Chapter 11: The Photograph

Maria walked Dante to the restaurant door while the others went ahead to the car.

She did not say goodbye.

She took the phone out of his hand and read the photograph and the message under it, and her mouth went very small.

"Rodrick," she said.

"Cousin, he calls me. He never calls me that."

"He knows you are here. He knows who you are with."

"Yes."

"Then you have two choices." She gave the phone back.

"You can carry the boy to the estate, where there are forty men and a wall."

"Or?"

"Or you tell him the truth, and let him choose."

Dante's whole body leaned toward the first.

It was the strongest pull he had ever felt.

He could see the room he would give Javier, the guard on the stairs, the key in his own pocket.

He could see exactly how it would end.

"Not the estate," he said.

"No."

"The truth. The part I can say."

"Say it before dark." Maria touched his cheek.

"He has the right to know what is standing behind him. That is not the same as owning him."

"You're quoting the man in the wine coat."

"I am quoting myself. He only agreed."

They were back in room fourteen by five.

Daniel had gone to the library with a stack of flash cards and a stern expression.

Dante understood that Daniel had been told something by somebody.

Javier sat on his bed with a book open on his knees and did not read it.

"Your mother is very nice," he said.

"She likes you."

"She was testing me."

"Yes."

"I passed?"

"Yes. She says you're the first person who ever told her to her face what they thought of her kind."

"I didn't know it was her kind." Javier shut the book.

"That's the problem with you, isn't it, Greco? I don't know what anyone's kind is."

"Javier."

"Go on. You're going to tell me something. Your whole face has been doing it for an hour."

Dante pulled the desk chair around and sat down across from him, close enough that their knees almost touched.

He held out his phone.

Javier took it and looked at the picture.

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