Page 18 of Wicked Endeavors

Nothing would go wrong tonight. She would make sure of it.

The table had been covered with delicacies: poached sea bass and roasted quail; salads of watercress, olives, spinach, lettuce, and radicchio alongside freshly baked loaves of golden bread; cinnamon-dusted fritters and strawberry tarts. Their cups were full of pomegranate juice, but there were bottles of wine left around the plates. As if Gaspar would drink so much, or at all, on such an important night.

“I think you both deserve an explanation for Bas’s… enthusiasm about my safety,” Teo said, after swallowing an olive.

“Enthusiasm,” Marisol repeated.

“That’s what we’re calling it, yes.” He pushed the rest of his salad around his plate, a new tension in his shoulders. “There have been some… attempts on my life.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “I don’t understand.”

But she did. He would be dead before this year’s Coronet was over, but half of Marisol was privately delighted that the list of suspects would be longer than her own name. The other half was annoyed that she might have to foil further murder attempts to make sure hers was the last face he ever saw.

“If Lord Ruiz hadn’t found you, we would have insisted on moving forward with the plan this year anyway.” Gone was the charming rogue, and in his place was an embattled survivor. “There’s been unrest in Domingo lately, and it’s starting to reach the palace. The prosperity that was promised after the witches were exiled hasn’t manifested, and, with Coventry’s lavish social season happening just across the border, people are starting to wonder if they wouldn’t be happier without a monarchy, too.”

Aside from the murder, that didn’t sound so bad, but Marisol knew better than to say that aloud. People born into power hated to be reminded that an accident of fate didn’t make them deserving.

Once, when she was six or newly seven, she’d asked Yoselin, with the innocent crankiness of youth, why she got to wear a crown and Marisol didn’t.

“Because I’m a princess,” Yoselin explained. When Marisol asked what made her a princess, Yoselin said it was because her parents were royalty. What made them royalty? They were born that way.

“So they didn’t actually do anything?” Marisol asked, because she understood the concept of regency very loosely at that age. From what her parents had told her, Esquivel had governors, but no one sat on thrones. They had been appointed by the crown, not born into it.

“They rule.”

“I mean to become royalty.”

It was only then that she noticed Yoselin was scowling. “You don’t do something to become royalty. You—it’s written by fate, like having magic or brown eyes.”

But having magic or brown eyes didn’t involve the right to control the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Both the welks and the witches on the Royal Council had been elected, and no one was put in charge just because of their eye color. Marisol considered making this point, but Yoselin was squeezing her doll so tightly, the head was about to pop off. She had never been afraid of her adoptive sister, but she’d also never seen her so furious.

She bit her lip. Nodded. “You’re so smart.”

For a moment, Yoselin went still, her eyes narrowed as she tried to work out whether Marisol was making fun of her. After a while, she nodded and loosened her hold on the doll.

“Thank you,” Yoselin said warmly. “Want to play something else?”

Teo was not Yoselin, but he had been born into power. Yoselin had been a child who might have grown out of accepting whatever she’d been told. At nineteen, Teo was likely twice as stubborn, with very few skills unrelated to ruling.

“So, what does that mean for us?” Marisol asked instead. “If the commoners of Domingo are watching Coventry so closely, does that mean they’d want their witches back, magic and all?”

“No, not at all. Their successful revolution might be inspiring, but witches will never be welcome back in Domingo. If this works, if we manage to eradicate magic entirely, it will put my family back in favor. Witches killed the queen, my mother, and they are thriving in all the ways we stumble. That cannot continue.”

Hatred soured his voice. She’d spent more than enough time in Domingo to become familiar with the many reasons they hated magic, but Teo’s animosity was personal. He would have been around five when Queen Ximena died, and those hazy memories would only fuel his loathing. The idea of a life that someone could’ve had was sometimes worse than the life they did have.

His hatred was the kind of ugly, bitter thing that Marisol carried in her heart, a barbed fury that called to the darkness within her. No wonder the Castellans had been funding Gaspar’s research.

She turned her head before a sense of kinship could take root. Whatever wounds the prince carried couldn’t save him from her.

Marisol drained her juice and refilled her goblet with the wine. It looked as if she would need it. “I still don’t understand. You’re not even the heir to the throne. How will killing you possibly help anyone?”

The shadows in his eyes cleared, replaced with weary reflection. “I’ve thought about this extensively, and my guess is as good as yours. Either my death will serve as a warning and a threat to my father and brother without actually causing a succession crisis, or I’m some sort of trial run to test the Palacio’s defenses and the Castellans’ accessibility. Bas has been teaching me swordplay, and I’ve become immune to most poisons in the last year. But I’ve mostly discovered the best way to foil my attackers is to never be where they expect me to be.”

Marisol’s lips twitched. “Such as someone else’s bed?”

“Impropriety can save a life.” Teo winked sinfully, his curls falling over his chestnut eyes. “And who says serving one’s country can’t be fun for all involved?”

Damn, he was charming. That would be a problem.