Текст книги "The Golden City"
Автор книги: Kathleen Cheney
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That got Mr. Ferreira’s attention. “Yes.”
“They’re atop the high cabinet in the servants’ workroom,” she told him. “I wondered what those were doing there. I’ll see if I can retrieve them for you tomorrow.”
He took one of her hands in his own and lifted it to kiss her bare fingers. “I would be forever indebted to you.”
It was done in a joking tone, so she knew better than to read anything into that gesture. He let go of her hand with acceptable readiness and stepped back, the journal tucked under one arm. “Thank you, Miss Paredes.”
She headed toward her own room but turned back. Duilio Ferreira stood at his own door, apparently watching to be certain she made it there safely. Oriana took a deep breath. “The woman called Maria Melo? She’s a sereia. A spy, but muchhigher in rank than I . . . or my master, evidently.”
His lips pressed together as if he recognized the seriousness of what she’d just done. She’d exposed a member of her own government. She’d committed treason, although no one would ever learn of it. Duilio Ferreira would never betray her confidence. And she felt worlds better for having alerted someone else, someone other than Heriberto. It was as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders.
“Do you think she’s the woman you saw at the church?” he asked after a moment.
Oriana shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can’t imagine why anyone else would be watching me. My master pointed out that she can’t afford to let the Open Hand recapture me. That would endanger her mission.”
Mr. Ferreira licked his lips. “Do you understand, then, why I had Gustavo follow you?”
Yes, he’d worked out that possibility—that she was in peril from both the Open Hand andthe saboteur—when it hadn’t even occurred to her. She was clearly in far deeper waters than she knew how to handle. She nodded. “I hadn’t thought it through.”
“So I’m forgiven for my interference?”
As if he needed her forgiveness. “Of course, sir.” With a nod, she made her way to her bedroom and opened the door.
“Miss Paredes?” he called after her. “Is that even your name?”
Oriana paused on the threshold of her bedroom, bemused. Isabel had never thought to ask that question. After less than a week Duilio Ferreira seemed more of a friend than Isabel had ever been. “Yes, it is.”
He smiled. “Good night, then, Miss Paredes.”
“Good night, sir.” She went inside her room and closed the door.
He’d said once he would like to visit her people’s islands. Out of curiosity, that was all he’d meant. As a tourist. But it would be interesting to see how he adapted to her people’s ways. Of any human man she’d met so far, he was the one most likely to be able to pull it off.
CHAPTER 27
SATURDAY, 4 OCTOBER 1902
Duilio left the house before breakfast with the journal tucked under his arm. He caught a tram heading toward the parish of Massarelos and got off in time to head down Campo Alegre Street toward the Tavares boatyard. When Joaquim’s father had left the sea to pursue boatbuilding, Joaquim hadn’t chosen to enter the nascent family business, but his younger brother, Cristiano, had. Now twenty and just returned that summer from the university in Coimbra, Cristiano possessed a genius for engineering and mathematics that Duilio could only admire.
Through the large open doors on the side, he entered the shop where the smaller boats were constructed and was immediately surrounded by the aroma of fresh-sawn wood and resins mixed with a hint of cigarette smoke. Several workmen were currently assembling the ribs of a smallish boat, no more than thirty feet long. It was, to Duilio’s untrained eye, another of Cristiano’s fascinating experimental designs. Duilio spotted Joaquim’s younger brother standing above the pit where a boat was being assembled and called out his name. “Cristiano!”
The young man grinned widely and came around the pit to embrace Duilio. He resembled Joaquim very little, having a more angular face, like their father’s. “Cousin, it’s been too long. How is your mother?”
“She’s well,” Duilio assured him, “although not changed from the last time you saw her.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Frowning, Cristiano waved at the workmen to continue their tasks and then drew Duilio to one side toward the office. “I haven’t seen Joaquim in weeks. Tell him he needs to come for dinner.”
