The girl looks up at the prioress. The elder woman sighs. Then nods. Her gaze hardens as she looks back toward me. “If what she shows you ever leaves these walls, it will bring Satan himself to our door.”

“It won’t,” I promise. “No one knows we’re here.”

“And no one will ever know,” Kiki adds.

Juana’s hands rise to the edge of her wimple but then she pauses. She looks at the prioress again, her brow furrowed in question.

The prioress nods. “Show them.”

With trembling hands, the girl removes her many layers. First the heavy woolen veil, then the cloth that covers her hair and neck beneath it.

Her throat has been slit.

The gash is healed but not prettily. The skin is marred with the remnants of its tearing. The lines of the wound are as clear as they probably were when the blade first dragged along her flesh.

“Christ.”

“Mind your tongue,” the prioress chides. But there is no heat to the chastisement.

How else can any sane person be expected to react when faced with such horror?

“Mind my tongue?” My voice rises an octave higher than normal on the question. “Look at her.”

“I am well aware of what the wound looks like. I sewed it together myself.”

Kiki approaches the girl, her hand rising as if to touch the wound. The girl flinches, and Kiki’s hand drops. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—I shouldn’t—” She gives up, shaking her head. “Who did this to you?”

The novice shakes her head, her eyes pleading with me … for what?

“You have no idea?” Kiki presses. “None?”

Again, the girl shakes her head, seeming to grow frustrated with Kiki’s line of questioning.

“You didn’t see his face?” I ask. “His eyes? Any scar or markings on his skin?”

Juana—or rather, Catalina—makes a strangled sound. God, it must pain her to do even that. But she gestures with her hand, as if miming the act of writing something down.

“Are you sure?” asks Ines.

The girl nods.

Lips pursed, Ines shakes her head. “Fine.”

She fetches paper and a quill from her desk and settles Catalina in at her chair. With trembling hands, the novice reaches for the quill, nearly upsetting the glass tub of ink by its side.

Kiki’s hand shoots out to steady it. She offers the girl her best comforting smile. “It’s quite all right. Take your time.”

It takes everything I have not to fidget in my seat like an impatient child. Rosalita is out there, probably being held prisoner by the very same men who cut out Catalina’s goddamn tongue. The last thing we have to spare is time.

But rushing the girl wouldn’t accomplish much of anything. Her hand shakes as she presses the nib to the parchment and draws.