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Chapter One

"I don't really want to be a queen." Lita concentrated on tying bunches of Queen's Crown with cotton thread, to hang upside down to dry.

"Stuff and nonsense." Charles Van Worton snorted and traded amused glances with his widowed sister, Ermengarde St. Just.

The little family had just settled in for another quiet, studious winter Sunday afternoon in the front parlor of their brownstone on the edge of the fashionable quarter of Manhattan. Van Worton, referred to by all who knew him as the Professor, spent Sundays reading from the week's accumulation of newspapers, occasionally sharing something with his sister and their ward. Ermengarde sewed and studied whatever new educational pamphlet had come during the week. Lita had her own studies to pursue, along with tending the row of pots of the herb, Queen's Crown, that was her sole province. When she finished those weekly tasks, she took up the papers the Professor had finished with and scanned them, making notes for herself about current world events. The quiet life suited them, though they were never loathe to accept an invitation to a friend's house for an evening of chess or bridge or music.

Charles Van Worton was wealthy enough that his peers tolerated his scholarly pursuits and vocal support of the Suffragist movement. Not a few were of the opinion that his support was mostly to placate charmingly outspoken Ermengarde. Still more of their acquaintances, both friends and detractors, decided that the two slightly eccentric, elderly folks were admitted into the best society solely for the sake of their ward, Miss Elizabeth Seal-Croft. Society matrons found her charming, despite being far too well educated for a proper young lady. Her wealth, quiet manners and dark, exotic good looks made up for the mystery of her parentage, which Van Worton and his sister declined to reveal.

"You are destined to be a queen, my dear. It is a waste of energy to wish for something that will not happen," the Professor continued.

"What will not happen is Prince Esteban sending for me." Lita tucked an ebony curl back into her comfortable Gibson Girl twist and picked up the bundles of flowers she had finished tying. "He does not want to marry me, any more than I wish to marry him."

"How can you be sure of that?" Ermengarde murmured, most of her attention caught in the pamphlet reporting abuse suffered by women who attempted to vote the previous fall in Chicago. "It has been nearly a year since you heard from him."

"Exactly. I write to him regularly, sharing what I have learned in my studies, asking questions about the histories of our families and the geography of Los Cielos, and he barely responds to anything, when he deigns to write to me at all. He does not want to marry me. We should have considered the betrothal void when Emmanuel died. It is undignified for a man to inherit his brother's intended bride, just as it is undignified for me to be treated like chattel and passed from one brother to another." She punctuated her pronouncement with a sharp nod and headed for the door.

"You adored Emmanuel," the Professor observed placidly, folding the current newspaper onto his lap. "That could be part of it. You still have a broken heart."

"I was a child." Lita blinked back a few tears and forced a careless smile onto her lips. "Emmanuel visited me twice a year since we were betrothed. He sent me presents and wrote me letters once a month. He treated me as an adult, despite fifteen years between us. He promised he would take me to Italy and France and Switzerland on our wedding trip. When I turned eighteen. I am twenty now. I am tired of waiting for a man who does not want to marry me. A man I have never met." She took a deep breath, visibly fighting for her usual serenity. "Most of all, I am tired of feeling like a disgruntled, spoiled child. Living in limbo as I do is not good for anyone's nerves."

"You? Nerves?" Ermengarde put down her pamphlet and indulged in a delicate snort. "Nervy, rather. And I'm proud of you for being able to speak your mind and analyze exactly what it is you feel. And I am sorry, my dearest child. As archaic as it is, with all the superstitions and un-provable history and phenomena associated with it, you must marry Prince Esteban. The future of the nation of Los Cielos depends on you."

"Primitive pagan fertility rituals," the Professor said with a louder, deeper snort. "Rejoining two branches of one family, breaking a curse, bringing life back to a desert valley. Stuff and nonsense. It went out with a belief in faeries and witches. This is the dawn of the twentieth century, the age of reason."

"Then you'll write to Prince Esteban and tell him the betrothal is null and void?" Lita said, with no real hope of a positive answer. She wasn't quite sure why she argued, because she believed, deep in her soul, in the history and heritage and destiny that had wrapped around her since the day she was born. What girl didn't want to be a princess from a faerie tale, born in exile, raised in hiding, awaiting the day her betrothed prince came to claim her, to break the curse on an enchanted kingdom hidden in the mountains of the Pyrenees? Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and a dozen other princesses never knew the faces of their princes until they broke the curse imprisoning them and claimed them as brides, so why did the lack of communication with Prince Esteban bother her so much?

"I'm sorry, my dear. I made a promise to your father. It was his last wish that you reclaim the throne of your ancestors." The Professor tossed aside his newspaper. "Come, finish your task, and when you return, suppose we have a rousing game of chess?"

Lita agreed, and hurried away to the dry, shadowed room where she hung the Queen's Crown to dry. The sweet-sour aromatic flower, tiny golden buds on black stalks, only grew in the mountains around the valley of Los Cielos. She had no way of knowing if that was for sure, or just another story among many her father told her when she was a child. Botanist friends of the Professor's had studied the flower and proclaimed it a totally unknown species, so Lita thought it could be true. She had grown Queen's Crown all her life, drying it to use in tea or put the powder in cuts or make into a poultice to put on bruises, to speed healing. It soothed headaches and stomachaches and fevers. She imagined it was something like the legendary plants that healed deadly wounds when applied by royal hands. According to the Professor's friends, she was the only one who could get it to grow. Despite the hundreds of seeds she gave them over the years, the plants never grew anywhere but in the tiny parlor garden under her care.

Her chore took only a few minutes, but instead of returning immediately to the front parlor, she climbed the stairs to her suite of rooms. In her study, she settled down on the chaise set in front of the window for the best reading light, and opened the small trunk where she stored her treasures. Two framed portraits, miniatures painted in the old style, sat on top of the pile of letters and favorite books, dried flowers, maps and theater programs. She picked them up, one in each hand, and settled back on the chaise. In the right hand she held the portrait of her father, so elegant with his thick mass of blue-black curls, impossible to tame to the current fashions. His goatee framed a mouth that hovered between somber concentration and laughter. He looked off into the distance. During the torturous years of her adolescence, she had imagined her father's gaze focused on the lost kingdom of Los Cielos. Lita had inherited her large black eyes, thick blue-black curls and her square, stubborn chin from him.