“I’ll nag him,” Duilio promised. “Although I must admit now that I’ve come here for reasons other than social, to drag you into our investigation.”
Cristiano opened the office door and gestured for Duilio to go in. A brown-haired English girl wearing dainty spectacles and an expensive tweed suit sat at one of the half-dozen wide drafting desks, a pencil behind one ear, scowling down at the page in front of her. Miss Atkinson was a scion of one of the British wine-trading families over on the Gaia shore, Duilio recalled, who’d come to work for the Tavares firm after leaving the university at Coimbra. She’d been the very first woman to study mathematics there. Although a couple of years older than Cristiano, her petite size made her seem younger.
Cristiano shut the office door. “Is this about the underwater houses?”
“Good guess,” Duilio said, glad he didn’t have to explain.
“Joaquim mentioned the investigation last time I saw him. Many of the same principles as submersible crafts or submarines,” the young man said, “and I’ve been studying those. So, how can I help?”
One of the nice things about Cristiano: he didn’t waste time. Duilio opened the journal, searching for the page that held the diagram in question. “My question is actually mathematical.”
“Miss Atkinson’s grasp is better than mine.” Cristiano gestured for the English girl to join them.
As Duilio hunted for the right page, Miss Atkinson rose and nearly tripped when her skirt was apparently caught under the leg of the stool. She jerked it free with one hand and came to join them, murmuring imprecations under her breath.
“According to this,” Duilio told them, “the houses have walls of cork, thinly covered with wood, which is why they’re still floating despite filling with water.”
“I told you those buoyancy charms were meaningless,” Cristiano said a bit smugly.
“I recall.” Duilio finally located the page near the back and stuck on a finger to hold the place. “This is secret, so you can’t say anything about it to anyone.”
The girl nodded dutifully, and Cristiano did likewise.
Duilio opened it out to the diagram. “Is this symbol in the middle something mathematical? Some bizarre formula? It has a plus sign in it.”
Cristiano and the girl exchanged a glance that appeared to condemn Duilio’s ignorance. “No, sir,” she said, “that’s not mathematical.”
“It’s more my field,” Cristiano offered. “Electrochemistry. That’s a schematic for a pile.”
“A pile?”
“A voltaic pile,” Cristiano said, “although it might mean a different form. The symbols aren’t standardized across Europe.” At Duilio’s blank look, he continued. “It’s a form of battery, a way to convert chemical energy to electrical energy using two disparate metals, usually silver and zinc, with saltwater as an electrolyte—”
Duilio held up his hand. “Wait. Chemical energy converts to electrical energy?”
“Yes,” Cristiano said patiently. “The two elements in each cell . . .”
“You’re just going to say more words I don’t understand. Let’s go back. This is a symbol for a battery. Two parts linked by seawater, right?”
“That’s one form,” Cristiano said. “It depends on your needs. Dry-cell batteries—”
Duilio held up his hand again. “What if it converted something like life force?”
Miss Atkinson’s brows rose. She cast a glance at Cristiano that plainly said Duilio was losing his grip on sanity. At his nod, she went back to her desk. Cristiano waited until she was out of earshot. “Are you serious?”
“Sadly enough, I am,” Duilio said quietly. “We think there’s one of these in each house. The middle ring is some form of necromancy. When the person touching the ring dies, their half of the diagram lights up. Two people die, it all lights up.”
Cristiano gazed at him disbelievingly. “This is part of those houses? Sitting underwater? Most of them have been there for months, Duilio. Any electrical charge would have dissipated long ago.”
“But this is magic, not electricity, so the rules wouldn’t be the same, would they?”
“I have no idea,” Cristiano said dryly. “We don’t study magic at Coimbra.”
Duilio closed his eyes, trying to figure out what was important here. “Each house had two people in it. Two elements in a cell, you said. So how many cellswould they need to do something? If it were electricity, I mean.”
“Just one,” Cristiano said. “But more cells stacked together increase their power.”
