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When he was sure she had a proper grip on the cloth, he flung his pack down and scrabbled inside it for the first aid kit. He noticed, dispassionately, that his fingers were stained red.

“Take off your shirt before the blood starts sticking,” he told her. From the corner of his eye, he saw her twitch.

“No, really, it’s fine,” Ali protested, inching back from him.

“It’s not fine; we need to clean that wound before it gets infected.” He organized the medical supplies in front of him, dousing his hands in alcohol before he reached for her. Ali shrank back.

“Sé que te duele, mi sol, but you have to let me help,” he said, voice as calm and cajoling as possible. He knew removing the shirt would be painful, but he also knew it had to be done.

“You don’t understand, I—” she began, but Santiago was already peeling off her bloodstained top. She pushed against him weakly, but her injured arm didn’t have much strength. He winced sympathetically.

The gash was red and angry, skin puckering in certain areas. Luckily, it wasn’t large. But it just kept bleeding. If they were near a hospital, he would have recommended stitches. They would do their best without them.

Santiago pressed gauze firmly into the wound, stopping the blood flow as much as he could. After a few moments, he pulled it back, picking up the alcohol bottle.

“I’m sorry,” he said, administering the stinging liquid. Ali hissed through her teeth and jerked backward, tears forming in her eyes. It broke his heart, but he pressed a fresh piece of gauze down anyway. He taped up the edges, then wrapped her biceps for good measure.

It was only then, when his hand circled her arm and grazed her side, that he noticed the dark mark on Ali’s ribs, just below the band of her sports bra. A tattoo. Ali had lots of tattoos, but this one was different.

This one was familiar.

He stopped. And focused his attention on it.

Santiago saw clearly then, though it took a few more seconds for the context to register.

The tattoo was a mascaipacha. The feathered crown of the Inca…

And the exact same symbol that Torres’s Huáscaros all wore.

40

Ali’s a Huáscaro.

She’s one of Bernardo Torres’s men.

She had played him all along. Santiago didn’t know her at all.

“You,” he whispered. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”

His head reeled, and bile crept up the back of his throat.

It can’t be true. This is a mistake. There has to be some sort of rational explanation.

As much as Santiago wanted it, he couldn’t deny the facts. Not when they were staring at him, a dark ink stain against Ali’s brown flesh. The symbol of the Huáscaros.

“This whole time, you’ve been working for them?” His throat seized around each word.

“I—” she started, but he cut her off.

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice was harder than he had ever heard it.

He watched as Ali swallowed.

“Yes,” she croaked, meeting his eyes.

Her compatriots might as well have shot him, since Santiago’s heart stopped anyway.

“That’s how they knew where to go.” He backed away from her, understanding dawning on him. “Their blood wouldn’t have worked at the sacrificial stone. They couldn’t have known the next clue. You told them. You led them here.”