Page 67 of Mistress of Bones
“Thank you,” Azul said, knowing she should be relieved, but unable to shake the fury razing her veins.
Her shadow. Alone.
The emissary couldn’t be bothered to check on her himself, so certain Azul was incapable of anything more than being an annoyance.
Sharply, she crossed the entrance and exited into the plaza. Stopping right beyond reach of the guards outside, she glared at her shadow. “I see you come alone. Is he so sure I’ll do as he commands every time I slip your reach?”
The shadow nodded in one direction. Azul followed it to find Virel Enjul standing on the opposite side of the plaza, his expression unreadable, but his posture bored enough as he turned and walked away.
He had come, after all. Perhaps he wasn’t so sure of what Azul could do. Perhaps he was frustrated that he had made no inroads into figuring out who the other necromancer was, and it was dawning on him that Azul was not so fearful of his status as Emissary of the Lord Death. Or perhaps it was the fact that he could no longer steal her from Cienpuentes on a whim.
She could use this.
Bringing two fingers to her mouth, Azul let a loud whistle go, commanding the attention of everyone in the vicinity. But it was only Enjul’s attention she kept for more than those few moments of stillness when she lifted her hand and showed him the small bone in her palm.
XXIIISEEKING DANGER
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLIER
Nereida de Guzmán had left the house, gone to a tavern, spoken to the woman behind the counter, then returned to De Gracia’s to spend her time doing nothing but stare into the patio. Virel Enjul had followed her himself, content with leaving Azul in her brother’s hands, accompanied by her shadow.
Contentwas perhaps not the most fitting term. If Emissary Enjul could separate his soul from his flesh, he’d be happy to follow Del Arroyo wherever she went. Azul—the malady, he corrected himself—hadn’t put a step out of place, didn’t do as he had expected after she lied to him at the exhibition. The lie had been obvious. He had expected her to search for the other malady’s victim and warn them to stay away.
But she hadn’t.
Enjul enjoyed puzzles, so every night he went to his room, thinking about what Azul del Arroyo might be planning in that obstinate head of hers and following each possible path to its inevitable ending: this other malady dead, Azul del Arroyo locked away for study at his Valanjian headquarters of choice. And every morning he woke exhilarated, wondering if that would be the day Azul guided him to the proof of the other malady’s identity.
He had the vague thought that the woman might be of further use once he was done studying her. What better way to reconcile her affronts to the Lord Death than by helping him search for other possible maladies and eliminating them?
The idea was too enticing, so he had shoved it to the back of his mind and concentrated on Nereida de Guzmán instead. Whatever plan was being spun, she was good at keeping it secret. De Guzmán was not as easy to read as Del Arroyo.
So, why did he find himself waiting a couple of blocks away from the gathering De Gracia and Azul had chosen to attend instead of following De Guzmán?
Ultimately, it didn’t matter whom he followed, he told himself. If there was a plan, it would require Azul’s presence, and Enjul doubted Azul would set anything in motion before getting to her sister’s bones.
He would need another threat to keep her from using her foulness once she agreed to help find other maladies. He was quite looking forward to eroding her erroneous beliefs, to see what kind of convoluted philosophical games she spun to plead her case.
Not many dared contradict his words. Even now, without his bone armor and dressed like any other Sancian, there was a void surrounding him as he leaned against a building. No peddlers approached him; children gave him a wide berth. A boy selling flowers had moved a street away a few minutes after Enjul had chosen this spot, as if worried his floral wares would blacken with decay should he stay nearby.
He considered this aura a gift, one he enjoyed using on those who thought themselves better than their gods. Enjul’s disgust rose again at the way Cienpuentes’s citizens did nothing but pray for riches. What a deplorable city. Gray and drab, its Anchor almost gone. If the Blessed Heart had a voice, it was drowned in all this greed.
A man gained his attention, inconspicuous, easily ignored—if you weren’t the one who had hired him. Enjul left his spot and went to meet him, wariness and fury rising. Why was he here and not guarding Azul? A young girl walked by the man’s side, grinning cheekily until she noticed Enjul stalking their way.
Azul’s shadow was fast to take ahold of the girl’s arm before she could turn tail and flee.
“Why are you here?” he asked of the man.
The man nudged the girl’s arm.
“I have a message,” the girl muttered, avoiding looking at Enjul. “A woman—Del Rollo or something—said to tell you she’s gone to visit a friend at the Blue Bastards, since she got kid-kidnapped and neither of you noticed.”
The man fished for a thin coin in his pocket and gave it to the girl before setting her free.
“Kidnapped?” Enjul demanded.
The man simply shrugged.
“I ought to kill you,” Enjul said, walking toward the City Guard’s headquarters. Ambassador Enzare had shared her maps of Cienpuentes with him, and he had been careful to insist Azul saw none of them, no matter how many times she asked.
