Page 30 of Wicked Endeavors

“All right.”

His easy trust was annoyingly kind.

Marisol looked away from him as the hunt began with a whistle and a cacophony of barking.

THE HINTERLANDS, AS IT WAS APPARENTLY CALLED, hadn’t been listed on any map. Although trees were shown sketched on the grounds of House Vida, the House was the only label; witches kept their secrets far too close, perhaps to make their locations impossible to navigate unless you already knew what was there. The constructed animals dived into the foliage, disappearing into the shadows as the hounds strained against their leashes, eager to chase after them. Their dark eyes swallowed the light in a way that struck Marisol as unnatural. She didn’t truly relax until Magister Ozalla lifted a fist and the dogs were released, too, leaving them in the clearing with the witches.

Several paths wound through the silver firs and holm oaks. Marisol, Teo, and Bas followed an unfamiliar crafter down one to the left, the scratched dirt and broken twigs providing a sense of direction. Fallen beige orange blossoms and thin viridian moss lined the ground on either side, the long grass a spring green fading to chartreuse summer. The crafter’s coven mark glowed emerald against his skin as a crossbow appeared in his hands, the first bolt aimed deep into the woods. He moved with the silent grace of an experienced hunter, and Marisol studied that as much as she did the lines of his body and the shades of color in his hair. It was a good reminder of how easy it would be to go from the hunter to the hunted.

The crafter stepped over a fallen trunk. Around him, the Hinterlands flashed with tiny green lights, like nauseous fireflies, as witches used their magic to create new paths, to construct their own podencos, and to arm themselves with bolts and arrows, depending on the kind of bow their magic had built.

Before Marisol followed their guide, she glanced at Teo. Her eyebrows lifted. She tipped her head in the crafter’s direction.

“Can I ask a question?” Teo’s voice was soft as he jumped the trunk and caught up with the witch. “How does crafter magic work? Do you just… think of what you want and it appears in front of you?”

“Sort of,” said the witch. “You have to be familiar with what you’re crafting, or else it won’t appear or it won’t work or it’ll fall apart as quickly as it came. A lot of what we study at House Vida is the different compositions of things.”

“You’re studying crossbows in your spare time?”

“Well, our most lucrative exports are weapons, so…”

The conversation began to fade as Marisol took a step back, letting the distance between her and the three men grow until she was alone. Teo would keep the witch busy while she retraced their steps, looking for the orange trees that had shed some of their blossoms. Gaspar had claimed that the spirits-blessed ones would be in the interior courtyards, but he’d also admitted that his knowledge was out of date. The hunt was a better excuse to be caught where she shouldn’t be than the upcoming reception at House Vida—and they would be less likely to notice anything missing in a forest.

After months of training, transformation magic felt like a length of yarn waiting to be unwound. She released it in increments, weaving a new face over her borrowed one. Dark blond hair the color of wet sand. Freckled skin with a bulbous nose and a thin mouth. Long legs and hunched shoulders. When she opened her now-hazel eyes, she didn’t need a mirror to know that she now looked like the crafter guiding Teo and Bas through the Hinterlands. She could feel the magic bringing her observations to life, from the length of his lashes to his green hunting clothes.

“That was both incredible and creepy.”

Marisol’s heart leaped, but she kept her expression blank as Bas stepped onto the path. “Why aren’t you with the prince?”

“Lookout, remember?” He gestured toward the trees he’d rounded to come up from behind her. “You clearly need one.”

She rolled her eyes and led the way.

“Remember the time we snuck out to the beach because you wanted to see the dolphins?” Bas murmured, his voice carrying in the hush. “You said you’d spotted some off the side of the ship while leaving Esquivel, and you wanted to show them to me. But when they didn’t show up, you started crying. It had only been six months since you’d lost your parents, and you still missed them so much that not seeing the dolphins felt like losing them all over again.”

Marisol’s shoulders tensed. That afternoon came back to her easily: Yoselin had been trapped in diplomacy lessons, so Marisol had helped Bas finish washing the dishes so that he was free to come with her. They had gone to the library and were flipping through the books with pictures in them when she spotted an image of dolphins breaching. It had seemed so important, in that moment, to see one as soon as possible. It hadn’t been until she was sobbing into Bas’s shoulder that she’d realized her true motivations. She’d been only six years old, after all, gifted in impulse and emotion. Introspection and hindsight were things she would learn much later in life.

“I remember,” she said tightly. “Why?”

“You haven’t changed as much as you want me to believe. Why do you keep pretending?”

Marisol stopped walking. Branches swayed in the breeze, leaning close enough to eavesdrop before gliding away. Bas’s hands were tucked into the pockets of his breeches. His hair had grown out until his tight coils had emerged, making him look less like a soldier and more like a boy. Harmless and inquisitive.

“Let me ask you something.” She folded her arms over her chest as if that could protect a heart already broken. “You want to overthrow the witches, but you helped them come to power in the first place. What changed?”

Bas’s jaw set. He glanced into the trees in silence. Leaves rustled, and a lynx darted past them with sunken eyes that glowed around the edges. Whatever magic the crafters had used to build these animals, it clearly needed continuous sustenance. Marisol was almost positive that the lynx had been more filled out before the hunt started. Now she watched as it twisted to avoid the bolts that embedded themselves in the trunks, flashing green as they settled. Somewhere, she heard the yelling of another group, the barking of a constructed dog, and she waited until it began to fade before she turned her attention back to Bas.

Marisol closed the distance between them. She gripped his chin, forcing him to look at her, to face what he had done. “Do you think this will make up for dooming the entire country? For killing the closest thing I had to a family?” Her voice lowered to a harsh whisper. “Do you think you deserve to walk away a hero for solving a problem that you caused?”

Bas broke away from her. “You think I wanted this? I wanted Coventry to be freed of witch rule, not to trade terror for terror.”

“Oh, you killed the Seawards for everyone’s good, huh? That’s what you expect me to believe?” Marisol’s laugh was a vicious, mirthless thing. “You can make this about Coventry as much as you want, but you weren’t thinking about anyone but yourself.”

“Believe what you want, but I don’t have to answer for your conveniently golden memories of that family.”

Marisol scowled. “What are you even—”

“Yoselin protected you from the reality of what the Seawards were like. They didn’t care about anyone but themselves. Even you were a means to an end.”