The Golden City

intimated?

He’d met different kinds of witches throughout the past several years—not just seers, but healers who could still a man’s blood in his veins, witches who could lay a curse that lasted for decades. There were Truthsayers who could weigh a man’s words, and Finders who could locate things gone missing. There were a myriad of little talents, and skills benign enough that they didn’t have names. But this was something different, a rarity that supposedly appeared only once a generation. “You’re a Meter?”

The inspector didn’t flinch. “Yes, Mr. Ferreira.”

Meters were the stuff of legends. A Meter was a witch who could see what others were. Duilio wasn’t sure how far that talent extended, what Gaspar saw in him, but if Gaspar truly was a Meter, the Spanish Church would love to have him in their clutches. They still hunted witches in Spain, and Gaspar could simply point out each one on the street. “So, what are you doing here?” Duilio asked him. “Were you following me?”

“What were you doing in that building?”

Admittedly, Gaspar had revealed something of himself—clearly hoping to gain Duilio’s trust—but he was a member of the Special Police. Duilio couldn’t be sure where the man stood on anything, least of all investigation of The City Under the Sea. For all he knew, Gaspar had set that fire himself or was in league with the man who’d attacked him at the tavern. After all, his attacker had probably been a member of the Special Police. Duilio didn’t answer.

Gaspar pushed away from the wall. “It would be helpful to me if I knew why Mata is hunting you, Mr. Ferreira. I understand your hesitation. I’m sure you understand mine.”

Yes, he did. It was always a game of trying to figure out whom to trust.

“You should go home, Mr. Ferreira,” Gaspar added, giving him a friendly pat on his shoulder. “You look a wreck.”

Duilio shook his head ruefully. Yes, I certainly do.

* * *

Oriana needed to return the fabric scissors she’d borrowed from Felis, so she headed down to the servants’ workroom. Halfway down the back stairs, she almost collided with Mr. Ferreira coming up.

She should have been warned by the smell. He carried the acrid scent of burned paper about him like a cloud. His coat was tucked under his arm, and she could see dried blood staining his shirtsleeve where he’d been injured the previous evening. His charcoal-gray waistcoat was liberally streaked with soot and ash. Even his shoes looked ruined. “Do you come home every evening like this, sir?” she asked, horrified.

He laughed, apparently not as perturbed as he should have been.

Is this normal? “What happened?” she demanded. “Are you hurt?”

Mr. Ferreira leaned against the newel post. “Someone walked into a room behind me and set it ablaze,” he said, sobering. “And the floor below that. I suspect it was the same gentleman from last night.”

Who seemed likely to have been a member of the Special Police. “They certainly don’t want you proceeding with this investigation, do they?”

He shrugged and then winced. “I’m beginning to have questions about that, Miss Paredes. I suspect my understanding of the Special Police might be insufficient to grasp what’s going on now.”

What does that mean? “Are you hurt?” she asked again.

“Oh, I’m fine,” he said dismissively, as if an attempt to burn him to death didn’t warrant concern. He began to search the pockets of his coat. “I went to investigate the place because we thought Espinoza might live there.”

“Did he?”

Mr. Ferreira tugged a leather-bound book out of one of the pockets. “Evidence suggests that he did but hasn’t been there for some time.”

When he held out the book, Oriana took it. It was damp, the edges of the pages already beginning to curl. “And this is?”

“A journal, likely his.”

He certainly disliked stating absolutes. He qualified everything he said. She peered down at the leather- bound book more closely. It didn’t seem to have been damaged by the fire, but she was going to have to let it dry. “May I look through this?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid it got wet. Someone dumped a bucket of water on me. I thought you might be able to determine if there’s anything useful inside. Perhaps some hint where the man is holed up. It would be helpful if he names any of his compatriots, particularly in the Special Police. Or who’s paying for his work. That would be nice to know.”

He could have given this to his cousin in the police instead, but he’d handed it over to her. It was a gesture of trust. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Were you injured again? Or is that the other wound reopened?”

“The old one,” he said, glancing back at his blood-smudged shirt. “Nothing that requires an application of brandy, Miss Paredes, I assure you. I’ll get my man to bandage it after I get cleaned off. If you see Marcellin downstairs, could you mention to him that I’m here? I need to get cleaned up before dinner.”

A vast understatement. “I’ll do so, sir. Will we still go to the ball?”

“Absolutely, Miss Paredes. If there’s one thing we could use more of, it’s information. Especially if it helps make sense out of all the other information we have.”

* * *

Oriana did her best to salvage the journal. Some pages were wetter than others, so she took a towel and carefully dabbed at them, trying hard not to smear any ink. The book had been tightly wedged into Mr. Ferreira’s pocket, so the water hadn’t crept too far into the pages. He’d been lucky.

She skimmed a couple of pages, most describing building one house or another, along with a few others that contained arcane mathematical calculations. Deciding that she could read it the next day, she laid the journal atop the chest of drawers in the dressing room. She weighed down each side of the cover with what appeared to be unused snuffboxes, trinkets that must have belonged to Alessio, and the pages fanned open. She hoped they would dry by the morning.

They were to leave the house at ten, so Oriana stewed in her room for a couple of hours. If Nela’s Lady did show up in the Carvalho’s library, what should she ask? Unfortunately she understood what Mr. Ferreira had meant when he’d given her the journal. They had a great deal of information already. They simply didn’t know how it tied together. Too many aspects of this didn’t make sense. If only she could ask the right question tonight and get the right answer, perhaps everything would become clear.

Teresa had left the blue dress, now freshly sponged and pressed, on the bed. When ten approached, Oriana donned it and tried to make her hair presentable. She usually wore it in the English style with tendrils down about her neck, but Felis had brought her a pair of jet earrings, a reminder that the household was still in half mourning. The dress had a high batiste collar that would hide her gill slits, so Oriana drew all her hair up into a knot at the nape of her neck, better to let the earrings show. It wasn’t elegant, but it was the best she could manage on her own. When a knock came at the door, she expected Teresa to enter with some item she’d forgotten, but it was Ana, the second housemaid, instead. “Miss Paredes?”

Oriana quickly drew on her mitts. “Yes, Ana?”

“Teresa said I could come up and see if you needed help with your hair.” The young woman sounded uncertain, but she went on. “I’m not a proper ladies’ maid, but she’s been letting me help her, and we girls all fix each other’s hair below stairs.”

“I’d be grateful for your help pinning it up,” Oriana told her.

The housemaid came in and, once Oriana handed over the pins, brushed out Oriana’s hair, braided it again, and pinned it into a neat coil at the back of her head. Ana also produced a jar of dusting powder that covered the fading bruise on Oriana’s temple. The girl chattered the whole while, repeating how excited the staff was that Lady Ferreira was going out again. When she’d finished, Oriana had to admire the job the young woman had done. Her hair looked more elegant than any coiffure she’d ever achieved on her own. She thanked Ana, gathered her handbag with the sketch secreted inside it, and went to wait at the side of the house for the carriage.

If she hadn’t known that Mr. Ferreira had been attacked twice in the last two days, she wouldn’t have been able to spot it. He looked dashing in his black evening jacket and gray waistcoat. Yes, dashing was the right word. He carried a satin top hat and a silver-handled cane, which