The Golden City

Lady Isabel Amaral and her companion left the Golden City for Paris Thursday night via train, following the evening departure of Mr. Marianus Guimaraes Efisio. Friends of Mr. Efisio expect they will be married in Paris within the week.

Duilio frowned down at the page. He should be shocked that Efisio had eloped with a woman other than his meek betrothed, Pia Sequeira. But that wasn’t what troubled him.

Miss Paredes had been in the river at midnight last night, but if he recalled correctly, that train left for Paris via Lisbon at ten in the evening. She couldn’t have been on that train.

He felt a chill, not simply because of the cold stone wall behind his back. Had his gift been wrong? For a moment Duilio stared up at the tower, realizing only then that he was in the square before the church itself, the baroque facade of the building looming almost as if in accusation.

Fortunately, the Church in Northern Portugal didn’t hold his natural talent against him. Here the prince himself employed seers, and it was common knowledge that the Jesuits had many witches within their ranks. Not so in Spain, where seers and healers and any other stripe of witch were made to disown their gifts or be imprisoned.

Duilio had more than once considered trying to disavow his gift, trying to ignore it, not using it at all. But his gift was a part of him, just as his mother’s pelt was a part of her. Now was not the time to start doubting it. He closed his eyes for a moment, arguing with that inner voice. It insisted again that Aga’s mysterious web-fingered woman was his Miss Paredes.

Opening his eyes, he glanced down at the paper clutched in one gloved hand. He read the entry again as a group of young girls walked past him, whispering among themselves. He pondered the disparity for a moment and a horrible possibility occurred to him. What if Isabel hadn’t been on that train either? He closed his eyes again and asked himself a different question: Will Isabel Amaral marry her Mr. Efisio?

His gift told him that Lady Isabel Amaral was not to marry Mr. Efisio. That she was never to marry Mr. Efisio. That she was never to marry at all. She was already dead.

Duilio opened his eyes, the sense of urgency in him rising. From the beginning there had been something wrong with those damned houses in the river—they stayed afloat long after they filled with water. There were buoyancy charms carved on each house, but after Duilio and Joaquim had begun investigating the houses, Cristiano had told them that such charms were next to useless. That revelation had led them to the disturbing conclusion that the missing servants were being sacrificed to keep the houses floating, that the taste of rot the selkies found so objectionable came from slowly decaying bodies hidden inside those houses. What if they’d been wrong?

What if a new house had been added to the artwork while he’d slept fitfully? That house might have held Lady Isabel and her companion. What if one of the two had been alive at the time? Or both had?

He had wondered why Miss Paredes was seen out by the houses at midnight. His mind had spun out several different scenarios, most involving her people’s government investigating the artwork. Now he felt certain that wasn’t the case at all. He quickly searched the newspaper’s front page, hunting for any mention of a new house being added to The City Under the Sea, but didn’t find any. It usually took a couple of days for the news to trickle out. And if Aga had witnessed that happening last night, she hadn’t mentioned it. Perhaps she’d simply arrived too late.

Will I learn that Oriana Paredes escaped from inside one of those houses? he asked himself. The answer his mind gave him sickened him. Yes.

Jaw clenched, Duilio folded up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. He headed on out of the square, settled in his intention to hunt down the mysterious Miss Paredes, who was not on her way to France, no matter what the paper had to say.

CHAPTER 5

A short while later, Duilio stood before the threshold of the small apartment Joaquim Tavares rented on Restauracao Street. The tall, narrow house was well maintained by grace of the elderly widow who owned the building and kept a hawklike eye on all her tenants.

Duilio knocked on the door and heard a request called back to wait a moment. Only a second or two passed before the door swung open, revealing a half-dressed Joaquim, still buttoning his shirt cuffs. He wore a matching waistcoat and trousers in a beige check—a casual suit. He seemed surprised to find Duilio waiting in the narrow hall. “What are you doing here?”

Although a cousin, Joaquim was closer to Duilio than either Alessio or Erdano in both temperament and appearance. They had the same height and build, and their faces bore the stamps of the Ferreira family: square jaws and wide brows. But what made for pleasant features on Duilio’s face translated to handsome in Joaquim’s case, possibly because he had inherited his Spanish mother’s darker coloration. Duilio smiled ruefully at Joaquim’s apparent annoyance. “Who were you expecting?”

“Mrs. Domingues, bringing a pastry for my breakfast.”

Duilio rolled his eyes at the idea of such a skimpy morning meal. “Are you going to invite me in or not?”

Joaquim grabbed Duilio’s shoulder to draw him inside. “Yes, but I’m about to leave for the station.”

“I’ll walk with you.” Duilio closed the door while Joaquim went to fetch his suit coat. The apartment was furnished in items cast off from other houses, either the Tavares or the Ferreira home. Two worn armchairs, one upholstered and one covered in leather, waited near the single window in the front room. The leather one had been in Joaquim’s room in the Ferreira house as a child.

Duilio felt as much at home here as he did in his own library. He turned to peruse the mismatched bookshelves that lined the wall next to the door. Joaquim had always had an interest in history and philosophy, which showed in the selection of books neatly lining those shelves. After laying his folded newspaper on one shelf, Duilio ran a finger along the rows, hunting for the requisite volume of Camoes that must lurk there.

“A woman was seen out near the houses last night,” Duilio called in the direction of the bedroom. “I need to find her.” Joaquim had a talent for finding lost people, one of the many skills for which the police valued him.

“Which houses?” Joaquim returned.

“The City Under the Sea.” Duilio located the book he was looking for, the epic poem studied by every Portuguese schoolboy wherein the author detailed the voyages of Vasco da Gama.

Joaquim came back into the room, tugging on his loose suit coat. “Doing what?”

An inspector’s pay didn’t afford him the same quality of garb he’d had as a child in the Ferreira household, but Duilio knew better than to comment on the coat’s poor fit. He could afford a fancy valet like Marcellin to turn him out in fine frock coats and silk waistcoats. In fact, he could easily afford to pay for a valet for Joaquim, but his cousin was prickly about money matters, so Duilio didn’t interfere. He pulled out the book he’d located instead. “She was in the water. . . .” he answered.

Reaching for the tweed hat on the shelf nearest the door, Joaquim paused. “Swimming?”

“Yes. That’s not what’s important. I think she was in one of the houses.”

Joaquim cast a perplexed look in his direction.

“She was meant to be a victim, Joaquim. I think she escaped from it.”

Joaquim went still as he worked out the ramifications of that. They’d assumed the victims were sacrificed to keep the houses floating, but such a use of necromancy would have to be enacted before the houses were placed in the river. The possibility that the victims had been put into those houses while still alive had never occurred to them. “If that’s true, we need to find her. How did you find out?”

“Aga saw her and told me.”

Joaquim rubbed a hand over his face, a sign of frustration. “Aga?”

Starting at the beginning would take too long. “One of Erdano’s girls. The thing is . . . I think I know the woman she described to me. It’s Miss Paredes, who’s companion to Lady Isabel Amaral.” Duilio slid the folded newspaper off the bookshelf and pointed to the questionable item on the social page. “Rumor says Lady Isabel eloped last night, in that same companion’s company, with Marianus Efisio.”