Nocturna

by Maya Motayne

  Luka stared at Alfie, unblinking. “You broke into the foulest prison in our kingdom and the details of how and why aren’t important?”

  Finn nodded. “It’d be all I ever talked about.”

  “No,” Alfie insisted. “Not more important than coming up with a plan to stop Sombra’s magic from destroying our kingdom.”

  Luka held his gaze for a long moment before relenting with a glare. “Fine. But this is not the end of this maldito conversation.”

  “Why don’t we get into the prison the way you did last time, then?” Finn asked, and Alfie was thankful for her interruption. “If it worked for you last time, should work now.”

  Alfie shook his head and looked anywhere but Luka’s face. “Last time I went to the prison I did it via tether.” Tethers were a form of transportation magic that most bruxos used, but Alfie seldom did, thanks to his propio. Tethering spellwork bonded two objects, so that if you touched one and spoke the right word of magic, it transported you to the other. Alfie had tethered two objects and paid a prison guard to take one of the tethers to the prison. But that tether had since been confiscated, by Paloma.

  Her face flashed in his mind once more, disappointed and, even worse, afraid for him. Shame roiled his stomach, but there was no time to stew in it now.

  Since he’d used a tether before, Alfie hadn’t connected his doorknob to the prison, he hadn’t assigned the prison a color of magic to travel by with his propio magic, so there was no way to use it to travel to the prison now. Using the bit of Sombra’s magic he’d caught in the dragon to spirit him and Finn there was out of the question as well. Transporting him and Finn from the Brim to the palace had left him barely able to stand. To use it for such a great distance might kill him. Alfie looked down at the dragon hanging on his neck. “We can’t use this either. The distance . . . I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.”

  “Good,” Finn said with a grimace. “I wouldn’t do that again if you paid me.” She tilted her head then. “Well, depends on how much.”

  “Good to know your priorities are in order,” Luka sniped at her, but he was still staring at Alfie, his face pinched tight and tense. “Then you’ll have to get there the old-fashioned way. Horseback.”

  Alfie nodded at that. The prison was about thirty miles beyond the city, an hour and a half’s ride at top speed.

  “We’ve still got the issue of getting in and out of the maldito prison unnoticed,” Finn said, her voice flat with disinterest, as if planning a heist were part of her everyday schedule. “Along with sneaking out with a third person.”

  “You and I will use the vanishing cloak to sneak in. But when we get the prisoner, all three of us can’t fit beneath it.” Alfie looked at Finn. “I’ll need you to use your propio to disguise me so that I can walk out of the prison while you and the prisoner follow under the vanishing cloak.”

  Finn chewed on the inside of her cheek. “As what? A guard?”

  Alfie shook his head. From what he remembered, the guards at the prison had very specific schedules and duties to attend to. He’d stick out.

  “Who else could you disguise yourself as?” Luka asked. “Certainly not a prisoner.”

  As Alfie thought, Paloma’s voice echoed in his mind. Magic is a gift and as dueños we all must do our penance to thank the gods for such a gift.

  “You’ll disguise me as a dueño,” Alfie said to Finn. It was the only option. “Dueños perform penance at the Clock Tower all the time. Paloma herself did.” Alfie’s voice quieted around her name and Luka turned at the sound. For once, Alfie wished Luka didn’t know him so well. “If you disguise me as a dueño then it’ll be easy for me to move around the prison and to leave when I please. No one will pay attention to me.”

  Finn nodded slowly at that. “Bien, so now we have a way in and out, but how do we distract the guards so that we can sneak out of the prisoner’s cell unnoticed?”

  Alfie stared down at the map of concentric circles, his mind falling silent as he grasped for options. “We need a distraction. A big one. Something to pull the guards away from their posts at her door so we can get in, get her under the vanishing cloak, and get out.”

  Luka tilted his head at that, his dark eyes sparking. It was the same face he made whenever he was about to beat Alfie at cambió. “I’ve got an idea. Leave it to me.” He gave a sigh then. “I come up with the best parts of this maldito plan and I don’t even get to participate.” He turned on his heel and made for the door. “Wait here.”

  23

  The Prince of Strutting

  Just like that, the plan had been set.

  Bathtub Boy had retrieved the perfect distraction to use in the prison while they broke Xiomara out. Then he’d headed off to his quarters, still grousing about not being able to come with them. Now it was only Finn and the prince standing in his rooms.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. It’s too late to try to infiltrate the prison now,” he said, his fingers worrying the sleeves of his shirt.

  He was right, she knew. They’d lost the day to their hunt for Sombra’s magic and their fight with Ignacio. Now the moon was rising. If they were going to break someone out of a prison, it ought to be during the thick of the day when things were busy, when things that would otherwise look suspicious would simply be overlooked. Not at night when the guards were on high alert.

  The prince looked frustrated as he chewed the inside of his cheek, and the same impatience coiled tight inside of her. He’d seen Ignacio’s power, just as she had, and the idea of waiting even a moment before starting off on this plan was maddening. How much more powerful would Ignacio be come morning? What terrible things would he do with these hours that they would spend waiting for dawn? But if they were going to pull this off, they needed to wait. It wasn’t as if dueños just waltzed into this prison in the middle of the maldito night.

