“Where are we going?” she asked as they plunged into the woods.
“To Madrid. To the widow. She leaves for Valencia
tonight. I can bribe Víctor’s men to take you too.” He didn’t know if this was true. He’d tried to act against Víctor before and it had never worked.
But perhaps it would be better for his master’s fortunes if Luzia wasn’t discovered or questioned. If that was the case, then Santángel would be free to help her, as he should have helped her before. “I’ll get you to Valencia
somehow.” He had to believe he could.
He set his mind to the task ahead, trying to plan, sorting through his
connections and spies, who would require bribes or favors. He didn’t want to think on how badly he had blundered. He’d thought he would have more time to make his choices, to untangle this mess. Would he have told her the truth? Or would he have continued on—selfish, hopeless, made careless by desire until the trap closed around them?
Antonio Pérez had turned all of them into players in his great farce, and Santángel had been too busy falling in love like an untried youth to see it coming. He should have known better when Pérez had claimed the king had demanded a third trial. It was Pérez who must have insisted, and pleaded with his ruler for this last chance. He had known the king wouldn’t
welcome him to El Escorial and that he would never set foot at La Casilla— the home that had been as good as a prison to Pérez since he’d fallen out of favor. The precise location of the third trial had been of no consequence— so long as he would finally be free to make his escape.
Had Pérez still hoped the king might forgive him, that he might regain the glory he had lost? Had that hope died when his rival had exited the
coach? Or had he already known that flight was his only option?
“Keep your head down,” he instructed, nudging their mount on as fast as he dared, dodging branches and praying the horse wouldn’t put a foot wrong. She is fragile, he reminded himself. No matter her gifts, she is mortal. She does not have a thousand lives to waste.
Luzia and Donadei had provided the perfect distraction as Pérez fled through the cover of the woods. Not just a competition but a battle, a
spectacle to snare the attention of Vázquez and his guards. And Luzia might well be blamed for it.
Santángel needed a plan that would benefit Víctor, even if Víctor would punish him for it. If not for his curse, he could ride straight to Valencia with her, see Luzia safely onto a ship. But the port was several days away. He would burn to ash when morning came, and then Luzia would be stranded without allies or protection. He had to find someone he could trust to shelter her, to get her out of the country.
“Ahead!” Luzia cried.
Two soldiers on horseback had emerged from the woods to block their path.
“Hold on tightly,” he commanded, ready to charge, but then he heard Luzia whispering, and the woods sprang up in a tangled snarl around the men, forming a barrier, closing them off from the rest of the wood.
He tugged at the reins, urging their mount west toward a clearing, away from the morning sun. They would keep out of sight of the road and make their way back to the city to shelter until nightfall.
He sensed the other soldiers following before he saw them. Santángel’s gift for stealth had served Víctor well, his understanding of the way threats moved through the world. He knew instantly that together they would never make it out of the woods, never reach Madrid. But he could create a distraction.
“You’ll have to ride without me,” he said, wheeling the horse around, so that he could sight the soldiers more easily through the trees. “I need you to make it to the city. Go to the church of San Sebastián. I have friends there. I’ll lead the soldiers—”
He had no chance to finish before the arrows flew. He covered her body with his, felt the steel tips pierce his back like bolts of fire. His horse whinnied in distress, rearing up as it was hit too. If it fell it would crush them both.
Santángel forced himself to ignore the pain in his back and leapt free, taking Luzia with him. He hit the ground with her beneath him and struggled to protect her body from any stray hoof, but the horse was already crashing through the trees and away from them, wild in its panic.
He fought to breathe. One of the arrows had pierced his right lung and every attempt to draw air was a jagged stutter. Soon his lungs would start to fill with blood. He needed to remove the arrows before his body tried to heal around them.
“Luzia, close off the clearing,” he gritted out, each word an agony.
He heard her whisper, heard men shouting to one another as the woods closed in. His own vision was fading.
He gave his head a shake. He needed to stay awake. “You’re not hurt?” he managed.
“I’m fine,” she said, though her face was full of fear. “Let me heal you.” “There’s no time. You must run. Make a path through the woods and
close it off behind you.” “I’m not leaving you.”
“I cannot die, but you can. Get to San Sebastián. I’ll find you. Please, if you value your life as I do, go. Trust me to meet you. Trust me to survive as I trust you to do the same.”
“Santángel—”
“I have begged for nothing in this life, but I am begging you now, Luzia.
Go.”
She pressed a kiss to his lips and ran.
Valentina didn’t understand what was happening. One moment she was watching the Prince of Olives build a ship of war and cursing herself for encouraging Luzia to court his friendship. The next Vázquez was shouting and the king’s soldiers were moving to block the road that led away from the lake.
“Where is the worm Pérez?” Vázquez howled, storming off the stage.
Valentina couldn’t see Don Antonio in the crowd, nor his red-bearded courtier, nor his liveried guards.
