“Telling me the truth would have been honest.” That he did not look at her made his words sound even more hurtful. He stared at me, as if daring me to look away and thus prove my guilt. “Tell me, Catherine Bell Barahal, do you care that you are responsible for the cacica’s death? If her exalted rank means nothing, for I believe you once told me that Taino queens and princes mean little enough to you, then do you care that you are responsible for a woman’s death?”

“How dare you speak to her like that!” Bee stepped between him and me with such an aggressive movement that both catch-fires turned. “Cat did not murder the cacica! It’s unjust of you to blame her just because you need someone to blame!”

I set Bee firmly to one side. “No, he deserves an answer.”

Prince Caonabo and I were the same height, so we matched, eye to eye. “I held no animosity toward Queen Anacaona except that she conspired with General Camjiata to exile me to Salt Island. At least her motives seemed disinterested in that regard. But at the ballcourt on Hallows’ Night, she was going to kill me. You know it is true.”

“I heard her words. She called for the death of salters, as was her right and obligation to protect the kingdom from illness.”

“She would have killed your twin brother, too, and other people as well, people whose only crime was to have been bitten by salters and healed by fire mages like yourself. As you once healed your brother. Isn’t that right?”

He hesitated, then frowned. “It is true.”

“Haübey would have died on Hallows’ Night, too?” Bee whispered. “You never told me that!”

A flare of emotion blushed his cheeks.

I leaped into silence, for I wanted him to be angry at me instead of Bee. “I couldn’t possibly kill a fire mage as powerful as Queen Anacaona. It seems to me you Taino should direct your anger at the personage who wielded the power to kill the cacica. We Europans call him the Master of the Wild Hunt. I suppose you Taino would call him a spirit lord. But he’s beyond your reach, so you cast your spears of revenge at me.”