The other portrait was of Prince Emmanuel, the heir to the other royal family that laid claim to the throne of Los Cielos. He smiled, just slightly, and she imagined she saw laughter in his big dark eyes. Square face, stern jaw, wide cheekbones, and a tangle of wind-tossed hair. He was a prince out of faerie tales. She remembered meeting him when she was only five years old. He was so tall, so broad-shouldered, so elegant. He quite won her heart when he bowed to her and didn't get down on one knee and talk baby talk to her, like other adults did. He kissed her hand, like she had seen men do to grown women.

They were betrothed when she was eight, when her father judged she was old enough to understand exactly what it meant. For a betrothal present, Emmanuel gave her a box of maps of the Pyrenees and sketches of Los Cielos, both the present arid wasteland, and the lush, fertile valley it had once been. Lita found that far more satisfying than the emerald earrings and necklace that came with the maps and sketches, and Emmanuel laughed when she told him so. He made her promise that she wouldn't dance with anyone but dancing teachers until he came to claim her first official dance when she turned fifteen. He sent her long letters and souvenirs from all the places where he traveled, and shared his ideas for how to reclaim the valley of Los Cielos, so it would once again be world-renowned for its lush vineyards and excellent wines.

Emmanuel died when she was fourteen. Lita shuddered, remembering the telegram that came from Prince Esteban, so curtly announcing the death of his brother. No words of sympathy, no details. Five months later, a frustratingly short letter came with the details. Emmanuel had been set upon by thugs in Paris, murdered for his elegant evening clothes and his purse. His body had never been retrieved, thrown into the river and most likely devoured by fishes before it could wash up on a beach somewhere.

Just as her father's body had never been retrieved.

She supposed it still lay under the pile of rocks from the avalanche that had killed him during his third attempt to find an entrance into Los Cielos. When she entered the valley, if she ever went to Los Cielos, Lita vowed to find the place where her father had died and retrieve his body for a proper burial. Until she could bury his remains, she supposed her dreams of her father, gray-haired and earnest, would continue to haunt her. He wore black like a priest, and tried to tell her something, but she could never hear his voice and his face was always blurred, so she couldn't read his lips.

In some ways, she supposed she refused to accept the deaths of either man.

Lita had received a letter from Emmanuel, two months after his reported death, with no date on it, and so many postmarks from foreign countries she couldn't track the route it had taken to reach her. She had been lucky enough to be home alone when the post was delivered, and never shared the contents with anyone, not even the Professor and Ermengarde.

Angry tears tried to blur her eyes, and she blinked them away as she slipped the precious letter from the pocket she fashioned on the back of the tiny portrait. Lita hadn't read the letter in nearly three months. She wondered how many more times she could read it before it fell to pieces in her hands.

Mi Preciosa Infanta.

My dearest Princess Elizabelita Innocente Concepcion Margarita de Los Cielos.

I fear that we shall not see each other again for a very long time. Longer than even you, so clever and wise, can imagine. The dangers that threaten our united throne grow closer as the weeks and months go by and our pending marriage approaches.

Dearest Lita, I cannot emphasize enough times, or strongly enough, that you must hold fast and refuse to believe the cruel things that you might hear in the weeks and months to come. Do not doubt me. I will come for you and make you a queen. You are already the queen of my heart, my inspiration to be the best king any kingdom could ever desire.

I know I need not remind you to continue in your studies of agriculture and architecture and all the things our people will need, to emerge from the Dark Ages and join the twentieth century. You and I must lead them, their examples in all things. We will not be like other kings and queens, lording it over our people, dressing in silk and jewels earned by the sweat and pain and poverty of our people. We will be rather like benevolent landlords, devoted to their welfare.

Thinking otherwise was the downfall of our ancestors. The royal sisters who destroyed and cursed Los Cielos were proud and cruel. They had been ordained to rule together, commanded before witnesses on the day the queen, their mother, died. But the older declared herself the heir and the younger created lies to prove her sister was illegitimate and unworthy to inherit. I have often asked myself, what did it matter? They were not inheriting from their father, but from their mother. It was her blood that determined their inheritance, not his.

Be that as it may, the people were divided because the sisters were divided and there was little love in the people for the royal family, even before that argument began. The sisters fought and schemed and destroyed the vineyards so one would not profit if she succeeded in destroying the other. And when your ancestress realized what she had done and repented of her sins, her sister would not reconcile. My ancestress caused avalanches to fill and destroy the passages into the valley, and your ancestress led the people to safety through underground tunnels. She was the last to leave, and when she pulled the stone doors closed, she prayed to Heaven that no life would touch the valley of Los Cielos until the two sisters had reconciled and the divided family was united again.

You and I must unite our divided family and bring life back to Los Cielos. We will see the valley green with vineyards again, and hear the music of water flowing from all the springs that are now dry. We will break the curse. I swear my life, my soul, my eternal destiny, to that task.

Our destiny, my princess, will not permit us to die until it is fulfilled.

Always remember that, and remember that I remain your adoring, faithful servant and guard,

Prince Emmanuel Alberto Carlos de Veritas.

Chapter Two

One lighting bolt struck ground at the tail end of the vicious spring storm. The power from the sky hit with a deafening crack, making sparks and shards of rock and moss spatter like shrapnel from a fractured cannon. The soldiers caught in the middle of the storm were painfully familiar with malfunctioning cannons and other weapons.

Several of the older, scarred foot soldiers crossed themselves and muttered in the patois that was a mix of Spanish and French, prevalent here in the Pyrenees. The captain standing at the head of the troop, daring the turbulent winds to knock him off the plateau and the driving rain to blind him, only sneered and considered their reaction weakness. He marked the spot where the lighting bolt had struck ground, and when the rain slowed enough to allow the patrol to move forward again, he led the way.

The narrow, steep-sided ravine would have been invisible at any other time, but the weird half-light of the storm cast shadows at odd angles and made it easy to see. Despite the captain's usual cynicism, his mind churned with possibilities. His imagination conjured up visions of what he might find at the end of that lighting strike. His master would be pleased, and reward him greatly, if he finally succeeded in his quest.

