The Golden City (20 page)

D
uilio looked out the window. It couldn’t be more than fifteen feet to the cobbles.

He grappled with the latch and finally got it open, the windowpane swinging out and banging again
st
the
st
op. That caused another round of cries as glass sprinkled down to the cobbles below. Smoke began to billow over his shoulder, and Duilio glanced back to see that the flames had almo
st
reached his feet. He had no time left.

He climbed over the sill and a second later dangled by his hands from the window’s frame. Voices urged him to drop, so he did so. He landed on his feet, but felt that jolt through his very teeth. People were
st
ill crying out, and there seemed to be chaos about him in the
st
reet.

Then water splashed all over him from behind,
st
artling him out of his numbness. “What in Hades’ name are you doing?”

The man holding the bucket clapped Duilio’s shoulder. “Back of your coat was on fire.”

Duilio in
st
in
ct
ively craned his neck, trying to look at the back of his coat. “Thank you,” he mumbled as the man
st
rode away.

Something exploded in the shop then, scattering the pede
st
rians. Duilio backed away with the re
st
of the crowd. Another barrel or keg blew, this time shattering the front windows, and black smoke began to roil out of them, joining the
st
ream that came from the upper floor. The Corps of Public Safety fought mo
st
of the fires in the city, but Duilio didn’t think they would get there in time to save any part of the building.

I should not be here when they arrive,
he thought with sudden clarity. His sodden and apparently burned jacket would place him as having been in the apartment. He didn’t want to try to explain his presence there to them. Pulling up the collar of his coat, he eased away through the crowd, heading in the dire
ct
ion of the church at the end of the
st
reet. He felt again the sense of being watched, but was too tired to care at the moment.

Duilio settled on the
st
one
st
eps before the church. His coat was ruined, so he tugged it off, rolled it up, and tucked it under his arm. His shirt and wai
st
coat were ruined as well, but weren’t as bad. He didn’t care, save that Marcellin was going to have a fit of apoplexy over this. A weak laugh worked its way out of his che
st
, then turned into a cough.

“You need someone to watch your back,” a man said in a voice that sugge
st
ed they’d been chatting for a couple of hours. “That time he almo
st
got you.”

Duilio looked to his right. Leaning again
st
the
st
one wall that surrounded the church’s grounds was the man who’d thrown water on him when he’d hit the ground. The man’s dark skin and short-cropped black hair hinted he might be from one of the old African colonies. His eyes were an odd shade of smoky green, hard to mi
st
ake should he turn up again. His suit looked to be well made, although of a foreign cut. Oddly, Duilio’s gift had given him no warning about this man’s approach, as if he wasn’t there at all.

Duilio rose, keeping the coat under his arm. He didn’t want to lose it—or the journal in one of the pockets. “
Who
almo
st
got me?”

“Donato Mata,” the man said. “Do you know him?”

“No,” Duilio admitted. The name didn’t mean anything to him. “And you are?”

“Inspe
ct
or Gaspar, Special Police,” the man said.

A frisson of worry slid down Duilio’s spine . . . but it wasn’t his gift warning him. It was simply the normal rea
ct
ion to speaking with a member of that body. The man spoke in accented Portuguese—from Cabo Verde, if Duilio placed it corre
ct
ly. The inspe
ct
or extended a card in one gloved hand. “What exa
ct
ly were you doing up there? Why is he after you?”

Duilio took the card. It bore the man’s name, Miguel Gaspar, along with his seal and a
st
ated rank of special inve
st
igator. It looked impressive, but it wouldn’t be difficult to find a printer to falsify cards. Despite his doubts, Duilio tucked the thing into the damp folds of his coat. The rank put this man above Joaquim. Even above Captain Rios, Duilio suspe
ct
ed. “What did you mean when you said he almo
st
got me
this
time?”

The man fixed his gaze on Duilio’s face. “He took a shot at you la
st
night in a tavern. I assume your gift warned you in time, although it didn’t do you much good today.”

Duilio felt his breath go short again. Did the Special Police know he was a seer? That couldn’t be good.

“Then again,” the man added, “setting a fire isn’t a
ct
ing dire
ct
ly again
st
you
, which would allow your gift to miss it. Probably why he chose that method rather than a dire
ct
confrontation this time.”

“My gift?” Duilio asked.

Gaspar’s smoky green eyes narrowed. “You’re a seer, although not a particularly
st
rong one. I suspe
ct
your selkie blood limits your gift somehow.”

His in
st
in
ct
ive desire to take a swing at the man and run seemed a good idea now. Why was his gift not helping him? If Gaspar knew that Duilio was part selkie, then he had every right to drag Duilio down to the
st
ation and throw him in jail. But he hadn’t done so. And
how
did he know? The number of people who were aware of both those things was limited. “I imagine your superiors wouldn’t approve of your conversing with me if that were true.”

Gaspar smiled mildly. “There are Special Police, and then there are Special Police. And then, Mr. Ferreira,” he added, “there are
special
Special Police.”

While that answer didn’t precisely make sense, Duilio under
st
ood. Within any police body there were divisions. He’d not heard any rumor of such, but merely because the regular police hadn’t heard of this didn’t mean the Special Police weren’t at one another’s throats. “And what makes you think those things are true about me?”

It was a dangerous que
st
ion to ask, but at this point why not chance it?

“I see it, Mr. Ferreira,” Gaspar said. “I look at people . . . and I know.”

Duilio gazed at the man leaning again
st
the
st
one wall. Did he corre
ct
ly under
st
and what Gaspar had ju
st
intimated?

