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“Is this a joke?” he demanded. “I’ve sent everyone home. No one will hear you, so answer me.”
I shook my head. “No,” I whimpered. I could see his five o’clock shadow and the thin lines around his eyes.
What the hell had this twenty-one year old seen to make him look so… old?
His hand wrapped around my barely-gold forearm.
“How did you get in here?” he growled.
My mouth opened and closed. I barely managed to say, “Mateo escorted me down here. He said that there was an opening.”
Antonio’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t on our roster this morning,Renata Valarde Bordón. Carmen Asbaje wasn’t either.”
I froze. It shouldn’t have shocked me. We’d met the night before, after all.
His grip shifted and he started pulling me away from the wall.
“Wait!” I cried out, and a familiar now-frizzy curl fell in my eyes.
He was close enough for me to taste his breath. Spearmint and spice.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, dressing up as an Élite and using that kind of Blood Magic, but this is a very dangerous game you are playing. Who sent you?” He searched my face.
I blinked, my breathing shallow. “No one sent me. I-I came to give you this.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the cuff link. His black-fringed eyes snapped onto my hand, and he grabbed the useless bit of jewelry.
He didn’t say thank you, instead his nostrils flared. “You came to give me a piece of jewelry?” He raised one of his perfect eyebrows.
I nodded. “I—we didn’t want problems with any Guardias. We weren’t sure if you would call them when you found it missing.”
His expression was frozen into that same cold and calculating look. “You couldn’t have sent it with your courier?”
Fernando. I shook my head. “He isn’t allowed in the Old District.”
His eyes bounced back and forth while he searched my face. “Why do you have magic?”
My face flushed. “I don’t know.”
Antonio laughed. “This story is rather simple, don’t you think? You and I both know that if someone found out that I allowed an Artista to audition for the tournament, they would think I was a sympathizer.”
I frowned. “A sympathizer to what?” Los Fanáticos were all but myths now, beaten down by the Guardia after the bombings that had taken friends and family alike four years ago. They were nothing more than whispered treason in alley corners.
The man scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”
I took a shaky breath and tilted my chin up until I was looking directly at his face. It felt strange, defiant. Idiotic, even. I was not his equal.
“I am here because I know the consequences that could come from an investigation. I am here to protect myself and my family. You likely know more than I about why I would have magic, because I’ve been spending the last four years of my life trying to pretend it didn’t exist. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. I would rather be taken by the Guardias than subject everyone at the theater to an ‘investigation.’”
Antonio stared at me for a long moment. “They would still investigate anyone connected to you if they found out you impersonated an Élite. If they knew you had Blood Magic? Well, I think they might set up an execution block in the Naranja District.”
I started shaking. He was right.
“You have put both of us at risk by coming here.” He pressed his lips in a thin line. “But it appears that you lack the basic level of cognition required to realize the implications.”
I wanted to hit him. We were similar heights. I could do it. “I knew the implications, but you don’t really understand what life is like for those who are not Élites. You wouldn’t see me unless I caught your attention,” I said. My neck hurt from the tension that had drawn my shoulders up to my ears. “I didn’t want you to think I was some love-sick girl come in hopes of the impossible. I am here for my friend.”
Antonio grunted before nodding. “Come with me.”
His strong fingers curled around my elbow and squeezed. His grip was rough, and my shoulder jostled in its socket as he pulled me along into the back room.
