The Golden City Read Online Free PDF Page B

off one of the bridges, I think,” she lied quickly. “I was drugged, but I remember falling.” She sounded pathetic enough to lend it plausibility.
    The small lamp swayed with the motion of the boat, ca st ing Silva’s features in light, then shadow. “How terrible! Shall I take you to a hospital, then, miss? Or the police st ation?”
    Neither one of those options would end well for her. “No,” she said quickly. “I mu st get home to my mother. She mu st be terribly worried. She lives right on the quay.”
    “Of course, miss,” Silva said solicitously. “I’ll escort you to your door myself, if you wish.”
    Oriana caught her lower lip between her teeth. Did he a ct ually believe she’d been thrown off a bridge? Perhaps he suspe ct ed she’d thrown herself from one of the bridges. In the dim light of the swinging lantern, his face was unreadable. “No,” she told him firmly. “No. If you’ll take me to the quay, I can get home from there.”
    “I feel responsible for you now, miss,” he said gently.
    She didn’t want to be around this man any longer than necessary, no matter how kindhearted he seemed. “Please, sir,” she said, “you’ve done enough.”
    “May I know your name, at lea st ?” he asked.
    When people realized that Isabel was missing, her own name would surely be mentioned in the gossip. Silva might remember having seen her in Isabel’s company, so lying would only draw suspicion. “Paredes,” she said. “Oriana Paredes.”
    He reached over and patted her blanket-covered shoulder in a grandfatherly way. “I’m glad I followed the promptings of my gift tonight, Miss Paredes. I suspe ct our meeting mu st be propitious. I know we shall meet again.”
    Not if I can help it
.
    They had neared the tree-lined avenue of Massarelos—almo st a mile from where they’d found her—far sooner than Oriana expe ct ed. The oarsman used a hook to drag the boat over to one of the st one ramps leading up to the st reet level. Oriana rose carefully. Hand folded to conceal the webbing, she grabbed for the rail and managed to wrangle her wet skirts about to get her footing on the st one. Once out of reach of either man, she felt far safer. She st arted to unwrap the blanket from about her shoulders.
    “No, you mu st keep it,” the seer insi st ed. “You mu st go home immediately and change into warm clothes, miss.”
    “Thank you, sir,” Oriana repeated dully.
    She walked up the ramp and glanced back to see the oarsman shoving the small boat away with an oar. Beyond the feeble glow of the st reetlamps, the boat’s inhabitants were quickly rendered invisible.
    Now that she’d escaped her unwanted savior, Oriana desperately wanted to curl up somewhere and cry. She wanted warm clothes. And dry shoes. And a bath to get the foul ta st e of the water near
The City Under the Sea
out of her gills. She wanted to sleep. Perhaps she would wake to find that it was all a dream.
    But fir st she had to tell Lady Amaral that Isabel was gone. Somewhere in the bottom of her heart she would have to find the st rength to do that.

CHAPTER 3

    FRIDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 1902
    A vague sense of foreboding kept Duilio Ferreira from sleeping. An idea fluttered about in his mind, refusing to be caught. Something was wrong; he simply had no idea what.
    He lay in his warm, draped bed, st aring up into the darkness. He toyed with the idea of rising, turning up the lights, and attempting to read, but hadn’t quite given up on sleeping. His limited seer’s gift had something it wanted him to know. He simply wasn’t sure whether he wanted to spend his night trying to figure it out. He would rather be sleeping. The clock on his mantel, barely visible across the murky dark of his bedroom, ticked pa st three.
    He groaned and tried turning onto his side. It was something about
water.
Something had happened or was going to happen in the river.
    He was helping the police inve st igate the work of art being slowly assembled near the