Bright flashes of color, wrong for late-season fruit, appeared between the branches. A red door, a yellow wall: the Von Arlos had painted their cabin like a—
“Wagon? They’re still living in Performers’ wagons?” he questioned Dom over his shoulder.
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
Two tiny houses on wheels, perhaps five feet by ten, were parked near a fire pit. They each had domed roofs, narrow doors, and small two-paned windows on either side. Large rocks had been wedged under the wheels to stop them from rolling.
“Maybe I should offer her a house,” Rafi said, thinking aloud.
“I don’t think she’d accept that, either.”
“Can you imagine living in such close quarters?”
Dom nodded to the people entering the clearing from the other side. “I doubt they spend much time inside.”
Rafi blinked and looked again. Three people were coming through the trees, but they were walking on their hands.
A pair of long legs with toes pointed skyward led two smaller bodies toward the fire pit, moving easily across the root-ridden land. Some command was given, and they all began spinning with tiny prancing movements, lifting their hands high off the ground.
“Good! Now kick down and I’ll show you your next combination.”
It was Johanna’s voice. Rafi watched as she continued her twirling, split her legs, and threw herself into a series of somersaults.
“Whoa,” Dom breathed, and his horse stopped.
Johanna gave some instruction, and the taller of the two boys completed the same flips. The smaller hesitated, and she knelt close, offering encouragement.
The little boy—about seven years old—reached high above his head and tossed himself backward, stumbling slightly forward on the landing.
Rafi refused to be impressed. “Hello, Von Arlo family,” he shouted as he stepped out from between the trees.
Johanna straightened at the sound of his voice and stepped in front of the boys. Her body was rigid, her hands in loose fists, her cheeks pink. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, but didn’t relax. “Don’t worry about him. Let’s go inside and hope he’ll go away.”
The boys didn’t immediately obey. The older one—whippet thin with a halo of blond hair—gave Rafi the stink eye. Johanna snapped her fingers, and her brothers hurried to the wagon’s stairs.
“What about me?” Dom said as his horse tromped through the trees. He dropped off the saddle and looped his reins over a branch, not stopping to knot them.
Her face brightened. “Welcome to the clearing, Lord Dom. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“I’m here to help my brother settle some business.”
Johanna brushed off her dirty hands and filleted Rafi with her eyes. “You don’t have anything that I want. I’m sure you can find your way home.”
“You can’t evict me from my own land.”
“I could have sworn I was on the Milners’ property.” She kicked a wrinkled mango into the air; it fell into her outstretched hand. “Forgive me if I was wrong, my lord.”
Rafi had never raised a hand against a woman—except by accident—but his fingers itched to slap the smug grin off her face. “The Milners have sworn their allegiance to the DeSilvas for generations. This property may not be mine, but—”
“Good enough for me. Good-bye.” She turned toward the wagons, arms spread, ushering her brothers inside.
Rafi grabbed her wrist, intending to stop her, but she whirled toward him, trapping his arm under her own. Cold steel pricked his throat.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” she said with a growl.
He swallowed; the knife scraped his skin. She wouldn’t . . . she couldn’t possibly. He studied her narrowed eyes and saw cool certainty in their depths. This wisp of a girl, whose bones he could feel through her clothes, would slit his throat and not think twice.
Slow applause and a shrill whistle disrupted the moment. “That was incredible, Johanna!” Dom stepped closer. “I didn’t even see you draw your knife. Where was it hidden? Show me how it was done.”
She held Rafi’s gaze for one long moment before releasing his arm and backing away. With a flourish she spun the knife and it disappeared.
“You know I can’t share Performer secrets.” Her lips quirked, a challenge in her smile, then she turned to his brother.
“But you’re not a Performer anymore.” Dom nearly pouted. “Please?”
Rafi felt rooted to the ground, like one of the age-old trees around him, as he watched the interplay between his brother and the girl. Dom walked backward, blocking her path to the wagon, but instead of threatening or pulling weapons, she laughed at his antics.
“I’m still honor bound to the Performers.”
“Please,” Dom pleaded, hands clasped under his chin. “Puh-lease!”
“You’re as bad as my brothers.” She hesitated, checking over her shoulder and eyeing Rafi in the distance. “I can show you the moves the street toughs use in the big cities, but no more than that.”
Dom cheered and drew his belt dagger. Rafi cringed, expecting to see his brother disarmed and then disemboweled, but the girl simply took it out of his hand and weighed it in her own.
“This is a bit too long, and the cross guard is too heavy for trick work. You can use mine.”
Rafi checked the knife at his own belt, a twin to his brother’s. They had been the last gifts their father had given them before he died. The daggers were unadorned, but well made, and the length of the blade was perfectly balanced against the width of the cross guard. He knew it was ridiculous to feel affronted, but it seemed this girl could never simply accept what a DeSilva offered.
She demonstrated tossing the dagger from hand to hand, adding a little twist so that it landed blade-first in her palm. “It gives you a chance to dazzle your attacker. It also gives you the option to throw the blade if you don’t want to draw them in close.”
