Mistress of Bones by Maria Z. Medina - XXXIV. The Count, Always

XXXIV
THE COUNT, ALWAYS

A YEAR AND A HALF EARLIER
“Congratulations on the promotion, Your Honor.”
De Anví turned to face Nereida de Guzmán. She wore a short blue jacket, tight around her torso, and a set of lighter blue skirts flaring below her waist. Combs dripping with pearls kept her artfully arranged black strands away from her face. The only sign of mourning was the dark red ribbon braided with a lock of hair, pinned to her shoulder by a brooch sporting her family’s coat of arms—a rose and a feather.
Nereida’s direct gaze met his, but he could not read it. Once he thought he might be able to, but the knowledge had been taken away from him after she had become one of the queen’s lovers. He hadn’t been able to regain it after the affair had ended, and the dark circles under her eyes and tightness of her mouth told him he wouldn’t for some time to come—he would not intrude while she mourned a sister on top of her queen.
“They are not needed, Sirese De Guzmán,” he said. “I am not interested in the position, and shall refuse it.” His duty to the royals was finished. All he wanted was solitude and the freedom to eventually pursue the woman in front of him, not the inconveniences that came with being second-in-command to the Golden Dogs. De Losa was supposed to reap the rewards, not him. So where was she?
“I believe the regent was firm about his choice. He won’t take no for an answer,” Nereida said with some mockery, and in the time it took him to inhale the soft floral scent wafting from her, he could almost believe they were back in the Cienpuentes of a year ago, trading wit and honest thoughts about the world surrounding them as they whirled around glittering ballrooms. Then the moment ended, and she was back to her usual demeanor these days—wariness bordering on anger.
He mourned the loss of her once-joyful spirit, and he wondered how to coax it forth again. “De Fernán is firm about many things, and then he forgets them in a week.”
A flicker of a smile was his reward. “This is true. You do not wish to lead, then?”
“Lead my own life, yes. Lead others in theirs, not so much.”
“Ah,” exclaimed someone from afar, “just the two I hoped to meet!”
De Anví turned to see Sío de Guzmán advance through the small crowd gathered at De Nolo’s house. Members of the court were not allowed grand entertainments during royal mourning, so instead, they held these small gatherings of fifty-some people. Sometimes a hundred. Sometimes with music. For art’s sake, of course, not entertainment. And if someone then decided to dance, well, that couldn’t be helped, could it?
“Sío,” Nereida said, hands held tightly in front of her waist, knuckles white.
“Nereida, dearest, how lucky to find you here! But truly, not lucky at all,” Sío said with a wink, “since I specifically looked for you.”
De Anví frowned. He had met with Sío de Guzmán a couple of times in the past, but other than the panic he had shown on the night of his sister’s death, he had been of a reserved countenance, someone who would never act so carefree while mourning.
“Are you drunk?” Nereida asked in a tight voice. Her eyes sparkled with ire, but also with something akin to fear. She was coiled so tightly, De Anví moved to block them from the sight of the others in case she struck her sibling.
“Now, you know I don’t partake, dear.” Then, addressing De Anví, Sío added, “And you, De Anví, are you ready to accept the regent’s offer yet? Time is running out, you know. He will not wait forever. Do not make all my work go to naught. He was quite insistent on De Losa, I’ll have you know.”
Nereida looked sick. She withdrew a step, and De Anví put a hand against her lower back, worried she might actually faint.
“Nereida?” he asked in a low voice. He tasted her name like the delicacy it was—one he could not often partake of outside his private thoughts.
Her gaze wouldn’t leave her brother’s face, the rakish disheveled hair, the delicate lace mask covering the upper half of his face.
“Who are you?” she asked in a shaky voice.
Sío smiled wide. “Ah, I’ve been caught. I am the Conjurer of Dreams, my lovely. We’ve met before, you know, but never quite so officially. Isn’t this body great?” He twirled in front of their stares. “So beautiful, so vital! I do not think I shall grow tired of it.”
De Anví sucked in a breath. “Witch.”
“Get out of him,” Nereida demanded. “Leave him be!”
