Page 80 of The Familiar

CHAPTER 37

La Casilla felt empty, the quiet hanging in the air like dust. Most of Pérez’s guests had gone. There were no hunts or grand feasts, no bursts of noisy conversation filling the halls or peals of laughter from the garden.

Marius and Valentina had spent the rest of the afternoon discussing likelihoods for the third trial, and when Luzia tired of their speculation, she asked for permission to return to her rooms.

“Is that safe?” Valentina asked.

“Are you going to protect me if the alguacil returns?”

“She can go where she likes,” Marius said with a wave. “If she’s not safe, none of us are.”

Luzia had hoped Santángel might come to her if she separated herself from the Ordoños, but she had no visitors and Concha must have returned to Casa de Paredes or run even farther from the nightmares she’d witnessed.

Luzia lay on her bed and made herself think of her refranes and how they might be useful, not the bed, or the way it had creaked last night, or the sounds Santángel had drawn from her, or the wriggling desire that seemed to have turned her body to eels trying to escape from a pot.

Friete en la azeite, i no demandes de la djente. The words she used to heat coals or cooking fires had always pleased her. Fry in oil before you beg.

Then the little whispers that had helped with stains and fruit that hadn’t yet ripened. No mi mires la kolor, mirame la savor. Judge me by my flavor, not my color.

Or the words she’d used to open cupboards when they’d lost the keys—sweet words open iron gates. Boka dulse avre puertas de fierro.

The familiar song to lighten firewood or heavy buckets of water—el mal viene a kintales, se va a metikales. Trouble comes in gallons, but goes in droplets.

They all seemed so meager. Where was the magic that would give her wings? That would transport her to a mountaintop? That would change her into a lion? Where was the magic that would help her master this longing?

At last she could be still no longer. She took her cloak and went down to the garden. The air was cool and the terrace was empty. She wasn’t sure if she should go exploring, but she could at least walk through the roses. They’d already been cut back for the fall, and the blooms she’d created the previous night were gone, cleared away with the wreckage of the stage and the dais. There were furrows in the grass, scorch marks where torches had toppled and the stage had caught fire. What had really happened here?

“Luzia.”

She nearly jumped at the sound of her name. Hualit’s housekeeper stood near the edge of the rose garden, bundled into a shawl, her looped braids curled against her neck.

“Ana?”

“Come with me, please, señorita.”

Luzia knew Hualit trusted Ana, but she called up the words she’d used to grow the roses last night. Two competitors had already been eliminated. If she needed thorns they would be ready.

She followed Ana past the hedges to where her aunt waited on a stone bench, enveloped in black velvet, a blue bow tied at her neck, bright sapphires dangling from her ears.

“At last,” Hualit said, rising and opening her arms for an embrace. “Ana and I have been waiting for you to step outside all afternoon.”

Luzia let herself be held briefly, the sweet scent of bee balm washing over her.

“Where have you been?” she asked as they settled on the bench. “Why didn’t you come back to La Casilla?”

“I returned to the city.”

“I was nearly killed and you vanished.”

“Because Víctor asked me to.” As if this were answer enough. “He needed to see to his wife.”

“If he didn’t banish you, why are you hiding in the gardens?”

“You learn too quickly, Luzia. It isn’t ladylike.”

Luzia waited.

At last Hualit sighed. “He is afraid I may be questioned.”