For a moment, everything was still, as if the world had been snuffed out
like a flame. Then Luzia heard people calling to each other, shouting for help. The shine of candles appeared in the great house’s windows. Guards began to light torches.
Luzia slid down off the horse, happy to have her feet on the ground once more. Her dress was wet from the grass and she knew she was bleeding.
Her heart still sounded too loud in her chest and she kept her hand on the horse’s flank, steadying herself, waiting for something to leap out at her from the flickering shadows.
“The magic is undone,” said Santángel.
Sitting on his great black horse, he looked like some kind of wicked spirit, risen from the depths of hell. Perhaps all the stories were wrong and only the devil could best his demons. Except she was the one who had driven them out.
“They said I would face Satan himself,” she said. “This can’t have been part of the trial?”
“No. This was someone seizing an opportunity.”
“You there!” shouted a guard walking toward them, a torch held aloft. “Return to the palace. The hopefuls are to be confined to their quarters.”
“You must go,” said Santángel.
“Stay,” she whispered, terrified, and ashamed of that terror.
“I can’t go with you now. I need to learn what I can before anyone has had a chance to shape a convincing lie. If someone attempts to harm you, use the wall of thorns. They can defend you as easily as they did a wooden Christ.”
“It might kill someone.” “Good. I will come to you.” “Swear it.”
He looked down at her, his eyes glinting like coins. “This promise I can keep.”
Luzia nodded and he nudged the horse’s sides with his heels.
The guards had cleared a path to the doors near the eastern terrace.
Smoke still rose over remnants of the stage, and the platform where the holy men had been seated had collapsed completely, parts of it smashed to kindling. A horse lay on its side, its big body unmoving, its belly split by deep, bloody furrows that might have been claw marks. On the terrace, a man dressed in the cream livery of La Casilla sat, legs splayed out in front of him, eyes stunned and glassy. He’d lost one of his shoes and his left
sleeve had been torn almost completely off. There was a smear of blood across his forehead. From somewhere on the grounds she could hear shouting.
The guard tugged hard on her arm to keep her moving and she felt the words of the refrán tickling the roof of her mouth, but she forced herself to tamp down her fear. Someone was going to be blamed for the disaster of
this night, and she had no desire to earn more attention for herself. She let him drag her inside and up the stairs. She was cold now that some of her panic had receded, and her mind was trying to make sense of what she’d
seen. Her hands remembered the texture of the shadow on her fingers, how wrong it had felt, the misery and revulsion that had poured through her.
“Do not leave these rooms,” the guard said as he shoved her inside her chamber.
“For how long?”
“That is for Don Antonio to decide. Do not think to challenge him or you will enjoy the hospitality of a cell. Guards will be posted in the corridors.”
Luzia stood for a long moment staring at the door, wishing it had a lock, wishing she had more than scraps of power that had made their way to her in letters and songs. She wished she had a knife or any kind of weapon.
There was the magic that had killed Víctor’s bodyguard, but she had no idea how to recreate it, and whose fault was that? There are limits to the
impossible, Santángel had warned her. But why did there have to be?
“Concha?” she asked quietly, afraid to raise her voice. But she knew the girl wasn’t there. The room felt too empty, too silent.
Who had created those shadows? Who had controlled them? Could they slip through doors? Walk through walls? What if the devil really had come to La Casilla, not to be bested, but to brand them all as his creatures?
She was shivering now, her dress damp, her corset chafing beneath her arms. Her skirts were muddy and singed in places. She wanted to change, to be warm and dry, but she had no way out of her gown without another set of hands. Should she go looking for Valentina? For Hualit? What had happened to them? What had happened to the other competitors? A thousand questions, but the only one that mattered was What comes next?
She whispered to the coals in the brazier and they sparked to a glow. She could make fire leap. She could crack open a stone. Though she couldn’t multiply gold or rubies, she could make a mountain of beans or shoes or muskets.
But always she wanted more. She thought of Álvaro, lying split in two, and what it would have meant if she’d had one of the talismans Santángel had spoken of, if she could have swept herself out of that room and onto a ship or the top of a mountain or anywhere at all. A change of scene, a
change of fortune. She had almost died that day and still she wanted more.
The door opened and she nearly screamed. It was Santángel.
She didn’t bother to ask how he’d gotten past the guards. That was one of his gifts.
“Where is the maid?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Could something have happened to her?”
“Many of the servants went outside to watch the play earlier. Some are sheltering in the stables and outbuildings, but many fled.”
Luzia rubbed her hands over the heat of the coals. “I can hardly blame her. If I could run I would.”
Santángel walked to the window, though she knew there was little to see on the darkened grounds. “The Holy Child and the Prince of Olives have returned to their quarters with their patrons and attendants. Gracia de Valera has asked to leave the torneo.”
A wise choice. A competition plagued by blood and demons was not the place for matchmaking.
“What did I see tonight?” she asked. “Who has such power? Fortún said we were meant to face Satan himself, but—”
Santángel shook his head. “It’s shadow magic. I’ve seen it before. Maybe it’s the work of the devil, but if so he had some mortal help.”
“Gracia was almost killed.”
“I suspect that was the intention. No doubt you would have been blamed.”
She knew he was right as soon as he spoke the words. Gracia had tried to ruin Luzia’s first performance. Gracia’s guard had tried to kill her or at least take her out of the competition. Luzia had every reason to want to harm her.
“I would have to be a fool to attack her so publicly,” she protested. “And in front of an inquisitor!”
“Remember, they believe you are a scullion.”
“A stupid peasant incapable of scheming.” Luzia’s laugh was bitter. “Of all the things to doom me.”
“Your doom isn’t certain yet. Whoever managed this magic had
tremendous power, but lacked real skill or control. I highly doubt they had this outcome in mind.”
Luzia drew the chair from her dressing table closer to the fire and sat. Her legs could no longer support her. She was tired and cold and she’d never been more scared.
She kept her eyes on the coals and said, “When we were on your horse, I wanted you to keep riding. I wanted you to charge through the gates and onto the road. I didn’t want to come back.”
For a long moment she thought he would say nothing.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, as if he were confessing. “I thought the same thing,” he said. “I wondered how far we might go.”
