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damned.
    “Lady Luna,” Eliana said. “I’m going to get those documents back for you. Tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll have them in hand. I swear it.”
    And Lady Luna gave her a look that might have been doubt, might have been desperation, might have been anything.

CHAPTER THREE
    SOFIA
    Sofia had not been to this part of the city in a long time. She doubted she had ever been to this particular building, with its imported brown brick, its wide glass windows. It was the tallest building for several blocks. Height was always a mark of wealth in Hope City.
    The walkway leading to the building’s glass door was lined with lavender. Imported from Europe. Expensive. Sofia trailed her fingers across the top of the plants to release the scent.
    The door was locked. Sofia read each label on the buzzer until she came to LUIS VILLANUEVA . She pressed the button and waited.
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s your four o’clock appointment, Mr. Villanueva.”
    He didn’t question her further, just as Cabrera had promised. The buzzer chimed and the glass door slid open. Sofia slipped inside. The lobby was decorated in the earth tones no lifelong citizen of Hope City had ever seen in nature, browns and blues and greens. A woman sat alone on a tasteful brocaded sofa, reading. She glanced up at the sound of Sofia’s heels on the tile. The woman didn’t speak, didn’t smile, but she watched as Sofia clicked her way toward the elevators. Sofia pressed the button for the twenty-eighth floor andglanced over her shoulder. The woman looked away, back down to the glossy magazine spread open on her lap.
    Sofia memorized her face. It was necessary to account for certain contingencies.
    She rode all the way to the twenty-eighth floor alone. It took longer than she’d expected, and as she waited to arrive, she pulled a compact out of her handbag and checked her reflection. She didn’t wear any face powder because she didn’t need it, but she had applied liner and lashes and lipstick for the first time in years. She had styled her hair in the manner that had become fashionable recently, teasing it up high from the roots. She wore a dress Cabrera had purchased for her from a department store downtown. A down payment, he’d called it. “If you fuck this up,” he said, “you owe me thirty dollars.”
    She wasn’t going to fuck this up. Everything hinged on this one moment, on convincing Cabrera that he could trust her completely.
    The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Sofia stepped into the hallway. One of the light fixtures flickered, casting staccato shadows across the carpet. She walked to room 2848 and knocked three times, as Cabrera had instructed. She had just pulled her hand away after the third knock when Luis Villanueva answered, music spilling out around him.
    Music.
    For a moment Sofia froze—but it wasn’t a melody she recognized. Something new, something modern. Rock and roll, she thought it was called. Those songs were never dangerous.
    “You’re not Alissa,” he said, face twisting into concern. His eyes darted out into the hallway.
    “Alissa couldn’t come today,” Sofia said. “They sent me instead.”
    Luis looked doubtfully at her. Sofia held her chin high, pushed out her chest, drew in her waist. She was aware of time passing.
    “Alissa told me what you liked,” Sofia said. “And she sent me over with a gift.”
    Luis’s expression softened. “A gift.” He smiled nervously. “She told you about that?”
    “Of course. And I can keep it a secret too.” Sofia pushed insidewithout waiting for an invitation, drawing her hand across his chest as she moved past him. He didn’t protest. The apartment was clean and sparse and smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. Sofia draped herself on his sofa. Over the thumping whine of the music, she could hear the computer in the next room, whirring behind the closed door.
    Luis didn’t live here. No one did. The city had purchased an apartment in this expensive uptown