“Is Tess upstairs?”
He stepped back, gesturing with a flourish for her to enter. “Indeed. What do you have in that giant rucksack? A gift for your beloved?”
“A dress,” Kaab said shortly.
“For Tess?”
“For me.”
Vincent made a surprised sound. “And here I was shocked by the fact that you wore men’s trousers! Now, I admit, I can’t believe you’d wear a dress.”
“You Xanamwiinik have the strangest limitations when it comes to clothing,” Kaab said. Upstairs, the main studio was empty. Tess’s worktable was clean but for two cloth-covered boxes stacked neatly in one corner. Even her pens had been cleared away. “Where is Tess?”
“I’m right here,” Tess said from the doorway to the next room.
Kaab set the sack down and turned to see Tess casually holding a wicked-looking knife. Kaab took a step back.
Tess’s mouth twisted in a mocking grin. “I’m making a beef stew. You think you and Vincent are the only people who know how to handle a blade around here?” She went back into the other room, where the sounds of vigorous chopping commenced.
Vincent said, “I beg you, please make up with her. She’s been in a vicious mood for days.”
Kaab sighed. “Are you going to be lurking around while I do it?”
Vincent laughed briefly. “I like a bit of theater once in a while, but out of respect for my best student, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.” He was already reaching for his hat. “Besides, I have a job across the river.” At the top of the stairs he saluted her. “Best of luck to you, Ixkaab.”
As Kaab reluctantly headed toward the doorway through which Tess had disappeared, she caught a whiff of a faint, vinegary odor. She paused, taking a deep breath. It was not the smell of cooking, but the stink of her own disquiet. Aunt Saabim would say it was emanating from her overfull liver in a sign of her emotional agitation. This wasn’t supposed to happen to her. Kaab was superbly trained and dedicated completely to the service. She should know better than to allow her passions to rule her; had she not recently promised Aunt Saabim that she would put her family first? She squared her shoulders. There was no other choice: She had to fix the problem she had created—all the problems she had created. “Xamanek guide me,” she whispered beneath her breath, and stepped into the next room.
On the long, scarred wooden table before the hearth, where a fire was burning despite the day’s heat, Tess had placed a cutting board and was slicing pieces of beef off a hunk that must have been enormous to begin with, judging by the size of the pile nearby. Her hands were stained pink from the blood. She didn’t look up as she explained, “One of my clients is a butcher. He paid me with a side of beef on the hottest day of the year. No one wants to eat stew in the middle of the summer, but I can’t let this go to waste. When I’ve finished chopping this up, I’ll get your letter for you.”
The undercurrent of anger in Tess’s voice was quite clear to Kaab, and it both pained and frustrated her. She said, “You’re still angry with me, even though all I’ve done is be honest with you about my responsibilities to my family.”
Tess jabbed at the beef with her knife. “If that’s why you think I’m angry with you, you’re not a very good spy. Isn’t that what you do in your service? Or do I simply not understand your ways?”
Kaab went to her, reached for the knife, and expertly removed it from Tess’s grasp. “That beef doesn’t deserve to be stabbed. You might hurt yourself.”
Tess glared at Kaab. “Give me back my knife.”
Kaab did not give it back to her. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you while you’re holding a weapon.”
Tess raised one bloodied hand and smacked Kaab across the face.
Reeling in shock more than pain, Kaab dropped the knife onto the wooden floor, where it dented the floorboards and skidded beneath the table. “What was that for?” Kaab cried.
Tess went calmly to the table, crouched down, retrieved the knife, and wiped it on her apron. She went back to slicing the beef. “For treating me like a fool,” Tess said crisply. “You think I don’t understand how important your family business is to you, but you’re wrong. I understand that we come from different worlds.” She gestured to the two of them with the knife, again making Kaab recoil. “How could I not understand? How stupid do you think I am? The fact is, Ixkaab Balam, you don’t trust me enough to truly share anything with me. Oh, you trust me enough to have me forge those documents for you, but you won’t tell me what the documents are for. If you were an ordinary client, that would be fine, but gods help me, you’re not!”
