The Golden City (2 page)

The social elite of the Golden City seemed to believe that facade of affluence, counting the Amaral family among their mo
st
important members. Isabel and her mother were invited to all the important affairs, the balls and picnics and soirees. They attended the theater regularly. Isabel’s approval was sought by younger girls, and her hand by all the men.

But while the Amaral family worked hard to present an affluent image down
st
airs, they didn’t bother up
st
airs. The second floor, where Isabel and her mother had their bedrooms, was left unheated. The draperies and rugs were threadbare, and the hall runner had begun to unravel along one edge. Only half the gaslights were turned up, leaving the hallway murky.

The areas of the house where the servants lived and worked were worse. When Oriana reached the narrow back
st
air leading up to the third floor, it was altogether unlit. But since her eyes were better than a human’s in the dark, she didn’t bother to fetch a lamp to climb its creaking length. The servants’ quarters were cramped and cold, the floors covered only with aged floor cloths. Like mo
st
houses on the Street of Flowers, the Amaral home had been transplanted to this spot in the Golden City in the previous century, moved
st
one by
st
one. The servants lived in rooms that hadn’t been improved since that time: no plumbing, no lighting, and with peeling paint on the walls. Small wonder the maids so often fell ill.

Being Lady Isabel’s hired companion, Oriana had a room to herself. She was grateful for that. Her little room was a safe haven, a place where she need not hide her hands or her gills or the inhuman coloration of the lower half of her body. While she looked more human than mo
st
females on her people’s islands, those things simply couldn’t be escaped.

Oriana opened her door and slipped inside. Once she’d lit the lamp on her night
st
and, she
st
ripped off her silk mitts and
st
retched out her fingers. The webbing between them glowed iridescent in the flickering lamplight. Although they prote
ct
ed her from exposure, the fingerless silk mitts pushed down the webbing between her index finger and thumb. This pair she’d sewn herself. That ensured they were better made than the ones she could buy at the market
and
long enough to hide all but the tips of her fingers. Even so, they made her hands ache.

Oriana sank down onto her narrow bed, rubbing that sore spot. She kept her nails trimmed close. Otherwise they would curve downward over her fingertips like claws. That was easy to hide. Her webbing was a different matter. At lea
st
the other maids didn’t que
st
ion her refusal to bare her hands. Not long after hiring her, Isabel had cleverly let slip to Adela that Oriana had psoriasis—rough, red patches on her skin—marring her hands and throat. That lie provided a ready explanation for continually wearing mitts and her penchant for high-necked gowns, even in summer. It also meant that the maids never associated with her, for fear it was catching. Whenever she wasn’t in Isabel’s company, she was alone in this cold and unfriendly house.

Over the pa
st
year Isabel had become more than ju
st
her employer. She’d become a confidante as well. But once Isabel was securely married to her Mr. Efisio, there would be no need for a companion to play chaperone. Oriana would return to the Golden City, alone and without employment. There was little chance she would find work as a companion again, not after having been a party to an elopement.

That didn’t concern Isabel, though, and Oriana didn’t blame her. Mi
st
resses had no reason to concern themselves with the fate of servants they left behind. Isabel was busy planning her marriage and her future; it would only spoil her enjoyment to hear her companion fretting about her own predicament. But without a letter of reference, Oriana was going to have difficulty finding a new position.

Because she’d not yet had her webbing cut away, her initial assignment in the city had been trivial. The sereia spyma
st
er in the Golden City, Heriberto, had grudgingly taken her on, but he’d done little to help her. Oriana had managed to secure a position in a dress shop on her own, one favored by less-wealthy members of the ari
st
ocracy. She’d li
st
ened to the gossip of the ladies as they came in for their fittings, reporting back to her ma
st
er on which of them might be sympathetic to nonhumans and welcome their return to the Golden City. When Isabel—a regular cu
st
omer at that shop—had offered Oriana a position in her household, it had been a
st
ep up, with greater access to the ari
st
ocracy. It had been a coup for a spy whose ma
st
er insi
st
ed on treating her like an unte
st
ed child.

Now it would be back to the cramped dressmaker’s shop on Esperança Street, or possibly even home to the islands to wait for another assignment. She would simply have to see what Heriberto ordered. Oriana sniffled and snatched up the handkerchief off her night
st
and. This was no time to feel sorry for herself. She would have to press on. She would reschedule her appointment with the do
ct
or. The webbing was sensitive, and its absence would leave her hands with phantom pain for the re
st
of her life. Nevertheless, if she was going to be useful to her people, she needed to get it cut away.

She had little left of the things that had been important to her as a child. Her mother had died when Oriana was only twelve. Four years later her father had been exiled for sedition. Oriana had never learned exa
ct
ly what he’d done or said, but he’d been raised by an indulgent mother who’d taught her only child that he was the equal of any woman on the islands. Unlike mo
st
males, he’d even been educated. Oriana’s mother had been proud of her clever mate, no matter his tendency to defy convention. But his political beliefs had clashed with almo
st
everything the government held true, and after his exile Oriana had been left alone to care for her younger si
st
er, Marina. They had aunts who’d taken them in, but weren’t ever close to them. Citing Oriana’s natural talent for
calling
, those aunts had pushed her relentlessly to join the Mini
st
ry of Intelligence, claiming again and again that it was her De
st
iny to serve her people. Oriana had refused.

Until three years ago. When Oriana was away visiting their paternal grandmother on the island of Amado, Marina had run away to search for their father. Somewhere along her path to Portugal, she had fallen prey to a merchant ship’s crew.

Oriana wiped away a tear with the back of one hand. That had been
her
failure. Marina hadn’t been happy living with their aunts on the island of Quitos, but Oriana hadn’t believed she would take such a desperate
st
ep to escape them. Her parents would have expe
ct
ed Oriana to keep Marina safe, but she hadn’t.

