Page 21 of Of Might and Mettle

She cut off. He’d turned from her to keep walking, as she would have done in his position. Peluche stirred in the satchel at her side, and she swung him gently as she hurried after Antonio. She caught up to him at the end of the docks, almost back into their shadowed alley, when voices reached her ears across the water.

“Did you open the box?” said the voice of a sailor.

“Close it yourself,” snapped another voice. “Or you’ll face Tomás on your own.”

The voices grew louder. Lorelle tensed. In front of her, Antonio froze. At her hip, Peluche let out a little growl as he stirred.

Voices cut over the water. “Hey!” They were spotted.

Antonio grabbed her hand. “Come on!”

He ran forward, suddenly stumbling as his knee unlocked and squealed with the effort. But he kept his balance, and they moved into the shadow of the alley. The harsh clomp of boots echoed after them as they twisted down narrow streets, catching glimpses of lamplight and music in a whirlwind.

Antonio dropped her hand and stepped back toward the alley they’d emerged from. “Go,” he said over his shoulder, drawing his sword.

“What are you going to do?” She went to his side. “Fight them? What will you get by defeating them?”

“Answers.” He glared down the shadows of the alley. They weren’t here yet, but their voices and their boots grew louder. Nearer.

“You already have answers,” she said. “Sir Thomas is here, plotting something. You need to tell the king directly. You need to trust that the king will take action.”

Now the voices became distinct. Closer. She grasped his arm. “Come on, Antonio,” she said. “What will you gain if they capture you and throw you overboard? The king will take you at your word, I know he will. And if he doesn’t, he’ll have to listen to the two of us.”

Finally, his sword lowered, but his knuckles were white around the hilt. “There’s nowhere to run, Lorelle.”

She swallowed. “I know a place where we can go.”

In the mad rush through the streets, familiarity had nipped at her ankles like the last time she’d bounded over the bricks, running away after her aunt had decided to donate her parents’ clothes just a few months after their passing.

Now Peluche was fully awake, struggling to escape from the satchel, but she pushed him down as she rushed through the familiar streets.

At last, she froze when her eyes spotted the jacaranda tree, though not nearly as little as it had been before. It had broken free from its pot, setting roots down into the bricks, before the red door of the place she had once called home. Before her parents died. Before her aunt and uncle had all but pawned off their unwanted niece to the ballet academy.

She knocked on the door. Peluche squirmed and fell out of the satchel, and she crouched to reach him but couldn’t catch him.

“Antonio,” she hissed, pointing to the pup. “Can—”

The door creaked open, shining golden light on them, and Peluche ran through the small crack into the house beyond. Lorelle was eye-to-eye with a pair of worn linen shoes, embroidered with tropical flowers at the toes, and when she glanced up, she found herself staring at the stunned face of Tía Clarisa.

She swallowed. “Tía—”

“Lorelle—”

They both spoke at the same time but, hearing the other, fell silent.

“Can my friend and I come in?” Lorelle forced the words past her dry throat.

Tía Clarisa opened the door wider. “Por supuesto,” she said, stepping aside. “Of course.”

Lorelle stepped forward, crossing the threshold, and Antonio’s creaky knee signaled he was right behind her. As soon as the door closed, footsteps sounded, passing dangerously close to the door before fading down the street. Lorelle let out a breath, but the tension didn’t loosen from her shoulders.

Tía Clarisa hung back at the door. The way her weight shifted from foot to foot was all too much like a young ballerina before her first performance, careful and unsure. Her dress, in a similar style to Lorelle’s, fell down to her ankles, the fabric swaying as if with its own breeze, allowing Lorelle to catch a better glimpse of her tía’s linen shoes—and the familiar, incorrect four-petalled hibiscus flower that Lorelle had embroidered for her when she was nine. A hard lump formed in Lorelle’s throat, and she couldn’t speak, even though her aunt carefully offered them some food.

“Would you stay for dinner?” Tía asked.

Antonio scooped Peluche up from circling at Lorelle’s feet. “Dinner would be wonderful, Señora Jimenez,” he said, bowing his head. Tía must have spoken something in response, but Lorelle heard nothing.

Tía walked down the hall. Lorelle was frozen in place as her aunt disappeared around the corner. They were left in the foyer. Once, she’d thought the space to be grand and full of interesting trinkets, especially if it meant looking through the pockets of visitors for any candies. But now, the rug beneath their feet looked threadbare—and hadn’t that wall held Tío Zacarías’s prized swordfish? The house that she had once known to be grand, full of life and the scuffling feet of neighborhood children coming for sweets, was now eerily empty.