To Kaab’s bafflement, Tess burst into tears. She dropped the knife onto the butcher block and wiped her forearm across her eyes. Kaab said, “Tess, I—”
“I don’t want to just be a forger you hire to do a job for you. I don’t want to be your good-time girl in Riverside, either. If that’s all you think I am, pay me for the letter and don’t come back.”
Kaab gazed at her, stunned into silence. Tess, with great dignity, picked up the knife again and finished chopping up the rest of the beef. Then she swept the massive pile of it into the stew pot hanging over the kitchen fire, went to a bucket of water standing by the side of the hearth, and began to rub the blood off her hands in the water. Kaab didn’t know what to do. She had prepared a brief but tender speech for the moment, intending to express her deep appreciation for Tess while delicately explaining that her family responsibilities were too great to allow them to remain together, but now the speech seemed ludicrous and hurtful. She couldn’t bring herself to go through with it. Not while Tess stood there, only steps away, shoulders slumped as she scrubbed the last of the blood off her hands. The curls of her red hair, escaping from the twist on her neck, seemed to glow against her white throat. Her face was downcast, her cheeks damp from tears, and Kaab could no longer deny it: The passion she felt for Tess had risen above the desires of the flesh; her feelings for this woman had moved into her heart.
This was not like what had happened with Citlali. This was not a game played by agents from different Trading families bent on profit. This emotion she had for Tess was the kind that could change everything.
Kaab picked up the linen cloth lying on the table and brought it to Tess. “To dry your hands,” Kaab said softly. She saw that Tess nearly refused to accept it, but when she did, it gave Kaab a surge of hope—something she had not known she needed. “I am sorry, Tess. You are right.”
Tess raised her gaze to meet Kaab’s, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“I should have known you would understand,” Kaab rushed on. “I was wrong to doubt you. It is simply not the way of my people to trust outsiders. We are—how do you say it?” Kaab made a frustrated sound. She felt as if all her years of Xanam instruction had failed her. “Your language! We Kinwiinik have our habits; they are difficult to change.”
Tess folded the dampened towel and tossed it onto the kitchen table. “You’re set in your ways?” she said, sounding less angry than resigned.
“Yes, set in our ways. Exactly that. You must understand—we Kinwiinik are like a great ship on the sea. We can travel great distances, but we cannot turn as quickly as a one-person canoe.”
A wisp of a smile tugged at Tess’s mouth. “I have never been on a ship.”
Kaab took a step closer to her. “We have one in the harbor. I can take you on board if you like.”
Tess gave Kaab a frank look. “If I tour your ship, is that simply a way to keep me away from your family compound?”
Kaab winced. “No. It is . . . a first step? Will you be patient with us? With me?”
“All you slow-moving, shiplike Balams?”
“Yes.” Kaab reached for Tess’s hands, and Tess allowed her to take them. “Please be patient?”
Tess frowned, but she did not pull away. “If you want me to be patient, you’ll need to give me more than a tour.”
“What do you want? If I can give it to you,
I will.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “Not like that, Kaab. First of all, you can tell me what that forged letter you had me write was all about. I don’t know who Lord Nathaniel Hemmynge is, but I definitely know who the Duke Tremontaine is. What’s going on? This is dangerous business!”
“I know, and that is why I didn’t want you to know more than you needed.”
“You already told me that you killed the Tremontaine swordsman and that he killed Ben. Why is Tremontaine involved at all? And why am I forging a letter about the duke’s bride?”
Kaab released Tess’s hands and went to the window, which overlooked the courtyard where the downstairs washerwoman hung laundry to dry. The courtyard was empty, but Kaab pushed the sash closed anyway. When she turned back to Tess, the forger looked distinctly uneasy. Kaab lowered her voice and said, “My family is in a tenuous position right now. Remember those star charts I asked you to create?”
“Of course.”
“I can’t tell you more about them—I’m sorry, Tess, but that is a true family secret. The only thing you need to understand about them is that I was using them to mislead someone.”
“That farm-girl mathematician, Micah.”