“Why?” the Witch asked. “So he can dwell on your sister’s death? Or do you think he might appear as if nothing is amiss, showing himself to these gatherings as you do?” She made a sound of disapproval. “What would your parents think? Even your older sister refuses to show herself!”
“Rot in the Void,” Nereida told him, livid. “Get out of him this instant.”
“Ah, but he signed a contract willingly. Who are you to tell him what to do with his life?”
Nereida’s left hand went to her hip, where her rapier usually hung. But there were no rapiers in a gathering such as this. Her hands balled into fists.
De Anví stepped forward, preventing any strike. “You can’t,” he told her in a harsh, hurried whisper. “Not while she’s taken over Sío.”
Any harm done to the body would be Sío de Guzmán’s to bear, not the Witch’s. Any injury, any illness. Death.
Nereida inhaled sharply, understanding his meaning. A look of shock and impotence crossed her furious eyes as she realized how neatly the Witch had played her.
But Nereida de Guzmán would not give up so easily.
“I will find out what you did to fool him into this mockery.” She spat on the floor by the Witch’s boots. “I won’t let him become one of your toys.”
She turned and charged across the room, narrowly avoiding some courtiers and shouldering aside those she didn’t.
“Make sure to visit me later,” the Witch called after her, another big grin on her face. “I can help you forget.”
De Anví grabbed the Witch’s arm. “What are you playing at, Witch?”
Her eyes brimmed with mischief. “Nothing of importance, De Anví. Now, say, when will you accept De Fernán’s offer? The fun we had investigating the king’s foiled kidnapping! The fun we shall have guarding him from now on! I will be very disappointed if you’re thinking of refusing the post, you know. Who knows what it will take to convince others to allow me to stick around? I fear this body will wear down from all the effort. And it would be such a shame for the De Guzmáns to lose another sibling so soon after losing the youngest. But with you by my side? Why, I see nothing but health and success in all our fates.”
De Anví stared in disbelief. “You truly have no shame.”
“That might be so, but trust me, it will be for the best. Who else but you could help keep an eye on the Heart and the king?”
Anyone else, De Anví thought. Anyone in the continents but him. Yet looking at Sío de Guzmán’s body in front of him and looking at the door Nereida had gone through, he understood with grim acceptance that it would have to be him. He would have to stay and watch over Sío’s body, for he didn’t think Nereida could make herself look at him. Not as long as the Witch wore him like a costume. And if Nereida did not look at the Witch, if De Anví turned down the post and left, what extremes would the Witch go to in order to be seen? De Anví would not be the reason for another dead sibling in Nereida’s family tree.
Emiré de Anví fought the urge to reach up and touch his neck—the collar of everything he didn’t want had been snapped closed, and it was tight indeed.
THE PRESENT
De Anví and Nereida stepped out of the room, leaving Sío de Guzmán’s remains behind. They took a hallway, then a staircase, and joined the crowds on the street. The nearness of Nereida’s body prickled his skin, and the bloody bundle she carried somewhere under her waistcoat was nothing he wanted to dwell on.
But it was hard not to.
“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Nereida said, as if she read his thoughts. And perhaps she could—it wasn’t as if he were being coy in the way his gaze kept returning to her waist, where her purse and pockets ought to be. “You were always too polite to ask, too reserved. You never asked how Edine died, even though everyone else did. You simply gave me your condolences.”
“I asked Esparza.”
A giggle escaped her. De Anví’s steps faltered at the unfamiliar sound.
“He was drunk for three months straight afterward. He couldn’t have told you his name.” The strange hilarity in her voice subsided as she continued, “No, I cannot answer yet. You must continue extending this unfounded trust of yours.”
“Where shall we go, then?”
“To the woman I brought to Cienpé: Azul del Arroyo. Have you met her yet?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure, no. You sneaked in without my knowledge, how could I have known who you returned with?”
Nereida frowned slightly. “My apologies. I spoke without thought.”
“And where is she?”
“Esparza was to bring her to Casa Rojita after conducting some business.”
