SUNDAY, 26 APRIL 1903; NEAR MADRID
Joaquim twisted a lock of Marina’s hair about his finger. He hadn’t slept well, and not for pleasurable reasons. The bed was comfortable enough, but the jerking motions of the train, very different than that of the ship on the water, had jarred him awake time and time again. And each time he would lie awake afterward, worrying.
Whoever had moved his bag had been discreet and made an effort to get everything back in place, but they’d left a few signs: his bag had been turned around, the stack of white shirts put back in the wrong order, with a soiled shirt between two clean ones, and a bit of his tooth powder spilled into his kit. He always made an extra effort to secure that tooth powder, since the cap was faulty. Unfortunately, Marina didn’t pack as carefully as he did, and therefore hadn’t been able to tell him whether anything of hers was disordered.
It was possible that the steward who’d turned down their beds had done it. It was the most likely explanation, although he’d turned down the beds before they went to the dining car. But given their mission, Joaquim was reluctant to trust in simple avarice. At least the conductor still had their passports. He would hate to be trapped in Spain without proof that he was Portuguese.
“We’re going to miss Mass,” Marina said, startling him.
He hadn’t realized she was awake. The train began to rattle around a curve, causing her body to roll closer against his side. “I’m afraid so.”
She shifted onto her side and smiled lazily at him. “I went for years without attending a Mass when I lived with my aunts on Quitos.”
“They wouldn’t let you go?”
She laughed shortly. “There are no churches on Quitos. Christianity is not allowed there. My aunts tried very hard to force me to drop my beliefs. They were hateful about it sometimes, both my aunts and my cousins. Oriana tried to protect me, but she couldn’t stand between me and them all the time.”
“But Oriana’s not Christian herself.”
“No. I think in some ways that’s because she was angry with our father, so she reverted to our mother’s beliefs.”
He could understand that. “But your grandmother is Christian, like your father?”
Marina propped herself up on one elbow. “More or less. Father is far more devout now that he lives in Portugal. On Amado, one can be Christian on Sunday and not on all the other days of the week. You can go into some houses and you’ll find that their statues have been turned to face the wall or a cloth laid over them, as if by hiding the face of the Virgin, their actions remain veiled from her eyes.”
He didn’t recall seeing a statue in the house of Marina’s grandmother, but he hadn’t seen the whole house. Perhaps there was a prayer niche hidden somewhere along those airy white halls. It was hard to imagine Marina’s kindly grandmother hiding anything.
But everyone had truths that they wanted to believe were hidden.
I’m not all that different, am I? He was still uncertain whether he wanted others to know he was a witch, even if it was the truth. It had been difficult to tell Duilio and Rafael, who were family and would never walk away from him. It had been doubly hard to tell Marina, who could have turned away. If he gave in to Rafael’s urgings and moved over to the new division of the Special Police—the one dedicated to investigating crimes against, or committed by, witches and nonhumans—everyone would know why he was there. They would know he was brought over from the regular police specifically because he was a witch.
He didn’t want others to know he was a bastard either. Part of that came from wanting to protect his mother’s reputation and keep from hurting his father, the elder Joaquim Tavares. If he moved into the Ferreira house on the Street of Flowers, it could be seen as an admission of his bastardy. That was simply another truth he was hiding.
There were always valid reasons to hide the truth. Because of the ban on nonhumans in the Golden City, the family had hidden the fact that Lady Ferreira was a selkie for his entire life. But I don’t have a reason like that. I just don’t want to hurt my father’s feelings. And he already has to know the truth, doesn’t he?
“Where have you gone?” Marina asked softly.
Joaquim gazed up at his wife, so determined to love him no matter what he was. He was the most fortunate of men to be here with her, even when they were heading into a country where they could both be imprisoned. Even while he had so many doubts. She truly was the thing that mitigated all his other worries.
And since a sliver of light now crept beneath the compartment’s drawn shades, they would soon need to dress and head down to the dining car for breakfast. So Joaquim decided to take advantage of their early wakefulness. He lifted one of her delicate, scarred hands and brought it to his lips. “You do know that I love you, don’t you?”
Marina smiled broadly, then leaned down to kiss him, her dark curls falling about him and hiding them within a world where only they two existed, and it didn’t matter who they were. Only that they belonged to each other.
* * *
ILHAS DAS SEREIAS
This would someday be their house, so Duilio walked the halls of Lady Monteiro’s mountain house, trying to familiarize himself with the layout. The guards were loading the carriage to head back down to the beach house, and thus he had a few moments alone. He stepped out onto a small balcony on the second floor, its stone balustrade providing a place to lean. He had a commanding view of the mountains rising behind the home and of the valley spreading below.
