“Fair enough. As you say.” His features became stern, turned that way sudden, but also in a rearrangement so swift it felt like acting. “I am a busy man, so I’ll keep this brief. Silvina was a terrorist and a bad seed and a blight on our family’s legacy. I have spent too much time cleaning up after her and defending the family name. I will not have scandal, now that she is dead.”

“She tasked me with—”

“With nothing.” The weight he put on the word hurt my shoulder.

“She wanted to make the world a better place,” I said.

“No. She wanted to destroy the world.”

“Silvina gave me that hummingbird for a reason.”

Vilcapampa shook his head. “No. She gave you the hummingbird because she was unwell, deranged.”

“Did you kill her?”

Vilcapampa’s face went terrifyingly blank, as if someone had turned him off.

“No,” he said finally, as if there was a time delay. “She made her own trouble, who she talked to, who she did business with. She was … She was … like a diplomat who wants peace but winds up running guns. No better than Langer.”

I didn’t want to hear that. I told myself it didn’t make sense, that Vilcapampa was lying.

“You did business with Langer. Your people. And you took the hummingbird,” I said.

He shrugged, but his gaze had moved offscreen, as if asking a question of someone I couldn’t see. Another person I couldn’t see.

“What we want to know is what you know. About Silvina’s final project. What she told you.”

“She told me nothing.”

“You must know something. You’re an analyst. You’ve studied the evidence, begun an investigation. You’ve followed the clues.”

“No. I’ve been chasing shadows.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’re the one who made sure no one wrote about her death. You’re the one who disowned her, gave her nowhere else to turn but criminals.”

Even through the haze, I felt the sting of desperation. It was the desperation of knowing I’d never have a chance to talk to Vilcapampa again—and wanting to know so much more. I don’t think the threats had even registered. But that was likely the painkillers.

“We could pay you well,” Vilcapampa said. “To give us the information.”

Maybe, if not for the painkillers, the situation, how far I’d come … Maybe I would’ve answered differently. Found some way to answer differently.

“I have nothing to give you.”

Vilcapampa opened his mouth to reply, closed it again. Then began again.

“I thought you might understand the severity of this—and do the right thing. But, I can see that you don’t.”