Duilio kept his mouth shut while Oriana whispered comforting things to her younger sister. He sat on the cab’s bench across from them, facing backward, which gave him a clear view of the area they were leaving. It wouldn’t be a long journey, and fortunately, this cab didn’t smell of vomit.
It was entirely possible that Joaquim had heard a young lady in distress and run to her aid. It would be like him. It was not, however, like him to make a casual statement about seeing that young lady again. Joaquim didn’t believe in leading women on.
On the other hand, Duilio suspected Joaquim would find delicate Miss Arenias appealing. He didn’t know exactly what made him think that, but his certainty grew as he watched her talking with Oriana.
The girl glanced up and caught him watching her. “Are you truly part selkie? I’ve never met one before, but you look quite human.”
“As do you, Miss Arenias,” he replied.
She blushed. Even in the partial light of the cab he could see that—a reaction he hadn’t thought possible for a sereia. Their skin was generally too thick to allow it, something to do with the cold temperatures of seawater and circulation of blood. Oriana certainly never blushed. “In human form,” he told her, “a selkie is completely human in appearance. If you saw my half brother Erdano, you wouldn’t know he was a selkie either.”
“Until you smelled him,” Oriana added. “He reeks of musk.”
Duilio stifled a laugh at Oriana’s disgusted tone.
“I suspect some women find it attractive,” she added, “but I find it overbearing.”
“Ah,” Duilio said. “Is that why you never succumbed to his subtle attempts to court you, Miss Paredes?”
Oriana opened her mouth, but her sister spoke first. “If you’re meant to be her mate,” Marina said, “no one would be able to turn her away from you, not even a selkie.”
Duilio suspected that if Oriana could blush, she would be doing so at that moment. She looked tense now, and uncomfortable. He plastered a smile on his face. “Miss Arenias, I believe you’re correct.”
Marina was about to add something else when the cab started slowing. Duilio glanced out the window and saw they were near the police station. He opened the door when the cab stopped and, once down, helped the two sisters to the cobbles. Oriana had one arm tucked through Marina’s when he turned back from paying the driver, so he held the door open for them to enter the station. Oriana continued to keep her eyes averted from his.
He led them down the hallway toward Joaquim’s office and asked them to wait in the hallway outside. That got Oriana to look at him, but she only nodded in a jerky fashion and then her eyes slid away.
Duilio knocked on the door and was relieved when he heard Joaquim call for him to enter; he hadn’t dragged the two women to the station in vain. After a quick nod in their direction, he opened the door and slipped into the office.
Joaquim glanced up at him when the door closed, and relief covered his strained features. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m not alone,” Duilio warned. “I’ve brought Miss Paredes and her sister to talk to you.”
Joaquim dragged a hand over his face. “This isn’t a good time for social calls.”
“This isn’t a social call, Joaquim. Oriana’s sister might have been a target, only someone came to her rescue before she was dragged off. She was lucky.”
“You don’t know how lucky. There was another body found this morning—a sereia girl this time.”
Duilio felt ill. He’d warned Monteiro too late. “Damn.”
Joaquim kicked at the leg of the desk. “There’s no hiding this one, Duilio. Gonzalo hasn’t said anything, but . . .”
No hiding it? “Was she not skinned?”
“No,” Joaquim said. “She was dumped in the same fashion, though. It has to be related.”
“What did they do?” Duilio asked.
“Tore out most of her throat.” Joaquim grimaced. “That’s where a sereia’s magic is, isn’t it? In their throat?”
If that were true, it clearly established a pattern, despite all the other differences. He should go see Dr. Esteves again. “I don’t know, but I’ll ask.”
Joaquim stood and gestured toward the door. “If the younger Miss Paredes was attacked, she might be our only lead.”
Duilio held up a hand to stop him. “She doesn’t use Paredes. She uses Arenias.”
“Arenias? Is she . . .” Joaquim’s eyes focused inward.
