Page 16 of Deathless
I stood in front of Valentina and put my hands behind my back. She looked up at me and locked down the tremor before it could spread past her jaw.
"Diego," she said. "Thank you for coming."
"Valentina." I bent down and kissed both her cheeks and held her hands. "I'm so sorry."
She squeezed once. I squeezed back.
I let go of her hands and went to my knees on the tile. The room went quiet. It spread out from Valentina's chair like a ripple. The guitar stopped. Even Rosario in the kitchen went silent, and that never happened.
I straightened my spine and locked my jaw. The Romani came out differently from my normal voice, more formal, older, a register my grandmother had drilled into me that I almost never used because it belonged to men who took things seriously and I'd spent most of my life avoiding that job.
"I come to you, the son of Carmen Lucenio, grandson of Amparo Lucenio, and call upon the blood of my blood, asking for sanctuary and protection for me and mine.”
I could feel Jasper in the doorway behind me without turning around. He'd be still, plate in hand, watching me kneel in frontof my family with my hands open and my throat bare. The back of my neck burned under his gaze, and my body didn't care that this wasn't for him.
Valentina's knuckles went white on the arms of the chair. She looked at me for a long time and then past me, down the hall to where Jasper stood in the doorway. She studied him the way Amparo had studied his hands at the cemetery, taking him apart with her eyes, reading the story.
"Who are they?" she asked.
"His name is Jasper. Once, he built powerful weapons for the Pantheon. But now he’s wanted. They’re hunting him and the other man, my friend, Lorenzo. He’s a Ferryman, but he’s lost contact with his people and needs a place to heal until he can return to them. And finally, the girl, Eight. She’s…” I closed my eyes and reached for the right word, but couldn’t find it. “She’s mine,” I said eventually. “Not by birth, but by blood. I’ve bled for her. I’d die for her. For Jasper. For any of them. They may not share our blood, but they’re my family, just the same.”
Valentina tightened her grip on the chair. Her eyes went to the courtyard where Eight had rescued the lizard from the other children and had it perched on her shoulder.
"The girl. How old?"
"Nine."
She closed her eyes and opened them. The stone was still there, but something underneath it had cracked. She looked at Amparo.
Amparo gave her a nod.
"Sanctuary is yours," Valentina said. "Your people stay under this roof. Under Lucenio protection. For as long as I sit in my husband's chair." She leaned forward and dropped her voice. "But Diego. Sanctuary is a roof and a promise. This is not a declaration of support. We do not involve ourselves in gadjepolitics. Not without a formal vote from the Kris. Is that understood?"
"Yes, ma’am."
One of Danior's brothers shifted against the far wall and put his hand on his wife's shoulder. She pulled their kid closer. The room had just done the math. Every Lucenio in this house had watched Valentina put her family's name between a former Pantheon director and the people hunting him. The Kalderash ran smuggling routes, worked funerals, and kept their heads down. The Pantheon toppled governments. That kind of protection meant something when you could back it up. When you couldn't, it just meant you'd given the enemy a second address.
"Get off my floor before you ruin your knees and make your mother blame me."
I stood up on wobbly legs and backed away.
Danior pushed off the wall and crossed to me. He got close enough that his shoulder caught mine on his way past, and spoke right into my ear. "Bold move, primo. Enjoy the roof while it lasts."
Then he straightened his cuffs and walked out. The courtyard door swung shut behind him, and I stood there in the middle of my uncle's house with half the family watching and Danior's threat still hanging in the air like smoke.
The guitar started up again. Marcos had switched to something faster, and someone clapped palmas over it, the rhythm sharp and clean under the melody. In another hour this would turn into a party whether we wanted it or not, because that's what happened after Romani funerals. You buried the dead and then you reminded yourself you were still alive, and you did it loud.
I grabbed someone's abandoned coffee cup from the counter and drained it.
Sanctuary was only the first part of what I’d come to ask of the Kalderash. The second ask would be significantly more difficult.
The stone wall duginto my ass, but I stayed put, chain-smoking Spanish cigarettes that tasted like dirt and staring at Diego through the open door. The katana leaned against the stone beside me. Inside, he moved through the crowd like he belonged there. Every person in that room had a claim on him that I would never have.
I lit another cigarette off the dying ember of the previous one. It was my third, or maybe my fifth. I'd lost count. The nicotine didn't help my nerves, but it gave my hands something to do besides reach for a weapon.
Diego caught my eye through the doorway and smiled, that slow, easy smile that made me want to punch him in the mouth with my mouth. Then he turned back to his cousin, slipping seamlessly into Spanish too rapid for me to follow. He laughed at something she said, his head thrown back, throat exposed. Trust like that would get you killed anywhere else in the world.
A gust of wind sent ash flying back toward my face. I closed my eyes against it, and when I opened them again, Diego accepted aglass from someone's grandmother, drinking something amber-colored that made him wince. The woman patted his cheek like he was still twelve years old.
