“Do you know why you’re here, Liliana?” the unseen woman—Reyna—asked.
The girl shrugged dismissively. “That woman’s done something wrong again.”
Joaquim felt a twinge of sorrow for Leandra. The girl had surely been trained to act that way, but it must sting, particularly considering all her mother had endured for her sake.
“What happens when she does something wrong?”
The girl tugged but wasn’t strong enough to escape the guard’s grasp.
Joaquim licked blood from his lips. Were they actually going to hurt her?
Piedad slipped off the gauntlet and dropped it on the floor. She moved to the girl’s side. “Usually I have your brother, but not today.”
And before Joaquim could protest, she backhanded the girl. Liliana screamed, her dark eyes wide with shock. Her cry sent chills down Joaquim’s spine; she already showed a hint of a sereia’s power. Free hand pressed to the side of her face, she huddled toward the guard who held her captive.
Piedad turned toward Leandra. “Now let us try again. Where is the book?”
“Stop this,” Joaquim said before she could strike the terrified girl again. What can I claim that won’t make us expendable? “She doesn’t know. Not any longer.”
But that caught Piedad’s attention. “And do you?”
“The Americans have it. They’re planning on using it to trade for prisoners.”
Leandra’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t know whether he was telling the truth, but his claim sounded plausible.
One of Piedad’s fingernails pricked under his chin, forcing his chin up. “Which prisoners?”
“Leandra and the girl, I think. I doubt they know you have me.”
Piedad’s eyes narrowed. “And why would the Americans want them?”
“Because that girl is William Adler’s daughter, and therefore an American citizen.” He had no idea if that last part was true, but he suspected they wouldn’t know either.
The girl cast a horrified glance at him, mouth agape, making Joaquim wonder if she’d ever heard her father’s name before. “I’m not webless,” she protested.
Ah, she’s upset that she’s half human. How could she not have known?
“Yes, you are,” Piedad said nastily. “Your mother always had poor taste.”
“Enough, Piedad,” the older woman said. “We have our answer. There’s no point in damaging them further.”
“Yes, Reyna,” Piedad said dutifully. She gestured toward the guard holding Liliana’s arm and he dragged her back out of the cell. “And get Prieto up here,” she called after him.
Joaquim heard the men’s footsteps retreat, leaving the prisoners alone with the two women. Piedad eyed him speculatively, as if she wanted to continue the beatings for her own enjoyment. There were people like that, who relished hurting others, some basic thread of humanity in them missing. Piedad might be young, but they’d probably noticed her penchant for violence early on. That made her a tool for the woman named Reyna. With one final—comparatively gentle—slap to Joaquim’s cheek, Piedad followed the men.
The other woman came closer and peered into Joaquim’s face, then began humming. She’d been beautiful when young, he could tell, and had resorted to cosmetics to maintain the image of youth. Too much rouge, and cherry-stained lips against papery-pale skin. He recognized the faint call woven into her tune. Its wispy touch wrapped around him, no more effective than the naval blockade had been. What is she trying to get me to do?
He listened closely to the tendrils of magic slipping past him, and felt the urge to lie down and sleep. Joaquim let his body go slack against the ropes that bound him, his aching head falling forward. It made the throbbing of his nose worse, but after a moment of shamming, the woman’s hum ceased. Joaquim stayed still.
“Odd that he looks so much like your son, Leandra, yet you deny he’s Alejandro’s father.”
The woman believed him asleep, a small victory.
“He’s far too young,” Leandra replied. “Perhaps this is one of his brothers.”
“And Liliana’s father is in Barcelona as well? I assume he was the blond fellow the Mossos beat up. Every time you leave this place you accumulate males willing to suffer for you.”
Leandra didn’t respond.
“Did you hope they would trade the book for you and your daughter?”
“I know better than to believe you’ll let me out of the Morra alive,” Leandra finally answered. “I want Liliana out.”
That wasn’t true, Joaquim realized. If she’d meant for someone to negotiate Liliana’s freedom, she would have given the book to Adler and told him the truth. The Americans had enough influence to sway the Spanish government. Instead Leandra had hidden the book and let the Mossos bring her back here. It was an effort to buy time, but for what?
“We are desperate,” Miss Prieto had said.
“Liliana is our future,” Reyna said. “It’s one thing to let little Alejandro slip away. He’s an aberración, not acceptable breeding stock. Liliana, on the other hand, is exactly what we need.”
Joaquim felt ill hearing children described as breeding stock.
“That man’s right,” Leandra responded. “The Americans are going to insist on her, not me. She’s one of their citizens. You’d be lucky to get the book in trade at all.”
“I will have it,” Reyna snapped.
“To force the islands to sell you more of us? Perhaps a few males as well? By now they have to have realized the promised Spanish takeover will never happen.”
Reyna laughed. “Minister Raposo is too afraid the book will reveal her willingness to betray her own kind for the mere promise of power. She will negotiate with me, to prevent her own downfall.” Joaquim heard her feet move farther away. “If his information turns out to be wrong,” she added, “we’ll have this conversation again.”
