I’d done as she asked, though I am left with more questions than answers. Rosalita had warned us about girls going missing (and, as we know, turning up dead). But none from Doña Esmeralda’s so far. Tati’s had been hardest hit. It’s worth noting perhaps that Tati’s is directly across the square from Esmeralda’s. They are rival brothels. Perhaps there is something to that. But I can’t sort out what.

These are the thoughts that I focus on as the carriage rolls us uncomfortably to the viceroy’s villa. Uncomfortable because the roads are so wretched, and doubly so because, despite being crammed into a carriage together, Ana still stubbornly refuses to look at me.

My stomach lurches with every jolt of the wheels. There is nothing in it for my body to expel, but that does nothing to keep my nausea at bay. I press my temple to the cool glass of the carriage window, even though doing so makes the lurching gait of our ride tremble through my entire body.

I close my eyes, squeezing them shut tightly. Maybe that’ll make it better.

It doesn’t.

My father has brought along a sheaf of papers, delivered to him by the captain of some ship he owns. Trading negotiations or records of things sold and purchased, I’m guessing. Or maybe negotiations for more trade routes. I’ve never paid much attention to my father’s business dealings. They seemed incredibly dull to me as a child, and even duller as I grew up and found my own interests. His cane rests at his side, the silver lion’s head that tops it rattling against the side of the carriage door with every jolt.

Meanwhile, Ana has her nose buried in a book. It’s the copy of Don Quixote I gave her years ago. Unlike the softened paper of my own well-loved copy, hers is practically pristine. It does not escape my notice that she hasn’t turned a page in at least ten minutes. She isn’t reading. She’s just using the book to have some kind of physical barrier between us. At least it spares me from having to look at her face. Normally, I find her face quite pleasing. But she showed up at breakfast the other morning looking like she’d been trampled under a herd of cattle. My first inclination had been concern. I don’t like seeing her hurt. I don’t like not knowing how she got hurt. I really don’t like knowing I could have—should have—been there to watch her back in the midst of whatever brawl led to that face.

I glance at the book in which she’s buried her nose. All I see is her auburn hair and a hint of forehead. I turn back to the window, tightening my arms around my empty, roiling stomach.