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“No!” Esperanza screamed -- but it was too late. Montero caught her arm as she darted forward, the gun fired, and Diego de la Vega fell dead upon the stairs.
She turned disbelieving eyes on Montero, his handsome, hateful visage swimming behind the veil of her tears. As if from very far away, she heard him say, “I would never have let any harm come to you.”
Esperanza wrenched herself away, heedless of the bruises his grip left. “I was never yours to protect.”
***
Twenty years later . . .
The gravel of the beach shifted beneath Rafael Montero’s boots as he stepped once more upon the shore of Alta California. The feeble fanfare and anemic applause that greeted him were nothing; what mattered, his true victory, was the long-forgotten scent of the air, the silhouette of the hills, so like and yet unlike Spain.
And the woman he turned to help out of the ship’s longboat.
He’d feared, when he left California all those years ago, that he had lost Esperanza forever the night Diego de la Vega died. The entire long journey back to Spain, she’d refused to speak a single word to Montero -- refused to even say his name, referring to him only as “my husband’s murderer” when she had to mention him to someone else.
But he was a patient man. And a year or so after they arrived in Spain, she’d sent him a stiff letter, asking his assistance in lifting the house arrest under which she’d lived since her return. She swore she’d had no inkling of her husband’s secret and treasonous activities, and begged him not to condemn her and her infant daughter for Diego’s sins. Montero had been only too glad to aid her.
An even longer journey than the one he’d just completed, from her cold hostility to the tentative warmth between them now. He’d feared that coming back to Alta California would be too much for Esperanza, dragging up painful memories of the past. But threading through her insistence on accompanying him was something he could not refuse: an unspoken but obvious desire not to be parted from him. After all, he was not the one who’d shot de la Vega, and her husband had been a liar.
With Esperanza here -- still a beauty beyond compare, age only refining her grace -- Montero might make more than one long-sought dream a reality.
Mindful of Esperanza’s presence and watchful eye, Montero stayed a moment longer to help her daughter out of the boat. Elena could have been a beauty like her mother, but she was a poor-spirited creature, lacking a tenth of Esperanza’s fire. She was bookish and excessively pious, eschewing elegant gowns in favor of dull colors and severe lines, and she kept her gaze downcast as she stepped onto the sand, uncomfortable at being in front of so many strangers. Montero had promised Esperanza that he would find a suitable convent for the child, though it pained him to see her only daughter sent off into such a joyless life.
Everyone should have some joy, Montero thought as he helped Elena up the sand. He was back in Alta California, Esperanza was at his side, and Zorro was gone forever. His future was as bright as the cloudless sky overhead.
***
Misery and grief hung over Alejandro Murrieta like a cloud, and no amount of whiskey could cut through them.
Which didn’t prevent him from trying.
He’d been drinking for . . . he didn’t know how long. Didn’t matter. The important thing, the real problem, was that his cup was empty. He snagged the arm of the proprietor as the man passed by. “Hey, hey -- more whiskey. Or whatever you call this. I don’t wanna see the bottom of this glass.”
The proprietor jerked free. “Money first.”
Money first. Of course. Alejandro patted himself down, his jacket, his pockets . . . but it was all gone. All the money.
And Jack. And his brother.
Impatient and annoyed, the proprietor turned to go. Alejandro caught him again. “Hey, wait, wait!”
Reluctance dragged at his hand as he reached inside his shirt. They’d left it on the sandy, blood-stained ground, the men who killed his brother and cut off Joaquin’s head. Alejandro had taken it, as a final memento of his brother. But no memento could bring Joaquin back, and the pendant was just a leaden weight around his neck. A reminder of how fast everything could fall apart.
He forced himself to raise the pendant. “What about this?”
The proprietor’s eyes widened. “Silver!”
Alejandro caught the man’s hand before he could grab the pendant. “Of course silver. The finest.”
It didn’t take much haggling. For that much silver, the proprietor did more than just bring Alejandro another glass of whiskey; he brought the whole bottle. But before Alejandro could do more than fumble the cork from its neck, hoofbeats sounded in the street, and suddenly a drink was the furthest thing from his mind.
Capitán Love.
The man had just ridden up with a small company of soldiers, but Alejandro had no eyes for them. Only the golden-haired bastard who’d cut off Joaquin’s head like some kind of trophy. Snatching up his own sword, Alejandro shot to his feet, ablaze with the certainty that he was going to kill that man --
In his headlong rush, he crashed into a woman and fell in a drunken heap on top of her.
