Today Lady Brina was traveling with a man I had never seen before, who had dark hair, tanned skin, and brilliant blue eyes ringed with gold. He surveyed his surroundings with the attention of a guard, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform. The other individual with them was a boy a few years younger than me whose pallor contrasted sharply with the greenish-yellow bruises that lined the side of his face.
As soon as Lady Brina had landed softly on the ground, Felix approached her. He gave a low bow and asked, “Will your servants be tending to your horse, my lady, or shall I?”
With a familiar toss of her head, Lady Brina told the man with her, “Make sure my property is well tended. We can talk more later. Come, boy!”
The last command was to the child, who hurried after her.
I handed Dika’s reins to Felix, whispered, “I’ll be right back,” and dared call, “Lady Brina!”
She paused and turned with an expression of grim annoyance that lightened when she saw who had spoken. “My quetzal!” she exclaimed as if recognizing me for the first time. “It was very rude of you to leave with no warning. As you can see, it has not been an easy task to replace you. Taro brought this one to me, but he is utterly unsuitable.”
I looked at the bruised boy, whose eyes were downcast. Was that how she saw me? A replaceable servant? Not servant—a replaceable slave, I thought as I realized the boy was wearing one of the black collars I saw so often in this place.
I stared, dumbfounded. “Were you able to salvage the painting?” I asked, and then bit my tongue because she flinched, as I should have known she would. Was I trying to be hurtful? Where had those words come from?
One of the ever-silent slaves who tended the stables raced past us toward the main building. He didn’t hesitate to bow, kneel, or in any way acknowledge Lady Brina, which was what warned me of trouble. I hurried back to Felix, who was beside Dika. The horse had seemed fine when I left, but now she was lying down and attempting to roll on her back.
Felix was talking to her in soft, calm tones as he reexamined her hooves and legs. The stranger had also knelt next to the horse and was rubbing her stomach gently.
“What happened to you?” Felix murmured to the horse. “You were perfectly well when you went out. Vance, did you see her eat anything unusual?”
I shook my head as I joined them on the floor, though I had no idea what I could possibly do. The stranger looked up at me sharply. Assessing.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Are you a guard?”
“I’m Vance. I’m …” I hesitated. His eyes reminded me of Malachi’s. Not the color, but the intensity. The draw of those blue-and-gold orbs. I heard Mistress Jeshickah enter the stables, but it was difficult to turn my attention toward her.
Witch, I thought as I wrenched my gaze away.
“Who are you?” Mistress Jeshickah asked the witch.
“I’m the master of animals at the di’Birgetta estate,” he answered. “I noticed this one ailing when I arrived with my lady.”
Mistress Jeshickah knelt next to the horse and dropped her head. Long black tresses spread across Dika’s side as the vampire leaned down to listen to the horse’s labored breathing.
The stranger reached out, probably to touch the horse again, but … some instinct deep within me warned otherwise. Lady Brina might have been traveling with her “master of stables” if she was here to buy a horse or other relevant property, but why wouldn’t she have introduced him to Felix in that case? Why would she walk off without him?
“Mistress!” I shouted in warning.
When Mistress Jeshickah lifted her head to glare at me, the stranger threw himself into motion. His raised hand barely missed her throat, then clamped on her forearm instead. His other hand suddenly held a knife.
The air became hot and seemed to shimmer. Mistress Jeshickah’s teeth were clenched as the muscles in the arm gripped by the witch spasmed. She twisted, breaking his grasp, then wrenched his arm up behind his back and dragged him away from Dika. Felix ran to the horse the moment the others were clear.
Meanwhile, the witch staggered, then lashed out with one leg, his heel striking Mistress Jeshickah’s knee, which sent both of them to the ground, entangled.
I cast my gaze about, searching desperately for anything that I could use as a weapon. I knew nothing about fighting, but standing there uselessly seemed worse.
