Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2)

“I will tell him I will break off the marriage arrangements if anything happens to you.”

“I think he believes what he said, about me needing to be alive. Not that I’m going to turn my back on him. What worries me is that I think you’re a little in love with him. I worry he is using your admiration to coerce you into a marriage that benefits him.”

She put an arm around me and held hard, whispering. “That’s not how it is. Cat, you know me. No matter what it looks like to people outside you and me, you know I’ve thought this through. Yes, I can learn from the behiques. Yes, I gain an alliance to a powerful kingdom, one which respects and honors the very curse which puts my life in danger. There is one thing else. I was allowed to meet one time privately with the cacica, Queen Anacaona. She is a very powerful woman. I said, what use to me a marriage if I am torn to pieces by the Wild Hunt at year’s end? She claimed the behiques have a means to protect dream walkers. This is good for us, Cat. This is hope.”

I had met the Master of the Wild Hunt, so I was pretty sure the cacica was wrong. But I wanted Bee to live in hope, not fear. “Then of course I understand why you agreed.”

She released me. “As for the other, I think the general will put in place a radical civil code.”

“Just for the sake of argument, let us say it is true. What if he changes his mind, marries again, and produces a child to raise up as heir? Or what is to stop his captains from electing one of their own to rule as emperor after he dies? Because he will die. Everyone dies. He said so!”

The general was watching us. Seeing us look his way, he raised the cup to salute our machinations and conspiracies. Drake was crisping bacon into charred strips.

I turned back to Bee. “What is to stop princes and mage Houses from biding their time and restoring the old order with a lot of blood and carnage after he dies?”

Bee’s gaze hardened, reminding me of an axe. “Did you listen to nothing that Kehinde and Brennan said? With the right weapons and allies, we can bring them down. A legal code matters.”

“You’re a radical, too! You and Vai both!”

Her gaze softened. “So it is more than just his looks!”

I fastened my fingers around the wrought-iron railing. The vivid memory of his passionate, angry kisses mocked me. “I wonder how far I’ll go to convince him I did not betray him.”

“There is something Andevai wants you think the general can give him. Offer him that.”

“Oh, Bee, I thought I was offering Vai so much, to share both the burdens and the risks of trying to break the chains of Four Moons House, when I could have been free of them. But he doesn’t even know it. Why should he listen to me now?”

“If he is not willing to listen to you, then he isn’t worth suffering over. Really, dearest, this isn’t like you. You know you have to try.”

Who was I, to feel fear? I, who was the weapon of the Master of the Wild Hunt? In the heart of me, like a shard of obsidian, lay a cruel gleaming kernel that would allow me to do what I must to save those I loved. I need only grasp it, cut my skin on it, and let it drink fully of my blood.

“I’m going to save you, Bee,” I said. “I’m the only one who can.”

Her lips twisted up. “Really, Cat. The man’s vainglorious arrogance has been rubbing off on you. Now, follow my lead.”

She opened a door and swept into the chamber, leaving me to follow in her wake like so much wind-chopped flotsam. She threw a smile at Drake that made him wince, and addressed the general. “We are going shopping.”

“Of course, my dear.” Camjiata began reading a pamphlet whose title was On the Dynamical Theory of Heat: Some Experiments and Conclusions as Delivered by Professora Habibah ibnah Alhamrai at the Expedition Society of Natural Historians.

We cut a swath through the shockingly expensive shops of Avenue Kolonkan. After a strenuous morning of examining fabric, smallclothes, footwear, kerchiefs and head wraps and hats, as well as ribbons and beads, necklaces, earrings, and painted gourds suitable for storing such treasures, we rested our feet in the shade of an arbor in a private courtyard. Well-dressed and well-groomed women—no men—drank carafes of sweetened lime juice garnished with mint leaves.

After we had quenched our thirst with an obscenely pleasurable and hotly spiced drink called chocolatl and worked through a platter of pastries, Bee nodded. “We have suitably bored the two men who are following us. Take yourself to the toilet and vanish. The gates into the old city close at sunset. I believe there are secret corridors in the house, so anything we say can be overheard. I should have told you before.” She pressed a coin into my hand. “For the washroom attendant.”