She exclaimed in shock, and one knee crashed into his groin as she wriggled inelegantly out from under him. Through the fog of pain, Alejandro heard that hateful voice. “What is going on -- Miss de la Vega! Are you all right? Did this man hurt you?”
The woman was on her feet. Alejandro had yet to find his. He’d almost made it up to his knees when dark fabric eclipsed the world, and then a delicate lady’s boot came down atop his neck, flattening him back onto the ground. “No, it was simply an accident,” the owner of the boot said, leaning her weight on it so Alejandro couldn’t rise. “I am fine. Only a little dusty.”
“You!” Judging by the sudden peremptory shift in Capitán Love’s tone, that was directed not at the señorita, but at Alejandro, half-buried under her skirt. “A man like you needs to be taught a lesson --”
“Please, no,” the woman said, abruptly sounding faint. “I -- I need to sit somewhere, out of the sun. Will you escort me to the church?”
Anger transformed into solicitous concern. “Of course.”
The boot lifted. The skirt whisked away. By the time Alejandro made it upright again, they were both gone.
The whiskey bottle rolled on the ground, its contents spilled into the ungrateful dirt.
***
Probably it was better that the whiskey had spilled. Alejandro had every intention of killing Capitán Love, and he needed to be sober enough to enjoy the moment.
That night he crept through the shadows, one stealthy step at a time -- as stealthy as his aching head could allow, anyway. The rank and file were noisy in their barracks, but Capitán Love didn’t bunk with the ordinary men; he’d gone into the administration building and not come out again, which implied his room was somewhere in there. The second floor, maybe. Alejandro would find out soon enough.
He climbed atop a stack of crates, leapt, caught the top of the encircling wall. He was about to pull himself over the edge when he glanced up and saw someone standing directly above.
Alejandro fell back onto the crates with a thud.
“Need a hand?” a low, amused voice asked.
“Zorro,” Alejandro whispered, staring in shock.
But it wasn’t. Oh, the black cape was right, and the boots, and the mask across the eyes. The broad-brimmed hat, the embroidery along its edge just visible in the faint light. Even in the darkness, though, Alejandro could tell the man standing above him was barely more than a youth, smooth-cheeked and slender-limbed. Zorro had been a mature man, and that was twenty years ago. Unless Zorro somehow aged in reverse, this could not be the same one.
The black-cloaked figure swept a bow in acknowledgment of the name, but Alejandro shook his head. “No. You are not the real Zorro.”
The bow stiffened upward in offense. “What makes ‘the real Zorro’? I am his successor.”
“Why -- because you wear a black mask?”
“No. Because I fight for the people of California . . . starting with you.”
Alejandro scoffed. “I don’t need you to fight for me.”
The new Zorro glanced over his shoulder, at the fort beyond. “Are you sure? It looks to me like you want to break in there and kill someone. But you, alone, with only a sword . . . you’ll never make it out alive.”
“You don’t know that. And you don’t know me.” Alejandro leapt for the top of the wall again.
But Zorro didn’t move, which left Alejandro nowhere to climb to. And dangling like that, he didn’t have the leverage to dislodge the masked man. Annoyed, he dropped back onto the crates. “Out of my way! Why are you interfering?”
Zorro raised one black-gloved hand, and a glimmering light seemed to drop from it, spinning gently in the night. “Because of this.”
It was the pendant Alejandro had traded for whiskey. The pendant he and Joaquin had gotten from Zorro, twenty years ago. “You knew my predecessor, didn’t you?” the new Zorro asked.
The sight of that pendant made Alejandro’s throat close up. He could only nod.
“Answer me one question, then. Who do you want to kill, and why?”
The name came out as a strangled growl. “Capitán Love. He murdered my brother.”
Zorro nodded thoughtfully. “As I suspected. Then you are the bandit Alejandro Murrieta.”
There was no pleasure in being recognized, not anymore. “Yes.”
Zorro swung down off the wall, landing on the ground next to the crates. The way was clear now for Alejandro to climb, but he stepped down instead to face the masked bandit. They were of a height, Zorro perhaps slightly shorter than Alejandro. How young was he?
“I propose a deal,” Zorro said. “I will help you get your revenge against Capitán Love. Not tonight; he is a trained soldier and you are not ready. But I can teach you -- how to move, how to think. How to take your revenge with honor, and live to celebrate. And in return . . . you will help me get my revenge.”
He held out the pendant, swinging in the dim light. Alejandro didn’t reach for it, not yet. “Against who?”
