The ridge road narrowed as the convoy climbed into Catalan territory, and the air changed with it. It was colder here, thinner somehow, with sharp wind sliding through the cracks in the mountains and the kind of silence that always came before trouble.
I sat in the transport with my back straight and my hands folded too tightly in my lap. Bastián had not spoken to me since the question in my ear, and that was worse than if he had kept pressing. Silence from a man like him did not mean peace. It meant he was watching, thinking, and waiting for something to show itself.
The guard across from me shifted in his seat and glanced out the window. “We are almost there,” he muttered.
No one answered.
Bastián sat in front of me, one elbow resting against the side panel, his body loose in a way t
