The Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney Page B

barnacles. He closed the door, and when he returned she was happily chewing away on one of the briny treats. She drew a tattered box of cards from her apron pocket, removed the deck, and slid them toward him. “What do you need to know, Duilinho?”
    Felis wasn’t a witch, he felt sure. Her talent lay in getting someone to organize their thoughts
around
the cards she presented, making it seem as if the cards knew what was in their subconscious. At lea st , that was what Duilio suspe ct ed she did. While his gift usually only told him yes or no, her card work seemed to bring out more complete answers for him. He didn’t often ask this of her, though, as he didn’t want her to think he took her for granted.
    He picked up the deck, shuffled it, and put it back in her wrinkled hands. “There’s a woman. I need to find her.”
    Felis withdrew one card and lay it facedown on the polished surface of the table. “This is your card, Duilinho.” She st arted to deal the cards out into three piles. “Is she a criminal?”
    “No,” he said quickly. Many would argue that point since she was in the city illegally, but he didn’t see Miss Paredes that way. “A witness. A vi ct im.”
    Felis picked up one of the st acks and turned over the fir st card, the two of spades. “Yes, she’s under a cloud. Is she in hiding?”
    He wasn’t familiar enough with Miss Paredes to predi ct her a ct ions, but hiding was a good guess. “I suppose.”
    Felis discarded one card and laid out another. “In her place, what would you do?”
    He sat back. If he’d been captured and nearly killed, he would have been trying to find the person responsible, inve st igating. But a woman would be more likely to seek assi st ance, the police or . . .
    He shook his head, annoyed with himself. Why was he assuming she would ask for help? If she was a spy, that implied an intrepid nature, a self-reliance he’d not been fa ct oring into his expe ct ations. If such a thing had happened to
him
, he wouldn’t have known whom to tru st . He would have tried to solve the problem himself.
    “Seven of diamonds,” Felis said, drawing his thoughts back to the cards. “Traveling near water, perhaps?”
    Miss Paredes might return to her people’s islands,
he reckoned. “A sea voyage?”
    “No, not the sea.” Felis continued to deal out the cards, ending up with several facing upward. She spread them wider and scowled down at them. “The river. Hmm. Why would she do that?”
    Duilio reached to flip over the fir st card she’d laid down, only to withdraw his hand ha st ily when she slapped it. “You said it was
my
card,” he prote st ed.
    “They’re all my cards, boy, so leave it alone.”
    That seemed unfair. One of these days he was going to find a book that li st ed the supposed meanings of each card. For all he knew, Felis was making it up as she went along.
    She slid the jack of clubs out from where it had been hidden behind another card. She scowled and said, “There’s a man involved. A man with ill intent.”
    Well, he had to agree that the man who’d put Miss Paredes in the river had ill intent. Perhaps the card represented the arti st , Espinoza. “I knew that,” Duilio said. “Any ideas where I can look for her?”
    “Back to the water, boy. She’s going back to the water.” She looked up then, clearly at the end of her reading. “That’s where you’ll find her.”
    Duilio sat back, puzzling over that claim. It was so vague as to be useless. Felis began to retrieve her cards, apparently ready to leave. When she picked up the la st card—the hidden one she’d said belonged to him—she chuckled to herself. Duilio leaned around and saw the king of hearts in her fingers. “What does that mean?”
    Felis tucked it in among the others, slid the box back in her pocket, and gathered up her handkerchief full of barnacles. “Remember, boy, you don’t believe in the cards.”
    He felt a flush creep up his cheeks. Her tone wasn’t