Voice soft and laden with a venom Alejandro recognized all too well, Zorro said, “Don Rafael Montero.”
***
“I can’t believe it,” Alejandro whispered, staring around himself. “I never thought that one day, I would be standing in the lair of the fox -- the lair of Zorro.”
Someone had gone to a bit of effort to clean the place up, but it still showed the marks of neglect. The floor was freshly swept, clearing away the debris that must have fallen through the opening in the cavern’s ceiling, but the railing on a small raised platform listed drunkenly to one side, and the ropes strung in a confusing tangle nearby looked like they would snap the minute anyone put weight on them.
Alejandro cast a suspicious glance at Zorro, a black-cloaked silhouette standing on the platform. “How do you know about this place?”
“I told you,” the young man said. “I am his successor.”
“You can’t have been more than a baby the last time he was seen.” That day in the plaza, when Alejandro and Joaquin had saved his life.
“It doesn’t matter,” the new Zorro said sharply. “I know everything about him. How he fought, and how he died. I am here to take up his cause.”
“You’re a stripling boy. Maybe I should be the one wearing that mask.”
The cave was quiet enough for him to hear the indrawn hiss of Zorro’s breath. Then the steady, deliberate beat of his bootheels as he stalked out into the center of the floor. Light flashed as Zorro’s sword flicked free of its sheath, the cloak swinging back over his shoulder. “Take it from me, and it’s yours.”
It was about time that Alejandro showed this boy he wasn’t as helpless as all that. He stalked over, drew his own sword, swung it through the air --
-- and Zorro slapped it from his hand.
Three more disarms later, Alejandro’s hand was stinging, but not half so badly as his pride. “How do you . . .”
“My m -- my master saw to it that I had the proper instruction,” Zorro said. “From the age of four. But you will learn, Alejandro; that is my pledge to you.”
Zorro had tripped him on the final disarm, and as Alejandro levered himself up to one knee, gasping for air, he found himself looking for the first time at the floor. The lines and circles marked on it were familiar. He fished out the pendant to compare, and Zorro nodded. “Yes. That is why I recognized it. This shape is a training circle, the master’s wheel. It will bring you to what you desire.”
“The death of Capitán Love.”
“But not yet.” Zorro picked up his sword where it had fallen and offered it to him, hilt-first. “Let us begin.”
***
The training was grueling, bordering on sadistic. Alejandro suspected that Zorro took pleasure in coming up with arcane ways to challenge his strength and agility, forcing him to dance and spin around the new ropes, to do push-ups over a menacing bed of candles. But any time Alejandro complained or insisted something was impossible, Zorro would prove him wrong -- and the young man would do it all with flair, panache, and a smile on his beardless face.
Despite what Zorro said about wanting revenge against Montero, though, Alejandro saw little sign of it. Surely anyone that good with a blade could cut down Montero any time he liked, yet Zorro seemed content to wait. Until Alejandro was ready to go after Capitán Love? He doubted it. Yet he could think of no other explanation.
And never once, in all that time, did his new teacher unmask in his presence. It was only ever Zorro he faced, not the man -- the boy? -- underneath.
Impatience drove Alejandro out the door late one night. He knew he’d improved under Zorro’s tutelage; he wanted to prove it. Not by going after Capitán Love, not yet . . . but he could do something else.
At least, in theory he could.
After he escaped the debacle in the stable, there was only one place he could take refuge. Alejandro’s blood thrilled when he encountered Fray Felipe in the church and the priest called him “Zorro,” even though he knew his jury-rigged cape and scarf mask were a poor substitute for what his teacher wore. The real Zorro -- the new one, that was -- always insisted that it was purpose and actions that defined Zorro, not whether the person in the costume was the same one as before. In that sense, Alejandro was Zorro.
. . . even if he couldn’t manage to steal one stupid horse.
The priest crammed him into the confessional for hiding. As the sandaled footsteps hurried away, though, and Alejandro clawed the scarf off his head in frustration, he heard a voice from the other side of the screen. “Padre, is that you? Padre, is everything all right? It sounds like there’s a battle going on out there.”
A feminine voice, distantly familiar. Alejandro felt suddenly awkward. How long had it been since he’d entered a confessional? And always on the other side of the screen. But he could hardly admit he was a bandit hiding from his pursuers.
What would a priest say? Deepening his voice to what he hoped was a reassuring tone, he said, “Don’t worry, my dear. You are safe in the house of the Lord.” That sounded good -- except that too late, he realized his voice sounded nothing like Fray Felipe.
