We Set the Dark on Fire Read online

  “Is this a dream?” she asked, her voice a little husky. “They always start like this, you know.”

  “You dream about me?” Dani asked, before she could stop herself.

  “When I’m lucky.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but the space between their bodies in the doorway, and then Dani remembered.

  “I need to start a fire,” she blurted, even though this wasn’t the way she’d planned to begin. Carmen had a habit of making disasters of all her best plans.

  As if she knew it, Carmen smiled, as if somehow she’d been expecting this. “Follow me,” she said, drawing her robe around her, not bothering to put on shoes.

  Not knowing what possessed her to do so, Dani kicked hers off, too, and Carmen nudged them inside her door before closing it. Barefoot and triumphant at their own audacity, they raced silently through the hallways toward the kitchen.

  Dani hadn’t been inside the cavernous ground-floor room since their initial tour of the house, on her first day as a Garcia. She’d been impatient then, eager to get started in her new life for all the wrong reasons, desperate to put the strangeness of graduation and Sota’s first appearance behind her.

  Hating Carmen for a tangle of childhood insults, adolescent embarrassments . . .

  And now you’re alone with her, thinking about kissing her, fearing she might want you dead, Dani thought. Life was full of surprises.

  Carmen looked up from rooting through the floor-to-ceiling woodpile, as if she had felt Dani’s thoughts brushing against her as they passed. “What are you thinking?” she asked, her eyes liquid in the semidarkness of the kitchen.

  “Just that things have changed,” Dani said. “Remember the first time we came down here together?”

  Carmen didn’t laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?” But it was a bigger question than she realized.

  “For using you,” Carmen said. “For being afraid.”

  “It’s behind us now, right?” Dani asked, letting a little edge creep into her voice.

  And there it was. The hesitation that had brought Dani here tonight, seeking answers.

  “Of course,” Carmen said easily, turning back to the kindling. “How big of a blaze are we talking here, anyway?”

  “Big enough to burn the past?” Dani offered, and Carmen smiled.

  “We might need more fuel.”

  Outside, the mild day had given way to a wind-tossed night. Without deciding, they walked together to the place where Dani had met the gardener who was not a gardener. The place Carmen had caught her. The place of Hermanito the caterpillar, and the first glimpse at something below the surface that neither of them had expected to find.

  Sheltered from the wind and the scattered raindrops, Carmen knelt to the ground to make a tower of the larger wood pieces while Dani looked on in helpless amazement. Where she’d grown up, a fire was dead branches that hadn’t yielded enough fruit, stuffed in a barrel, doused in liquor that had brewed too long. Where had Carmen learned to do this with such expert precision?

  Another mystery.

  Dani remembered their neighbor Old Joe, tossing in the match every summer solstice as the kids whooped and hollered and precious fresh corn sizzled on the outdoor grills. As her father slipped candies forgotten by the older kids into Dani’s pockets with a wink, her modest mama waited for the cover of darkness to hold his hand.

  “Are you okay?” Carmen asked, and Dani took a deep breath, her body going still.

  “Are you lying to me?” she asked, her voice carrying over the wind as the flames flickered to life between them.

  “What?” Carmen asked, her face too puzzled, too shocked.

  “Are you lying to me?” she repeated, and then she waited, her face expressionless. A Primera, through and through.

  “About what, Dani?” Carmen asked.

  Too defensive, Dani thought. “The night you told me where you’re from,” she said. “I saw Mama Garcia leaving the house. Were you meeting with her?”

  This time, the confusion seemed genuine. “What? No! I told you I had no idea she was there. What’s this all about?”

  The flames climbed higher between them, the larger pieces of wood catching, blackening at the edges. Carmen waited, like someone who’d been trained not to give away too much. Not like a Segunda at all.

  Dani closed her eyes, for just a second, feeling the wind whip her hair across her forehead, the heat of the flames against her cheeks. Then she opened them, looking right at Carmen, feeling intimidating and fierce and brave in a way she never had before.

  The day she went to see Sota, she had made a choice. Not to be the girl who held her silence despite disastrous consequences. Not to be the coldhearted Primera the Garcias had paid for, and her parents had asked her to be.

  Not to be afraid.

  “That night,” she said, Carmen still watching her closely, too carefully. “Mama Garcia snuck out of the house alone. She tried to burn this letter. Did you write it?” Dani drew the letter out of the bag and handed it across the flames, feeling the heat bite at her wrist as Carmen took the singed scrap of paper from her.

  “‘Neutralize the threat’? Dani, I have no idea what this is.” There was something in her tone this time. Confusion, but also relief. Carmen had a secret, yes, but this wasn’t it.

  “I know you’re hiding something from me,” Dani said. “I need to know if this is it. Are you working with her? Are you spying on me for her?”

  “You?” Carmen asked, her eyes darting up from the letter. “You think this letter is about you? But why? What reason would she possibly have to spy on you?”

  The wind lifted Carmen’s hair off her face, and in that moment, Dani believed her. Her mind, which had been trained to judge any situation, decipher any expression, believed Carmen’s face. Her heart, a newborn thing just beginning to know itself, believed Carmen’s heart.

