11
M ARISOL ARRIVED IN R OJANEA THREE DAYS LATER TO find that rumors about her had already spread.
People whispered about her relationship with the prince as though they were characters in a play.
The servants who returned home from the dawn market carried unfiltered gossip into Wildridge Hall, the manor she had rented for the social season.
Though she had a house here, it was in her name—her old name—and nowhere near as lavish as the places the other nobles were renting.
Wildridge was another piece of her reputation, shielding her true home and Ofelia from the light.
At Marisol’s instruction, the servants who went out for lunch disseminated curated reports about her across the city. Whispers were useful. Whispers had legs. She wove the best ones into armor, and let people see what she wanted them to see in the Vinyet heir.
The Coronet began the evening of her arrival with an opening ball at the botanical gardens in the city center, and Marisol dressed to enhance the narrative.
Over her chemise, she wore a deep plum brocade dress with a black lace collar.
Silver embroidery crafted a delicate pattern that decorated her skirts and her puffed sleeves, which also ended in black lace.
She’d rubbed plum lip stain onto her mouth and highlighted her cheeks with a crushed-berry blush.
With her tight curls tumbling down her back, she looked like nobility. A harmless porcelain doll.
“ Well ,” Teo said when he picked her up in the royal carriage, a gaudy, round thing with too much gold filigree. “Don’t you look dangerous?”
Marisol glanced down at herself before accepting the footman’s help inside. “ Dangerous isn’t quite what I was going for.”
“Dangerous to me ,” the prince clarified. “How am I supposed to keep my hands off you?”
Marisol giggled, a sound that she cut short seconds after the doors closed.
Teo settled back into the cushioned seat across from her, a book in his hand and his thigh pressed against Bas’s.
The latter nodded a silent greeting and then went back to staring through the narrow part in the curtain, as though the rays of the dying sun might rise to attack his precious prince.
Even now, she could feel it, this devastating draw toward Bas that could unmake all her plans.
She had turned it over in her mind on the trip from Domingo to Coventry, how the heat that suffused her body when she saw him was not entirely hatred.
There was a world where he might have been the natural path, the natural choice.
Where he had never betrayed her, and they had both grown tall in Seaward Palace, their bodies changing and filling out, their eyes lingering on each other too long to be platonic.
There was a world where he was her first kiss, a simple yet world-shaking crush of lips in one of the castle’s hidden corners.
Where Yoselin caught them holding hands in the courtyard, her eyebrows lifting as she crowed, “Well, finally !” Maybe they wouldn’t have fizzled out in a shower of dead sparks and youthful hormones.
Maybe they would have been together even now, taking their first steps into adulthood with their hearts in each other’s hands.
Her body longed for a world that had never existed, in more ways than one.
That was all it was.
That was all it could be.
She turned to her own window before she spent the entire carriage ride staring at him. There would be time to search for weaknesses when he couldn’t see her. At least he was keeping her secret… for now.
The carriage rolled over a bridge and down an asphalt road that led to the massive iron gates of the Jardín Botánico, which were propped open to reveal multicolored garden paths, twinkling lights, and babbling fountains.
By the time the carriage made it to the courtyard, Marisol was both awed and infuriated that such luxury could exist mere miles from where welks were begging for food on the streets.
She couldn’t even hear the sounds of the city in this oasis, only faint music and the soft whisper of the nearby river.
This time, Teo helped her out of the carriage.
He’d left his book face down on the seat behind him.
Marisol noticed for the first time that he was dressed to complement her, his doublet indigo beneath a black jerkin and matching hose.
Bas rounded the carriage in similar colors, his doublet wine red with lilac stitching beneath a mahogany jerkin and black hose.
The group cut an impressive image, a united front of aristocracy that two of the three couldn’t actually claim.
Bas fell behind them as Teo walked Marisol down the path and toward the brightly lit pavilion lawn, which was already packed with witches.
She could barely see the grass beneath their feet as witches in their House colors—reapers in red, morphers in white, crafters in green—mingled with one another.
Coven marks flashed from their wrists, each smaller than a bottle cap.
Unmarked witches wore shades of brown as they bounced from group to group.
Violin music cut through the air, inviting them deeper into the throng.
They barely made it past the refreshments table before someone stepped into their path.
Marisol stifled her emotions at the sight of Ines Baylin, the Magister of House Muerte.
She had seen the woman only once before, and she hadn’t prepared to see her again now.
Her chalk-white skin was lined, the folds of her neck beginning to sag, but she had an elegant beauty that made her hard to look away from.
Long-lashed brown eyes and strawberry blond curls.
A pointed chin and a wide forehead. Her dress was scarlet with onyx lacing, and, though she was shorter than Marisol, Marisol felt like a child in her presence.
