“No, there’s a fancy-dressed queen instead!” He laughed as he wiped rain from his cheeks. “You’re killing me, lass!”

Rory pulled me back before I whacked the man with my cane. To soothe me he groomed away tendrils of hair stuck to my forehead. “You’re not going to convince him of what is true if he believes it can’t be true.”

Bee twisted a slender bracelet off one dainty wrist. “Please take this as thanks for your help.”

“You don’t need to pay me. I’m happy to do a good turn…” The wagoner paused as Bee held up the bracelet. “Is that gold?”

“Gold from the court of the Taino king,” she said prettily. “He was so overwhelmed by my beauty that he married me.”

“If you want to call that marriage.” His gaze hardened. By the way his gaze flicked between us, I guessed he was reconsidering his estimate of what manner of young females we might be and whether Rory was truly my brother or rather our partner in crime.

Bee’s diminutive stature led people to think her both mild and harmless, until she shifted her feet to a fighting stance. “We expect to be treated with the respect we have shown you,” she said in a voice thick with queenly grandeur. “Do not make me regret I thought you a decent man.”

He relaxed. “I see you two girls is having me on. My thanks, then, and I’ll take the bauble gladly, as a keepsake of your mischievous ways. Now you get on to your sire, lass. Lest he get tired of waiting for you and come hunting you down. Listen, you can hear him coming now!”

In the distance horns tootled and drums and cymbals clashed.

“What festival parade is that?” I asked as we heaved the chest out of the carriage.

“Tomorrow Mars Camulos has his feast. The mask associations have been practicing for weeks for the festival procession. You Phoenician girls won’t be dancing to that Roman horn!”

With a wave and another cackle he drove into the narrow lanes of the market.

“Mars Camulos!” said Bee with a dark frown. “That means tomorrow is the twenty-third day of the month of Martius. The areito to celebrate Caonabo becoming cacique took place on the first of Februarius. Which means we left Sharagua six weeks ago.”

“Six weeks! And yet three months before that!” I cried, thinking of Vai, taken from me on Hallows’ Night.

Looking toward the stalls of fish, Rory eyed the nearest vendor as if gauging whether he could snatch a fish and run. “No wonder I’m so hungry!”

“Rory, don’t do it.” Bee grabbed his arm, and he winced. She turned to me. “You’ve always said that time passes differently in the spirit world. It’s still strange to have it happen to us.”