The Golden City (5 page)

Her face took on a calculating look. “Is the handsome man from the boat
st
ill here?”

Duilio resi
st
ed the urge to laugh at her eager tone.
Poor João
. “I believe so.”

The corners of her pretty lips lifted. “Is he nice?”

Duilio wasn’t going to speculate about whether João was nice. “You would have to ask him, I suppose.”

“I’ll do that,” she said brightly, then her brows drew together. “Do I leave now?”

“Can you think of anything else to tell me about the woman in the water?”

Aga took a deep breath and appeared to be thinking hard, her lips pinched together. She finally pronounced, “She had webbed hands.”

Like a thunderclap inside his brain, Duilio
knew
.

That
was the fa
ct
he’d been fishing for. His gift confirmed it.

A woman with webbed hands
. Duilio set his own hand under the girl’s elbow and drew her back toward his bedroom door. When he opened it he found a very flu
st
ered-looking João right outside. The young man mu
st
have been li
st
ening at the keyhole.

“Sir,” João said quickly, “you asked me to wait.”

Seeing the young man’s flushed features, Duilio held in a laugh. “Yes, João, I did. Can you escort Miss Aga to Mr. Erdano’s room at the far end on the left? Or back to the yacht, if she wishes.”

João’s eyes slid toward the girl. “Yes, sir.”

Recalling the girl’s reque
st
, Duilio slipped off his dressing gown, bundled it up, and handed it to her. “In trade for the information, Aga.”

She petted the bundle of velvet like a pup. “Pretty.”

She didn’t even look back, but happily followed the boatman away, the light of his lamp fading as they went down the hallway. Duilio shut his door, content to leave his little problem in João’s capable hands. He returned to the hearth, settled into the leather armchair, and
st
retched out his legs.

A woman had been out in the water, near the submerged houses. That woman had webbed hands: a
sereia
, not a human. Unlike selkies, who were called selkies all over Europe, the sereia bore different names in other countries. The French called them
sirènes
, the English mermaids, and the Germans knew them as
Lorelei
. No matter how they were named, they weren’t allowed in the Golden City.

Selkies weren’t either, but the ban hadn’t ever kept his mother or Erdano—or him, for that matter—out. For all Duilio knew, there could be dozens of selkies living in the Golden City. Unlike the sereia, once they’d shed their pelts they were almo
st
indi
st
inguishable from humans. Without a selkie’s pelt, one couldn’t prove that they weren’t human. The sereia’s webbed hands, their gills, and the scale patterning of their skin were all elements of their nature that they
couldn’t
put aside.

Duilio laced his fingers together and propped his chin atop them. He could recall seeing sereia walking the
st
reets of the city when he was young, in the days before the prince’s ban. Although they kept their di
st
ance from human society, a few had owned houses in the city or in Vila Nova de Gaia across the river. They had traded with the locals, but not any longer.

When Prince Fabricio came into power following his father’s demise, he had issued a proclamation banning all sea folk from the Golden City on pain of death. He’d been told by his seers he would one day be killed by one of the sea folk. Duilio had his doubts. He found it hard to believe a seer could reliably predi
ct
anything far into the future, and it had been almo
st
two decades since then. Too many fa
ct
ors had changed in the interim.

Whatever the impetus behind the prince’s order, for the fir
st
few years following its issuance the Special Police—whose explicit mandate was to carry out the orders of the prince, whether or not those orders served the be
st
intere
st
s of the people—had obediently rounded up every sereia or selkie they could find, along with many of those who prote
ct
ed them. Sympathizers had been jailed and their property seized. The sea folk themselves had been executed. Otterfolk rarely came into the city, and mo
st
selkies slipped in and out, intere
st
ed in little beyond a night’s pleasure, so the majority of those executed had been sereia. And although Duilio hadn’t heard of an execution in the pa
st
few years, mo
st
citizens believed the Special Police
st
ill carried them out, ju
st
not publicly. There
was
a
ct
ually an ambassador from the Ilhas das Sereias—the islands of the sereia—at the prince’s court, but the man lived under house arre
st
at the palace. And while Duilio had long
suspe
ct
ed
there might be sereia hiding in the city, he hadn’t been sure until he met Miss Paredes.

