“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping him?” I angle my face to try to catch his gaze. His eyes dart away from mine, but not before I see something potent flash through them. Shame. “This isn’t who you are, Sebastian.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

What I am about to say is a risk, but now is the time for risks. “I know what you did. Mother Ines sends her regards.”

His eyes widen. His breath goes shallow.

Cristobal watches us, flint gaze steady. “And who, pray tell, is Mother Ines?”

Sebastian opens his mouth—to say what, I don’t know. What I do know is that if Cristobal learns that Sebastian left a loose end at a convent deep in the mountains, he will not survive the night. I don’t want him dead. Not yet. Not until I know he is deserving of such a fate.

“A nun who taught us catechism when we were children.” The lie rolls off my tongue with astonishing ease, cutting off whatever Sebastian was about to say. “He used to help her give alms to the poor, though I am fairly convinced he was forced to do so. She always thought Sebastian was capable of being a decent man, a fact of which I remain unconvinced.”

Cristobal holds my gaze for a moment longer. But then, he shrugs. “Decency is overrated.”

I can feel a sliver of tension bleed out of Sebastian. He doesn’t quite sag against me, but it is a near thing. My only hope is that Cristobal does not notice.

“I have one question though, Marquis, if you would be so kind to answer it.”

Cristobal looks at me, bemused, I think, at the politeness of my speech. It is as false as the tale I just spun about Mother Ines of course, but if my upbringing instilled in me one thing, it was how to remain calm in a crisis. “Go on.”

“Why Alejandro? Why did you kill him? Why did he have to die?”

“Simple. He was in my way.”

But there is something in the way he answers that seems too ready. Too rehearsed. The nonchalant shrug seems artificial.

I shake my head. Sebastian tightens his grip on me, hard enough for it to hurt. I don’t care. I am this close to answers and I will have them. My pain is a small price to pay. “Maybe. You can get to the Sonza fortune through me so long as I am married to a spineless coward like Sebastian”—he stiffens against me—“but if it was just about that, you could have done it quietly. People, even the rich ones, fall afoul of the dark alleys of Potosí all the time. You could have made it look like a simple robbery turned tragically violent. But you made an example of him. Left his body there for anyone to see.”