Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(73)
“I don’t know,” he says, eyes flicking to where my gloved hand is. “Justice Méndez said to watch over you. He detests festivities.”
“Please,” I say. How can a single word sound so sad? I didn’t know Constantino, but he could have easily been me.
“One hour,” Leo says, holding up a single finger. “And then I’m marching you up here myself.”
Overcome with excitement, I throw my arms around his neck. He chuckles lightly, but the hug he gives me is comforting. I have missed being held this way, even if it’s by a friend.
Not your friend, my mind admonishes.
As we continue the routine I’ve been cultivating, I remind myself that friends don’t use each other the way I’m using Leo.
The courtyard is teeming with people. There’s music. Bodies pressed so tight they look like the ripples of a wave.
“One hour,” Leo reminds me, raking his fingers through his hair. “Don’t make me come get you. I’m a dignified attendant, not a nursemaid.”
When he leaves to sidle up to a handsome young guard, Claudia appears beside me and rests an elbow on my shoulder. “Aren’t attendant and nursemaid the same thing?”
I laugh and take the clay cup of wine she offers me. It’s sweeter than the dry vintage Justice Méndez pours from a glass decanter during dinner. I lick my lips and scan the dancing crowd. Everyone from scullery maids to kitchen hands to farm boys bring the courtyard to life. Girls in long white dresses spin, their hems billowing with every twirl. I recognize a surly-faced guard playing guitar beside a man who slaps beefy hands on percussions. Fire pits roar incandescent flames against the surrounding blue stones.
“I don’t understand the occasion,” I say to Claudia.
“The half-moon is as good a time as any,” she says. “This week leading up to the Sun Festival is going to be brutal on us. It was Queen Penelope who began the tradition of letting the staff have their own celebration. She said it would boost productivity.”
Bringing my clay cup to my lips, I hide what I want to say. We celebrated events in ángeles. Unions, births, even deaths. But we did it together.
“Thanks for inviting me,” I say. “Where are the others? Davida and Jacinta?”
Claudia’s cheeks are pink from the heat and wine. “Davida likes to listen to the music from the kitchen. She peels potatoes while she pines for Hector. I tell you what—”
I sense her ramblings beginning. “And Jacinta?”
“Probably asleep in the laundry room,” she says. Then adds, “Wrapped in the prince’s sheets, I’d wager.”
I grimace, hold up my empty cup, and say, “I’m going to get a refill!”
But Claudia is already threading her body into the needle of the crowd. I snag two cups and stop by the kitchens. Davida is there, tapping her foot, working her way through a mound of potatoes. I set a clay cup in front of her. She presses her hand to her chin and pushes it outward. There were some Whispers who couldn’t speak and communicated with their hands. We’re all taught the basics from a young age. I wish her a good night, then make for the laundry room.
I open three doors and find bags of potatoes, crates of root vegetables, barrels of wheat and grain with the Fajardo seal burned onto the wood. Another room has jars of oils and olives. The last storage I try smells strongly of soap. Towels and sheets are folded neatly in stacks. There, on a pile of half-folded laundry, is Jacinta sleeping in the center like a baby bird.
Her mouth is slightly ajar, a whistling sound coming from her nose. Something twists in the pit of my stomach as I approach her. I pause. How would I feel if I woke to a strange girl, a girl said to possess the murderous power I do, standing over me?
I turn and walk away. But only for a moment. I take off my alman stone completely and pocket it, covering my tracks. I have to get this memory.
I have to.
I fix my fingers into stillness and press them to her temple. She doesn’t rouse, only wheezes. The whorls of my fingertips come alight with my power, and then I’m wading through her past, searching.
Jacinta gathers her skirts and runs. Her nerves twist as she hurries into Prince Castian’s apartments. Everyone knows the prince doesn’t like his servants seen, and with her sweaty pink face and slippers dusted in the white clay of the courtyard, she is most certainly visible.
She pulls on the door and weaves through his strange rooms. How can someone as bright as Lady Nuria spend her days in this miserable place? The royal mausoleums have more mirth. Well, now the lady won’t have to . . .
Jacinta’s eyes adjust to the dimly lit living room. The curtains are shut, and there are two oil lamps on the parlor table. Their hazy yellowed light makes the tapestries hanging on the walls appear to be moving: Stallions saddled by men at war. Ships breaking through waves.
Her cheeks burn at the sight of a lady’s glove on the prince’s plush couch. Two glasses on the table with a dozen bottles of wine and aguadulce knocked over. The stench of liquor hits her on her next step, and that’s when she sees the pile of clothes. Definitely more than one lady was here—though surely no ladies at all. The girls in the laundry will never believe her when she tells them of this.
Jacinta freezes at a flurry of movement. There he stands at the doorway to his bedroom. Prince Castian pulls his robe over nothing at all. His taut muscles flex as he staggers and grabs for another bottle on the parlor table. She can see the moon-shaped scar left behind by that monstrous Moria. Though she’d never admit it makes him even more beautiful.