He’d met different kinds of witches throughout the pa
st
several years—not ju
st
seers, but healers who could
st
ill a man’s blood in his veins, witches who could lay a curse that la
st
ed for decades. There were Truthsayers who could weigh a man’s words, and Finders who could locate things gone missing. There were a myriad of little talents, and skills benign enough that they didn’t have names. But this was something different, a rarity that supposedly appeared only once a generation. “You’re a
Meter
?”

The inspe
ct
or didn’t flinch. “Yes, Mr. Ferreira.”

Meters were the
st
uff of legends. A Meter was a witch who could
see
what others were. Duilio wasn’t sure how far that talent extended, what Gaspar saw in him, but if Gaspar truly was a Meter, the Spanish Church would love to have him in their clutches. They
st
ill hunted witches in Spain, and Gaspar could simply point out each one on the
st
reet. “So, what are you doing here?” Duilio asked him. “Were you following me?”

“What were you doing in that building?”

Admittedly, Gaspar had revealed something of himself—clearly hoping to gain Duilio’s tru
st
—but he
was
a member of the Special Police. Duilio couldn’t be sure where the man
st
ood on anything, lea
st
of all inve
st
igation of
The City Under the Sea
. For all he knew, Gaspar had set that fire himself or was in league with the man who’d attacked him at the tavern. After all, his attacker had probably been a member of the Special Police. Duilio didn’t answer.

Gaspar pushed away from the wall. “It would be helpful to me if I knew why Mata is hunting you, Mr. Ferreira. I under
st
and your hesitation. I’m sure you under
st
and mine.”

Yes, he did. It was always a game of trying to figure out whom to tru
st
.

“You should go home, Mr. Ferreira,” Gaspar added, giving him a friendly pat on his shoulder. “You look a wreck.”

Duilio shook his head ruefully.
Yes, I certainly do
.

•   •   •

O
riana needed to return the fabric scissors she’d borrowed from Felis, so she headed down to the servants’ workroom. Halfway down the back
st
airs, she almo
st
collided with Mr. Ferreira coming up.

She should have been warned by the smell. He carried the acrid scent of burned paper about him like a cloud. His coat was tucked under his arm, and she could see dried blood
st
aining his shirtsleeve where he’d been injured the previous evening. His charcoal-gray wai
st
coat was liberally
st
reaked with soot and ash. Even his shoes looked ruined. “Do you come home every evening like this, sir?” she asked, horrified.

He laughed, apparently not as perturbed as he should have been.

Is this normal?
“What happened?” she demanded. “Are you hurt?”

Mr. Ferreira leaned again
st
the newel po
st
. “Someone walked into a room behind me and set it ablaze,” he said, sobering. “And the floor below that. I suspe
ct
it was the same gentleman from la
st
night.”

Who seemed likely to have been a member of the Special Police. “They certainly don’t want you proceeding with this inve
st
igation, do they?”

He shrugged and then winced. “I’m beginning to have que
st
ions about that, Miss Paredes. I suspe
ct
my under
st
anding of the Special Police might be insufficient to grasp what’s going on now.”

What does that mean?
“Are you hurt?” she asked again.

“Oh, I’m fine,” he said dismissively, as if an attempt to burn him to death didn’t warrant concern. He began to search the pockets of his coat. “I went to inve
st
igate the place because we thought Espinoza might live there.”

“Did he?”

Mr. Ferreira tugged a leather-bound book out of one of the pockets. “Evidence sugge
st
s that he did but hasn’t been there for some time.”

When he held out the book, Oriana took it. It was damp, the edges of the pages already beginning to curl. “And this is?”

“A journal, likely his.”

He certainly disliked
st
ating absolutes. He qualified everything he said. She peered down at the leather-bound book more closely. It didn’t seem to have been damaged by the fire, but she was going to have to let it dry. “May I look through this?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid it got wet. Someone dumped a bucket of water on me. I thought you might be able to determine if there’s anything useful inside. Perhaps some hint where the man is holed up. It would be helpful if he names any of his compatriots, particularly in the Special Police. Or who’s paying for his work. That would be nice to know.”

He could have given this to his cousin in the police in
st
ead, but he’d handed it over to her. It was a ge
st
ure of tru
st
. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Were you injured again? Or is that the other wound reopened?”

“The old one,” he said, glancing back at his blood-smudged shirt. “Nothing that requires an application of brandy, Miss Paredes, I assure you. I’ll get my man to bandage it after I get cleaned off. If you see Marcellin down
st
airs, could you mention to him that I’m here? I need to get cleaned up before dinner.”

A va
st
under
st
atement. “I’ll do so, sir. Will we
st
ill go to the ball?”

“Absolutely, Miss Paredes. If there’s one thing we could use more of, it’s information. Especially if it helps make sense out of all the other information we have.”

•   •   •

O
riana did her be
st
to salvage the journal. Some pages were wetter than others, so she took a towel and carefully dabbed at them, trying hard not to smear any ink. The book had been tightly wedged into Mr. Ferreira’s pocket, so the water hadn’t crept too far into the pages. He’d been lucky.

She skimmed a couple of pages, mo
st
describing building one house or another, along with a few others that contained arcane mathematical calculations. Deciding that she could read it the next day, she laid the journal atop the che
st
of drawers in the dressing room. She weighed down each side of the cover with what appeared to be unused snuffboxes, trinkets that mu
st
have belonged to Alessio, and the pages fanned open. She hoped they would dry by the morning.

They were to leave the house at ten, so Oriana
st
ewed in her room for a couple of hours. If Nela’s Lady did show up in the Carvalho’s library, what should she ask? Unfortunately she under
st
ood what Mr. Ferreira had meant when he’d given her the journal. They had a great deal of information already. They simply didn’t know how it tied together. Too many aspe
ct
s of this didn’t make sense. If only she could ask the right que
st
ion tonight and get the right answer, perhaps everything would become clear.