23
M ARISOL SHOULD HAVE GONE BACK TO W ILDRIDGE Hall, but her emotions were volatile. She stuck to the darkest parts of the streets, worried that her magic would choose then to fail her, and every step carried her further into the past that she had been trying to make peace with.
How optimistic that girl on the beach had been.
Once, when she was six years old, she and Bas were playing tag in the castle corridors.
She skidded around a corner in time to see a group of councilmen exiting the audience chamber, still in deep discussion over whatever boring law or issue they’d been called to vote on.
Behind them was King Oberon, a tall and jovial man who smiled down at Marisol as though she wasn’t standing in his way.
“There she is,” he said brightly, “like water in the desert.”
Marisol had read about deserts, but she’d never seen one. She knew enough to understand that this was a compliment, though, and she dipped into her most playful curtsy. “Are you done working? Do you want to play tag with us?”
“Who is us ? Yoselin?”
Oberon glanced over her head, searching the corridor for a second person, but he didn’t see what Marisol saw: Bas hiding behind one of the tapestries in the corner, as if they’d started a new game and he was already bad at it.
The king laughed, as if her invisible playmate were a joke she was telling, and he promised that he would have time to play later.
Bas didn’t come out from the tapestry until Oberon was long gone.
At the time, Marisol had chastised him for confusing tag with hide-and-seek. But now she saw the interaction for what it was: Bas had feared the king’s attention.
On another occasion, Marisol, Yoselin, and Bas were playing in the courtyard, kicking a ball back and forth.
Marisol, then seven, kicked the ball too hard, and it went spinning into one of the stone fountains that decorated the space.
Yoselin and Bas dived in without a second thought, reaching the ball at the same time over the scandalized squawking of Yoselin’s maid, and Marisol remembered thinking that they were too similar.
She would have paused to pick up a stick and then pull the ball toward the rim of the fountain.
They’d both been too impulsive to think at all, and it had been both silly and hilarious.
That night, Yoselin was given a long, warm bath, her hair freshly washed and oiled. Bas, on the other hand, went missing from the kitchens for a week, with what the head cook claimed was a flu. Now, Marisol wasn’t so sure.
The signs had all been there. The difference in their treatment, even though they were both technically servants.
The way Bas spent time with Yoselin only if Marisol was there, too.
The downward curve of the king’s mouth when he caught Marisol sneaking out of the kitchens, something she’d attributed to an interest in her health and diet.
She had been too young to see the truth then, but she had no excuse now.
Bas was right.
Marisol’s soul rebelled against the revelation.
Her eyes burned with unwelcome tears. Her anger was a lump in her throat, making it hard to breathe.
Because if Bas was right about the Seawards, if he had been justified in overthrowing them, then the worst night of her life hadn’t just been a wound he had carved into her childhood.
It had been an inevitability. If his allies hadn’t killed them, then the commoners, the servants, the tortured magic users would have.
You’re acting like a child, Leya, unable to see beyond your own feelings.
She didn’t want to forgive him. She wasn’t capable of forgetting her grief.
Now it was just compounded by mourning a family she’d never really had.
She had lived a life of sunlit memories, loved and wanted by people she’d miscast as saints, while Bas smiled at her from the shadows, knowing that one wrong word would get him killed.
Marisol pressed the meat of her palms against her closed eyelids. She couldn’t deal with this right now.
She walked until her legs began to burn, and then she flagged down a carriage the rest of the way—not to Wildridge Hall, but to her gifted house.
It had been a year since she’d been here, give or take a month, and it was like seeing it again for the first time, these gorgeous apartments in this wealthy neighborhood that had her name on the deed.
The gate was closed, and the yard was dark.
It was after midnight by this point, and Ofelia was probably asleep.
Luckily, Marisol still had her own set of keys, which she used to let herself in as loudly as possible.
Her shoulders drooped, releasing the weight of Lady Marisol Vinyet and her conflicted feelings about the boys she wanted to kill.
She didn’t go as far as to change her appearance, but she padded barefoot to the kitchen and turned on the lights as if it were the early days of her adoption and she was feeling the freedom that home ownership afforded her.
There was a time when she’d been starving and terrified.
Now she was a lady, and her worst problem was whether to commit a crime her rich patron could get her out of.
Perspective was important.
“My lady, it’s late,” said a voice from the doorway.
Ofelia stood there in a white nightgown, looking healthier than she had the last time Marisol had seen her.
Her cheeks were round, and her eyes were clear.
The caution there didn’t come from fear—at least, not the same kind she’d felt on the streets.
“And you didn’t send word that you needed the house. ”
“I don’t,” Marisol said, forcing polite distance into her voice. Ofelia still didn’t know who she was or why she’d given her the job, after all. “I was just in the neighborhood, and I wanted to see how things were going.”
“Everyone is asleep upstairs.”
According to the letters she’d received from her servant, Ofelia had been lending what little space she had to any orphans from Kindred who had aged out of their beds.
Rodrigo was not among them, likely due to the place he’d found with the Criterion, but there were at least four other children sharing the upstairs bedroom with Ofelia.
They all had to look for work and help with the upkeep of the house, but they didn’t have to worry about sharing her previous fate.
Until she ran out of space, that is—but Marisol was hoping that things would change by then. Without their magic, the witches couldn’t keep welks out of homes and neighborhoods. They could reclaim the city, and Marisol could buy blocks of homes for everyone as Lord Ruiz’s ward.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll be leaving soon.”
“It’s all right, my lady. Let me know if you need anything.”
Ofelia turned and glided back up the stairs.
