20
W ITH A WEEK AND A HALF BEFORE H OUSE C AMBIO held their midsummer festival, Marisol traveled to Domingo with the vials in a bag she kept in her lap.
Gaspar was waiting out the Coronet in a Domingan border city called Alta Lira, which was bisected by a wide river and filled with cathedrals, plazas, and towers.
The first and only time she had visited this manor and the urban sprawl that surrounded it, she had thought of it like a captured painting, quiet and picturesque with none of the troubles of everyday life.
It had been as beautiful as it was unsettling.
Most of their time and their lessons had been spent in Estrellad, but Alta Lira was closer by horse and carriage. Gaspar had a summer home there, so no one would ask questions, but it made him more available if Marisol needed him.
She needed him badly now.
Technically, she could have entrusted the vials to one of her servants.
There was no need for her to make this trip when she could have been planning a way inside House Muerte’s garden, deepening her bonds with Teo, Bas, and Noelia, or even practicing her magic so that she would perform better under the pressure of nearly being caught.
But even considering the appearance of Novoa and Baylin—who, Teo had grumpily explained, could not be persuaded to remain in the ballroom—the heist had been wonderfully done.
On the carriage ride home from the beach, they had shared a glass of champagne, and Marisol had returned to Wildridge with a smile on her face that cracked when she remembered that she was having fun with the boys she was meant to kill.
She was slipping again. Gaspar would talk some sense into her.
Golden walls caught the sunlight as they approached the house.
There was a small cemetery on the grounds, with three rows of off-white gravestones hemmed in by a squat wall that was weatherworn and layered with moss.
Cypress and laurel trees circled the area.
The rooftop was covered in ceramic tiles, as blue as the ocean, and the rest of the yard was divided into several well-kept gardens protected by marble walls.
Gaspar waited for her on the covered porch, snipping a few loose stems of potted purple fountain grass.
He wore a camel-colored jerkin and sepia breeches, his sleeves rolled up to allow his tan skin to get some sun.
He wore no hat, but he had the beginning of a beard along his jaw.
The smile that crossed his face when she exited the carriage felt like home.
“Don’t tell me you’re done early?” he said, setting down the scissors and removing his gloves.
The carriage pulled away to the stables as Marisol ascended the stairs, bag still in hand. “I brought you a present, but it isn’t that good.”
Gaspar reached for the bag, using it instead to reel her into a hug.
Marisol’s arms tightened around him, her eyes closing involuntarily as she inhaled his familiar scent.
The world was a terrifying and isolating thing, but not when she was here.
Not when she was with the closest thing she had to family—someone whose hatred matched and honed hers.
He patted the top of her head as he let her go, his smile widening. “I’m sure you’re hungry after such a long trip. Come, let’s talk in the study.”
It had been a month since they’d last seen each other, and Gaspar filled her in on his movements in that time.
He had finalized the potion to neutralize the effects of morpher magic, and he was working on creating it in bulk.
He had attended Prince Itzal’s birthday party in Estrellad and gathered rumors from court, most of them wary questions about Prince Tomás’s newfound sympathy for Coventrian witches.
He’d gotten very into a gothic mystery series about a man who rose from the dead every night, solving crimes until he could figure out who had killed him.
Marisol rolled her eyes. “You’ve always loved a sensational story.”
“Well, those who can’t, read.”
There was already a tray of food on a low table in the study, which was near identical to the one at Wildridge.
The main difference was a new portrait of the Ruiz family, this one set in a garden, with Gaspar holding his infant son high in the air while his wife laughed beside them.
Marisol let Gaspar empty her bag onto his desk while she reached for a slice of bread splashed with olive oil and dry-cured ham.
She freed her curls from her jeweled hood and tucked her bare feet beneath her as she settled into the armchair.
“Wonderful,” said Gaspar. “Absolutely wonderful. I can feel the power in each vial. Inconvenient that they’ve already been diluted in ink, but I’ve done more with less.”
“What you need to do is sit down while there’s still cheese left on this tray.”
But Marisol assembled a sandwich for him and brought it to the desk.
Gaspar was still handling the vials as if they were precious jewels, but he accepted her gift with one hand.
