I pulled out of the opia’s appealing grasp. “I promised to deliver the head. Then my cousin can help me get back to Expedition. I have to get a ship to Europa.”

“What if I could get yee to Europa? Right now? If yee do as I ask and promise to take the cacica’s head to Haübey?”

“Cat!”

I was hallucinating Bee’s voice.

Rory tugged on my arm. I looked round to see Bee plowing through the crowd. She was hauling the smaller of Vai’s wooden travel chests with the aid of a grinning Taino man who was wearing an embroidered loincloth, bronze anklets and bracelets, a beaded necklace, a feathered cap, and nothing more. His friends followed along, dressed in a similarly appealing style. Like me, Bee wore an amply cut Europan skirt, good for striding, but a sleeveless bodice in the Expedition manner because, although it was night, it was plenty warm. She, Rory, and I stuck out like the maku we were, but no one seemed to mind.

“Bee!”

She halted, face flushed and curls in disarray. What I assumed was a pretty “Thank you” in Taino dismissed the young man. After looking over me and Rory, he retreated to his amused friends.

“Here you are, Cat! I was afraid to leave the chest because James Drake saw it and threatened to burn all of Andevai’s clothes. If there’s one thing you can trust about that man, it’s that he hates your husband and he could easily do it.”

“That’s two things,” said Rory.

She skewered him with a black gaze. “You get to haul it all the way back!”

“Where are we?” I had to pitch my voice to be heard above the rattle and song. “Why are you talking to James Drake?”

“We’re in Sharagua. I’ve been divorced and cast off. And here you are, in the middle of the areito on coronation night. I saw our meeting here in a dream. I’ve made arrangements for us to travel with General Camjiata’s army to Iberia.”

I looked around. The opia had vanished.

Bee grabbed my wrist, yanking as if she meant to rip my arm out of its socket. “Cat! We have to go! A carriage is waiting outside. The tide waits for no man, and not even for me.”

“I’m not going with General Camjiata! Why is he in Sharagua?”

“For the coronation. Anyway, of course he wants me to return with him to Iberia and help him win his war.”

“We can’t trust him!”