3
G ASPAR R UIZ ADOPTED HER WITHIN THE WEEK.
The matrons were so eager to get Caya out that she would have been insulted if she hadn’t understood.
Children lost their families all the time, whether at sea, in some freak magical accident, or simply from being so neglected that an orphanage was better than being at home.
Sooner or later, they would need her bed, and, on paper, Gaspar Ruiz seemed like the perfect adoption candidate.
He was, she learned, a widowed Domingan nobleman from one of their oldest families, who had, like many tourists, rented a manor house in Rojanea for the Coronet.
He supplemented his old money with an extensive shipping empire that made him wealthier every year.
Caya’s nerves were on high alert from the revelation that he was Domingan.
Witchcraft was illegal in Domingo now, but Domingan sightseers still flocked to Coventry during the Coronet because they loved to safely watch the effects of magic on someone else’s land.
It made sense that he was here. It didn’t make sense that he’d been looking for her—or perhaps it made a dangerous kind of sense.
Caya had been seven years old when the witches from Domingo staged a coup against Coventry’s royal family.
The same family that had welcomed them when their own country turned against them.
King Oberon had been a reaper, Queen Evaline had been a crafter, and Princess Yoselin had been a morpher, though she had mostly used her transformation magic to disguise herself as one of her parents and command the cooks to send extra dessert to her room.
Being a welk hadn’t felt like a liability then, when Coventry’s Royal Council had been an even mix of those with and without magic, and the powers of a witch had been another talent, like an eidetic memory or perfect pitch.
Magic had been a thing of wonder, not a thing to be feared, and, thanks to her parents’ jobs in the palace, Caya had lived like royalty despite not being a royal herself.
It had seemed like an act of kindness, one more showing of benevolence by the Seawards, to let the Domingan witches in.
Then they had stormed the castle and slaughtered the Seawards in their beds. Caya had only survived thanks to the intervention of the very traitor who had let the witches in through the servants’ passage: Sebastjan Arroyo.
The same boy she had just seen alongside the Domingan prince.
Caya realized that she was breathing hard, shaking with anger, and she tried to force herself to calm down.
Within the bedroom of the orphanage, children surrounded her, their gazes heavy with sadness and envy as she packed her meager belongings, and she couldn’t bear their questions about her murderous expression on top of everything else.
Before she saw him, she hadn’t thought of Bas in years, and this was exactly why.
He’d been her friend, an eight-year-old kitchen boy who spent time with her when Yoselin was busy, and he had betrayed them.
Betrayed her . Even after ten years, she could still close her eyes and see his wan expression, feel his shaking hands as he yanked her through the passage to safety, and all he could say in response to her tearful curses was I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…
Now he cozied up to an enemy prince, draped in finery, while she had to beg for the favor of strangers just to survive. He’d taken everything she had, and he’d left her to drown.
Justice. The world had no such thing.
“How do you know he’s not going to try and marry you?” asked Rodrigo. He leaned against the doorpost of the bedroom, maintaining an air of apathy that was not matched by his being present to see her off. “Or sell you into slavery in Esquivel?”
“Slavery’s been abolished in Esquivel for years,” Caya muttered, closing her bag. She knew very little about the Domingan island colony, but she knew that much. “If that happens, however, I’ll expect you to come and rescue me.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“Knowing you costs me my sanity. What’s a few ducado compared to that?”
To her surprise, Rodrigo crossed the room in a few strides and yanked her into a hug. “Good luck out there,” he murmured. “Don’t forget about us.”
Caya had frozen in his arms, but at those words she melted.
Hugged him back. Inhaled the scent of pumpkin and flour.
Suddenly, all the children were upon her, arms clinging to her limbs, mouths whispering goodbyes.
Caya’s eyes burned with the desire to cry, but she forced it back.
She would miss them all, but she wouldn’t allow herself to miss Kindred.
It had always been a stopgap. If she were lucky, once Ruiz was done with her, she could use his name to find a good job that allowed her to send money back to provide for the children.
Then again, that felt unlikely. The best-paying jobs went to witches, even over welks with connections.
Outside, there was a carriage waiting, empty despite being large enough for two people.
A footman with skin the color of peeled garlic took her bag to load it in and then held the door open for her expectantly, never quite making eye contact.
Even the other children were intimidated, huddling closer to the house with their gazes jumping from the carriage to her and back again.
But Mother Lupe and Mother Felicia glowed with pride, as if she had suddenly transformed into a magical treasure, a rare and precious thing that they could brag about to family and friends.
Caya’s stomach churned as she climbed inside.
The door closed with a thunderous finality.
She squared her shoulders and strengthened her resolve as the carriage pulled away from Kindred and trundled into the city proper.
If Ruiz turned out to be a predator, this new home a trap, she would disappear.
Instead of being a ward or a servant, a slave or a wife, she would just be Caya.
