“Now,” I say, “we wait. Wine will loosen their tongues.” I smile at Ana over the rim of this ostentatious golden cup. “And then, we strike.”

Ana

We have to wait until the wine has been flowing and tongues loosened and guards dropped. Then, we move in.

But until that point, we must bide our time. Enjoy the evening. Pretend we’re doing something other than biding that time.

The host of the evening has so far remained as elusive as he’s always been. Nobles mill about in their finery, casting silent judgments on one another as they engage in the sort of one-upmanship at which Kiki excels and at which I am a complete failure.

“Any sign of Cristobal yet?” Kiki asks. She nibbles on one of the small bites of food displayed like tiny works of art. I cannot for the life of me deduce what any of it is made of, so far removed is it from its natural state.

Rich people are ridiculous when it comes to this sort of thing.

Kiki spots me staring and holds out the whatever it is—some kind of creamed meat atop a piece of toasted bread—and offers it to me. “Care for a bite?”

I lean away. “You couldn’t pay me to eat anything that man put on his table. It’s probably poisoned.”

Kiki merely shrugs as she takes another bite. “It would be awfully foolish of him to poison every single aristocrat in Potosí. I’d wager half of this room is in his pocket and the other half is clamoring to be there.”

I snort, taking a sip of my wine. That, at least, I feel comfortable ingesting. I have a standing policy to not eat anything I don’t recognize, regardless of who’s serving it.

A rather large woman bumps into me from behind, nearly upending my entire cup onto Kiki’s lovely frock. She dances out of the way just in time to avoid getting splashed. I am not so lucky. A few stray droplets of wine splash onto the pale silk of my bodice, as vivid as blood.

“Oh, how clumsy of me.” The woman’s voice warbles, thick with drink. The color is high in her cheeks and not just from rouge. “My dear, I am terribly sorry.”

It takes some doing but she fishes a handkerchief out of her ample bosom and tries to blot away the spilled wine. I dodge her as I would dodge a man charging me down with a sword.

“That’s quite all right,” I say, doing my best to channel my inner Kiki. “No need to worry yourself over a bit of spilled wine. There’s more than enough to go around.”

This seems to be enough to mollify the woman. I meet Kiki’s eyes. From the way she nods, it’s clear the same idea has occurred to us both.

“I’ll just go find someplace to wash up.”