  “Fine.” Finn pushed off the wall she leaned against and walked to the door, raising her arm to pull the hood of the cloak over her head. “Then I’ll head out and be back in the morn—”

  “No, wait. Stay,” Alfie said. His voice always had the quality of a hand outstretched, open to help, to guide. She wondered if he knew how soft and horrifically vulnerable it made him sound.

  Finn turned to him, her eyebrows raised. When her eyes darted to the bed, the prince’s face reddened.

  “I didn’t mean—I meant—I—” He put a hand over his eyes and sighed.

  Finn couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re very precious, you know. This is why it was so easy to distract you when we first fought.” She shook her head, remembering when she’d jokingly asked if he’d wanted to join her in bed to throw him off his game. His lips had parted when she’d said that, as if her words had laced the air with honey and he hoped to taste it.

  He seemed to be remembering it too. Alfie’s hand moved from his eyes and up into his curly locks. “And you’re very sure in your opinions.”

  “Only when I’m absolutely right.”

  Alfie shook his head at that. “I meant to say you can stay here, in my rooms. I’ll stay with Luka for the night.”

  Finn looked at the bed again. Each pillow must’ve cost a goose every last one of its feathers. The thick sheets of red and gold called to her aching body—a night of comfort instead of wondering how many more days she could afford in an inn almost felt worth the horrors of the day. But with the prince’s eyes on her, she stopped the relief from spreading over her, cool and healing as a salve.

  Finn turned in a slow circle, surveying the room with its plush bed on its raised dais. The floors and walls lacquered with brightly colored tiles. She’d been here once before and never thought she’d be returning, let alone to sleep in his bed.

  “Is that a good idea?” she asked as she stepped forward and leaned against the poster of the bed, its stiff pressure between her shoulder blades. The prince looked at her, concern already tugging his features. “Won’t your servants die of shock when they come in and find a girl in yo
ur bed?”

  Alfie breathed a long sigh through his nose. “I will inform them that they are not to enter my rooms for the time being.”

  A silence fell between them and she could see him struggling to swallow down a retort. He fought and lost.

  “And it’s hardly any of your business, but it’s not as if I’ve never had anyone in my bed.”

  Finn’s lips quirked up. Did he know that each time he hurried to defend himself, he tossed a rope down to her that she could use to pull him clean off his high horse?

  “Well, did you at least wash the sheets after?”

  His face reddened and he sputtered before speaking. “Are you always this rude?”

  “Depends on the company.” She plopped onto the bed and kicked her shoes off. One boot landed on its side, revealing the sole that was still caked in blood from the pub. The air changed then, and the remnants of her joke sat sour on her tongue.

  The silence stretched on. The prince’s eyes clung to the shoe, his throat working. If it went any longer she would fill it with thoughts of Ignacio, of his strings, of the pub slick with blood.

  “You know, making you look like a dueño won’t be enough,” she said. “You’ll need to embody a dueño, move like one.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “You assume I haven’t considered this?”

  “I’m sure you’ve considered it.” She rolled her eyes. “Considering is different from actually doing something right. You walk like a maldito peacock, and I doubt it’s a habit you can kick overnight.”

  “I walk like a peacock?” he repeated as if he didn’t know if he should be insulted or just confused.

  Her gaze dropped to his narrow hips. “You strut.”

  “Qué?” He started where he stood and brought his hands forward, clasping them before him as if he could block her view. “No I don’t.”

  “All I’m saying is that you move like a prince and if you want to move about the prison without drawing attention to yourself, then you’d better do it right.”

  The prince crossed his arms then, and again she saw the internal battle inside of him. His pride and the desire to get this right clashing in his mind. The latter won out.

  “Show me,” he said, his face open, asking for answers. “Please.”

  Finn stood from his bed and worked with him, showing him how to walk, to hobble and hunch instead of strut with the pride of a crown. She taught him how to lower and soften his voice into that rasp that wise bruxos of a certain age seemed to master.

  When he had it down he looked at her, impressed. “You truly are knowledgeable about this.”

  “It’s my life,” she said. Or it had been, she thought with a frown, before Kol took it from her.

  At her words, Alfie held her gaze, his gold eyes round with a concern so genuine that it made her skin crawl.

  Finn did not like it when the prince looked at her.

  She’d spent her life impersonating others. She was the master of looking past someone’s facade to the truth that beat within them, hard and fast. Yet when he looked at her, his head tilted, thoughtful, cautious, it was she who felt laid bare, pages of secrets open at his fingertips.

  “Out with it, then.” She crossed her arms. “Why are you looking at me like that? Say it.”

  With a tilt of his head he finally asked, “How do you hold on to yourself?”

  She squinted at him. “Qué?”

  “If you slip in and out of identities the way I do cloaks, how do you hold on to yourself?”

  Finn blew air through her teeth. What a soft life he must lead to not see the freedom in what she could do. In the power of being so many people that you became no one at all. People with one face, one story, have weaknesses, vulnerabilities, things to exploit and dangle over their heads. But to be no one was to have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. That was true freedom, plain and simple.