My hand had just closed on the wooden handle of a pitchfork normally used to turn hay when I heard Mistress Jeshickah hiss in pain. I spun back toward her. The silver handle of the witch’s knife was protruding from her back.
Nothing Malachi Obsidian had said mattered in that moment. Taro’s manipulations, children being raised in cells in the east wing—doubts didn’t matter, because this stranger was threatening the woman who had saved me from abandonment, who had given me a beautiful greenhouse and a life where I had never known fear or deprivation.
I flung myself toward the witch with a shriek that I never would have imagined coming from my own throat, and knocked the two apart.
Everywhere the witch’s skin touched mine, I felt searing cold. I braced myself against it, expecting him to strike me down. Instead, his eyes widened, and he flung himself away from me with a curse.
What did I do? I wondered. Did I use my magic? Malachi had said that bloodwitches couldn’t use their magic unless they were trained.
Maybe Malachi lied, I thought. Or the Azteka did.
Pushing my unexpected advantage, I moved toward the witch. He didn’t know that I didn’t know what I had done, or how to do it again. His eyes tracked me—which meant they weren’t on Mistress Jeshickah when she struck.
She appeared behind him without warning, looped an arm around his throat, and squeezed. When he raised his hands to defend himself, she caught both his wrists in one hand. He struggled like a butterfly caught in a net.
Looking up toward the doorway, Mistress Jeshickah said, “Brina, please explain why you brought an assassin to my home.”
Lady Brina was standing in the doorway, as she probably had been since the fight began less than a minute ago. She gathered herself and said with a huff, “We met on the road. We were going in the same direction, so he offered to escort me.”
The witch had lied about being her stable master, just as I had suspected. I should have felt gratified that my instincts were right about him, but I barely had the energy.
Now that the fight was over, I became aware of the world around us. Horses shifted anxiously in their pens, letting out high-pitched whinnies of concern. Felix was in the process of tucking Dika safely into her stall; the horse had regained her feet and was tossing her head, fighting her handler.
“Very well,” Mistress Jeshickah said. “Brina, go about your business and be grateful that I’m aware enough of your arrogant idiocy to believe your excuse. Vance.” I jumped as she said my name, then froze, unsure if I should be kneeling. “Well done. I will consider an appropriate reward for your loyalty.” The witch finally went limp in her arms. She dropped him into the straw, then snapped, “Felix!”
Now that the horses were settled, the stable marshal presented himself immediately and knelt in front of his mistress.
Though I had already seen the leather bullwhips that hung in the stables, I had accepted Felix’s explanation that I would never need to use one—not on one of Mistress Jeshickah’s prized, perfectly trained horses—and not asked further questions. So when Mistress Jeshickah lifted one from the wall, the last thing I expected her to do was flick the long, ropelike tool in Felix’s direction.
With the speed of lightning and the sound of an accompanying thunderclap, the end of the snakelike weapon struck Felix once, twice, three times in the chest. Each time it struck his flesh, the skin ripped and blood gushed to the surface. Felix went rigid and a small, choked sound escaped his throat, but he made no move to defend himself or get away.
“What is the rule about strangers in my stables?” Mistress Jeshickah asked as she knelt to retrieve th
e witch’s fallen knife. As she turned I saw the slice through the back of her bodice where the knife had penetrated. Blood had stained the cloth around the wound, though the skin now appeared to be solid.
“Strangers are not allowed in the stables,” Felix replied. “I’m sorry, Mistress. I thought he was with Lady di’Birgetta, and I know I am not supposed to—”
“It isn’t your job to think,” Mistress Jeshickah interrupted. “It is your job to see that my orders are obeyed. Orders that exist to keep my property intact, and to keep things like this from happening. Is Dika all right, now that the witch’s magic is broken?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Is everything under control here?”
I turned to see Jaguar in the doorway. He briefly met my gaze, then looked to the witch on the floor, who had started to stir.