He closed his eyes, remembering that day. It had been a brief encounter, back in the spring. Everyone else had watched the
st
unning Lady Isabel Amaral. Duilio’s attention had been captured in
st
ead by the lady’s companion, a woman somewhere near his age, mode
st
ly dressed and attra
ct
ive, although he wouldn’t have called her beautiful. Pretty, perhaps, but nothing special. Well, she had exceptionally nice lips, lips made to kiss. He recalled admiring her tiny wai
st
and rounded hips, although that might simply be her corset. Her flat-brimmed
st
raw hat had ca
st
a shadow across her face, but as she shifted the parasol she carried to better shade her mi
st
ress’ alaba
st
er skin, he’d noticed her dark eyes.

His breath had gone
st
ill. He had
known
, in that way his gift worked, that she was more than ju
st
a hired companion. She was special. That had been enough to make Duilio look again.

And for the six months since that brief meeting, his gift had kept telling him the woman was
important.
He didn’t know how, exa
ct
ly, but he didn’t take the feeling lightly. He’d watched her from a di
st
ance. He bribed a servant in the Amaral household to discover her given name, Oriana. He’d inve
st
igated her background. Before becoming a lady’s companion, she’d worked in a dressmaker’s shop. He discovered little else. It was as if she hadn’t exi
st
ed before then.

He’d often attended the same social events as Lady Isabel and her companion, even if he didn’t travel in the Amarals’ elevated
st
ratum of society. They were
old
ari
st
ocracy, while the Ferreiras were newly moneyed and not worthy of their conversation. Duilio had watched Miss Paredes carefully, though. She often kept her hands in her lap. She wore silk mitts rather than gloves, an old lady’s affe
ct
ation. She always chose high-necked shirts, even at formal occasions, carrying her mode
st
y to an unfashionable extreme, although he’d heard a rumor from one of the servants that she had spots . . . or something
catching
on her hands.

Taken individually, none of those things had given her away. But the longer he thought about it, the surer he became that all of those foibles combined were signs of a sereia hiding her true nature. Duilio opened his eyes and
st
ared at his cold hearth. He had no proof that Miss Paredes was a sereia, but his gift assured him it was true.

Ju
st
as there might be dozens of selkies hiding in the city, he was willing to accept that sereia might be living here as well. But it was more dangerous for them. Their nature was harder to hide. The mo
st
reasonable explanation that he could come up with was that she was a spy, although what she could learn in the Amaral household my
st
ified him. While the Amaral family had impressive social ties, their political ties were limited.

And if she were a spy, what had she been doing out by
The City Under the Sea
? Did her people find the ta
st
e of death in the water as obje
ct
ionable as did the local selkies? Or could she have had some other reason for being there? A vague frisson of worry snaked out of the back corner of his mind, his gift trying to give him another clue to unlock the bundle of que
st
ions.

Black and white. Aga had said the my
st
erious woman with webbed hands wore black and white. That had been important. Duilio closed his eyes and concentrated, hoping to force a dire
ct
answer out of his gift. He took several slow breaths.
Was it Oriana Paredes out on the river near
The City Under the Sea
?

His gift supplied nothing in response.

Duilio rubbed one hand across his face and groaned.
Stupid.
That was the wrong que
st
ion. That event was in the pa
st
already, and his gift only looked forward. He reformulated his mental que
st
ion and asked himself,
Will I learn that Oriana Paredes was out on the river tonight near the rotting houses?

And then he
knew
. Sooner or later he was going to discover that Aga’s my
st
erious woman with webbed hands was, indeed, Oriana Paredes, companion to Lady Isabel Amaral.