The lighting strike had cut a swath in the hard-baked clay, stripped away the tenuous moss that clung to the sides of the ravine, and revealed a hollow in the rock itself. The captain snapped his fingers. His lieutenant struck flint and lit the sealed lantern that hung from his saddle. The object of the captain's mission was too important to leave in the hands of mere foot soldiers, or even his junior officers. He dismounted and climbed through the rubble torn out of the steep side of the ravine. It formed a rough staircase, letting him climb up to the gash cut through the rock. He ignored the mud and water smearing the pristine gray of his precisely creased uniform. He barely reacted when he slipped and fell, tearing his sleeve.

The older soldiers crossed themselves again when the captain disappeared into the mouth of the small cave. His lantern illuminated the interior just long enough to give tantalizing glimpses of scarlet, azure and the glimmer of gold. Then the captain turned, blocking the opening with his back. He snapped orders, and his lieutenant and sergeant scurried to climb up and stand with their backs to the entrance, blocking it from everyone's sight.

When he came out more than an hour later, the captain's jacket bulged with something rectangular, longer than his hand, tucked inside and held in place with his belt. He mounted his horse and rode away, leaving his lieutenant with orders.

The foot soldiers labored to cover the opening, dragging tree branches up to jam into the gaps between the boulders. Others brought handfuls of clay to plaster over the rubble, and strips of moss and weeds. A few dared to look inside and described a room cut from the rock, with glorious, holy paintings full of beautiful colors, edged with gold. The lieutenant didn't bark orders to stop looking or be silent. A few of the older soldiers gave each other fearful looks, because such tolerance was unusual from an officer.

When they finished, the lieutenant had them line up with their backs to the opening they had just hidden. He thanked them for their hard work, for their loyalty to the throne of Los Cielos. Then he and the sergeant opened fire. Before the echoes of the last shots faded, every man lay on the ground, either crippled by shots to the legs or felled by bullets to the head. The lieutenant and sergeant calmly walked through the sprawl of bleeding, weeping, cursing men and slit the throat of anyone who moved. Then they mounted their horses and followed their captain.

Before the echoes of the horses' hooves faded, shadows split from the darkness filling the ravine with the fall of night. Figures in black robes and hoods surrounded the dead and dying. They examined each man. All but two they left where they lay. The black-robed figures bound those two men with bandages torn from their robes and carried them away.

* * *

An ancient Roman villa sat on a high plateau overlooking a wide, desolate valley where the beds of dead rivers writhed across the landscape. Lavishness and luxury filled the villa, in contrast to the devastated landscape that was once lush and greener than emeralds, while the winds moaned where the songs of vineyard workers once filled the air.

The captain stood waiting on the wide balcony extending from the lip of the plateau, feeling like a vulture looking down on the dead landscape. Despite the rain that had fallen in torrents outside the valley, everything was parched and dusty inside, as it had been for the last two centuries. When he let himself think about that anomaly, whispers of legends insisted on striding through his mind. He didn't put any more stock in the stories of the glory days of Los Cielos than he did tales of the Black Monks who guarded the valley and hid it from the eyes of the world. His only faith lay in his master, Prince Esteban Eduardo Mateo de Veritas.

"You must have found something amazing, to come here in less than pristine condition," a rich, amused voice drawled from behind him.

The captain went down on one knee and immediately dug inside his coat. "Majesty. Please honor me by taking this token of devotion and service from my humble hands."

His gloved hands supported a key carved of silver stone, streaked with veins of gold. It had the shape of a skeleton key, old-fashioned and simplistic, too big for any lock either captain or prince had ever seen. Despite its size, it felt as light as air in the captain's hands, so he wondered if it were hollow inside.

"The Key of Earth," Prince Esteban breathed. He raked a ring-encrusted, muscular hand through his raven curls, heavy with macassar oil, and stared at the mythical treasure resting on the captain's filthy gloves.

Not so mythical any longer, he realized a moment later. Tugging his crimson silk smoking jacket straight, he crossed the pavement and reached out his hand. The scars from old dueling wounds glimmered white in the fading afternoon light. His fingertips brushed the surface of the key and silver light illuminated those scars, making them look like ice. The key glowed softly like phosphorescent mold in deep, damp caves. Prince Esteban slid his fingers around the key and the light grew stronger. He laughed, a triumphant rasp, and clenched his fingers around the stone shaft.

"Proof!" He raised it over his head, and the setting sun's crimson rays fractured on the bars of the key and spilled like blood over his head. "I am the true heir to Los Cielos. I am the one who will make it a treasure again. The legends..." He growled and lowered his arm. "The legends are right, because the key does exist, but that doesn't mean they're totally right. Eh, my friend?"

"The legends, Majesty, say the princess will unlock the prison that holds the heart of the rivers. If you now hold the key, then the legend lies." The captain stayed kneeling, but he raised his head and his black eyes glittered in satisfaction like his prince's.

"Indeed, if I hold the key, then what need do I have for the princess?"

"She is now a liability," the captain offered.

Prince Esteban nodded and took a step closer, to rest his heavy, scarred hand on the captain's shoulder. "You are my friend because you battle the barriers that stand between me and my rightful throne. Continue in your loyal service, and you will have my eternal gratitude."

"Majesty." The captain rose to his feet and bowed deeply. He strode up the steps from the balcony, putting the drought-stricken, abandoned valley of Los Cielos far behind him.

Esteban turned to the valley and held the key out, as if the ghosts of ten generations could see his triumph. He shook his clenched fist.

"The key is mine. The throne is mine. Los Cielos is mine," he called, and his voice died in the rising moan of the winds rising up from the valley floor.

* * *

When the moon climbed through the shreds of clouds and spilled down watery silver light, more soldiers crept through the ravine filled with death. They wore black uniforms, with the flower called Queen's Crown embroidered on their shoulders and cuffs. A scar-faced man with black hair and eyes led them. They uncovered the cave the dead soldiers had buried, and their leader climbed inside. He said nothing, but the sternness of his expression when he climbed out of the cave made the men tremble. They crossed themselves as they re-buried the cave, and several of them paused to sprinkle the dead bodies with holy water and to whisper prayers over them. Then they followed their leader into the night.

Chapter Three

Lita woke with her heart in her throat. The terror that turned her blood to ice water made her furious. She refused to be a trembling, teary child, dependent on the protection and guidance of others.

"Elizabelita Innocente Concepcion Margarita de Los Cielos," she chanted through gritted teeth. Four times, she chanted, until her heart slowed and she could hear the night song of insects through the rapid thudding in her ears.

