Page 49 of Mistress of Bones
Azul gasped, wrenched back into the Temple. The girl had brought reinforcements.
“Young woman,” a woman intoned, wearing a dress too simple and too well cut to be anything but a uniform, “this is a place for prayers, not naps.”
Azul fought to clear her head. “I’m sorry. Prayer does tend to make one doze off, doesn’t it? But it won’t happen again. I’m waiting for the dean.”
The woman studied her with distrust until she caught sight of the glimmering blue of Isadora’s Anchor earring, then her tone softened. “I am sorry, but Dean Eneres won’t be back for the day. Do leave your name and address with us, and we will send notice when she is available for a meeting.”
She ought to have shown the Anchor from the first, Azul admonished herself. This was Cienpuentes, after all. “Thank you. My name is Azul del Arroyo, and my address, the Marquess de Gracia’s house. The matter is of some urgency, so the sooner I speak with the dean, the better.”
The woman’s mouth slackened at the mention of her brother. Yes, Azul would get her appointment eventually. Of this, she was sure. But would it be in time? A last look at the Lady Dream before she turned toward the exit. One could always hope.
Setting her hat back on her head, she directed her steps toward Almanueva, her shadow appearing next to her the moment she steppedoutside. The heat was close to unendurable, magnified by the afternoon sun and the enclosed spaces of Cienpuentes’s streets. The buildings held no charm now, the noises loud and deafening.What an insufferable city, Azul thought.What a waste of space.
Enjul was back in time for supper. He spoke little, but his attention kept returning to Azul, as if wondering what she would do next.
With that in mind, Azul waited until late at night to knock on her brother’s door.
The floor tiles were cool against her bare feet; her candle, she had left back in her room.
A slight creak a few steps away made her jump. Startled, she watched the next door open and her brother peek out. He was all surprise, his face half-lit by a lamp inside his room.
“Sister?” he whispered.
Still so unused to that term, Azul stifled the urge to look behind her shoulder and see whom he was talking to.
“May we speak?” she asked in the same low tone.
“Of course,” he answered, clearing the way into his room. Azul entered, curious. She was certain the door she had knocked on corresponded to the light she had seen across the patio last night. A second door in her brother’s chamber answered the unspoken question—an adjacent room. A study?
Her brother pointed to a small chair by a tiny desk near one of the two windows while he sat on a trunk at the foot of the bed. His room was twice the length of hers, with white and golden walls decorated by a few paintings, their browns and beiges wavering under the flickering candlelight. Human studies, all of them. A woman sitting by a well, her diaphanous gown accentuating the slope of her shoulders and the graceful arch of her neck. A man, bared to the waist, arms resting on an axe, a tower of lumber by his side. A person’s stretched arms and upper back—and only theirback—fading from healthy nails on the left to bony fingertips on the right. Gruesome. Alluring.
Tearing her gaze from the painting, Azul found her brother watching her, clad in his nightshirt and a robe. Was he looking for a reaction to the decor? No, he was waiting to see why she was in his room this late at night, still in her shirt and breeches but otherwise prepared for stealth. She went back to the door and closed it carefully.
“Gruesome, isn’t it?” he said with a conspiratorial smile, nodding toward the flesh-to-bone painting. “Unfit for a gentleman’s chamber.”
Azul shook her head. “It’s what we are inside. Flesh and bones. It’s good to keep a reminder so we don’t believe ourselves indestructible.”
“I wish I had hidden it, then. It’s my duty as older brother to appear indestructible, isn’t it?”
She smiled at this. “I wouldn’t know. It seems my fate to remain the younger one.”
He crossed his arms and studied Azul from amused, half-lidded eyes. “I’ve had time to grow into my role, willingly and eagerly, even if I wasn’t able to lure you back home. So, tell me, Sister, what is it that you need my help with? Does it have something to do with this sudden urge to come visit me?”
Azul was relieved at the direct question. Sitting by his side on the long trunk, she met his stare. “I need help getting into the ossuary. The rooms where they keep the bones. I tried to gain access today but was unsuccessful in securing an appointment. You’re a marquess now; I’d hoped you’d have some influence over these kinds of matters.”
He didn’t seem shocked or surprised by the request.Perhaps, Azul thought,he was used to people asking his help to enter otherwise inaccessible buildings.
“The Temple…?”
“Dean Eneres was not available.”
He nodded solemnly. “Too many people with strange requests, no doubt.” Then, so cautiously Azul grew nervous for the first time, “Why the ossuary?”
She fidgeted with her hands, hoping to appear young and lost and in need of a hero’s help. “I wish to pray to my sister’s bones—one of my sisters’ bones. She was brought here years ago after her demise near Monteverde.” She suddenly feared his next question—why not pray in the Temple, since the deceased’s soul now belonged to the gods?—so she rushed her next words: “It’s something we promised each other, that if we happened to die before the other, even if the Lord Death claimed our souls, we’d leave a part of us behind in our bones for the times when we’d need the other’s love and comfort. I know it’s strange and against the Temple’s teachings, and it might seem silly that the Lord Death would allow such a thing to happen… but it’s so important to me. It would bring me so much peace to see her remains one more time in case part of her is still somehow there. I must do it without Sirese Enjul or his shadow knowing.”
“So, the shadowishis,” Sergado said. “Why the secrecy? Are you sure you don’t want me to do something about this shadow or Enjul?”
The no-nonsense edge to those last words reaffirmed his need to protect her as she had meant to protect Isadora.Hopefully, she thought wryly,with better results. “I’m helping Sirese Enjul with some matters, but I know he won’t return the favor. You know how strict Valanjians are about the Lord Death. Sirese Enjul doesn’t approve of my plans. He doesn’t think I ought to visit my sister.”