His journals were spread out in front of him, but they weren’t the same ones he’d shown her in Estrellad.
She wanted to ask how many of these he had in reserve, but part of her didn’t need to.
If she’d had a way to avenge Yoselin before now, she would have obsessed over it, too.
“So, why are you really here?” Gaspar asked once he’d finished his sandwich and begun scribbling notes into one of the journals. “It’s nice to see you, but we both know you didn’t have to come. What’s on your mind?”
Marisol picked at the crust of her bread. “It’s… different than I thought it would be. The Coronet. The prince. Even Bas.”
She told him what Bas had told her, about the Seawards and their poor rule. About Teo’s injury and the Magisters’ rising fear of the Criterion. About how seamlessly she, Bas, and the prince had worked together to claim the first plant.
The bonfire she kept to herself. It was a memory too precious to open up to scrutiny.
“The last time I looked into the Criterion, they were barely more than a fringe group,” Gaspar mused. “If the Trident is taking them seriously, their magic must be even weaker than we thought.”
“I think both things can be true,” Marisol said.
“The Criterion has definitely gotten bolder and recruited more welks, but House Vida could barely keep their constructs together at the hunt. If things keep going this way, we might finish early, with the bonus of blaming things on the Criterion.” Rodrigo’s face flashed before her eyes, but she ignored it.
He had made his choices, and she had made hers.
“I still want my revenge. I do. But sometimes I wonder if there’s another way to take it, you know?
You managed to come up with a plan that didn’t involve death. Maybe I should, too.”
Gaspar tilted his head. “Are you that worried you won’t be able to do it?”
Marisol thought of how she and Bas were inextricably tied together, defined by a past that neither of them had truly managed to escape.
The way he had made himself a weapon for the boy who had given him everything back and asked for nothing in return but the love Teo had been lacking since his mother’s death.
She thought of how being a target hadn’t stopped Teo from staying soft—not as a form of weakness but as a form of strength. The way he was free with his affection, sitting as close to Bas as possible in any given seat and holding Marisol to reassure them both that she hadn’t been injured by rebels.
She understood now that it wasn’t just Teo whom Bas was protecting but also their bond. One month of that gentle devotion, those kind eyes, that charming smile, and she was already questioning whether Teo really needed to die for her revenge.
But then Marisol thought of how angry she became when she thought of Bas, a rage so deep and overwhelming that it felt like a living thing.
She could still kill him. She knew that she could.
But he had already made it clear that there were so many things about that night and her childhood she didn’t understand, and she didn’t want him to take those things to the grave.
Not yet.
“The plan is the plan whether you murder anyone or not,” Gaspar said gently. “But I need to know what you choose, so I can make sure that you get away with it. Bas won’t be missed, but the prince…”
Marisol returned to picking at the crust of her bread. “If the hunt is any indication, the witches might kill him for me.”
“How ready you are, for war to break out.” Gaspar shook his head. “The follies of youth.”
“Okay, old man, I get it. I don’t want a war, either. At least not until magic won’t be involved.”
He set down his journal and reached for her hands.
Marisol let him, curious as to where this was going.
His touch was soothing, his grip soft around her palms. “There’s a lot going on, and a lot to think about.
I don’t blame you for being confused, especially since you haven’t let it interfere with your mission.
But I think what you need more than anything else is a break.
You can go back to Rojanea tomorrow. Tonight, forget the mission and be yourself. ”
“Myself…?” Marisol blinked owlishly, unsure which self he was talking about. “No, that’s all right. But maybe we can go into the city and see a show?”
Gaspar patted the back of her hand once before letting go. “That sounds wonderful.”
He went back to his journal, and Marisol went back to her meal.
Her mind was still racing through the possibilities, but she felt lighter, now, knowing that she’d left all her problems back in Coventry.
Maybe there would come a day, after the plan had run its course, when she would live in Domingo permanently.
She would be Gaspar’s ward for real, and this golden life would be as much hers as the house in Rojanea she’d once hoped to escape to and hadn’t visited since.
She could have asked him here and now, but she was too happy to ruin it with a push for commitment.
Once this was done, they could talk of the future. For now, they would find closure to their past by tearing witch magic from the world.