Around her, the brownstone mansion seemed to sigh and go back to sleep. Lita closed her eyes and listened, imagining invisible roots streaming out through her body, going through the imported rugs and floorboards and brick walls, penetrating the sidewalks and other barriers, until she could hear every sound, sense every movement in the neighborhood.

Ermengarde might sigh and roll her eyes and mutter about Lita's potent imagination. The Professor would nod, his gaze turning inward, and he would ask her probing questions about what she sensed when she sent her consciousness roaming.

Lita knew better than to tell either of her guardians about this night's awakening. Neither the recurring nightmare nor her need to assure herself the neighborhood was indeed safe was anyone's business but her own. After all, she was twenty years old, only four months away from twenty-one, independently wealthy, a crack shot and expert horsewoman and qualified to work as a pharmacist, surgeon, midwife and lawyer, if she had been allowed to go beyond theory into actual hands-on practice.

All her life, she had prepared herself for the harsh, heavy work involved in bringing a devastated nation back to life. All her life, it had seemed like little more than a particularly fascinating, sometimes infuriating and troublesome faerie tale. She had taken all the Professor's lessons to heart, devouring every bit of knowledge, eagerly tackling every challenge. Why had she never fully accepted her destiny?

It had certainly accepted her.

Sighing, Lita climbed out of bed. She ignored her satin slippers sitting primly next to her bedside and padded across the Turkish rug in her bare feet, to her study in the other room and the desk overflowing with books and papers. The telegram had been folded and unfolded, rolled and flattened and turned into paper boats a dozen times since it came three days ago. The print was faded, the paper ready to tear in a dozen places. She could still read it.

Key found stop bring infant stop

Lita snorted, imagining the telegraph operator deliberately dropping the ‘a' at the end of ‘infant.' It was infanta, meaning princess. Meaning Princess Elizabelita Innocente Concepcion Margarita, heir to the abandoned throne of Los Cielos.

Why couldn't the throne stay abandoned? Her father had visited the valley exactly four times in his life, trying to find a way to break the alleged curse that stole all the water and turned a fruitful, lush valley into a plain of dust and rock and heat. Supposedly, a member of the royal family was destined to find the mystical key, hidden for safekeeping by the Black Monks, then unlock the doors that would release the water and undo the great evil that had brought the curse down on the hidden valley two centuries ago.

Lita's father had died on his fourth visit to the valley, when she was twelve, and no one had any idea in this modern era of 1912 what great evil had caused the curse.

Not that Lita believed in curses. She was sure with enough study and the Professor's help, she could decipher the geological damage that had blocked the water tables and sent the rivers of the valley underground, or perhaps blocked them at their source. That was a far more logical explanation than someone inserting a mystical key into an equally mystical lock.

According to Prince Esteban Eduardo Mateo de Veritas, now there was an actual key.

According to Prince Emmanuel, the great evil had been the splitting of the royal house into two warring factions. The only way to heal the rift was to bring the two divisions back into one. Lita's father had believed enough to betroth her to Emmanuel.

The time had come to marry her prince, find the supposed lock that waited for the key, and bring life back to Los Cielos.

Lita wondered if it was too ridiculous to consider running away to join the circus.

According to the Professor, the inhabitants of that particular section of Spain still had to make their way into the nineteenth century--forget the twentieth. Lita thought she could do without the lovely conveniences of indoor plumbing, coal fires and gaslights. What she dreaded was the medieval mentality that likely awaited her as Esteban's bride.

Emmanuel had been a man of the world. He traveled and studied. He attended salons in Paris, studied philosophy in Germany, explored the wilds of Africa, invested in manufacturing plants and sponsored inventors in the United States, all for the purpose of making Los Cielos a rich and modern country someday. Lita had adored him as the man who showered her with sweets and books, told her fantastic tales, bought her a pony against her governess's wishes, encouraged her in unladylike scholarship, and wrote her long, detailed letters.

Esteban had written Lita four letters since stating, without any inquiry into her wishes, that the betrothal would continue. He never left the mountains that sheltered the ruins of Los Cielos, and seemed dedicated to keeping the lost nation hidden from the world after it came back to life. If it ever came back to life. He had accepted his brother's affianced bride out of duty and made no attempt to become familiar or even friendly with Lita.

From the little bit of information the Professor had gleaned about the prince, he harkened back to the mindset prevalent when Spain was dominated by the Muslims: women were to be kept silent, secluded, with no say in the course of their lives, subject to the whims of their husbands, fathers and brothers.

Lita, Ermengarde and the Professor supported the Suffragist Movement and education for all women. Lita shuddered at the thought of spending the rest of her life battling with Esteban. Her father should have put a codicil in the betrothal agreement, so she wouldn't have been passed down like a family heirloom from one brother to another. She dearly loved her father, who had encouraged her education and had the wisdom to leave her as the ward of the Professor and Ermengarde when he returned to Spain, but in too many other things, he had been sorely lacking in foresight and basic common sense. After all, he believed in the prophecy strongly enough to commit her to marriage for the sake of a kingdom he would never rule.

"Please, Papa, if you have any influence in Heaven, could you influence some of the saints to take a hand in things?" Lita whispered, as she picked up the tintype portrait of her father that had been taken just a month before he left on his final journey.

In answer, the glass covering the tintype cracked. She gasped and dropped the frame. It made a dull thud on the carpet.

Movement from the corner of her eye drew Lita to the window. There, on the moonlit grass of the park across the street, four dark shapes slowly drifted through the fog. She shivered and her heart picked up its pace. The four people were too far away for her to make out details, but she knew there would be nothing to see. They wore black masks and hooded cloaks over robes that covered them down to their shoes. All in black. The Black Monks had been in the shadows of her life since her birth. Lita trusted them to protect her. They had taught her to defend herself, and sometimes, if she was quite alone, spoke to her in whispers of Los Cielos and her destiny. She just wished she could trust them to give her some answers.

Her heart skipped a beat when she blinked and the Black Monks vanished, swallowed into the mist between one beat of her pulse and the next.

* * *

Eduardo Mateo Carlos de Veritas crumpled the telegram in his fist and opened his mouth to swear, then stopped with a guilty start. He was inside a church, after all. He nodded apologetically to the draped figure behind the altar, then dipped his finger in the font of holy water and crossed himself before hurrying out of the church. The pouring rain did little to cool the heat that tore through him.

