I study my sister thoughtfully. I didn’t even notice the flowers she speaks of.
“You may gather some tomorrow,” Calla says. “Now it is time for bed.”
She gestures for the nurse to lead Lupita away. The girl practically bounces out the door, listing all the places she has seen scarlet hedge nettle.
“Thank you for your kindness to my niece,” Calla says, addressing both of us. “Her mother, my sister, died several years ago. Lupita has become very special to me.”
“To both of us,” Paxón says softly. The look they exchange is one of understanding and affection. Rulers rarely get to marry those they care for. There is certainly no love match in my future, and I am a bit envious of them. It leaves me feeling even more determined to see this wedding through.
The mayordomo returns with a tray of savory pastries: small puffs filled with diced mushrooms, cheese and chive scones, and tiny quiches with red pepper. Elisa downs a handful of the mushroom puffs before I’ve made my first selection, and I glance around, a bit embarrassed, but no one else seemed to notice.
We speak of small, safe topics for a while, such as last winter’s unusually low snowline, the growing price of lumber, and whether or not Ventierra wine is the finest in the world. I’m glad for the opportunity to ignore the tension around us and be merely pleasant together. As a child, I found such exchanges tedious and awful, but lately I’ve come to appreciate the power of a seemingly senseless conversation to establish trust and heal relationships. I’m about to ask how Paxón and Calla first met when Elisa rises from her chair.
“I’d like to spend some time praying tonight,” she says. “If you’ll all excuse me . . .” Everyone stands when she does, and I’m torn between frustration at her gracelessness and relief that she will soon be gone, leaving me to finesse everything without her interference.
I’m leaning forward to give her a formal kiss on the cheek when the cat screams.
It’s high-pitched and wild, like breaking glass and deepest anguish. My whole body turns to gooseflesh, and my heart kicks at my ribs like a panicked horse trying to break from its stall. I’m not the only one so affected. We all stand frozen for the span of several heartbeats.
Paxón is the first to collect himself, and his face is pale as a ghost’s as he says, “It came from the eastern garden. Inside the—”
A woman screams.
5
THE conde rushes us through the halls. We are joined in our dash by household staff and watch soldiers. Paxón shouts at everyone to move aside and let us pass.
The walled garden is perfectly square and small, not much larger than my private suite at home. In the center looms an enormous tree whose canopy shades the entire garden. It’s the kind of place where I would have played as a little girl, especially during the hottest days of summer, when Zito forbade me to absorb too much sunshine lest it darken my skin.
Tucked against the wall is a stone sculpture of a crouching jaguar. The flickering torchlight casts random shadows, making it seem as if the tail moves, as if the cat is ready to pounce. The sight sends another chill up my spine, even before I realize that the wet blotches on the head and paws are blood.
Lupita’s nurse is on her knees bawling, begging someone, anyone to help. She grasps a tiny muddy slipper in her left hand.
Calla looses a sob, and Paxón wraps her in his arms. A servant gestures wildly, explaining that he saw the shadow cat escaping as he rushed into the courtyard. A black-pelted demon, he says, that skimmed the wall with ghostly grace. Whispers of “Espiritu!” swirl around us.
“This makes no sense,” Elisa mutters. She stares at the blood, eyes glazed. “This is not how jaguars act.” My sister has never seen so much blood, so much violence. It must be even more of a shock to her than the rest of us. Before I realize what I’m doing, I lift an arm to drape around her shoulders. But she stiffens, and I let the arm drop.
The men are organized by their captains and prepare to search in the dark. Several of our own guards look to Zito, asking permission to join up, and he grants it. Paxón shouts that there will be a reward for anyone who returns Lupita to her aunt.
Lord Zito grasps my shoulder. “Are you all right, Highnesses?” he asks, looking into each of our faces.
“Nothing here is right,” I say, shaking my head. The pool of blood at the foot of the sculpture is smeared by footprints, the wall above it streaked with crimson. “So much blood,” I murmur.
“Too much,” he says. “I doubt the girl lives.”
My heart squeezes, and I realize that I had warmed to the girl—her brightness and energy—and hardly knew it. “The men must search for her anyway,” I say. “They need a purpose, something to do so they don’t fight with one another.”
“And there’s a chance, isn’t there, Zito?” Elisa asks in a small voice. “A slight chance that she still lives?”
He nods. “But we also need to think ahead,” he says gently. “It would be indelicate to bring it up now with the conde, but we must consider that Lady Calla’s father is unlikely to allow the wedding to proceed if the girl is not found.”
Zito and I exchange a grim look. As war with Invierne looms, Papá and I must do all we can to strengthen this, our weakest border. The wedding must go on. But I have no idea how.
6
I cannot sleep, not while the soldiers are out searching. I stand on the wall and watch their torches wink and flash as they wind through the hills. And I’m still awake long after midnight, when the last of the men returns empty-handed. The wedding is scheduled to take place the sunrise after this one, but based on the crying and arguing that rings through the castle late into the night, I am certain it will be canceled.
A sense of failure weighs on me. I need to do something.
While my servants sleep, I dress quietly in riding breeches and a stiff leather vest that is fitted to my body like a second skin. My calfskin boots won’t protect my feet as well as my riding boots, but they make it easier to step soundlessly. I don’t know yet exactly where I’m going or what I’m doing, but Lord Zito has trained me to be prepared.
My feet carry me to the place where Lupita disappeared. Someone is already in the garden when I arrive, someone whose profile I recognize even in the dark, long before I see the spear he leans upon.
“Lord Zito.”
He jumps as if I’ve startled him from deep thought. Bowing his head, he says, “Your Highness.”
“What brings you here?”
“I couldn’t sleep for thinking of the girl. Everyone is too shocked, too grieved. I’m trying to see this place with clearer eyes.”
“Explain.”
He gestures toward the sculpture. “For one thing, there’s too much blood. Jaguars kill by piercing the skulls of their prey, not by draining them of blood. And look here. See this second scrape of blood on the wall? Too far away from the first. Were there two cats? He couldn’t have carried the girl over the wall twice.”
That’s what Elisa was saying. She wasn’t shocked; she was thinking. “So you agree with my sister?”
“I do. And you would do well to heed her. She reads widely and wisely, and knows an uncanny amount about those things with which she has little personal experience.”
It is more praise for my sister than I am accustomed to hearing. “Reading can only take you so far, up to the moment where you must take action with your own hands.”