When Ana fills me in on what I missed, I’m so angry I could spit. I wish I could spit, right here on the street, with the merciless light of the sun bearing down on me and the eyes of merchants on me. But I can’t. That breach of etiquette is a bridge too far, even for me.

“How could I have slept through that?” I ask as we trudge through sun-drenched streets. The prison is a long way away from where we left the horses last night. A trustworthy stable, close enough to Esmeralda’s to get us there quickly but far enough away that we had some kind of plausible deniability. Fat lot of good that did us. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Ana shakes her head, looking at me askance. “Have you ever tried to wake you? You sleep like a damn log.”

“I most certainly do not.”

“You most certainly do.” Ana mimics my accent, butchering it atrociously. I suspect that might be entirely purposeful on her part.

“Be that as it may—” I sidestep the splash of a bucket emptied out of a window as we pass, holding my breath so I don’t have to think too hard about what it may have contained. My clothes are filthy enough as it is. Despite what Ana may sometimes claim, I am not so precious about my things that the mere thought of getting a little dirty is enough to send me into a tizzy. But prison filth? That was an entirely new and horrific realm I wish to never again visit. The heat of the morning sun only exacerbates the stench that emanates from us both in waves. The woolen coat might be a complete loss. Unless Magdalena—

Oh.

Oh.

I never told Ana.

We’re nearly to the stables when I grab her arm. She skids to a stop, eyebrow arching upward. Morning light kisses her freckles in a way that I would find charming any other day. Any other time. But not now.

“I forgot to tell you.”

Ana’s face turns to puzzlement. “Tell me what?”

“Magdalena’s cousin. Juana. She was killed.”

Ana blinks and then her face crumples. “Oh.” And then, the slightest look of consternation. “How?”

No words of horror. We have seen too much of that recently to let it stop us dead in our tracks. “Murdered. Like the girl we saw in the brothel district that night. I was looking into it before the ball, when we—before—”

Before you kissed me. Before my brother died. Before I let my own suffering distract me.

“There’s a killer on the loose,” Ana says softly. Not to me. Her eyes drift downward. She breathes in deeply. When she looks at me, worry creases her brow. “Rosalita—do you think?”