The wind was relentless. It ripped at her once-neat coiffure, whipping strands of black hair against her face, the sting bringing tears to her eyes. It was the most frigid of welcomes.

Ana María wrapped her cloak tighter about her shoulders, burying her chin and cheeks in the warmth of the high collar. She glanced first one way and then the other, her eyes straining to see something—someone—who clearly wasn’t there. Where was he?

“Qué feo,” Gabriela—Gabby—muttered, her blue-tinged lips curling as she surveyed the neighborhood surrounding the docks. “Isn’t England supposed to be green? I didn’t expect London to be quite so . . . so gray.”

Neither had she. Ana María sighed as she took in the coal-choked fog that clung to the docks like the arms of an illicit lover, doing its best to mask the filth and grime of the city. Yet the somber reality of their new home was apparent. The narrow buildings lining the wharf were worn and dilapidated, their brick facades stained gray by generations of coal dust. From her vantage point, she could make out piles of debris and refuse that littered the cobblestoned street, her stomach turning when she spied rats darting among the rubbish, fighting for scraps. Ana María ducked her head at the near constant stream of seagulls swooping down from above, their squawking grating her nerves like an out-of-tune pianoforte.

Discreetly shielding her nose with her hand, she inhaled the crisp leather scent of her gloves, thankful it smothered the acrid stench that wafted about her, a foul blend of the sea and human misery.

“Surely we’ll encounter more green the farther we venture into the city,” she murmured, ignoring her youngest sister’s sniff of disbelief.

Of the three Luna sisters, Gabby was taking their exile the hardest, her lavish complaints annoying even Ana María’s stalwart disposition. And Our Lady of Guadalupe knew there were no more difficult people than her sisters.