Ariadna looked up and confronted Leandro’s smile, a balm of peace and compassion. She wanted to lose herself in that smile and never wake up again. Leandro leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

His lips were cold.

* * *

That night, while the doctor’s magic potion made its way through her veins one last time, Ariadna dreamed about the Scarlet Prince of the stories her father had written for her, and she remembered.

Many years had passed, and she could barely recall her parents’ faces, or her sister’s. She could only do so in dreams. Dreams that always took her back to the day those men arrived to take her father away and kidnap her and her sister, leaving their mother for dead in the house in Vallvidrera.

That night she dreamed that she could once again hear the rumble of the car approaching through the trees. She remembered the echo of her father’s voice in the garden. She looked out the bedroom window and saw the black carriage of the Scarlet Prince stopping by the fountain. The door of the carriage opened, and light turned to shadow.

Ariadna felt the touch of ice-cold lips on her skin, and the silent voice bled like poison through the walls. She wanted to run and hide with her sister inside a wardrobe, but the Scarlet Prince’s eyes saw everything and knew everything. Huddled in the dark, she listened to his footsteps, as the architect of all nightmares slowly approached.

16

A pungent aroma of eau de cologne and American tobacco preceded him. Valls heard his footsteps coming down the stairs, but refused to give him the satisfaction. In lost battles, the last defense is indifference.

“I know you’re awake,” said Hendaya at last. “Don’t make me throw a bucket of cold water over you.”

Valls opened his eyes in the half-light. The cigarette smoke emerged from the shadows and drew jellylike shapes in the air. The glow of the embers lit up Hendaya’s eyes.

“What do you want?”

“I thought we could talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to tell you.”

“Do you feel like smoking? They say it shortens one’s life.”

Valls shrugged. Hendaya smiled, lit a cigarette, and handed it to him through the bars.

Valls accepted it with trembling fingers and took a drag. “What do you want to talk about?”

“About the list,” said Hendaya.

“I don’t know what list you mean.”

“The one you found in a book in your office at home. The one you had on you the day they captured you. The one that contained about forty numbers of birth and death certificates. You know what list.”

“I don’t have it anymore. Is that what Leandro is looking for? Because he’s the person you’re working for, isn’t he?”

Hendaya settled down again on the stairs and looked at him with indifference. “Did you make a copy?”

Valls shook his head.

“Are you sure? Think about it.”

“Perhaps I made a copy.”

“Where is it?”