“Not yet,” the patriarch said, but his words held the possibility that, in the end, he would be willing to turn her over to the Church.
“Carlos—”
The Iberá held his hand up. “We can discuss this again later. Come, I want to show you something I discovered in an old journal I’m currently reading. There’s record of two urns like the one once housing the demon Anton commands. They might be of interest to you should the Church ever be in a position to get its stolen property back.” To Rebekka he said, “If you’ll excuse us.”
She nodded, but remained seated, unsure she could stand without trembling, but also wanting to follow their progress audibly and confirm they traveled down the same hallway she’d taken earlier to The Iberá’s study.
At the patriarch’s mention of the urn and the demon, a terrible certainty had settled on her. She’d never studied witchcraft, but it seemed likely a demon freed yet still subject to human command could be trapped and held again.
Rebekka remembered Annalise’s words at the occult shop clearly. A woman will run tonight as well. It is beyond our control as to whether or not she will escape. But should she survive, she will be as important to you and the… man… who waits outside for you, as she is to us.
At the time she’d dared to hope the Wainwright witches wanted the destruction of the maze or might be persuaded to involve themselves in it. She hadn’t contemplated their motives for enlisting aid should Araña escape the maze, because she had no basis for forming an opinion. She’d spent little enough time in the area set aside for the gifted and none of it around witches like the Wainwrights.
Then later, after it was done and Araña was safe, when she’d returned to her room and learned about Anton’s plan to acquire a dragon lizard and set it against Levi’s brother, she’d preferred to remain ignorant about the brand Araña wore or the spider-shaped mark Araña claimed made it dangerous to touch her.
But now, as Annalise’s words reverberated, with a refocused emphasis on Araña’s importance to the Wainwrights, Rebekka couldn’t shake the idea that they knew about Anton’s possession of the urn and its connection to the demon. She couldn’t rid herself of the certainty that the witches believed Araña could gain it for them, perhaps knew by the brand on her hand she was capable of accomplishing it.
Rebekka shivered at the idea of commanding a demon. And yet hope churned in her stomach along with fear. If the demon could somehow be trapped in the urn, then all the plans and dreams she and Levi held about freeing his brother and the others could be realized.
It was common knowledge Anton employed no guards because the demon couldn’t be defeated or subverted. It was the demon who patrolled the buildings and grounds. If the demon were no longer there…
Rebekka got to her feet and returned to her room, wanting to think and expecting to find Eston.
Instead she found a teary-eyed Janita.
“What’s happened? Where’s Eston?”
“I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do. I tried to bring him to you so you could say goodbye, but I was told no, it wasn’t allowed. Enzo took him with him when he left. The Iberá ordered Eston sent away.”
“Where?”
Janita brushed tears away. “I don’t know. None of us do.”
Seventeen
TIR knew the moment he reached the healer’s house that it stood empty of anything living. No emotion emanated from it, especially not Araña’s.
The excitement that had brought him here so she could accompany him to the bookseller’s shop became a cold, gut-wrenching fear before flaring into white-hot fury.
If anything had happened to her…
He entered the house, steeling himself for what he might find, then sagging as relief swept through him when there was no blood, no body. No evidence of a struggle. Nothing to hint she’d left unwillingly or an enemy had been there in his absence.
The drawings she’d done for Levi were on the counter, next to the uneaten bread and cheese he’d placed there. A pile of ash in the fireplace was all that remained of the wood burned there the night before.
Her cloak was also gone, as if she’d left the house on an errand of her own choosing. There was no note. But its lack didn’t mean anything other than she was being cautious.
He couldn’t stay, not when he was so close to gaining his freedom. Yet he prowled the tiny house repeatedly before going to the front door.
Her scent was everywhere. Evocative. Tempting. Taunting him with the memory of her on her knees before him.
A different type of heated fury flared inside him as he left. Something dark and primitive, bringing with it a demand she be punished for defying him when he’d ordered her to remain in the house until he returned.
THE shamaness’s house was freshly painted white adobe with a gray tile roof. It was small, the yard well tended. Flower boxes overflowed with color beneath the windows and on the porch. Tomato plants stood tall along one side, towering over vines holding squash and cucumbers. Songbirds flew to the ground from nearby trees, then back again, while chickens scratched and pecked, looking for food.
Like the witches’ house, a fence marked the boundaries of the property. It bore protective sigils similar to the ones carved into the door frame. And like the witches’ house, there was no symbol announcing what manner of gifted human lived in the house.
Araña had found it only by asking strangers for directions, her heart racing each time she approached someone, fear gathering in her chest that they’d be in possession of her picture and would seek the reward being offered for her.
The fingertips left bare on her gloved hand glanced over the hilt of a knife before going to the fetish in her front pocket. She felt no magic in the crystal, nothing to suggest it was a powerful amulet. And yet it must be.
Tir should be back with news about the boat. She longed for the safety he’d come to represent, for the feel of his arms around her and the strength she gained from his touch. But the desire to see Matthew and Erik again, to be absolved of the guilt she carried over their deaths, kept her from delaying by going back to Rebekka’s house.
Araña’s hand curled around the crystal through the material of her pants. Memories of the men who’d meant everything made her heart ache and her throat tighten on tears of hope and sorrow.
She opened the gate and stepped onto the property. A breeze swirled around her, bringing with it the unexpected scent of hot sand and desert spice.
Gauzy curtains billowed as it passed through an open window. From somewhere inside the house a woman laughed then abruptly went silent—the reason obvious as Araña reached the porch and looked through the bars of the protective outer door.
A man and woman stood embracing, their passion a scorching heat wave that had Araña’s body crying out for Tir’s. The woman’s low moan made Araña feel like a voyeur. She started to back away, only to stop when the woman laughed and extricated herself from the man’s arms, saying, “There’s someone at the door, Zurael, as I’m sure you already know.”
They turned toward her, and Araña was momentarily stunned by their beauty. Both had long hair, the woman’s blond, the man’s black. He was shirtless, his body deeply tanned.
Araña’s fingers rubbed over the sheathed blades of her knives, the habit so deeply ingrained she was barely aware of it until the man’s hand curled around the woman’s arm when she would have stepped to the door.
“No, Aisling,” he said, halting her with a murmured warning.
It was then that Araña saw the serpent coiled around the shamaness’s forearm, its head flattened on the back of her hand, so lifelike it took her a moment to understand it was a tattoo.
A deep sense of foreboding settled in her chest. Her attention shifted back to the man. Zurael.