After Marina’s death, Oriana had given in, joining the mini
st
ry. She’d hoped to prote
ct
her people from the threat of subjugation under human rule. She’d also hoped to extra
ct
a small amount of vengeance, but never learned anything further of her si
st
er’s death. The humans she’d met in the pa
st
two years had turned out to be no worse than her own people. And she’d seen no firm indication that Prince Fabricio intended to seize control over her people’s islands anytime soon. There were rumors, of course—those were as commonplace as seagulls—ju
st
no proof.

But Prince Fabricio had a
ct
ed again
st
her people’s intere
st
s in the pa
st
. The prince had several seers in his entourage, whose words purportedly ruled many of his a
ct
ions. One of them had prophesied that the prince would be
killed
by one of the sea folk—the sereia, the selkies, or the otterfolk—and fear of that had led the prince to ban all nonhumans from the shores of Northern Portugal decades before, when Oriana was ju
st
a child. That decree had cut her people off from their primary trading partner and crippled their economy. Many of their people had lo
st
their property and their livelihoods. And because of that same ban, Oriana now wore mitts that pinched her webbing, and high collars on even the hotte
st
days.

It was simply the price she had to pay. Determined to squarely face whatever chapter lay ahead in her life, Oriana rose and set about the business at hand: packing. As her presence was meant to lend Isabel countenance in this ramshackle flight, she needed to look severe but ignorable. That wouldn’t be difficult. She didn’t have Isabel’s beauty to catch male eyes, and once she was mentally classified as a servant, mo
st
people dismissed her from their minds.

That had been helpful over the pa
st
year. Her dark eyes were larger than mo
st
humans’. Her brown hair, when dry, had a non-Portuguese reddish ca
st
that prompted the maids to whisper that she’d suffered a mishap involving tin
ct
ure of henna. Those things would have drawn curious eyes if she were a lady, but for a mere companion no one took note. She faded away.

Oriana changed into a black shirtwai
st
that, under the borrowed apron, would pass for a housemaid’s. Then she moved her night
st
and away from the wall and used her shoehorn to pry up the short floorboard underneath. In an old netted handbag tucked under the board, she’d hidden every la
st
mil-réis she could save. It wasn’t much, but the
st
ash of coins would pay for a place to live while she searched for a new position. She weighed it in her hand, then tucked the small bag into the bottom of the portmanteau and arranged her clothes and hat atop it.

She closed up her case with a touch of room to spare. She might be able to retrieve her other garments when she returned to the city. She unpinned her hair, combed it out, and braided it, making a simple knot at the nape of her neck. She checked the small mirror on her wall—yes, she did look like a housemaid.

But at lea
st
she would be a housemaid who had seen Paris, the French City of Lights.

Oriana checked her left sleeve, feeling the reassuring
st
iffness of the dagger
st
rapped to her wri
st
. Perhaps Isabel was corre
ct
and everything would work out. Even so, it was better to be armed than tru
st
ing.

The clock in the hallway
st
ruck ten ju
st
as she reached Isabel’s bedroom. She let herself in and was greeted by the sight of Isabel
st
anding proudly by her trunk, all the catches closed and the
st
rap already buckled. “See? I did it all by myself,” Isabel said, a sly look in her eyes. “I know you didn’t think I could manage it.”

Oriana inclined her head, granting Isabel that point. She didn’t comment on the additional portmanteau half-hidden behind Isabel’s skirts. “I am impressed.”

Isabel chewed her lower lip. “Now, how do we get these down
st
airs without the butler noticing?”

The other servants were all aware that the family needed this marriage in order to pay the bills, but the butler had old-fashioned opinions about what was appropriate for the daughter of an ari
st
ocratic family. He’d created one difficulty after another to keep Mr. Efisio away from Isabel.

“Carlos will help,” Oriana decided. The fir
st
footman hated the butler with a passion. He might do it ju
st
for spite. “Do you have a couple of mil-réis to spare?”

Isabel produced them from her little handbag, and Oriana slipped down
st
airs to bribe the footman. As she’d expe
ct
ed, Carlos was on the back
st
eps of the house, smoking a cigarette. He proved willing to help and, a few minutes later, carried Isabel’s two pieces of luggage out to the corner of the courtyard.

The court behind the row of houses was private. Beyond the courtyard were the mews that served the wealthy homeowners of the Street of Flowers, and the scent of du
st
and horses carried in the cool night. Under the
st
reetlamps, it was bright enough to see the whole alleyway, but Oriana couldn’t make out a coach waiting in either dire
ct
ion. She turned to Isabel, who, with her white cap and apron, almo
st
looked the part of a housemaid, although an impudent one. “Where is Mr. Efisio’s coach to meet us?”

Isabel pointed to the farther end of the block with her chin. “On Formosa Street. His driver is to wait for us there.”

Oriana groaned. That was several houses away. She should have bribed Carlos to carry the luggage all the way there. Ca
st
ing about, she spotted the small
st
air leading from the cobbles down to an old basement entry, the coal room. Reckoning no one would be using that door tonight—no shipment of coal was due for another month at the earlie
st
—she took the two portmanteaus down and tucked them by the
st
eps, where they wouldn’t be seen. Then she and Isabel picked up the trunk between them and began the trek down to the far end of the alley.

Isabel had thrown herself into the adventure of the moment. She didn’t complain about having to carry her own luggage. She didn’t complain about the weight of the trunk, or how far they had to go. She simply picked up her end and led the way. Oriana had to admire her for that, because the trunk was damnably heavy. They’d nearly reached the end of the alley when a coach approached slowly and eased to a
st
op.