His looking glass showed him that some pale spots up on the side of the mountain were actually ibexes, their thick curving horns identifying them as the same ones shown in the tapestries in the Monteiro house on the beach. He wasn’t certain, but he suspected they were Portuguese ibexes, a breed grown terribly rare in his homeland. He would have to send back home for a book on mountain fauna to verify that. If it was true, it would be interesting to learn how they had ended up here on these islands. He’d been told that the sereia island of Capraria, in particular, was swarming with the creatures.
“Are you ready?” Oriana asked from behind him.
He sighed. “I wish we could stay. It’s beautiful.”
She came and peered up at the mountainside. “We should head back to the beach house. If nothing else, the Americans might have news.”
He turned back to survey the valley below. The Guerra house was visible from where he stood, as well as a dozen others, half shrouded in trees. “They’re here somewhere,” he said. “In one of these houses. I suspect they broke into one. One where they could watch us but stay hidden.”
“I thought they were going to try to book passage off the island.”
“Not yet,” he said. “They’re waiting to see what we do.” He felt sure of that now, a situation that his gift found promising.
She gazed out over the valley below. “Do you know which house?”
“It doesn’t matter. If they’re watching us, they’ll move as soon as they see us coming. In this terrain, they can stay hidden almost indefinitely. We’ll have to lay a trap instead.”
“What are you suggesting?
“Where’s the nearest home that will take guests?”
“About five miles down the road,” she said cautiously.
“I think we should leave here, making it easy for anyone to see us. Then when we hit some overgrown spot in the road, you and I slip out of the carriage and make our way back to the Guerra house through the woods. Once they think we’re gone, they’ll go back there.”
Oriana frowned, but didn’t reject the plan immediately. “We bring the captain as well. I want the odds in our favor.”
* * *
Oriana reached up to grasp Duilio’s hand, and he helped her over a rocky ledge. She clutched his elbow for a moment, catching her breath. Steep slopes were not her forte. Almeida was some distance up the slope from them already. Vas Neves brought up the end of their train, her rifle in her hands as if an assassin might jump out of a tree at any moment. The woman was vexingly tireless.
“How much farther, do you think?” Oriana whispered into Duilio’s ear.
“Do you need to rest?”
Oriana shook her head. Captain Vas Neves had argued against her coming. While it was primarily on the grounds that she was the ambassador and shouldn’t be putting herself in harm’s way, the captain’s secondary concern was that she would slow them down. Oriana didn’t want to prove the captain right.
Yet they wouldn’t be able to capture Inês without another sereia present, not without shaming Inês terribly. Duilio might be her deputy, but for a male to arrest a female went against all her people’s customs. Oriana was grateful that the captain relented. She could no more afford to alienate the captain of her guard than she could a member of the Guerra family.
Almeida slipped down the slope toward them, making surprisingly little noise. Most of the guard contingent was composed of city dwellers, but the corporal came from the countryside in the Douro River Valley, and had spent much of her childhood hunting to keep her younger siblings fed. She knew how to move quietly in the woods. She stopped next to Duilio, and softly said, “We’re almost on the house. Saw movement inside. Couldn’t identify the person, though.”
Vas Neves had caught up with them. She used a branch to pull herself up onto the rock ledge. “Almeida, head around the back of the house, cut off any escape that way. The ambassador and I will make entry through the front door. That leaves you to prevent any escape along the road, Mr. Ferreira.”
Duilio nodded once, accustomed by now to taking orders.
“We can’t guarantee that they’re alone,” Vas Neves added grimly. “If you see a Spanish uniform, shoot. If it’s a choice between Costa escaping and shooting him, Ambassador, what are your orders?”
The army had rules about shooting one of its own, didn’t it? Oriana gazed into the captain’s hard eyes and knew she would do it. Costa’s weeklong flight had jeopardized not only the contingent’s reputation, but the future of all women who might want to serve in the Portuguese army. “I don’t want him dead,” Oriana said firmly, “and I’d rather you not shoot him at all if you can avoid it.”
Vas Neves lifted her chin toward Almeida, and the corporal slipped silently away in the direction from which she’d come. Once Almeida was out of earshot, Vas Neves turned back to Oriana. “Ambassador, the question might have been shocking, but we have to consider the option that Guerra is working for the Spanish and has control of Costa. Costa could be coerced into assassinating you. Because of that, we must treat him like an enemy agent until we know that’s not the case.”
Oriana shook her head. She’d assumed the wrong motive for the query. “You’re correct, of course, Captain.”
“If you’ll follow along behind me, madam,” the captain said. “And, Mr. Ferreira, if you’ll guard our backs.”
While Oriana had focused on the captain, Duilio had drawn his revolver from its holster. She lifted her chin and followed in the captain’s footsteps, grateful they didn’t have far to go.