The woman didn’t seem to notice. “Of course, padre.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession.”
“Three days?” It burst out of Alejandro before he could think. “How many sins could you have committed in three days? Come back when you have more time, please.” It had been years since his last confession. He didn’t like to think how many.
“Excuse me?”
To hell with pretending to be a priest. “Listen, señorita --” Alejandro began.
But he drew close to the screen as he said it, and through the pierced wood of the screen, he saw her. A young woman, her hair drawn severely back and her clothes as stern as a nun’s habit, but none of that could disguise the soft beauty of her eyes and mouth.
He remembered that face. He’d seen it from even closer than this, the day he slammed into her and missed his chance to kill Capitán Love.
Or maybe his chance to be killed by Capitán Love. And that collision had led to him meeting Zorro. As if she were an angel, sent to guide his steps.
“Please,” he stammered, aborting what he’d been about to say. “Go on.”
She sighed. “I have broken the eighth commandment.”
Alejandro tried to remember which one that was. “You killed somebody?”
“No, that is not the eighth commandment!”
He winced. “Of course not. You -- uh --” His mind raced, searching for a way through this. “In what way did you break the most sacred of commandments?”
Her shoulders slumped with guilt. “I have lied to many people.”
“That is not so bad,” Alejandro said, shrugging. “Maybe they deserved it.”
“What did you say?”
Alejandro could not for the life of him figure out how an attempt to steal a horse had led him into this situation, where he had to pretend to be a priest. “I said . . . tell me more . . . my child.” That sounded good. Except the young woman on the other side of the screen aroused feelings in him that were decidedly at odds with calling her a child.
“I tell myself that I am lying for good reasons,” she whispered, gaze fixed not on the screen, but on the door across from her seat. Or perhaps on a scene that existed only in her mind. “To protect others. To do as my mother wishes -- as my father would have wished. But when others look at me, they see a meek, pious creature. I even use my faith as a shield for my secrets. I feel as though I drag God into my lies.”
The conflict in her expression cut deep into Alejandro. “You say you lie to protect others. What would happen if you did not?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyelashes lowered, forming a dark crescent along her flawless cheek. “I must find a way to answer that question . . . but doing so requires me to continue to lie.”
“Your heart is in the right place,” Alejandro whispered. “God sees not just your actions, but your reasons. So long as you have no desire to hurt anyone, he will not judge you.”
Her eyes snapped open, and Alejandro wondered if he’d gone too far. Before she could say anything, though, a boom resounded -- the church door slamming against the wall -- and Capitán Love’s hateful voice rang through the nave, ordering his men to search.
“I must go,” the young woman whispered. The softness that had crept into her during their conversation was gone; she tugged her shawl up over her shoulders, chin lowering. Becoming exactly the meek, pious creature she had just described. Alejandro reached out without thinking, but his fingers were stopped by the pierced screen, and then she was gone.
Looking around desperately, he found the top of the confessional was only a canvas sheet. As Alejandro pulled out his knife, he heard Capitán Love exclaim, “Elena! What are you doing here!”
“I was confessing,” she said. Her voice was subdued -- almost timid.
“Again? Were you not here just yesterday?”
“The weight of my sins was too great. I felt the need for absolution.”
“From whom? The priest is here!”
By the time the bullet cut through the confessional, Alejandro was out of it. But the sound echoing in his ears wasn’t the gunshot; it was her name.
Elena. Elena de la Vega.
***
Zorro wasn’t in the cave when Alejandro returned. He often wasn’t; Alejandro had no idea where the young man went when he left. One of all too many mysteries.
It gave him time to properly rub down and stage the horse, which had -- in a perverse cap to the entire night -- been waiting idly in the street. But when Zorro finally appeared, he was far from impressed.
“What do you think you were doing?” he demanded.
His fury took Alejandro aback. “I was --”
“Stealing a horse, stirring up the barracks, posing as a priest and luring -- luring Elena de la Vega into sharing her secrets -- have you no respect for the confessional?”
“Well, where have you been?” Alejandro shot back, stung. “I never know when you will be here --”
“I was busy making sure Fray Felipe didn’t pay the price for your sins,” Zorro snapped. “Or did you pause to think about what Captain Love would do to him after your deception?”
It hurt all the more because it struck so close to the bone. Then another blow, as the softening in Zorro’s posture hardened again. The bandit struck one boot heel against the stone floor and snapped, “I did not train you so that you could pretend to be Zorro and cause chaos!”
