Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(37)
“Thank you,” I say. “For this, and for helping me.”
“I’m here for Dez, not for you,” she says. “Though I’ll admit I was impressed.”
“Why?” I’m too tired to laugh, so it comes out as a huff.
“From our lessons, I’ve always thought of you as Illan’s pet. I never thought you’d defy him.”
“Not my fault I’m his most clever pupil.”
“Obedient is not the same as clever,” she says with a smirk. I realize it’s not for my benefit but for the guards changing stations.
In their dark purple-and-brown leather uniforms, they remind me of the men in the forest. The one Margo blinded and the one Dez killed.
We enter the open city gates in silence. Esteban and Sayida keep their distance so as not to draw attention to our group, but we try to remain in one another’s sight.
The capital has a way of making you feel like you’re adrift at sea. There are commotions everywhere. Loud voices shout out the price specials for bright green tomatillos, and dairy farmers offer samplings of salty, stinky cheeses. Vintners from the southwest of the kingdom sell their products by the barrel while wealthy merchant women stroll in high-heeled boots so as not to dirty their fine silk dresses with the sludge that dots every street corner and fills the empty spaces between the cobblestones.
At one point, a child as tall as my knee brushes against me, and I look down in time to see a hand dip into my pocket.
“Hey!” I say, but before I can do anything, the girl darts away, disappearing immediately into the crowd.
“She must be training,” Esteban whispers, coming up beside me. “It’s clear from our footwear that our pockets are probably empty.”
“Training?” I ask.
Esteban shoves his hands in his pockets, flashing an easy smile like we’re two friends at a market. “When you’re small like that, you usually practice on the people who look just as poor as you. That way if you’re caught, you know they’re too poor to bribe the citadela guard to help them.”
I look at him in surprise. “How do you know this?”
“I was the best pickpocket in Crescenti,” he says, his white smile breaking across his brown skin. I can’t remember the last time he smiled at me so often. “Folks were so used to looking away from the poor they didn’t even notice they’d been robbed blind.”
“I didn’t know you lived on the streets,” I say.
“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.” Esteban picks up a ripe peach from a vendor and throws a pesito in his direction. The sweetness of the fruit’s scent mingles with the smells of the sizzling fried pork belly being readied for the afternoon crowds, the black café beans roasting in a large metal container, and the sewer water that runs in a river along the sidewalks.
“How are we supposed to get to the palace gate?” Margo asks as she sidles up beside me. She pulls out her handkerchief and dabs the sweat on her face.
Sayida and Esteban keep walking to the café vendor. She loops her arm around his to make them look like a couple. She buys two cups, and I don’t miss Esteban’s frown as he empties his wallet.
I take Margo’s hand in mine and point to the cathedral. There are so many bodies gathering for the Holy Day service that they block the paths. Leaflets flutter in the breeze and litter the sidewalks, advertising everything from weddings to the justice’s orders.
“There’s an entrance from within the cathedral that leads to the dungeons.”
Behind me, Sayida inspects her reflection at a stand of hand mirrors. She tilts one this way and that while Esteban holds the two paper cups of steaming café. To a casual onlooker, she looks like a vain farm girl, though even with her dust-covered clothes her features are breathtaking. But her black tourmaline eyes don’t fall on her reflection. Instead, they watch the alley directly behind her. Lowering the mirror, she leans in to the hairy vendor.
“Where is everyone going?” she asks sweetly, with a flutter of silky black lashes.
“The execution square,” the vendor says, leering at Sayida, who tenses just as I do. Margo and I exchange wary glances. “A pretty thing like you don’t need to see such a thing. You can wait right here till the crowds settle.” He pats his thigh and cocks a lascivious smirk.
Sayida sets down the mirror, hard enough to crack it, then stomps away into the alley while he’s too stunned to react. I grab her hand and we fold into the swell of people entering the market. As the vendor searches the rising tide of bodies for a guard, we slip away.
“The execution square,” I say, stopping at the mouth of an alley. I press my hands against my stomach to stop them from trembling. Behind me, rodents scavenge through piles of garbage and the hot smell of urine clings to the air.
“I thought—” Margo starts, but doesn’t finish what we all believed. The execution is supposed to happen tomorrow at dawn, not today.
Sayida looks grim, her eyes drawn to a rustle of parchment on her boot. A leaflet, the bottom half wet with sewer water.
I snatch the parchment from her hand, stained with oil and dirt, and there’s a crude drawing of a man with demon eyes and long fangs. At the top, there is a title: Príncipe Dorado Slays the Moria Bestae.
Skimming down the print, I realize it is an execution rhyme. The words jumble together, refusing to form sentences because all I can see is one name repeated over and over again in the ballad: Dez de Martín.