The Golden City (8 page)

Suddenly somber, Joaquim rubbed a hand over his face. “How is she?”

“The same as ye
st
erday.” Duilio pressed his lips together, but then added, “I know how painful this is for you, but for her sake, please. It helps her to see us.”

“I know.” Joaquim sounded guilty. “I’ll come.”

That was a relief. “Thank you. Now shall we go?”

Joaquim colle
ct
ed his hat and paused with one hand on the door latch. “How do you know your Miss Paredes hasn’t fled the city?”

Another good que
st
ion
. Duilio ju
st
couldn’t believe he’d seen the la
st
of her.

SUNDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 1902

O
riana had spent several hours Saturday in the back rooms of the
Porto Gazette
, trying to locate every la
st
article they’d printed covering
The City Under the Sea
. They had
st
acks of old papers carefully shelved, but no one could tell her in which days’ newspapers to look, so she’d hunted through them issue by issue, taking down every scrap of information she could find on the artwork and its creator. No one seemed to be aware that the water around the artwork ta
st
ed of death, that Isabel could not have been the fir
st
to die there. Who those other vi
ct
ims might be Oriana didn’t yet know. And the only hint of magic mentioned was the presence of buoyancy charms inscribed atop each house meant to keep them afloat, the sort boatbuilders used. What she needed was an ally who knew far more about human magic than she did. Fortunately, she knew where to find one.

Nela wasn’t precisely a scholar, but the old woman had
st
udied human lore with Oriana’s grandmother prior to being exiled from the islands for sedition. When Oriana fir
st
recognized the old woman walking along the
st
reet almo
st
two years before, Nela had nodded at her once. Nothing more passed between them. But that bare in
st
ant of recognition had given Oriana the courage to conta
ct
the woman, no matter that it was a clear violation of the mini
st
ry’s dire
ct
ive not to intera
ct
with the exiles. Nela had consented to meet with her, although it hadn’t come for free, and Oriana’s supply of coins was dwindling quickly. Nevertheless, she was relieved she’d found someone willing to aid her, so she’d gladly said she would wait until Sunday afternoon to visit.

Nela’s druggi
st
’s shop on the fir
st
floor was closed that afternoon, but Oriana and its owner were in the tiny apartment above. The woman handed Oriana a cup of tea and settled across from her in a chair uphol
st
ered in a faded blue floral. A white cloth with fringe about the edging covered a small square table, and atop that lay the sketch Oriana had drawn that fir
st
morning after settling into her rented room.

Oriana turned it so that Nela could read the letters. “Does this mean anything?”

Her drawing showed the half circle of the tabletop that had lit following Isabel’s death. Oriana had remembered the four words that circled the perimeter of the table. There had been another ring of figures inside that, but those hadn’t been familiar to her at all and had faded from her memory before she’d had access to paper to record them. The center of the table—the half she had been able to make out—was occupied by a large T with a dash under one arm and a line above it. That meant nothing to her either.

Nela’s scarred fingers traced the words in the outer ring. Oriana watched the old woman’s hands, wondering who had done the surgery to remove her webbing. It had been poorly done, leaving her with ugly scars on the sides of each finger. Perhaps Nela had done it herself. But she
was
able to wear gloves, which meant the woman was far safer than Oriana in this city.

“
Ego autem et domus
,” Nela read musingly. “That’s Latin, I believe, but I’m not very familiar with the language. I don’t know what it means.”

Oriana didn’t either. “I see.”

“Where did this come from?” Nela asked.

“I don’t think I should say.”

The old woman regarded her doubtfully. “Child, don’t wa
st
e my time.”

Oriana swallowed. She would have to tru
st
someone if she was going to find out who had created this mon
st
rosity. With her gray-shot hair, this woman reminded Oriana of her own grandmother, her father’s mother back on the island of Amado. Her grandmother had been a woman one could tru
st
. “It’s from
The City Under the Sea
.”

Nela sat back, her dark eyes narrowing. “You didn’t go down there, did you, child? The Special Police patrol that part of the river well.”

“I know,” Oriana said. The newspapers had noted the frequency of police patrols in that area, particularly at night.

“Someone saw this there and told you about it?” Nela shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Oriana took a deep breath. “It’s not important where it was. Is this a spell? A charm?”

Nela tapped her nose with one finger. “Spells, I think, since they’re combined. A charm has to be kept simple. We have two languages represented: Latin and whatever the next ring is written in. Choice of language is purely
st
yli
st
ic in human witchcraft, so the two disparate languages imply two
different
spells. The symbol in the center means nothing to me, especially given that I’m only looking at half of it. Why do you have only half?”

How could she answer that without telling Nela everything? The addition of the Amaral house to the work of art hadn’t been mentioned in the city’s newspapers until Saturday morning, and Oriana hadn’t seen anything yet about Isabel’s absence. Lady Amaral apparently hadn’t told anyone, which meant the police probably weren’t even looking for Isabel. Nothing had been heard from Mr. Efisio either. Perhaps the man was
st
ill waiting in Paris for Isabel’s arrival.

“It was dark. A girl was seated at the table, with her hands tied to it. She died, and”—Oriana’s
st
omach twi
st
ed, but she forced herself to go on—“and when she did, her half of the table lit. This was inscribed on the surface of the table.”

Nela picked up her tea and took a slow sip, eyeing Oriana over the rim. After a moment, she set the cup aside. “Lit how?”

“The symbols themselves glowed. I think they were metal set into the wood.”

Nela’s dark eyes were wary now. “That sounds like necromancy, needing death to feed it. What have you gotten yourself involved in, child?”