* * *
Duilio waited back at the gate, among the rhododendrons that bloomed at the property’s entrance. He kept out of the line of sight of the house’s windows, wishing Oriana could do the same; she and the captain walked directly up to the house’s front door. He had no idea where Almeida was, but suspected the corporal didn’t mean to be seen. He had a new respect for the young woman. He’d sounded like half a herd of sheep while working his way through the trees.
From his vantage point, he saw the captain take something from Oriana’s hand—likely the key to the house—and a moment later, the captain strode into the house, pistol at the ready. Oriana walked in behind her. He waited, his breath held.
On the side of the house, a window swung open, and he saw Costa clamber out. His black pareu caught on the window’s frame, and he had to jerk it free. Duilio chuckled. As he watched, Costa turned back to help a woman step down from the window, and the two ran toward the back of the property.
Duilio nearly went after them, but the report of a rifle sounded. Dirt sprayed up not far ahead of the escaping pair’s feet, followed by a screech from the woman. Costa grabbed her hand and dragged her in the opposite direction, right toward Duilio. Duilio shrank back into the cover of the tree. I’m only going to get one chance at this.
It seemed to take a long time, but Costa and the Guerra woman finally reached the pathway leading off the property. Duilio tucked his revolver in the waist of his pareu. Costa led the woman now, her breathing ragged. He glanced back over his shoulder just as he drew even with the trees where Duilio waited.
“Costa!” Duilio jumped out, fists up.
Costa’s head snapped around, and before the young man actually came to a halt, Duilio landed a hard right to his chin. Already off balance, Costa fell to the ground, landing on his backside. The woman rounded on Duilio, her sharp teeth bared. Duilio drew his revolver, but trained it on Costa, and the woman went still.
Costa gazed up at him, blue eyes wide with despair.
“The way I understand it,” Duilio said, “is that I can talk to you, Costa, but not her. So this is simple. If she attacks me, I’ll shoot you.”
“Run, Inês,” Costa said very quietly.
The woman drew herself up to her full height and crossed her arms over her bare chest. “I demand to speak with your mate.”
Because she won’t lower herself to deal with me. Duilio took a deep breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Oriana and Vas Neves emerging from the house. He turned back to Costa. “Tell her that can be arranged.”
* * *
MADRID
Marina stared up at the magnificent steel and glass roof of the train station that rose overhead. She’d waited alone with their bags for half an hour now if the nearest clock was accurate. People hurried past or waited like her, an ebb and flow determined by the arrival and departure of the trains, although she suspected that the platforms would be far busier than this were it any other day of the week.
She watched her fellow passengers, noting an unusual suitcase here, a striking outfit there. One woman walked past wearing a navy skirt and a blue-and-white-striped shirtwaist that Marina particularly liked. She would have to suggest that to the seamstress back in the Golden City. Most passengers scarcely glanced her way. She was merely one woman dressed in her Sunday best, waiting.
Joaquim sat on the far side of the station where he could see her. He was watching for anyone who might be watching her, a traveler who might have followed them from Lisboa and gone through their luggage. It could have been anyone on that train, even one of the stewards. Given the ambassador’s warning about men being under the spell of the Canaries, Marina understood the reason for Joaquim’s caution.
But traveling across Iberia took money. If someone had followed them from the islands—or just from Lisboa—they had invested a great deal of money already.
Joaquim came striding toward her then, his handsome face lighting with a smile. When he reached her side, he bowed over her gloved hand. “I cannot believe a lady so lovely is waiting for me. I’ve kept thinking that as I watched you.” He leaned against the wall next to her. “I didn’t see anyone watching you. Not overtly anyway.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“Our train leaves in half an hour,” he added. “Shall we go settle in?”
They’d switched trains at Medina del Campo and were doing so here in Madrid as well, but they were in a first-class compartment the rest of the way to Barcelona. So they made their way to the proper platform and found their compartment on the train. It wasn’t as fine as the night train’s compartment, but clean and private. Once the train rattled out of Madrid, they sat in silence, watching the arid-looking Spanish countryside slip by.
Marina couldn’t imagine living here, so far from the sea. While the countryside had its own kind of beauty, her gills ached just thinking about it. What must it be like for the Canaries, forced to live in Spain? Had they, over the centuries, become accustomed to the dry air?
After a time she pulled the shade closed and turned up the gaslight in the compartment, earning a quizzical look from Joaquim. “It all looks the same out there,” she said.
“The locals would probably disagree. I think it’s rather pretty.”
Marina shook her head. Joaquim was determined to find the best side of everything, but he didn’t have to worry about his gills drying out. “Shall I read?”
He leaned back against the wooden paneling of the compartment wall. “For now.”
So she spent the remainder of the morning reading from the novel Ana had packed for her, regaling Joaquim with the droll tale of the wealthy hero’s chaotic yet empty life in Paris.