We Set the Dark on Fire (We Set the Dark on Fire, #1)(26)

“He didn’t look very happy,” Carmen continued. “Though I can’t say I blame him. I imagine there are more interesting girls than you to emerge from the bushes with. Maybe he just liked the scent of the salt on your skin.” She smirked at her own insult, but she had just given Dani the key to her next lie.

The shadow wasn’t a hard one to slip into. A besotted Primera with an innocent yet unrequited crush on the gardener. Leave it to a Segunda to reduce espionage to something as mundane as kissing among the leaves. Dani would have yawned if the situation weren’t so dire.

She bit her lip, casting her eyes down. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she said. “I know you hate me, but I couldn’t stand the embarrassment.”

“Sun and skies, what did you do to him?” Carmen asked, the upper-class curse transitioning to laughter. “Did you recite the tenants of Primera restraint? Because I could have told you boys don’t like that.”

A tiny heat threatened to bloom in her cheeks, and Dani fed it, letting herself flush beneath her amber complexion. The blushing virgin. Whatever it took.

“It was nothing,” she said to Carmen’s shoes. Like it was an admission and not a denial. “Not that I didn’t . . . well . . . oh, why am I telling you this anyway? You’ll just laugh.”

“More than likely,” said Carmen, already chuckling again. “But do it anyway; I’m bored of caterpillar hunting.” She held out a golden-brown finger, and Dani noticed a green-and-violet caterpillar inching across it for the first time. It was just like the ones she’d pulled off the scrub trees in Polvo, and she was momentarily caught off guard. “Plus, I need something to do while I pick all this junk out of my hair. Here, hold him.”

Dani was shocked into stillness as Carmen extended her hand, surprised when she reached out her own to meet it. The snuffling insect made its many-footed way across Carmen’s index finger, pausing at the point where it made a bridge to Dani’s hand.

For a moment, despite the uncertain nature of her situation, Dani’s biggest worry was that the caterpillar would deem her unworthy of carrying it. That yet another piece of her childhood would be lost to her. But it acclimated to the scent of her in another moment, and its feet tickled as it traded Carmen’s scarlet-taloned finger for her own plain, short-nailed one.

“So,” said Carmen when it was settled, turning to the mess the bushes had made of her normally glossy hair. “You were going to tell me what to laugh at you for.” She paused, wincing as a thorny branch took several strands of hair with it. “Today, anyway.”

Dani sighed, every inch the girl whose beloved hadn’t returned her favor, though she’d never experienced the feeling herself. “I know it’s not . . . proper,” she began, pretending to watch the caterpillar but really watching Carmen’s face for cues. “But he was a gardener at school. He was always outside my window, and Primeras aren’t supposed to . . . well, I was curious, I guess.”

Carmen snorted. “You could have aimed a little higher.”

Dani felt anger twisting in her stomach; of course Carmen Santos would judge a man just by the uniform he wore or the money he made. “Anyway,” she said, “it was harmless. I never spoke to him. I never thought I’d see him again. But today I was having café with Se?ora Garcia and . . .”

“And there he was,” said Carmen after a shower of leaves fell to the ground at her feet. “The future head gardener of your dreams.”

“He . . . recognized me,” Dani said, the caterpillar exploring her other hand now, its long green hairs tickling her wrist. “He said hello. And I’d always wondered . . . Well, anyway, he offered to show me this place, and I thought there wouldn’t be any harm in it.”

“He didn’t try anything?” Carmen asked, mischief dancing in her eyes. “Come on, you really expect me to believe that?”

You mean besides trying to get me to spy on the Primera of the vice president’s son? “Carmen!” Dani said aloud, scandalized. “As if I could ever . . .” She spluttered herself into silence, not entirely fabricating her discomfort.

“You never know with boys, huh?”

Dani folded her arms, shoving out the unbidden thought that Mateo had been the reason for her comment. That he’d tried something more than Carmen had bargained for.

“Hey!” Carmen shouted. “Look out for Hermanito!”

“What?” Dani asked in a panic, unfolding her arms and spinning around.

“The caterpillar!” she said, stepping closer, pulling the wriggling creature off the front of Dani’s dress, Carmen’s hands brushing her collarbones as she pulled away.

This time, Dani didn’t have to fake her blush. She was exhausted. Things were starting to slip through the cracks. “When did you name him?” she muttered, trying to draw attention away from her glowing cheeks.

“Just now, obviously. Doesn’t he deserve a name?”

Dani didn’t say that apparently the gardener hadn’t. “Listen, please promise you won’t say anything,” she said, pulling at the last vestiges of her patience, her feigned innocence. “It won’t happen again.”

“Sure, sure,” said Carmen, returning Hermanito to a safer leaf.

Dani exhaled for the first time in what felt like an hour. “Thanks,” she said, finding she meant it. She turned back toward the house before she could make any more messes, but Carmen wasn’t finished.