Page 7 of Wicked Endeavors

“It’s a one bedroom,” the footman said. “And it’s been paid for outright. His lordship will have paperwork for you to fill out, but for now…”

He handed her a small key. Caya stared at it for far longer than could be considered normal, her eyes burning for the second time that day. Her fingers closed around it, but then she opened them again, as though the key to her first house might have disappeared in the seconds since she’d taken her eyes off it. Right now, this was a gift. A bribe, really. But if she signed that paperwork, would this house really be hers? Would she really have a home that no one could take away?

Caya broke from her stupor to cough. The carriage was pulling away, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. And, underneath, shouts and curses, the sounds of a scuffle and thundering footsteps—a rally gone wrong, she assumed. Still coughing, she hurried across the street and through the gate before she was mistaken for a rebel.

Inside, she found a stocked kitchen, a washroom, and a sitting room with curtained windows. Up a set of narrow stone steps was another washroom next to a living room with a fully occupied bookshelf and a door to the balcony she’d seen from the street. The bedroom contained a queen-size mattress, the sheet turned down at one corner and a cotton nightdress of spring green laid out atop it. There was a massive wardrobe, a desk and chair, a dresser with a vanity mirror, and an en suite washroom, from which she could see faint steam escaping from her waiting bath. Products for her hair texture lined the dresser, and everything smelled faintly of lavender.

Mine, Caya thought. Her heart beat with a fierce joy. Not yet, but soon.

Unpacking took her so little time that she might as well have carried her things in her arms. A linen dress—she had one for regular wear, and this one was for laundry day—and one extra pair of shoes that had been patched so many times they looked like sagging strips of fabric. A silver dolphin pendant she’d saved from her collection at Seaward Palace and had never quite managed to part with. A toy boat that one of the children at Kindred had given her as a goodbye present.

That was it. That was all of it. The sum total of a life in constant transition.

Before she could feel too bad for herself, someone knocked at the door. She continued putting her things away for a full minute before she remembered she was the only one here and would be expected to answer the door without a matron yelling at her to do it. She rushed down the stairs and threw open the door to find a courier halfway to the gate.

“Hey!” she called. “Hey, wait!”

Caya had nothing to tip him with, a fact that made his expression shift from politeness to irritation, but he left her with a card containing a single sentence—Please join me for dinner—and Gaspar Ruiz’s address.

“Dinner,” she repeated idly.

Her dress was rumpled from the ride, and her cheeks were rough from the dried tears. She was in no state for a meal at a manor house with her guardian, husband, or captor. The sun drooped in the sky, giving her at least an hour or two before she could be considered late. That was more than enough time to prepare.

First, she would take a bath.

Then, she would find a weapon.

She was no mere pawn in whatever game Gaspar Ruiz wanted to play. He thought her capable of commanding her own destiny, and he would soon find out, to his detriment, just how right he was.

THE ROJANEA MANOR THAT GASPAR RUIZ HAD RENTED for the Coronet made Kindred Orphanage look like a series of shacks stitched together. In fact, it made Seaward Palace look quaint, and there had been a time when Caya believed she would never see a more extravagant building.

The carriage took her to the edge of the city, where there were fewer houses and more acres. Lord Ruiz’s two-story house had white walls and peach terra-cotta tiles. The front door was protected by four marble arches and a tiled patio, while each side boasted large half-moon windows with pearl-pale curtains swaying in the night breeze. Two columnar chimneys topped the roof, which was divided into three segments, as though the manor had individual wings.

A maid appeared to take Caya’s bag and lead her through a massive entrance hall, past a living room with a dark fireplace, and into the dining room. Walls gilded with real gold framed a mosaic of tiles on the ceiling. A long oak table took up most of the room, surrounded by elegantly carved wooden chairs. Two places had been set, and more servants streamed from the door across the room to begin laying out their meal.

Caya saw roasted hen and a sauce of cooked apples and almonds, mutton stew with onions and hazelnuts and fresh-caught sole grilled to perfection, spiced chickpeas and creamy rice and verjuice flavorings. Her stomach sobbed. It had been years since she’d eaten so well.

Dinner at Kindred had been a thunderous event, a rotating cast of children crowded at three long tables in a cramped room for laughable portion sizes. Matrons with strained smiles would eat small meals—made even smaller during the lean years—so that the kids could have more, but there was never enough. Food, beds, money, parents: never ever enough, until Caya had learned too well the many ways in which a person could starve.

Now she sat eating across from Lord Ruiz, who was nursing a jeweled goblet that could keep the orphanage operating for half a year. It was as surreal as it was depressing.

“This has been lovely,” Caya said only once she’d cleared half her plate. If he threw her out, at least she wouldn’t go home hungry. “But why am I here, my lord?”

“The adoption makes you a lady yourself, so there’s no need for titled formalities. You can just call me Ruiz.”

“All right, Ruiz…” She couldn’t temper her impatience. “Why am I here?”

“That fire in you, for one.” Ruiz had eaten at a more measured pace, but that goblet was never far from his hand. Caya lifted hers in invitation for him to continue, though she wondered what he was about to say that he needed to be a little inebriated to get out. “What do you know about the origins of magic?”

This was no history lesson, and yet Caya sat up straighter as she began to speak, body tensed in anticipation of the rap of a stick across her knuckles if she got something wrong. Disease was an unfortunate fact of city life, but everyone knew about the Scourge, a plague so devastating that they had to name it, a plague that had ravaged the continent for decades without origin, from country to country, empire to empire.

First, there had been one or two cases, blister-like sores bursting from people’s bodies as if a rot inside of them needed to get out. Next, whole families were wiped out in a matter of weeks. Children. Servants. Then, the wealthy began to find pustules on their silken skin, and finally the monarchies had to do something about it. City gates were closed, and homes were marked for quarantine. Everyone rediscovered religion and returned to raging against the spirits when the deaths continued.

Those who recovered were forever changed.

They became the first witches.

“Very good,” Ruiz said warmly. “But it’s all nonsense.”