Page 96 of Mistress of Bones
Enjul stopped moving. And still, she pressed against the wound.
And pressed.
Until Esparza grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. “He’s dead,” he said grimly. “We have to go.”
“No.” She reached for Enjul, her vision blurry. “We can’t leave him.”
Unrelenting, Esparza dragged her along with him. “We can’t be seen here. We must leave before the change of guard.” He stepped over the remains of the guard, and Azul stumbled on the man’s bones, squelching through the putrid flesh.
Esparza winced but didn’t stop. He took her back to their abandoned lamp, to the main tunnel, up the stairs, through the open door and the iron gate and the maze of a building upstairs. Her free hand left a trail of bloody smears as she used the walls to steady her faltering limbs.
Outside, he forced her to face him. “With Luck’s help, they’ll think they killed each other,” he said, his tone low, hurried, and quite serious. “Tell no one of what happened here, not even De Guzmán. Make your excuses to whomever you have to and leave town. Leave tomorrow, if you can. Make something up—a missive from your family or some such. It doesn’t matter.”
And then he was gone and Azul was alone.
Alone.
No Isadora. No Enjul.
Dazed, she made her way back to the crowded streets, walking aimlessly. Captain de Macia’s name came to mind, but her head was spinning, the smells and the sounds and the heat from the crowd so overwhelming, Azul couldn’t pin down her thoughts.
She stumbled into someone, murmured some apology, bumped somebody else, apologized again. Then someone ran into her, pattedher back, and kept going. Invitations were shouted her way; songs drifted in and out of her ears. A hand checked for a purse, alas she kept her few coins inside her breeches.
No Esparza to keep people at bay. No shadow to ask for directions. No emissary to keep track of.
What was this despair carving a hole inside her? Shouldn’t she be glad Virel Enjul was dead? Hadn’t she wished for him to get lost, leaving her all the time in the world to find Isadora’s bones?
Now she was free of him—free of their deal, free of her promises. It had only cost another rip in her heart. Another death she couldn’t undo.
And Azul hated death.
She hated death almost as much as she hated her brother.
How she had begged to gain access to the ossuary! How she had trusted him! How he must have delighted in seeing her fumbling to achieve nothing.
How enraging.
Azul found a few citizens able to give her directions and headed toward Almanueva. A footman opened the main door for her and tried to tell her something. She ignored him, crossed the tiled floors with fast strides, and stomped up the stairs. A musty smell assaulted her nose, like wet plants left in a closed room for too long. It permeated the long dark corridor. She knew her way by now and lost no time in flinging open her brother’s door.
The woman on the painting sneered at her under Luck and Wonder’s brightness, the man with the axe was suddenly leery. She couldn’t face the flesh-stripped back on the wall.
The door to her brother’s private study was locked. She slammed her shoulder against it, but the lock held.
Rubbing her shoulder, she approached the closest window. Leaning across the sill, she confirmed the study had its own window, but although the exterior wall had a ridge she could use to cross between the rooms, she wasn’t sure she could open the other window from the outside. She was only a floor up, but the drop was significant, and Azul did not possess the gift of mending bones.
She started with the drawers in the desk, then the trunk at the foot of the bed. She didn’t hide her intentions; she emptied every nook with no care for their contents. Nobody came to stop her, and she welcomed the sense of accomplishment as she threw thing after thing to the rug or the wall. She laid waste to the room until she found a key for the locked door.
Her brother’s study was a simple continuation of his bedroom: same white and gold walls, same elegant furniture. A bigger desk was set flush below the window, with a tall-backed chair abandoned at an angle. Another shelf lined the far wall, an ornate creation of golden lines and blond wood with grates of thin, painted metal protecting the heavy tomes inside. A chest of drawers stood alone in a corner, and when she opened them, she found another collection of bones.
The problem with being aware of bones, she realized, was that there werealwaysbones. Dead bones, living bones—they were all the same, a constant surrounding her.
To anyone else, these might look like animal bones, but she knew better. Some looked new, others yellowed with age. How young had her brother been when he began his collection?
On top of the desk, she found more sketches, and in a locked drawer she managed to wrench open, a few bundles. She carefully unwrapped the bundles on the desk. They all held bone pieces that had been glued together to make fully formed fingers. She didn’t dare touch them directly.
Another drawer contained jars filled with clear viscous liquid, while another had a box filled with brushes and small, delicate metal tools.
She wished to look away from the bone fingers, but couldn’t. They were mesmerizing.
