The Golden City

were newly moneyed and not worthy of their conversation. Duilio had watched Miss Paredes carefully, though. She often kept her hands in her lap. She wore silk mitts rather than gloves, an old lady’s affectation. She always chose high-necked shirts, even at formal occasions, carrying her modesty to an unfashionable extreme, although he’d heard a rumor from one of the servants that she had spots . . . or something catching on her hands.

Taken individually, none of those things had given her away. But the longer he thought about it, the surer he became that all of those foibles combined were signs of a sereia hiding her true nature. Duilio opened his eyes and stared at his cold hearth. He had no proof that Miss Paredes was a sereia, but his gift assured him it was true.

Just as there might be dozens of selkies hiding in the city, he was willing to accept that sereia might be living here as well. But it was more dangerous for them. Their nature was harder to hide. The most reasonable explanation that he could come up with was that she was a spy, although what she could learn in the Amaral household mystified him. While the Amaral family had impressive social ties, their political ties were limited.

And if she were a spy, what had she been doing out by The City Under the Sea? Did her people find the taste of death in the water as objectionable as did the local selkies? Or could she have had some other reason for being there? A vague frisson of worry snaked out of the back corner of his mind, his gift trying to give him another clue to unlock the bundle of questions.

Black and white. Aga had said the mysterious woman with webbed hands wore black and white. That had been important. Duilio closed his eyes and concentrated, hoping to force a direct answer out of his gift. He took several slow breaths. Was it Oriana Paredes out on the river near The City Under the Sea?

His gift supplied nothing in response.

Duilio rubbed one hand across his face and groaned. Stupid. That was the wrong question. That event was in the past already, and his gift only looked forward. He reformulated his mental question and asked himself, Will I learn that Oriana Paredes was out on the river tonight near the rotting houses?

And then he knew. Sooner or later he was going to discover that Aga’s mysterious woman with webbed hands was, indeed, Oriana Paredes, companion to Lady Isabel Amaral.

Duilio suspected it was for this very night that his gift had called her to his attention that day as she stood in Isabel Amaral’s shadow. Tonight she had been seen in the river near The City Under the Sea. Surely she had some reason for that, some information that might be helpful to his investigation.

Black and white. Why was that important? His gift never answered the why of things, which was always the part he needed most. He sat back in his chair and sighed. In the morning he would visit the Amaral house and ask to speak with Miss Paredes.

No, I won’t. His gift told him she wouldn’t be there. She had left the Amaral household for good, which was damnably inconvenient for him.

Duilio got up and turned down the gaslight. If he wanted answers to his questions, he first had to find her.

CHAPTER 4

Oriana jolted awake when the milkman’s cart rattled through the alleyway. A momentary panic seized her, but she too quickly recalled why she had fallen asleep out of doors.

Lady Amaral had cast her out. When she told the woman that Isabel had been taken, Isabel’s mother claimed it was merely part of her daughter’s scheme to elope. Oriana hadn’t been able to tell her the truth; she’d barely gotten a chance to speak at all. Lady Amaral had just returned from a ball or party and was in a foul mood, so in the early hours of the morning she had the butler escort Oriana out of the house.

It had been too early and too dark to go anywhere, and Oriana had been too exhausted to search for a place to stay, in any case. After a dazed moment standing in the court behind the house, she recalled the stairwell that led to the house’s coal room. The two bags she’d left the previous evening were still there, so she’d curled up on the cold stone next to them and cried until sleep overtook her.

Oriana forced herself to sit up. The morning air was cold but bearable. Her black skirt was ripped. Her clothes were almost dry, although her shoes were still damp. Her forehead was tender, and her fingers found a small lump there. She checked her right palm, wrapped with strips torn from her apron. The narrow slash her rescuer had made when wrestling her dagger out of her hand had scabbed over, although one end began to bleed afresh when she removed her makeshift bandage.

She heard someone speaking then with the milkman up at the back door of the house—meaningless chatter, but it reminded her she wasn’t alone here. She grabbed the portmanteau she’d left there the evening before, dragged it to her side, and searched through the contents until she found another pair of mitts. Hiding her hands came first. She tugged the right one on over her scabbed palm, making sure that all of her webbing was covered.

She was donning the other when Carlos, the first footman, leaned over the rail that led down to the coal room stairs. “Miss Paredes? Are you still hiding down there?”

Oriana clutched both hands to her chest, her heart slamming against her ribs. She took a deep breath and rose unsteadily, grasping the rail with her left hand. “Yes, I’m here.”

He came a few steps down, not crowding her. “The dragon won’t be awake for hours, so Arenas won’t notice if I’m missing for a few minutes.” He held out a napkin-wrapped offering in one hand. “Were you serious about Isabel being grabbed?”

Oriana took the napkin. It held a croissant, a rare show of kindness from Carlos. She wasn’t starving yet, so she tucked it into the mouth of her portmanteau. “Thank you. Yes. I fear something terrible has happened.”

Carlos nodded. “Efisio’s driver came by here just a few minutes ago. He said he was supposed to pick up the two of you last night. They drove around and around but they never saw you.”

Of course the driver would have missed Isabel! “Has anyone told Lady Amaral that?”

“Wake the dragon?” Carlos laughed shortly. “Not after the way she treated you last night.”

It had been a terrible display of temper on Lady Amaral’s part. Oriana didn’t want to relive it again. “There was a coach at the end of the alley,” she told Carlos. “We thought it was Mr. Efisio’s. They took us. They drugged us and threw me into the river, but Isabel . . .” She shrugged, not wanting to lie outright.

Carlos nodded, his lips pursed. “I’ll be changing my bets, then.”

What did he mean by that? “Bets?”

“On whether they’ll get married or not,” Carlos clarified, brushing a croissant crumb off his black sleeve with white-gloved fingers.

Oriana felt a flare of anger. Carlos didn’t care about Isabel—or her. He just wanted to make certain he didn’t lose money on a bet.

“You can’t stay here,” Carlos added, glancing pointedly down at the two bags near her feet. “Arenas will find you for sure. Do you have somewhere to go?”

There were places she could go, but Oriana didn’t know if she’d be welcome in any of them. She could go to her master, Heriberto, but if she went to see him, he might order her back to the islands and she wouldn’t be able to pursue Isabel’s murderer. She could try one of the sereia who lived here in the Golden City, the exiles, but as they’d been banished by the very government she represented, they had no reason to help her. She doubted any of them would, not even her father. In any case, contact with the exiles was strictly forbidden by the ministry.

She raised her chin. “I’ll think of something,” she told Carlos.

He fished a slip of paper out of a pocket and passed it to her. “My grandmother’s sister rents rooms. Tell her you know me, and she’ll give you a good rate.”