The Golden City

closer.

Once past the Customs House, she joined more pedestrians strolling along the tree-lined Alameda de Massarelos. She walked on slowly, being passed by workers on their way home for dinner, chattering loudly when she wanted silence to listen. She tried the same trick again, pretending she had caught her heel, and glanced behind her.

Thank the gods. Her pursuer had been joined by another man, and the two were walking companionably along the avenue. She dropped the fabric and walked on. It was probably just her imagination, along with an excessive dose of caution. While the mantilla hid her features from notice, it was distinctive. She wished she’d thought of that before leaving the house. But it covered her face, which might allow her to evade anyone looking for her.

I need to plan better. She strode more quickly along the avenue toward the spot where Heriberto moored his little fishing boat among a dozen others. Watching her footing, she made her way onto the ramp and down to the boat. The deck smelled of gutted fish, making it clear that Heriberto did occasionally pursue his stated occupation, if not tidily.

Careful of her skirts, Oriana climbed over the rail. She removed the mantilla, tucked it into her handbag, and banged with one fist on the low cabin wall, clenching her jaw to ignore the jarring vibrations that set off in her webbing. “Heriberto,” she called down toward the cabin, “I need to talk to you.”

Her words were greeted with a stream of invective that didn’t surprise her overmuch.

“Wait a moment,” Heriberto called back. A moment later he emerged from the small cabin, still tying the drawstring of his rough-spun trousers. He hadn’t bothered with shoes. He wasn’t even wearing a neckerchief to hide his gill slits. His hair was mussed, making Oriana suspect he hadn’t been alone in that cramped cabin.

His eyes narrowed in the afternoon light. “What are you doing here?” He looked frazzled, which had to be better for her.

“I hear you’re looking for me.”

“Your father told you, did he?” he asked.

His casual mention of her father surprised her. After two years of never speaking of him, it was bizarre to have Heriberto say that so baldly. “I haven’t had any contact with my father since I got here, as per our orders. Not a word.”

Heriberto crossed arms over his bare chest. “And I went directly to him, so how else would you have found out?”

She could claim that Carlos, the footman she’d seen with him, had told her, but she was going to have to go with the truth if she wanted to get her father off Heriberto’s hook. “I followed you Wednesday when you met him at the Golden Church. I was standing right under where you were talking. I believe what I heard was called extortion. If you’re looking for me, there’s no reason to bother him. He doesn’t know my whereabouts.” He didn’t deny the charge of extortion, she noted. “Who is Maria Melo, and why did you tell her that I’m not human?”

Heriberto shook his head. “You’re not entitled to that information.”

“Extortion isn’t in your orders,” she reminded him. “My aunts are high up enough in the ministry that if I should happen to mention your extra source of income, it would come back to haunt you. There are other ways of getting correspondence out of the city than by going through you. I can go around you.”

For her first attempt at blackmail, it seemed to work. “Do you think it’s that simple?” he asked. “There are those in the ministry who outrank me. When she demanded a list of my people in the city, I didn’t ask why.”

Oh no. Oriana stifled the desire to walk away. The saboteur knew she was a sereia not because Heriberto revealed that fact . . . but because she was a sereia herself, a member of their intelligence ministry.

She’d been put in that house to watch Isabel die by one of her own people.

Oriana lifted her chin. “Where can I find her?”

“Thanks to your appearance in the gossip columns of this morning’s Gazette, she knows exactly where to find you.” Heriberto grabbed her arm and hauled her closer. “Don’t think . . .”

Oriana bared her teeth and dragged her arm free from Heriberto’s grasp.

He smirked. “It’s all over the street whose house you’re living in now, girl. If she wants to talk with you, she will. Take my advice: keep your distance. She’s been undercover a long time, and we’re all expendable if we endanger her mission.”

Did her government have agents who’d been here longer than Heriberto? That was news to her. “What mission is that?”

“You think she would tell me? A male?” He laughed, a short bark. “I learned long ago there are times it’s better to stay still under the water. Act like everything’s normal, stay hidden, and perhaps the storm will pass without all of us getting killed.”

Oriana had a sinking feeling in her stomach. The woman who’d handed her and Isabel over to the Open Hand had a greater mission, one so important that Isabel Amaral’s death was acceptable. Putting Oriana Paredes in danger of exposure was also acceptable. Oriana couldn’t think of too many missions important enough to warrant that much leeway, but assassination might be one of them. Perhaps Silva had been right about an assassination after all, although not about the assassin. It was hard to believe her people’s government would condone such a thing. “Why were you looking for me, then?”

“She ordered me to,” Heriberto said. “She claims someone’s trying to kill you. If they succeed, it would spoil her plans, whatever those are. She said she wanted to warn you.”

Oh, that much is true. “So you threaten my father, just to warn me?”

Heriberto crossed his arms over his chest and glared. “Girl, I don’t like you. You think you’re better than me. You think you don’t have to do the things the rest of us stoop to because you’re superior to us, because you’ve got old family ties in the ministry.” He gestured at her mitt-covered fingers. “I notice you’re not at the doctor’s appointment I made for you to get your hands cut.”

Was that today? Oriana had a vague recollection of him ordering her to do that the last time they’d spoken, but she’d had other concerns since. “I forgot.”

“Of course.” Heriberto set one fingertip under his eye, the sign for doubt. “The truth is that I don’t like my people getting killed. Even you. If your getting killed by these other people would ruin her plan, then the easiest way to ensure that doesn’t happen . . . is to kill you herself.”

Oriana felt a chill run down her spine. Why had she not figured that out? She folded her silk-covered hands together to hide their shaking.

She’d come here to tear into Heriberto’s fins, but instead he’d given her information he shouldn’t have. If Maria Melo was his superior, he shouldn’t have divulged the woman’s intentions, not even obliquely. Yet he’d done it to warn her. It was possible he’d been guarding her all along, although she doubted that was the case. Instead, she suspected he didn’t like this superior of his. “Thanks for the warning.”

He waved away her words. “I haven’t seen you. I haven’t spoken to you. Just get out of my sight.”

He didn’t wait for her to say any more, but climbed back down into the hold of his boat. Oriana turned and carefully walked back up to the quay. Her mind was spinning. She pulled the mantilla out of her bag and settled it over her hair again, taking a moment to put the comb in firmly.

She’d been concerned about the mysterious Open Hand coming after her, but not truly afraid. The prospect of being hunted by Maria Melo worried her far more.

CHAPTER 25

Duilio walked along the quay, mulling over the death of Donato Mata. His gift lay quiet now, not a hint of concern for his safe journey back to the house, although it would be foolish to rely overmuch on that.

When he reached the road that wound behind the Customs House, he noticed a woman walking briskly some distance ahead of him. Miss Paredes. It wasn’t her plain black dress that identified her, or even the mantilla that covered her head, an unusual choice for a Friday afternoon. He’d recognized her