And that answered Duilio’s question as to whether he’d been the same Mr. Tavares who came to her rescue. Duilio could almost see the wheels of Joaquim’s mind turning, recalculating something in light of his new knowledge of the girl’s identity.
“The girl who was being robbed?” Joaquim asked. “That Miss Arenias?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t being robbed. He didn’t take her handbag. He was trying to take off her gloves instead, to see if she’d ever had webbing, I suspect.”
And then that sunk in, as well. “The dead girl has scars between each finger,” Joaquim said. “She had her webbing cut away.”
“Oriana’s father as well—Monteiro. He looks so human one would never guess.”
Joaquim squared his shoulders and straightened his necktie, his lips set in a thin line. “Why don’t you ask them to come in?”
Duilio complied, drawing Oriana and her sister into the small office. On seeing Joaquim there, Marina looked eager for an instant . . . but that expression fled into resignation as she seemingly realized her rescuer and the policeman were one and the same, and now he knew her secret. She sank gracefully onto a wooden chair next to the door, with Oriana stepping around to sit next to her.
Duilio started introductions—a formality, but it eased the tension in the room. “Joaquim, I’d like you to meet Miss Marina Arenias, who works for Monteiro and Company.” He turned to the younger sister. “And this is my cousin, Joaquim Tavares, who is an inspector.”
Joaquim inclined his head. “Of course we’ve met, Miss Arenias.”
Marina nodded, her eyes fixed on the desk. Then she lifted her chin. “I should apologize for not telling you, Mr. Tavares, but I am not human.”
Duilio was impressed she’d gathered her courage to do so.
“I understand your choosing not to reveal that, Miss Arenias,” Joaquim said in his most polite voice. “There’s danger in confiding that information without due consideration.”
“That information, however, casts a different light on the attack.” Duilio suspected they would be there for a while, so he leaned against the wall.
“It would probably be best, Miss Arenias,” Joaquim said, “if we started over from the beginning. I’d like you to tell me everything about that afternoon you can remember. Do you know why he might have suspected you were a sereia in the first place?”
“No,” Marina said, shaking her head.
“Very well,” Joaquim said. “Why were you walking down that street?”
“I’d been to see the doctor,” she began.
Duilio glanced at Oriana. What is she thinking? She had eyes only for her sister at the moment, or was studiously avoiding his gaze. He would have to pick her brain when he got her alone.
After Joaquim had exhausted most logical lines of questioning, Duilio frowned down at his shoes. They hadn’t accomplished much. Marina described the man who grabbed her as dark haired, brown eyed, and with a stocky build, shorter than Duilio, perhaps thirty, nothing distinctive about his garments. While that could describe many men in the city, it did match the description the beggar had given of the coachman who’d grabbed Gita. The assailant hadn’t spoken to Marina at all. And Joaquim, normally the most observant of men, hadn’t been paying attention to the robber. He’d apparently been too concerned about Miss Arenias to pursue her assailant.
“Which doctor did you go to see, Miss Arenias?” Duilio asked when Joaquim stalled in his questioning.
Marina seemed surprised at a query from him. “Dr. Esteves.”
He’d suspected that. After all, her father had recommended the man for Oriana. He had gone to see the man earlier the very same day. “Does he see many of your people?”
“Well, he is very discreet,” Marina said, “and knows how to treat . . . certain things.”
Joaquim pinched his nose. “What exactly did you go to see him about, Miss Arenias?”
She rubbed her gloved hands together. “My hands were hurting. I asked him if he could recommend anything for that.”
Joaquim’s brows drew together in concern. “Your hands hurt?”
“Where the webbing was,” she said dismissively. “I’m told it’s like someone who’s lost a leg, and sometimes their foot hurts.”
“The webbing is very sensitive,” Oriana inserted, “so if it’s removed, there’s always ghost pain. For the rest of one’s life.”
Joaquim glanced at Oriana’s mitt-covered hands, folded primly together in her lap. “Why do it, then?”
Marina’s jaw hardened. “Because I live here and I don’t want to die.”
Joaquim flushed, hard to do with his darker skin. “I apologize, Miss Arenias. I didn’t mean to question your decision.”