Reynaldo, his manservant, followed close behind. The older man's distress over the contents of the telegram kept him from fussing and raising the umbrella he constantly carried, no matter what the weather promised.

"Watch the princess," Eduardo muttered. "How?"

"If you must, introduce yourself to her," Reynaldo offered.

"If I had known she was this close, I would have moved to the other side of the country," he snapped. He instantly regretted his tone, and opened his mouth to apologize. Reynaldo was more like a favorite uncle than a servant. He was certainly more of a father than Emmanuel, Esteban and Eduardo's sire had ever been to them.

"Understandable," the older man said. "Your brother said details would follow. Prepare to leave school and wait until that information comes. Then you will know how to act."

"How to act." Eduardo nodded and continued down the street.

Acting was easy. It was thinking and reasoning things through and doing the right thing that was hard.

Becoming a student at Princeton had seemed like a good step in breaking free of his wild, dissolute and useless past. If he had known Princess Elizabelita lived in New York, would he have stayed in Cambridge? San Francisco seemed a far more sensible choice now.

Not that he was a coward, but Eduardo knew he had a weakness for pretty faces and a tendency to damage innocence, rather than protect it. Emmanuel was dead now, and he wished to avoid the princess to honor his elder brother's memory.

"Such a lovely child. So innocent, but clever. So alive and alert and eager to learn. Independent. She absorbs books instead of reading them. And she'll be a beauty, when she's grown up. Sure to make half the men who meet her burn with hunger. And she'll be all mine. She adores me already," Emmanuel had boasted. Then his proud grin dimmed and his eyes turned introspective. "I must try to become worthy of her, before she realizes what a scoundrel I am. Yes, I must become worthy of my clever angel, so she can love me when she is a woman grown. She is the key to saving our kingdom. She will be the heart of our kingdom. I must protect her." He had uttered a bark of harsh laughter. "First, I must protect her from myself."

Emmanuel had tried to change his life and died in the quest to revitalize Los Cielos. Eduardo had tried to reform his life, because someone needed to stand with Emmanuel, and he knew Esteban was more likely to slide a knife between their older brother's ribs than support him. Seducing the innocent, scholarly princess now, even if it would frustrate Esteban, wouldn't please Emmanuel's ghost. How could he avoid temptation, if Esteban sent him now to watch over the princess? Why, Eduardo wondered for the hundredth time since receiving the telegram, did Esteban suddenly trust him with such a delicate assignment? As far as he knew, Esteban had no idea that he had reformed, leaving behind the drinking and brothels and gambling to pursue a life of scholarship and sobriety. Why would Esteban trust him within five hundred miles of his betrothed bride?

"You realize, Reynaldo, this assignment of mine proves that virtue is not its own reward?" Eduardo said, punctuated with a single bark of laughter.

"What good is strength, unless it is tested and exercised?" his companion countered.

"I don't want to go home to that vulture's nest." Eduardo finally conceded to the increasing downpour and stepped under the awning of a fashionable storefront. "My grandfather should have given up and built his fortress somewhere else. Staying there, brooding over the wasteland, waiting for a miracle to change it back into a paradise, only proves insanity flows in our bloodline."

"Your grandfather and his grandfather didn't want to concede that the Los Cielos family has the right to hold the throne. Leaving their post would have been conceding that the curse was your ancestor's fault, and not her sister's."

Eduardo snorted, but he nodded and bowed his head to study his drenched boots. "I don't want to know what disaster will strike the world when the two branches of our miserable family are finally brought back together again. If the princess's ancestors weren't trying to kill mine, my predecessors were trying to kill hers."

"High time there was peace and healing, then."

* * *

"Anyone home?" The smooth baritone drifted up the four flights of stairs through the center of the house.

"Up here, Professor." Lita wiped her sweaty, dusty face with her sleeve because her hands were filthy with grime.

"Ready, dear?" Ermengarde stepped back, pivoting her corpulent frame out of the way, and held her hands up to catch the battered green steamer trunk the girl slid off the top of the pile of trunks and valises and crates.

"Step back, Aunt Ermie," she warned, and gave a good shove. The pile creaked and swayed. Lita skipped around the side of the pile, arms up in the air, and caught the leading edge of the trunk as it tipped downward.

Lita ignored her guardian's remonstrations to be careful, to wait until the Professor could bring in a few hired men, and not to tear her shirt. The Professor could have come home with one of his associates from the library. While the other elderly scholars might have the good breeding to ignore the sight of Lita in trousers, wearing a filthy shirt in front of guests could not be tolerated by anyone.

Lita caught the trunk and eased it down to the gritty floorboards of the attic. It amazed her to consider that she would need two such things for her voyage to France, and Ermengarde might require at least four, to contain all her fresh undergarments, walking clothes, formal gowns for dinner at the captain's table, and her hats. Lots of hats. At least three for everyday wear, and four for special occasions. Some women lived for their jewelry, others for their shoes. Ermengarde St. Just lived to wear hats.

"There you are, my dears." The Professor paused in the attic doorway and surveyed the scene. "Excited about your voyage now, are we?"

"I'm excited. Lita, of course, sees it as another unpleasant task. The sooner she faces it and gets it out of the way, the sooner she can arrange her life to suit her." Ermengarde beamed fondly at the girl she and her brother had raised to be an example to all modern women.

"Quite right. Sensible." He stopped fussing with his pipe, which he constantly filled and trimmed but never lit. A frown brought clarity to his usually unfocussed, mild brown eyes. "Are you sure you won't wait until I've delivered my paper to the symposium?"

"The philological society of yours will take two months just to decide how they want to proceed and where to hold the banquet," Lita said. She wiped her face again and realized she had indeed torn the inside seam of her shirtsleeve. With a shrug, she stepped around the pile of valises and dug out the three that matched the trunk. "By the time they let you present your paper, the traveling season will be over. I don't relish ocean travel at the start of winter. If I can find a ship to take me."

"There's such a thing as being too devoted to duty."

The crash came in the pause when Lita tried to come up with an answer that wasn't sarcastic or downright petulant. Before either of her guardians could react, she slid past the Professor and flew down the stairs. She leaned over the banisters as she went, putting all her weight on the outer edge of the treads so they wouldn't creak and give away her approach.

