Luzia sleeps in her new, unlocked room with a chair wedged against the door, unsettled but determined to endure Santángel’s training and win the torneo without drawing the Inquisition’s notice. She wakes from a lush dream of orange trees and music, carries its lingering calm into her morning chores, and feels a song in her throat straining toward words.

Back in the kitchen, Águeda mocks Luzia’s attempts to look presentable and warns her about Don Víctor’s servant, El Alacrán, claiming he steals souls and has made a bargain with the devil. Alarmed by the danger of such talk, Luzia lashes out, throws Águeda’s cap into the fire, and forces her to say Luzia’s “tricks” are God’s miracles, then hints that Luzia’s favor could protect or punish.

Luzia expects Santángel but instead finds Hualit—presenting herself as Catalina de Castro de Oro—waiting with Valentina. Hualit announces she will help prepare Luzia for La Casilla, coolly judging her appearance and noting another likely competitor, Gracia de Valera. Hualit insists they go to a tailor’s warehouse and pressures Valentina to come too, offering Don Víctor’s coach and a confessor as chaperone.

The chapter shifts to Valentina’s perspective as she rides out, intoxicated by the rare luxury of the coach and the city’s sights despite her confessor’s warnings against vanity. Don Marius is tense and protective, wary of Hualit’s allegiance to Don Víctor and of the strange, layered ease between Hualit and Luzia.

At Perucho’s lavish warehouse, the group is dazzled by fabrics and featherwork. Hualit points out Teoda Halcón departing with her father; she reveals Teoda is the “Holy Child” whose angelic visions are accurate and warns Luzia that Teoda is a competitor. Perucho assesses Luzia and rejects dressing her like the others; when he and Valentina learn she may face a prince, Luzia proposes her own strategy: since she cannot compete with beauty or innocence, she should be styled like armor—humble by choice, and therefore dangerous.