Page 59 of Wicked Endeavors

It was an hour after the party was due to start. Teo smirked at her as if to say, I told you so.

Witches trickled in steadily, filling the ballroom. Teo had hired his own musicians, and they played Domingan classics as couples took their turns around the dance floor. Marisol had sampled a little of all the food on display, which left her too full to eat any more once the festivities began. But the party didn’t come alive to Marisol until Noelia arrived, resplendent in teal and gold, and threw her arms around her.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said once she’d let go. “I couldn’t decide what to wear, and the note I sent to Wildridge was returned unanswered.” Her eyebrows rose suggestively. “I imagine you’ve been here?”

“You’re incorrigible.” Marisol laughed. “And you look wonderful.”

Arm in arm, they found two chairs on the edge of the dance floor so they could watch everyone. The musicians played from a stage between the windows, and roped curtains revealed the moon surrounded by several stars. Not even the sounds of the ball and the chatter of Noelia beside her were enough to save Marisol from her sudden melancholia.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready to leave Coventry, plant or no plant. She didn’t want to build a new life in a new place. She wanted to prune her roots here so that they could grow back stronger than before.

It was a sobering realization.

“What’s that face for?” Noelia asked, interrupting her own story about a witch who’d gotten seasick at the regatta.

“I—”

The music faded to a stop as Teo ascended the dais. He wore a black doublet and sage hose, not unlike the outfit he’d worn the first time she saw him in person. However, his curls were decorated by a simple diadem, marking the first time that Marisol had seen him wear a crown.

He looked like what she had almost forgotten he was: a Castellan royal.

“Thank you all for coming to this gala and helping me to say goodbye to a country that I’ve truly come to love,” Teo said, his voice raised so it could carry over the crowd. “I’ve met with the Magisters, and they have assured me that this is the entirety of the witch population of Coventry. These numbers are both larger and smaller than I thought, but it’s made our decision easier.

“After reading my letters, King Alvaro has decided that he will work toward an end to the exile that has kept witchcraft out of Domingo for decades.”

The room filled with shocked murmuring, but no one was more shocked than Marisol. She was on her feet before she’d made the conscious decision to move, and, from the corner of her eye, she saw Noelia stand as well.

Teo’s eyes found her in the crowd, and all she saw was a stranger. If she expected guilt or shame, she didn’t find it in his placid expression. She would have thought it was a morpher impersonating him if he hadn’t been looking right at her, as if he wanted to note her reaction before anyone else’s.

As if she would give him the satisfaction.

She stared him down until his gaze moved on, leaving her fuming.

Teo waited for the whispers around him to die down before continuing. “However, there is a condition to the impending agreement. I’ve taken the time to study your coven marks, sending the ink samples you generously provided back to Palacio Real. We’ve used them to create a coven mark of our own. No longer will you be divided into separate Houses. Instead, there will be a single mark, branding you as a member of the Crown Coven and allowing King Alvaro to share in the power that has made you so strong.”

Marisol could feel her legs shaking. She stumbled toward the wall, using it to keep herself standing.

The ink samples you generously provided.

Teo had never once mentioned that he’d simply been given the samples that he had been helping her to steal. When had that happened? Why hadn’t he told her this? Any of this?

They want the witches’ magic back under their control, Marisol realized, her throat tightening. And that’s something that must not happen.

How many lies had he told her? Why had she ever believed him?

“The Magisters have already agreed to these terms and will thus take the mark first,” said Teo. His smile was indulgent, and his eyes were blank. She saw nothing of the thoughtful boy she’d come to know in those depthless voids. She couldn’t even tell which version of him had been the performance. “Then the rest of you can follow.”

No one asked what would happen if they didn’t take the mark. It was clear that the decision had been made for them, that this was all or nothing. It was likely that no one wanted to be the witch to ruin their chance to expand into Domingo.

Marisol wanted to laugh hysterically—or maybe curl into a ball and cry. Her mind was still trying to make connections even as it frayed from the depth of Teo’s betrayal. The secrets he’d been keeping. The way he’d manipulated her, acting as if she were leading them and he would help her on her path, all while he had an agenda of his own.

It was the same thing that she had done to him, and yet she had never seen it coming.

Are you that worried you won’t be able to do it?

The shame she’d felt that day she’d spoken to Gaspar rose up so fast that it nearly choked her. She had been fooled by charming words and beautiful eyes. She had become another person who thought that Teo truly cared for them while he used them for a safe place to sleep. Watching him smile and laugh at the witches as he oversaw their coven marks one by one made her want to vomit.

If she couldn’t tell which parts of him had been lies, she had to assume that it had all been a game. One that she was losing, because she hadn’t even known to play.