Page 9 of Wicked Endeavors

“There was a boy I trusted once,” said Caya. “A servant who I thought was my best friend. He betrayed me, and he helped the witches take over Coventry. If you want my help, I want him dead.”

“First a house, and now a body?” Ruiz lazily waved a hand through the air, returning his curtains to their original color. “I see you haven’t lost your expensive tastes.”

“The problem,” Caya continued, “is that he’s not a Seaward servant anymore. I saw him in the city center with Prince Tomás, which might be a… problem, if you’re working with the royals.”

“Ah. Sebastjan Arroyo.” Ruiz’s tone gave nothing away, but Caya clasped her hands together, squeezing tightly to keep her expression blank. To keep him from seeing how Bas’s very name made her furious, especially in the mouth of a Domingan nobleman. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”

“We were very young.”

Ruiz stroked his beard when it became clear she would give no further detail. “Sebastjan Arroyo is the prince’s closest companion. Everything he has was given to him by the Castellans. He has no family, no other friends.” Her nails bit into the skin of her palms. She had no backup plan if he denied her this, so she couldn’t let him see how badly she wanted it. “However, I’ve heard whispers that the court is concerned by how much influence this Coventrian boy has over Tomás.”

They didn’t have to worry, Caya wanted to say, because it was clear that Bas would never do anything to help anyone but himself. Instead, she let Ruiz mull over the best way to give her what she wanted in exchange for her support. She knew what she would do, but it was up to Ruiz how much he wanted to factor into it. He had read her correctly. She wanted revenge, and a transfer of power would be a delicious way to get it. This made far more sense to her than the Criterion’s inconsequential rebellions.

But she was not an easy mark, and she had her own idea of justice.

“Yes, Miss Donant,” Ruiz drawled, “I think we can help each other.”

Caya’s answering grin was just as slow. “Where do we start?”

THAT NIGHT, SHE DREAMED OF YOSELIN AGAIN.

They had officially met in Soltura Harbor, a day that Caya had dreamed about so often that she could no longer tell fantasy from memory. On the way back from a visit to Esquivel, Caya’s ship had foundered. Newly orphaned, she was rescued from the wreckage by a passing boat. The royal family had been waiting for her, Yoselin Seaward sandwiched between the king and queen in a formal dress that made her look much older than five.

Despite her youth, she had been the one to step forward, to take Caya’s hand, to say, “Let’s go home.”

“I don’t have a home,” Caya had said, her hand trembling in Yoselin’s. “Mama and Papa worked at the palace, but they left.”

“The palace is still your home, and I won’t leave.”

Caya hadn’t believed her then. This girl her own age probably had a bedtime like every other kid. She had no control over where she went, let alone over when she went.

But then Yoselin had squeezed her hand, affectionate and resolved, and continued: “Your parents and my parents were friends, so we’re going to be friends, too. I’m a princess, and that means I get to decree it.” Brown eyes had held hers with youthful intensity. “Only if you want to, of course. But I would love to be friends.”

“Friends,” Caya had repeated in a hoarse voice.

A princess wanted to be friends with her? It had seemed too good to be true. And, to the rest of Coventry, it had been too good to be true. The papers had called her a charity case, another part of the benevolent reign that had welcomed exiled Domingan witches within Coventry’s borders. Javier and Paloma Donant had been palace staff—a chef and a lady-in-waiting, respectively—and the Seawards had acted out of a sense of obligation when they fished the Donant child from the harbor instead of leaving Caya to drown.

And yet in only two years, the Seawards made Caya feel more love, more belonging, and more confidence than she ever had before or since. She had been a daughter, a sister, a friend. Caya and Yoselin, Yoselin and Caya, never apart except for the one night when it mattered.

The night Yoselin was murdered.

There had been no bodies to recover, no state funerals where she could say her goodbyes. Caya had just woken up orphaned a second time, with only Bas’s hand in hers to keep her moving forward. She still couldn’t say which one of them had let go first, but she had quickly learned to never reach for him again.

Tears blurred her vision when she finally opened her eyes. Her lids felt heavy with more than exhaustion. She was in a bed in a house that still didn’t feel like hers, despite the paperwork she’d filled out after dinner. Yoselin wasn’t beside her. Bas wasn’t hovering over her. She was as alone as she had been for ten years.

Because of him. It always came back to him.

Caya wanted to track Bas through the city, shove him onto the cobblestones, and pierce his heart with his own sword. She wanted to watch the light in his eyes dim after he realized that he had saved her so she could ruin him.

She wanted to be his ruin. A simple stabbing was too kind a fate. She wanted—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

For the second time, Caya found herself downstairs to answer the door. There was only one person who knew where she lived, so she was unsurprised to open it to the sight of three couriers. What was surprising was that they were carrying two trunks full of clothes and a wrapped package that they said Lord Ruiz had insisted she receive. Caya was too wrung out from her dream to do much beyond directing them upstairs and watching as they filled the wardrobe.

Once they were gone, she had breakfast. Ruiz had given her leftovers to take home, but she ate a buttered slice of bread, scrambled eggs, and a side of fruit while standing at the counter. Her tea woke her in increments, but her melancholy never quite lifted.

It was quiet, without the other children.