Page 35 of Wicked Endeavors

She just couldn’t figure out if her own plans would be affected.

His eyes found hers. “What?”

“You—”

The music cut off before she could finish.

On the dais, the performers carried their instruments away and were replaced by the current leaders of the Trident: Magister Ines Baylin of House Muerte, Magister Luiza Ozalla of House Vida, and Magister Agostin Novoa of House Cambio. It was Marisol’s first time seeing the latter outside of Gaspar’s photos, and she was surprised by how ordinary he looked. Magister Novoa, dressed in all white, was a dark-skinned bald man, staring them down with bright hazel eyes. The silver of his eyebrows was the only indication that he was older than the two women who stood beside him.

That awful night, he had turned the guards’ shields and swords into useless rubber, the castle’s stone floors into quicksand, and the doors into solid walls that no one else could pass through. Three men had died after sinking into the ground only for Magister Novoa to turn it back to stone, crushing their muscles and bones.

Now he stood slightly behind Ozalla and Baylin, as if deferring to their judgment.

It was a disorienting sight, the tame politeness of the three most feral witches Marisol had ever seen. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to it.

“We apologize for the interruption,” Magister Ozalla said, her hands tucked into the dangling sleeves of her chartreuse dress. “But the reason we’re all gathered here tonight cannot go unaddressed. Despite our promise of welcome to Prince Tomás, he was injured during my House’s event. How can we claim that witchcraft is a boon to the crown when the second prince of Domingo cannot go two months without being harmed by it? The hunt was meant to be a celebration of life, and instead it proved nearly fatal.”

Beside her, Teo went still. Witches threw curious gazes their way, but most of them—especially the ones in crafter green—seemed resigned. However, there was nothing but an expression of mild interest on Teo’s face. If she hadn’t been standing within arm’s length of him, she wouldn’t have seen him receive this announcement with the inertia of a soldier facing the reality of his own death.

All eyes returned to the platform when a young witch in an emerald cape was dragged out. Dread bubbled in Marisol’s chest as she realized that it was the boy who had injured Teo, betrayed by his own House to absolve them from blame. On her other side, Noelia was fidgeting with her hair. She said nothing. No one said anything.

This witch would be eaten alive by his own, and not a single person would speak for him.

“Your Highness,” Magister Baylin said as Ozalla whispered something to her crafter that made the boy stare at the floor. “Would you join us? As the injured party, we will leave it to you to mete out the punishment you think he deserves.”

Teo trembled only once, a subtle shake that bolted through his body. He glanced at Marisol, his chin lowering in a slow nod. Then he made his way through the crowd, leaving her alone with a concerned Bas and a restless Noelia. The witches stepped out of his way, staring at his back, at the stage, at this awful moment blooming in the heart of this floral paradise.

“I don’t know if I can watch this,” Marisol whispered, infusing the fright she felt into her voice. Her mind, however, was clear and calculating. Everyone was here, riveted to the show. Teo would drag this out as long as he could while all eyes were on him. Rain hammered the windows, drowning out the whispers that raced through the crowd. “I need air.”

“I’ll walk you,” said Bas needlessly. Noelia hadn’t turned in their direction, didn’t even seem to notice that they had spoken. Even when she and Bas began to push their way toward the exit, no one looked.

It was the distraction Marisol had asked for, if not the exact kind she’d wanted. She just had to move quickly and hope that however Teo decided to stall wouldn’t end with them fighting their way out of House Vida.

The decoration wasn’t limited to the ballroom. On every floor, flowers grew from the walls, light sconces hung from branches, and vines of bougainvillea framed paintings of the Coventrian countryside. Even Bas seemed fascinated by the delicate ornamentation. His footsteps were quick and measured behind her, but with every cloud of cascading honeysuckle, he paused, just a little, as though he had forgotten this kind of beauty existed in the world.

According to the floor plans, House Vida’s inner garden was on the fourth floor. Unlike the courtyard she’d seen in House Muerte, Marisol and Bas emerged into what looked like a greenhouse. The aroma of herbs and soil permeated the air, threaded with those of flowers and fruits. Shelves lined the walls between the windows, which were outfitted with blackout curtains to control how much sun these particular plants could get.

Her triumph was short-lived, however, when she realized that there was an entire row of orange trees in various states of growth.

“Do you actually know which one we’re looking for?” Bas asked at the sight of her expression. “Or is this going to be the Hinterlands all over again?”

“You should be looking out for guards,” she said. “Let me do my job.”

Bas looked as if he wanted to say something else, but she lifted her eyebrows pointedly. Once he’d shuffled toward the staircase to stand guard, Marisol began to explore the greenhouse. It was divided into several rows, with different classes of plants growing in each garden bed. She saw agave and rosemary, basil and thyme. She saw tomato and cucumber plants curved around stakes. She saw the orange blossoms, pale white in comparison to the fruit that would soon grow, and lingered beside each in the hopes that she would feel something. Anything.

Gaspar had said she’d know, that the magic in her blood would tell.

The only thing she knew right now was that there were too many trees and too little time.

Bas appeared at her shoulder, his jaw a tense line. “They’re two flights down. We have three minutes at most.”

“Shit.” Her heart, which had started pounding at his sudden proximity, was now galloping for a different reason. “I was hoping that Teo could buy us more time than this.”

“Now it’s a minute and a half.”

“Shit.”

The shelves were too narrow to hide behind, the plants too low. For a moment, she was paralyzed with indecision. Then she grabbed a fistful of Bas’s jerkin and yanked him over to the corner.