Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(11)

“It’s kind of you to give it her,” Indio said, stroking Daffodil’s head. “D’you… do you like dogs?”

Apollo glanced at him. The boy was staring up at him hopefully and for the first time Apollo noticed that his eyes were of different colors: the right blue, the left green. He turned away to stuff the bit of cloth back into his bag.

“Uncle Edwin gived me Daffodil. He won her in a game of cards. Mama says a puppy is a silly thing to wager for. Daff’s an Italian greyhound, but she didn’t come from Italy. Mama says Italians like skinny little dogs. I named her Daffodil because that’s my favorite flower and the prettiest. She doesn’t know to mind,” Indio said sadly as Apollo rose.

Daffodil wriggled and the boy set her cautiously on the ground. The greyhound struggled from the folds of the shirt, shook herself, and then squatted, watering the ground—and a corner of the shirt.

Apollo sighed. He really was going to have to wash that shirt.

Indio sighed as well. “Mama says I ought to train her to sit and beg and most ’portantly come when we call her, but”—he took a deep breath—“I don’t know how to.”

Apollo bit his lip to keep down a smile. It was too bad that he’d already fed all the scraps to the dog. He glanced at the boy.

Indio was staring at him frankly. “My name’s Indio. I live in the old theater.” He pointed in the direction of the theater with a straight arm. “My mama lives there and Maude, too. She’s a famous actress, my mama, that is. Maude’s our maidservant.” He chewed on one lip. “Can you speak?”

Apollo shook his head slowly.

“I thought not.” Indio dug into the mud with the toe of one boot, frowning down. “What’s your name?”

Well, he couldn’t answer that, could he? Time he was back at work, anyway. Apollo reached for his adze, half expecting the boy to run away at his movement.

But Indio simply stepped back out of his way, watching with interest. Daffodil had wandered several feet away and was now digging energetically in the mud.

He was wet and chilled from the air, but work would soon fix that. Apollo took another swing at the tree stump, hitting it with a thwock!

“I’ll call you Caliban,” Indio said as Apollo lifted the adze again.

Apollo turned and stared.

Indio smiled tentatively. “It’s from a play. There’s a wizard who lives on a island and it’s all over wild. Caliban lives there, though he can speak. But he’s big like you, so I thought… Caliban.”

Apollo was still staring helplessly at the boy through this explanation. Daffodil had paused to sneeze and glance at them. Her nose was adorned with a clot of mud.

There were dozens of reasons to refuse the boy. Apollo was in hiding, a price on his head, wanted for the most awful of crimes. The boy’s mother had already made plain that she wanted him nowhere near her son. And what did he have to offer the boy after all, mute and overworked and on the run?

But Indio smiled up at him with mismatched eyes and cheeks made red from the wind, and an air of sweet hope that was simply impossible to refuse. Somehow, against his better judgment, Apollo found himself nodding.

Caliban. The illiterate knave from The Tempest. Well, he supposed he could’ve done worse.

Indio might’ve chosen A Midsummer Night’s Dream—and named him Bottom.

Chapter Three

The black bull was without mark, both beautiful and terrible, and it opened its jaws and spoke in the language of men: “You have overthrown my island, but I will have my price.”

When the king awoke he marveled on the oddity of his dream, but thought no more of it…

—From The Minotaur

“Indio!”

Lily paused and glanced around the blackened garden an hour later. She hated to keep Indio locked inside the old theater, but she was going to have to if he insisted on disappearing like this. The sun would soon be setting. The garden held all manner of dangers for a little boy—and that was without the interest the duke had shown her son yesterday afternoon. Lily hadn’t liked that comment Montgomery had made about Indio’s eyes.

Not at all.

A sense of urgency made her cup her hands around her mouth to shout again. “Indio!”

Oh, let Indio be safe. Let him return to her, happy and laughing and covered in mud.

Lily trudged onward toward the pond. Funny how she’d learned to pray again when she’d become a mother so suddenly. For years she’d never thought of Providence. And then she’d found herself whispering beneath her breath at different, frightening points in Indio’s short life:

Let the fever break.

Don’t let the fall be fatal.

Thank you, thank you, for making the horse swerve aside.

Not the pox. Anything but the pox.

Oh, dear God, don’t let him be lost.

Not lost. Not my brave little man. My Indio.

Lily’s steps quickened until she found herself almost running through the charred brambles, the clutching branches. She’d never let him out again when she found him. She’d fall to her knees and hug him when she found him. She’d spank him and send him to bed without his supper when she found him.

She was panting as the path widened and she came to the clearing by the pond. She opened her mouth to call yet again.

But she was struck dumb instead.