Duilio suspe
ct
ed it was for this very night that his gift had called her to his attention that day as she
st
ood in Isabel Amaral’s shadow. Tonight she had been seen in the river near
The City Under the Sea
. Surely she had some reason for that, some information that might be helpful to his inve
st
igation.

Black and white
. Why was that important? His gift never answered the why of things, which was always the part he needed mo
st
. He sat back in his chair and sighed. In the morning he would visit the Amaral house and ask to speak with Miss Paredes.

No, I won’t
. His gift told him she wouldn’t be there. She had left the Amaral household for good, which was damnably inconvenient for him.

Duilio got up and turned down the gaslight. If he wanted answers to his que
st
ions, he fir
st
had to find her.

O
riana jolted awake when the milkman’s cart rattled through the alleyway. A momentary panic seized her, but she too quickly recalled why she had fallen asleep out of doors.

Lady Amaral had ca
st
her out. When she told the woman that Isabel had been taken, Isabel’s mother claimed it was merely part of her daughter’s scheme to elope. Oriana hadn’t been able to tell her the truth; she’d barely gotten a chance to speak at all. Lady Amaral had ju
st
returned from a ball or party and was in a foul mood, so in the early hours of the morning she had the butler escort Oriana out of the house.

It had been too early and too dark to go anywhere, and Oriana had been too exhau
st
ed to search for a place to
st
ay, in any case. After a dazed moment
st
anding in the court behind the house, she recalled the
st
airwell that led to the house’s coal room. The two bags she’d left the previous evening were
st
ill there, so she’d curled up on the cold
st
one next to them and cried until sleep overtook her.

Oriana forced herself to sit up. The morning air was cold but bearable. Her black skirt was ripped. Her clothes were almo
st
dry, although her shoes were
st
ill damp. Her forehead was tender, and her fingers found a small lump there. She checked her right palm, wrapped with
st
rips torn from her apron. The narrow slash her rescuer had made when wre
st
ling her dagger out of her hand had scabbed over, although one end began to bleed afresh when she removed her makeshift bandage.

She heard someone speaking then with the milkman up at the back door of the house—meaningless chatter, but it reminded her she wasn’t alone here. She grabbed the portmanteau she’d left there the evening before, dragged it to her side, and searched through the contents until she found another pair of mitts. Hiding her hands came fir
st
. She tugged the right one on over her scabbed palm, making sure that all of her webbing was covered.

She was donning the other when Carlos, the fir
st
footman, leaned over the rail that led down to the coal room
st
airs. “Miss Paredes? Are you
st
ill hiding down there?”

Oriana clutched both hands to her che
st
, her heart slamming again
st
her ribs. She took a deep breath and rose un
st
eadily, grasping the rail with her left hand. “Yes, I’m here.”

He came a few
st
eps down, not crowding her. “The dragon won’t be awake for hours, so Arenas won’t notice if I’m missing for a few minutes.” He held out a napkin-wrapped offering in one hand. “Were you serious about Isabel being grabbed?”

Oriana took the napkin. It held a croissant, a rare show of kindness from Carlos. She wasn’t
st
arving yet, so she tucked it into the mouth of her portmanteau. “Thank you. Yes. I fear something terrible has happened.”

Carlos nodded. “Efisio’s driver came by here ju
st
a few minutes ago. He said he was supposed to pick up the two of you la
st
night. They drove around and around but they never saw you.”

Of course the driver would have missed Isabel!
“Has anyone told Lady Amaral that?”

“Wake the dragon?” Carlos laughed shortly. “Not after the way she treated you la
st
night.”

It had been a terrible display of temper on Lady Amaral’s part. Oriana didn’t want to relive it again. “There was a coach at the end of the alley,” she told Carlos. “We thought it was Mr. Efisio’s.
They
took us. They drugged us and threw me into the river, but Isabel . . .” She shrugged, not wanting to lie outright.

Carlos nodded, his lips pursed. “I’ll be changing my bets, then.”

What did he mean by that? “Bets?”

“On whether they’ll get married or not,” Carlos clarified, brushing a croissant crumb off his black sleeve with white-gloved fingers.

