The Seat of Magic

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  “I’m sorry,” her father said. “But that threat has always hung over you and me both.”

  “That’s not my point, Father,” Oriana said. “As she was leaving, she said that I had Mother’s look about me. She said that Mother didn’t understand the rules of the game.”

  He leaned back away from her. “She knew your mother.”

  Oriana nodded slowly, feeling the strands of the rope twisting together in her mind. “That’s why you were threatened,” she said aloud. “And Uncle Braz. Someone high up in the ministry is protecting this woman. They don’t know what’s in Mother’s journal. They don’t know what happened to it, or whom you’ve told. But they’re afraid it’s proof of how far they were willing to go to protect Maria Melo, to protect her mission.”

  Her father rubbed fingers across his brow. “Oriana, don’t pursue this further.”

  “I have to,” she told him. “Did Duilio tell you that a ship tried to keep them from rescuing me?”

  “Whose ship?”

  “They don’t know, Father, but that ship was stopped by a leviathan.” Her father may be mostly Christian, but he would understand the significance of that creature’s interference. “The gods wanted to ensure my rescue, and that means they have a mission for me. Now I know what it is.”

  * * *

  Joaquim strode out of the police station in the late-morning sun, clutching his hat under his arm since there was no likelihood of its staying put in the rising wind. Fortunately, Duilio was coming in the opposite direction, arriving only a few minutes late. He wore one of his finer jackets, showing that he’d gone to the palace to meet with the infante as planned. Together they headed back in the direction from which Duilio had just come.

  “You didn’t bring Miss Paredes with you?” Joaquim asked.

  “She had something she wished to discuss with her father,” Duilio told him. “I don’t know what.”

  Joaquim raised a brow. “We’ve got an appointment to meet Anjos at the morgue at three. Two more bodies turned up last night.”

  Duilio walked toward the intersection where one could always find a cab. A few minutes later their cab trundled up Torrinha Street toward the doctor’s office. “Human?” Duilio asked.

  “Yes. Like the earlier ones. No apparent cause of death.”

  Duilio groaned. “I wish Rafael would have told us how the cases are connected. It would make things so much easier.”

  Joaquim chuckled. “Being a seer doesn’t make anything easier, does it?”

  “No,” Duilio said. “It just gives you more responsibility.”

  Duilio might have thought Pinheiro’s comments on Sunday about his gift were merely flippant remarks, but Joaquim had a strong feeling that Pinheiro had meant those words for him. He glanced over at Duilio’s face in the light coming through the cab’s windows. “I never thought I was prejudiced until Saturday.”

  Duilio gave him a quizzical look. “Comparatively, you’re not,” he pointed out unhelpfully. “Certainly far less than most.”

  Duilio couldn’t have missed his reaction to learning that Marina Arenias wasn’t human. Joaquim was still ashamed at his hesitation to speak with Miss Arenias after that. He’d always believed in equality for everyone, no matter their class, gender, or race. “Does it never give you pause that you’re courting a sereia woman?”

  “She’s courting me. A custom among her people—the woman courts the man.”

  Joaquim cast him a dry look. “So you’re courting her by allowing her to court you. Semantics, Duilio.”

  Duilio shrugged. “I love her. It’s that simple.”

  Joaquim grabbed on to the cab’s door as it swung around the corner onto Carmo Street a bit too quickly. “Your mind’s made up, then?”

  “Yes. I let her get away once. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

  “When will we be having the wedding?”

  “Good question,” Duilio said. “Among her people, it’s a private agreement as far as I can tell. No wedding, and I’ve agreed to comply with her people’s customs.” He sighed as he watched the buildings slip by. “If I insist on marriage, it would sound like an implication that her people’s customs aren’t as valid as ours.”

  Joaquim remained silent as the cab rattled on up the street toward the Torre dos Clérigos, then said, “I can see her point. It would be easier to argue, though, that each of you should bind yourselves under your respective traditions, rather than choosing one or the other.”

