I pressed a hand over the cane, feeling the quiver of its magic through my sweaty skin. “Babies are easy to dispose of.”
“The djeliw teach us that our destiny is already written. As long as you are alive, I can be alive. But if you are dead, then I must already be dead.”
“I suppose that’s meant to be reassuring. What is your destiny, General?”
“To free Europa from the petty quarrels and greed of princes and cold mages. To unite all its peoples under one just code of law.”
“With you conveniently seated as emperor.”
His easy smile made my lips quirk despite my mistrust. “I am meant to sit in an emperor’s throne. It is the role my mother raised me for.”
“How can she have raised you for that?”
“She was the favored daughter of the patrician Aemillius lineage. They cast her off when she betrothed herself against their wishes to an Iberian captain. He was highborn enough. His mother was an Iberian princess and his father was born into the princely Keita lineage. But her people scorned all Iberians and desired her to marry to suit their schemes, so they cast her off in the most public way imaginable. They stripped her naked and whipped her onto the street as a whore. You should have some sympathy for her plight, Cat.”
I frowned, thinking of the way Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jonatan had given me to the mage House in Bee’s place. At least they had wept.
“She raised me to be the instrument of her revenge. I dare not dishonor her memory. But I have no child to foist off as my heir. The imperiate will dissolve after I am dead, leaving behind a better legal code and the abolishment of clientage. So you must ask yourself if the people of Europa will be better off or worse off than they are now. I must wonder, Cat, if there is something your cold mage wants very badly that I could offer him in exchange for his support.”
I sat down as hard as if all the air had been punched from my lungs.
The abolishment of clientage.
Bee placed a hand over mine. “Let’s go out to the balcony to get some air.”
An uneasy feeling rippled down my spine. I nodded. We rose and went out into a patch of shade. The air was sticky with humidity and thick with the scent of flowers. I closed the doors behind us. A guard clothed in a dark blue tabard and holding a rifle glanced up at us from his station at a gate set into the back wall; his gaze widened; then he looked away.
Bee wasn’t looking into the garden. She stared at the railing, her mouth twisted down with shame. “I’m sorry for the part I played in all this. I did truly think you wanted out of the marriage.”
“You couldn’t have known I changed my mind.”
“I truly didn’t know most of what was going on. Obviously I was just being tremendously naive. And he did say he wanted the cold mage alive, in his army.”
I leaned against her shoulder in the familiar way. “I’ve already forgiven you, Bee.”
“He doesn’t want to harm you, Cat. He told me so many stories about your mother. He speaks of her with the greatest esteem. I think he looks on you as he might look on a niece.”
“One with a sword in her hand?” I glanced through the closed glass doors. Inside, Camjiata was working through a second plate of food with the pleasure of a man who enjoys eating, while Drake was picking through fried slices of potato as if looking for an elusive shard of triumph.
“I will tell him I will break off the marriage arrangements if anything happens to you.”
“I think he believes what he said, about me needing to be alive. Not that I’m going to turn my back on him. What worries me is that I think you’re a little in love with him. I worry he is using your admiration to coerce you into a marriage that benefits him.”
She put an arm around me and held hard, whispering. “That’s not how it is. Cat, you know me. No matter what it looks like to people outside you and me, you know I’ve thought this through. Yes, I can learn from the behiques. Yes, I gain an alliance to a powerful kingdom, one which respects and honors the very curse which puts my life in danger. There is one thing else. I was allowed to meet one time privately with the cacica, Queen Anacaona. She is a very powerful woman. I said, what use to me a marriage if I am torn to pieces by the Wild Hunt at year’s end? She claimed the behiques have a means to protect dream walkers. This is good for us, Cat. This is hope.”
I had met the Master of the Wild Hunt, so I was pretty sure the cacica was wrong. But I wanted Bee to live in hope, not fear. “Then of course I understand why you agreed.”
She released me. “As for the other, I think the general will put in place a radical civil code.”
“Just for the sake of argument, let us say it is true. What if he changes his mind, marries again, and produces a child to raise up as heir? Or what is to stop his captains from electing one of their own to rule as emperor after he dies? Because he will die. Everyone dies. He said so!”
The general was watching us. Seeing us look his way, he raised the cup to salute our machinations and conspiracies. Drake was crisping bacon into charred strips.
I turned back to Bee. “What is to stop princes and mage Houses from biding their time and restoring the old order with a lot of blood and carnage after he dies?”
Bee’s gaze hardened, reminding me of an axe. “Did you listen to nothing that Kehinde and Brennan said? With the right weapons and allies, we can bring them down. A legal code matters.”
“You’re a radical, too! You and Vai both!”
Her gaze softened. “So it is more than just his looks!”
I fastened my fingers around the wrought-iron railing. The vivid memory of his passionate, angry kisses mocked me. “I wonder how far I’ll go to convince him I did not betray him.”
“There is something Andevai wants you think the general can give him. Offer him that.”
“Oh, Bee, I thought I was offering Vai so much, to share both the burdens and the risks of trying to break the chains of Four Moons House, when I could have been free of them. But he doesn’t even know it. Why should he listen to me now?”
“If he is not willing to listen to you, then he isn’t worth suffering over. Really, dearest, this isn’t like you. You know you have to try.”
Who was I, to feel fear? I, who was the weapon of the Master of the Wild Hunt? In the heart of me, like a shard of obsidian, lay a cruel gleaming kernel that would allow me to do what I must to save those I loved. I need only grasp it, cut my skin on it, and let it drink fully of my blood.
“I’m going to save you, Bee,” I said. “I’m the only one who can.”
Her lips twisted up. “Really, Cat. The man’s vainglorious arrogance has been rubbing off on you. Now, follow my lead.”
She opened a door and swept into the chamber, leaving me to follow in her wake like so much wind-chopped flotsam. She threw a smile at Drake that made him wince, and addressed the general. “We are going shopping.”
“Of course, my dear.” Camjiata began reading a pamphlet whose title was On the Dynamical Theory of Heat: Some Experiments and Conclusions as Delivered by Professora Habibah ibnah Alhamrai at the Expedition Society of Natural Historians.
We cut a swath through the shockingly expensive shops of Avenue Kolonkan. After a strenuous morning of examining fabric, smallclothes, footwear, kerchiefs and head wraps and hats, as well as ribbons and beads, necklaces, earrings, and painted gourds suitable for storing such treasures, we rested our feet in the shade of an arbor in a private courtyard. Well-dressed and well-groomed women-no men-drank carafes of sweetened lime juice garnished with mint leaves.
After we had quenched our thirst with an obscenely pleasurable and hotly spiced drink called chocolatl and worked through a platter of pastries, Bee nodded. “We have suitably bored the two men who are following us. Take yourself to the toilet and vanish. The gates into the old city close at sunset. I believe there are secret corridors in the house, so anything we say can be overheard. I should have told you before.” She pressed a coin into my hand. “For the washroom attendant.”