Madrid smelled of hot stone.

The sensation hit me the moment I stepped from the taxi the following afternoon. Heat rose from the pavement. Sunlight bounced from pale walls. People crowded café tables beneath awnings, talking loudly over glasses and tiny cups of coffee.

Scotland still clung to the coat folded over my arm.

Madrid felt like another season.

Professor Lucía Morales kept me waiting nineteen minutes.

I counted every one.

Her office was precise in a way Elspeth’s never managed to be. Books stood in disciplined rows. Theology occupied an entire wall. Mysticism, possession, religious history and anthropology filled another.

A wooden crucifix hung beside the window. The wood was almost black. Christ’s face had been worn smooth.

I was still looking at it when the door opened.

Professor Morales entered without hurry. She was small, perhaps around seventy, with grey hair twisted into a neat knot at the base of her neck. Black trousers. White blouse. A thin gold ring on her right hand.

Her eyes went directly to mine.

“Ksenia.”

“Yes.”

“You came.”

“I said I would.”

“No. Elspeth said you would.”

Something about the distinction irritated me immediately.

She pointed toward a chair.

I sat.

She chose the chair opposite mine and folded her hands over her knees.

“What do you want?”

I began with the sentence I had used dozens of times.

“My doctoral research examines demonological belief and reported demonic encounters through historical theology, cultural interpretation and subjective experience.”

Her expression didn’t move.

“I’m especially interested in accounts that conflict with established religious descriptions, and the way people construct meaning around experiences they consider supernatural.”

“You’ve memorised that.”

“Yes.”

“Throw it away.”

I blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“The proposal. The language. The performance.”

She leaned forward slightly.

“What do you want?”

“To understand the experiences.”

“What experiences?”

“Encounters with demons.”

“According to the people who claim to have had them.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Elspeth’s office returned around me. Rain against grey windows. The same question.

“I’m tired of reading about them from a distance.”

“How close would you like to get?”

My throat tightened.

“I don’t know.”

“You travelled to another country because you don’t know?”

“I came because Professor Ward said you could help.”

“I can.”

The certainty changed the room.

I sat straighter.

“How?”

Lucía ignored the question.

“Do you want enough material to finish your thesis?”

“Yes.”

“Interviews?”

“Yes.”

“Documents?”

“Of course.”

“Witnesses?”

“Yes.”

She paused.

“Experience?”

I looked at her.

Something inside me answered first.

“Yes.”

Lucía became very still.

“What kind?”

“I want to understand what people feel.”

“You have hundreds of testimonies describing that.”

“I want more.”

“How much more?”

I looked down at my hands. The answer had been waiting for me longer than I wanted to admit.

“I want to know what it feels like myself.”

Lucía watched me.

“To believe?”

“To experience.”

The words frightened me once they existed outside my head.

I forced myself to continue.

“If that is possible.”

Lucía stood.

“It is.”

My pulse jumped.

She walked behind her desk and opened the bottom drawer.

“What do you mean?”

She removed a sheet of paper and an old fountain pen.

“There is someone you should meet.”

“Another professor?”

“No.”

“A priest?”

The pen moved.

“No.”

“A historian?”

“No.”

“What is she?”

The pen stopped.

Lucía looked at me.

“Someone who knows.”

“Knows what?”

She continued writing.

“You’ll have to ask her.”

When she finished, she folded the paper once and held it toward me.

I took it.

The first thing I saw was the city.

Rio de Janeiro.

I looked up.

“Brazil?”

“Yes.”

Below it:

Santa Teresa.

An address.

Then a name.

Maria.

No surname. No title. No institution. Nothing else.

“Maria what?”

“The name is enough.”

“For whom?”

“For her.”

I looked down again.

“How do I contact her?”

“You don’t.”

I frowned.

“What?”

“You go.”

“To Brazil.”

“Yes.”

“To this address.”

“Yes.”

“Does she have a phone?”

“No.”

“Email?”

“No.”

“Then how am I supposed to arrange an interview?”

“You won’t need to.”

I stared at her.

“You’re sending me across the Atlantic to find a woman with no surname and no way to contact her.”

“Yes.”

“Does she know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“No.”

“Has Elspeth?”

“No.”

“Then how does she know?”

Lucía put the fountain pen back into the drawer.

“Information comes to Maria.”

I waited.

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means exactly what I said.”

“Information comes from somewhere.”

“Usually.”

“Usually?”

Her eyes lifted to mine.

“I stopped asking.”

The answer sat badly in my stomach.

“When did you last see her?”

“Eleven years ago.”

“And you haven’t spoken to her since?”

“No.”

“But you know she knows about me.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Lucía looked toward the crucifix.

“She knows you are here.”

I stopped.

“In Madrid?”

“In this office.”

The back of my neck prickled.

“She knows you are speaking with me.”

I smiled because the alternative was to take her seriously.

“Right now.”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible.”

Lucía didn’t argue.

“She knows we’re talking about her?”

“Yes.”

The corridor beyond the office suddenly became too audible. Footsteps. A chair moving. Someone laughing. Ordinary things.

I folded the paper.

“When am I supposed to go?”

“The twenty-first of September.”

I looked toward the calendar.

Three days.

“That’s three days.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot organise an academic trip to Brazil in three days.”

“You will.”

The certainty again.

“What happens on the twenty-first?”

“You need to reach Maria before the day ends.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

I stared at her.

“You don’t know.”

“No.”

“Then how do you know the date?”

Lucía was silent.

For the first time, she looked uncomfortable.

“How?”

“I woke up knowing it.”

I said nothing.

She didn’t look away.

“You dreamed it.”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“You will.”

Something cold settled beneath my ribs.

I stood.

“This is insane.”

“Yes.”

I picked up my bag.

Lucía walked toward the door.

“Does Maria know when I’ll arrive?”

“Yes.”

I stopped.

“What time?”

“Six forty.”

“I haven’t booked a flight.”

“I know.”

“I haven’t even decided if I’m going.”

“I know.”

“Then she cannot know when I’ll arrive.”

Lucía opened the door.

“She does.”

I looked at her.

“What else does she know?”

Her eyes moved over me once.

“Probably what you’ll be wearing.”

A laugh almost escaped me.

Almost.

“I don’t know what I’ll be wearing.”

“I know.”

Something in the way she said it made me stop.

“What does Maria know about me?”

Lucía hesitated.

Only for a second.

It was enough.

“More than you do.”

My fingers tightened around the paper.

“She knows you better than you will ever know yourself.”

I looked at her face.

There it was.

Fear.

Small. Controlled. Real.

“What happened when you met her?”

Lucía looked away.

“Eleven years ago.”

Nothing.

“What did she know about you?”

Her hand tightened around the door handle.

“Something she shouldn’t have.”

“What?”

She opened the door wider.

“Go to Rio, Ksenia.”

I stepped into the corridor.

Then stopped.

“If she already knows I’m coming…”

I lifted the paper.

“…why do I need the address?”

Lucía looked at it.

Then at me.

“You don’t.”

My fingers went cold.

“Then why give it to me?”

For a moment she said nothing.

Then:

“Because you still need to believe you are choosing.”

The door closed.