  “That’s the best part,” she said, her shoulder lifting in a shrug. “If you can trade identities at the drop of a hat, then you’re invincible. Thanks to my gift not a man on this earth can touch me.”

  Alfie fell silent, frowning at her as if she’d said something sad instead of clever. “But then no one can help you either.”

  Finn bristled, something within her sputtering where it usually ran smooth as honey. She didn’t like how easily he did that—with a fistful of words he could turn her strength into weakness. All her repartee, opaque and clever at first, now felt embarrassingly transparent. If she longed to be untouchable, it was because someone had taken her in their hands and broken her. If she wanted to fly from identity to identity, then she’d tarnished the one she’d been born with too much to return to it.

  And if the prince could sense this, surely others could too.

  What did you do that would make you never want to see your own face again? What made you bury it under all this magic?

  Finn shoved Kol’s rasping voice from her mind and found the prince’s golden eyes still clinging to hers. He looked away from her then. From the discomfort prickling between them, she could tell that he knew he’d overstepped. That he’d spoken to her with the concern of a friend when they were barely acquaintances, on a good day.

  The sweeping room suddenly felt small. It seemed to fold in on itself, like those delicate paper flowers sold in the Brim—large swaths of colored tissue creased and curved into something new.

  “I should go,” he said, his voice unraveling the silence.

  “Sí,” she said, her words frayed as she lowered herself onto the plush bed. “You should.” Finn settled into the bed, pulling the thick blankets about her.

  He did not rise to the bait this time. “I’ll come for you in the morning,” he said.

  She watched him open the door, and the sight of his back, of his hand closing on the doorknob, brought her back to earlier today. To when she’d told him she wouldn’t help him. And instead of trying to twist her to his will until she gave in, he’d simply reached for the door as he did now. He hadn’t seen her as something to bend into whatever shape would better serve him.

  He’d seen her as a person. A person who had said no.

  Her heart beat in her throat, and inside her rose the urge to define where they stood. The urge to canvas the crevasse between them and see it as she knew it was—insurmountable.

  “Prince.” The word fell from her lips, soft and pillowed with the sudden rush of exhaustion falling over her as she nestled into the sheets. She raised herself up onto her elbows and stared at him where he stood at the door, his back still to her.

  He didn’t turn to look at her. “Yes?”

  “Did you magic the door and windows to keep me from escaping?”

  His hand still on the doorknob, he turned his face slightly, and she could see the delicate sweep of his profile, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his elegant neck as he swallowed. The tense set of his mouth told her the answer before he spoke it.

  “Yes.”

  The knot in her stomach loosened then. The boundaries had been redrawn, defined in thick sweeps of ink. Her world, his, and the vast space between.

  “Good.” She sank back into the pillows, a yawn curling her tongue. “Then you’re smarter than you look.”

  24

  The Farewell

  As the sun rose, Alfie, Luka, and Finn stood in the palace stables, tension reverberating through them, as if they were the plucked strings of finely tuned instruments. Alfie rubbed his slick palms against his trousers and saddled his horse.

  Finn had transformed Luka and Alfie into one another. Luka had scribbled a note to the king and queen saying that after his run-in with Tiago he would rather skip the Equinox Ball tonight and travel with a friend instead. Since Luka had too many friends to count and loved to travel, the king and queen would hardly be surprised by this.

  The whuffling of the horses and the warm scent of hay should have calmed Alfie, but his body screamed for rest from using the magic. The few hours of sleep he’d gotten had done him no goo
d. With shaking hands, he readied two horses for their journey to the prison where Xiomara dwelled.

  Finn pulled the hood of the cloak off and appeared in the corner of the stable, tucked away from the stable doors where sunlight had begun to pour through, greeting the whickering horses with its warm caress.

  She stared up at the horse Alfie had saddled for her, her lips curving into a grimace.

  “Do you know how to ride a horse?” Alfie asked, wanting to break the silence instead of filling it with his fearful thoughts of what was to come.

  She shot him a look. “I spent years working in traveling circuses. Of course I know how to ride a maldito horse.” She shifted uncomfortably beside it, her shoulders tensing when it gave a whinny. “I just don’t like to.”

  “Why’s that?” Luka asked before stroking her horse’s nose with a practiced hand.

  Finn eyed the steed warily. “I don’t like things I can’t—”

  “Thieve?” Alfie supplied as he ran his hand over his own horse’s dark mane.

  Finn rolled her eyes. “I don’t like things I can’t communicate with, control. Even the most well-trained, friendly horse can buck you off if it feels like it.” Then she looked at Alfie pointedly. “And of course I could thieve a maldito horse. What kind of second-rate thief do you think I am?”

  Luka tilted his head. “You mean steal an actual horse or steal from a horse?”

  “Both. Obviously.”

  Luka gave a bark of laughter at that and Alfie was thankful for the sound. He wondered if that would be the last time he heard it, if he would die at Ignacio’s hands before he could see Luka again. What was Ignacio doing now? How many had he killed with that poisonous magic? He swallowed thickly, pushing those thoughts away before they swallowed him whole. When Alfie finished readying his horse, he stood still, not wanting to admit that there was nothing left to do but leave.