“Then why did you train me?” Alejandro roared. “Always you say the time has not yet come for me to face Capitán Love, and meanwhile, you do what? You say you want revenge against Don Rafael, but he yet lives. Zorro fights for the people, but I do not see you fighting for anything! What is the point of all this, if we simply hide in this cave and do nothing at all?”
Alejandro half-expected Zorro to snatch out his sword and run him through. The surge in the young man’s shoulders spoke of some physical impulse, barely held in check.
But it was a surge only. Zorro stopped, rigid, and stood for a long moment without speaking.
Then the tension eased. “You have not seen what I am doing,” he admitted. “From where you stand . . . yes, it might seem like I am idle. The time has come to change that. But for you to be of use will require me to give you something that is completely beyond your reach.”
Curiosity peeked up through Alejandro’s frustration. “Oh yes? And what is that?”
Zorro’s smile was bright, and completely untrustworthy. “Charm.”
***
“I cannot believe I am doing this,” Alejandro muttered, and walked through the front door of Don Rafael’s hacienda.
I have not yet killed Don Rafael because first I must know what he is planning, Zorro had said. He did not come back to California out of nostalgia; he has some greater goal. I have a spy of my own, placed very close to him -- but there are places she cannot go. And that is why I need you.
Alejandro felt like a stuffed doll, crammed into a tight-fitting trousers and coat. But dressed that way, with his accent thickened by a Castilian tinge, he made it through the front door. To his surprise, there were two women standing with Montero: one older woman, carrying herself with dignity and grace, and the other . . .
The other was Elena de la Vega.
Dressed more finely than she’d been in the church, but looking as awkward as Alejandro felt. She hadn’t seen him in the confessional, but on the street --
No. There was no way she could recognize this butterfly of a Spanish nobleman as the drunken, unwashed lout who’d knocked her down that day. And he kept his voice light, out of the deeper register he’d used the other night in the confessional. She blushed when he handed her a rosebud pulled from his sleeve, ducking her chin so she could not meet his gaze; so much the better.
The older woman, Doña Esperanza, personally invited him to join their table for supper. Any satisfaction Alejandro took in that was unfortunately dulled by the presence of Capitán Love -- though it did afford him some priceless opportunities to mock the man to his face. After Alejandro’s last sally, he caught the tiniest flicker of a smile on Elena’s face, the first sign of happiness he’d seen all night.
Even that tiny flicker transformed her, like a brief spark flaring within a lantern. Alejandro found himself wondering what she would look like with a steady flame.
It was that question which led him to misstep.
Capitán Love had, with an obvious air of duty, invited Elena to dance. She had, with an even more obvious air of duty, accepted. Alejandro, watching them, could tell that Elena had an innate sense of grace, held back by her distaste for the man in her arms. He could not resist the urge to interrupt them, sending Capitán Love back to the table and taking his place on the floor.
But Elena did not relax in his company as he’d hoped. And when the dance finished, Alejandro realized his mistake: Don Rafael and the others had left the table without him, proceeding to some room deeper in the hacienda.
And the one thing Zorro had told him he must not do was let Don Rafael depart like that without him.
Alejandro turned back to Elena to find her staring at the don with a look of horror. When she caught Alejandro’s surprise, she stammered, “I -- I -- Don Rafael has been like a father to me, and he -- for so long he has encouraged me out of my shell -- I thought he would be happy to see me dancing --”
Alejandro had missed his chance. He might as well enjoy himself.
“May I show you another dance?” he asked, extending one hand. “This one, perhaps, you might find more enjoyable.”
One graceful eyebrow arching, she laid her hand in his.
Zorro had sent him for a lesson with a woman who taught him the basic steps of elegant dancing, but Alejandro had never told the other man he was already an accomplished dancer in his own right. It had been his favorite pastime in the leisure between thefts, when he and Joaquin and Three-Fingered Jack spent their newfound gold in town.
Now he led his partner into one of those dances. Not elegant but spirited; not staid but passionate. And Elena de la Vega came alive in his arms.
It was clear she didn’t know the steps, but she followed his lead without hesitation, learning with a speed that left him breathless. Tendrils of hair came down as she spun; a healthy flush came into her cheeks. She glowed with a vitality that took the budding promise of her beauty and brought it into flower. With her at his side, Alejandro could have danced forever, and damn his purpose for coming here tonight.
Until they spun to a halt and found Don Rafael standing right in front of them, glowering like a stormcloud.
