I paw at the papers on his desk, looking for—something. I don’t know what. But I’ll know it when I see it. And soon enough, I do.

A letter, written in the soft, curling hand of a woman in love. The creases are still sharp. Not worn down like the others. It must have been received very recently. It hadn’t been pored over and treasured. Hands had not smoothed the places here the paper had been folded in on itself.

I bring the paper close to my nose. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. Memory strikes me, deep and true. A perfume I know well. I smelled it the other night on the rooftop, when I tried to use its wearer to drown my own sorrows. Opening my eyes, I exhale. “Shit.”

“What?” Kiki asks. “What is it?”

“It was Rosalita.”

She frowns. “How can you be sure?”

“It’s her perfume.” I hold the letter out for Kiki. She inclines her head, her hair brushing against the page. She sniffs, but there is no sense of recognition on her face. She doesn’t know Rosalita the way I do.

“Alejandro was seeing Rosalita?”

“I’m almost certain.” But I shake my head. “Something doesn’t add up. What about the sigil? What does that have to do with her? With him? With anything?”

“I don’t know.” There is a weight to Kiki’s voice. A determination I have not heard since before the viceroy’s ball. “But there have to be answers here somewhere.”

She brushes me aside to yank the drawers nearly clean off the desk, searching for some shred of proof. Some further evidence.

We turn the desk inside out. Then the room upside down. His bedding is pulled off the bed, the mattress is overturned. Heaps of clothing are removed—gently, mind you—from the wardrobe as we search for whatever it is that will lead us somewhere, anywhere. So long as it’s out of this room and this house and toward something. Anything.

And then, I find it.

A small box of ebony wood, so polished it feels like tumbled stone. Enamel inlay decorating the top in shades of blue and green and white, swirling together to create some kind of ocean scene. And a simple silver lock holding it together.

“Give me that.” Kiki snatches the box from my hands. Before I can stop her, she slams the lock down on the hard floor once, twice, three times until its hinges give and it falls off.

The box cracks open. Nestled inside it, cradled by a mound of plush silk, sits a ring.