Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(58)
“Fine, Leonardo.”
He gives me a small bow. A warm, devastating smile. “You can call me Leo.”
I keep my eye on the sun traveling across the sky while Leo works to ready me for an audience with King Fernando. There are pots of powders and glistening liquids that make my cheeks rouged and lips blushed. He finishes it all by spraying a pungent perfume that reminds me of bitter oranges. The nobles pay a high price for these scents, imitations of a world they experience at a distance, but one I know all too well. It makes me miss the fields behind the cloisters. The smell of earth in the hot springs. Dirt under my fingernails. The forest before and after the rain. Grass on sweet, sweaty skin.
“There we are,” he says, most pleased with himself.
Who are you? I want to ask the reflection looking back at me. She’s cleaner, more polished than I’ve been in years. The silk skirt ripples on the ground like the ruby lake in the middle of Citadela Tresoros. The red corset makes me look longer and digs into my ribs. The black velvet cloak feels like wings at my back.
“Do you like it?” Leo asks from behind me, smoothing out a wrinkle.
I meet his eyes in the mirror. Leo’s thick lashes seem impossibly long and dark, and there’s a slight flutter there. Why would he care if I like it or not?
When I don’t say anything, Leo continues, “I’ve highlighted your best features to please the king and the justice.”
He is very good at filling the air with his words. I bet he can make anyone feel at ease. He and Dez would have been fast friends. I panic at the thought of Dez, fearing it’ll make me spiral again.
And for that reason, I ask, “And what, pray tell, are my best features?”
“It’s hard to choose,” Leo says, without a trace of irony. “You’re tall but too bony to be in fashion at court. Justice Méndez says the wretches who kidnapped you starved you. If I were writing you for a play—”
“Are you a scribe, then?”
“I was a stage actor. But don’t interrupt me while I’m being brilliant. I’ve turned you into the Maiden Cuerva, who flew on black wings over Mountain Andalucía to guard the kingdom.”
I know this story a little differently. For the Moria, the Maiden Cuerva was a guardian of the underworld. She carried the souls of the dead to rest. A troubled feeling stirs in my stomach. He’s too friendly to someone like me. He keeps talking about birds. Could he be Illan’s Magpie?
“I thought that myth was not allowed to be performed?” I say, and meet his eyes in the mirror.
He gives me an easy smile. “What could be harmful about an opera? It was performed in front of the king himself. As I was saying. You’d be the Maiden Cuerva. The thing about you—well, really everything about you is so dark. The way you stare at people, your eyes, your hair. Someone else would have put you in something bright and garish to hide the very thing that makes you you.”
It’s a good answer. Almost too prepared. I make a mental note to be aware around Leo. “I’m not sure if you’re insulting me or complimenting me.”
“You’d know if I were insulting you. Now, for your hair.”
Sitting in front of a vanity mirror in the dressing room is strange. Everything here seems designed to be pleasant to look at, delicate. I only see it as breakable. Glass boxes filled with oils and lotions and soaps rendered to pearlescent liquid forms. He brushes my tangled black mane and I frown every time he hits a snag. He braids a crown around my head and dabs oils in my hair to smooth the waves into curls over my shoulders.
When he’s finished, Leo sifts through the drawers until he finally pulls out a tray of sparkling baubles.
My fingers reach for a bright hairpin. The flowers are wide and red, made of a thick silk meant to imitate the real things, with yellow beads woven at the center. It’s eye-catching, but I’m more focused on the steel clip it’s sewn to. I press the end of it on my leather glove, feel the metal end, sharp enough that it could rip through the fabric and follow through into my finger.
“This one?” I ask.
Leo looks away from the tray of jeweled combs. “You don’t want to wear that. Those are last season. This season, it’s all crystal gems and pearls.”
“I don’t care about court fashions. I haven’t worn a dress since I was nine. Are you sure I can’t wear trousers? I thought they were becoming more fashionable.”
In the mirror, I see Leo duck his head. “The king prefers his ladies to wear dresses befitting their stations.”
“And did the king outlaw flower hairpins?”
Leo stares at me and then bursts into laughter. I’m oddly proud that I’ve made this boy of light and song laugh. A terrible pang hits me when I think about how much he resembles Sayida.
“Fair enough, Miss Renata,” he says, and fastens the flower clasp on the right side of my hair, nestling into the intricate braid of loops and curls. His smile broadens in the mirror, and he pushes my hair over my shoulders.
“Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”
I let myself smile back, but it feels empty. I don’t need hope. When the time is right, I need true aim, and the strength to drive this pin through Prince Castian’s heart.
The palace in Andalucía is said to have been King Fernando’s greatest creation. Four towers that glimmer in the distance like jewels. Each one ends in a point, as if to show how close to the Six Heavens the king is. The palace can be seen from miles away. The four towers connected by sky bridges. Eight years ago, half of it was burned to the ground during the siege of the Moria and the days following the Whispers’ Rebellion. They failed to defeat King Fernando, swinging for a deathblow but only putting a nick in the man’s armor. Still, they managed to free prisoners in the dungeons and rescue me along with a couple of others.