  “I’ll let you tell her that, then,” Duilio said with half a laugh.

  The cab stopped near the doctor’s address before Joaquim could press him further on the issue. The waiting room was empty, and the doctor’s spinsterish secretary turned a sour eye on them, but eventually Dr. Esteves came to their rescue. Duilio introduced Joaquim as they followed the older man back to his office.

  The doctor gestured for them to sit. “So what strange inquiries do you have for me today, gentlemen?”

  Joaquim kept an eye on the doctor, trying to read his reactions. He’d asked around at the station about this doctor, and no one had heard anything ill about him. That wasn’t always a reliable gauge of a man’s actions.

  “Have you ever heard of a book called The Seat of Magic?” Duilio asked.

  The doctor frowned. “I’ve heard of it, although I’ve never seen a copy.”

  “Do you know what it contains?”

  Esteves paused halfway around his desk, his lip curling upward in distaste. “It’s supposed to be the record of a doctor who tried to find the biological source of magic in various peoples and remove it.” He sat down behind his desk, heavily. “The greatest breach of ethical conduct imaginable. Do you suspect the murder of that otter girl had something to do with it?”

  “There have been two other deaths,” Duilio told him. “A selkie, who was skinned completely, and a sereia whose throat was cut out. She might have been a patient of yours, a girl named Felipa Reyna.”

  The doctor’s shoulders slumped and he crossed himself. “Ah, how terrible. I know the Reyna family. She came to me for her hands, about five or six years ago?”

  Joaquim looked away, his mouth a narrow line. This was the man who’d cut the girl’s webbing away. It had been done to protect her life, but the girl hadn’t had much choice, had she?

  “Has she been here since?” Duilio asked.

  The doctor’s expression went pensive. “I suppose it won’t do any harm to divulge that at this point. She was here last week, one afternoon. A feminine concern.”

  “Thursday? The day I visited?”

  The doctor rose and called for his secretary to bring his agenda to him. When she’d done so, he flipped through a couple of pages of entries and laid it open for them to see. Felipa Reyna had visited the doctor that afternoon, his last patient.

  Joaquim spotted the name of Marina Arenias above hers. “Miss Arenias was here shortly before her and was assaulted down the street from this office. Were you aware of that?”

  The doctor appeared genuinely surprised. “Was she hurt?”

  “No,” Duilio said. “Inspector Tavares happened to be nearby and stopped her assailant. She was more frightened than anything else.”

  “And was Miss Reyna taken from near here as well? Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “We don’t know,” Joaquim said. “How many doctors in the city treat nonhumans?”

  “I honestly can’t say. It’s not something we talk about, for obvious reasons.”

  Joaquim didn’t doubt that answer. “Do you know of any doctors who might show an interest in procedures like those outlined in that book?”

  Esteves appeared taken aback. “You suspect a doctor is responsible for this?”

  Joaquim didn’t back down. “The officer who received the girl’s body noted that the cuts on her throat were neatly done with a
sharp implement.”

  The doctor’s mouth pursed. “Would it be possible for me to see the bodies?”

  “The otter girl has been buried, and the selkie given to the sea,” Duilio said.

  “And Felipa Reyna was buried this morning at the Prado do Repouso,” Joaquim said.

  Esteves shook his head. “Well, then, I suppose not. As to the book you mentioned, I can’t recall anyone offhand who showed an inordinate interest in the topic. I can make some discreet inquiries, gentlemen, but I don’t want to arouse the attention of the Special Police.”

  Duilio rose. “That’s all we can ask. Thank you for your help, Doctor.”

  When they headed out of the office, the doctor walked along with them. “I’m on my way to the cemetery myself,” he said, “so I’ll lay some flowers on Miss Reyna’s grave as well.”

  A chill went down Joaquim’s spine. “The cemetery?”

  “A friend of mine passed a couple of days ago,” he said. “His funeral is today.”

  Duilio glanced over at Joaquim, lips pursed.