“How many cells would you need if you were planning something big? If you already have twenty-six.”
Cristiano’s lips pursed. “I guess for style’s sake I would use thirty-two.”
Hadn’t Oriana's elderly friend said that the choice of two languages in the spell was a matter of stylerather than content? “Why?”
Cristiano shrugged. “Twenty-eight is your next perfect number, thirty-four is your next magic number, but I would lean toward thirty-two. It’s a power of two, which works well with current.”
Duilio didn’t know what he meant by perfect numberor magic number, but he did understand powers of two. “One last question. Say one of the cells was broken. Only halfway lit. What would happen then?”
“That cell would be useless. I would just try to bypass it,” Cristiano said. “It depends on how the cells are wired together, but if each is discrete, as those houses are, one cell should be easy to cut out.”
“And replaced by another?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“But that wouldn’t be tidy, would it?”
“No,” Cristiano said. “I would just replace the broken cell . . . or recharge it.”
Recharge.Which would mean finding Miss Paredes and sticking her back inside. Duilio closed the journal and stuffed it back into a pocket. He wasn’t about to let that happen.
* * *
Oriana had enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with Lady Ferreira and had just settled in the front sitting room to read to her when Mr. Ferreira strode in, the leather-bound journal in his hand. He gestured for Oriana to join him at the doorway. She excused herself to the lady, who nodded vaguely, and went to go speak to him.
“It’s a battery,” he said. “The whole thing is a battery.”
Oriana glanced back at Lady Ferreira to see if she’d overheard, but the lady’s attention had wandered. “What?”
“This symbol in the middle is a schematic for a voltaic pile, which takes one sort of energy and converts it to another. But the energy isn’t converted until the connection between the two halves is made by . . .” He closed his eyes. “Damn! I forgot what he called it.”
“Duilinho, watch your tongue,” his mother said softly from across the room.
He actually flushed at his mother’s mild rebuke. “My apologies, Miss Paredes. Cristiano was speaking of seawater, although in this case I don’t think that would be it, since we’re dealing with magic and not silver and zinc.”
Zinc?Hadn’t the Lady said something about silver and goldbeing used for magic? “I don’t understand.”
He took a breath and visibly forced himself to slow down. “A battery doesn’t do anything until you connect all the parts and then connect it to . . . a light, for example. What if The City Under the Seais the same? It’s not doing anything until everything is connected together and there’s something to turn on. The Lady called it a recipient, right?”
“Yes,” Oriana verified.
“So the table’s storing the power,” Mr. Ferreira said with a nod. “For now. I guess the plan is to use it all up at once.”
That made sense in a twisted way. And it would neatly deal with the Lady’s concern about a lack of a recipient. The recipient just hadn’t shown up yet. “Would that be enough power to make the prince into a king?”
“I don’t know . . .” A knock sounded on the front door, and they both turned to look. Cardenas came bustling down the hallway past them in response. The butler opened the door, and a voice outside said, “I need to speak to Mr. Ferreira immediately.”
The butler drew himself up to his full height. “May I have your name?”
“Captain Pinheiro, Special Police.”
Mr. Ferreira tossed the journal onto the ground and gave Oriana a not so gentle push. When she stumbled back a few steps, he swung the door closed, leaving him in the hallway, where the officer would surely see him.
What has he done?Heart pounding, Oriana pressed one ear against the door, hoping to hear what passed in the hallway. There wasn’t any yelling going on, nor could she hear the sound of a scuffle. She could make out low voices talking, Mr. Ferreira and this newcomer, the officer of the Special Police. She wasn’t going to be able to hear anything specific. She sighed and leaned back against the wall. She would have to hope he could manage the man on his own.
* * *
Duilio glared at the officer who stood in his hallway. Pinheiro was alone, a strange choice if he was planning to drag Miss Paredes away by force. The man was near his own height, although heavier. Near his age too, at best guess. “What can I do for you, Captain?”