Marisol was gratified by the weight that Ofelia had gained and the confidence that she displayed in turning her back on a noble.
It was the reminder that she’d desperately needed.
This plan wasn’t just about her wrath over the things she’d lost. It was about taking down the witches.
She was a one-woman Criterion, evening the field so that welks could thrive in their own country.
Coventry may have been broken long before the Domingan witches arrived, but that didn’t mean it had to stay that way.
She poured herself a glass of water and drank it at the counter, letting her newfound resolve settle beneath her skin and dispel her lingering anxiety. Something glittered in the corner of her eye, catching the light of the moon, and she pushed a cookie jar out of the way to grab it.
Her lips parted in surprise. Her dolphin pendant winked up at her, a torn piece of paper wrapped around its tail. She unfolded it carefully, recognizing the handwriting immediately as Rodrigo’s.
Doesn’t Caya like these? If you don’t see her in six months, sell it for money.
See you soon.
Marisol was glad that she had no more tears left in her body, because she was tempted to cry again now.
Rodrigo—angry, hardheaded Rodrigo—had paid enough attention to her to know she liked dolphins.
He was, in fact, still thinking about her now, even as he followed the Criterion down a dangerous path.
He was thinking about all the Kindred orphans if he had stopped by long enough to give this to Ofelia in case she needed cash.
It had been almost a year since she and Rodrigo had spoken, but at their core, they were still the same people. Wanting better. Wanting more.
Marisol slipped the pendant and the note into her pocket with only a twinge of guilt. Already, she felt calmer having it close. Perhaps she would write Gaspar about sending an anonymous donation to the house for Ofelia and the other children, so they wouldn’t notice that the pendant was gone.
Either way, she would reveal herself to them soon. Once she had gotten rid of magic, she would explain everything.
“My lady,” said a maid, appearing in Marisol’s bedroom doorway so abruptly it made her jump. “My apologies. I knocked, but you didn’t seem to hear it.”
This morning, she had yet to get out of bed, but her mind was on a series of books she had pulled out of Wildridge Hall’s library.
Books about the Seawards, books about the Trident, books about the Castellans.
She was trying to approach them all without preexisting notions, as if she were a stranger who wanted to know more about the Alban Peninsula.
Her current read, Magic in the Time of the Seawards , offered a new perspective:
Some were born with a unique sensitivity to the world around them, said to be spirits-touched.
They could commune with the living and the dead, and it was said that their tinctures contained the powers of the gods.
Though they were largely unrelated, these sensitives became known as “the folk” or “folk healers”—the first witches.
Those who hadn’t settled in isolated villages worked for the Seawards, though rarely by choice.
The truth was everywhere, had she cared to look. Now it was becoming another distraction.
“That’s all right,” she finally said, setting her book to the side to meet the maid’s worried gaze. “What is it?”
“You have a visitor, my lady. Prince Tomás Castellan is here to see you.”
“I see.” Marisol’s heart stopped as the maid backed into the hallway. “Thank you.”
She took her time getting dressed, strapping her daggers beneath her gown and brushing her hair into a high bun.
Bas could have told Teo anything about last night, and she wouldn’t be able to defend herself.
At this point, she didn’t worry that he would reveal her secret, but she had openly threatened to kill him.
What if the prince had brought guards to protect his companion?
But when she made it downstairs, there was only Teo, waiting for her with his hands behind his back and his eyes apologetic.
Marisol paused, gripping the banister. “Did we have plans today?”
“No, I—I wanted to speak with you privately.” Teo cleared his throat. The wine red of his jerkin brought out the gold in his tan, and she was breathlessly reminded of how he’d looked on the boat, gilded and yearning. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior last night. I was too forward.”
Marisol descended the rest of the stairs. Her eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve tried to conduct myself well, considering all you’ve done for me so far. I don’t want you to ever feel like our friendship is dependent on you indulging my… attention.”
“Teo—”
“Please, let me finish. You deserve better than half-hearted impulses. If I am to court you, I want to do it properly. With no lies between us. I just need to know if that’s something you want as well.
” He held up a hand, stopping her from interrupting.
“I don’t need an answer now. I just want you to think about it.
If you decide that’s of no interest to you, I won’t burden you with my feelings again.
But if you decide to let me try”—his eyes darkened—“then I promise you won’t regret a single moment. ”
Marisol’s breathing hitched as the implications sank in. “All right.”
Teo beamed at her, a happy, boyish smile at odds with the wicked promise that lingered in his intense gaze. From the moment she’d met him, she’d considered him a bundle of contradictions, but never did she feel it more than right now, when his expression made her feel both adored and exposed.
“Where’s Bas?” she asked as she finally dragged her eyes away. “I thought the two of you went everywhere together.”
“Oh, I ordered him to remain in bed. He was robbed at knifepoint by rebels last night, and he keeps insisting that he’s fine.”
It took every ounce of control not to snort. “Rebels?”
“They scratched his throat and took his money,” Teo said with a concerned frown. “It wasn’t very deep, but if he can force me on bed rest for a scrape, then I can do the same.”
“To be fair, Your Highness, you were also sedated.”
“Irrelevant, thank you.”
Robbed by bandits. She’d panicked upstairs, expecting a knife in her back, and Bas had claimed to be robbed by bandits.
Teo still thought she was Marisol Vinyet, the girl he had feelings for, and Bas…
well, there had to be a reason that he was keeping her secrets, but, for now, Marisol didn’t want to question it.
“I was just about to have breakfast,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”
Teo’s smile easily returned. “I’d love to.”