Then she retreated as well. After a moment passed in silence, Joaquim opened his eyes and lifted his head. The throbbing in his face ebbed. “Are you hurt?”
It was a foolish question. He had no doubt she was hurt.
“You’re awake?” Leandra asked, surprise in her soft voice. “You should sleep for hours.”
“My wife’s a sereia,” Joaquim said.
“Ah, I see. And you’ve met William Adler? Is he safe?”
“He was stabbed,” he admitted. “Whether he lives I have no idea.”
“Poor William,” she said softly. “You lied about the Americans trading for me, didn’t you?”
Could there be someone still listening to us? Joaquim chose his words carefully. “They may have the journal by now. They may not. You were correct, by the way. Alexandre Ferreira fathered me.”
Her face lifted, a blur in the dark. “You’re the youngest son? The one he could never talk to?”
Other than the dull sensation that he was bleeding all over himself, the pain from his face wasn’t too bad. His arm was a different matter. He forced himself to focus on Leandra’s words instead. “What do you mean?”
“He told me he had three sons. The eldest was too much like him, the middle too little like him, and the youngest he couldn’t acknowledge.”
Joaquim chuckled wetly, which set the cuts on his face to burning again. This was the first time he’d ever heard of Alexandre Ferreira admitting his paternity to anyone, and he had to hear it now, in this horrid place. “Yes, I’m that third son,” he said. “Joaquim.”
“I don’t remember much about Ferreira, but for some reason that tidbit about his sons stuck in my memory.”
Perhaps it had stuck so that he could hear it one day. Joaquim licked his lips, the coppery taste of blood on them. “What happens to us now?”
“They’ll take you to the other prison, put you in with Marcos. He’s trustworthy. I cannot tell you how sorry I am about this, but we were de
sperate. We needed you here. I never thought they would treat you this way.”
That statement was followed by a fit of coughing that went on longer than Joaquim liked. He could understand her desperate situation better now. When her fit ended, he asked, “How ill are you?”
“I’m dying,” she said without inflection.
“Tuberculosis?” He’d seen someone else with it recently. The exhaustion and coughing combined were telling.
“Yes,” she said. “Almost three years now.”
Most people with tuberculosis of the lungs only lasted a few years once it was diagnosed, enough time to get their affairs in order . . . or plan an escape from prison. Joaquim turned his head toward the cell door. It seemed that the light was increasing, though, as if someone approached with another lamp. Then he heard the jangle of keys. The cell door creaked open again.
Miss Prieto walked into the cell and set her lamp on something behind Joaquim. She carried her bag over to Leandra first and began cutting the ropes that bound Leandra’s arms. “What did they do to you?”
“A few cuts,” the woman answered wearily. “And Piedad broke two of my fingers. My arms are numb, so I don’t know how bad they are. Can you splint them?”
The healer slowly lifted Leandra’s left arm and set her hand in her lap. The two outermost fingers were visibly twisted and swollen. “Give it a few minutes and these are going to hurt.”
“Check on him first,” Leandra said, pointing with her chin. “I think Piedad broke his nose.”
Joaquim didn’t argue with that assessment.
The healer came to his side and began cutting his bonds, surveying his injuries as she did so. “She used the gauntlet on you, didn’t she? She prefers that for men.”
Apparently this was a common occurrence in this place. Joaquim’s arms fell free and immediately he felt the sting of blood returning to that brand on his arm. “She hits hard enough without it.”
The healer shook her head as she looked at Joaquim’s nose. “She likes the blood. Yes, this is broken. I’ll have to realign it.” Her fingers brushed his nose and Joaquim fought the urge to jerk back from her gentle touch. She must be controlling his pain, though, because it didn’t hurt nearly as badly as he’d expected. Then her fingers settled on the bridge of his nose, she jerked quickly to one side, and that did hurt. Joaquim hissed in an agonized breath, gritting his teeth together until the flare of pain subsided. “Try not to hit your nose for a while,” the healer advised.
“I have a feeling your Piedad’s going to do it for me,” he gasped out.
She turned to the other captive. “Leandra, can you feel your fingers yet?”
“No,” the woman said softly.
“Then let’s get this done before you do.” The healer knelt in front of Leandra, blocking Joaquim’s view. He didn’t want to see this anyway. He could hear the pop of bone moving against bone at one point, his own fingers curling reflexively into fists. He grimaced, his stomach turning, and that set his cheek to stinging again. Leandra’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t flinch. How many times has this happened to her?
The healer searched her satchel and produced a length of bandage to secure the fingers to the middle finger. “I’ll try to ease the swelling,” she said as she bound the woman’s fingers, “but I can’t fix the bones.”
From what Joaquim understood of healers, repairing bone was beyond them, so he was stuck with the broken nose as well.
“Prieto.” A guard spoke from the cell’s doorway behind him. “Is he ready to move?”
Joaquim closed his eyes and pretended to sleep again.
“I’ll need to replace the bandage on his arm,” the healer protested, “and stitch up that cut on his cheek.”
“You can do that at the prison.”
Two men hoisted Joaquim to his feet between them and began dragging his limp form from the cell. Apparently it was time to go.
