Chapter 35
Minerva
Night fell.
Through the gaping door of the slaughterhouse, Ygnacio and I watched the lawn dampen with evening mist. Each droplet of water caught the light like a piece of crystal. Octaviana had summoned a string quartet from the Capital; practice scales, then full pieces, spilled from the house.
I had given up on squatting to keep my skirts out of the worst of the filth beneath me. My throat was dry and scratchy from thirst. Many hours had passed—the guards had changed twice. I felt a pressing need, but I refused to wet myself.
For now.
There might be many more hours to go until Arnulfo was able to release me.
I leaned against the sides of the cage and dozed. Tried to ignore the discomfort, the smells, everything.
Footsteps swished through the grass. They approached the slaughterhouse.
At once I was alert.
I heard a light giggle; polite conversation. A singing clink of glasses.
“There’s more in the kitchen, Rodrigo,” said a flirtatious voice. “Now shoo. I told you I wanted a moment with Mateo.”
Some male laughter.
“Better be quick. I heard the footmen were thirsty,” one of the guards said.
“Get outta here.”
Some muttered assent; footsteps, swift and measured, led away.
Low conversation; this was drowned out by rising music from the ballroom. Then I heard, crisp as a bell, the guard gasping.
“What the—”
Something hard hit the side of the slaughterhouse. I jerked my chin up, attentive, when Filomena filled the doorway of the slaughterhouse.
She was hoisting a limp body forward. She slung it on the slaughterhouse floor; skull met hard-packed dirt with a crack that made me want to retch again. The guard’s chest was wet with darkening blood; the hilt of a blade protruded from between his ribs.
“That was for Lucia,” Filomena said, low and passionate, and spat on the guard.
Then she seized keys from his belt and swept toward me. She let out a soft gag of disgust at the smell. A hint of her iris perfume cut through the reek of the slaughterhouse as she shoved keys into the lock one after the other, cranking each to test them.
Iris. That was what I had smelled on Arnulfo.
“Are you hurt?” she asked as I forced myself into a crouch on bloodless, tingling legs.
“No,” I croaked.
A key slipped into the lock with a satisfying click. My heart leaped; I braced, ready to run, as Filomena turned it and wrenched the the padlock free. She threw it on the ground and seized my hands.
Shouts from behind us—male; angry. Through the open slaughterhouse door, I caught the cacophony of an alarm raised.
“Move,” Filomena barked, and yanked me from the cage.
My legs shook. A cold flush against the nape of my neck—Ygnacio was here.
“So long,” I whispered.
I would never see him again.
I flew out of the slaughterhouse like a shot, racing after Filomena.
We were completely exposed. My house shoes slipped through the wet grass. Blood rushed to my feet; I caught one toe in the dirt and righted myself as fast as I could, arms pumping, tears peeling from my eyes and streaking over my temples.
“Shit,” Filomena said. I had drawn abreast of her. “Move,” she snapped at me, but I was faster. I flew in front of her.
In front of us was the shadow-cloaked house. If I curved left, like I did after I found Arnulfo in the slaughterhouse, I would find a small door and the servants’ stairwell.
I curved right, toward the gravel drive that led to the gates. More wide open, exposed space.
I pumped my arms harder, extending my legs, raising my knees sharply. To the gate, to the right, to the jungle.
Behind me: a crack.
I registered the bite of gunpowder; a second later, icy hands shoved against my right shoulder.
“Down,” Ygnacio cried.
Bullets streaked overhead as I slammed into the earth. I skidded through mud, landing somewhere in the shadow of the house. Filomena hit the dirt to my right with a soft gasp.
I scrambled up and wrenched myself forward, my back curled over, braced to duck again.
The crack of more gunfire in the night. The silvery trill of violins spilled out onto the grounds from the house. My breath hitched, wretched, as I stumbled to the door to the servants’ staircase, my shoulders draped in shadow that might be heavier and darker than natural, thanks to Ygnacio.
And nothing else.
At the door, I looked over my shoulder. I had seized the handle, and I was already stepping through the doorway, my lips forming words to tell her to follow—
Filomena lay where she had fallen, curled on her side. Darkness drenched her chest and white apron, lurid and gleaming.
“She’s hurt,” I said, and even as I said it, I knew I was wrong.
“She’s dead,” Ygnacio whispered. “Move.”
With a surge of cold, he swept me into the house.
Filomena’s determination passed to me like a mouthful of chispa, molten and aching as it went down. I could no longer run, but I would not hide. For her. For Arnulfo.
For me.
Golden light from the house spilled over Filomena like a glimmering shroud. There was blood on her lips, gilded with light.