We Set the Dark on Fire Read online

  “It wasn’t easy,” Dani replied, her voice clipped. Now that she’d accomplished the impossible, the reality of the situation was setting in.

  Treason, came the whisper again. There was no going back after this.

  “There was no going back even before you met me,” Sota said idly, his face still turned up toward the light. Dani didn’t let herself wonder if he could hear her thoughts. She had worries enough as it was. “You were a criminal the moment you were born, and surviving every day has multiplied those crimes a hundred times.”

  “I thought we had a conversation once about you explaining my own life to me.”

  “We did,” he acknowledged with a smile. “Old habits.”

  “So tell me something true,” she said. “Something that makes you more than just a phantom who appears at key moments and tells me who I am.”

  “We hardly have time—” he began, but Dani interrupted.

  “Then you better speak quickly.” She was through letting him have the upper hand. Even if it made her late, it was time to show him she couldn’t be bullied.

  Sota’s eyes went dark for a moment, then he raised them to hers unflinchingly. “My parents were killed trying to cross the wall. Killed because my father was sick and dying and my mother tried to get him to a hospital. Shot down. Like dogs. Because they needed medicine, and the men on the other side decided they were too unseemly to deserve it.”

  Dani had often turned her face to stone in her short life, but never like this. Never from shock, and sadness. Never involuntarily. No word or gesture seemed right. Sota’s eyes hid nothing of his pain, and he didn’t look away, forcing Dani to confront it.

  “I was eight years old,” he said. “I waited. They never came back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dani said softly, finding she meant it. She barely remembered her own crossing, but what she did remember was the fear in her father’s eyes. The knowledge, even as a boisterous, small child, that she had to stay quiet and still no matter what.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said, the door closing behind his eyes as quickly as it had opened. “Be useful.”

  For a moment, he had been human. Just a boy, not much older than Dani, who had suffered at the hands of the same people. But facing her now, he was an agent of La Voz, and he was here for her intel.

  “We’re almost out of time,” Sota said, almost gently. “I gave you what you asked for. Now it’s my turn. What did you hear at the party?”

  Last chance, Dani told herself. To lie and buy Jasmín some time. To put off the moment of her lost innocence. No matter what Sota said, no matter what the police believed, Dani knew there was a difference. Between what you couldn’t help and what you did by choice. It was the choices that changed you.

  “Dani . . . ,” Sota said, a question and a warning.

  She closed her eyes, asking for strength, for forgiveness. There was enough divinity in the sunbeams alone for her to know her mother’s gods were here, watching. She sent a silent promise to them that this wasn’t the end. That she would make this right, one way or another.

  “It was just like you said,” she told him. Choosing. For her parents? For the people suffering? For eight-year-old Sota, and so many like him, who had lost everything? She didn’t know. Maybe she never would. “Jasmín told her señora everything at the party. The girl who approached her, the blackmail La Voz is holding over her. She said she didn’t want to risk her husband finding out about her youthful indiscretions, and she didn’t know how much longer she could hold out before doing what you asked of her.”

  “What did her mother say?” Sota asked, eyes closed again, like he was trying to see her memories.

  “She told Jasmín to tell her husband. Come clean. Turn her contact in. But Jasmín doesn’t trust him not to throw her over and take away her whole life.”

  “So what’s the plan, then?” he asked, opening his eyes, looking right into Dani’s.

  “I don’t know the specifics,” Dani admitted. “Señora Reyes just said she’d take care of everything, and not to worry.”

  Sota nodded. “That’s all?”

  Dani held his gaze for a moment before returning his nod, her jaw clenched, already thinking of how she could move higher in Mateo’s estimation, gain a foothold so she could be heard. So what had happened to Jasmín never had to happen to anyone else.

  Breaking into Dani’s thoughts, Sota took a step closer to her, halving the distance between them.

  The marketplace was in full swing outside. No one knew she was here.