“Anjos said it was up to me whether or not I told you, but I figure the best way to get you to trust me,” he began, “is the truth. The seal pelt stolen from your house three years ago? My father doesn’t have it. He never did, but he won’t admit that to you. He knows you—rightfully, I have to point out—blame him for its theft in the first place.”
Duilio felt as if a fog had abruptly filled his brain. “Your father?”
The captain shrugged again. “Yes. He told me about the theft only a couple of days ago. Inspector Anjos had questioned me about it because of my relationship to him. In a way this is my fault. When he found out about me he wanted to set things right, so to speak. He intended to have some paperwork stolen from your house, papers that might contain an acknowledgment by his father of his birth. But the man he hired took the pelt as well, intending to sell it to a collector. That collector apparently took the pelt andthe paperwork and then killed the man for good measure, all before my father could get his hands on it.”
Was this the evidence that made Anjos doubt Silva’s culpability? Duilio could see a resemblance in the lines of Pinheiro’s face—the square jaw and wide brow. His eyes were hazel, which he’d not inherited from the Ferreira family, but their shape was familiar.
“You’re Paolo Silva’s son?” Duilio asked, just to be clear.
“His bastard son, of course,” the captain said. “My mother entered a convent when she fell pregnant, and I was raised by the brothers. Silva didn’t even know of my existence. My mother decided to tell him on her deathbed.”
The captain actually seemed sheepish about the whole thing. Duilio could hardly blame him. Pinheiro had grown to adulthood only to be saddled late in life with a father he undoubtedly didn’t need: Paolo Silva. Had Gaspar been feeling him out about this police officer last night when he’d asked about Duilio’s feeling about bastards? “So, you’re my cousin?”
Pinheiro raised his hand. “I only told you so you would know I’m working with Anjos. That story wouldn’t have come out without his interference. I neither want nor need anything from the Ferreira family. I do quite well on a captain’s salary.”
Duilio found this fascinating. Was Pinheiro a seer as well? “So, why did you say this is your fault?”
Pinheiro shook his head sadly. “Silva felt guilty about not providing for me or my mother, just as his father never provided for him. You would think that being a seer and on the prince’s payroll, he would be wealthy, but he actually spends most of his funds paying off servants and police officers and whores to collect information for him. He has triedto be a father to me for the past few years, although he’s frankly not well suited to the task.”
The exasperation in the officer’s tone was the thing that convinced Duilio. “Very well. Why are you here, then?”
Pinheiro shifted the cap under one arm to the other, his humor fading. “Unfortunately, I need you to come with me to the Carvalho house. I’m supposed to bring a Miss Paredes as well. One of the Carvalho girls is missing.”
CHAPTER 28
Stepping into a carriage with the markings of the Special Police clearly gave Miss Paredes pause. “Trust me,” Duilio offered. “This is not a ruse.”
Her dark eyes met his, and she nodded and stepped up into the carriage. He joined her there, sharing her bench. He reached down and grasped her hand in his as Pinheiro climbed inside and pulled the door shut. Pinheiro settled facing them. “Miss Paredes? Is that right?”
“Yes, Captain,” she said softly.
“I’ve not been informed on all aspects of this case yet,” he said, “but I was told that you’re to be protected at all costs, which is why the shades are down.” The carriage began to move uphill after a jolting start. “We don’t want to risk anyone seeing you.”
She was trying hard not to betray any nervousness but watched Pinheiro carefully. Duilio shifted to place his revolver in his lap where she could see it. “I promise we will get there safely. I know.”
Her eyes flicked down to the gun and back up. “What happened to the Carvalho girl?”
Pinheiro answered her. “I understand that on the way back from Mass, she fell back from her sisters to talk to the footman escorting them. A carriage stopped and two men jumped out, grabbed her, and hauled in the footman as well.”
“In broad daylight?”
“Yes,” Pinheiro said. “Someone has suddenly gotten very reckless.”
“I see,” Miss Paredes said cautiously.