The last time she had been just Caya was the same night she had lost everything. But, as her new patron had said, to hope was to be human.
Through the carriage window, she caught the scent of fried potatoes and grilled shrimp from some distant food stall. Her city was alive, and so was she. For now, that was enough.
Twenty minutes later, Caya stepped out of the carriage and onto a flyer.
White text on black paper read FIGHT FOR EQUALITY and NO PEACE UNDER WITCH RULE , with JOIN THE CRITERION in smaller print beneath it.
Muffled chanting filled her ears, and sullen city guards ran past with their hands near their swords.
The footman’s expression didn’t change from polite disinterest, as if he stopped near Criterion rallies all the time, and so Caya imitated his tranquility.
The crowd, wherever they were, would disperse by the time the soldiers reached them, the flyers would be turned to dust by the reapers, and life would go on as it had before the antiwitch rebellion had taken root in Coventry.
That was part of why Caya had never bothered to join.
The Criterion was too recent and ineffective a movement.
Their numbers were a mystery, and the Trident treated them more like unruly children than a credible threat.
It didn’t matter how many flyers the Criterion distributed, how many clandestine rallies they held, or how many witches they robbed to distribute their wealth to the welks beneath them.
Magic was a boot on their necks, and anyone who tried to fight back died brutally without even being touched.
“This way, please,” said the footman, gesturing to the other side of the street.
Caya stepped back to let another duo of guards rush past her and then rounded the carriage.
Her lips parted in surprise. They stood across from a series of gated white houses, rounded black iron protecting marble and flat wooden rooftops.
Bougainvillea grew over the cap and across the top rail in hot pink flashes.
An olive tree drooped in the yard, providing shade across the concrete path.
A balcony was on the right side of the top floor, overlooking the busy street.
“Th-that’s mine?” Caya managed. This was a wealthy neighborhood of Rojanea that she had never seen before, the kind of place that hated when outsiders even walked the streets. She cleared her throat before trying again. “Am I renting a room here?”
“It’s a one bedroom,” the footman said. “And it’s been paid for outright. His lordship will have paperwork for you to fill out, but for now…”
He handed her a small key. Caya stared at it for far longer than could be considered normal, her eyes burning for the second time that day.
Her fingers closed around it, but then she opened them again, as though the key to her first house might have disappeared in the seconds since she’d taken her eyes off it.
Right now, this was a gift. A bribe, really.
But if she signed that paperwork, would this house really be hers?
Would she really have a home that no one could take away?
Caya broke from her stupor to cough. The carriage was pulling away, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake.
And, underneath, shouts and curses, the sounds of a scuffle and thundering footsteps—a rally gone wrong, she assumed.
Still coughing, she hurried across the street and through the gate before she was mistaken for a rebel.
Inside, she found a stocked kitchen, a washroom, and a sitting room with curtained windows.
Up a set of narrow stone steps was another washroom next to a living room with a fully occupied bookshelf and a door to the balcony she’d seen from the street.
The bedroom contained a queen-size mattress, the sheet turned down at one corner and a cotton nightdress of spring green laid out atop it.
There was a massive wardrobe, a desk and chair, a dresser with a vanity mirror, and an en suite washroom, from which she could see faint steam escaping from her waiting bath.
Products for her hair texture lined the dresser, and everything smelled faintly of lavender.
Mine , Caya thought. Her heart beat with a fierce joy. Not yet, but soon.
Unpacking took her so little time that she might as well have carried her things in her arms. A linen dress—she had one for regular wear, and this one was for laundry day—and one extra pair of shoes that had been patched so many times they looked like sagging strips of fabric.
A silver dolphin pendant she’d saved from her collection at Seaward Palace and had never quite managed to part with.
A toy boat that one of the children at Kindred had given her as a goodbye present.
That was it. That was all of it. The sum total of a life in constant transition.
Before she could feel too bad for herself, someone knocked at the door.
She continued putting her things away for a full minute before she remembered she was the only one here and would be expected to answer the door without a matron yelling at her to do it.
She rushed down the stairs and threw open the door to find a courier halfway to the gate.
“Hey!” she called. “Hey, wait!”
Caya had nothing to tip him with, a fact that made his expression shift from politeness to irritation, but he left her with a card containing a single sentence— Please join me for dinner —and Gaspar Ruiz’s address.
“Dinner,” she repeated idly.
Her dress was rumpled from the ride, and her cheeks were rough from the dried tears.
She was in no state for a meal at a manor house with her guardian, husband, or captor.
The sun drooped in the sky, giving her at least an hour or two before she could be considered late.
That was more than enough time to prepare.
First, she would take a bath.
Then, she would find a weapon.
She was no mere pawn in whatever game Gaspar Ruiz wanted to play. He thought her capable of commanding her own destiny, and he would soon find out, to his detriment, just how right he was.