“What do you propose?”
“Have you any practice at playing the damsel in distress?”
“I could manage.”
“Good. The man is tired; so is the Uay Chivo. Magic takes a toll. Exhaustion may engender mistakes. I will cast an illusion, make myself disappear. You must make a ruckus. Say I’ve run off and get him as near as you can.”
“That is all?”
“I’ll manage the rest.”
Casiopea nodded. Hun-Kamé stood up, and he slowly lifted his hands. He was there, but then an inky darkness lifted from the floor, enveloping him in the blink of an eye, and he disappeared. The guard who was supposed to watch them had his eyes closed; he had witnessed nothing. Casiopea hoped for the best, took a deep breath and cried out.
“He’s gone! He’s left me, he’s gone!”
The guard was startled awake and stood up, his hand immediately going to the hilt of his knife.
“He’s escaped!” Casiopea cried.
The man’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth but did not seem able to believe the sight, the girl alone in the circle of fire, hands pitifully pressed against her face.
“He went away, like a puff of smoke, left me here. Please, come, see,” she babbled.
The man looked like he was about to bolt out of the room. Casiopea pointed to the floor. “See! All he’s left behind is a jewel, a tiny diamond, like the coin you toss a beggar.”
Creative, her tongue, schooled by books and poems. The words, along with her distraught expression, must have done the trick. The guard rushed forward, stood by the rim of fire, and bent down to look at the nonexistent diamond Casiopea was pointing at.
All of a sudden the guard was pulled forward, Hun-Kamé became visible again as the man was violently flung against the floor, the top of his head falling inside the circle of fire. Blood welled from the man’s temple and Hun-Kamé dragged him around, following the circle’s contour, whispering several words. It was as if he were wiping chalk off a slate, the wall weakening, dissolving with each word and each drop of the man’s blood. Every single link in a spell is precious. Topple one, the others will fall, and this is exactly what Hun-Kamé did. He wrote over, crossed out, he eliminated a single link, and the violet fire ceased to burn.
Once the barrier was gone, Casiopea bent down, pressing a hand against the man’s neck, relieved to feel a pulse beneath her fingers.
“Thank God, he is not dead,” she said.
“What if he was?” Hun-Kamé replied with a shrug, smoothing the lapels of his suit. “He is only a man.”
“I am only a woman. It doesn’t mean you can chop me down like a weed, without any care or thought; neither can you chop him.”
“You forget, maybe, who I am.”
“I think you are a nobleman, and killing a man who need not be killed would be ignoble. Am I mistaken?” she countered.
Behind his handsome, polished stillness, there lay a hard and ugly core. Her naïveté allowed her to glimpse it, but she could not fear it. He’d been kind to her, and she therefore expected his kindness would extend to the entire world. He must have realized this and rather than reply with a harsh word he raised a palm up politely.
“You are gracious. I will be gracious, for your sake,” he told her.
At that point she noticed that Hun-Kamé’s hand, which he’d used to get hold of the guard and thrust briefly into the barrier, was blackened, as if it had been charred. This distracted her from the meaning of his words, which, had she analyzed, she would have found rather shocking, since he’d said he meant to please her. He did this thing for her.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“It is not a nice sensation, but soon remedied,” he replied and shook his hand, bits of blackened skin flaking off, revealing a whole and perfect hand again, which now reached for the knife the guard had dropped. “But I suspect there will be more fire and pain. Come, we need to find the Uay Chivo. I can’t leave without that necklace.”
They headed up the stairs quietly. The house had been a tomb when they entered it, and it had returned to its stillness, their steps almost soundless. At the end of a hallway they glimpsed a man standing in front of a door and retreated. It was the other guard.
“What now?” she whispered.
“Same as before, I’ll make myself hard to spot.”
As he said this, the inky darkness shrouded him and he disappeared, but when she peered down carefully at the shadows she noticed that they were darker than they should have been, a thing of velvet. This velvet piece of darkness drifted around the corner and away. Casiopea pressed her lips together and waited.
