Then, Gloria, saying, “No, you won’t. Now stop it. Both of you.”
The three of them stood, watching Dalia’s fingers play at Reid’s collar and at the curled white rose pinned to his jacket.
Gloria’s hand landed on Calla’s arm, stilling her.
Calla shook her head. “She’s lost her mind.”
“No,” Azalea said, her gaze on Dalia and Reid so unmoving Estrella wondered how they didn’t feel it on their necks. “It’s Bay.”
Estrella stopped, just close enough for the blue of her skirt to skim the lilac hem of Gloria’s.
“She misses Bay,” Azalea said. “And he’s the closest Briar she has.”
Gloria shook her head. “She’s too smart for that. She’s up to something.”
“Like what?” Calla asked.
Gloria shrugged. “Stealing his wallet?”
“Slitting his throat in his sleep?” Azalea said under her breath. “She might have competition, though.”
Azalea cast her eyes on Estrella, the first indication any of them had noticed her skirt brushing against theirs.
“You’re not some puppy he can train to do tricks,” Azalea said.
“Azalea,” Calla said. She threw Estrella a fast but apologizing look.
Reid’s request had seemed so small until Estrella had to do it, all those eyes fixed on her. Not just the guests’, but her mother’s. She could tell that her mother would have been disappointed, angry even, if she hadn’t been afraid for Estrella. That fear had been like the green tarnish on copper, hiding the color underneath.
“I can’t believe you let him do that to you,” Azalea said.
“You and Fel both.” Estrella could argue this down with Azalea on any other night. She had her own shame over this. She didn’t need her cousins to give her more. They weren’t the ones who’d heard Reid speak the words las hijas del aire. “Now what are you three doing?”
Azalea touched the air in front of her, pointing one polished fingernail to the scene of their cousin and the man they wanted off La Pradera.
“We’re not doing anything until we talk to her,” Gloria said.
“Then let’s go talk to her.” Azalea crossed the courtyard.
“Azalea,” Estrella whisper-called after her.
Azalea would break Dalia open like a chocolate orange. Estrella had seen her banging them on the kitchen counter at Christmastime, the only one of the five of them who could make the segments fall apart with one sure whack.
The three of them went after Azalea, skirts fluffing out with each step.
Azalea tapped Reid once on the shoulder.
“Could we steal her for a minute?” she asked.
She shoved Dalia toward the hedge.
“Girl things,” Azalea added over her shoulder.
“Girl things?” Calla whispered, leaning into Azalea. “He’s gonna think we’re all…”
“Let him,” Gloria said. “Nothing else in the world makes a man like that more afraid than five girls on their periods.”
Before Reid could catch Calla’s gritted teeth, Fel appeared at the edge of their ring of skirts, mumbling something about a guest being allergic to silver-dollar leaves, which the florists had slipped into every arrangement.
“Then pull the eucalyptus out of the vases,” Reid said.
Estrella inclined forward, ready to tell Reid that Fel wasn’t his to order around.
Calla reached out, her hand slapping Estrella’s forearm. Not in a way meant to hurt, but to stop her. Calla looked at her, flicking a glance toward Fel.
Estrella watched him, caught how he made his face a little blanker than usual.
He was baiting Reid. He was distracting him. Calla had understood this when Estrella hadn’t.
Estrella knew Fel’s touch, the taste of his mouth, the warmth of his bare back. But the small, feathered thing living in her rib cage had made her miss details about him. It had made her miss certain signs that he was not just sad and lost and kind but also smart, and always watching.
That feathered thing made her know him in a way her cousins did not, but they knew him in a way she’d failed to.
Fel stayed, asking Reid increasingly stupid questions—But what do I do with it once I pull it out? How do I know how many arrangements there are? What if I miss one?—until Reid gave the air a heavy sigh and led him toward the ballroom.
Azalea watched Fel trail after Reid. Pride made her tilt her head, like he was her little brother, nine or ten and just now learning how to go up against the will of other boys.
She patted Calla on the back. “We taught him well, didn’t we?” She shared one sisterly sigh with Calla, and then turned her eyes back to Dalia.
Behind her cousins’ backs, Estrella gave Dalia her own apologetic look, one of I couldn’t stop them. Dalia’s widened eyes and pressed-together lips answered back You could have tried a little harder.
But Estrella knew even Dalia didn’t believe that. One cousin could never stop three. Not even Gloria, with her cloud of authority that seemed to be passed down to eldest women in their family like a string of coral beads. Not even Azalea, with sheer momentum on her side as she rushed toward whatever she had decided. Not even Calla, with her logic they only halfway followed so that before they knew it, she had talked them into something they thought they’d decided against.
No one of them could take on two or three or all four of the others.
Azalea took Dalia’s arm, her fingers pinching into her skin.
“Are you drunk?” Azalea asked. “He’s the enemy.”
“The closer I get to him, the more we know, the more we have to fight back with,” Dalia said, keeping her voice below the music.
Azalea and Calla rushed Dalia toward the high wall of a hedge, their skirts sweeping her into the inner curve. Gloria and Estrella followed, their dresses dragging the scent of grass after them.
“So all that giggling, that’s just part of your plan?” Azalea asked.
“Azalea,” Dalia said. Estrella could see her trying to keep her voice steady. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Estrella almost reached out, wanting her fingers on Dalia’s arm to be a warning. This was how Azalea always trapped them.
“Then tell me,” Azalea said.
Estrella let her hand fall. Azalea had caught Dalia like a bramble snagging the corner of her dress. The insult. The provocation. Then Azalea’s invitation to correct her.
Dalia shut her eyes, and Estrella’s heart shivered like it wore a coat of hoarfrost. Ice crystals scattered and fell away.
Dalia led them beyond the hedge wall, the courtyard’s music and voices muffled by leaves.
“Bay didn’t disappear,” Dalia said.
“Dalia,” Gloria said. Sympathy spread through her voice, as though Dalia were letting herself fall into some dream where their family’s curse did not live.
“I helped her disappear,” Dalia said. “She had to get away from Reid so she could find a way out from under him and this mess with the will.”
“But…” Calla paused. “You saw her…” She stopped, lips parted, realizing. “Oh.”
The air felt braided with threads of warmer and cooler air, the three of them sinking into the truth Estrella already knew.