“If you answer a few questions first, then yes, of course.”

She blinked. She’d expected him to say no. “All right.”

“Let’s start with . . . who is your father?”

The girl pressed her knees together. It was easier to hold it standing up, but she couldn’t last much longer. “Don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Are you my papá?” she asked, peering closer. Mamá had described him as tall and pale, with hair like falling water. And that’s all she’d ever said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the monster, and the girl felt a relief so huge it almost loosed her bladder.

Then his frozen eyes narrowed. “But it was someone like me, yes?”

The girl said nothing.

“How old are you?”

This part is fuzzy in the girl’s memory. Did she hold up six fingers? Seven?

Whatever it was, she absolutely remembers the monster peering at her strangely and saying, “You have an old soul.”

She glared. “I’m precocious.”

He stepped forward, quick like an asp, into the very air she was breathing. But she did not back away.

The monster said, “Tell me what happened to your anima-lapis.”

The girl had no idea what that meant, though it sounded like the Lengua Classica, which she did not speak and did not care to. She shrugged.

The blow came so fast she barely noted it, except suddenly she was on the floor, blackness edging her vision, wet warmth spilling into her drawers. Pain came next, exploding through her cheekbone and her shoulder where she fell. Though she hadn’t eaten all day, her belly threatened to toss something up. She blinked and blinked, trying to see straight, as her heartbeat pounded like thunder in her face.

A shape materialized on the floor at her nose: a limp hand.

“I’m sorry, Mamá, I’m sorry,” the girl whispered to the hand. “I peed myself.”

The monster grabbed the girl’s braid and yanked her head backward. He crouched beside her, his moist breath hot in her ear. “Tell me where it is,” he whispered.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know what animal apples is,” she said. “For true.”

“Anima-lapis,” he said, with a tug on her braid. “It would look like this.” He grabbed his amulet and shoved it in her face. The gemstone winked at her from inside its iron cage.

She shook her head, or maybe she just thought she did. Everything was spinning so badly. “I don’t . . . I’ve never . . .”

She’d never seen a sparkle stone until today. Horteño the blacksmith had told her about them. The stones were magical, beautiful, rare. Only animagi were born with them, though she wasn’t sure how a baby could be born with a stone. She’d seen quite a few babies in her short life, and they were messy and soft and loud; not stone-like at all.

He released her braid, and her head clunked against the floor.

Run, she told herself. But her vision was hazy, and her limbs wouldn’t obey. Maybe in a minute or so. She just needed to blink a little, catch her breath.