“Well, both her and Rafe Fenton. Did I tell you about him? He’s the duke’s lover, but he’s also a University scholar, and he comes from a merchant family. My family trades with them regularly—that’s how I met him. Rafe is working on some theories that could be extremely bad for my family’s business, and I was hoping the star charts would mislead him, but they didn’t. And now the duke wants to help Rafe continue his work. I can’t allow that to happen. I believe that letter you forged will convince the duchess to help me stop her husband and Rafe.”
“The Duchess Tremontaine?” Tess said in surprise. “How will she stop her husband from doing anything? And why would she help you?”
“The Duchess Tremontaine,” Kaab said with a glint in her eye, “is not who she says she is.”
“What do you mean? Who is she?”
Kaab told her the story of the duchess’s journey from the North to the City and how the carriage had been attacked by Rupert Hawke, Ben’s father.
“I thought that was just a legend!” Tess cried.
“No, it was a real event. The tale says that Rupert Hawke left two girls alive, but only one girl arrived in the City.”
“What happened to the other girl?” Tess asked.
“Exactly my question!”
“Maybe Rupert Hawke killed her?” Tess suggested, but she immediately shook her head. “Ben always said his father loved that story and that he swore he never killed any girls, ever.”
“I think I know what happened,” Kaab said.
“What?”
“I went to Tremontaine House the other day to search the duchess’s rooms—”
“Did you break into Tremontaine House?” Tess asked. She sounded rather thrilled by the idea.
“I had to.”
“We’ll make a Riversider out of you yet,” Tess said with a gleeful laugh. “What did you discover?”
“The locket that Ben showed you the night before he died, when he said you were going to be rich. The locket you sketched, the one that swordsman ransacked your rooms for. The locket I saw the duchess wearing on her wrist at the ball. It is, my love, a very important trinket.”
Tess’s hands flew to her mouth. “She killed him, didn’t she? Or at least she had her swordsman kill him!”
“I think so, yes.”
“For the locket? What was in the damn locket? I saw it, and it wasn’t worth a life!”
“Last night in her rooms I found the locket in a secret cabinet, and I opened it. It contains a miniature portrait of the girl who was supposed to marry the Duke Tremontaine—and it wasn’t a picture of the current duchess.” Kaab took a step closer to Tess. “She’s an impostor! Ben was trying to blackmail her with that information, but she had him killed. She has kept her true identity a secret for seventeen years, and she wasn’t about to let a Riversider get away with knowing the truth.”
“What’s the truth? Who is she, if not the duchess?”
“The duchess traveled here with a maid. I believe the current duchess was that maid. After Rupert Hawke robbed the carriage, he left the two girls alive, but only one arrived in the City—the girl who became the duchess. Something happened to the other girl.”
“She could’ve gotten lost, or—or maybe she was injured? Or maybe Rupert Hawke really did kill her, and the tale is wrong. You don’t think—” Tess’s rosy cheeks went white.
“I don’t know,” Kaab said.
“But that’s—” Tess hugged her arms across her belly. “That’s cold-blooded.”
“People kill for things much less precious than the title of duchess and all the wealth and status it comes with. People in my homeland would certainly kill to become a Balam, if they could.” Kaab paused to wipe the sweat from her forehead; the room was stiflingly hot with the window closed and the fire burning.
“What are you going to do?” Tess asked, fanning herself with her hand.
“The threat of exposing the truth about the duchess is something I can use to help my family. I’m going to Tremontaine House today, and I’m going to strike a deal to keep my family secure. I created the problem with those star charts, and it is my responsibility to solve it.”
Tess looked frightened. “There’s nothing I can do to prevent you from using this information, is there?”
Kaab went to Tess, cupped her face in her hands, and pressed a kiss on Tess’s mouth. “Don’t worry about me, my maize flower.”
“How can I not?” Tess whispered.
“Then you’ll come with me to visit the ship in the harbor?”
Tess laughed shortly. “You come back first, and then I’ll go on that tour. A first step, you said?”
“A first step. I promise.”
