry, I never heard he intended to court me,” Lo muttered. This woman had no idea her father was dead. While it was nice to hear someone speak ill of that demon, Senora Montoya deserved a spot next to him in El Infierno.
Lo felt both Carlos and Dominic staring.
Senora Montoya clucked her tongue. “Shame. Shame. Shame. Just imagine how much better off you would have been. The union between our families would have been such a powerful and influential one. The first of its kind. It would have brought in a new era.”
An era of el orden antiguo slowly but surely devouring las grandes familias.