  Joaquim knew that expression. There was something important about this. “Who, sir?”

  “Dr. Teixeira,” Esteves said. “You’ve met him, Inspector. You hired him to perform an autopsy last week.”

  That can’t be a coincidence, can it? “How did he die?” Joaquim asked. “He seemed in good health.”

  “In his sleep,” Esteves told them. “It happens sometimes. The heart gives out. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I don’t want to be late.”

  With a few words to his nurse, Esteves escorted them out his front door and locked it behind him. Joaquim walked toward the spot where Marina Arenias had been assaulted, waiting there for Duilio to catch up. The empty lot smelled faintly of urine and the gravel was rutted with wheel tracks now. “Dr. Teixeira’s death is the first clear tie between these two cases,” he said when Duilio reached him. “Could it be a coincidence?”

  Duilio scuffed the sole of his patent shoe on the pile of cobbles lying to one side. “I don’t have much faith in coincidence, Joaquim.”

  There were a lot of things Duilio didn’t have faith in. Joaquim didn’t bother to say that.

  “Speaking of coincidence, what were you doing on this street that afternoon?” Duilio asked suddenly. “When Miss Arenias was attacked.”

  “Walking home. I’d been making inquiries about Gita’s abductors.”

  “So you wouldn’t have been walking down this street in time to help Miss Arenias if you hadn’t been investigating Gita’s murder,” Duilio pointed out. “Fate, perhaps?”

  Joaquim licked his lips. “I’ve asked myself if she might have called me.”

  Duilio peered down the crowded street as pedestrians wove their way about them. “Did anyone other than you run to her aid?”

  “No,” Joaquim said.

  “Marina Arenias didn’t use her call, then, not if you were the only man who responded.”

  Joaquim surveyed the overgrown vegetation in the court created between the backs of houses on different streets. “We need to talk about that.”

  Duilio looked at him expectantly. “What?”

  “I left seminary because of this,” he said. “Because of her—Marina Arenias.”

  “That was a decade ago,” Duilio protested. “You didn’t know her.”

  “Exactly,” Joaquim said. “Father Santiago doubted my vocation. He asked me to meditate on why I wanted to enter the priesthood. So I did, for three days. I’m not sure I achieved enlightenment, but I did dream. Of a woman, so I decided I must want a wife and children more than I wanted to be a priest. I joined the police instead.”

  “Ah.” Duilio folded his arms loosely over his chest, prepared to wait.

  “I never thought they were real, Duilio—the dreams. Just wishful thinking. But I wondered if I would ever meet a woman who lived up to those memories.” Joaquim laughed, and then was tempted to cry. He’d known forever, hadn’t he? But he didn’t know how to say it to Duilio, not when Duilio was his closest friend and he’d lied to him all these years, even without intent. “I thought for a minute that my heart had stopped, Duilio. I couldn’t breathe. It was so hard to believe she was real.”

  Duilio stared at him, waiting.

  Joaquim rubbed a hand down his face, gathering his nerve. “It was her, Duilio. The woman from my dreams. Marina Arenias—every strand of hair, every eyelash, perfectly in place. The color of her skin, the sun and shadow. It wasn’t only her that I’d dreamed. It was this alleyway with that pile of cobbles, the smell in the air that afternoon, the wheel marks. The way she was tugging on her gloves. Everything was exactly how I remembered it from my dream so long ago.”

  Joaquim wished he knew what Duilio was thinking. He forced his eyes to meet Duilio’s. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Duilio laid one hand on his shoulder, his expression somber. “That you’re a seer, which means you’re actually my brother, not my cousin?” he asked, then grinned. “I can’t imagine any brother I’d rather have. I certainly get along better with you than Alessio or Erdano.”

  Joaquim laughed despite himself, the weight of worry lifting from his shoulders. He’d feared that Duilio would deny his claim or perhaps protest that he was wrong in his conclusions. How foolish that had been; Duilio always took everything in stride.