Duilio gave her hand a squeeze. “Anjos told me he’s cleared several officers in the Special Police of involvement. Pinheiro is one of them.”
“Believe me, if I’d had a secret, I would have spilled it. The woman questioning me?” Pinheiro shuddered. “There’s something unnatural about her. My flesh began to crawl the moment she walked into the room.”
“Miss Vladimirova?” Duilio guessed.
“I did not ask her name,” Pinheiro said, “but she had a foreign accent.”
The carriage rattled over the tram rails, indicating that they were crossing to the Carvalhos’ side of the Street of Flowers. That reassured Duilio. His gift had told him that they would get there safely, but it was nice to have it backed up by tangible experience. The carriage began to slow and came to a stop after a distance that seemed right to his mind.
“Lift the shade a bit,” he asked Miss Paredes. She did so, and when he glanced up at the house revealed, he recognized the columns of the Carvalho home. “Yes, this is it.”
He eased past her and opened the door. When he stepped down, everything looked perfectly normal, so he gestured for her to join him. She set her hand in his and jumped down without the step. Without waiting for Pinheiro, Duilio led her quickly up the steps. A footman waiting at the door allowed them inside once they gave their names.
“Straight to the library,” Duilio said. Miss Paredes remembered the way, walking briskly ahead of him. The library door stood open, and they stepped inside the garish room, to be greeted by a crowd. The Lady sat on one of the couches, fully visible this time, wearing a smart-looking suit in green. Gaspar stood behind her, conferring quietly with Anjos. A pair of uniformed Special Police stood near the doors as if on sentry duty.
Carvalho, a barrel-chested man with graying hair, paced along his bookshelves. Sitting in one of the chairs was Genoveva Carvalho, her face grim and nearly as pale as her gown. Her fingers were splayed on the arms of the chair. She glanced up when Duilio entered, pistol still in his hand, and her brows drew together.
Duilio repressed a sigh. The young lady shouldn’t be here.
She rose gracefully, wringing her delicate hands together. “Mr. Ferreira? What are you doing here?”
Her father turned at the sound of her voice. “Ferreira? What areyou doing here?”
Anjos cleared his throat. “Mr. Ferreira and Inspector Tavares have been the lead investigators on a certain case for a few weeks now. Our investigations crossed paths recently.”
Genoveva Carvalho sat down less gracefully, her expression nonplussed. She’d probably thought he was too idiotic to load a gun, much less use one.
“You work for the police?” Carvalho asked, stomping in his direction.
“Yes,” Duilio said, “although I’m only a consultant.”
Carvalho raised one beefy hand to indicate Miss Paredes. “And who is this?”
“My mother’s companion,” Duilio said. “Miss Paredes has knowledge of this case.”
On hearing her name, Duilio could tell Carvalho stopped listening. The man pointed at Miss Paredes. “This is the woman they want to trade for my daughter?”
Duilio felt fury fill him. Had he led Miss Paredes into a trap? He stepped in front of her and hefted the revolver in his hand, deciding whether he should train it on Carvalho or the two Special Police officers at his back. A glint of silver on the edge of his vision warned Duilio that Miss Paredes had drawn her knife. Carvalho backed away.
“There will be no trade,” the Lady said calmly. “Do you hear me, Carvalho?”
“She is my daughter!” Carvalho slammed his hands down on the back of the chair in which his older daughter sat. She went even paler than before.
The Lady didn’t flinch, though. “And we will do everything in our power to get her back. But making a trade is out of the question. You have no right to sacrifice one life for another. Or do you not believe in the equality that your Freemasons espouse?”
Carvalho scowled, his anger deflated by the Lady’s pointed question.
“It’s unlikely they would return your daughter anyway,” the Lady added. “They’re desperate enough to court exposure now by snatching victims off the street. That tells me they mean to rush through the last of their preparations and enact the spell as soon as possible. They’ll need two victims from your household, and Miss Paredes won’t do for thatpurpose.”