  Dani’s father had always told her that secrets made her strong. Her maestras had told her restraint made her strong. But Dani knew now that to crack open what you thought you knew, to allow it to scar with truth, that was what made you truly strong.

  And it was time now to be stronger than she’d ever been.

  “I’m working with La Voz,” Dani said, the truth taking flight, leaving her weightless. “I have been since graduation night. I’ve been communicating with them for weeks, passing information, working against Mateo and the family and the government.”

  Carmen’s jaw dropped, her eyes went wide, but she didn’t run.

  Dani held up the bag of evidence. “This is the proof. All of it. And I’m going to burn it tonight in case Mateo or his family know anything. In case that’s why he left in such a hurry today.”

  “Dani,” said Carmen. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’m tired of secrets,” Dani said. “I’m tired of hiding and double talk and being a good little Primera while people die and the people who murder them get away with it. I’m telling you because . . .” Another deep breath. Confessing to treason had been less of a challenge than what was coming. “Because the feelings I have for you are real. And they’re not tied to this life, or this mask, or any of these lies.”

  Through the flames, glowing red at the heart as the fuel burned too quickly, Carmen smiled.

  “And because if you feel even a little of what I feel, and you weren’t lying at that protest, or in the woods, or in the hospital . . . you might be willing to help me. Because I don’t know if I can do it alone.”

  Carmen walked around the flames and took the bag, her fingertips brushing the backs of Dani’s hands as she let it go. Carmen could run right now. Give the bag to Mama Garcia. Have Dani in a cell by midnight.

  But she didn’t, and trusting her felt like exactly what Dani had been missing.

  “Look,” Carmen said. “We have a lot to learn about each other, Dani. And I can’t promise to tell you everything. Not right now. But I can promise you this.” It was her turn
to take a deep, unsteady breath. “This . . .” She gestured between them, to the space between their hearts. “. . . has all been true. Every word. Everything.”

  Dani nodded, letting the small silence grow, letting Carmen be ready when the next words came.

  “That day in the marketplace?” she continued at last. “That was the real me. All of me. The me who wanted to hold a little girl’s hand behind a pyramid of platanos. The me who hid when the police passed my door and prayed to the god who abandoned the sea to keep my family safe. The me who believes the people of this country deserve better than Mateo. Better than all of this.” Her eyes were shining now, fierce and honest and without a hint of shadow.

  She’s radiant, Dani thought, almost deliriously. Much more than beautiful.

  “The me who can’t keep her eyes off you,” Carmen said, biting her lip in the firelight.

  The words warmed Dani’s chest better than even the fire at their feet. It was enough. It was more than enough. And the rest would come. She had faith in that.

  Carmen stepped closer, her hair tossing in the wind. “Whatever happens next, with Mateo or his family or anyone else, I’m with you. You can trust me.”

  And then she was unfolding the scarf, pulling cards and letters and stones from within it.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ready,” said Dani, taking them from her, looking at the cards one last time.

  El Rey de Espadas, proud in his blue cape, the straight line of his jaw running parallel to the glinting blade he held. A person of intellect and ambition. A person who didn’t hesitate.

  Next came the Siete de Bastos, the card of obligation and work. A reminder of what she’d done and the reasons she’d thought she was doing it.

  Finally, the card Sota had pressed into her hand as he lay wincing from the pain of a bullet. The Cuatro de Bastos. The strength he’d loaned her, the work they’d done, together and apart.

  What would they say, Dani wondered, if she laid them end to end like her mama had all those years ago? What story would they tell?

  But Dani had never learned more than the meanings. She’d never spoken to the ghostly hearts that had become divine in their passing. She only knew what she could see:

  That fate had made her choices for long enough.

  It was time to let go of the past. Of the weak girl who had needed someone to threaten her to move her along the path to what was right.

  The note Sota had written on her first day went first, followed by the cards, their glossy surfaces reflecting the flames for a moment before being consumed. Next went the paper, and its faint impression of Dani’s treasonous words with it. Then the bag. The shining stones that would not burn, but would no longer hold the meanings of the days Sota had given them.

  Lastly, the letter, which had not been written by Carmen’s hand. The letter Mama Garcia had tried to burn. Tossing it in, Dani finished the job at last.

  The leaves thrashed as the storm intensified, the flames flickering even deep within the trees. Carmen’s voice joined their whispering.

  “The past may comfort us,” she said to the fire. “But it cannot feed us.”

  In response, the flames hissed and spat, fighting the storm, even with no chance at all that they could win. In a moment, the clouds would open, and the tiny flame would be gone.

  Carmen’s eyes met Dani’s, and for a moment she felt like that flame. Doomed, but still desperately fighting.

  Without thinking, without planning, she stepped forward and took Carmen’s hands. “Carmen,” she said, her voice a falling leaf, the restlessness blazing again in her bones as she reached up to trace Carmen’s lower lip with her finger. “Please, can I . . . Please.”

  Something battled behind Carmen’s otherworldly eyes for just a moment, and then she said the sweetest word Dani had ever heard:

  “Yes.”

