He nods. “It’s like they have no fear of being found out. Like they want us to know they’re untouchable.”

I drum my fingers against the table. “Have your little shadows heard anything?”

As if summoned by the words, a small child appears at my side. I hadn’t heard him approach. He emerged from the crowd, squeezing between men who tower over him, unobtrusive and silent.

“Paolo.” I greet him with a nod. He is one of Santiago’s shadows. Santiago puts a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, and in exchange, they bring him information they glean from the darkest corners of the city. There’s a reason Santiago knows everything that happens in Potosí.

He looks at me, silent. There’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek. I reach into my purse and pull out another coin. The shine of it catches his eye as I turn it over in my hand.

“Call it,” I say, “and it’s yours.”

I flick my thumb, sending the coin spinning upward.

“Crowns up,” Paolo says.

I snatch the coin out of the air and turn my closed fist over. My fingers uncurl revealing the visage of the king. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

Paolo plucks the coin out of my open palm, a smile cracking across his face. It makes him look younger. Almost like the child he actually is.

“What have you brought for me today, Paolo?” Santiago asks.

Paolo heaves himself up on the stool beside me as Santiago slides a wooden tray of food across the counter. Bread and cheese and a chunk of dried meat. The boy digs in, speaking with his mouth full.

“The magistrate’s gambling is catching up with him again. The collectors were talking about sending a man to his house to remind him of the money he owes.”

The magistrate? Interesting. The man used to go riding with my father before the gout made horses a distant memory for him.

Paolo shoves half the cheese into his mouth despite Santiago’s protestations. “Saw the viceroy’s son heading into Tati’s.”

Tati’s. A brothel not too far from Esmeralda’s. They’re rivals of sorts. The mention of the viceroy’s son—Sebastian—makes me stiffen. Santiago’s eyes flit toward me. I keep my face as still as stone, which is probably revealing in its own way.

“Have you heard anything about the murdered girls?” I ask Paolo, mostly to skirt around the subject of Sebastian in its entirety.

Paolo nods, biting off a chunk of bread. I’m faintly shocked that he hasn’t choked to death already. “Only that another one got dead last night.”

Magdalena’s cousin.

“Was there anything unusual about it? Did you see the body?”

Paolo smirks. “I got almost close enough to touch it.”