Page 103 of Mistress of Bones
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?”