“Dom,” Rafi huffed as he moved closer to the pair. “We don’t have time for lessons in trickery. I’ve got other duties to attend to.”
His brother flipped Johanna’s dagger. It fell between his hands and stuck in the ground near his foot. “I thought part of your duties was to solve that pesky little honor issue.”
“I’ve been trying to solve it for weeks, but she won’t accept my gifts.”
“Maybe that’s because she doesn’t want gifts,” Dom said, trying the toss again and catching it successfully.
“Maybe she doesn’t want anything.” Johanna took the dagger from Dom’s hand and flipped it up her sleeve. “Except to be left alone.”
She hurried toward the wagon, but Rafi blocked her path just as Dom had done. She bristled like an angry cat.
“I’m not trying to harm you, but I can’t have this debt hanging over me any longer.” Up close he could see that the paint on the wagons was peeling, and the nearest window was cracked. “You’re obviously in need of some basic commodities that I’m willing to provide.”
Her eyes narrowed with anger. “Basic commodities?”
“Well, yes.” Rafi eyed her fitted breeches and the black vest she’d laced over a cotton tunic. “You have needs, and I think I can take care of them.”
The girl seemed to grow before his eyes, straightening her spine, raising her chin. Surely she was still the tiny creature he could toss over his shoulder, but she used some Performer trick that made her seem to fill the space between them.
“I have exactly what I need—”
“My brother means to say that he’d like to offer you a job,” Dom said. Both Rafi and Johanna looked at him like he was a fable creature who’d appeared out of thin air.
Dom wielded his smile like a broadsword, using it and a few well-placed jokes to batter even his toughest opponents into submission. He turned it on Johanna then.
/> “Over the next few weeks we’ll be entertaining several of the ducal houses, groups of merchants, some of the local guild people, and we could use someone of your veritable storytelling skill.” Dom took Johanna’s hands. “My father passed before he was able to arrange for troupe visits this fall and winter. Our guests will be bored senseless with Rafi for conversation and our woods too depleted for any hunting expeditions.”
Bored senseless? Thanks for your vote of confidence, brother.
“We thought that you’d be willing to perform, for pay of course, until we can arrange to have a troupe come to the estate?”
It wasn’t a bad idea—one Rafi wished Dom had proposed to him before they had come to the clearing—but it didn’t fulfill the honor debt.
“Say you’ll consider it.” Dom gave her the grin that had all their maids swooning.
“She’ll do it.” A voice said from between the wagons. A diminutive woman, at least a half a head shorter than Johanna, strode into the clearing. She pushed her hood back, releasing a bounty of ash-blond curls liberally streaked with gray. “The Keepers know we could use the coin.”
Johanna seemed to shrink as the new arrival joined their group. “Mama, meet Lord Rafael and his brother, Dominic. This is my mother, Marin.”
Chapter 23
Johanna
“The Keepers are smiling on us,” Marin said after the lordlings left the orchard. She folded the contract and tucked it into a slim metal box that fit neatly into the wagon’s wall. “This is an excellent retaining fee for an apprentice-level singer and Storyspinner.”
Johanna plopped onto a thigh-high pallet that functioned as her bed. Moments before it had been upside down, serving as a desk. Rafi had leaned over the smooth wooden surface, his lips moving as he reviewed the stipulations of the contract, and standing so close to Johanna’s mother that he’d certainly been able to smell the liquor rolling off her skin.
Or perhaps he hadn’t noticed, assuming it was some sort of odd perfume. Marin could fool anyone if she stopped after a few drinks; her hands were steady, her eyes bright; she spoke without slurring her words. Johanna wondered if it had something to do with her mother’s years in front of an audience. Marin could slip on a sober face and play that role when necessary. She’d acted the part of master negotiator, bargaining for her daughter’s performances and drafting a contract for Rafi to sign.
Johanna tugged down the netting that held the linens onto the bed and freed a blanket, tucking it over her bare feet.
“Don’t pout, cara.” Marin stroked Johanna’s cheek with fingers as cold as a winter stream. “I’m so proud of you. Your father would be too.”
“Can’t you go instead?” Johanna didn’t doubt her skill or her ability to provide quality entertainment, but she also didn’t want to admit that Lord Rafael unsettled her. It wasn’t fear, exactly. She knew he wouldn’t physically harm her, but there was something in the way that he looked at her that made her feel . . . less. “You’re so much better than I am. At everything.”
“Johanna,” her mother snapped, eyebrows drawn tight. “Stop this. You know I can’t possibly take on an assignment if we have any hope of ever rejoining the Performers as a family.”
Each of Arlo and Marin’s children would be welcomed into Performers’ Camp once they reached their naming days—Thomas was eighteen now and could return at any time—but Marin could only accept assignments approved by the Council. The Council guaranteed that each troupe adhered to a set of standards, moderated any disputes, and ruled on any Performer violations. If Marin or Thomas performed without the Council’s approval, they would be banned from Performers’ Camp for life, but Johanna was under age. Any performing she did in the next two years wouldn’t count against her.
It was a harsh rule for those expelled like the Von Arlos, who had no other means of income, but it protected the community as a whole.
