Page 85 of Mistress of Bones
“Well?” she repeated.
Esparza gestured toward the closest room. “Ossuary. Do whatever it is you need done.”
Azul looked at them in confusion. “These aren’t real bones. They’re carved stone and wood.”
Esparza jolted. “What?” He entered the room and leaned in to inspect the nearby bones. He did not touch them, though.
“Go deeper,” was Enjul’s response.
Esparza and Azul looked at each other. She saw her thoughts reflected on his face:A trap?
With a slight grimace, Esparza motioned for her to run the lamp around the walls. They found a small wooden door, which Enjul and Esparza forced open, leading to a narrow spiral of stairs.
They began the descent, the unevenness of the steps making the trip treacherous. An archway marked the foot of the stairs, and they walked into a wide tunnel. A few rooms lined its length. One had a manual lift going back up to the surface, the rest contained slabs of stone, buckets, and carts. Pale dust marred the floor inside the rooms and trailed into the tunnel. And if Azul hadn’t been so distracted by the blue light coming from a hole at the end, she would’ve recognized the dirt for what it was.
She passed the lamp to Esparza so her fingers could grip the iron railing separating her from the hole. Precious blue stone began a distance below her, no end to the hollow space in sight. This hole had been drilled straight into the Anchor chain keeping Cienpuentes in place.
“Gods,” Esparza whispered, leaning over the railing. “What is this place?”
The railing, Azul realized belatedly, didn’t reach across the tunnel, leaving an open spot. The floor there, old and uneven, dipped ever so slightly, showing the passage of wheel after wheel, foot after foot. Someone had attempted to wash it not long ago, managing instead to smear the pale dust on the floor.
“There is no ossuary,” she said, perplexed. “They throw the bones into the hole.”
They had thrown Isadora away.
XXXTHE COUNT, ONCE MORE
A YEAR AND A HALF EARLIER
The shutters were open to the night air, the curtains drawn. De Anví and Esparza peered through the curtains, watching the building across the street and the second-floor passageway linking it to the next house. Underneath another bridge, a trio of men huddled around a shabby brazier—the only light in the street aside from Luck and Wonder, which were currently hiding behind a cluster of clouds.
Esparza, wearing an old blue doublet, rubbed his arms. “Tell me again, De Anví, why we must suffer not only in the dark but in the cold.”
De Anví didn’t bother to answer, his attention returning to the door of the building opposite. The Countess de Losa and part of the King’s Guard were waiting in another building up the street, ready to strike the main house, where the conspirators against the king hid. He and Esparza and a few City Guards had been pushed to the side to watch over this annex—a glorified servant’s door attached by the walkway—in case someone managed to escape.
He didn’t mind. He welcomed it, in fact. Let De Losa earn all the glory—he had no use for it. Once he was done with this mess, he’d go back to his family’s homestead in the countryside, where people meant what they said, and he would be left alone and at peace.
“You’re sure you found the queen’s blood? You’re sure it was there, in the crypt?” he asked, not for the first time. Asking settled the part of him that would not stop prodding his ribs. It worked for a few minutes, at least. “Did you take care to take one vial? We might need it to prove the child’s identity.”
“Two vials, resting there inside her stone casket, one now under lock and key. Did you know they put the old twin princes side by side? It’s amazing their caskets haven’t fallen off their ledge to get away from each other.” A shiver ran down his frame. “Come to think of it, perhaps the stories are true and their essences remain behind to keep torturing each other. And they put King Harea in his own niche. I suppose getting away with murdering all four of your older siblings ought to be rewarded in some way.”
“If you would like to ever collect your own reward,” De Anví told him in a cold voice befitting the chilly space, “perhaps you could be of help and pay attention to the outside.”
At the lack of response, he fixed his attention on Esparza. A small smile tugged on the man’s lips, and his hand toyed with the edge of the curtain.
Realization hit him. “Gods, you’re in love again.”
Esparza grinned wide. “You know me too well.”
“Put her out of your mind if only for a night, will you?”
The other man remained silent for a few moments, staring into the street without really seeing what was in front of him. “This time it might be fated.”
“Our saving the king?”
“Ná. True love, De Anví. True love!”
“You’ve claimed such before,” De Anví pointed out.