Oriana felt a flare of anger. Carlos didn’t care about Isabel—or her. He ju
st
wanted to make certain he didn’t lose money on a bet.

“You can’t
st
ay here,” Carlos added, glancing pointedly down at the two bags near her feet. “Arenas will find you for sure. Do you have somewhere to go?”

There were places she
could
go, but Oriana didn’t know if she’d be welcome in any of them. She could go to her ma
st
er, Heriberto, but if she went to see him, he might order her back to the islands and she wouldn’t be able to pursue Isabel’s murderer. She could try one of the sereia who lived here in the Golden City, the exiles, but as they’d been banished by the very government she represented, they had no reason to help her. She doubted any of them would, not even her father. In any case, conta
ct
with the exiles was
st
ri
ct
ly forbidden by the mini
st
ry.

She raised her chin. “I’ll think of something,” she told Carlos.

He fished a slip of paper out of a pocket and passed it to her. “My grandmother’s si
st
er rents rooms. Tell her you know me, and she’ll give you a good rate.”

The paper had an address on it, one down near the river. It wasn’t a good neighborhood, but she couldn’t afford a good neighborhood, not with what little she had
st
ashed in her portmanteau. Oriana looked back up at Carlos. He was watching her, but had one eye on the house’s back door, she could tell. “Thank you, Carlos.”

His eyes focused on her, one corner of his lips twi
st
ing up into a smirk. “And if you can’t pay, I’m sure we can work something out.”

I should have known Carlos wasn’t a
ct
ing out of kindness
. A paid companion was considered
above
the household servants, but given her current circum
st
ances, the footman might well think a dalliance with her within his reach now. She’d had some of Isabel’s suitors try their hand at seducing her before. It had been an easy matter to frown at them and shake her head, but she’d been under Isabel’s prote
ct
ion then. Now she had no one to guard her again
st
unwanted advances. Still, while she might not like Carlos, she needed a place to
st
ay, a place where they wouldn’t ask too many que
st
ions about a woman showing up in her bedraggled condition. She forced herself to smile at him. “We’ll see.”

Carlos spotted the butler come out looking for him then. He winked at her and jogged up the
st
eps toward the back of the house, nose in the air as he went.

Oriana leaned back again
st
the
st
airwell wall and covered her face with her hands.
Why do things keep getting worse?

•   •   •

D
uilio’s mother sat alone at the breakfa
st
table. He
st
opped at the threshold and gazed at her, worried. She looked completely human and had human manners. She had excellent ta
st
e in clothing, always comported herself in a manner befitting a Portuguese lady, and had elegantly decorated the Ferreira home, managing to work in the occasional garish item brought back by her seafaring husband. None of the social set who knew her would have any reason to guess that she was a selkie.

At the moment, she
st
ared toward the dining room’s we
st
-facing window, her hands cupped in her lap. She absently rubbed the tips of her fingers with her other hand as if they ached. With her somber garb and desolate countenance, mo
st
would assume she mourned her husband’s death
st
ill. Duilio knew better.

She was pining for the sea.

He hated to see her this way. When he’d left the Golden City to travel abroad, she’d been vivacious and mischievous—a loving, attentive mother. She’d helped oversee the family’s business inve
st
ments and kept firm control of the household. Now mo
st
days all she did was sit in the front parlor and gaze in the dire
ct
ion of the river. It seemed her spirit had slipped away from her body.

And, to some extent, that was his fault. If he’d
st
ayed home, perhaps none of this would have come to pass. Perhaps he could have
st
opped . . .

His mother’s head turned as if she’d caught scent of him
st
anding there. “Duilinho?”

He smiled. She persi
st
ed in calling him by his childhood pet name. He settled next to her at the table and covered her hand with his own. “I’m here.”

Her seal-brown eyes fixed on him, a rare moment of concentration. “Are you well?”

He mu
st
look tired after his sleepless night. Even as di
st
ra
ct
ed as she was, she always worried for him. “I’m fine, Mother.”

