Oriana felt heat rising through her body. “Who said that?”

“Pimental,” Mr. Ferreira said without hesitation. “I have something on him, though, which will keep him from spreading lies about you.”

Good news, although she would rather people not talk about her at all. Especially in a way that might harm the Ferreira family. “What do you have on him?”

“Are you encouraging me to gossip, Miss Paredes?” He looked offended when he said those words, but his eyes laughed.

“It would be best to save the gossip for later.”

Oriana spun about at that voice. She pressed a hand against her chest to quell the pounding of her heart.

A woman stood in the far corner of the room.

She wasn’t hidden. Mr. Ferreira could not have missed her standing there. For that matter, Oriana had looked too. Right in that spot. How was that possible?

The woman walked toward them, her fine dress rustling with the movement. She had inky hair and fair skin that would have rivaled Isabel’s, although she was much older, perhaps in her forties. Her eyes were a clear, pale gray or blue, striking with her dark lashes and brows. “You’ve come to see me, Miss Paredes,” the woman said, “but who is your companion?”

Oriana shot a glance at Mr. Ferreira, who nodded. She turned back to the elegant woman. Was this Nela’s mysterious Lady? How could she determine that? “Mr. Ferreira is my employer. I am his mother’s companion. How did you get in here?”

The woman turned her attention on Mr. Ferreira. “Duilio Ferreira? I met Alessio back in Coimbra, years and years ago.”

Apparently her question was going to go unanswered.

“I was not,” the woman added, “one of his lovers.”

Mr. Ferreira hid a smile behind one hand. Oriana couldn’t see his mouth, but his eyes were laughing again. He managed a polite nod, but didn’t respond to the woman’s announcement otherwise.

The woman settled on one of the wine-colored couches, apparently unconcerned about rumpling her skirts. Her dress seemed to fade into the couch itself. “Mr. Ferreira, you spoke with one of my associates this afternoon, Inspector Gaspar. I am also curious to know why Mata is after you.”

He ran one white-gloved hand casually along the top of the couch. “So, you’re with the Special Police as well?”

Oriana held her breath. What sort of trap had she led him into?

“Let me be clear, Mr. Ferreira,” the Lady said. “My team is here to investigate the Special Police, both abuses of authority by some officers and misuse of them by . . . well, that’s one of the things we’re trying to uncover. Someone other than the prince has been using members of the Special Police to his own ends. That must be stopped.”

Oriana cast a quick glance at Mr. Ferreira. He didn’t seem too surprised by those claims.

“Mata is, essentially, an assassin,” she went on, “working within the ranks of the Special Police. We want to determine who’s pulling his strings. For what it’s worth, we have evidence that he was paid to kill your brother.”

Mr. Ferreira’s jaw clenched, but his face didn’t relay any emotion. “Why would you think someone assassinated my brother? He died during a duel.”

The woman shook her head with a sigh and turned back to Oriana. “Miss Paredes, will you come sit across from me? I don’t think he’s going to sit until you do, and I’m tired of looking up at him.”

A valid point. Oriana settled in a chair across from the Lady, her handbag in her lap. With a quick scowl, Mr. Ferreira sat in the chair next to hers.

“It took him three tries to kill your brother,” the Lady said, smoothing her wine-colored skirts. “We confiscated letters from Mata to a counterpart in Southern Portugal, detailing his difficulties with Alessio Ferreira. I suspect his seer’s blood allowed Alessio to escape the first two attempts unharmed, just as yours allowed you to escape last night.”

Oriana licked her lips and dared to look over at Mr. Ferreira. He shrugged apologetically, and without words she knew the Lady was right. Duilio Ferreira was a seer. Like his uncle Paolo Silva and his brother Alessio.

Oh, dear. She’d been rather insulting about seers, hadn’t she? Now she wished she could take her words back. Had she offended him? Her eyes fell to the handbag in her lap.

“Why kill Alessio?” Mr. Ferreira asked.

“We don’t know who wanted him out of the way, and unfortunately, Mata didn’t reveal that in his letters. If we can catch him, we have a team who specializes in extracting information, who could get out of him whatever he does know.”

Mr. Ferreira’s face hardened. “Torture?”

The Lady laughed. “Not at all. They wouldn’t lay a hand on him. But he will answer their questions.”

Oriana leaned closer to him. “I could do that,” she whispered. “I could coax answers out of a human if I had to.”

His brows rose but he said nothing.

“So, what did you do, Mr. Ferreira,” the Lady asked, “that would cause this group such dismay that they would send their assassin after you?”

He gestured toward Oriana’s bag. “This might be a good time to show her the sketch.”

He didn’t look too upset, at least. Oriana opened her handbag, withdrew the sketch of the table, and unfolded it. She handed it to the Lady, who took it with careful fingers. “Are you a witch?”

“Not at all,” the Lady said. “I study witchcraft but am not a practitioner.” She turned the sketch about to read the Latin inscription. “Where did you find this? Nela wouldn’t tell me, which makes me suspect this is a matter of import to your people.”

How much was she willing to trust this woman? Oriana glanced over at Mr. Ferreira again, wondering how much she should reveal.

“Whatever you think is appropriate,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts.

He was letting her make the call, then, of whether or not to trust this unknown person. Oriana pressed her lips together, weighing the odds in the silence of the room. “It was in The City Under the Sea,” she finally said. “It was inscribed on a table. My hands were tied to it.”

“The place with the floating houses?” the Lady asked. “Where was this table?”

“Inside the replica of the Amaral house,” Oriana said. She hadn’t thought it would be difficult to talk about it, but it wasn’t much easier this time than it was the last. “Isabel and I were both there, tied to chairs, our hands lying on the table. When the water came in, Isabel drowned.” Oriana swallowed. “Then that side of the table lit up, those words inscribed in it.”

“It’s a scripture,” Mr. Ferreira supplied. “However, as for me and my house we will follow the Lord.” When Oriana cast a quizzical glance at him, he said. “I apologize, Miss Paredes. My cousin recognized it, but I forgot to tell you.”

Oriana didn’t know if that made any difference, as the words still didn’t make sense of what had happened. “I can’t recall what the letters in the inner ring were. They were in a strange script that I didn’t recognize. And I have no idea about the center. Do you know what this is?”

“The side of the table that the other young lady was touching, that side lit up when she died. Do I understand that correctly?”

Oriana nodded.

“I can shine some light on this, Miss Paredes,” the Lady said, “but it doesn’t make much sense.” She laid the sketch on her knees and touched her fingers to the edge, a visual echo of Isabel’s fingers lying on the edge of the table. “I have wondered, although admittedly not much, why someone would waste all that money building a silly collection of houses that would eventually rot away.”

Oriana had to agree. “Is this a spell to keep them afloat?”

“I don’t believe so. The fact that half the inscription lit when this girl died tells me we’re dealing with necromancy. You were meant to die as well, I assume. You said this was a table. What was it made of?”