The crash had come from a tall man falling face-first down the stairs leading from the front door into the entryway. The Professor had dropped his umbrella, hat, and portmanteau in a heap in front of the door, as usual. Ermengarde had sent the two household servants home for the evening already, so there had been no one to pick up after the absentminded gentleman. No one had lit the gaslights, leaving the entryway awash in shadows.

All to the good, Lita decided. She paused at the first landing to assess the situation.

A second man leaped from the shadows and snatched at her. She twisted sideways, grasped the banister and vaulted over it. She landed on Ermengarde's potted tree, nearly toppling the enormous metal pot full of soil when she hit it square with her heels. Lita tucked and rolled and slammed square into the legs of a third man, who had been standing in the shadows. He cuffed her hard against the back of her head and yanked her to her feet.

"Boy, where's the princess?" he growled.

Lita muffled a gasp of pique and gave him an elbow in the gut. He didn't let go, and hit her harder, impacting with her temple to make her head ring.

They didn't realize who she was, and this buffoon thought she was a boy! She nearly laughed aloud, despite her dizzy feelings, when she realized Ermengarde was right. No one expected her to dress in boy's clothes, so no one realized she was a girl. How could she use that to her advantage?

The shadows around her suddenly split and turned solid. Lita stumbled backwards when one shadow leaped on the man holding her and wrenched her out of his grasp. She barely caught herself before her face hit the wall. When she turned, two shadows engulfed the man. Another shadow took the first man who had leaped at her. A fourth shadow knelt on the fallen man and bound his hands and feet, trussing him like she had seen calves handled during that one glorious, dusty, rustic trip out West when she was sixteen.

The Black Monks had come to her rescue, far more literally than they ever had before.

As abruptly as it began, the battle ended. One shadow stepped into the spill of light coming down the stairwell, transforming into a figure in draping black robes, hood and mask. Blue-silver eyes peered at Lita through the eyeholes, and winked.

"Thank you," she said, and crossed her arms over her chest before she bowed. The figure mirrored the gesture, then the four Black Monks bent and dragged away the three men.

"Well, that was interesting," the Professor said, his words emphasized by the creak of the stairs. He carried the lantern Lita had taken upstairs to the attic, what felt like hours ago. "You must tell me everything that happened, my dear. I always have the bad luck of coming in at the very end. All I ever see are your guardians cleaning up after the crisis. Very disappointing."

"Disappointing!" Ermengarde sniffed, her only concession to dismay. The shadowy people who had protected Lita all her life made Mrs. St. Just uneasy, even though she understood their presence was necessary. It wouldn't do to advertise the fact that an exiled princess lived with the elderly, eccentric scholar and his widowed Suffragist sister. Lita needed bodyguards, and hiring them would have advertised her presence, as well as strained the pocketbooks of her guardians. The Black Monks, dedicated to the welfare of Los Cielos, filled the purpose conveniently.

Lita bit her lip against grinning. It wouldn't do to let Ermengarde know that sometimes the Black Monks crept into the house in the dead of night and spirited her away, to train her in their ancient skills, fighting hand-to-hand, with knives, clubs, and ropes, and how to move in silence and stealth.

Even if she did reveal that particular secret to her guardians, she would never let them know that some of the Black Monks were women. Ermengarde was a Suffragist and permitted Lita to wear trousers when the occasion made it sensible, but even she would draw the line at some of the things the Black Monks did, labeling them as quite unladylike.

* * *

It had taken all Lita's skill in misdirection and subterfuge to keep Ermengarde from hearing about the Titanic disaster. Living in New York, that had taken some doing, but Ermengarde St. Just avoided gossip and spent her time in worthwhile pursuits and charities, and her friends were like-minded people with more important things on their minds. Still, Lita knew her grace period had ended when she and her guardian went to the ticketing office to obtain passage on the next ship crossing the ocean.

Someone had made an effort to provide information to reassure people who were understandably nervous about the ocean crossing. A table had been filled with brochures, pamphlets and copies of reports on the Titanic catastrophe for perusal. Lita privately thought the overemphasis on safety had the exact opposite effect. She had her ocean route planned down to the last detail before she and Ermengarde climbed into the hansom cab to go to the ticketing office. Persuading her guardian that she understood such things would be another test of her diplomatic skills.

"My dear..." Ermengarde came back from studying the wealth of information, misinformation and hyperbole displayed throughout the ticketing office, an entire fifteen minutes sooner than Lita anticipated. Wrinkles marred her soft, smooth forehead. "Must you cross this particular ocean? Couldn't you take a longer route, say, by train to San Francisco and then to the Orient, and go overland from there? The Pacific is so named because it is ever so much safer, I believe."

"That would take three times longer than I can afford. Esteban has sent for me. Time is of the essence." Lita knew the ticketing agent was listening avidly. She had nearly tripped over calling her unseen betrothed by name instead of title, but she knew better than to mention the word ‘prince' where listening ears and strangers could hear.

"Yes, but I simply don't feel safe crossing the Atlantic." She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it. That was a danger sign if Lita had ever seen one.

"We won't be going to England, Aunt Ermie. France is south of that route." Not very far south, but enough, Lita hoped, to reassure the woman. "And we won't be taking the White Star line, but a much more established, reliable shipping line. We won't go anywhere near the northern sea. No icebergs at all. My destiny won't allow disaster to stop me."

"Yes, dear, but your destiny doesn't guarantee that I will arrive with you, or that either of us will be unharmed or unpleasantly detained along the way."

Lita suspected Ermengarde enjoyed the argument. Well, that took away some of her guilt about playing her trump card. "If you really feel nervous, I can travel alone. You needn't make the effort and inconvenience yourself for me."

"Not on your life!" Ermengarde fanned her face with her gloved hand, as if fighting off vapors. A crinkle of mischief narrowed her eyes. "Nothing in this world can convince me to allow you to travel sans chaperon." A sigh of laughter escaped her. "Besides, this might be my only chance to leave the country and see something else of the world."

"If you insist." Lita sighed dramatically and turned around to face the ticketing agent. He winked at her. She took it as a good sign that he wasn't offended or agog by the discussion he had just witnessed. Lita hoped he wasn't the meddling kind of man who would repeat the story to the next dozen people who came in. "We'll need a stateroom, please, on a lower deck for stability, but close enough to the stairways so we have fresh air. The next available ship bound for France."