  “Are you hungry?” Duilio asked then. “Because it’s not that far to the café. We could have a nice lunch before meeting with Anjos at the morgue.”

  How like Duilio to think of eating before visiting a morgue. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Oriana had ink stains on her fingertips, the result of writing out invitations for Lady Ferreira that morning. There had been invitations for the three gentlemen of the Tavares family, Rafael Pinheiro, her own father and sister, Lady Pereira de Santos, and one for Lady Ana as well. If everyone showed up, the numbers would be uneven, but Lady Ferreira said they would manage.

  She’d been happy to do the writing for Lady Ferreira, whose hands still ached. It gave her something to do other than pacing the floor in her bedroom. Her mind was still whirling with the implications of her father’s words. What was she supposed to do? Her tenure in the Ministry of Intelligence was over—she no longer even had citizenship. And even if Maria Melo was still in Northern Portugal, the woman had contacts within the ministry who hadn’t flinched at destroying lives to keep her secrets.

  It was a relief when Duilio returned to the house, Joaquim Tavares with him. “How did your discussion with your father go?” Duilio crossed the sitting room to her side. “Any bloodshed?”

  She sighed when she noted the new bruise forming on Duilio’s chin. Evidently the infante favored his left hand. “Nothing I want to discuss at the moment. I understand a few things better now.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” He tilted his head trying to meet her eyes. “Or not?”

  Oriana lowered her eyes. “Let it alone for now.”

  He would hate that. He liked to talk about things, but she simply wasn’t ready. She hadn’t decided what she was going to do about all of this. Or about him. She couldn’t draw him into this mess.

  He acquiesced. “We are supposed to meet Anjos and his team at the morgue at three. I need to change shirts, but after that we could walk on up there.”

  Strange that a visit to a morgue sounds like an acceptable diversion. Oriana cast a glance at the table where her invitations were neatly stacked now, finished. “Let me get my mitts, and I’ll be right back down.”

  A few minutes later the three of them were walking along the Street of Flowers in the sunshine. As they made their way up the steep street, Duilio regaled her with the tale of his continued inability to keep the infante from bruising his face, and then discussed their brief meeting with Dr. Esteves.

  “If Castigliani’s journal w
as left on my people’s islands,” Oriana said softly, glancing about to make certain she wasn’t overheard, “I don’t see how human doctors would have heard of it in the first place. It would take a scholar to translate it.”

  “Once an idea’s written down,” Duilio said, “it’s damnably hard to eradicate. Something always escapes destruction. One copy hitting human shores would be all it needed.”

  Like her mother’s journal. One single idea in it had provoked a backlash against her family, even though no one in the Ministry of Intelligence had ever seen the thing. They’d only had her father’s assertion that it even existed. And yet . . .

  “The library at Alexandria was destroyed,” Joaquim pointed out. “Countless texts were wiped out, never to be seen again.”

  “But that was before printing presses made multiple copies available to the common man,” Duilio argued. “Now everyone can read them.”

  “Only two out of ten men in this country are literate, Duilio, if that. For the common man it’s all still rumor and hearsay. They have to lean on the word of their so-called betters.”

  They’d gone beyond the specific text in question, Oriana decided, and were going to start arguing about rights and education now. She only half listened as the two men discussed the country’s educational system. Fortunately the morgue wasn’t much farther and soon they walked through the doors into the unpleasant air of the small building. Oriana pressed the side of her hand under her nose, not caring how improper that looked.

  Inspector Gaspar was already there. Duilio went to greet him, leaving Joaquim standing with her.

  Officer Gonzalo came to lock the door behind them, but paused when a carriage stopped before the door. Oriana watched as Inspector Anjos opened the carriage door and stepped down and turned to help the other passenger out. Miss Vladimirova took his hand and descended from the carriage, draped and veiled in black as always. And as it had the first time she’d encountered the woman, a shiver made its way down Oriana’s spine. Her throat tightened and her heart began to race.