Marina’s fingers grasped her handbag. “I should go back to the office. Is that all, sir?”
Joaquim seemed to consider for a moment. When he didn’t answer immediately, she glanced up, and Duilio could see that her dark eyes were glistening again.
“There is something you could do for me, Miss Arenias,” Joaquim said, “although it would be unpleasant. A girl was murdered, a sereia girl. Her hands don’t have webbing, but her coloration gave that away. We don’t have any way to identify her, though, to get her back to her family. If you could look at her . . .”
“We could send for Dr. Esteves,” Duilio inserted. “There’s a good chance she was one of his patients.”
Oriana glanced up. “I’ll look, although I’m not certain I would know her.”
“I’ll do it,” Marina said firmly. “There’s a better chance I would recognize her.”
“Thank you. We can take a cab there.” Joaquim rose from his desk and extended a hand. After one doubtful look, Marina set her gloved fingers in his and let him help her to her feet. He laid her hand on his arm and led her toward the doorway.
Duilio extended a hand toward Oriana, who accepted it distractedly. They followed Joaquim and Marina at a slower pace. “Whoever the dead girl is,” she whispered, “she’s dead because Mr. Tavares saved Marina.”
“We can’t be certain of that,” Duilio reminded her as they stepped outside the police station.
She cast him a bleak look and turned her eyes back on her sister as Marina walked at Joaquim’s side down toward the intersection where hired cabs usually picked up their fares. “What do you think they’re discussing?”
“Us, of course,” Duilio said. “It’s only logical since we’re talking about them.” When she gave him a caustic glance, he said, “He’s apologizing for what he said about her hands, and trying to distract her so she doesn’t get too upset over the idea of viewing a corpse.”
“Oh.” They had reached the corner where a cab waited, the driver already talking to Joaquim. He opened the cab’s side door and helped Miss Arenias into the seat, and then waited for them to catch up.
Oriana shivered in the chilly air. The fog had burned off, but it was still overcast. “I should have brought a shawl.”
“Would you like my coat?”
She shook her head. “We’ll be warm enough in the cab.”
He handed Oriana up to sit with her sister and settled next to Joaquim, facing backward. “It’s not far.”
Oriana wrapped her sister’s hand in her own as the cab lurched into motion. “It’ll be fine, Marina.”
Marina held on to the hand strap with her other hand, looking lost and afraid. But she lifted her chin after a moment and resolutely stared out the cab’s windows. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before the cab set them down on Arnaldo Gama Street. Joaquim directed them toward the door of the morgue. Marina seemed pale, but her expression was determined.
“We’ll need to go to the back of the building,” Joaquim explained—mostly for Marina’s benefit, Duilio guessed. “It might be better if you hold this over your nose.”
He held out his handkerchief, which Marina took, dutifully holding it to her face. The building was, once again, mostly empty. They reached the back room and Officer Gonzalo rose from his desk with a startled expression on his face. His eyes moved from Oriana to Marina, and then settled on Joaquim as if demanding an explanation.
“These two ladies might be able to identify the dead girl,” Joaquim said.
Gonzalo’s mouth fell open, but he quickly shook himself back to attention. He drew a set of keys out of his desk, then led them through the empty inner morgue to what appeared to be a closet. “I’ve put this body in the back room. The fewer people who see her, the better.”
Duilio agreed. As soon as word got out that the police were holding the body of a sereia, Joaquim’s superiors would demand he close down his investigation to avoid violating the terms of the ban. Fortunately, Gonzalo had acted quickly.
The officer held the door open, and Joaquim escorted Marina inside. Duilio followed, one hand on the back of Oriana’s waist. The lone table in the room bore a sheet-covered form that smelled of stale blood and death—a scent magnified by the smaller size of the room. Marina pressed the handkerchief tighter her nose, tears starting in her eyes. Joaquim gestured for her to stay by the door.