* * *

"Unfaithful?" Eduardo snorted at the irony of his brother's paramount concern and the reason Esteban had asked him to stand guard over the princess. No one walking the Boston street past him reacted. Civilized people had the courtesy not to react when someone talked to himself. He liked that.

He hadn't seen Esteban in nine years, but he doubted his brother had changed his ways, his tastes or his privileged attitude. It would serve him right if Princess Elizabelita had grown weary of being made to wait for their wedding, and had decided to follow her heart instead of her duty. Esteban had two mistresses, the last time Eduardo thought to ask for news of home. Why did it matter to him if the princess wasn't a virgin on their wedding night?

Eduardo had been exposed to the modern thinking of the university long enough to believe that men and women had equal rights when it came to matters of the heart. If a man strayed from his marriage vows, then his wife had no obligation to honor hers. If the princess had a sweetheart or two, or had even taken a lover, Esteban had no right to complain. It wasn't as if he had made any effort to secure her affections or loyalty, and certainly didn't care if she looked like a hag or a horse or had remained the delightful, lovely child Emmanuel had worshiped.

The sudden change in attitude in his older brother assured Eduardo that something was disastrously amiss. Esteban had instructed him to find the princess and watch her for three weeks, to discern her habits and friends, before approaching and introducing himself. Any men of marriageable age were to be investigated. Any time she left the house, especially if she left without suitable escort, she was to be followed.

"And I must challenge and discourage any young man who appears to have more than a polite social connection to her," Eduardo murmured. He nearly crumpled his brother's thick letter of instructions and doubts about the princess in his fist and slammed it down on the surface of his favorite café table. Duels were fine and admirable in Spain and France and the mountains surrounding Los Cielos, but not in modern-day, civilized New York.

"Eddie." Jason Hopkins, who gladly told any stranger who asked that he was descended from the Mayflower's passengers, settled down at the café table opposite Eduardo. "Why the gloomy face? Don't tell me you didn't get invited to the Ladies Guild tea?"

"Just the opposite. They can't survive without my impeccable manners and exquisite tailoring." Eduardo leaped up from his chair and executed a bow, showing off his two-day-new frock coat. Unfortunately, the move left his letter from Esteban sitting unguarded on the table. Jason picked it up.

"Heavens above--what in the world is that scrawl?"

"Orders from my elder brother."

"How can you obey him if you can't read it? And what language is that?" Jason laughed and tossed the papers back at Eduardo.

"Our estate is in the mountains between France and Spain. Therefore, so is the language."

"Ah, no wonder you're such a wonder with languages. You even have Monsieur Philipe dumbfounded with your skill." Jason lounged in his chair, pretending a wastrel attitude that only his closest friends didn't believe. "You have very little accent, you know. It's exceedingly unfair to the rest of us."

"How?" Eduardo grinned, despite the fury at Esteban that still seethed in his veins. Leave it to Jason to be amusing, and yet highly informative and introspective at the same time.

"That little touch of accent sets the girls' hearts aflutter. It's a good thing you're a paragon of a gentleman, or you'd cut a swath through society that none of us could dare match."

"Hmm. Yes. A gentleman." Eduardo knew Jason could never guess what a reprobate he had been only a few short years ago. Emmanuel's death had shocked him enough to bring about an abrupt change in his goals, values, and behavior.

That, and the deaths of Christine and Magnolia.

Did his renovated and remade character require him to spy on Princess Elizabelita and ensure she hadn't taken a lover? Did it require him to challenge any suitors, to protect his brother's claim to the girl's affections?

Did Esteban even care about the girl's loyalty and friendship, or did he only care that she didn't bring a bastard to their marriage, to inherit the reunited throne of Los Cielos?

After all, that was what had split the kingdom centuries ago. The two daughters of the queen were to share the throne between them, but the elder tried to displace the younger, and the younger claimed the elder was illegitimate. Their struggle for power, for the loyalty of the vinedressers and peasants of Los Cielos, had destroyed the once-plentiful valley.

Some legends said that magic had stolen the rivers, and only healing magic could restore them. Other legends said that only a daughter could bring healing, because a daughter had destroyed the prosperity of Los Cielos. Until this generation, only sons had been born to the two branches claiming exclusive rights to the throne. Marrying Princess Elizabelita and rejoining the two lines of the family into one was the only way to heal the land. Emmanuel had believed it enough to betroth himself to a child. Esteban had obviously believed it, because he demanded the right to inherit the betrothal when Emmanuel died.

Eduardo wasn't sure he believed in much of anything, except perhaps the doom levied on those who betrayed their duty to their family.

"My duty as a gentleman tears me away." Eduardo grinned when Jason responded to his jibe with a mere snort.

"How long will you be gone?"

"I have no idea. It depends on the princess, I suppose."

"Princess?" Jason sat up straight. "As in?"

"A princess with no throne, descended from a prince with no throne, and on and on through history. My brother plans to marry her, so I have to dance attendance on her and keep the lines of communication open between our two families." He shrugged. Ironic, how easily the lie slipped from his lips.

Old habits died hard.

"We have more than enough landless, fortune-less princesses around." Jason subsided back into his chair again, dismissing Elizabelita with a wave of his hand. "Finish your duty and hurry back, will you? I want you to lead our fox hunts this year, and there's no one who can match your style as a marksman, or on the debate team."

"Oh, yes, definitely. The end of civilization if the debate team doesn't continue its relentless pace." Eduardo wondered what his elegant, rich friend would say if he knew the truth about him.

Would his status as the younger brother of the prince and de facto ruler of a destitute kingdom cover over his other sins? Would Jason scorn him, or welcome him as a curiosity piece, if he knew Eduardo had been a drunkard and thief, had tried his hand at piracy and owned a bordello for two years? Would he applaud the reforms in his life, his attempt to become something worthwhile, a scholar? Or would Jason turn his back on Eduardo because his sins, his stupidity, had brought about the deaths of his mistress and their innocent child, just days after he swore to reform?

* * *

A cab pulled up in front of Professor Charles Van Worton's brownstone, when Eduardo finally untangled the directions and arrived at the proper address. He settled down on a bench in the park across the street and watched the activity. The driver and his helper immediately got out and knocked on the front door. A red-haired girl in a gray maid's uniform opened the door within seconds, meaning the cab was expected, and the two men went inside. They came out, carrying out valises and steamer trunks, and went back in again.

