Kiki stands frozen on the threshold, her fists clenched in the folds of her skirt. She looks at me, her eyes unblinking. Shiny.

“Do you smell that?” she asks.

I don’t. Not until she asks.

Scented oil, fragrant with the crushed herbs I knew were distilled in it before it was bottled. Alejandro likes to smooth it over his hands and then run them through his hair. To keep it soft, he says.

No.

He said.

He cannot say it now. He will never say it again. Words have been stolen from him along with his life.

That heat comes back, summoned by that smell.

This time, I don’t try to force it back. I let it simmer on my eyelashes.

“Come.” I extend my hand to Kiki to help her across that threshold.

The desk is mostly hidden by scattered papers strewn across its surface with seemingly little care.

I pick one up, holding it up to the light drifting through the closed windows.

It’s stifling in here. Someone should open them. But then, I think, to what end?

“‘I could spill a river of ink describing your beauty and still, I would not come close to charting the depths of your…’” A glob of ink blots out the rest of the sentence. The next line is scratched out so vehemently, there’s a small hole in the paper, like the poetic scrawl had so infuriated Alejandro, he’d given up on it in a fit of pique. I set down the note. The dry, coarse feel of the paper clings to my skin, a reminder that Alejandro was the last soul to touch this letter. “A bit wordy for my tastes…”

“Ana,” Kiki says, shooting me a sharp look.

“What? Alejandro wouldn’t want me to lie.” Her eyes tighten as she goes back to shuffling through the papers. My teeth dig into the tender flesh inside my cheek.

Shit.

Being flippant is my thing. It helps me navigate the horrors of this unjust world. It soothes me when I would much rather throw myself on the ground and begin wailing like some kind of keening penitent.

But it’s not Kiki’s thing. Her pain is too raw, the wound too open. I’m just the ass cracking jokes about her dead brother’s romantic scribblings.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Ana … look at this.” Kiki saves me from further self-flagellation—what I wouldn’t give for one of those many-tailed flogs the priests at the basilica residence use. She hands me a note, this one more complete than the last.

“‘My love, it’s almost time. We will be together soon, no matter the cost to me. I don’t care about the villa or the estate or the lands in Spain I have never even seen. All I care about is you.’” I frown as I look up at Kiki. “Who was he going to send this to?”