“What is this?” Marius asked. “Where is he?”
“He has fled,” Don Víctor snapped, “and we have all helped him do it.”
Valentina wanted to ask a thousand questions. Why would Pérez choose this moment to flee? Had he planned this from the start? How far could he hope to get when the king’s authority stretched across Castile, Valencia,
Portugal? His forces were everywhere.
“Where can he go? Why would he do something so rash?”
“He will go to Aragón,” said Don Víctor, “where Philip’s authority is weakest. Where the hell is my familiar?”
Did he mean Santángel? And where was Luzia? The Prince of Olives was wading through the water as Doña Beatriz stood at the shore, begging the
soldiers to help retrieve him from the lake. The surface was cluttered with broken boards; no remnant of Luzia’s cross or Donadei’s galleon remained.
It all seemed silly now, as people pushed and shoved around them, some of them fleeing into the woods, others trying to speak to Vázquez or arguing with his soldiers, insisting they be allowed to leave.
“What do we do?” Valentina asked. “Will we be arrested?” But Don Víctor was already striding toward his coach.
“Will you not help us back to Madrid?” Marius demanded.
“Find your own way,” said Don Víctor. “Our partnership is at an end.” “Damn him to hell.” Then Marius’s eyes alighted on Doña Beatriz’s
cinnamon mare. “Come along.” “We cannot—”
“Come along.”
“We’ll be thieves!”
“We’ll be free. Look.” He bobbed his head to where Santángel was disappearing into the woods, Luzia bundled between his arms. “He will know the way to safety.”
He dragged Valentina to where one of Doña Beatriz’s men stood watch over her horse.
“Doña Beatriz is returning to the city in Víctor de Paredes’s coach,” Marius declared. “We are to take her horse.”
“I’m not certain—”
Marius seized the reins. “I don’t require your certainty.” Before the groom could protest, he’d mounted in a single fluid movement and offered Valentina his hand. For all his talk of horses, she had never been with him to ride and it had never really occurred to her that he would be a gifted horseman.
“Help her,” Marius demanded, and the groom lifted Valentina up to him, depositing her between his arms like a sack of millet.
She had a bare moment to catch her breath, and then they were moving through the trees. “We’re Luzia’s patrons,” Valentina said as she tried to shift her position to ease the jabbing of her corset. “If they want to question us, they will.”
“Then let them come to our home and question us there. I won’t be taken to prison while Víctor de Paredes sits comfortably in his palace.”
He kicked the horse into a trot, trailing after Luzia and Santángel. But Valentina could hear other hoofbeats, men shouting ahead.
“They’re being pursued,” she gasped out, her voice trembling. “There are soldiers in the woods.”
She heard the high whinny of a horse and then the path before them seemed to vanish, the brambles and branches forming a wall.
Marius yanked on the reins and the mare shinnied backward, feet dancing. But he soothed her easily. He slid from the horse and pressed a finger to his lips. Valentina nodded.
Slowly, he led them around the clearing, following the bramble wall. “There,” Valentina whispered.
They had circled to the far side and through the branches she could see Santángel propped on his elbow, arrows jutting from his back. Luzia was on her knees, tears on her face, her dress covered in blood.
“He is injured!” Valentina cried. But Marius cut his hand through the air, demanding silence.
She could hear Santángel gasping for breath. “Go,” he told Luzia. “If you value your life as I do.”
She slid down from the saddle, struggling to keep her feet.
“Help them,” she whispered furiously. “Luzia won’t stand a chance on foot. Give her your horse.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Maybe she had, but she could see the love and fear in Santángel’s eyes. He wasn’t afraid for himself, but for the woman he loved. Demon he might be but he was trying to save her.
“I’m not leaving you,” Luzia wept, her voice raw and red, a new burn. Valentina didn’t care anymore that she had lived a life without love. She wanted only to know that it existed in the world and could be saved.
“Help them, Marius. I am begging you. If you ever cared for me at all, help them.”
Marius opened his mouth, closed it. “Do not ask this of me.” “What have I ever asked of you?”
She heard men calling to one another, footsteps moving through the brush. Luzia stumbled through a path she’d opened between the trees. Her eyes were frantic, her hair full of leaves, her cheeks laced with narrow cuts where she’d been stung by branches.
“Give her your horse, Marius.” Valentina was begging now, and she wasn’t sure what she was begging for. For Luzia? For herself? That there was more to Marius than a man who liked fine ponies and good food? Who was only kind when life was easy?
Luzia’s gaze focused on Valentina, then Marius. “Marius,” Valentina pleaded.
He gave a single stubborn shake of his head.
Luzia turned her back on them and plunged into the woods, the branches closing behind her.
Maybe she would escape. Maybe she didn’t need the horse at all. Maybe her gifts were greater than the king’s men or Marius’s cowardice.
Valentina held to that hope as they stood silent between the trees, even when she heard the angry shouts of men in pursuit, even when Luzia began to scream.
