“Now the sleeves of my shirt,” I say. They are also held on with laces. I wince when Lupita’s efforts scrape at my injured shoulder and breathe relief when she’s done pulling the sleeves off my arms. I tie them together and wrap them crosswise around my ankle. I need three times their length, but it will have to do.

I grab the front half of my vest. “We need to roll this up. Leather armor is not very flexible, so you’ll have to press hard.” I show her what I mean and hand it to her. “We’ll wrap it around my lower leg, as low as we can and as tight as we can, and then we’ll tie it in place. Can you do that?”

“Yes—”

A scream of anguish echoes from below. Lupita’s gaze darts outside; then she twitches toward the deeper part of the cave. She is confused, frightened, ready to go in every direction at once.

“Right here, stay with me, Lupita. I need you to be strong for me. Are you ready?”

Telling someone else to be strong is exactly what I need. When she nods, courage fills my own chest.

I unroll the vest just enough to slip it over my ankle, stifling a groan of pain. I take a deep breath. “Ready, Lupita? Make it as tight as you can. Don’t be afraid to hurt me.”

She presses down on the vest piece, rolling as she goes. “Harder,” I tell her between gritted teeth. “Tighter.”

When it’s as tight as I can bear, I wrap the laces from my vest around it and knot them. I test the brace by pressing my foot against the cave wall. The pain is not nearly as bad as when the ankle was flopping uselessly.

The brace will do little to support it, but I hope it will shore up the exhausted muscles and tendons holding it in place. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to walk on it a little.

Lupita and I crawl back to the lip of the cave and peek outside, careful to keep our faces in the shadows. I wish we had not.

I cover the girl’s mouth, but only to keep myself from screaming. Zito is on his knees, his arms bound behind him. One man holds him by the hair. Another places an arrow, its iron tip glowing red, against his blistering, blackening cheek. A bloody hole in his face marks the spot where Zito’s right eye used to be.

The Perdito shifts the arrow tip to beneath his remaining eye.

“Who was with you, and where have they gone?” the Perdito says.

“It was the queen of Orovalle,” Zito answers, laughing. “And she is a hawk, soaring above all of you.”

The bandit presses the glowing arrowhead into Zito’s cheek, and blood runs down his chin as he screams. Tears stream down my face.