Elena tried to draw back into her shell, but a dragon could not pretend to be a tortoise. “Don Rafael,” she managed.
“Elena.” A muscle tensed in his jaw. “As glad as I am to see you enjoying yourself for once, you might have chosen a more . . . dignified display.”
“Forgive me,” she whispered.
Alejandro had to scramble after that to retrieve the moment. He’d succeeded in distracting Don Rafael from his departure, and although that hadn’t been his intent, he couldn’t waste the opportunity.
The retrieval was successful. But even though Montero invited him to join the dons in the courtyard, a part of Alejandro wished he could have stayed with Elena instead.
***
“Well done,” Zorro said afterward.
Alejandro had seen so much in the interim: the slaves at the mine, Three-Fingered Jack dying -- again -- Capitán Love’s jars with Joaquin’s head and Jack’s hand pickled in whiskey. Zorro’s approval should have been only a tiny bandage against those wounds.
But somehow, the bandit’s grin brought warmth within, where before Alejandro had only felt cold.
***
And not long after that, when they went to the mine together, he understood why.
Zorro had gone to steal the map himself, coming back with no one at the hacienda any the wiser for his intrusion. Given that, Alejandro assumed the young man would undertake to stop Montero himself. Alejandro had seven different arguments for why he should come along already prepared.
He didn’t need any of them. After laying out the map, Zorro presented Alejandro with his own costume: black shirt and trousers, polished boots, swirling cloak. Mask and hat.
Alejandro stared. “You -- what? Are stopping? Not long ago you mocked me for pretending to be Zorro, and now you want me to take your place?”
“Not take my place,” Zorro said. “Fight at my side. It will take two Zorros to bring our enemies down.”
Two Zorros, adding to the legend by making it seem like one man was everywhere at once, cutting the fuse for the explosives and cutting down Montero’s men. Right up until Capitán Love solved that riddle with his usual straightforward brutality: he pulled out a pistol and shot the nearest Zorro.
Alejandro wasn’t far away when Zorro fell. And when that one spun and fell to the ground, when Capitán Love leapt forward to pull off the hat and mask . . .
“Miss de la Vega?” Capitán Love gaped. It would have been funny, if Alejandro weren’t about to kill him.
It might have been that revelation that made Capitán Love’s grip go slack. It might have been Alejandro, the second Zorro, surging out with blade at the ready. Either way, Elena didn’t waste the opening; she planted one black boot heel right between her captor’s legs and scrambled free. “Montero --” she gasped.
Two enemies. Two Zorros.
“Go,” Alejandro said, and he faced Capitán Love.
It wasn’t the fight they would have had that day in the street, Alejandro drunken and grieving and stupid with a sword. But it also wasn’t the fight they would have had before Elena’s unmasking, Alejandro set free to seek his revenge at last by his unknown, mask-wearing master. Though they fought separately across the scaffolding of the mines, he caught glimpses out of the corner of his eye of Elena dueling Montero, and it felt like they were dancing again: their blades flashing in concert, their hearts unleashed at last.
When the cart full of gold came thundering down, dragging Montero with it to fall on the head of the dying Capitán Love, it felt like they’d planned it all along.
***
“That day in the street,” Alejandro said. “Was that even an accident?”
“Me seeing you, yes,” Elena said. She arched an amused eyebrow at him. “What, you think I was searching for a drunken bandit to take under my wing? The pupil was ready, and so the master appeared? No, it was pure chance I passed by as you were trading my father’s pendant for whiskey.” The gleam in her eye said she hadn’t quite forgiven him for that. Then she relented and said, “But I saw the hate in your eyes when you looked at Captain Love. And it seemed a pity to let you die.”
They were in the cave, both still in black, but without their masks. Though Alejandro ached from head to toe, he felt like he was floating on a cloud. Until Elena said, “That night in the church. Was that an accident?”
Overhearing her confession. I have lied to many people. No wonder she’d been furious when she realized who’d been listening -- and relieved when she realized her identity was still a secret.
“Certainly not,” Alejandro said. “I suspected you long before then.”
She threw her mask at him. “Liar.”
“Do not forget, thief as well. Though I could say the same for you, stealing the pendant back from that poor whiskey-seller.”
“We make a shocking pair.”
“I think we make a perfect pair,” he said, leaning forward for a kiss. “Zorro and Zorra.”
Elena pulled back, a dangerous gleam in her eye. “Call me that again, and I --”
The unspoken remainder of that threat merely added spice to their first kiss.