“It was not by choice,” Oriana said with a quick shake of her head. “I need to find the person who
made
this spell. I need to
st
op him before he does it again.”

Nela gazed at her appraisingly and gave one sharp nod. “You need to talk to the Lady.”

“Which lady?” Oriana asked, baffled.

The old woman leaned over and set a hand on Oriana’s arm. “
The
Lady. She doesn’t have a name. She’s an expert on human magics. She would be able to tell you what this is.”

That sounded promising. “Where can I find her?”

“You can’t,” Nela said. “No one finds her.”

Now it
didn’t
sound promising. “But . . .”

“I’ll tell a few well-placed people that you’re looking for the Lady. If she wants to, she’ll find you. Can you give me your dire
ct
ion?”

Oriana hesitated. She didn’t want to give Nela the address of the boarding house on Escura Street. Not ju
st
because she was afraid of being tracked there, but she already knew she would have to find somewhere else to
st
ay. She was running out of funds and had no intention of paying for her room in the fashion Carlos had in mind. “I’m not sure where I’ll be.”

“Then come by here in a few days, and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.” The old woman rose, rubbing her hands together as if they ached.

Oriana realized that meant their interview was over. She set down her cup, folded up the sketch, and tucked it into her notebook as she got up. She opened her handbag to dig out her payment. “We agreed . . .”

Nela laid a wrinkled hand atop Oriana’s mitt-covered ones. “Don’t bother. Consider it a favor, for your grandmother’s sake. You look like you need it more than I do.”

“Thank you,” Oriana mumbled. She took in the shabby apartment one more time. “If there’s anything I can do for you . . .”

The old woman pushed her gently out the door. “Go on, child. If there’s a necromancer out there, he needs finding and killing.”

Oriana nodded helplessly as she went down the
st
airs to the building’s front door. She paused at the landing, her
st
omach churning. Was
that
what she was doing? Hunting a necromancer?

If so, she had wandered into a shiver of sharks.

•   •   •

O
n the southern shore of the Douro River, Duilio waited on a low wall in the shade of an old olive tree next to one of the wineries that crowded Vila Nova de Gaia. The vintner had sold him a case of brandy, giving him ample reason to sit in the shade and sample a leisurely glass. He gazed across the river at the Golden City, tapping one foot again
st
the wall.

He wished his conta
ct
would hurry. If this appointment hadn’t been set the previous week, he would have put it off. He had a woman to find. Despite having a couple of friends in common with Marianus Efisio, it had taken Duilio the better part of the day Friday to find someone who knew what hotel the man was fixed at in Paris. He’d sent a telegram to Mr. Efisio, explaining briefly that Lady Isabel was missing. He hadn’t revealed what he suspe
ct
ed, not wanting to cause the man grief until he had proof. He hoped he would find Mr. Efisio’s response waiting when he got back to the house. He’d spent much of Saturday hunting down every boarding house on Joaquim’s li
st
, scouring the old town for the elusive Miss Paredes, to no avail.

On the opposite side of the river, the painted walls of the Ribeira rose above the quay, a jumble of reds and yellows, creams and grays in the afternoon sun. Houses had been crammed into every inch of space, sometimes at odd angles, on the ancient riverbank. The red-tiled rooftops rose layer after layer up the hills. From his vantage point, Duilio could see the Clérigos tower crowning one hill and the fanciful palace topping another. The tower had been the higher—as had been the power of the Church—until the current prince’s grandfather, Seba
st
ião II, built the ornate palace. To ensure his
st
ru
ct
ure would be the taller, the second Seba
st
ião had the hillside built up, an effort to put the Church in its place, no doubt.

Duilio had always loved the city. It had changed since he was a child, but not as much as it should have. Part of that was the
st
ultifying influence of the Absoluti
st
s so powerful in the north, but even normal progress had ground to a
st
op here.

Prince Fabricio had halted all his father’s and grandfather’s plans for modernization. Many proje
ct
s
st
arted in the 1880s had simply been abandoned or had idled for the two decades since he ascended the throne. The new port north of the city at Leixões was left half-built, accessible to the navy but not pra
ct
ical for shipping. The funicular at the base of the Dom Seba
st
ião III Bridge had never been finished. The trams that climbed the city’s
st
eep
st
reets had been ele
ct
rified only through
private
funding.

Prince Fabricio’s refusal to change had left Northern Portugal and the Golden City behind its contemporaries, with Liberal-led Southern Portugal becoming more powerful every day. The current prince of Southern Portugal—Dinis II—had made many improvements there, and Lisboa had become a de
st
ination for vacationers. Ju
st
in June, the city had announced that all Lisboa now had ele
ct
ricity. In the north, the Golden City’s infra
st
ru
ct
ure had begun to fall into disrepair. Duilio had never taken much intere
st
in the politics of the country, but he found he sided more with the Liberals and their desire for progress than he did with the Absoluti
st
s, who wanted everything to
st
ay as it was.

He turned his eyes toward the Dom Seba
st
ião III Bridge, an elegant creation of iron that
st
retched between the Golden City and Vila Nova de Gaia. Two levels of traffic moved over the river there, one atop the grand iron arch coming from the heights of the city to the mount on the far shore. The other traveled across at the level of the quay. And from that dire
ct
ion, a tall and gangly Englishman approached Duilio’s perch on the low wall,
st
riding up the lane under the shade of the olive trees.

Duilio held out the bottle when he got closer. “Would you like a ta
st
e?”

The Englishman, one Augu
st
us Smithson, took it and downed a healthy drink before he folded himself onto the wall. “I’ve made inquiries, Mr. Ferreira,” he said in English, “but I can’t find any information on your footman, Martim Romero.”