Page 114 of Mistress of Bones
Yes, how delicious.
“Breaking into your brother’s rooms, Sirese Del Arroyo?” she asked. “How unsisterly.”
Del Arroyo jumped and spun to face her. “What are you doing here?”
“What are those?” the Witch asked.
Del Arroyo’s look dripped with disgust. “Fingers.”
The Witch could wait no longer. She went to the desk and held one up. The surface was smooth and solid under pressure. “A sculpture? Painted clay?”
“Bone.”
Gods.The Witch dropped the finger immediately. It thudded against the desk, then rolled away. She wiped her own digits on Isile’s shirt and rushed to follow Del Arroyo out of De Gracia’s room, around the corner, into another room. By the time the Witch caught up with her, Del Arroyo was kneeling by a trunk, searching its contents.
“It’s not on me to judge De Gracia’s interests,” the Witch said, allowing the gathering shiver in her nape to run down between her shoulder blades, “but are you sure it’s bone?”
“What are you doing here?” was the reply.
“Is this your room?” the Witch asked, then noticed dark smears on the girl’s breeches and hands. “Have you been wounded? Your hands…”
Del Arroyo paused her search. “It’s nothing.”
Soon she had appropriated a dagger from whomever this room belonged to—De Guzmán, possibly, judging by the blue waistcoat now lying discarded beside the trunk—and returned to the hallway outside.
“I was waiting for De Gracia when I heard you come in,” the Witch told her as they made their way back over to the stairs.
“Do you know where he is?”
The Witch laughed. “I wouldn’t be waiting here if I knew where he was, yes?”
Down the stairs they went, trotting like eager children until the sight of two footmen stopped Del Arroyo in her tracks.
“Sireses, please come back to the parlor,” one of them said. “The Marquess de Gracia will return shortly.”
And so, into the parlor they went. The Witch reckoned Manzar must’ve visited a lot—the room was cozier than the one she and the count had occupied during their visit days ago. This parlor was for close friends and dear family, not annoying visitors.
“Sister, stay put until I return, I beg you.” The footman’s words took the Witch aback. “I will explain everything—you have nothing to fear. Isile, I will talk to you later as well.”
Having said that, the man left, thesnickof the door loud in the room.
“Did the footman lock us in? Why did he call you sister? Why would I want to talk to him?”
Del Arroyo appeared to find nothing strange in the situation. Instead, as if she were out for a stroll, she simply went for the window and opened it onto the patio.
“Have you no concern about all of this?” the Witch asked, going to her side.
“My brother is a necromancer,” she said, and, truthfully, the Witch wasn’t too aware of what happened next, other than she scrambled after Del Arroyo and asked her to explain herself.
“He kills people, then brings them back to life using their bones.”
Euphoria exploded inside the Witch, so strong her fingers tingled with it.
As she watched Del Arroyo fight De Gracia’s men, then accompanied her and her guard through Cienpé, the Witch’s mind whirled and disentangled everything she had learned. Plans flowed, hopes swelled.
Getting out of the room Azul and the stranger had left her in for the night proved to be somewhat of a hurdle. She had no tethers, but concentrating hard, the Witch found she could reach those sleeping nearby. Not Del Arroyo or her guard, for they had never partaken of her dreams, but with some time and a lot of energy, she was able to slip into someone else.
The feeling was unendurable, like being in two places at the same time. Nausea rolled her stomachs, the link so weak both bodies soaked in shivers and cold sweat. If the connection were to snap, like the tether to her body had, would her consciousness die along with it, adrift like the understars in the Void? One body heaved, the other retched. The pressure was insurmountable, Manzar’s mind using the opportunity to attempt to reclaim its territory.
