Page 42 of Wicked Endeavors

“Thank you for saying that,” he said, his voice thick. “I know I shouldn’t, but I care what you think of me.”

“Why?” Her own voice was as fragile as glass. “We hardly know each other.”

“I know that you watch people with the kind of intense focus that makes whoever is on the other end of it feel like the center of the world. I know that you laugh like you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be happy, and you brood like you’ve grown accustomed to sadness. I know you don’t trust easily, even though your instinct is to take care of those around you.” His thumb brushed her lip, gently extracting it from between her teeth. It lingered there, a warm weight that made her shiver. “I may not know the details, but I know what I’ve observed. And I like it. I like you.”

Marisol swallowed. “This would be far more complicated if we didn’t like each other.”

But she knew, from his hooded gaze and shallow breathing, what he really meant. He had always been handsome, but the lantern light made him something aureate, something to be treasured.

This heat. His attention. This was what she’d wanted… wasn’t it?

This was true power, true control.

This was wrong.

Marisol pulled away, breathing as if she’d rowed the boat herself. The cloud of lanterns rose higher and higher, until they looked like multicolored stars, and the oars surged to life again to carry them back to shore. Teo made no attempt to touch her again, and Marisol didn’t dare look at him.

She was afraid of what she might see.

She was afraid of what he might see.

Her heart knocked against her chest, confused but frantic. Part of her wished that she’d let him kiss her. The rest of her was glad she hadn’t. Not yet. Not now, when what she felt and what she wanted changed from day to day.

Teo was a means to an end, but he was also one of the closest things she had to a friend. He was a necessary sacrifice, and he was a charismatic devil. It was easy, too easy, to like him—but she had never considered that she might…

The boat bumped against the shoreline. Marisol was the first one out.

Teo called her name only once, but all it did was make her run faster until she was swallowed by the dark.

MARISOL HAD NO IDEA WHERE SHE WAS GOING, BUT she felt better the more distance she put between herself and Teo. People were still making their way to shore, chatting as they left their boats and made plans for the rest of their night, and she twisted away from them, so she could have silence to quiet the screaming in her head. It felt as if she were on a precipice, a breath away from free-falling into a terrifying unknown, and her eyes burned at the prospect.

Her thoughts were in tatters around her. She had to either weave them back together or let them slip away on the wind like the sky lanterns.

The road away from the harbor curved up a gentle hill and cut through tall trees and stucco houses. Shadows on the slanted tiled roofs made it clear that she wasn’t the only one who had watched the showcase from the highest point she could find. Her shoulders eased as she passed the welks; they reminded her that her revenge had a more important purpose. In fewer than two months, she had seen two lavish Houses, surrounded by lands and greenery that seemed endless, while the regulars of Coventry were forced into these buildings packed so close together that one could hardly tell home from home or civilization from wilderness.

Then again, Gaspar was not the one who had wanted the prince dead. That was her embellishment, her sin. Could she go through with it now that she still felt the gentle press of his thumb on her mouth? Now that she had seen in his eyes how badly he had wanted to replace it with his lips? Now that she knew, when suspended in that moment, that she was just weak enough to let him?

The clearing shocked her back to the present. It was hidden by tall grass, and she would never have found it if she hadn’t burst through the copse of trees on her way to nowhere. Slowing, she fought to catch her breath and get her bearings. The woods were dark, every bit of foliage the same in the night, but she could see the open sky still lit by lanterns expanding across the horizon. She sat down, ignoring the twigs and burrs that caught on her dress, and pulled her knees up to her chest. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.

“I miss you, Yoselin,” she whispered. “I wish you were here.”

She imagined what it would have been like if both she and Yoselin had survived the bloodbath. With her magic, Yoselin would have been accepted as a morpher in House Cambio, and perhaps Marisol could have lived with her as her lady’s maid. If they had both met Gaspar, Yoselin would have thought he and all his promises were suspicious. “I want things to change, too,” she might have said, “but I don’t want to change to something worse.”

Tears began to fall, because Marisol was always just guessing at what Yoselin might have said and done. They had been so young. Their time together had been so short. She felt like a mess, so her imaginary Yoselin was decisive and confident. But the truth was she didn’t know how things would have turned out with Yoselin at her side. She would never have the chance to see who her best friend, her sister, would have become.

“Marisol,” Bas Arroyo said, stepping into the clearing with his face cast in shadow. “Teo is looking for you.”

“Leave me alone.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and yet it was colder than the wind that stirred the harbor. “I mean it, Sebastjan.”

He ignored her to come closer. “Are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“What do you think?” Marisol swiped at her tears before she got to her feet, the hatred that had been wavering in her heart roaring back with a vengeance. “Yoselin was only seven when you got her killed. She’ll never get to see something this beautiful.” She threw her hand toward the sky and the multicolored lanterns that trailed across the stars. “Sometimes, I get really upset about that. Strange, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell Teo that we’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

And then Bas rolled his eyes, and whatever tenuous control Marisol had on her temper snapped. She shoved him. Hard. His arms pinwheeled as he stumbled away, and she shoved him again because it felt good, to see him unbalanced for once.

“Damn you,” she snarled. “How can you be so unfeeling? Why am I the only one destroyed by what you did? Why don’t you even care—”