“This could open up so many opportunities for us.” Marin reached into the cupboard above her bed and drew out a bottle of brandy and a small glass. She filled it to the brim and choked the liquid down in one gulp.
Johanna turned away so she didn’t have to watch as the liquor burned its way through her mother’s body, relaxing the tense muscles of her face and neck. Before Arlo died, Marin only drank the caramel-colored liquid for special occasions and celebrations.
Johanna didn’t feel like celebrating, but that didn’t stop her mother from drinking.
“Wipe that look off your face,” Marin’s voice snapped. “The DeSilvas are fantastic nobles to perform for. They treat us well—like equals instead of employees.”
Unless, of course, they think you are poaching in their woods. Johanna kept that thought to herself, not wanting to see her mother’s mood swing from mellow to livid. When Marin was really drunk—and swigging her fourth glass meant she was well on her way—she could only manage those two extremes.
“You were saying something about opportunities.” Johanna fiddled with a fraying end of the quilt, pulling at loose threads till it started to unravel the entire hem. “You really think any of the visitors will be interested in hiring me?”
“They’ll take one look at you and know your worth,” Marin promised, her bright smile at odds with her glazed eyes. “They’ll look at you and see magic.”
Chapter 24
Jacaré
The wall around Belem’s estate was only chest high. It would stop a horse and slow down a man, but it wasn’t much defense against anyone determined to cross onto the duke’s lands.
Two teams of guards and their dogs, however, were more of a deterrent, as was the moon that hung low and fat over the ocean.
The araucaria trees had become even scarcer in the three hundred years since the Keepers had crossed the wall. Only a few hundred trees still existed in small clumps across Santarem’s five states.
“She said there was a grove, no more than twenty trees, close to Belem’s manor.” Leão pointed almost due south. “Duke Belem invites the townsfolk onto the estate for celebrations.”
“How do they celebrate?” Pira asked, as she sank down next to the stacked stones of the wall. The shadows and a few scrubby brushes blocked them from view.
He shrugged. “They have some sort of performances. She didn’t give specifics and I wasn’t about to ask.”
Tex and Jacaré exchanged a nod.
Leão had to spend ten minutes flirting—more like fending off the barmaid and her friends’ advances—before he’d been able to ask the question. He returned to the table a little red faced, but with the information they needed.
“All right,” Jacaré said, squatting beside his sister. “There’s very little cover between the wall and the gardens. We’ll wait for a break between the guards’ rounds, and Leão and I will make a run for it.”
“And Tex and I will, what, sit here and wait?” Pira asked, her voice rising a bit.
Jacaré bit his tongue to stop from reprimanding her on the spot. Not only was it an inopportune time, but she didn’t respond well to public confrontation. “Yes. Hopefully that’s all you have to do. If something happens, you can cause a diversion.”
“Any suggestions?” Pira asked, sounding irritated.
“I’m sure Tex has a few ideas.”
The old soldier snapped his fingers, sending sparks skyward. “Plenty.”
Jacaré faced Leão. “Anything goes amiss, give us three trills of the red sparrow and we’ll meet back at the inn.”
They all nodded. Pira resumed her position at the wall, feet wedged between the moss-covered stone, just high enough to peek over the edge. She held out three fingers, slowly counted down to two, one. Closed fist.
Jacaré and Leão vaulted over the top in one smooth motion and dropped to the ground on the opposite side.
They sprinted across the open space, the grass barely disturbed by the speed of their passing.
>
A second, knee-high wall separated the gardens from the rest of the property; they hurdled it in stride and rolled into some bushes with tall feathery fronds. The ground had been divided from the stone pathway by a short filigreed fence and decorative shrubs.
The wind picked up, mixing the scent of the ocean with the night-blooming honeysuckle that draped over trellises and wound up the trunks of trees. The rushing waves masked the sounds of any approaching guards or animals.
They crept along a spiky hedge, moving away from the hulking manor house and toward a group of trees that swayed above the hammered-copper roof.
Voices rose from one vine-covered alcove, sounding a bit like a drunken brawl. Jacaré’s senses hummed on the tense string of discovery, but no one came stumbling toward them.
The path turned from stone to gravel as they came closer to the coast. Jacaré cringed with every step. He wasn’t terribly worried about overtaking the guards—they didn’t seem particularly disciplined—but he preferred to go undiscovered.
The pathway widened into an open area filled with white silk tents, the bottom edges rolled up to admit the cool breeze from the sea. Candles burned in some, creating silhouettes of sleeping pallets, desks, and dining tables, while figures moved around in a strange dance of shadows, and voices murmured over the sound of the waves. All of it sat under the naked trunks of the araucaria and their crowns of pine fronds.
Leão tapped Jacaré’s arm and pointed to the edge of the clearing. A large rectangle of wooden beams had been half buried into the rocky ground, with a few circular platforms interspersed over the distance.
Jacaré had sixteen years of images from the glass—some moving like he was peeking through a window and others frozen like a painting—to fill in the blanks in the girl’s life. He had watched her train along with a family of entertainers, learning tricks and flips and stunts that seemed highly unsuitable for a girl of her value.
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