  He took another step, out of the light now, his face cut with shadow. She could see every one of his eyelashes—long for a boy’s, she thought deliriously. Much too long.

  “Tell me again,” he said, his voice husky and low.

  “What?” she stuttered. “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me again what happened with Jasmín. What you did. What you heard.”

  No one will hear you scream.

  She told him. Haltingly, second-guessing each sentence to make sure it was the absolute truth. There was no trace of the boy he had been when he spoke of his parents. He emanated the power of the organization he represented, and Dani was afraid.

  When she had finished, he stepped closer again. There was almost nothing between them now. A scant few inches of shadowed room and clothing separating skin from skin, pulse from pulse. Dani had never been so close to a boy before—not even her husband. It was against the rules, and more than that, she’d never wanted to. Never even been curious.

  But there was a dark power to closeness, and it was here, between them. Dani hardly dared to breathe.

  “Daniela,” Sota said, his voice low and hypnotic. “I need you to be very, very honest with me right now, do you understand?”

  She nodded. Dust motes floated down through the shafts of light. Everything was unbearably still.

  “Did you tell anyone else about this? About Jasmín? About me, or our visits, or your work for La Voz? Even a single word?”

  “No,” Dani said, just a whisper. Barely a breath. “No one.”

  “Tell me again,” he said, leaning in a fraction of an inch.

  Dani found herself leaning closer, too, pursuing the source of this strange, shadowy force that had sprung to life between them. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she said, her voice stronger.

  Sota breathed in, deep, like he could smell the truth or lie in her words on the air. Whatever he sensed there must have been enough, because the spell broke, the dust motes scattering around him as he stepped back into the light, leaving Dani breathless in the shadows.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice businesslike again. “For your help, and for your discretion.”

  Dani straightened herself with as much dignity as she could muster, but Sota wasn’t finished. “Your husband and his father are taking a trip to survey the border sometime next week,” he said without preamble, reaching into his jacket for a tiny drawstring bag. “There have been more incidents involving La Voz than usual, more protests, and it’s their job to suggest the necessary modifications to security protocol. When they return home, we’ll need to know—”

  “Wait, wait,” Dani interrupted, holding up a hand. “What are you doing? You did me a favor. I did you a favor. We’re done. This is over.” She turned to walk away, but the heaviness in her chest told her she wouldn’t get far.

  Sota was in front of her before she even heard him move, the door behind his eyes opening again, a fraction of the light shining through. “Haven’t we been having the same conversation here, Dani?” he asked, and his voice sounded tired. “Could you really walk away? Knowing what’s at stake? Knowing you could help, if you wanted to?”

  Dani knew her time was running short, if it wasn’t already up. But a million images were flashing through her mind, from her fractured memories of crossing the border to her childhood in Polvo, where so many went without food and the military terrorized anyone suspected of crossing. Every one of Carmen’s pointed barbs
. The visceral fear Dani had felt the night of the riot at school.

  The way Sota’s note had trembled in her fingers at the thought of everything the Garcias took for granted.

  The growing resentment she felt for her husband, who controlled everything and wanted for nothing.

  “We need the exact date of the border visit,” Sota said, though Dani still hadn’t answered. “The schedules of the higher-ups, especially regarding travel that could be compromised, are locked up tighter than the cell we’ll both be in if anyone finds out about this. When you get the date, you’ll place stones on your windowsill corresponding with the day: one for Lunes, two for Martes, et cetera.” He rattled the bag in his hand.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Dani asked, mostly to buy herself some time. “The date, I mean.”

  Sota raised an eyebrow. “Your intel will serve the same purpose all our efforts serve,” he said. “The liberation of those who have been unfairly oppressed. The upset of a power structure that prioritizes the wealthy and leaves the rest to suffer. We’re fairly consistent in that regard.” He held out the bag, but Dani wasn’t ready to take it.

  “That’s all fine and well,” Dani said. “But what does it have to do with me? Or Mateo? Or his father?”

