Luzia wakes injured in a cold, foul-smelling larder-like cell, her head aching from a blow dealt when soldiers rode her down in the woods. Disoriented, she remembers fleeing Donadei’s warship with Santángel, then realizes she has been captured and transported.

She finds Teoda Halcón imprisoned with her, along with an old woman, Neva, who jokes she has been held nearly two years for fornication. Luzia deduces they are in Toledo under the Inquisition’s authority, and Teoda confirms it, warning that inquisitors can hear them unless they whisper.

Teoda explains an auto de fe is planned for All Saints’ Day, only weeks away, and that she expects to be condemned and burned; she refuses to repent even if repentance might earn strangling before the fire. Neva undercuts Teoda’s bravado by admitting they cry at night, and Teoda notes Neva could denounce them to seek her own advantage.

To speak privately, Teoda prompts Neva to sing, then tells Luzia the likely reason for Luzia’s imprisonment: Antonio Pérez has fled to Aragón, and King Philip is using the Inquisition—whose reach crosses Spain—to pursue him under a flimsy claim of encouraging heresy. Teoda has heard none of Víctor de Paredes’ household is in the tribunal’s cells, and that Fortún Donadei remains free.

From another cell, a voice reveals Lucrecia de León is also imprisoned nearby. Teoda shares that Lucrecia is pregnant by her scribe Diego de Vitores and likely won’t be executed soon, though Lucrecia was forced to confess her dreams were fabricated and then recanted—implying torture. Teoda says she has not yet been questioned but has been taken to the torture room, and warns Luzia the inquisitors will make her guess her charge and ask if she is in league with the devil.