The door to the spirit world was opened from the outside. The gulf of the sky yawned, for we rolled through the void of heaven. The hunt coursed away into a swirl of lightning and black cloud. As calmly as if he were entering the coach from a street corner, my sire stepped in.
I threw myself across Vai to shield him. “You said there would only be one sacrifice.”
My sire sat opposite us, raising his eyebrows as Vai set me to one side. Vai left his arm around me but did not speak. We faced the Master of the Wild Hunt together.
“By the terms of the contract, we can take only one,” replied my sire. “We have taken this night’s blood. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take a prisoner across to the spirit world with me. I’m going to find out what it was this magister did that he oughtn’t to have been able to do.” As he spoke, his human face slowly congealed into the mask of ice. “Which means that in addition to assuaging my terrible curiosity, I can release you, little cat, from my service. As long as he resides in my palace, I need only tug on the leash to bring you crawling back.”
He leaned forward and pressed a hand on Vai’s chest, his touch the embrace of ice.
Then he flung me out the open door.
36
Into the sea.
The warm salty water closed over my face, but I did not have the luxury of panic. I pulled to the surface and breached just as I realized two sharks were circling, drawn by the scent of my blood. My rage and hate leaked like poison into the water, and perhaps that was why they did not dart in for the kill. Or perhaps because they recognized a kinswoman. For they stayed away, merely keeping an eye on me as I floundered toward shore.
It seemed inevitable that I waded to shore at the jetty almost exactly where Drake had dumped me the first time. The few men working the piers turned to watch me emerge from the sea with my blouse and pagne plastered to my body, revealing every curve and mound. My blood streaked one leg. When I glared at them, they backed away.
I halted on the revetment next to baskets filled with fresh catch, slippery pargo with their red tails and little cachicata. Behind, the sun had risen two hands above the horizon, the dawn feed done and the wind no more than a soft breeze. The wide flat expanse of the waters in their constant shimmering reminded me of the trolls’ mirrors. At least I had saved Bee.
The sky shone so blue it looked flat; wisps of cloud trailed off the highlands. I scanned the roofs and smoke of the city but saw no sign of the Taino airship fleet. Indeed, there weren’t many men on the piers. The streets had a peculiar emptiness, as if most traffic had drained off in the face of a coming storm. The few men gathered into clumps to whisper and stare as I dripped across the boulevard and walked into the deserted carpentry yard. Only three people worked there, despite the early-morning coolness. The two men set down their axes and hurried under the shade of the shelter’s roof, where the Taino boss was leaning over her table making tallies in her accounts book. She looked up, saw me, and said something in Taino to them. They bolted out the back as she straightened to greet me.
“The maku’s perdita,” she said in the local speech.
“Could you ask me a question, please?” I said.
She had the Taino habit of looking at you directly and without fear. “What manner of question shall I ask, Perdita?”
The thrill that coursed through my heart made me smile, not with joy but with resolve. “That was the right one. What day is it? What happened to the Taino fleet?”
“In the Roman calendar, ’tis the third day of November. As for the other, here is the story as I heard it. Three nights back, when the cursed Council surrendered Expedition to the Taino cacica, a witch flew down out of the night, turned she own self into a big black saber-toothed cat and killed the cacica, then tore her to bits and threw she head in a well. That witch was surely angry because the cacica had stolen the maku fire bane the witch loved. Yee suppose that could be true?”
“No, not quite like that. But what happened afterward?”
“The witch flew off with the maku.”
“I mean, what has happened in Expedition?”
“Why, the wardens took control of Council House. Yesterday Gaius Sanogo was elected by unanimous vote as president of the committee that shall sit to write a charter for an Assembly. An Assembly we shall now have. ’Tis long past time, if yee want me opinion on it. As for the Taino, they cannot trouble us until they sort out they own rule. If Prince Caonabo wish to inherit he uncle’s duho, he and all that army must return to Sharagua.”
“You’re Taino.”
“No, gal. I’s an Expeditioner, born and raised. Some say yee killed the maku. Did yee so? Or only fly off with him?”
I raised my eyes to the heavens, so bold and vast and fathomless, like the face of the ice. “I never had wings. I was only the arrow my sire loosed to find his mark. And so the hunt drank the cacica’s blood, and then its master stole my beloved to keep me on his leash.”
I shut my eyes. In the spirit world, the length of a kiss might stretch to three days. I pressed a hand over my locket and felt the pulse of the chain that bound us. The only thing that could break it now was death, and Vai still lived.
I opened my eyes to surprise the Taino woman with a look of wry pity on her weathered face. “Shall yee like somewhat to eat or drink? Juice, or rum? Guava, perhaps?”
“I am not an opia, although I do like guava. I’m not a witch, either. But I would take a shot of rum and a cup of juice, with thanks.”
The rum was potent enough to steady me, and the juice soothed my aching throat. The boss offered me more juice, which I drank.
“Cat?” I looked up to see Luce, chest heaving as she ran up. “Cat!” She hugged me so hard it squeezed the air from my lungs.
Aunty Djeneba proceeded with less haste and more dignity toward us, accompanied by one of the men who had fled the carpentry yard. She spoke briefly with the Taino boss. Her mouth creased down as she turned to me. “Well, Cat, yee have turned up again.”
“Like a three-days-dead fish,” sniveled Luce, releasing me to wipe her eyes.
I couldn’t speak. I knew I was about to start bawling.
“I can see yee need to clean up and get fresh clothes,” said Aunty. “Luce, yee run and fetch Kayleigh. Cat, yee shall come home with us until Kofi-lad can come from the meeting down at Council House. He have spoken to us about those things which happened. I hope yee shall forgive me harsh words to yee.”
Heart full and throat choked, I whispered, “Yes.”
Then I bawled anyway on the way to the boardinghouse. A shower revived me. Clean clothes made me feel almost human. A platter of Aunty’s rice and peas and a slab of fried pargo with several more cups of guava juice sweetened with lime and pineapple restored my will, as if such humble gestures were magic. Because they were.
I was considering a second platter of rice and peas when Kofi and Gaius Sanogo arrived.
“Were you working for him all along?” I demanded of Kofi as he and the commissioner sat opposite me. “Are you secretly a warden?”
“I’s standing for the Assembly, when it come time for the vote,” said Kofi. “As for the other, I’s sure me own tale is no stranger than the one I hope yee mean to tell us now.”
“There is a lot of it you won’t believe.”
“That would be a change,” teased Kofi with a laugh that coaxed a smile from me.
“I’s willing to pass me own judgment,” said Sanogo.
The entire household as well as a few of the regulars gathered to listen. It took me two cups of the potent ginger beer to work myself past my instincts and my training to actually tell them things I would normally have kept silent about. But I managed it. With Luce sitting beside me and holding my hand, I told a short version of the tale. Even with the things I felt obliged to leave out, it was the most I had ever told anyone at one time except the night I had spent in Vai’s arms. When I was finished, they replied with a measured silence. I could not tell if they believed me, thought I was quite deluded, or reckoned I was merely the most outrageous liar they had ever met.