  Sota sighed, his eyes rolling back in exasperation. “Your husband’s father has been at the president’s side for a decade, doing all the things the man himself can’t for fear of losing popular approval. The president is the only person in the government elected by the popular vote, so—”

  “I’m familiar with the basic structure of my own government, thank you,” Dani said, not bothering to hide her irritation. But Sota didn’t even slow.

  “Who do you think is responsible for the militarization of the border?” he asked. “For the shoot-on-sight policy regarding border crossers?”

  Her mind flashed back to Sota’s parents. To the fear in her father’s eyes as they followed a flashlight’s beam to safety. This time she didn’t interrupt, but her face, for once, must have spoken for her.

  “If you think that’s bad,” Sota said, “have a chat with Mateo about his plans for the future. We need you, Dani, and if you understood what he was capable of, I think you’d feel differently about your role.” He waited, but in vain. Dani didn’t know what to say. “All I ask is that you keep your eyes open,” he said, setting the bag of stones on the lip of the sink.

  Dani took it, weighing it in her hand, listening to the stones clicking together.

  “We know the trip is happening sometime next week, so you have three days to get us the info in time for us to use it,” Sota said, catching her eye. “This is your chance. To do more than sit idly by as people are rewarded for doing wrong.”

  When he climbed up and out the high window, she barely noticed. He’d left something much worse in his place.

  11

  A true Primera is not concerned with the physical. She lives in the realm of order, of reason, and she must stay there at all costs.

  —Medio School for Girls Handbook, 14th edition

  “SO, HOW DID IT GO in the marketplace today?” Mateo asked over dinner.

  Dani stopped surreptitiously watching Carmen for long enough to catch the speculative gleam in his eye. “It was fine,” she said. “Excellent melons.”

  Carmen snorted into her soup, then passed it off as a cough.

  “I couldn’t care less about the melons,” Mateo replied impatiently. “Were you seen? Were you talked about? What did people say?”

  Dani fought the urge to roll her eyes. After the day she’d had, she wasn’t in the mood to feed Mateo’s insatiable ego. Unfortunately, that particular obligation was on page one of the Garcia household manual—in so many words.

  “They were quite impressed, I assure you,” she said lightly, and no more.

  Mateo’s expression soured. “I want details,” he said tersely. “I sent you out there as my representative. To elevate our image in the eyes of the capital’s citizens. You’ve been clamoring for more responsibilities, haven’t you? I want to know how it went.”

  “I held up my end of the bargain, Mateo,” Dani assured him. “I said the family name aloud as many times as I could manage. I fielded a thousand questions about how we’d chosen to break from tradition. I spoke of your interest in the welfare of the capital’s citizens at length with actual citizens of the capital.” I met in secret with a member of La Voz to pass information about friends of the family. In a women’s bathroom. I felt his breath against my neck . . .

  “Well, why didn’t you just say it that way?” Mateo asked with a laugh. “Women, I’ll never understand them.”

  With only his Primera and Segunda present, there was no one in the room to laugh at his joke. While he was busy congratulating himself on it, Carmen shot Dani a look over her napkin. It almost looked . . . conspiratorial.

  Little as Dani enjoyed Carmen normally, the way she subdued herself in their husband’s presence was nothing short of disappointing. Who was Carmen without the sharp edge of her wit? Her immediate retorts?

  Mostly giggling and hair tossing, as it turned out. Not even a worthy opponent.

  Dani shook herself mentally. She didn’t have time to debate with herself about Carmen’s masks or motives.

  All through the drive home from the capital, and during the first course of dinner, she’d been hearing Sota’s words again and again in her head. About Mateo and his father. Their views. Their contributions to the hell that was life at the border.

  Dani didn’t know much about Mateo beyond his tendency to be condescending and cold, unconcerned with the happiness of those around him. She didn’t trust him, but she didn’t trust Sota, either. In a battle between two men trying to control her, she’d chosen herself. She’d draw her own conclusions before risking her life to work against her husband.