“Except for the ineptitude of my stable marshal, we’re fine here,” Mistress Jeshickah replied. She knelt next to the witch, pinioned his wrists again, and then pulled him to his feet. As she did so, I saw her previously injured knee start to buckle; she shifted her weight to compensate.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Mistress?” I dared to ask, remembering how my blood had run hot when I had seen the knife in her back.
She tossed her head in much the same way the horses do when irritated. “Even magic does not slay us easily,” she replied. But her skin looked paler than usual. “Jaguar, clean up this mess. I don’t want the blood to attract rats.”
MISTRESS JESHICKAH SWEPT past us, pausing only to touch my hair with her free hand in a gesture of acknowledgment. After she left, I stood where I was for several moments, overwhelmed by my own churning emotions. Fear had become fury, then relief, and now … I didn’t even know.
Felix hadn’t moved except to drop his head so his gaze rested on the floor, where blood had fallen into the fresh straw.
I had seen Lady Brina’s and Lord Daryl’s tempers in the greenhouse, but Mistress Jeshickah hadn’t seemed furious. She had been perfectly calm, just as she had been when the witch attacked her, as if she were attending to one more duty.
“Up,” Jaguar said to Felix, who winced as Jaguar hauled him to his feet. “Are the horses safe?”
“Some of them may have panicked during the fight. I should check on—”
“You will do no such thing,” Jaguar interrupted. “Who here is capable of doing your job?”
Felix pointed out another slave, who had been silently on his knees ever since Lady Brina had arrived.
“Fine. You, you’re taking over as stable marshal until Mistress Jeshickah makes other arrangements.” The selected slave immediately stood and began his rounds, as if nothing else had happened. As if the previous stable marshal were not still bleeding into the straw.
Jaguar dropped Felix, and he hit the ground hard, seeming to make no effort to protect himself from the fall. Then Jaguar looked at me. He must have seen my pale face and the unspoken questions in my mind, because he said to Felix, “I think Vance is concerned that Mistress Jeshickah’s response may have been excessive. What do you think, Felix?”
Felix shuddered, still on the ground. “I disobeyed a clear order regarding how Mistress Jeshickah’s stables must be managed, and in doing so directly enabled an assassination attempt that endangered not only my charges but Mistress Jeshickah herself. There is no possible response that I would consider excessive.”
“Come here, Vance,” Jaguar urged, “and tell me if you agree.”
I crept closer, my own anger at Felix’s carelessness warring with my reaction to the blood on his chest. My only experience of blood had been Calysta’s, rotten and buzzing with flies. My breath came shallowly; I never wanted to smell that horror again.
“It’s just a little blood,” Jaguar said, apparently amused. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
I forced myself to his side. Despite my fears I couldn’t smell the blood at all over the aroma of the stables themselves. Unlike the congealed sludge that Calysta’s blood had become, the trails on Felix’s chest were bright red, seeping slowly. My eyes locked on those crimson streams, no longer aware of Felix or Jaguar, or even Vance.
Someone, something was whispering at the back of my mind. If I could only hear what it was saying …
The blood wasn’t as hot as I had expected. It was—
What was I doing?
I wrenched my hand back from Felix’s chest and my head up, prepared for Jaguar to demand an explanation, but saw his calm, contemplative face instead. “Do you think I am going to object to a little blood fascination?”
He had a point.
Before I could argue, he added, “Felix doesn’t mind, either. Go with your instincts, little bloodwitch.”
Perhaps I should have, but I had never considered the name of the magic I supposedly had. The word blood had only made me think of Calysta. I had never considered that, by avoiding it, I might be avoiding my own power.
I tried to summon back the little voice. What had it wanted me to do?
All I could think about was Malachi’s warning: What will you do when they decide you’re not useful enough and toss you in one of these gray cells? If I couldn’t master my magic, was this what I would become? A slave who had failed to fulfill my one obligation?
