25
M ARISOL HAD EXPECTED N OELIA TO HIDE THEM AWAY in one of the rooms, but it seemed even a small dinner party meant playing by different rules.
They were in House Muerte’s massive dining room, sitting at a long table.
Teo and Bas were on one side, Noelia and Marisol were on the other, and the food that sprawled between them was an impressive array, considering that Noelia had cooked it all herself.
If Marisol had minded doing her shopping for her, the resentment would have disappeared at the first sight of this lavish feast: mutton stew with ground hazelnuts and fine spices; sea bass fillets wrapped in toasted bay leaves; fritters coated with honey and rose water; sliced mountain ham on small pieces of bread, topped with goat cheese and peppers.
“Where is everyone?” Marisol asked, spearing a potato with her fork. “I know you said this would be a small dinner party, but I didn’t realize you meant ‘small’ as in ‘empty.’”
“They’re around. Next week is the play, if you recall, so some of them are at rehearsal. But most are preparing for what comes after that.”
“An encore?” Bas said. He had pried his sea bass free of a bay leaf and was digging into the bone-white skin—a task that, apparently, left him with plenty of time for sarcasm.
“The closing ball,” Noelia said, rolling her eyes. “It’s incredibly boring, and I’d rather skip it.”
Marisol chewed her potato, enjoying the seasoning that Noelia had layered onto it. “Why is it boring? Is it different from the opening ball?”
“It’s more private. While everyone enjoys the dancing and the food, all of the aspiring witches are taken away to receive their coven marks. Haven’t we been to enough balls this season?”
Marisol tried to imagine attending so many social gatherings that they began to seem boring.
The Vinyet family probably had a similar problem, and that was why they had withdrawn from Domingan court.
All Marisol could think of was how good the food had been at each dance and how wonderful it must have been to be born into such a fairy-tale life.
“Washroom,” Teo said, standing and leaving the table before anyone could even tell him where it was.
Marisol stared after him, puzzled. He had been oddly quiet on the carriage ride to House Muerte and even more so during the dinner.
She had assumed he was still shaken up by the Criterion rally and what could have easily turned into a second attempt on his life, but now she wondered if she should have investigated more.
She went back to her meal, asking Noelia about the best balls she had attended, during the Coronet or otherwise.
Every so often, she and Bas would lock eyes, and the worry that she saw reflected in his gaze only made things worse.
This wasn’t part of the plan. She and Bas lacked Teo’s charm.
They couldn’t keep a conversation going long enough to cover for Teo’s absence.
When she had cleared her plate, and the prince still hadn’t returned, she placed her napkin on the table and stood. “I’m going to make sure he isn’t ill. Where is the washroom?”
Marisol waited long enough for Noelia to tell her, smiling until the other girl turned her attention back to Bas.
Then she nodded once, a silent promise to figure out what was going on as discreetly as possible, and made her way into the hallway.
The nearest washroom was by the entrance of House Muerte, but Marisol had a feeling she didn’t need to look there.
Instead, she followed her mental map back to the inner courtyard.
The door was cracked open, and she could see a shadow cutting through the illumination of the lamps there.
She peeked outside to make sure that the garden was otherwise empty. Then she closed the door behind her, just in case.
Somehow, the garden was even more beautiful than the little she had caught a glimpse of before.
At night, torches in sconces lit the paths in flickering golden light.
The hedges and trees were menacing in the shadows, but the reflecting pool glittered with captured stars, making the black water look more like a small sky.
Beyond the water was a cobblestone plaza, surrounded by orange trees bursting with pearlescent flowers.
Blue light, ebbing and flowing like the tide, skittered over the petals.
Spirits-blessed, all of them.
So this was what they looked like, before they were converted into ink. Gaspar’s sketches hadn’t done them justice.
Marisol found Teo standing in the center of the plaza, holding two orange blossoms so tightly that they had begun to bruise. She touched his arm, and he looked down at her with haunted eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just—we need these plants. We need as many of them as we can get. We’re running out of time.”