Eduardo didn't realize he had stood and started crossing the street toward the house until he heard a shout and looked around to see a hansom cab bearing down on him.

When the second cab departed, Eduardo saw a white-haired, plump woman standing on the steps, wearing a long bottle green coat over her black dress, and an outrageous hat full of feathers and veils. She pulled on her gloves while she carried on a conversation with the driver, and his assistant secured the luggage to the outside of the cab.

Eduardo relaxed and grinned at his foolishness. He had thought the princess--

A young woman stepped outside, dressed all in dove gray that made her abundant mass of hair seem blue-black by comparison. Eduardo watched, his heart coming up in his throat, while she fixed a sensible gray, flat pancake of a hat in place with hatpins long enough to be seen from across the street. He didn't pull free of the daze enfolding him until she pulled a veil down over her face with gray-gloved hands, obscuring her large, liquid dark eyes.

That had to be Princess Elizabelita. And she was dressed for travel. Some of that load of luggage had to be hers. Where was she going?

No wonder Esteban wanted the girl watched. Eduardo wondered if the princess had grown tired of waiting for her prince to marry her, and she had decided to take matters into her own hands.

The creak of springs as the two women climbed into the cab woke him from the swirl of his thoughts. Eduardo muffled a string of curses and started across the street. The maid scurried out the front door and handed a package up into the cab. Eduardo heard a musical bubble of laughter and something jolted inside him. A girl who could laugh like that...

He scolded himself to use his brain instead of his groin and slowed to a stop when the cab pulled away from the curb. Fortunately for him, the maid stayed on the front steps, waving. Her smile looked excited, not relief that two difficult mistresses were gone, he noted. That said something for what things were like inside the household.

"Where are they off to now?" he said. He offered his most harmless grin and jammed his hands into his pants pockets like a much younger man.

"France." The maid folded her mouth tight shut and turned to go back into the house.

Eduardo grinned. So, his attempt at making her think he was acquainted with the two ladies hadn't worked. He liked this girl, who didn't seize every opportunity to gossip.

"I thought for sure she'd be going to Spain. What's in France besides dressmakers and hat makers and cuisine?"

"You know Miss Lita, then?"

"Not half as much as I'd like to. I thought I'd come by and surprise her with a visit--I just came up from Princeton," he added, hoping to impress the girl. "Haven't seen her since she...oh, was this tall." He measured up from the ground, estimating how tall the princess had been in the childish portrait Emmanuel had shown him. "She wore sapphire earrings and matching ribbons in her hair, and she had a locket with her parents' portraits in it. Does she still wear the locket?"

"Won't take it off." The maid nodded and tugged her mobcap a little more securely down on her curls. "What makes you think Spain, instead of France?"

"She still speaks fluent Spanish, doesn't she?"

"If that's what you call it. A Spanish gent is courting my sister, and what I hear when I go home on my days off doesn't sound like what Miss Lita spills when she's--" Her eyes sparkled, despite her grimace. "Mustn't gossip. It's not nice at all."

"Where Miss Lita is from, they speak Spanish and French. That's probably what you heard." Eduardo filed that bit of information away for later. He had imagined the princess as an elitist, insisting on either pure French or pure Spanish. For her to practice her ancestors' language had to mean something. What, exactly, he wasn't sure. He nodded his thanks. "I'll just have to come by when she returns. Do you know when that will be?"

"Mrs. St. Just hopes to be home in the spring. If Miss Lita comes at all, well," the maid shrugged, and grinned delightedly, "it'll be on her honeymoon trip."

"Ah, then I'm too late after all." Eduardo sighed dramatically, which earned a giggle from the maid. She blushed, stricken silent when he caught up her hand and kissed it gallantly. "If you get a chance to write to Miss Lita, please give her my good wishes, won't you?"

He left the maid nodding, her eyes bright as stars. Eduardo strolled down the street, fighting the desperate urge to run. In this upper-class neighborhood, anyone seen running would be immediately suspected of mischief. Decorum demanded a dignified pace.

At the first opportunity, he hailed a cab and headed for the docks. With any luck, Princess Elizabelita's ship would still be there. With any luck, he might even see her strolling the deck, delaying the moment when she had to settle into her stateroom. It would save him much time and trouble if he could follow her to her quarters instead of having to ask multitudes of discreet questions.

He hoped his luck held, giving him time to purchase tickets and send for Reynaldo and his luggage. Eduardo could make do with borrowed clothes, or even stolen ones. He had certainly been reduced to that before. But if he wanted to get near the princess on this ocean voyage, he had to appear as uppercrust as she and her companion.

He also had to be able to provide some competition, if she intended this voyage to meet or find or even run away with her lover. It had been several years since he had changed the course of his life, but Eduardo was confident in his ability to dazzle and distract a girl, and even sweep her off her feet, if necessary. Even princesses had weak points. He would find Elizabelita's weaknesses and exploit them, and make sure she arrived in Los Cielos as unsullied as possible. Not that Esteban deserved a virginal, innocent bride, but Eduardo took this mission for Emmanuel's sake. His oldest brother had adored the princess. She would still be innocent and pure, and madly in love with Emmanuel if he had lived.

Eduardo wondered what it was like to be in love. He had been amused by Emmanuel's infatuation with the princess and his resolve to become worthy of her. His amusement had been touched with just enough envy to realize that was the source of the sour note in his laughter. Eduardo knew that despite the solid, reputable, scholarly man he had become, there was still enough filth in his past, he would never deserve a pure, devoted love. That depressed him more than he wanted to admit. Almost enough to drive him back to the bottle.

But Christine's and Magnolia's ghosts called when alcohol soaked his mind and body, and he couldn't stand that.

* * *

The ship bound for France wasn't due to leave until the next morning. Eduardo said his first thankful prayer in years, and with some judicious questioning, found the hotel where Mrs. Ermengarde St. Just and her young traveling companion, Miss Elizabeth Seal-Croft, had taken rooms for the night. He obtained a room, lied about his luggage still coming from the train station, and went to fetch Reynaldo.

His manservant was loyal to a fault, brutally honest, and had stayed with Eduardo through his years of rehabilitation. Strange and sad to say, Eduardo had no idea if Reynaldo liked ocean voyages or hated them. He hoped Reynaldo wasn't the iron constitution type who took one look at the rolling waves and turned green. He would need the man's help, if only to distract the old woman so he could get close to the princess.

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