Page 79 of Mistress of Bones
“What plan, indeed.”
Yes, it appeared they both enjoyed games.
Enjul was looking forward to playing them, together, for as long as the Lord Death allowed their souls to remain on the continents.
They held each other’s gaze in a rare moment filled with both expectation and calm. A thing of beauty he could never catch with his art.
In the next moment, Azul stepped back, turned away, and walked out of the parlor. He followed a few minutes later and returned to his room. Once inside, door closed securely behind him, he raised the invitation to examine it closer. No mark of Azul’s fingers, no scent of her touch, the ladine an impersonal piece of metal that carried no memories of its previous handler.
He tossed it onto the bed and, on an impulse, knelt by his trunk. There he retrieved a handkerchief from under a layer of shirts and pants. He had found it while searching her room.
He brought the piece of fabric to his nose and inhaled deeply, archiving the notes, the sensation, the memories it brought up, and told himself he was simply studying Azul del Arroyo as an emissary ought to study a malady, and nothing more.
XXVIIIAZUL
Azul was still thinking about her conversation with the emissary a few hours later, when Nereida knocked on her bedroom door and suggested they go out for a stroll.
Azul accepted immediately, glad to have an excuse to get out of the house and away from Virel Enjul. She had meant to infuriate him in the parlor downstairs, to rattle the invisible emissary mask he hid behind, but all she had gained was the disturbing knowledge that hewashuman after all.
What kind of man would the Emissary of the Lord Death be if the god and his Order hadn’t gotten their claws into him?
Azul yearned to know.
Ever since their talk outside the City Guard’s headquarters, a part of Azul had been looking forward to another encounter. No, even before that—ever since they had struck their bargain at the ambassador’s house. It had been exhilarating, the rapid exchange of words, of ideas. It was a game—or a contest—to see who could put a chink in the other’s belief. And, oh, how Azul had missed someone to play games with, a constant, dependable companion in life as well as her heart.
And constant the emissary would be; of that, she was certain. From now until the end of her days, the man would chain himself to her side.
It might not be so bad.
Admittedly, it would be much better than ending up chained in the Order’s dank cellars.
Azul hastened her steps to match Nereida’s, whose idea of a stroll was all but a jog. But then, Nereida wasn’t here for leisure, was she? So, neither was this walk leisurely.
They crossed a bridge, then turned into an alleyway that spat them onto a rare patch of greenery by the riverbank—a space no bigger than the guest bedrooms at Almanueva, filled with soil and grass, with a lone tree growing at its center, its foliage still sporting the green lushness of spring. To their right, another bridge crossed the narrow stretch of water, and the opposite bank was nothing but houses made of gray stone walls.
Someone had painted a mural of the Lady Dream on one, golden yellows and pastel browns a contrast with the gray of the stone. The goddess’s blue eyes appeared fixed on Azul no matter how much she shifted position, casting judgment upon her. And for the first time, the thought occurred to her that she did not want to pray to such a judgmental god, so she turned her back to the mural and the river, with its soothing murmur, its dank smell, and the remains of bright blue Anchor blinking from its bottom.
Several paces away, from inside a passageway, her shadow tipped his hat in salute.
Nereida gave him her back. “I have found you a way inside the ossuary.”
Azul fought not to gasp. After a smile to her shadow, she also averted her face. “Just me?”
“I have no need to go inside.”
“But the person you wish me to bring back?”
“Do not concern yourself with that, Del Arroyo.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Azul’s gaze drifted to the goddess’s mural, and she cursed herself for the turn of phrase. “How will I get inside, then?”
She daren’t believe that the time to bring Isadora back to her side was at hand. She had grown complacent, focusing so much on thesegames of cat and mouse with Enjul, the reason for her being in Cienpuentes had faded into memory.
No longer.
“Someone will come to you during Noche Verde and get you inside,” Nereida said.
“You trust this person?”