I touched the blood on Felix’s chest again, then glanced up at his face nervously. He was watching me calmly, no hint of fear, judgment, or pain in his gaze.
What was I supposed to do now?
Nothing; no response. Whatever instinct or power had been guiding me was gone now.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Jaguar, dropping my hand with a sigh.
“We’ve learned something, anyway,” he answered. “More experiments may be in order.”
I tensed, fearing what those experiments might mean. More people hurt? More failure? I wasn’t sure which scared me more.
“Vance, help Felix to the infirmary. I doubt Jeshickah will want him back in the stables, but I’m sure we can find use for him somewhere once he’s well again. I’m going to double-check all the horses and feed before I go,” Jaguar said, his tone all business once more, as if the strange interlude with the blood had never happened. “Come by my rooms tonight—no, I should make myself available tonight in case Jeshickah needs help with her new acquisition. Tomorrow morning, just before sunrise, would be better. There’s something I want to test.”
Test. I wasn’t sure I liked that word. I nodded, though Jaguar had already turned away to join the new stable marshal as he checked on the horses.
As I approached, Felix pushed himself to his feet. I caught him as he swayed; his face was gray and his lips had a blue tinge. For a moment he hung on to my arm as if it were a life raft, but then his grip relaxed and he managed to stand unassisted. He had seemed so calm and composed earlier that it had been easy to ignore the fact that he was obviously severely injured.
“This way,” I said.
I walked close beside him, ready to catch him if he fell or offer an arm to support him if he needed it. He never complained, but he took each step with exacting care, as if the ground might suddenly shift beneath him.
When we reached the infirmary, I pushed the door open and caught Felix’s arm as he stumbled crossing the threshold. His skin was cool to the touch now; I wiped my hand on my pants instinctively once he had steadied himself again and I could let go.
My nose wrinkled at the sharp smell of herbs, which were set out on tables, hanging from the ceiling, and bubbling in pots on a stove. Human slaves hustled soundlessly around the room, their brows furrowed in concentration. The only voice I heard was that of one of the older healers, who was instructing a young boy in how to prepare a poultice designed to stave off blood poisoning.
She looked up from her work, saw Felix, and said to her charge, “Finish that. We’re going to need it.”
To me she said, “Are there any particular instructions, sir?”
I shook my head, not understanding the question. “Help him,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
She took Felix’s arm and guided him to a low stool. Neither of them spoke as she took a small dagger and cut down the side of his shirt, pulling the bloody garment away. Where the blood had stuck the fabric to his skin, it let loose with a squelching noise. Next, she grabbed a pair of tweezers from the nearby table and began to matter-of-factly pluck loose threads and bits of fabric from the wounds. I had to look away as her ministrations caused more blood to gush from Felix’s chest, but then I looked back, wondering how he could stay so still and silent through it all.
“The wounds are severe,” the healer said, “and injuries suffered in the stables are prone to infection. Is he needed immediately?”
“No,” I answered, remembering what Jaguar had said.
“In that case, may he stay here for a day or two?” she asked. “If we can stave off fever, he should recover sufficiently to return to his regular duties.”
“Do what you think is best,” I said, backing away. I wished I had left earlier. She was the healer. Why was she deferring to me?
“Yes, sir,” the healer said again.
I took another step back and ran into another slave, who had just darted into the room behind me. I had never realized how busy this place was.
It was time for me to get out of the way. Felix had been taken care of, and I was exhausted. I returned to my room with my mind swirling.
I couldn’t get the image of Felix out of my head, but if he said Mistress Jeshickah’s reaction was fair, why was I questioning it? At least here he was getting medical attention. How did I know he wouldn’t have been treated worse outside? Malachi and Calysta had both described being frightened, starving, freezing in that world, but the slaves all around me here were well fed, well clothed, and healthy … except when they weren’t, when they were in the infirmary.
Midnight wasn’t a utopia—that was clear even to me—but I had no evidence that it was worse than the alternatives.