  Their lips met like swords sometimes do, clashing and impatient and bent on destruction, and Dani thought her heart might burst if she didn’t stop, but it would surely burst if she did. So she didn’t. Carmen didn’t. They barely noticed when the sky finally cracked open, extinguishing the fire at their feet, though it couldn’t touch the one between them.

  Finally, they had to part, but they didn’t go far, rain-slicked foreheads pressed together, strands of storm-tossed hair twisting around each other’s as they smiled and breathed and let the world seep slowly back in.

  “We need to get back,” Carmen said, and Dani knew she was right. She had personally hired all thirty-four staff members. She knew better than anyone that the house never slept—not really. They couldn’t risk someone seeing them.

  “I know.”

  “But I don’t want to.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay. Dani?”

  “Carmen?”

  “I’m going to do that again. As soon as I can.”

  Dani smiled. “I hope so.”

  Together, they walked back slowly despite the rain, taking pleasure in the closeness even though they didn’t dare reach for each other again.

  They weren’t as fragile as a fire. They were so much more.

  19

  For a Primera, education is never finished.

  —Medio School for Girls, 14th edition

  DANI HAD BARELY BLINKED WHEN a tap on the door told her it was breakfast time again.

  That could mean only one thing: Mateo had come home at last.

  In the mirror—which she rarely used—Dani studied herself before going down to face him. Did she look different? Her hair was windswept, and had dried strangely against her pillow. And maybe her lips were a little swollen . . . or was that just wishful thinking?

  Dangerous as it was, she found herself wanting the satisfaction of a more visible mark. How could she be sure it had been real otherwise? That she’d actually jumped in with both feet. That she’d confessed, then kissed an open flame of a girl in a rainstorm.

  That she’d been kissed back.

  But she had bigger things to worry about than storm-tossed kisses and newly feline smiles. Mateo was downstairs waiting for her, and she still had no idea what had been in his mysterious letter. There was every chance she was going to be interrogated about her behavior for the past few weeks, and she would have to be ready to lie better than she’d ever lied in her life.

  If she couldn’t, this might be the last time she walked through these hallways.

  But she hadn’t even reached the library when hushed voices from the guest parlor made her pause. It was Mateo, that much she knew immediately, but the other voice was unfamiliar, and it sounded angry.

  “If you’re going to have an affair, at least be discreet, for Sun’s sake. The years between marriage and moving your Segunda into your room are long, but there are—”

  “Father, please,” Mateo said, and Dani held back a gasp. Father? “It was nothing like that.”

  “Mateo,” said the elder Señor Garcia, his voice grave. “What else could you have been doing? Out all night without a driver? Your wives home wondering?”

  Despite the surprise of the president’s chief military strategist scolding her husband in her formal parlor, Dani nearly snorted. She and Carmen had done a lot of things last night, but wondering about Mateo’s whereabouts had been the very least of them. . . .

  “Stop, Father,” said Mateo. “You’d love to believe I was doing something so easy to erase, but I was being interrogated by the police. About you.”

  Señor Garcia’s silence was louder than his words. Dani listened closely, careful to make no noise. This was exactly the type of thing Sota had been talking about. Information no one could get unless they were inside the house. This was Dani’s value to the resistance—her ticket to a life that was more than turning a blind eye to corruption and suffering.

  But before she could hear Mateo’s father’s response, loud, efficient footsteps could be heard approaching from the entryway.

  “There you are,” said Señora Garcia brusquely, Carmen
just behind her. “Where’s Mateo?”

  “He and señor are through there,” Dani said, gesturing.

  “And you’re doing . . . what, out here all alone?” The señora’s eyes were shrewd, and Dani made her shoulders slump.

  “I’ve . . . never met the chief before,” she said, hoping her false timidity would hide the rebellion shining on her skin. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Oh, Daniela, don’t be ridiculous.” And with that she swept Dani and Carmen into the room, where Mateo and his father sat staring at each other like someone had died.

  “Well, Mateo, you’d better have an explanation for your behavior,” said his mother, narrowing her eyes like Mateo was some disobedient child who had broken an expensive vase.

  “We were just getting to that,” said Señor Garcia, standing to his full height. Dani looked at him for the first time, this man with all his power, who had raised such a cruel son.

  He was handsome, like Mateo, with dark hair swept back from his forehead, silver streaks at the temples. His face was strong jawed and his shoulders were wide, but his eyes looked ancient, like they’d seen and done terrible things.

  Inwardly, Dani shuddered.

  “Actually, Father was accusing me of having an affair,” Mateo said. “And what are they doing here? I’d like to discuss this privately if we have to discuss it at all.”

  “You give up privacy when you become a family, Mateo,” said the señora. “Besides, I think your wives would like to know where their husband has been. Isn’t that right, girls?”

  “Absolutely,” said Carmen, her eyes narrowed dangerously at Mateo. “I waited up all night for you; I was worried sick.”

  When Señora Garcia turned to her son, Carmen gave Dani the shadow of a smirk through her false hysteria. Dani didn’t return it, too caught up in the theater of the way a Segunda was allowed to talk to her husband. It was an intimacy Primeras weren’t often privy to.