hiss.
“We can bide a few breaths here, gal, as long as we bide quiet-like. The maku soldiers cannot venture any deeper into the cave. ’Tis a small reward to ask that yee kiss me, don’ yee reckon?” he murmured in Vai’s coaxing voice. His lips brushed my mouth.
I stiffened my entire body, as Vai had done when my sire had teased him with my form in the coach. “I don’t reckon. Not with my brother and cousin right next to me! And the cacica’s head in the basket.”
“She cannot see with the basket closed up tight, can she?”
“They warned me that opia are dangerous spirits. Why do you appear to me as my husband?”
“Because it vex yee,” he whispered, laughter in his tone. “And I like yee when yee is vexed.”
A little stab of laughter shook me. “Who are you?”
He rubbed his cheek against mine, the bristle of beard making me shiver. “Just one kiss like that one yee gave me in yee room in Expedition, when yee thought I was him. Don’ yee think yee owe me?”
“You haven’t gotten us to Europa yet.”
“For the chance of it, gal.”
“Let me see the face you wore when you were a living man.”
He chuckled. “I like the stubborn way yee never give up.”
Blessed Tanit, but I took the chance of it. Rory didn’t care, the cacica’s head was safe in the basket, and it was too dark for Bee to see anything. I pressed my mouth to his. For a single searing kiss, I pretended I was holding Vai. It was a good kiss, strong and sweet.
“Cat, where are you? What is going on?” Bee’s hand brushed my shoulder like the flutter of a feather across my skin. Her fingers dug into my upper arm. “
His hand slid down my arm and caught hold of my fingers as he stepped back.
“Cat, there is someone else here with us,” Bee said ominously.
“He’s an opia. He’s helping us so we can do something for him. Help me carry the chest.” I hoisted one end of the chest by its rope handle. “It was very clever of you to bring the chest, Bee.”
“Cleverness had nothing to do with it. It was pure desperation. I’d already hidden the other two when Drake caught me with this one. The moment he saw Andevai’s dash jackets, I saw murder in his eyes. Sartorial murder. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that expensive fabric and fine tailoring blazing into ash.”
“How came you to have all our gear?”
“I got all three chests from Lucretia before I left for Sharagua. I told her I would deliver them to you. Gracious Melqart, Cat. I must ask, how many fashionable dash jackets can one man own?”
“I haven’t yet had the leisure to make an accounting!”
We moved deeper into the night of the spirit world. Vast roots tangled around us.
“By the way, I’m sorry to mention it, but General Camjiata took your father’s journals.”
This newest betrayal scarcely scratched my already jangling nerves. “Of course he would! At least I know he’ll keep them safe.”
“We need to go quiet here,” murmured the opia as we began to descend. “For I would not want any to hear me who might put a stop to the business we’s about.”
“Shh,” I said to Bee. My breathing grew ragged as we made our way down within the tree, for I both hoped and feared that I would again grasp the latch and see into the coach where Vai was my sire’s prisoner. But all we did was descend step by step, me holding the opia’s hand as he guided us and Bee linked to me by the chest. Rory padded at the rear.
I smelled the mire of earth and heard the moan of a conch shell being blown. I heard the thump and patter of batey and the cheering shouts of the crowd as one of the players scored. Yet we did not walk into the ceremonial plaza where I had been before.
Down we went and down farther yet, past the charcoal scent of a cook fire and a smell of pepperpot that made me lick my lips with hunger. Rory gave a rumble of displeasure, reminding me that he was hungry, too.
“Don’ stop.” The opia fastened his fingers tightly to mine. “We shall go deeper, into the realm of the old ones that lie below all.”
“What is that voice? Where are we going?” Bee whispered.
I had no words with which to answer her. The black void around us was impenetrable. Warm water tickled over my sandaled feet and streamed off. A salty wind with a bellows’ breath hissed against my face like the exhalation of a beast so huge it cannot be seen or touched.
Was this what it meant to crawl into the maw of Leviathan?
I felt as if the gullet of a beast were squeezing around me. Sand filtered into my eyes. I blinked, trying to wet away its scrape.
Beneath my sandals the ground crunched. Glimmers of light shot through the earth like sparks strewn through sand. The walls took on an amber gleam. Rory loped ahead toward a low cave mouth. The shush and sough of a stormy sea sounded from outside. But I did not taste the salt of the ocean. Instead, when I licked my lips, I swallowed smoke.
The opia stopped.
Bee and I set down the chest.
She stared at him. “Blessed Tanit! He looks exactly like Andevai!”
He looked her up and down in a way Vai had never once examined her. A sting of jealousy made my heart flame, for unlike every other man I had ever met, Andevai had never shown the least partiality for Bee, not as all the rest did the moment they laid eyes on her voluptuous beauty.
“’Tis a shame I can go no farther and thereby get to know yee better, dream walker,” he said to Bee. “Ask from the old ones that which they owe to yee.”
“Where are we?” I whispered, for I was afraid.
“We have reached the Great Smoke, where the old ones bide. In the mortal world, in the language spoken in Expedition, it is called the ocean.”
“Have you tricked us? We have no ship on which to sail the ocean.”
“’Tis no trick, for here in the spirit world, it have a different substance,” he said in another man’s voice.
We looked onto the face of a man I had never before met. He was Taino through and through, no mixed- race Expeditioner. He had the long black hair and regular features typical of the Taino. His commanding gaze had a hard measure, but a softness in the line of his mouth suggested that kisses pleased him. He was older than I expected, about the same age as the Europan radical leader and pugilist Brennan Toure Du, whom I would have guessed to be in his mid-thirties, a man in his prime. He also looked vaguely familiar.
“Have we met before?”
“We have not. Yee killed me before we had that chance.”
“I did not kill you! You aren’t one of the salters I killed on Salt Island…” I trailed off, watching the promise of his mouth tighten to disapproval.
“I’ve seen you!” cried Bee. “I met you, the first time I went to Sharagua! But you’re dead!”
Had the sun come up at that moment, I would have said that dawn broke upon me. “You’re the cacique! Queen Anacaona’s brother, the one she was keeping alive. You’re Caonabo and Haubey’s uncle.”
The crow’s-feet at his eyes deepened as he smiled. “A smart gal, too.”
“No need to mock me. How comes it that you ruled the Taino kingdom and yet speak the language spoken in Expedition Territory, which is but a trifling place compared to the expanse of your noble and mighty empire?”
“Yee’s got a mouth on yee, gal, that do grate at times. Yet I reckon that man yee seek have the means to keep yee quiet when he get weary of yee talking. If those kisses was anything to go by.”
“A strong man does not need a silent wife,” I muttered as my face flamed.
“Kisses!” exclaimed Bee. “When was there kissing?
His grin had a taunting flavor. “I lived in Expedition as a lad for some years. It happen that me uncle, him who was cacique before me, favored a cousin as heir instead of me. Me sister Anacaona deemed it prudent to keep me out of sight while she played the music she needed to at court. When me cousin died, I was recalled.”
“You’re younger than Anacaona?”
“By fifteen years. She was the first child born to the honored mother who carried us, and I was the last. I reckon that is why she always thought she could give the orders. Here is what yee don’ know. Me sister and me
