A moment later, Belén’s shape appears. Something dark and glittering streams across his face. “There was only one,” he says. “Not Franco, but definitely one of his men.” Beside me, Storm looses a ragged sigh. “If we are very lucky,” Belén continues, “they’ll never find the body. But only if we are very lucky. I suggest we go quickly.”
“Elisa, can you move?” Hector asks.
In answer, I push forward through the black water. Behind me, I hear Mara whisper, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Belén says, and she breathes soft relief.
The tunnel stinks more and more, like a rotting privy or meat gone sour. Odds and ends float in the water beside us, and I try to avoid touching anything. My inner thighs chafe from the wet fabric of my pants, and my boots sink into sludge with each step. I feel like I’ll never be clean again.
The details of my companions’ faces are beginning to show when we reach an iron grate. I glimpse a shimmer of moonlight on the water beyond.
“We have to swim under,” Hector says. “There’s a hole on the bottom left. Mara?”
Looking resigned, she says, “Hand the satchel to me through the grate?”
He takes it from her, saying, “There’s room enough if you dive low.”
Mara gulps air, then sinks below the surface. She kicks hard, connecting with my shin underwater, and then nothing. I count. One, two, three, four, five, six . . .
Her head breaks the surface on the other side. “Easy,” she says, gasping. Hector pokes her satchel through the grate, and she grabs it.
Storm goes next, then Belén. Hector and I are alone. He hooks me around the waist and pulls me back, into the dark.
“Hector? What—”
“Quickly,” he whispers, and his face is very close. “This may be our last chance to speak alone for a long time.” I’m acutely aware of the pressure of his hand on the small of my back. The buzzing warmth returns to the pit of my stomach. “Last night Ximena warned me that you have a tendency to form strong attachments to people in close proximity to you.”
“People like you,” I say flatly.
“I told her you were stronger and smarter than she realized,” he says, and his gaze drops to my lips. “She wanted me to promise that I would be wary of getting too close.”
Did you? I want to ask. Did you promise?
“We argued right in front of you. It was a terrible breach, and I’m sorry.”
“Hector? Your Majesty?” comes a whispering voice.
I can’t stop staring at his lips. “Ximena’s right, you know. Do you think it weakens me? To care so much?”
“No,” he says without hesitation. “I don’t think that at all.” Our bodies are a hand’s breadth apart, separated only by a cushion of heat.
“Me neither,” I whisper. “It just hurts more.”
Suddenly, he yanks me against him and bends his head to kiss me.
I melt into him as his fingers tangle in my wet hair. My mouth opens to his, and our tongues meet for the briefest instance before he pulls away.
We stare at each other. I read dismay in his face, as if he can’t believe he did such a thing.
“Elisa?” It’s Mara’s worried voice.
Before I can think about anything else, before the pain of his regret can bloom in my own chest, I take a deep breath and sink. Water closes over my head, and I reach blindly for the grate. My fingers grasp slick algae. I leverage myself down, down . . . there! I find the gap and kick through. My pack snags on a jagged end, and I have a moment of panic and struggle, and then I’m free. I shoot to the surface.
I wipe water from my eyes and note that we are in a narrow inlet, sheltered by stone breakwalls on each side. The ocean lies just beyond. The water is as calm as a mirror, and the low moon paints a stream of light across its surface. To our right looms the dark shape of a long, high dock meant for mooring large ships. The water must drop off quickly, to accommodate their deep hulls.
Hector surfaces beside me. He shakes the water from his eyes and points toward the dock. “A boat there,” he whispers. “Tied to the pilings beneath. We must go quietly; every sound carries on a calm night such as this.”
He sets off and we follow, edging along the breakwall toward the dock. It’s getting easier to see, as though all the candles and lamps in Puerto Verde illuminate the water. Maybe they do, after the ruckus we caused. I hope Ximena is safe. And Tristán. And the girl pretending to be me.
The end of the breakwall crumbles with disrepair. As we skirt it, I stub my toes on chunks of rock or mortar or brick that have fallen into the water. I step carefully, wary of a twisted ankle.