“Victims?” Miss Carvalho repeated softly.
Duilio flinched. She didn’t know. He was willing to bet that Carvalho didn’t yet know what had been happening in those houses either, what was planned for his daughter and the footman taken with her.
“Mr. Ferreira,” Anjos said patiently. “Put the gun away. We’re not going to permit Miss Paredes to be harmed. I give you my word.”
“I’m here too,” Joaquim’s voice said from behind them in the hallway. Pinheiro had entered with him, and seemed prepared to follow Joaquim’s lead.
Duilio mentally checked the numbers and slid the gun back into a pocket where he could get at it easily. Miss Paredes restored the knife to the sheath at her wrist, which, given Carvalho’s reaction, showed remarkable faith on her part.
“Joaquim and I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised her, catching Joaquim’s eye as he did so. Joaquim gave him a nod, agreeing to his part in the pact.
“Everyone sit down,” Anjos said. “We need to discuss this like civilized people.”
“Miss Paredes found something last night,” Duilio told him. “It might help.”
She had apparently tucked the journal in the waistband of her skirt prior to drawing her knife. She tugged the journal loose and handed it to him wordlessly. He opened the journal to the diagram and handed it to the Lady, aware that Joaquim had taken his place at Miss Paredes’ side. “This was found in an apartment formerly rented by Espinoza. It’s the rest of that table. We think it might be what he saw that caused him to flee the city.”
She took the journal. “The apartment Mata set afire with you inside it?”
“Yes,” Duilio said. “I’m told the design in the center is a symbol for a battery.”
“A battery? Oh, I see.” The Lady took the journal and smoothed her fingers over the water-rippled page. One finger traced the inner circle, the one with the runes, her green eyes flicking back and forth. “I shouldn’t be surprised someone has managed to convert this particular science to magical use, but I am anyway. I would never have thought of this.”
“But what does it do?” Duilio asked.
“The runes in this middle circle aren’t a spell,” she said. “They’re more like an outline for a spell, each symbol linking a portion of spell work into a whole. There’s more than what we’re seeing here, not only more runes, but probably also a component of the spell that must be spoken with the recipient in place to receive the power of the deaths. Given the symbols I do see and the words surrounding the outside edge, this ismeant to do a work of Great Magic. It will indeed make Prince Fabricio king over Portugal, with all the northern aristocracy supporting him.”
“The prince?” Gaspar asked. “Does this mean he isa participant?”
The Lady considered for a moment. “Actually, I think not. He would have to speak the words, getting everything correct. This isn’t work for an amateur.”
Duilio shook his head. While the prince was whispered to be mad, he would hope that something this macabre was beyond the man’s imaginings. “So this is someone else making a grab for power?”
“Someone’s doing it in his stead,” the Lady said. “And it’s a safe bet that the creator of this designed the spell to make himself second in command or an éminence grise. Not just that. From the limited bits I see here, I believe it would turn back the clock on the empire, bringing all the former colonies back under Portuguese control—Brazil, East and West Africa, Cabo Verde, Goa, Nagasaki—all of them.”
Inspector Gaspar gazed down at the journal over her shoulder, displeasure on his features. Duilio could understand that; Cabo Verde had been independent for decades.
“Does that include the islands of the sereia?” Miss Paredes asked.
“I believe so,” the Lady said with a nod in her direction. “Vasco da Gama claimed them, Miss Paredes, even if that claim’s never been enforced.” She touched one of the strange runes with one finger. “This symbol indicates territories, meaning anywhere Portugal has made a claim in the past. There’s no date. We might even take back part of Castile.”
“How is that possible?” Joaquim asked from across the room. “We can’t just tell Brazil we’re taking it back. Not after almost a century of independence.”
No, Duilio couldn’t imagine that any of the former colonies would enjoy a sudden return to Portuguese domination.
“This is a Great Magic,” the Lady said patiently. “It’s . . . an impossibility. A legend.”