Seventeen Years Earlier
The monotony of the fortnight-long journey south had become like a constant sore to Louisa, trapped every day in the dim, stuffy coach with her mistress, a girl who was easily bored. They had played countless rounds of Red Hearts, a stupid, silly game deemed suitable for noble young ladies, and Louisa was finding it increasingly difficult to pretend to lose. She itched to win just once so that she could see the look on Lady Diane Roehaven’s tediously irritating face, but Louisa had no wish to endure the tantrum that Diane would certainly throw if she lost. So she played the mindless card game, listened with one ear to Diane’s tiresome prattle about her wedding, and gazed out the small window at the passing countryside, yearning to escape.
She hadn’t truly understood how vast the Land was. Lullingstone House was so far north that, as they traveled south, the seasons began to change. When they left, the ground had been barely thawed, with the first crocuses struggling to bloom, but one afternoon when they stopped to water the horses, Louisa climbed out on stiff legs to discover that the air was warm, the trees were covered in newly budded leaves, and dainty yellow flowers blossomed on the edges of the road. Behind them, twin ruts ran like brown ribbons through the woods, green grass tufting up in the center. She could not see the end of the forest, and though she was standing beside the coach and could hear the coachman talking to the footmen, she felt as if she were alone.
Louisa knew that she would never return to Lullingstone. Even if, when they arrived in the City, her mistress decided to let her go and hire a new, more fashionable lady’s maid, Louisa would not go back. This was a one-way journey for her, too, and though she had no choice but to take it, an excited thrill went through her at the thought of what was in store. When she was a child at the penitent hospital, one of the nurses who worked there had come from the City, and she often reminisced about the crowded, cobblestoned streets, where buildings pressed against one another shoulder to shoulder, the sky reduced to a narrow strip above. The nurse had particularly missed the City’s great market squares, packed with vendors selling all sorts of things: fabrics fro
m far-off lands, fresh fruits and vegetables grown especially for City dwellers, even exotic delicacies like saffron and vanilla and chocolate. Louisa had no idea what those things tasted like, but she had whispered the words to herself as if they were candies on her tongue. Later, during Diane’s lessons in etiquette, housekeeping, and deportment, Louisa had often snuck away from her own tasks to secretly listen at the door, imagining herself in Diane’s place. She could nearly hear the ring of porcelain chocolate cups on silver trays, the tap of heeled shoes on polished marble floors, and the luxurious rustle of silk and velvet skirts. The City called to her, and Louisa was determined to make her life there, no matter what happened.
“Louisa! Where are you? We have to move on.”
Diane’s shrill voice grated through the still air. Louisa turned away from the road and climbed back into the coach. “Yes, my lady,” she said, and pulled the door shut.
Diane gave her a curious look. “Whatever were you doing out there? There’s nothing to see, only endless trees.”
The coach jerked into motion again. “I needed a breath of fresh air, my lady,” Louisa said. She reached down into her bag to pull out her sewing. She was nearly finished with the nightdress and hoped to complete it by the end of the day.
“Oh, I can hardly bear how long this journey is taking,” Diane moaned. “A week, and we are only halfway through! I am so eager to meet my husband and to see Tremontaine House.”
“He is sure to be handsome,” Louisa murmured, barely paying attention.
“It is so fitting, I think, that I am marrying the duke. Do you know what Lady Hemmynge said to me? She said that I was destined before my birth for this marriage because I am the last of the Roehaven line. My destiny is to carry on the Roehaven bloodline, Louisa. Isn’t that terribly romantic?”
“Indeed, my lady,” Louisa said flatly. Diane had regaled her with this family history so many times she could have repeated it word for word. Diane’s self-important belief in her superiority simply due to her ancestors struck Louisa as patently ridiculous, but of course she could never voice that opinion to her mistress. The Roehavens were an offshoot of the famous Tremontaine family at the time of the kings, true, but she didn’t see why their blood in particular was so special. They were still a family long rooted in the North, and in the North, everyone was related to everyone else: They all had the blood of the ancient kings in them. I am as good as you are, Louisa thought as Diane continued to go on about family honor and noble ancestors. And a good deal less of an idiot.
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