CHAPTER 35
TERRASSA
Marina was still reading when the train pulled into the station at Terrassa. Alejandro looked disappointed when she put the book away, but she needed to prepare her mind for the coming confrontation.
The marquesa had been nothing but unpleasant to Joaquim. Marina didn’t have any illusions about the woman helping her. But she knew something about the marquesa that the woman wouldn’t want known. The marquesa had to be a witch, and the Spanish still imprisoned witches.
Marina didn’t think it would come to the point of actually denouncing the woman, but she could make the woman believe she would do it.
Inside the station, one of the clerks provided her with the name and direction of a hotel should they miss the last train back to Barcelona. Once outside the station, she hired a driver to take her and Alejandro to the marquesa’s estate. As they rode along in the back of his open carriage, the boy eyed the rows of vines marching up the sides of the hills. “What are those?”
Marina stared at him, startled. That was the first time he’d asked a question. “Grapevines. This part of the country makes wine called cava.”
“Oh.”
That seemed an end to his curiosity. “There are some cork trees farther along,” she said. “So I suppose the winery produces its own cork.”
Alejandro’s dark eyes slid toward her mistrustfully. “Cork trees?”
So she found herself explaining how cork was harvested from trees, something she only knew because one of her father’s clients grew cork in Southern Portugal. Then she launched into a one-sided discussion on how wine was made. Alejandro seemed to accept everything she said as truth, as if he didn’t think she could lie to him.
Marina saw that they were approaching the gate of the estate. Unfortunately, when they reached it, the gate was closed. Well, we’ve come this far. Marina stepped down from the cart, helped Alejandro down, and grabbed her bag from the cart’s floor. Once she’d paid the driver and he’d driven away, she turned back to face the locked gate.
Did it mean that the marquesa was out? Or that she was traveling? Marina carried her bag over to the gate and set it down. How humiliating it would be if she wasted an afternoon here when she could be searching out help from someone else.
“Should I climb over?” Alejandro asked.
She shook her head. That wrought-iron fence must be eight feet high, and the spike on the top of each stake looked deadly. “Will she come back?”
He nodded, so she decided they could wait. She surveyed the area around them. To the side of the road she could see a stream, its banks crowded with shrub. She hoped the stream was clean enough that they could drink from it. She didn’t have a flask with her, a foolish oversight. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. And when she needed to attend the call of nature—which, given her monthly, wouldn’t wait forever—the shrubs would suffice as cover.
So she sat on a green-tiled bench in front of the stone wall where a honeysuckle vine bloomed, spreading its sweet fragrance about them. She tugged out the book, beckoned for Alejandro to sit next to her, and once he was settled, began reading again.
It was some time later when the rattle of a coach coming down the graveled road caught Alejandro’s ear. He tugged on Marina’s sleeve to alert her, and she spotted the old contraption as it came around the curve into view of the gate. Hoping she still looked presentable after sitting out in the wind, she rose.
The coach was large and grand, with a coat of arms painted on the door. When the coachman set the brake, a stripling in old-fashioned livery clambered down from the back of the coach to unlock the gate. He shot a startled glance at Marina and Alejandro.
“We need to speak to the marquesa,” Marina quickly said in Spanish as he passed.
“The lady doesn’t have time for beggars,” the groom said in a squeaky tenor.
I don’t look that bad, do I? “I am not a beggar. My husband and I met with her only a couple of
days ago.”
The groom averted his face and went to unlock the gates.
The portly driver leaned down from his high perch and barked, “Move on, woman.”
Marina’s jaw clenched. Furious, she dropped Alejandro’s hand, strode over to the coach, and pounded on the door with the side of her fist. “I must speak with you, Marquesa.”
The shade was swept aside by a gnarled black-gloved hand. The old woman peered down at Marina, her dark eyes narrowed. “I don’t have time to gossip with every beggar who comes to my door,” she snapped. “Go to the Church.”
“I’m Joaquim’s wife,” Marina protested. “You met me earlier this week.”
The woman squinted at her, waved one hand, and pronounced, “I’ll talk to you when I’m ready.”
“What?”
“Stand back,” the driver called down. He set the horses to motion so quickly that Marina had to snatch her skirts out of the way of the wheels. The carriage rolled through the gate without even waiting for the groom, leaving an irate Marina standing in the dust kicked up by the wheels. The groom closed the gate, his eyes carefully averted.
Marina ran to the gate and grasped the bars. “I have come all the way from Barcelona to speak with her. I must speak with her. Please tell her it’s about her great-grandson.”
Flushing, the groom set the latch on the gate and jogged up the long drive to the house.
“Please!” Marina yelled after him.
He didn’t acknowledge that.
Marina pressed her forehead against the bars, trying to decide what to do. Would the groom repeat her pleas to the marquesa? Would the marquesa even listen?
She pushed down the urge to cry. She didn’t want to do that in front of Alejandro. And she wasn’t going to shake the bars in pointless fury. So after a moment she stepped away from the gate and looked back to where Alejandro stood waiting, his expression unreadable. “She said to wait,” Marina said. “We can do that.”
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