Duilio followed him to the table and watched as Joaquim lifted the sheet back from the girl’s face. She’d been young, near Marina’s age, with straight brown hair and a pretty face. Her eyes were closed. The line of her chin had kept the blood from reaching the sheet, but Duilio caught a brief glimpse of the girl’s ruined throat. His stomach soured.
Joaquim looked like he felt even worse. He folded the sheet carefully against her chin, not allowing her butchered throat to show. He gestured to Oriana. “Please, Miss Paredes.”
Oriana came to Duilio’s side and gazed down at that pallid face. “I don’t recognize her.”
She turned and held out a hand for Marina. Her sister approached more slowly, as if afraid of what lay there. Oriana set an arm about her waist. Marina slowly lifted her eyes to look at the dead girl’s pale face. Her response was immediate. She laid both hands over her face and began to sob. Oriana wrapped her arms about Marina and turned her away.
Joaquim caught Duilio’s eye. “I’ll need to talk to the family.”
That would present its own set of challenges, Duilio reckoned. “I’ll take the two of them to Marina’s flat, and meet you back here.”
“No, I’ll escort them there,” Joaquim said. “I already know where it is. Then we can figure out where the family lives.”
Oriana had evidently been listening, because she mouthed something at Duilio over her sister’s bowed head. He didn’t catch her words though, and returned a confused look.
“Ask my father,” Oriana said softly. “Ask him to go with you.”
He could swallow his pride and do that. Monteiro would know far better how to handle the situation. Joaquim crossed to where Oriana and her sister stood. Marina had stopped crying. She wiped her cheeks with her borrowed handkerchief.
“She’s a friend of mine, Felipa Reyna,” Marina said brokenly. “Her family lives on Bragas Street.”
Joaquim leaned down to look her in the face. “I’d like to take you and your sister back to your flat, Miss Arenias. Your father will understand.”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the handkerchief that she twisted in her gloved fingers. “We close this afternoon anyway. But Father will be waiting for me.”
“Joaquim and I are going there, so we’ll explain where you are,” Duilio reassured her. “And we’ll see that your friend’s body is properly taken care of, I promise.”
* * *
Oriana sat on one of the soft upholstered chairs in Marina’s tiny rented flat while her sister heated water for tea in a kettle set atop her radiator. The place suited Marina. There were two rooms—a sitting room and a bedroom with furnishings that looked moderately worn. It was a soft and humanly feminine place, a touch shabby, and quite unlike the masculine brown-and-ivory elegance of the Ferreira household.
Marina settled in the other chair across from her, a tufted-back armchair in a butter-colored floral. “I knew he was human.”
Those were the first words Marina had volunteered since they’d come upstairs. She must mean Joaquim Tavares. Oriana had been waiting for Marina to say something, ask something. She’d been expecting to talk about the years they’d been separated, when Oriana had thought her sister was dead. No . . . instead Marina wanted to talk about Joaquim Tavares. “But he didn’t know you were a sereia. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I thought perhaps he might take me for a walk in the park one day, or down to the seashore at Matosinhos to hunt for shells. I thought perhaps dinner in a fine restaurant. It was foolish. Everything’s ruined now,” Marina said, “because I’m not human.”
Oriana managed to hold in her groan. “Marina, you only met him yesterday.”
“I felt the tie between us, Ori,” Marina protested. “I was so sure.”
Oriana could understand her sister placing Joaquim Tavares on a pedestal when he’d come to her aid. No doubt he’d become her hero in that moment, but there was no guarantee he would reciprocate her admiration. Oriana settled for truism, since nothing she said would make Marina feel better. “If your souls are tied together, then everything will work out in the end, Mari, human or not.”
The teakettle began making a feeble whistle, probably the best it would manage under the circumstances. Marina opened the top, funneled in a handful of leaves, and set it back on the radiator. “And you and Mr. Ferreira? He must be tied to you or he wouldn’t have been the one to go after you.”
The soft chair in which Oriana sat abruptly became uncomfortable. She had never felt at ease talking about her feelings. “He’s a gentleman, Marina,” she said, trying to sound dismissive. “I’m merely a servant.”
