“I have no talent. No gift—”

“Of course you do. Trust me. And above all, trust yourself, Alicia. Because if you so wish, today could be the first day of the life that was stolen from you. If you let me, I’ll give it back to you.”

Leandro smiled warmly, and Alicia felt an anxious and painful need to hug him. He held out his hand. Step by step, she crossed the room toward him. She placed her hand on that stranger’s hand and gazed deep into his eyes.

“Thank you, Alicia. I swear you won’t be sorry.”

* * *

The echo of those words, so distant now, slowly died away. Pain was starting to bare its claws, and Alicia decided to walk slowly. She knew that since she left Barceló’s club someone had been following her. She could feel someone’s eyes caressing her figure from a distance, waiting. When she reached the traffic lights on Calle Rosellón, she stopped and turned around slightly, combing the street behind her with a casual look, scanning the dozens of passersby who had come out to stroll down the Rambla, to show off their uniforms, to see and be seen in the right places. She hoped it would be poor old Rovira, but she couldn’t help asking herself whether Lomana might be hiding among all those people, cleverly concealed some thirty meters away in a doorway, or behind a group of pedestrians who could cover him up: observing her, hot on her heels, his hand in his coat pocket, eagerly stroking the knife he had been keeping for her for so long. A block farther down, she sighted the glass front of the Mauri Patisserie, bursting with delicious confectionery, all masterfully presented to sweeten the autumn blues of wellborn ladies. After checking behind her again, she decided to take refuge there for a few moments.

A young woman—her expression solemn and virginal—led her to a table by the window. The Mauri Patisserie had always seemed to Alicia a lavish sugar den where ladies of a certain age and position retired to scheme, sheltering behind exquisite chamomile teas and almost sinful cakes. That afternoon the congregated clientele only confirmed her diagnosis. Tempted to feel like one more among the chosen few, she ordered a cappuccino and a cream Massini cake she had noticed on her way in, which had her name written all over it. While she waited, she smiled back absently at the bejeweled matrons who glanced at her from the other tables, in their armor-plated outfits from Modas Santa Eulalia. It was easy to lip-read their sotto voce comments. If they could pull my skin off in shreds and make themselves a mask with it, she thought, they would.

* * *

Alicia swallowed half of her cake greedily as soon as it was served. Within a few seconds she felt the sugar rush. She put her hand in her bag, pulled out the bottle Leandro had given her in the station, and opened it, placing one of the pills on the palm of her hand. Before putting it in her mouth she examined it for a few seconds, but a sharp new pang in her hip made up her mind for her. She swallowed the pill with a long gulp of coffee and ate the rest of the cake, just to pad her stomach. For the next half hour she sat there, watching people go by and waiting for the drug to kick in. As soon as she felt the pain drowning in the murky veil of drowsiness that spread through her body, she stood up and paid at the till.