Sebastian’s voice is so different than the softer tone he took with me in the library. “You needn’t be so dramatic. I have everything well in hand now. Or I will, once you do your part.”

Ana and I share a look in the half-light of the moon filtering in through the window.

What part? And what is Sebastian trying to erase?

“I have done my part. No one will find the girl. Nuns know how to keep a secret.”

Ana and I share a look. What girl? she mouths at me. I shrug, wishing I could hear them more clearly.

“They’d better,” says Sebastian, a slight note of what sounds an awful lot like worry in his voice. “If anyone knows what we’ve done, we’re dead men.”

With that, one set of feet leaves, boots pounding through the corridor until their exit is punctuated by the sound of a slamming door.

Leather creaks. A man curses softly. The magistrate leaning back in his chair perhaps.

“Rotten boy.”

Ana cocks her head at me. All I can offer in response is a shallow shake of my head. There is so much I want to say. So much we need to know. But now all we can do is wait.

CHAPTER 23

Ana

The only good thing about being stuck in a tight spot for the hours it took for the magistrate to angrily down an entire carafe of wine and then pass out thoroughly enough for us to slip out the window without him noticing is that it gave us both plenty of time to think.

By the time our aching legs are stumbling away from the property—with Kiki dispensing one last goodbye belly rub to Ozymandias—a theory has formed in my head.

“Sebastian is involved,” I say bending down to rub at my sore calves. “The nuns they were talking about—they had to be from the convent. Maybe the girl is Rosalita. Or maybe even Juana. Maybe she’s not actually dead.”

Kiki bites her lip. “We don’t know that yet. We don’t have enough information to know anything for sure. There are likelier reasons for a well-born young man to want to hide a girl away at a nunnery.”

“You think Sebastian knocked someone up?”

“Not how I would have phrased it, but it’s entirely possible. The magistrate might be facilitating hiding away all manner of sins at that convent for the members of Potosí high society.”

I shake my head. “No. I don’t think that’s it. Sebastian has something to do with Rosalita going missing. I know it. I feel it in my bones.”

Kiki’s gaze softens. “Ana, I know you want that to be true but…”