Ah, De Anví realized, the mysterious second arrangement Esparza had mentioned but withheld from him. Picking their way through the crowd, they continued in silence, Nereida likely putting the final pieces of her plan into place. De Anví simply relished the joy of walking close by her side. The Witch’s revenge would be harsh and cruel—of this, he had no doubt—so he might as well enjoy the moment while it lasted, minus thoughts of bloody fingers.
Casa Rojita was unsurprisingly full of people, and a few extra tables and stools and benches had been dragged outside. Merriment was in the air, in the food, in the drinks. It filled their senses as they made their way to the guest rooms on the second and third floors.
The room Nereida opened was small, with a simple bed, a stool, and a narrow window. No Esparza, no woman.
“You must have paid well,” De Anví commented, “to ensure this room’s availability during Noche Verde.” Another cursory survey of the room. “Not that it can fit many.”
At the lack of response, he looked at Nereida and found her gaze fixed on him.
“Save your looks of worry, De Guzmán,” he told her. “I am not yet keeling over. Doubt it not, the Witch will take her time.”
Nereida looked torn at his words, then determined.
“No, don’t look like that either,” he said with a grim smile. “It was my choice. Don’t take it upon yourself to help me. You owe me no debt.”
Nereida offered no reply, just stood by his side and gazed out the window. But as time went by, she grew restless once again. What a shock this night had been for De Anví. What a myriad of expressions he had gotten out of her. He had known them to be there, hidden by what she wished others to see, and he welcomed seeing them in the flesh.
“Do you think my brother was speaking the truth?” Nereida asked in a quiet voice, rubbing her pouch beneath her waistcoat.
“About his hand in your sister’s death?”
“Yes.”
De Anví pondered this for a few seconds. “Perhaps. The approach of death brings forth all the regrets, all the truths.” He should know—he carried his own regrets about that night like a heavy cloak that refused to be put away in the winter trunk.
“I cannot make myself believe it,” she said, her voice cracking. De Anví fisted his hands so he wouldn’t reach out to comfort her. Nereida was too proud for such a gesture unless she invited it. And Nereida was far from inviting. “Si-so was always there, our pillar. Always dependable. How could this happen? He said … he said there was a witness to Edine’s killing, that nothing could’ve been done. He never mentioned he was close by.”
“It might not be the truth of what happened, but what he feels is the truth. Perhaps the passage of time and guilt has warped his memories of the event.” He watched Nereida’s expression become cold again, composed. “Whatever happened, he was not by your sister’s side. He could not stop the blade that killed her. It was not guided by his hand.”
Nereida said nothing, and they fell into silence until she began to pace the small room.
“They’re taking too long,” she said.
“Could this Del Arroyo have gone ahead with the next part of the plan?”
Nereida shook her head. “No. Something must have gone wrong.”
“Where would the next logical place be, for her to go to?”
“De Gracia.”
“Is that where you’ve been hiding?”
“Yes.” She strode for the door.
De Anví hurried to follow.
“Does it have something to do with the marquess’s murder and the attempted kidnapping of his daughter?”
Nereida gave him a sharp look. “No.”
She hadn’t known about the kidnapping attempt, De Anví guessed. And while he didn’t have reason to believe Nereida was lying to him so far, what were the chances these happenings were unconnected?
It took them too long to reach the Marquess de Gracia’s house, and once they were there, they found only a worried brother.
“Ah, Count de Anví,” he greeted in a distracted tone before focusing on Nereida. “Azul is missing. I lost track of her when we went to Karia’s ball, and she hasn’t made an appearance at the other houses we were to attend.”
“And Sirese Enjul?” Nereida asked.
“He left before Azul disappeared. I don’t think they are together.”
“You are worried because of the kidnapping attempt,” De Anví said, earning De Gracia’s surprised attention.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I thought I put the matter to rest, but what if they’ve tried again?”
“Then there is nothing to do but wait.”
“Can’t you find anything?” De Gracia pleaded. “If you know about the kidnapping, you must be able to figure out who might have taken her.”
“I can make inquiries. You will wait here for the result?”
De Gracia agreed.
