There is a certain flavor to tragedy. One you can taste on the air if you’re close enough. I learned it well and too early. I can feel it now, cloying and strong on my tongue. Something bad happened here. Something worse, perhaps, than the usual sort of bad that happens in Potosí.

A gaggle of onlookers cluster around some central point. Latecomers crowd around them, popping up onto their toes for a better look.

People stream by us in ones and twos, each soul keen to see what the commotion is.

“Hey.” I grab the sleeve of a boy trotting by us. He can’t be a day older than thirteen, but he has that look in his eyes that makes him seem far, far older. He wrenches his arm out of my grasp before he recognizes me. His gaze darts from me to Kiki and back again. I can’t quite place his name, but he knows us. Most people in this neighborhood do. We’re a bit of a fixture, Kiki and me.

“Oh, it’s you.” He smooths the rumpled fabric of his sleeve.

I jerk my chin in the direction of the crowd. “What’s all that about?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Morbid glee tinges the boy’s voice. “There’s a cutthroat on the loose.”

Kiki steps up beside me, her shoulder brushing mine. “A cutthroat? You mean like…”

“Like a madman with a knife and a taste for the ladies, yeah.” The boy glances back at the growing crowd, his expression a touch too keen for my tastes. Some people like gawking at dead bodies. I am not among their number. I have seen enough to last me a lifetime. Death is common in this city. It’s common in every city, I suppose, but it feels especially common here.

It takes a bit of elbowing, but Kiki and I force our way through the crowd. When we get to the front, I regret giving in to the siren song of curiosity.

There is a dead girl in the alley.

She lies flat on her stomach, which is a small mercy considering the blood peeking out from under her belly. Her skirt’s rucked up around her knees, exposing her pale silk stockings. They’re fine, finer than her dress, which is odd. Normally, it’s the other way around, a pretty shell with threadbare underthings lurking beneath. She’s wearing but a single shoe. The other is nowhere to be found, at least as far as I can see. Her face is turned to the side toward us, one unseeing eye open and pale as if to confront us for staring. Smudged rouge stands in lurid contrast to the death pall of her skin. An open wound, fresh and angry, trails along her neck like a scarlet ribbon.

I frown. “There’s not enough blood.”

“What?” Kiki asks.