Free Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo by Ysabeau S. Wilce Page B

Birdie Ambassador was tricking Buck into sending me within the Empire, where I’d be arrested and sent to Anahuatl City to be sacrificed to the Lord of the Smoked Mirror.
    “Don’t look so green, Flora. It’s a ruse, of course. Xipe Totec just wants to use you as leverage against me. He figures if you are within his control, I’ll have to behave, and he is most eager for me to behave right now. He’s the one who advocated that the Infanta be allowed to return to Califa, that we no longer needed such strong oversight, that we were well pacified. So it would look very bad on him if there were to be, shall we say, trouble. And as long as there is no trouble, you’ll be perfectly safe, Flora. And there will be no trouble.” But Buck sounded as though she was trying to convince herself as well as me.
    “Can’t you get me out of it some way, Mamma?” I pleaded.
    “I can’t refuse, Flora. I would if I could, but I can’t. But I promise you, you’ll be safe.” Pow had fallen asleep, and she rocked him gently. “Xipe Totec may figure that if he has you, he also has the goods on me. But I’ve got goods on him, too, as he knows full well, so he’ll be careful.”
    “But what if they try to sacrifice me?”
    “Don’t be hysterical, Flora. They wouldn’t dare. You’ll be fine.”
    “Mamma...”
    “Don’t give me that look, Lieutenant. This is not a request. It’s an order.” Then Buck started babbling about politics and diplomacy, and my fear turned to anger that flared higher and higher. Did she think I was an idiot? I knew she’d give me over in a minute if it meant keeping the peace in Califa. After Idden had deserted, hadn’t Buck issued a warrant for her arrest? Hadn’t she ordered the Dainty Pirate, Califa’s last great hero, executed? Hadn’t she forced Poppy to drop his suit for slander against the Birdie Ambassador? She was nothing but a Birdie lap dog, and now she was throwing me to them.
    “You’ll be fine,” she said again.
    I said furiously, “No, I won’t. You don’t have to pretend anymore. I know the truth. I know you are not my real mother. I know who my real mother is. I know why the Birdies want me.”
    As soon as the words were said, I regretted them. But it was too late to take them back.
    Buck stared at me, her face as white as her shirt. Without a word, she stood up and, cradling Pow against her shoulder, locked the door. She cranked the transom down, closed and locked the office window, and snapped the shutters shut.
    She turned back to me and said very quietly, “How did you find out?”
    “Lord Axacaya told me,” I mumbled.
    “Axacaya knows? Ah, fike. Fike. FIKE!” The last was a furious whisper. I had never heard Buck swear before, and although it was stupid to feel shock, I did. She collapsed into the nursing chair, clutching Pow.
    “Then it is a trap. It is a trap. Ah, fike. Why didn’t I kill him when I had the chance? Oh, blessed Califa. Shite. Fike. Piss.” Buck closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “How long have you known?”
    “A few months.” I was glad she hadn’t asked me why Axacaya had told me or why I had been talking to him in the first place. “You lied to me! All these years you’ve lied to me!”
    “To save your life, Flora.”
    “You owe me the truth!”
    Buck sighed heavily “I suppose I do.”
    But she didn’t say anything else. She just sat there, twiddling one of Pow’s ensocked feet. I twisted my fingers tightly The silence grew longer and emptier, and then, just as I was thinking she wasn’t going to say anything at all, she spoke. “The Birdies are not monumental in their philosophy, you know, Flora. There were some who were opposed to the War, and some who were opposed to breaking treaties, and, some who were sympathetic to the Califan cause. Anyway, through various machinations, which don’t much matter now, your mother and Sorrel—”
    “Udo’s father.”
    “Ayah, Udo’s father. They escaped.”
    “What