“You’re too smart to be a servant.” Marina shrugged then. “Besides, Lady P married our father, and she’s a noblewoman.”
“Lady P?” Oriana was glad she didn’t have her tea yet. She would have choked on it.
“I got tired of saying Lady Pereira de Santos.” Marina gestured airily with each syllable of the lady’s name. “She doesn’t mind.”
Oriana’s stomach felt hollow. Had the lady replaced their mother in Marina’s mind? Marina had been only eight when their mother died. Twelve herself, Oriana had become Marina’s mother, in a way. Perhaps she’d been replaced as well. “Do you like her?”
“Well, she’s actually very nice. She seems unfriendly, but that’s because she has to act that way.” Marina paused, her lips pursed. “That doesn’t sound right. Um . . . it’s like a mask that she wears, because she has to be very careful about who learns the truth about her, so she can’t make many friends.”
Oriana thought of the hard face Lady Pereira de Santos presented to the world, and realized that despite her awkward words, Marina might have hit on the truth. The lady couldn’t afford for anyone to find out she’d remarried. Would she become plain Mrs. Monteiro then? Or would she retain her status? Oriana wasn’t certain how that worked. And how would it affect the woman’s control over her stepson and daughter? “How many people know about her and Father?”
“Not many,” Marina admitted. “She has a daughter my age, though. Ana and I became friends after I came here, although Ana’s very quiet.”
Wallflower was the term generally applied to Lady Ana. Although attractive, Ana had the reputation of being wordless. She was also quite tall, which wasn’t fashionable. While Isabel had never mocked Ana, she hadn’t made any effort to befriend her either, meaning that Oriana had never had the chance to speak to her. “Does Lady Ana know?”
Marina nodded. “Ana likes Father.”
Everyone likes Father. Gods help her, Duilio probably liked her father, too. Oriana sighed.
“Lady P said Mr. Ferreira is interested in you,” Marina said brightly. “She went to see him at his house and he was very concerned.”
Over the years they’d been separated, Oriana had forgotten her sister’s gentle tenacity. Marina would pick one topic and hang on to it like a crab—in the sweetest way possible. Oriana tried changing the subject. “So tell me about the exiles here. How many are there?”
“Not that many,” Marina said as she poured tea through a strainer into her cup. “Some decided to go to other cities—too dangerous here. I think Father said there were less than fifty.”
The arm of the government that sent spies into the city had estimated that at closer to thirty. Oriana suspected her father’s estimate was more accurate. Despite being male, his position in the city had made him a natural leader among the exiles.
“Your Mr. Ferreira is rather handsome,” Marina added. “Has he ever kissed you?”
Oriana sank farther down in her chair. She hadn’t seen her sister in three years, and Marina wanted to talk about males, of all things.
“You should just tell me, because I’m not going to give up.” Marina handed her the first cup of tea. “So when did you first meet him? Did you know, then?”
Oriana took a sip of the weak tea, wishing she had coffee to sustain her instead. She had no idea how to answer Marina’s last question. She wasn’t certain exactly when she’d suspected her tie to him. The feeling had grown slowly. And even if she did feel a tie to Duilio, she wasn’t certain how he felt about her. He’d told her he would be her friend. That implied he eventually intended to pursue a closer relationship, after she’d had enough time to decide what she wanted.
But to placate Marina and distract her from the sorrows of the day, Oriana decided to tell her everything that had passed between her and Duilio Ferreira. Well, almost everything. “The first time I met him,” she began, “was several days after Isabel Amaral died. It turned out he’d actually been looking for me.”
She told of Duilio offering her a position as his mother’s companion. She’d taken the job because it had been the only way she could afford to stay in the city and hunt for Isabel’s murderer. That search had led to Maraval, and in the end Oriana had called the marquis and his accomplices into the ocean—most of them to their deaths—to prevent them from shooting Duilio.
Marina clapped. “That’s wonderful. Did he kiss you then?”
Oriana laid her hands over her face. It’s going to be a long afternoon.