“What’s this?” I ask Magdalena even as I reach for it.

She shrugs, but there’s a hint of knowing to her expression that makes me believe she knows more than she’s letting on.

“Your father asked me to bring it up to you. He said he wouldn’t wish to disturb you so early in the morning with such trivial news.”

Ana and I share a look. The scroll appears anything but trivial.

Magdalena bustles around the room for a bit, tying back the curtains and picking up the clothes I unceremoniously left scattered by the foot of the bed. Ana’s are in a much neater pile seated on a chair by the vanity.

“What are you waiting for?” Ana crowds against me, peering at the still sealed scrolled. “Open it.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Magdalena offers, as if she could read my mind.

Once the door clicks shut behind her, I rip the ribbon from the scroll. Ana plasters herself against my side to read over my shoulder, but the missive is written in curling script, which I know she struggles with still.

“What does it say? And who writes like this?”

“My father,” I say softly, eyes raking over the words again and again. I know what they mean individually but the significance of their totality is proving more difficult to digest.

“Kiki.”

I can’t tear my eyes away from the parchment.

This cannot be real.

“Kiki!”

Ana claps her hands right next to my ear, making me start. “Christ, Ana…”

She blinks at me as if I’ve lost my mind, every ounce of her being radiating eager curiosity. “What does it say?”

I set the parchment down on the blankets tenderly, as if a part of me expects it to disappear in a puff of smoke like some cruel cosmic joke.

“It is a notice,” I say softly. “Of an amendment to my father’s will.”

“Oh.” Ana falls silent at that.

The specter of Alejandro hangs above this house still. He was set to inherit it all.

I force myself to look away from the parchment, to trust that it’ll still be there when I look back. When I meet Ana’s eyes, I have to swallow twice before I can get the words out.

“He’s named me his heir.”

Ana’s eyes go wide.

“His heir?”

“Yes.”

“As in … the inheritor of his estate?”

“Yes.”

“As in—” She waves her arms frantically at the expanse of the room, but it’s clear she means more than the bedchamber itself. That gesture encompasses it all. This room and every room beyond it. Every corridor. Every marble balustrade. Every gilded frame. Every piece of priceless art, every precious artifact. Every orange in the grove outside. The grove where Ana kissed me for the first time. “All this?”

I nod, feeling more than a little numb. “Yes.”