  But that meant learning more about Mateo, and that was something he’d actively worked against since she arrived.

  “Mateo, how was work today?” she asked casually. In any other household, it would have been an appropriate question for a Primera to ask. She needed to be knowledgable about her husband’s career in order to champion him in society. Mateo took a long time looking up from his dish, his muscles rigid beneath his expensive shirt.

  “It was very busy,” he said at last, and his tone said not to press further.

  But it was Dani’s job to press further, and tonight she wasn’t willing to let him stop her.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about what you do, day to day,” Dani said, ignoring the tension rising between them. “What’s your favorite part about it? Do you work with your father much?” Are you helping him pass laws that get innocent people killed?

  “It’s quite complicated,” he said, each word clipped. “I assist a great many important people in doing important things, and I don’t like to be bothered about it at the dinner table.”

  “I don’t mean to be a bother,” Dani said, knowing she was on thin ice, continuing anyway. “But I’m your Primera. I’d like to be part of your life.”

  “You’ll be exactly as much a part of my life as I tell you to be, when I deem it necessary,” he said, and there was anger in his words now, not just dismissal. He knew he was acting strangely, leaving her out of the loop, and his defensiveness proved it. Had Sota been right about him? Was he behind the ruthless policies keeping her people sick and starving?

  Either way, Dani had pushed enough for one night. Any further and she might not recover. “Apologies, señor,” she said, looking down at her plate. “Just naturally curious, I suppose.”

  Mateo didn’t reply.

  They returned to their dinner in silence, Dani’s mind racing with possibilities, Carmen taking advantage of his momentary distraction to stare unabashedly at Dani, like she was a mostly finished puzzle with a piece out of place. They continued this way until Mateo dropped his fork noisily on his plate.

  “Well, ladies,” he said. “I must retire to my offic
e for the night.” His eyes were cold on Dani’s as he said it. He wanted her to know her behavior had angered him. But he wouldn’t be rid of her that easily. “Enjoy your evening,” he said, but this time he looked at Carmen.

  When he was gone, Dani sank even deeper into her spiraling thoughts. He had certainly been cold before, but he was making a habit of avoiding her questions about his work, his life. He was actively preventing her from doing the job his family had chosen her for.

  Deviating from the standard marriage structure was frowned upon on the inner island; if people found out he was hiding things from the woman who was supposed to be his partner, eyebrows would no doubt be raised. What was he hiding that was worth that?

  “Are you . . . okay, Daniela?” Carmen asked, when they’d been sitting in silence for far too long. “You don’t seem your normal prim and boring self tonight.”

  “What does it matter to you?” Dani asked wearily.

  Carmen only shrugged. “Just wondering, that’s all. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”

  Dani’s head spun with exhaustion. Since when did Carmen say anything to her that wasn’t laced with ridicule? Was this some kind of a trick? Was she trying to uncover the reason for Dani’s distraction so she could use it against her later? She stopped herself before she could take it any further. She didn’t have the energy to figure out Carmen’s motivations tonight.

  “I don’t really feel like talking to anyone,” she said, settling for neutral as she placed her napkin on her plate and stood. “But . . . thanks,” she said as an afterthought, not daring to meet Carmen’s eyes when she did.

  The next morning, Mia tapped on the door to summon Dani to breakfast.

  “Will you please tell señor I have a headache?” Dani asked through the door, trying to make her voice sound as pitiful as possible. “I’ll join him tonight for dinner.”

  “Of course, señora,” said the muffled voice from the other side. “But Señor Mateo won’t be at home this evening. I’ll send your regrets.”

  Dani thanked her and settled gratefully back into bed. She would take this time to gather her thoughts. The stones were well hidden in a desk drawer behind her extra ink, but they weighed heavily on her mind. After the mess she’d made of things at dinner, she didn’t dare question him directly again. The last thing she needed was for him to become suspicious.