“You mean . . . this won’t even work?” Duilio asked, aghast. “After all they’ve done?”
The Lady sighed and closed the journal. “I honestly don’t know, Mr. Ferreira. It’s difficult to explain. If they canmake this work, then no one will know the difference. We will all wake up the next morning and never recall that there were ever two Portugals, not recall that the colonies were ever given autonomy. All evidence of it will be gone. Paperwork, buildings, artwork. Some of uswill no longer exist. And no one will know any different, no one in all the world.”
* * *
Once she’d worked her way through the concept, Oriana found it offensive.
No one could prove that a Great Magic had ever succeeded. It could be proven that some had failed, but if one worked, all evidence of it would have been consumed in the enacting of the spell itself. While Anjos claimed the Church condemned the idea of Great Magics because they flew in the face of God’s Will, Oriana had a simpler objection: it was unfair. No one had the right to change things, not for the entire world.
While they were all arguing over the specifics of this particular magic, Carvalho had a cold luncheon brought in—a quick, informal meal. Mr. Ferreira had introduced Oriana to his cousin Inspector Tavares, who’d bowed nicely over her hand, and then had taken Tavares and Pinheiro to one side to have a quick private discussion. Oriana had caught Carvalho glaring at her a couple of times, which told her she shouldn’t trust him. But he was glaring at Gaspar as well, apparently put off by the inspector’s darker skin, so she wasn’t alone in disfavor.
She sat now on the couch with the Lady, her black skirt and jacket no doubt looking threadbare next to the Lady’s splendid wool walking suit in an apple green, its skirt hem wrapped with fine Valenciennes lace. Miss Carvalho occupied one of the side chairs, her hands clenched tightly in her lap, still wearing a morning dress of pale pink muslin embroidered with tiny rosebuds. Dirt marked the hem; it must be the same dress she’d worn to Mass that morning. Anjos sat in the final chair, his tired eyes on the table in the middle. Inspector Gaspar stood behind the Lady, remaining silent as Inspector Tavares summed up for Carvalho and the three Special Police officers what he’d uncovered in his investigation and the subsequent ending of that inquiry. Carvalho seemed horrified by the disappearances of the servants, but he hadn’t heard the worst yet.
Mr. Ferreira set one hand on Oriana’s shoulder. “Do you want me to tell them?”
My part,she realized. He was offering to tell them of their capture and Isabel’s death, to spare her the anguish of telling the story yet again. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know everything, and this day had already made her weary. “Go ahead,” she whispered.
He did so. On hearing of Isabel’s death, Miss Carvalho crossed herself and began to cry silently, but Oriana felt numb.
There were three officers of the Special Police in this room, all listening to Mr. Ferreira’s version of her story. She could see their eyes turn toward her when Mr. Ferreira explained why she’d been chosen to sabotage the artwork, because she was a sereia. For years they’d been hunting down nonhumans like her. None of them jumped to arrest her, though. It seemed unreal.
They moved on past her part in this, discussing what had been done since. Anjos had been put in charge of clearing undesirable elements out of the Special Police—a separate investigation altogether. He was meant to find officers who abused their power or acted for reasons beyond the group’s mandate, most specifically members of a shadowy group called the Open Hand. “Our arrival on the scene, however,” Anjos said, “was concurrent with the failed house going into the river. Word of our investigation traveled through the ranks, and several officers disappeared before they could be questioned, which only made us wonder what they were involved in. Captain Rios—who has now vanished as well—learned that Mr. Ferreira was following a new lead. Several attacks on Ferreira followed, meant, I think, to slow the investigation rather than end it. They needed time to complete the artwork and enact the spell. Once we learned what Mr. Ferreira and Inspector Tavares had been investigating, we realized there were ties between our investigations, so we attempted to capture one of the conspirators—Officer Donato Mata, who’s acted as an assassin before—using Mr. Ferreira as bait.”