Her eyes slipped back toward the window, and she turned that dire
ct
ion as if she heard the sea itself calling her.

Duilio pressed his lips together. It troubled him that she spent mo
st
of her days cooped up in the house. His father had been dead more than a year now. Duilio expe
ct
ed that his mother would prefer to remarry eventually. She was a lovely woman, even approaching fifty as she was. But her social reemergence mu
st
be put off until she was better.

One of the footmen brought him his regular breakfa
st
, a large plate of eggs and
chouriço
along with a pot of coffee. Duilio waited until the man left before
st
arting in on his food. Between bites, he told his mother of the bizarre information he’d gotten very early that morning. He wasn’t certain she was attending. Her coffee was almo
st
untouched, and she’d eaten only half her croissant. Her preferred newspaper—the trade daily rather than the
Gazette
—lay unopened next to her elbow. He talked to her anyway, in the hope that she caught something of his words. He would hate for her to feel negle
ct
ed.

“So I’m going to go see Joaquim,” he finished, “and ask if he can help me find her.”

His mother continued to
st
are at the window.

“Shall I bear your greetings, Mother?”

That caught her attention. She blinked and turned halfway toward him. “To Filho?”

Apparently she
had
been paying attention. Ju
st
as she addressed Duilio by his childhood name, she called Joaquim so also. Joaquim Tavares and his father shared a name, so Joaquim was simply Filho—“son”—to her. He set down his napkin. “Yes, Mother.”

Joaquim and his younger brother had lo
st
their mother at an early age and had come to live with their cousins, the Ferreira family. They had
st
ayed for the next eight years, until their father retired from his sea travels to take up boatbuilding. The younger son, Cri
st
iano, had joined that business, but Joaquim had chosen to
make his career in the police.

Duilio might have sele
ct
ed that profession himself, had his own father not been set on his sons being
gentlemen
. He’d dutifully
st
udied law at the university in Coimbra—an acceptable profession for a younger son—but then had proceeded to travel abroad for the next five years to work with various police agencies on the continent and in Great Britain. His father had not been pleased. But when his elder brother Alessio died, Duilio had been forced to return home to shoulder the responsibility of managing the family’s considerable inve
st
ments . . . and to take care of his mother.

She brushed her hands along her skirts and picked up her newspaper, a rare show of energy. “Please tell Filho to come visit me.”

“I’ll ask him, Mother,” he promised.

“I wonder . . .” She laid down her paper and touched the smooth brown hair dressed in a simple knot at the nape of her neck.

Duilio hadn’t inherited that hair. He had his father’s, darker and with a tendency to curl. The only feature he’d inherited from his mother was her eyes. He wished he resembled her more, as Alessio had.

He waited for her to finish her sentence, but in
st
ead she
st
ared down at her newspaper as if she had no idea what it was doing there. Sighing inwardly, Duilio rose and took his leave of her, kissing her cheek in farewell. Her maid, Felis, bu
st
led pa
st
him, no doubt eager to get her mi
st
ress up and about her silent day. Duilio paused and watched the elderly woman fussing over his mother’s unmoving form.

His mother’s pelt was missing,
st
olen from the house three years before. In a feat of magic that Duilio’s intelle
ct
never could grasp, a selkie could remove his or her pelt and be left in human form. Half-human, Duilio couldn’t do that himself, but he’d
seen
it done many times. It
st
ill baffled him. And even in human form, that pelt remained part of the selkie, an eternal tie to the sea and her life there. Without her pelt, his mother couldn’t go back to the ocean she loved.

Duilio hadn’t been around at the time of the theft. If he had, he might have
st
opped it, but he’d been in London in
st
ead,
st
udying the police force there. Alessio had written and mentioned a theft, but hadn’t told Duilio
what
was
st
olen, a gross oversight. He would have come back to hunt the thief himself if only he’d known. But Alessio and Father had thought they could find the thing without help. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case.