Page 46 of Wicked Endeavors

“Where’s Bas?” she asked as she finally dragged her eyes away. “I thought the two of you went everywhere together.”

“Oh, I ordered him to remain in bed. He was robbed at knifepoint by rebels last night, and he keeps insisting that he’s fine.”

It took every ounce of control not to snort. “Rebels?”

“They scratched his throat and took his money,” Teo said with a concerned frown. “It wasn’t very deep, but if he can force me on bed rest for a scrape, then I can do the same.”

“To be fair, Your Highness, you were also sedated.”

“Irrelevant, thank you.”

Robbed by bandits. She’d panicked upstairs, expecting a knife in her back, and Bas had claimed to be robbed by bandits. Teo still thought she was Marisol Vinyet, the girl he had feelings for, and Bas… well, there had to be a reason that he was keeping her secrets, but, for now, Marisol didn’t want to question it.

“I was just about to have breakfast,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

Teo’s smile easily returned. “I’d love to.”

THE FINAL EVENT OF THE CORONET WAS A SHADOW play put on by the reapers of House Muerte at Requiem Theater, the kind of building that someone like Marisol had only ever seen from the outside before she met Gaspar. However, two weeks stretched between the midsummer festival and the shadow play, and those weeks were exciting only for aspiring coven witches. Marisol, Bas, and Teo were free to plan their final theft, and they began by going over the length of time it would take to travel from Requiem to House Muerte and back again. The general consensus was that it would take too long to go unnoticed, and they were considering having Marisol fake an illness when Noelia’s invitation arrived.

“A dinner party at House Muerte?” Teo mused as they browsed the marketplace for the ingredients Noelia had listed in the card. She wouldn’t have time to go shopping, she’d claimed, and she had thanked them in advance for their help. “If she weren’t a witch, I would swear that Lady Galvan was working for us.”

Marisol glanced at Bas. He was busy weighing turnips by hand, so engrossed in his task that his focus had to be manufactured. They had both managed to avoid being alone with each other since that night, but a fragile truce had formed between them in the meantime. Regardless of how they felt about each other, they had a job to do.

But he still didn’t know that she had seen him meet with Noelia a year ago.

And she still didn’t know when to play that card.

“Do you hear that?” she asked, stopping between two stalls. The low hum of voices was common in the marketplace, but these were shouts of dissent. “I think the Criterion is having another rally.”

Bas frowned. “You’re not still thinking you can get your things back, are you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with hearing them out,” Teo said, placing his hand between Bas’s shoulder blades and steering him toward the din. “I’ve always been curious about these rebels.”

Bas looked as if he wanted to protest, but Teo’s excitement was infectious. It was almost funny, to watch a grouch like Bas be felled by Teo’s charm. His shoulders were tense, his mouth twisted into a scowl, and yet he walked easily in the circle of Teo’s arm without further argument. Trailing behind them, Marisol was almost able to ignore her own nerves.

After years of avoiding Criterion rallies, she was walking into the heart of one.

Marisol had always pictured chaotic disorganization, welks too young and too old drawn in by an idealistic message and a picture of a world that would never come to pass. But the plaza they entered was packed with people, some carrying children on their shoulders so that they could see better. There was a stage with a masked figure on it, and he pontificated into a speaking trumpet to the roar of an enraptured audience. She looked around but saw no sign of the city guard. Perhaps they had chosen this area because the marketplace would provide good cover for both the crowds and the noise.

“Every year, the Trident shows off their wealth and power in the Coronet, a wasteful reminder that we work ourselves to tatters while they enjoy luxuries we will never see,” the man ranted. “The only government that truly serves the people is a government by the people. We have lived under the oppressive yoke of a Seaward monarchy and a Trident oligarchy, and what has it gotten us? Poverty and overcrowding and dwindling opportunities for ourselves and our children!”

“No peace!” the crowd screamed in response.

“We deserve equality! We deserve equity! We deserve an end to witch rule!”

Marisol couldn’t make out what they were screaming this time, except that it was louder than anything that had come before. She had lost Teo and Bas in the throng, but instead of looking for them she searched for amber curls and hazel eyes. The masked man on the stage was older than Rodrigo, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t here somewhere, listening or providing a lookout. If she could just talk to him—

She paused. And say what? She was still Lady Marisol Vinyet. He’d sooner spit on her than hear her out.

A pamphlet was shoved into her hands. JOIN THE CRITERION was emblazoned on the front, and a quick look at the contents revealed a list of crimes that the Trident had committed against welks in the last year. Lost jobs, poor wages, separated families. Starving parents forced to sell children with magical aptitude to one of the Houses, knowing they would never see them again. Children abandoned to the orphanages as their parents worked themselves to death in witch homes, replaced as soon as they could no longer hold a broom. People arrested for protesting, injured for complaining, their houses collapsed atop them to serve as an example to others.

Marisol swallowed as she crumpled the pamphlet in her hand. This was just another thing she had ignored in her fight to survive. It was no wonder Rodrigo had joined the rebels. She should have done the same.

“NO PEACE UNDER WITCH RULE!” someone shouted to her left, reminding her of exactly why she hadn’t. The Criterion sought to improve the life of welks, which they currently did by stealing from the witch elite, but that was not the goal of this rally. Rulers were never deposed peacefully. It would be another coup, another bloodbath.

As much as Marisol wanted the witches gone, the chaos of the days after the Seawards were killed still haunted her. Killing Teo, killing Bas—that felt like an ending. Closure from an ongoing nightmare. Killing the Trident felt more like a beginning. Like a war.

She pushed her way toward the edge of the crowd, switching directions when she caught sight of Bas’s neat Afro. He was in conversation with one of the rebels, holding a pamphlet and frowning. His eyes found her and widened. By the time she made it to his side, he had already sent the person away before she could get a proper look at them.