The last time she’d seen her, that terrifying first time, Ines Baylin’s sword had been stained crimson and her eyes had been bright with bloodlust.
Now, she smiled at Marisol and Teo as if they were honored guests.
“Your Highness, I know I speak on behalf of the entire Trident when I thank you for granting us this surprising opportunity. Even now, we remain loyal servants of the crown.” She curtsied in a graceful dip of skirts.
“The Castellans honor us with this chance to show off the many benefits of witchcraft.”
Marisol tried and failed to smile. Beside her, Teo’s practiced smile was lantern bright.
“The past is in the past. I can’t promise a sudden easing of tension, but I am curious if we can forge a new path forward.
” He tipped his head in Marisol’s direction.
“As you may know, this is my paramour, Lady Marisol Vinyet.”
Those amber eyes settled on Marisol. Childish fear pulsed through her, but she forced it down. Magister Baylin could not recognize her. Not with her morpher magic. And, as a Vinyet, she was untouchable. Her heart raced regardless.
“Nice to meet you,” said the witch who had helped lead the attack on her family. “Please let me know if you need anything at all.”
She melted back into the crowd, leaving Marisol to calm herself down with a series of slow breaths. Her hands slid between the folds of her skirts, where they could shake without being seen.
“Shall we dance?” Teo asked, reminding her that she hadn’t walked onto this battlefield alone.
His voice was gentle enough to make her concerned that he’d noticed how unsettled she was, so she made sure her face was smoothed of all expression as she turned to him.
“The Vinyets have been away from court for too long. There’s a dance floor, and, if this is anything like Domingo, no one will use it until we do. ”
He extended a hand. Marisol took it.
The pavilion itself was lavishly decorated.
Multicolored flowers clung to the wooden beams, perfuming the air.
A tiered chandelier with curved arms hung from the ceiling, its small candles twinkling.
Servants wove expertly through the crowd, carrying silver trays of herb-stuffed eggs, marinated sweet peppers, goat cheese layered over golden flatbread, and airy bunuelos caked in cinnamon.
Others carried glasses of wine that disappeared quickly.
It seemed that the negotiating portion of the evening was over, and the celebration had truly begun.
There was an electric feeling in the air, like lightning in a bottle, shocking them all back to life.
This was the Coronet, Marisol realized, for those lucky enough to be invited.
The world heightened with glittering possibility, and there was a different, benign sort of magic in the air. A magic akin to simple wonder.
Teo and Marisol walked to the center of the dance floor and fell into the steps of a familiar waltz.
Gaspar had drilled all the popular aristocratic dances into her until she could perform them in her sleep, but Teo’s movements put her to shame.
She was practiced, but he flowed from step to step like a river, elegant, graceful, and natural.
He was so alive like this, with an infectious energy that made him impossible to look away from.
“Are you all right?” Teo asked as he dipped her in time with the music. “You seemed anxious, facing a witch of that caliber.”
Marisol curved her hand in front of her as she stepped away from and then toward him. “Are you okay? Or do you face witches ‘of that caliber’ so often it fails to register?”
“The first lesson I ever learned was how to smile serenely in a room on fire. It helps to remember that, if everything goes well, we’ll be the fire.”
He fell quiet as more couples began to join them.
See? his raised eyebrows seemed to say. Instead of responding, she joined a group of people moving in a circle in time to the music, step curtsy, step curtsy, step curtsy.
Teo was waiting for her at the end, taking her hand and folding her against him.
He brushed a loose curl from her face, cupped her cheek, and studied her as though he planned to kiss her.
Marisol licked her lips, and it wasn’t entirely an act.
He smiled. “I suppose I should empty my dance card now. But don’t go too far, all right? I expect many more with you before the night is over.”
Damn him.
She was no blushing maiden. At dinner three days ago, she had assured him that she was comfortable with all kinds of affection between lovers, that she was willing to hug and kiss and smile demurely—anything to sell the idea that they had been together for months.
She just hadn’t expected him to be so good at it, and his handsome face didn’t help.
He grinned like a man who knew exactly what he’d done and would be gloating about it on the carriage ride home.
Well, if it was a challenge he wanted, then a challenge he’d get.
Instead of moving away, Marisol stepped closer. One hand found his shoulder and her other found his chest, gliding over his lean muscle. “I won’t,” she murmured against his cheek with a victorious smile. His heartbeat raced beneath her fingertips, and he was curving into her touch.
“You,” he said into her ear, “are so much fun.”
Marisol kissed his cheek and, this time, she did move away. “I’ll see you later.”
Her own heart was steady as she plunged into the crowd. She could feel his eyes on her, and it made her shiver with wicked delight. He wanted her, and she wanted him to want her.
After all, if he suffered, then Bas would suffer twice.