“Try not to sound too shocked. But yes, I tried to look it up, but I couldn’t find a damn thing. All I know is that a man who is about to hang himself—”

“He wouldn’t.”

“I know.” She breathes in deeply. Rubs the bridge of her freckled nose. “I know. But what I’m saying is, someone else carved that onto his skin. It was on his left hand.”

Our eyes meet, and I frown. It takes a moment for the significance of that statement to sink in.

“Ale is left-handed.”

We both hear it the moment I say it. Is.

It’s was, isn’t it? But my lips refuse to form that conjugation. Ana lets it pass, unnoticed, or at least unremarked upon.

“Yes. And he couldn’t write shit with his right, much less draw anything with precision.” She places her finger on the center of the parchment, in the middle of the sigil. “Somebody else did this to him. And I think they were signing their work.”

“Who?” Everyone loves—loved—Ale. Everyone. He had no enemies. Only friends and admirers. He would never harm a soul. “Who would want to hurt him?”

“I don’t know,” Ana says kindly. “But if we’re going to find out, I think I know where we have to start.”

CHAPTER 14

Ana

Alejandro’s room is exactly as he left it.

A pair of riding boots sits by the door, one standing upright, the other knocked sideways to the carpet. The mud on their soles is dry and cracked. But that there is mud at all makes something inside of me seize.

He wore those boots a few days ago. He tramped through the mud and muck of the stalls in the yard, heedless of the fine leather and the expensive craftsmanship. He probably left a trail of footprints in his wake as he strolled into the villa. He toed them off as he stood here, his mind—as restless as Kiki’s even if he never really bothered to use it as much as she did—probably already wandering to the next thing to occupy his attention after his horse.

Oddly, this is worse than seeing his dead body. There was no mistaking what it was. A corpse. An empty shell.

But this—his room. It feels so very alive in a way I had not expected. The space was lived in, truly. I could feel his presence. Hell, the bed still holds the indent of his body.

Heat stings at the corners of my eyes. I blink once, twice. Squeeze my eyes shut until it passes. I’m under no illusion that it’s gone for good. It’ll come back. It always does. Grief cannot be put down, abandoned, or erased. It will beat at the doors until it has worn itself out. Until then, all I can do is push it back. Ignore its call.