Page 27 of Wicked Endeavors

Unprepared for the sudden weight, his grip loosened in surprise. Marisol tore free, ducked low, and had her daggers in hand seconds later. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Noelia draw the rondel dagger she had just gifted Marisol and stab it through her abductor’s palm. His scream was like the crack of a horse’s reins, propelling everyone into motion.

Marisol stuck close to the carriage so no one could come up behind her or slaughter their horse, but the rebels were a well-trained force. They attacked her in sets of threes and fours, blades swinging in too many directions for her to weave out of the way. One cut her hairpiece free, snatching it up and putting it in a hidden pocket—no doubt the gems inlaid would fetch a hefty price at the market. Another hacked at her ankles, trying to hobble her enough to narrow her range of movement. If not for her training, Marisol would have been not just defeated but cut to ribbons. As it was, her daggers blocked enough strikes for her to find small openings to push them back.

Then their blades began to melt, hot iron twisting down toward the grips. Rebels dropped their weapons before they could get burned. Even Marisol froze, as bewildered as the people around her, because no summer was hot enough to melt a sword—let alone so quickly.

Movement in her periphery caught her attention, and suddenly she understood. Noelia was in the center of the crowd, her arms lifted and her coven mark flashing as she destroyed the Criterion rebels’ weapons with little effort. Reaper magic drawn from House Muerte’s web of communal power was more than a match for even the most well-trained welks.

Still, they were prepared. One by one, they brought out wooden cudgels and truncheons and wielded those with as much skill as they had their swords. Marisol cursed and cut the footman free, directing him to get help, and leaped over a rebel’s attempt to swipe her feet out from under her. She was faintly aware of the pounding of footsteps, but it was lost to the rush of her blood and the clatter of wood and steel. With her magic, Noelia had removed the rebels’ blades from the list of things to worry about. With her daggers intact, Marisol drove the throng back, drawing first blood wherever she could.

“Retreat!” shouted the same voice that had demanded their valuables. “We have what we need!”

The rebels began to melt into the surrounding buildings as Marisol faced down the final one. His cudgel hung over his head mid-strike as he tried to decide if it was worth following through before he ran. Marisol tackled him, then stuck one of her daggers into the ground by his head. Instantly, the rebel went still, his cudgel rolling away across the grass. With a wave of Noelia’s hand, it was reduced to splinters.

“Who told you we were coming?” she asked, pressing the tip of her other dagger to his fluttering throat. “Did you come for me or for Noelia?”

“I don’t know who either of you are,” muttered the boy. His eyes were hazel, and his voice was painfully young even though they were the same age. “And I don’t care. One of you is a witch, and there can be no peace under the witches.”

Mind whirling, she fell back onto her haunches. As soon as he was freed, the boy scrambled to his feet and raced after the absent rebels without looking back. Marisol could hear his fading footsteps and Noelia’s breathless questions, but everything seemed so far away.

Those eyes. That voice.

She knew that boy.

He’d been at Kindred with her, almost a year ago, and he would have aged out of his bed by now. She hadn’t thought of him in so long, but his name floated to the top of her mind involuntarily: Rodrigo.

Never would she have imagined that he would join the Criterion. They had walked past dozens of rallies, and he had shown as much interest in them as he had in doing her chores for her. They’d never talked about it, but they rarely talked about anything real. She had just assumed that he felt the same as her.

Then again, people had to do ugly things to survive the streets of Rojanea. Who was Marisol to judge him? At least he believed he was doing good.

No, he was doing good. The Criterion wanted to overthrow the witches to restore Coventry’s independence, and, in the meantime, they executed attacks like these to redistribute the wealth that the witches were hoarding. Marisol wanted to overthrow the witches because a Domingan lord had promised her that doing so would help her get revenge on a boy she hadn’t seen since she was seven.

She pressed the backs of her hands against her eyelids until they flashed red. She couldn’t think of Rodrigo now, not if she wanted to maintain her cover. She forced her attention to Noelia instead. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Noelia. Her gaze combed over Marisol’s body to catalog every injury. “I’m just glad no one was really hurt.”

Marisol turned her back to Noelia so she could return her daggers to their holsters with some dignity. Then, she straightened. “I’m sure our valuables are gone, though.”

She glanced down at herself as the adrenaline began to wear off and the aches of the fight made themselves known. Her head hurt from where her hairpiece had been ripped off, and she was sure her curls were now a mess. Her sleeves were torn, the gold buttons on her cuffs removed. There were holes in her gown, stained dark by the blood from her shallow but weeping wounds.

Noelia, on the other hand, looked as fresh as she had when she’d left House Muerte. The benefits of doing most of her fighting with distant magic.

She frowned into the carriage and then sighed. “I think they took my bag. Yours, too.”

“That’s all right,” Marisol said, pressing her fingers to one of her cuts and wincing. “I didn’t bring much, considering I thought we would only be having breakfast until—”

Her eyes burned. Her pendant. Her dolphin pendant had been in that bag. Her last tie to Yoselin, to the Seawards, was gone.

Stolen.

“Marisol!”

The footman had returned, and in his wake were Teo and Bas. In the distance, Marisol could see another carriage, the royal carriage, with the door hanging wide open as though Teo had kicked it to get to her. His curls bounced as he ran, and his eyes were wide when he finally reached her.

“You look a mess,” he said, gripping her shoulders. “What happened?”

“My heart flutters,” Marisol replied without thought, her mind on her pendant and the faceless rebel who would sell it without knowing what it meant to her. “Tell me more about how messy I look.”

Behind them, Bas was examining the terrain, from the melted swords scattered across the grass to the blockade in the center of the road. Noelia and the footman were having a whispered conversation over by the horse, and Teo was still holding her, his fingers tracing her skin as though trying to make sure that she was real. Her body hurt in multiple places, but his touch was warm. Gentle. She leaned into it with a sigh.