“We won’t have any time if we don’t get away with it,” Marisol reminded him. “And if we’re the only ones here when the orange blossoms go missing, we won’t make it out of Coventry with them.”
“There are so many. How will they be able to tell?”
“You’ve been gone for nearly an hour, Teo. They’re going to make sure everything is in order as soon as you leave.”
The wilted blossoms fell from his hands. Weak blue light seeped from the petals and faded into the night. She could no longer feel the magic of it, as if it had been damaged too much to retain a single spark.
Teo pushed both hands into his curls. “It seemed so simple when we were just discussing it. To rid the world of magic. To depower the witches. To change the world for the better.”
“We just need to be patient.” Marisol squeezed his arm. “We’re so close.”
Still, she understood his frustration. It took seconds for something to break.
It took ages for it to be restored, and it was never quite the same again.
They both wanted change, but, no matter how hard they worked, that change would come slowly.
Even once they had the plants, they still had to brew the potions.
Even once they brewed the potions, they still had to engineer the antidotes.
Even once they engineered the antidotes, they still had to trick the witches into taking them.
And even once magic was gone, they still had to rebuild a society that had been designed to empower only those who had it.
Marisol knew that they were moving as fast as they could, but it would never be fast enough. Every second, welks were hurting.
“I brought one of those pamphlets home, and I read all of it. It… was eye-opening.” Teo sighed as his hands fell to his sides.
“So much of society seems to be designed for inequality. Money. Class. Magic. Education. Some are a privilege of birth, and some are a privilege of time, but having just one can make your life so much better than someone who doesn’t. ”
“You can’t rid the world of inequality, Teo.”
“Alone, no. But imagine what the world could be if we all tried.”
Marisol didn’t want to imagine it, because it would mean acknowledging that Tomás Castellan was nothing like she’d thought he’d be when she first saw him in the city center.
That he was kind and egalitarian, fair and capable.
That he was better than any boy she’d ever met—and that she genuinely believed he could change the world, even if he had to do it alone.
It was a thought that had plagued her in all her quiet moments, when she could snuff it out like a candle to do what she needed to do. Now it rang through her head, daring her to face it, daring her to do something with the fact that she liked the prince so much more than she had planned.
“We should go back,” she said instead. “Preferably before Noelia comes looking for us. I don’t think I can explain missing the washroom on two separate visits.”
Teo huffed out a laugh, allowing himself to be led toward the door.
He still looked haunted by something, but whatever was going on in his head seemed content to stay in there.
Marisol got the sense that something heavier than the Criterion rally was rattling around in there, but this was neither the place nor the time to talk.
Then the prince stopped so abruptly that Marisol walked into his back.
“There’s someone coming,” he whispered.
“What?”
Panic made her body go cold. It was too soon. If they were caught, everything would be ruined.
“I think they’re coming this way.”
They needed a plausible lie. Something that no one would think too hard about.
The doorknob was turning, and Teo took a step back.
She couldn’t see his expression, but she imagined that he was hiding his panic better than she was as he prepared to give the performance of his life.
She could leave it to him and his charm—but charm could only get him so far.
It was too big a risk to trust that he had a convincing falsehood ready.
This required more than deception. This required deflection of the highest degree.
Suddenly, she knew what they had to do.
“Can I kiss you?”
Teo turned to face her. “What?” And then: “Of course you can.”
She pulled him closer, their lips colliding just as someone appeared behind him.
Their bodies slotted together like puzzle pieces.
His hands curled around her hips, thumb tracing fiery patterns over her skin through her dress, and his mouth was hot as his lips parted against hers.
She managed to hold on to the thread of her plan—but barely.
Teo kissed her as if he’d been doing it for years, sending a gradual wave of heat through her that threatened to scatter her thoughts.
The plan, the plan , she thought in time to the fluttering thump of her pulse. We’re in danger.
But as she arched against him, her fingers digging into his curls, it felt as if she was the one who was in danger.
“It’s the prince and his fiancée. They’re, um. They’re—”