“Then I shall take my leave. And my suggestion is for De Guzmán to check the other balls you were meant to attend, in case your sister did, indeed, arrive at them, albeit late.”
Nereida agreed to this, so they took their leave and left the house in separate directions, only to arrive within minutes of each other back at the tavern.
De Anví was first. The room was still devoid of occupants, the window open, the stool standing by its side. A bloodied cloth lay on top, carrying the dark crimson smears of someone wiping a bloody blade.
“Esparza must have waited until we left to leave us this,” he told Nereida when she burst into the room. He waved the cloth like a flag, and she snatched it out of his grip to inspect it in the lamp’s light.
“Why?” she asked. “A warning? Something must’ve gone wrong.”
“What, exactly, was this task you paid him to do?”
“He was to sneak Del Arroyo into the ossuary and help her find her sister’s bones.”
De Anví’s gaze went to her pouch.
“Yes,” Nereida said dryly. “I shall explain in time.”
“I believe the time has come,” he told her.
The bloodied cloth reclaimed Nereida’s attention, and for a heartbeat, he thought she might tell him. But the moment—like so many others between them—passed.
“Let us go back to De Gracia,” she said. “Del Arroyo might return, or if she was truly kidnapped, we might be able to interrogate whoever comes to ask for ransom.”
They made their way back to Almanueva, this time waiting outside.
“It worries me,” Nereida whispered, “that Enjul is gone too. He must be with Del Arroyo. He might have stopped Esparza from taking her to the ossuary.”
“Who is this Enjul?” De Anví asked.
“An Emissary of the Lord Death.”
“An emissary?” Hard not to be shocked at the idea. “What is he doing here?”
“Stopping Del Arroyo from getting to her sister’s bones.”
“Hence Esparza?”
“Hence Esparza.”
“Why not just take her away?”
Nereida didn’t answer. Her hand drifted to the bump under her waistcoat on her left side. Her favorite sword, Sangrienta, hung at her right. He touched the hilt of his own Valiente. As the second-in-command of the Royal Guard, he was expected to carry it with him at all times—during court sessions, during formal meetings, during dances and gatherings. But what good did a rapier do against secret scheming, faceless witches, and his own ignorance?
“This is related to the things you’re keeping from me, isn’t it?” he asked.
“I am sorry, De Anví.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her to call him by his first name and finally get his wish, but he thought better of it. This sudden camaraderie was born of necessity, not a true willingness to become closer to him. His name on her lips would have to wait.
“Who is that?” Nereida asked, now alert.
A man was approaching the house. He knocked on the door, and light poured out when it opened, illuminating his profile.
“Isile Manzar,” De Anví said. “One of De Gracia’s friends.”
Sometime after Isile’s arrival, the entrance doors opened again, revealing De Gracia and two armed men.
“De Gracia’s personal guard? Where is he going?” asked Nereida.
“It would seem either he no longer worries about Del Arroyo’s fate,” De Anví said, “or…”
Nereida smiled. “Or he’s about to take us to her. The man dotes on her.”
De Gracia led them across town to a house in a quiet neighborhood by the edge of the delta. Four more people joined De Gracia’s group, some wearing different symbols on their cloaks and tabards, some wearing none at all.
“This doesn’t bode well,” Nereida said, watching them enter the building. “He’s gathering a small army inside.” She turned to De Anví. “We’re going to need men of our own, in case we need to fight.”
De Anví understood what she wanted from him, but he was loath to leave her behind. “Come with me,” he urged.
“Someone must stay in case he decides to move.”
“Tonio can.” De Anví made a signal with his hand, and his personal guard stepped out from the shadows an alleyway behind.
Nereida startled. De Anví snorted. “You think me so careless as to travel without him during Noche Verde? He will keep watch, and he knows how to contact me if De Gracia’s small army decides to make a move before we’re back.” To Tonio, he added, “Follow if he leaves, but do not interfere.”
Nereida weighed her options in the light of the approaching dawn, then touched the bundle hidden under her waistcoat. “Very well. I shall trust you.”
De Anví put a hand to his chest. “By the Blessed Heart, I won’t let you down.”