Page 86 of Mistress of Bones
“Not like this, my friend. A kindred spirit at last.”
Or at least for the next few weeks, De Anví thought dryly.
“I finally understand what you find so compelling about De Guzmán,” Esparza said. De Anví gave him a sharp look, which Esparza met with a laugh. “I’m only interested in the younger sister, don’t worry. Although, perhaps you should. The queen has been dead forover six months. Make your move before someone else catches Nereida’s whim.”
De Anví’s heart made that strange leap it always did when he thought of Nereida. It sent heat through his veins and stabs of anxiety across his nerves. The worry, forever present in the back of his mind: that their courtship might never come to pass. “After the mourning,” he said. “It wouldn’t look right otherwise. You know some still think she’s behind Her Majesty’s death.”
“You worry too much about what others might think. She was her lover for a few months, not her spouse. Everyone knows she had nothing to gain by her death. Think of Countess Leonés. She didn’t care what others said when she took a new spouse three weeks after the old one ended up in the gutters.”
“It is not your place to question me,” De Anví reminded him. Esparza shrugged in a way that said he didn’t care about the warning but he did care about enraging those who gave him coin.
Esparza had it partly right. While De Anví did not care what others said of him, he would not put Nereida in such a position. She deserved his best, and for her sake, he would wait.
Esparza leaned closer into the window, his whisper urgent and sharp. “Someone comes.”
De Anví shook off the memories of his and Nereida’s last dance together, although he could not get rid of the lingering bitterness. How different things might’ve been if only he had spoken up. He rubbed his chest, but the searing regret did not abate.
“A carriage,” Esparza added in a lower voice.
De Anví heard it now, too, horses clopping on the flagstone. A simple covered cart appeared on the street, coming to a stop in front of the building. De Anví and Esparza tensed when two people alighted from the back and went to the door. It opened for them immediately, as if someone had also been keeping vigil.
The cart moved away, leaving the newcomers inside the house and the street deserted again.
“One of them carried a big bundle,” Esparza said.
“A toddler. The king?”
Esparza gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you sure?”
De Anví flexed his hands. “That was the plan, according to the Witch.”
“She also told us they would take him to the main house.”
De Anví tapped the wall with his boot, attempting to find the perfect combination of speed and solidity with eachthunkand cursing himself for beginning its search. Tearing himself away from the encroaching fixation and hardening his will against the anxiety stopping would produce, he shoved the curtain open and stepped over the windowsill. “We’ve been played,” he snarled.
Alarmed, Esparza followed him through the opening. “The Witch lied to us?”
De Anví raised his hand and made a sign. One of the men huddled by the brazier under the bridge slipped away up the street. Trotting, Esparza and De Anví crossed the street and reached the narrow alleyway cornering the building.
“She’s playing one of her games,” De Anví whispered roughly.
“To what end?”
“To give me a present I do not want. She must’ve figured out De Losa is set to lead the charge on the main house and claim ownership of the plan’s success, so she maneuvered the traitors to make the king end up here, or gave us the wrong information so De Losa would be at the wrong spot instead of us.”
“Why not stop the ploy altogether? Why risk the king’s life?” Esparza snorted. “No, never mind. I already know the answer.”
Because the Witch didn’t care about who resided in the Heart. She only cared about schemes and how much joy they brought her.
Esparza’s hand landed on De Anví’s cloaked arm. “There’s someone else.”
De Anví followed his gaze. A man was darting out of another alleyway, looking around before crossing the street.
“Not one of mine,” Esparza added.
“Go deal with him,” De Anví ordered curtly.
“No need, he comes to us,” Esparza answered, going deeper into the alleyway and stopping by the far corner. He only had to wait a few moments before the newcomer hastened by the backstreet.
